Chapter 78: Werewolf Community 15

Chapter 78: Werewolf Community 15

Ten minutes earlier.

At the entrance of a public restroom fifty meters away from the activity center.

Before entering the restroom, Lu Xin's consciousness briefly regained clarity for a few seconds.

She even attempted to search around, hoping to find any signs or instructions posted at the entrance of the public restroom.

However, there were none.

All she could see within her line of sight were peeling and flaking walls. Lu Xin found nothing.

"I'll be going then?"

Cui Ran's voice echoed from behind, sending a chilling sensation through the silent air.

The summer night was stuffy, and even the breeze carried a hint of impatience. Yet, for some reason, Lu Xin's arms were suddenly covered in goosebumps.

Actually, Lu Xin was still very scared. She wanted to tell Cui Ran to wait for her, at least until she came out of the toilet.

But Cui Ran hadn't even conversed with her before. The fact that she was willing to take the risk and accompany her on this detour was already a great kindness.

Lu Xin couldn't bring herself to further plead with her.

"Okay…" Lu Xin replied as she turned around.

Behind her, there was nothing but the half-visible shrubs in the pitch-black night.

Where was anyone's figure?

…Did they leave that quickly?

Lu Xin froze, suppressing the inexplicable sense of unease rising in her heart.

The urging voice resurfaced in her mind, growing more anxious.

"Hurry up and go into the toilet."

"Enter quickly."

"Quickly, go in!"

The dark entrance seemed like an abyssal maw, yet it exerted an inexplicable allure. Lu Xin started to feel dazed again. Her legs moved on their own, swiftly stepping inside the door as if they were no longer under her brain's control.

Just like outside, the restroom was dimly lit.

This public toilet appeared to be quite old and had only received average maintenance. The walls were yellowed, exuding an unpleasant odor.

There was a small light by the sinks outside that barely illuminated the area, but the cubicles inside were pitch black.

Lu Xin pushed aside the curtain with the female restroom symbol and found that the floor was paved with tiles. Her clear footsteps echoed in the silence, accompanied by faint sounds of running water, creating an eerie atmosphere that was hard to describe.

Her heart pounded wildly, but at this moment, she couldn't afford to dwell on her thoughts.

She hazily tried pushing one of the doors, but it didn't budge.

Someone was inside?

Let's change to another one.

She turned and entered the adjacent compartment.

"Sigh-"

As she crouched down, Lu Xin let out a long sigh.

The discomfort she had endured for a while was relieved, and the numbness that had covered her brain gradually faded away. The suppressed tension and fear finally washed over her.

...It was really dark here.

Lu Xin lifted her head.

The community map didn't disappear just because she was indoors; she could still see several red dots floating in mid-air.

They were glaringly conspicuous, serving as a stark reminder that she was still in extreme danger in an unknown environment.

Oddly enough, when people were in a state of fear, their senses seemed to become unusually sharp.

It was as if in that very moment.

Lu Xin felt an almost imperceptible breath lingering by her ear, persistently resounding nonstop.

In the darkness, it seemed as though a pair of eyes were concealed, unblinkingly fixed upon her. The intermittent sound of water dripping above her head involuntarily evoked in Lu Xin's mind the sound of blood dripping to the ground.

Lu Xin's eyelids twitched abruptly.

What was this eerie sensation of being stared at?

Indeed, indeed.

Is someone in the neighboring stall?

Lyu Xin froze, then lowered his head and peered through the partition at his feet.

...No.

The adjacent stall was empty.

Lyu Xin swallowed hard.

No one was there. Then who…?

Though it seemed common for public restroom stall doors to be broken and stuck, the lingering unease made her feel suffocated.

Unable to help herself, Lyu Xin hastened her actions.

She stood up, flushed the toilet, pushed the door, and dashed out of the stall in one smooth motion.

It wasn't until she left the bathroom and returned to the sinks outside that the faint light from the bulb above slightly eased her tense nerves.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Turned out, she had just been scaring herself.

