Chapter 114
TW: Animal cruelty, animal death
A door slowly emerged from the wall before Mo Yi’s eyes. The dull green wallpaper was shrouded in deeper shadows as the door panel slid inward. The space behind the door was pitch black, akin to an abyss standing just a step away from him.
A stale and dull atmosphere emanated from the depths of that door, mixed with a faint scent of blood.
A thin layer of sweat broke out on Mo Yi’s palms. He moved his fingers holding the flashlight, moving the beam of light onto the door that appeared unexpectedly.
The light was swallowed by the abyss. There seemed to be only emptiness within.
He took a slow, deep breath, then closed his eyes. His swollen and hot eyeballs were covered by his cold eyelids, which brought a trace of calmness and reason back to his chaotic mind.
Now, Mo Yi unexpectedly calmed down.
He recalled and analysed every clue he had earlier, and then sorted them out in his mind.
According to his experience on -3F, the illusion in this instance would not take the initiative to cause harm to him, but would induce him to make wrong choices and stay in this instance forever. The illusion couldn’t perfectly imitate the game’s control over the players, so Jiang Yuanrou was very likely to be real.
So, that one time when he wanted to disclose to Jiang Yuanrou his conjecture about the instance of this membership test was very likely the last time he saw the real Jiang Yuanrou because there had been a restriction put on him by the game at that time.
Mo Yi opened his eyes, revealing a pair of dark eyes under his lashes. They were glinting coldly, looking rational and calm.
His gaze fell on the dark green wallpaper, carefully studying those dark lines which make up the small grids. They were a stream of butterflies each connected to the previous from end to end. Under the unsettling shadows in the corridor, they appeared to have a gelatinous substance seeping out of them.
Then, the only explanation for their current predicament was that this floor separated the two of them after their last conversation.
Mo Yi closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest. He let out a long breath.
With his gradual deepening understanding of this game’s mechanism, he felt strongly that his task this time was onerous. Not only did he have to survive in this instance where all the clues were deliberately kept from him, he also had to help Jiang Yuanrou complete her test while also bringing out Jiang Yuanbai, who they still had no clue of his whereabouts—every single one of these tasks were almost impossible.
No wonder Jiang Yuanrou made such a generous offer back then.
Mo Yi sighed helplessly. Then, he calmed down and raised his eyes to study the door that opened quietly.
His face was pale and calm, and he stepped into the door leading to the pitch-black unknown.
As he moved, the darkness slowly surrounded and swallowed him. All around him was the increasingly dull smell of dust, mixed with the familiar smell of blood and decay from the previous floors, lingering cloyingly at the tip of his nose as if it wanted to invade every inch of his senses.
Mo Yi was nearly choked into suffocation. He continued moving his feet relentlessly, walking deeper into the room.
Meanwhile, he also took the chance to slowly turn his wrist, sweeping his flashlight around to observe the environment he was in.
This was a very large room, its interior completely pitch-black without the slightest light or sound, making one almost doubtful if they were really in an existing space.
The carpet under his feet was different from the one in the corridor. This fluffy feeling was a clear indication of its price, it seemed to be covering the entire floor of this room and quietly absorbing all the sounds.
Mo Yi seemed to have stepped on something under his feet. He tilted the flashlight to shine at his feet, and saw that it was a disembowelled doll. In its half-broken head was a lonely blue glass eyeball. Long blond hair clad in dust hung in locks from the back of the doll’s bald head.
It looked pitiful and miserable.
Mo Yi carefully moved his foot away, then continued to walk forward, yet he soon found himself stepping on something again.
He shifted his light down, illuminating the disembowelled plush doll under his feet—he could no longer tell its original appearance. Only pieces of cotton leaking from the inside of its belly could be seen, the imagery resembling broken internal organs flowing out of its body.
There was also a pool of coagulated and dried blood on the ground beside the doll, and the blood-stained long-haired carpet showed a shade of dirty dark brown under the light.
Mo Yi’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t help speeding up his steps until he almost? tripped over something soft on the ground.
Stabilising his body, he followed the light in his hand, only to see a dead mouse lying quietly on the carpet.
It seemed to have just died not long ago, and its death was miserable. Its bones were cut out, its bloody muscles exposed, and even the internal organs spilling out of its soft belly seemed to be steaming with warmth.
