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Chapter 050 Are You Human or Ghost?

No one present was a fool. After a day of intense contact with the infected, even if they didn’t have a detailed understanding of their behaviors and actions, they generally grasped the situation. Red skin might be the most obvious symptom of infection, but it wasn’t the only manifestation.

Ling Mo, who had previously been close to that man during his mutation process, was the most authoritative on this matter.

Especially that memorable “do.”

So when he noticed the chubby guy using that same verbal suffix, he instantly thought of that man.

Though others hadn’t seen the man’s mutation with their own eyes, hearing Ling Mo bring it up now made it clear this was not a meaningless question. Considering the previous actions of the infected, it was easy to guess the conclusion.

Including the chubby guy himself; he was the second to realize this point after Ling Mo’s prompt, or he wouldn’t have fallen silent mid-sentence.

—He was infected.

At this moment, it was definitely a piece of despairing bad news.

“…Brothers,” he forced a smile, stepping forward as if trying to explain something, “don’t…”

Murong Yue, who was closest to him, immediately took several steps back: “Don’t move! Are you human or ghost?!”

“…I’m obviously human, do!” The chubby guy gritted his teeth, “I haven’t mutated yet, do!”

Then he got even more worked up: “Damn, why did I say do! No saying do!”

“Calm down, Da Ri,” Ling Mo frowned and said seriously, “Can you control your emotions? We need to determine the extent of your infection.”

The chubby guy took a deep breath to calm himself down: “Hiss… okay, I can barely stay calm, do.”

“But we don’t have a vaccine right now, and we can’t save you, right? How about I give you a merciful release? Getting off the game early to sleep is nice too,” Murong Yue suggested sincerely.

“Get lost, do!” The chubby guy glared at her, “I’ve crawled through this long sewer for what? Can you just clear the game and give me the points, do?”

Murong Yue fell silent.

He took another deep breath and gritted his teeth: “Let’s hurry, before I can’t hold it together anymore, let’s get some rescue, do.”

“What if you can’t hold it on the way?” Murong Yue couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s your problem, I’ll take care of it myself.”

“You said it.”

“I said it.”

Ling Mo clapped his hands: “Then let’s go.”

After this little episode, the group’s speed picked up again. Fortunately, aside from some garbage, the sewer wasn’t too filthy; it was like an underground expressway, which assisted them quite a bit—except for the smell.

But after a while, they got used to it.

Ling Mo stayed close to Xia Xinyan the entire time, keeping a watchful eye on the changes in the chubby guy. His handgun was already loaded, ready to shoot the chubby guy if necessary.

If the chubby guy completed his mutation in the sewer, his self-detonation power could cause a wipeout, so they had to be prepared to eliminate him beforehand.

Of course, that was under the premise that the chubby guy had lost his sanity.

The man’s mutation process was neither short nor long; from the start, his speech ended with “do.” Not knowing the exact timing of his infection made it impossible to estimate the incubation period. But the game had previously indicated that the incubation period was between half an hour to a day, meaning time was probably running out for the chubby guy.

At that point, he definitely wouldn’t hold back.

To protect Xia Xinyan.

After all, it’s not like it meant his real death.

However, the chubby guy was still quite lucky. Until everyone reached their destination, his skin showed no signs of turning red at all.

But at this moment, another challenge stood before them.

The navigation indicated that the Guangling Building was located in the busiest commercial area of the city, with a total of four buildings, and a very large square in the middle. The distance between each building was not small, and… the navigation didn’t provide building numbers.

“Is the rescue point in Building A? Can’t we figure out which building it is?” Murong Yue said with a somewhat troubled expression. “What about searching with a different method? Building A? Or just one A?”

“None of those,” Xia Xinyan shook her head. “Probably a difficulty set by the game; it’s just a matter of luck.”

“What if we pick the wrong one?”

“It’s just a distance of one square,” Xia Xinyan looked up at the sewer exit in front of them. “Let’s just go up from here.”

The early stages of dungeons might lower the difficulty for players somewhat, but it could never be entirely free of challenges, especially since this was already the final mission.

“I’ll go up first,” seeing Xia Xinyan about to act, Ling Mo quickly moved in front of her. “I’ll go check if it’s safe.”

Xia Xinyan paused for a moment, pursed her lips slightly: “Okay.”

Ling Mo took a deep breath, then climbed up the stairs, pushed the manhole cover open forcefully, and peeked around.

This position was right next to one of the buildings, with the four buildings distributed at the corners of the square, looking quite impressive. There were quite a few infected wandering around in the square, but none seemed to notice the commotion here.

Ling Mo waved to those below: “It’s safe to come up.”

The four buildings looked identical from the outside, showing no differences, and they were about fifty to sixty floors high. The good news was that at about two-thirds of the height, there was a skybridge connecting the four buildings, allowing them to transfer to another building. So even if they picked the wrong building, there was still a chance to remedy it.

Hence, the four didn’t linger much longer and went straight into the adjacent building.

Once inside, they immediately noticed something was off—

The first floor hall was filled with signs of explosions everywhere.

“Did a terrorist attack happen here, do?” The chubby guy looked around and frowned.

“No…” Ling Mo crouched down, picking up a bullet casing from the ground. “It’s likely that other players got here first.”

This dungeon had eight players, but they hadn’t seen the other four so far. Unless they were particularly unlucky and all got wiped, they must have come here looking for rescue.

Thinking about how they hadn’t seen any police or army suppressing the riot so far made it easy to guess who had fired that bullet casing.

And soon, the new notification from the game indirectly confirmed this—

【Important News: Survivor search completed, all targets have reached the evacuation point, cleanup operations will take place half an hour earlier than scheduled, please all survivors evacuate promptly.】

The four froze for a moment.

Then Murong Yue turned and ran upstairs: “Hurry! We have to go! We’re gonna die!”

The chubby guy immediately called out to her: “What are you doing?! Are you planning to climb up that high?!”

“Are you going to take the elevator?” Murong Yue glanced back at him. “What if the door gets jammed?”

“…That’s true, do.” The chubby guy rubbed his chin and decided to follow her.

Ling Mo then looked back at Xia Xinyan: “Are we taking the stairs?”

“Uh-huh…” Xia Xinyan raised an eyebrow, her tone slightly teasing, “Didn’t you notice… there’s an elevator moving?”

 

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