The heavy stone in Lyu Xin's heart finally settled, and she turned on the faucet in a daze.

Unaware of it, her actions at this moment had already deviated from what an ordinary person would do.

"Why is she still washing her hands at a time like this?"

From the other side of the light screen, the audience was whispering their opinions.

"Yeah, why isn't she running yet?"

"In my opinion, she shouldn't have come to the bathroom in the first place."

"You guys are just talking nonsense. With such a low Sanity value, this player has been pushed along by the instance dungeon all along."

...

On the wall above the sink hung a large, dirty mirror marred with stains. Its corners were cluttered with various old and tattered advertisements.

After Lu Xin finished washing her hands, she subconsciously looked up.

In the mirror, the woman's face bore two massive dark circles, and her eyes were bloodshot.

Was it due to excessive fatigue or sheer terror? Lu Xin felt that there was something unsettling about her reflection in the mirror.

She raised her hand to rub her eyes, and the figure in the mirror mimicked the action identically.

It was an undeniably familiar face, yet the more she stared, the stronger a sense of alienation grew. It was bizarre, as if the person in the mirror was not the image of a living being, but rather an inanimate replica molded from rubber, disconnected from reality.

In the next instant, the replica in the mirror slowly grinned.

Lu Xin took a massive step backward in shock!

No... This wasn't right!

This couldn't be right!!

That person in the mirror was not her at all!!!

Blood rushed to her head, engulfing her in an unprecedented feeling of suffocation. Every pore on Lu Xin's body seemed to exude fear.

Desperate to escape, her feet were glued to the ground by sheer terror.

The woman in the mirror stared intently at Lu Xin, her pale face twisted into an eerie smile.

She raised her hand, stretching it forward as if ready to break through the thin glass barrier at any moment and strangle Lu Xin with a vicious grip.

"AHHHHHHHHH!!"

A blood-curdling scream tore from her lips, slicing through the silence of the night like a razor-sharp blade.

In the stillness of this night, the noise was loud enough to rouse the entire activity center and even the surrounding buildings, their lights flickering on.

But strangely,

the darkness around her remained unchanged.

Lu Xin finally managed to regain control of her body from the clutches of fear. In a blink, she bolted out of the restroom as if her life depended on it!

She ran blindly for a few steps, panic driving her actions.

Amidst her panic, she managed to regain some composure and dashed straight for the activity center.

Without turning back, she could keenly sense something pursuing her.

Sshh...

Sshhh...

The eerie sound relentlessly followed her.

Its frequency increased, and the distance shortened.

In just a few hundred meters, Lu Xin displayed an unprecedented burst of speed.

Before the viewers outside the live stream could even make out the scene in the camera, she had already rushed through the entrance of the activity center.

"Holy sh*t, this woman runs so fast!!"

"If she survives, she could probably make a name for herself just with her running skills."

"Ah, what a pity, what a pity. I'll bet 50 cents that she won't survive the night!"

"That ghost has set its sights on her, it won't let her go."

"This is the consequence of being marked, she shouldn't have slacked off during the day... Sigh."

Well, one could say that this is perhaps fate's design.

Not every broadcaster who falls in the nascent stage is an incapable good-for-nothing.

If given the chance to mature and develop, perhaps they could have become renowned figures on the rankings.

Unfortunately, fate never offered that many ifs.

...

Lyu Xin still didn't dare to turn back.

She was well aware of her own courage. If she turned around, she might lose the very courage needed to continue fleeing.

Rushing into the activity center, she darted straight for the second floor. The chilly wind closing in from behind sent shivers down her spine, enveloping Lu Xin in an icy grip.

Ghost.

Right behind her!

The lounge was almost within reach, its two glass doors firmly shut.

In the dim light, Lu Xin could even make out someone sleeping soundly on a bed inside.

So close!

Just a little faster, and she'd be inside the lounge!

Lu Xin pushed herself with reckless abandon.

