Chapter 67
Chapter 067 Closing the Door to the Ghost
That response sounded as casual as a friend chatting, but in this eerie setting, it sent chills down everyone’s spine.
Even though they couldn’t see anything, just imagining an invisible ghost in the room staring at them was enough to make them shudder.
What’s more, their flashlights weren’t flickering at all this time.
This seemed at odds with what Brother Haonan had told them.
However, the fat guy still showed some courage. After the initial shock, he began to respond, “Hey, can the ghost come out for a photo op?”
There was a moment of silence over the frequency.
“Okay.”
After that brief response, a shadowy human outline suddenly flashed in the middle of the room, as if it could absorb light, even dimming Ling Mo’s flashlight. The flashlights of the others turned into strobe lights.
“Quick, take a picture!” The fat guy hurriedly raised his camera and snapped a few random shots. The others quickly followed suit, and within seconds they must have snapped enough photos to fill an entire album for this ghost.
Then the ghost suddenly vanished, and their flashlights returned to normal.
Brother Haonan’s voice came through immediately: “That’s enough! We’re done, quick! Get in the car and go home!”
“That’s it?” Wen asked, slightly taken aback.
“What? You want to hang out with him a little longer?”
“…Well, if that’s the case, then never mind.”
The four quickly left the study and ran back the way they came, eager to leave this haunted house. On the way, the fat guy couldn’t help but complain, “By the way, that ghost was pretty chill; didn’t even attack us. Is this dungeon really that easy?”
“Yeah, I was wondering that too,” Wen scratched his chin in thought. “This dungeon’s difficulty is supposed to be medium; it shouldn’t be this simple.”
“Come on,” Brother Haonan interjected, “If it were any easier, you wouldn’t be happy! Are you all just masochists?”
Just as he finished speaking, they reached the corridor on the first floor, and not far ahead was the big door. However, the ghost’s voice suddenly came through the Spirit Communication Device again: “Too late, you’ve already woken her up.”
Almost simultaneously, the big door, which had been wide open, slammed shut, and all their flashlights began to flicker wildly, even Ling Mo’s artificial sun. The temperature around them plummeted, dropping below zero in just a few seconds, causing everyone to break out in goosebumps.
Brother Haonan’s shocked voice echoed through the intercom: “What the hell? What’s going on? The activity level just shot up to level 8! That shouldn’t happen! Didn’t you say that ghost was relatively tame?! Did you all piss it off?!”
“No way! I was being polite!” The fat guy looked around in panic and quickly said, “I actually thought my interaction with the ghost was quite pleasant!”
“Maybe it’s not him,” Xia Xinyan finally spoke up, “He mentioned earlier that we woke up another presence.”
She was worried that if she didn’t speak up, this group of people really wouldn’t figure it out until they were dead.
It seemed that experiencing a dungeon like this, which could shatter their understanding of reality, left them entirely unprepared and unable to adjust their thinking. Or perhaps… the atmosphere here was just affecting their thought processes; Xia Xinyan felt like their IQ had dropped a bit.
Any information in the dungeon could potentially be misleading, but the difficulty rating was definitely not lying. Although the difficulty level is only rated as low, medium, or high, it is determined based on the overall skill level of the participating players, not the dungeon itself.
If the dungeon difficulty is hard, then no matter if the strongest players or the newest newbies enter, the survival rate is essentially the same—according to the official data, one in ten survive.
The medium difficulty is somewhat better, but it’s definitely no walk in the park; at least it’s tougher than the dungeons they had tackled before. So when she saw such a seemingly easy initial setup, she didn’t take it seriously at all.
Anyone with a bit of experience knows that usually at this point, that’s when the dungeon truly begins.
One of the game’s tricks—players are not thrown into a deadly situation without knowing anything; instead, they’re given some clues that might help them stay alive before facing real danger. Whether players can grasp this information isn’t within the game’s considerations.
For instance, the process they just went through was supposed to familiarize them with finding the ghost. The second part was that earlier statement.
The question is, who did they wake up?
The true evil spirit in this villa?
But considering this was their first taste of danger, it felt a bit premature to Xia Xinyan.
After all, even she hadn’t figured out the situation.
Fortunately, this bizarre atmosphere didn’t last long, and soon Brother Haonan’s good news came through: “Oh, the activity level has dropped; it’s down to level 7.”
At the same time, their flashlights returned to normal, and the temperature began to rise again.
Xia Xinyan was the first to walk over and try to pull the big door, then let go: “The door is locked, we can’t get out.”
“Damn, can’t they come up with some new tricks?” The fat guy surveyed the area. “Why don’t we try breaking a window?”
“That won’t work; the game won’t give us such a cheat opportunity,” Xia Xinyan shook her head. “Besides, the mission objective is inside; even if we go out, we’ll have to come back.”
“Wasn’t that male ghost the objective?” Wen asked curiously.
Ling Mo frowned in thought for a moment and agreed with Xia Xinyan’s viewpoint: “He mentioned that we woke up someone. That one is likely the one we need to investigate; otherwise, this dungeon would be way too easy—and the system hasn’t prompted us that we’ve completed the mission.”
“So it’s getting intense,” the fat guy scratched his chin slightly. “So we have to start looking for the ghost all over again?”
No one responded to him.
Noticing the sudden silence, the fat guy looked up and found everyone was staring at him, their expressions varied.
“What’s up? Why are you looking at me?”
Ling Mo pointed awkwardly at his shoulder.
Realizing what was going on, the fat guy turned to look at his right shoulder.
There was a pitch-black ghost handprint on it.
At the same time, he suddenly felt a warmth in his chest, and the ghost handprint on his shoulder disappeared.
Brother Haonan’s voice quickly followed: “I just realized something important! There are fifteen paper dolls on the desk! They seem to be our stand-in dolls, can help us resist three ghostly fatal attacks each. This setup is pretty good… What the hell?! One just spontaneously combusted?!”
The fat guy’s face immediately darkened: “…The one that caught fire, was it mine?”
“Let me check… Yep, Zhang Dayi is down to just two stand-in dolls now.”
“Damn it… you guys are serious about this?”
