Chapter 94
The sudden onslaught of terror gripped Mo Yi’s heart viciously. All of his blood seemed to have frozen instantly, making his body stiff as if he had fallen into an abyss.
His cold fingers subconsciously exerted more force, fiercely gripping his lower jaw to suppress his exclamation into a low and indistinct gasp.
The footsteps on the other side of the thin wall stopped suddenly.
A suffocating silence filled the air.
Mo Yi suppressed the frequency of his breathing. There was only the rumbling sound of blood and the rapid beating of his heart thundering in his eardrums. One, two, three, each thump was rapid and clear, throbbing in the chest cavity.
He squeezed his eyes shut in the dark, long and straight eyelashes trembling slightly like the last flutters of the wings of a dying butterfly.
He could still vividly recall the pair of blood-red irises he’d seen, looking terribly ferocious and terrifying in the dark.
Mo Yi gripped the flashlight with his arm hanging by his side. The fingers of his other hand wrapped around the glass bead he’d retrieved from his smart backpack reflexively earlier.
The pale fingertips exerted a slight force, as if restraining their desire to press down on it.
This prop could freeze a monster within three metres for five seconds. Although it couldn’t allow him to escape scot-free from the beast, it could still play a critical role in a dangerous situation.
The footsteps behind him sounded again.
It was closer this time.
—There was only a wall between them..
He could almost distinguish the sounds from each other. There was that of soles dragging across the rough floor, the dull sound of heavy heels hitting the ground, and also a sharp, piercing sound—a metallic sound.
The fabric on his back was almost drenched completely in cold sweat. The thin layer of cloth was squeezed between his back and the wall, allowing the cold and chilly touch to penetrate through the skin and slowly spread into the gaps of his spinal column.
Mo Yi’s muscles stiffened, tensing up. The chill spread from his back down to his limbs, and only the round glass ball between his fingers still had some warmth.
The footsteps came to a short standstill, then they slowly, heavily, moved away.
The sound of the soles dragging against the ground and the piercing metallic sound slowly faded away into the distance, gradually becoming smaller and weaker in Mo Yi’s ears until it could no longer be heard.
Only then did Mo Yi loosen his fingers which were snugly slapped over the lower half of his face. His palms were cold and slick with sweat. The dull ache caused by stiff muscles washed over his body, making his fingertips twitch slightly.
With an unchanging expression, he just exhaled deeply, then slowly opened his eyes.
—Those blood-red eyes were still staring at him in the darkness, ferocious and terrifying.
Even though he was already mentally prepared, Mo Yi’s heart still leapt violently when he witnessed this sight again.
He forced himself to calm down at once. His brain spun, analysing the situation like a sophisticated machine, and he quickly came up with the most probable hypothesis—
It likely was not a threat to him.
Mo Yi had utmost confidence in his abilities, so he slowly relaxed all his muscles and transferred the glass bead he was clutching to his other free hand, then shifted a few steps in the opposite direction while still shrouded within the darkness.
He moved his fingers a little, and switched the flashlight on, on its lowest setting.
The light revealed a bloody corpse. His arms were hung up high, his palms pinned to the wall with thick nails. On the corpse’s twisted and ashen face were a pair of widened blood-red eyes which were bulging like two lifeless dusty glass beads, yet they remained glaring ferociously at the direction of the door, the gaze telling of the fear and despair that person must have felt.
Moreover, the most frightening thing was that the only intact thing left was its skeleton. The viscera in the belly had long since flowed down along with gravity, forming a greasy pool at the feet of the corpse. The crimson-red skin and muscle tissue seemed to have been precisely peeled off, before the body was nailed into the wall, forming a preserved picture of a patterned wings of a butterfly.
Mo Yi subconsciously thought of the huge and ugly butterfly that was etched out with fingernails in the ward where he woke up.
—Sure enough, it was from a corpse.
He sucked in a deep breath before returning the glass bead in his hand into his smart backpack.
When he was in the dark earlier, he recalled the astonishingly large pool of blood and the glaring drag marks on the ground. Next when he hid in this ward, the light from his flashlight before it was turned off illuminated the area—
Showing that the trail of bloodstains were leading into this ward.
Therefore, the ‘things’ in this ward… were very likely already completely dead, and so, would not be a threat to him.
Mo Yi glanced at the horrific corpse in front of him with an unreadable expression. Although he had verified his conjecture, he was still greatly affected when he came face to face with such a gnarled corpse that died in this miserable manner.
Yet perhaps it was due to his experience in the previous three instances, Mo Yi barely felt any nauseousness at this moment.
Instead, he merely frowned and took several steps back. The thick smell of congealing blood violently assaulted his senses and nerves, almost causing his sense of smell to go numb.