Victory seemed so near, yet when she reached for the lounge door handle, her heart suddenly sank.

...What was happening?

The door wouldn't budge!

It was locked from the inside!

Lu Xin abruptly raised her hand and slammed on the door with a deafening noise, but the person inside seemed completely oblivious, showing no sign of waking up.

The ghost was still relentlessly pursuing them; their brief pause had already narrowed the gap between them significantly.

Lu Xin had no choice but to continue her desperate flight.

But at this moment, her mindset was entirely different.

When Lu Xin left the public restroom, she didn't run towards the wider square but chose the activity center, an unsuitable place for escape, hoping to divert the ghost's attention to other players.

Now, she realized something.

She wasn't the only one with a plan.

Racing down the second floor corridor of the activity center, Lu Xin glanced downward. A mass of dark-gray fog was surging at the entrance on the first floor, obscuring the already indistinct night view outside.

There's no way out!

Everything is over.

Lu Xin felt an indescribable despair surging in his heart.

He had no idea what kind of attack the ghost had used, but a searing pain came from his back, as if his flesh was being torn apart, leaving him in a daze.

Not far ahead, a narrow door with a crimson hue appeared on one side of the corridor.

Three clear characters, "Storage Room," were pasted on it.

The door wasn't closed, and Lu Xin could see brooms, mops, and a pile of differently-sized cardboard boxes inside.

A storage room?

Was there a storage room in the activity center?

...Come to think of it, there seemed to be?

Recalling the rules posted at the entrance of the lounge, Lu Xin remembered that the fourth rule stated:

"Do not touch any items left in other rooms of the Activity Center."

Although it said not to touch, Lu Xin had no other choice now.

She dashed into the storage room like a gust of wind and slammed the door shut!

Bang!

The faint light in her line of sight was cut off, leaving the cramped room pitch black, even obscuring her own outstretched hands.

Lu Xin panted heavily. Whatever had been relentlessly chasing her seemed to have been locked outside.

Was she saved?

Could it really be that simple?

Lu Xin hardly dared to believe it.

With fear of touching anything, she moved inch by inch, pressing herself against the wall's edge.

Then, her entire body lost strength, and she slowly slumped down.

Exhaustion brought intense drowsiness, making Lu Xin's consciousness blur.

But soon, she realized that something seemed off.

The pain in her back grew more intense.

Moreover, her scalp, arms, legs, and feet—every part of her that touched the wall or the ground—seemed to be being devoured by something.

Lu Xin startled, attempting to stand up abruptly, but found herself completely immobile.

She was trapped!

The number of viewers in the live stream channel skyrocketed as Lu Xin received numerous system notifications she had never heard before.

"Congratulations, Host, on achieving the 'Ten Thousand People's Focus' accomplishment!"

"Congratulations, Host, your live stream has surpassed 30,000 concurrent viewers for the first time. The system will continue to provide you with premium traffic recommendations."

This was a notification eagerly awaited by countless people, but to Lu Xin at this moment, it was no different from the tolling of Death's bell.

She struggled wildly, yet the intense constraints only tightened further. She felt like a mosquito trapped in a spider's web, with no chance of escape.

Why?

Why was this happening?!!

She hadn't touched anything in the room!

Not touching those miscellaneous items meant she hadn't violated the rules!!

Wait...wait!

Lu Xin's pupils constricted abruptly.

She seemed to recall that above the fourth rule at the entrance of the activity room, there was another rule, also numbered four.

Yet, that rule contradicted the content beneath it.

"All other rooms within the activity area are unoccupied."

All the rooms were empty.

There was no room filled with miscellaneous items.

She was hiding in a room that shouldn't exist.

The walls on all four sides seemed to come alive, squirming as a strong smell of blood filled her nostrils.

Where did this bloody smell come from?

Oh.

It turned out to be her own blood.

Just as Lu Xin's consciousness was fading away, she suddenly thought of something and tremblingly raised her hand.

