Chapter 108
TW: Gore
Mo Yi’s fingers tightened slowly, his fingertips turning white due to the force.
The smooth surface of the ID card was reflecting the faint light of the flashlight, and it felt as though it was still carrying a hint of the warm temperature of the human body.
His brows pull together, dark eyes focusing on the photo of the ID card while deep in thought.
As if on cue, a faint groan came from somewhere in the darkness, loud and clear within the closed room, and sounding like it was from the shadows next to the door.
The sound startled Mo Yi from his thoughts. He raised his head and peered in the direction from where the voice came from.
A shadow was trembling in the shade of the closed door, its outline undulating in the darkness like a dry leaf.
Mo Yi was alarmed but he quickly recalled that Jiang Yuanrou had thrown her entire body before the door earlier to block it. At that time, the situation was urgent and she probably didn’t control her strength well.
And her abdomen was still injured…
Mo Yi’s brows twitched as the imagery of how the dark blood stains slowly seeped into the clothes on Jiang Yuanrou’s abdomen surfaced in his mind.
He reached down to pick up the flashlight on the ground. Stuffing the ID card and wallet back into the backpack, he then stood up and walked quickly to the door of the room.
As the flashlight slowly approached Jiang Yuanrou, the outline of her figure curled up in the shadows gradually got clearer.
Under the light, her pale bloodless face was revealed. Her brows were tightly furrowed, her eyes closed tightly, and bright red blood was slowly oozing from her broken lips, making her look like a complete mess.
Mo Yi knelt down beside her with a sympathetic expression. Stretching out a hand, he carefully tilted Jiang Yuanrou’s body so she was not pressing on her own wound. Next, he calmly said, “Now I need to see your wound.”
Jiang Yuanrou lifted her eyelids with some difficulty, and it took a while for her dizzy pupils to focus. After she gave a low “mn”, she no longer made any other sounds in order to focus on curbing her pained pants.
Seeing that she had braced herself, Mo Yi returned his attention to her bleeding abdomen. The fabric was already wet with blood and was adhered to her wound. There were layers of oozing and solidifying blood, forming a shade of deep dark red under the light.
The smell of blood in the air intensified.
It stands to reason that in the current situation, it was probably best to cut away or slice open the clothes to prevent it from agitating the wound… But the game did not allow players to bring any weapons into the instance.
And with Mo Yi’s hand strength now… tearing apart a complete piece of clothing would pose some difficulties. If he tried nevertheless, it was more probable that he would end up aggravating Jiang Yuanrou’s instead.
Pursing his lips, Mo Yi took his backpack off his shoulder and took two painkillers out.
He pried open Jiang Yuanrou’s clenched teeth with his fingers and stuffed the painkiller into her mouth before speaking in a low voice.
“Bear with it.”
After he finished speaking, Mo Yi gently grabbed Jiang Yuanrou’s clothes with his fingers and carefully lifted the hem of her clothes.
The indistinct sound of flesh tearing echoed in the darkness, followed by a deepening scent of blood.
The wound on her stomach was exposed.
Under the weak light, Jiang Yuanrou’s white abdomen was covered in several bloody cuts. The edges of the wound were clear and smooth. Bright red muscle tissue could be seen through the torn skin and fresh blood was gushing out along the wound, trickling from her waist to the ground.
Mo Yi moved a little closer and was immediately taken aback—
The deep wounds on her trembling skin looked like… resembled a simple butterfly.
At this moment, Jiang Yuanrou grasped Mo Yi’s wrist with all her strength, her neatly manicured nails sunk deeply into his arm—
Her lips moved a few times, voicing several blurred and muffled words.
“In… In… side…”
Mo Yi was stunned. However, in a flash, a guess quickly surfaced in his mind—
He glanced down at the wound on Jiang Yuanrou’s abdomen again, and noticed that there seemed to be something reflective stuck in the wound in the bloody muscle tissue.
Mo Yi’s breathing caught.
He quickly took out a small roll of bandages from his backpack, and stuffed it between Jiang Yuanrou’s teeth to prevent her from biting her own tongue, then whispered, “I’m starting.”
Jiang Yuanrou squeezed her eyes shut.
Mo Yi pressed Jiang Yuanrou in place with one hand and inserted the fingers of his other hand into the open wound on her abdomen. The warm and sticky liquid coated his fingers as the lithe body under his palm shook. Pained sobs came from Jiang Yuanrou’s gagged mouth.
Gritting his teeth, Mo Yi continued reaching deeper into the wound—until his fingertips struck something solid. Mo Yi’s eyes lit up and he pinched the foreign object between his fingers before withdrawing them.
Mo Yi tightly held the item soaked in blood and human warmth. There was a layer of hot sweat on his back. Panted slightly, he turned to look at Jiang Yuanrou—her face was pale, her hair was matted with sweat, her eyes tightly closed, looking every bit as though she had passed out, yet her body was still trembling intermittently.
Mo Yi’s heart eased and he turned back to look at the wound on Jiang Yuanrou’s abdomen—
To his surprise, those deep wounds on Jiang Yuanrou’s stomach began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye!
The gaping wounds were slowly closed up, and the separated flesh and skin were slowly moved back towards each other as if they were alive, looking in every part like a display of magic.
And in less than half a minute, the wound on Jiang Yuanrou’s stomach had completely disappeared, leaving only thick blood stains covering her now flawless uninjured skin.
Mo Yi raised his eyebrows in surprise and subconsciously touched Jiang Yuanrou’s stomach.