While recoiling instinctively, Mo Yi seemed to have thought of something. He lowered the flashlight, training the light at the foot of the bloody corpse.
Next to the mound of greasy internal organs, there was a small pile of fabric. It was stained with blood and streaked with dust but its logo was still clearly visible—it was a famous sports brand.
Mo Yi frowned. He walked closer, picked up the ball of fabric, and shook the tangled pile apart vigorously.
A strong stench of blood washed over his face, accompanied by a cloud of dust rising up, as the crumpled cloth unfolded.
Indeed, it was a modern jersey.
The expression in Mo Yi’s eyes clouded over, flashing with contemplation.
He shifted the beam of light onto the corpse. The corpse was wearing a set of pants which matched the sweatshirt he was holding, and similarly, the pants was also stained with so much blood that it was impossible to make out its original appearance anymore. Furthermore, there was also a tattered backpack in the corner of the ward.
The lustre of the nylon fabric reflected about 80% of the light. There was a huge hole on it, as if it had been torn apart by some sharp weapon. The items in the backpack were strewn all over the ground and there was even a flashlight that had rolled some distance away.
A terrible conjecture surfaced in his heart, making Mo Yi shudder.
The blood splattered in the ward where he woke up and in the corridor outside were all old and brown, but the blood near the elevator and the trail leading into this ward were a bright red.
The modern clothes, the familiar objects in the backpack—
This dead person was likely also a player just like him.
A chill crawled up Mo Yi’s back.
The instance he’d entered this time was probably not a brand new one, but was more like a semi-finished game that had not been cleared.
Previously, the instance would only start after all the players have assembled,, but this time the announcement happened when he was alone—
Perhaps this was because the previous wave of players had already assembled earlier, and they likely… have been met with misfortune.
A more serious problem surfaced.
What about Jiang Yuanrou?
They were definitely in the same instance. The game wouldn’t put them on this aspect. However, the two of them should have been placed into two different starting points in this place, and were likely not on the same floor either.
Mo Yi tightened his fingers on the flashlight and subconsciously looked at the dense darkness outside the door of the ward.
It seemed that he needed to find the key card to start the elevator as soon as possible.
He turned his gaze on the corpse nailed to the wall—it was good to have players who have already explored the area, after all, it saved him a lot of trouble searching for clues.
Mo Yi thought to himself mirthlessly as he rummaged through the pockets of the jersey in his hand, but there was nothing useful except for some odd trinkets.
He tossed the sportswear back onto the ground and made his way towards the player’s torn backpack.
Inside were some familiar props almost every player with some experience would bring into an instance. Mo Yi had brought enough for his own usage, so there was no need to increase his load at this point.
Flipping through the items, a new pack of mints rolled out of the backpack, staining itself with the dust and blood on the ground.
Mo Yi stared at it for a moment. He subconsciously thought of the Mist who was obsessed with feeding him candies, and frowned.
Pursing his lips, he averted his eyes away from the candy, then stood up from the ground and patted the dust off his body.
There was almost nothing valuable in this player’s backpack. Or perhaps to prevent players from killing each other, after a player’s death, their items would be automatically recycled by the game and couldn’t be retrieved by players in the same instance.
In other words, Mo Yi found nothing of use.
Then, as though he came to an epiphany, he casted his gaze on the miserable corpse.
He hesitated for a moment before taking a few steps forward—the wet ground under his feet felt sticky to the touch. The thick stench of blood assaulted his nostrils while the exposed bones and internal organs of the corpse etched themselves into his eyes.
Holding his breath, Mo Yi fumbled around in the pocket of the corpse’s trousers.
Through the thin cloth, he could feel the cold, stiff, lifeless skin of the corpse.
He heard a soft rustle. Mo Yi’s eyes lit up and he pulled the item out swiftly, illuminating it with his flashlight.
It was an old and yellowed paper, folded into a quarter. There were splotches of dark brown bloodstains and fingerprints on it, and perhaps because it had been in the pocket for a long time, it appeared slightly shrunken.
Mo Yi unfolded it carefully, cautious to reduce the rustling of paper as much as possible in this silent darkness.
Under the light, he could make out all the details on the paper—this was the map of this floor.
Mo Yi’s heart relaxed slightly. His gaze lingered on one end of the map for a moment:
There was an elevator marked there, and the ward next to the elevator was where he was now.
Immediately afterwards, another marker on the map attracted Mo Yi’s full attention.
There was another room on the other end of the corridor, which was labelled as the staff office, and the room opposite of the staff office was painted black. The dark colour completely covered all details of the room, making it impossible to decipher the labels and annotations.
Mo Yi ran his finger over the spot—there was a sticky feeling on his fingertip, and the flashlight illuminated the blackened place.
It was blood.
Someone painted it black with blood.
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