She used her index finger to dip into the blood flowing from her body and, with her last bit of strength, inscribed on the wall:

...

"Red... something with a horizontal stroke and a dot at the end..."

Ghoul Fire crouched in front of Lu Xin's corpse.

The ground was soaked in blood, leaving barely any space to step without treading on it. Ghoul Fire had to support himself on the floor in an extremely contorted position.

This made him appear quite comical, as if he were a gecko clinging to a wall.

Ghoul Fire strongly suspected that it was precisely because the scene was so grotesque that neither San Tu Sister nor Xiao Qin was willing to approach the body, thus leaving the task to him.

Lu Xin's death was a ghastly sight. The woman had died in a corridor corner, her head and face covered in blood, her entire back split open like a broken piece of skin, and her eyes wide open.

It was clear that she had suffered greatly before her death.

One could even say that she died with unfulfilled wishes.

Her right hand hung limply by her side, next to a row of loosely structured, barely discernible bloodied words.

"Red door," Qin Fei scanned the message on the ground and said casually.

"A door? This is the character for door?" The ghost flame approached for a closer look, then slapped its thigh. "Hey, it really is!"

"Q-i..." The ghost flame rolled its tongue, swallowing back the almost-uttered word. "You're amazing, you can even read this!"

A few minutes earlier, Qin Fei and his companions had passed by the public restroom with flashlights in hand, not noticing anything amiss inside. They then proceeded directly to the activity center.

But as soon as they entered, they were hit by a pungent, overwhelming smell of blood that seemed to assault their skulls.

In the exceptionally bright beam of the security guard's flashlight, a female corpse lay sprawled at the foot of the second-floor staircase.

To figure out what was going on, San Tu entered the lounge and roused all five players who were still sound asleep.

Before entering the activity center, Qin Fei had taken off Wang Mingming's school uniform and tossed it into his personal space.

Underneath, he wore a T-shirt and pants that resembled the motel outfit, which he had deliberately searched for in Wang Mingming's home.

Even the spot designated for the inn's logo was adorned with a small icon of similar hue.

To conceal his face, Qin Fei wore a baseball cap on his head.

During the day, several players had worn caps, so the sudden appearance of someone in a hat didn't seem out of place.

After sunset, the activity center was poorly lit, and Qin Fei deliberately positioned himself with his back to the crowd. As a result, no one realized that this silent young man was the NPC guide who had appeared intermittently during the day.

Qin Fei took a half-step back and whispered something into Lin Ye's ear. Lin Ye nodded and turned to inquire the five players standing further away, "What exactly is going on here?"

Tang Peng stood by the entrance of the lounge, nervously scanning his surroundings.

He, or rather, they. None of the five dared to approach Lu Xin's corpse.

After all, as marked players, who knew if they would be the ghost's next target?

The five of them stood in a row, their lips moving silently. For a long moment, no one spoke.

San Tu grew impatient and whipped her whip, fiercely slamming it onto the floor.

"If no one speaks up, I'll assume you lot killed her!"

Her sharp gaze sliced through the faces of those in front of her like razor blades.

Tang Peng shuddered in fear.

Amongst those in the lounge, Tang Peng was the most senior, at the same D-level as Qin Fei and San Tu.

But San Tu seemed much more capable in combat – despite having just reached D-level, her combat strength could rival that of B-level players.

Tang Peng feared being beaten to death by other players before he even had a chance to be killed by ghosts.

He stammered, "S-She did act strangely tonight."

"After you all left, we went straight upstairs and each went to bed. After a while, Lu Xin suddenly said she needed to use the toilet and asked if we could accompany her."

"Of course, none of us wanted to accompany her. Then Sister Ran came and took her with her."

As Tang Peng spoke, he suddenly realized that his words might implicate Cui Ran as the suspect, so he hurriedly clarified, "But she returned shortly after, and she was fine when she came back."

"I have no idea how she died," Tang Ming mustered up the courage to glance at Lu Xin's corpse, his heart skipping a beat.