The skin under his palm was warm and moisturised, with a slight tremble, indicating life and vitality.
This was when he recalled that Jiang Yuanrou had told him earlier the wound on her abdomen was the side effect of using props in the instance, and the effect would disappear after an hour—what he witnessed just now should be the whole process of the disappearance of said effect.
At this moment, a vague groan sounded from the side. Mo Yi hurriedly turned to look, only to see Jiang Yuanrou’s eyelids fluttering as if she was about to wake up, so he took the roll of bandage out of her mouth.
Jiang Yuanrou opened her eyes, but her gaze was still a little out of focus. She took a few deep breaths before looking up at Mo Yi.
“Did you get it…?”
Her voice was hoarse and broken, shaking slightly.
Mo Yi gave a small nod, and then brought the thing nestled in his palm before Jiang Yuanrou’s eyes—
On his blood-stained palm was a small key which was different from the one Mo Yi picked up before. His was brass while this one was bright silvery white and shimmering under layers of undried blood.
Jiang Yuanrou appeared to have relaxed. She let out a long breath, her neck tilting backwards and the back of her head hitting the door panel with a soft ‘thud’.
Mo Yi was not in a hurry to ask questions. Instead, he patiently waited for Jiang Yuanrou to recover from the intense pain just now.
After a few minutes, Jiang Yuanrou’s pale face finally regained some vitality. She took a few deep breaths, then rose to her feet with the support of the wall next to her.
Mo Yi reached out to help her, helping Jiang Yuanrou to lean back against the door and change her posture.
Jiang Yuanrou followed Mo Yi’s guide and sat up straight. She took a few shaky breaths and hesitated for several seconds before continuing her explanation.
Mo Yi lowered his eyes slightly. While listening carefully to her, he sorted out and integrated Jiang Yuanrou’s experience earlier in his heart.
The room where he found a butterfly painted with blood on the wall was actually the room where Jiang Yuanrou encountered an illusion, and after she broke the illusion, she found two keys—a brass-coloured key and this second silvery white key. However, before she could do anything else, she was caught by the ‘monster’ wandering around this floor.
Jiang Yuanrou used a prop in desperation. Although she couldn’t escape completely, she could at least ensure that the monster would not be able to harm her body before the effect of the prop was lifted.
However, she had accidentally lost the brass key during her struggles, leaving only the silvery white key in her hand.
As she had already fallen into the hands of the monster then, she made a decisive decision in order not to hide the remaining key. She cruelly chose to hide it inside the wound on her abdomen, which had appeared due to the use of the prop.
Earlier, the time for the side effects to be lifted had come, but the foreign object in her wound caused it to be unable to heal, so it resulted in bouts of severe pain which made Jiang Yuanrou involuntarily let several pained groans slip.
After listening to Jiang Yuanrou’s explanation, Mo Yi fell into a period of contemplation.
It seemed that this floor was pretty similar to the previous floor. There were illusions to confuse players. If the player broke the illusion, a butterfly drawn with blood would appear on the wall and key clues would be given. There were also almost no differences in the monsters other than their gender.
These two floors were indeed very similar, except for the difference in map.
This made Mo Yi involuntarily think about how some mental asylums have the rule of stratifying according to gender—so although these were two different floors, their rules are almost identical.
If so… then what about the -1F?
Mo Yi’s throat was slightly dry. He swallowed, moving his Adam’s apple to suppress the uneasiness in his heart.
He glanced at Jiang Yuanrou, and asked in a low voice, “Are you still able to walk?”
Jiang Yuanrou reached out and pressed on her abdomen, hissing softly.
She looked up at Mo Yi, and said, “If the side effects caused by the prop include wounds or pain, then painkillers are useless.”
Jiang Yuanrou paused, showing a pale smile. “But painkillers are very useful for the remaining pain after the side effects disappear, so… I should be fine now.”
Mo Yi nodded in acknowledgment. He reached out to help Jiang Yuanrou up from the ground, and the two stood quietly in the dark for a while, listening to the movement in the corridor outside—
Dead silence.
There was no whimpering, no footsteps, no rustling of cloth.
Jiang Yuanrou and Mo Yi exchanged a look in the dark, then stretched over and pushed open the half-closed door before walking out one after another. They moved slowly and cautiously, as if afraid of disturbing something in the dark.
The silence in the corridor was so eerie that it almost made one’s heart chill.
Just when the two of them stepped out of the room, Mo Yi suddenly felt a strong sense of uneasiness. It was like a huge hammer hitting his heart, bringing vague pain and suffocation.
He instinctively turned his head around.
There was a blurry figure standing quietly in the darkness at the end of the corridor.
Mo Yi’s scalp exploded, and a feeling of cold horror surged from the bottom of his heart as a thought flashed across his mind like lightning.
It knew from earlier that the two of them were hiding in this room, so it pretended to go away, only to circle back in the dark without making any sound, and waited quietly… —waiting for the moment when they came out!
Mo Yi was cold from head to toe, and he heard himself shouting at Jiang Yuanrou.
“Run!”
T/N: Since this is unlimited flow, I’d assume that a certain level of gore/horror is to be expected. I’m not sure if I should go into the specifics in the TW like “gore, digging fingers into open wound” or leave it vague as just “gore”. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share. In the same vein, if you happen to find anything you hope to see tagged as a TW, do let me know in the comments of the relevant chapter anytime. I do try to include as many TW as possible but as my own tolerance for gore and horror is high, I’d inevitably overlook a few potential squicks.
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