Mo Yi calmed himself down. Narrowing his eyes slightly, he stood in place, and moved the flashlight to illuminate the area around the mouse’s corpse. Sure enough, in the darkness not far from the mouse, there was another small black shadow lying quietly in the dust.
He frowned and took a few steps in that direction, only to realise it was a dead cat.
The bloody fur on one half of its body was tightly attached to its bony corpse, while the fur on the other half was torn off, revealing the bright red muscle texture. Sliced pieces of its flesh were carefully positioned on the long-haired carpet, looking… like a pair of wings made of flesh and blood.
A chill surged from the soles of Mo Yi’s feet straight up his forehead. A fine layer of cold sweat broke out on his back.
He moved his throat a little stiffly, restraining the chill that rose from the depths of his heart. Turning his head, he used the flashlight to illuminate a wider area—
A dead dog lying on the floor, with a pair of mature wings made from its own flesh and blood unfurling at its side.
Then, finally, the beam of light in Mo Yi’s hand landed on the ground at least two or three metres away from him.
It was a human-shaped shadow.
Cold sweat broke out on Mo Yi’s palms. The metal shell of the flashlight became wet from his grip.
The strong and turbulent smell of blood invaded his senses, occupying them, and he even felt as if he was able to taste the hint of coppery-rust in the air.
He took a few steps closer in that direction.
The shadow on the carpet gradually became clearer. It was the corpse of a man, lying on the floor with his limbs stretched out. The muscles of his upper body were almost completely stripped off, leaving only the bloody white skeleton and a pile of guts which have slid out.
Large areas of muscles were carefully and neatly laid out on the carpet with obvious level of skill and attention to detail.
A layer of blood which was so thick that it was almost black in colour, seeped into the carpet, forming a deep brown blood stain.
The condensed smell of blood and decay in the air was almost nauseating.
Mo Yi’s complexion turned paler. His lips were tightly pursed in silent contemplation as he fixed his dark eyes on the pieces of flesh arranged on the carpet as huge butterfly wings.
He understood why this room was so hidden.
The room was full of displayed trophies—but they are not just the players who had died in this instance, but also… the victims from the real world that this instance was built on.
He subconsciously ran his fingers along the hard metal surface of the flashlight stained with his body temperature. He pressed his lips into a tense line.
This was the first clear clue that appeared in this instance.
Mo Yi turned his head and looked again at the corpses and toy fragments he came across along the way just now, the traces between his brows became more and more profound.
He had an inkling that… none of this was so simple.
The heavy and sultry air in the room turned the bloody smell into a cloyingly putrid scent, which made people feel a little suffocated.
Mo Yi circled around the corpse on the ground and walked towards the wall at the end of the room. His light fell steadily on the dull green wallpaper on the wall. The patterns on it seemed clearer in the darkness shrouded by shadows, the butterflies looking as though they were floating.
There was a door on the wall where the gap with the frame was so integrated with the wallpaper that it was difficult to distinguish it without careful observation.
Mo Yi stepped forward and opened the door.
In front of him was another long corridor, with deep turns at both ends, with no clues on where either ends led to.
He must have never been to this corridor before—because there were three or four rooms scattered in this corridor while the previous one was a completely closed passage.
The most important thing was that there was a window opposite to where Mo Yi was.
And that window seemed to be constructed for the sole purpose of communication between the two corridors—through the dim glass, one could see the corridor on the other side. It had the exact same dull green wallpaper, dark brown carpet, and was also equally narrow and lengthy.
.
There were no rooms in that corridor.
Mo Yi took a step forward, his eyes falling on the corridor through the window. His hands and feet were cold.
He saw something on one end of that corridor—a red door.
The bright red lacquer on the door looked as dazzling as fresh blood, and the thick lacquer seemed to have a strong scent of rust, as if sticky blood would be dripping down the straight door frame in the next second.
Just looking at it seemed enough to make him smell the strong smell of blood emanating from that door.
What Jiang Yuanrou said earlier echoed in Mo Yi’s mind.
‘There is a secret red door in the basement. We couldn’t enter.’
His heart tightened slightly. There seemed to be a thin buzzing sound in his eardrums.
At this moment, Mo Yi heard a thin, child-like voice.
“You came.”
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