"But it must be the work of a ghost," Tang Ming affirmed.

The other four echoed, "Yes, definitely a ghost."

None of the five suspected that the new players had killed Lu Xin.

They were all asleep when she died and didn't hear a single sound from outside.

If it was those four who did it, they could've just left without bothering to wake them up, so why would they take such an extra step?

"That's odd..."

San Tu murmured to himself.

Any experienced player could tell that something was amiss with Lu Xin the moment he insisted on going to the bathroom.

Yet, she returned unscathed.

Qin Fei pondered for a moment, then whispered something to Lin Ye.

In response, Lin Ye asked, "Are you all certain that the person who came back later was Lu Xin?"

It was quite a chilling question.

If it wasn't Lu Xin, then who could it be?

A ghost?

The mere thought of this possibility made Tang Peng break out in cold sweat as he nodded repeatedly. "I'm positive that the person who returned later was indeed Lu Xin."

"I even spoke to her."

Tang Peng wasn't completely asleep then. Upon noticing someone entering the room, he had inquired, "Is everything alright?"

"The voice that replied to me back then..."

Tang Peng recalled.

"It was indeed Lu Xin," Lu Xin confirmed. "Everything's fine. It went smoothly. Thanks for your concern."

After that, she returned to her own bed to sleep.

Later on, Tang Peng also drifted off into a daze.

He had initially thought that being marked by a ghost wasn't a big deal, but he never expected to wake up to find Lu Xin's corpse.

The five players' faces were a sight to behold, as they exchanged uneasy glances, each of them seeming to have dark foreheads and an aura of shortened life expectancy.

Questioned by Lin Ye, they now hesitated to return to the lounge, standing there helplessly like a row of foolish quails.

Qin Fei whispered something to San Tu, and the four of them headed downstairs together.

Since Lu Xin was already dead and had left clues behind, her body had become a public resource. Neither Qin Fei nor the five players dared to touch it.

Qin Fei took one last look at Lu Xin before leaving the activity center.

...

"I suspect that Cui Ran is the ghost hiding among the players."

After leaving the activity center, Qin Fei turned around, frowning as he gazed at the building standing in the darkness.

Lin Ye was starting to piece things together. "Indeed."

Since early morning, Cui Ran seemed to have been subtly sowing chaos without raising suspicion.

First, she used her words to manipulate Song Tian into revealing the Red Team's mission details.

Then, she boarded Xue Jiqing's ship and became an influential player.

After that, wherever she went, incidents followed in succession.

She visited a kindergarten, and a treacherous ghost infiltrated it.

When she stayed at the activity center due to feeling unwell, she coincidentally crossed paths with Lu Xin, who was then killed shortly after.

Although they currently had no direct evidence to prove Cui Ran's suspicious identity,

Sometimes, deducing from the outcome could also be an effective approach.

"Should we look for Cui Ran?" San Tu inquired.

If that woman was indeed a ghost hiding her true identity, now that night had fallen and she could finally act, she wouldn't merely target insignificant figures like Lu Xin.

Cui Ran held significant sway within Xue Jiqing's team.

If she were to seize an opportunity, it was possible for her to lead the dozen players to total annihilation.

This was definitely not a good omen.

Would the death of players result in an increase in the abilities of the ghosts? No one could say for sure at this point.

Moreover, the werewolf community's instance dungeon had a vast map. If too many players died at once, it would complicate the progression of the storyline.

Qin Fei nodded. "Let's walk back along the building numbers and search as we patrol."

Xue Qimai also had a team of security guards among his players. The routes of the two groups overlapped, which wouldn't waste time in their search.

...

As Qin Fei and his three companions made their way to the security booth with their flashlights in hand, a corner of the community saw a dozen players huddled together in front of a building.

"Are we really going in?"

The speaker was Song Tian.

He gazed at the pitch-black building before him, clearly filled with fear. He lifted his head and looked at the woman beside him.