Chapter 14 “Little Fish Orphanage”

Chapter 14: Little Fish Orphanage

Zhang Hui barely steadied himself, stumbling back several steps in alarm, with ragged breath, he exclaimed urgently, "There's something wrong with this wall!"

He didn't need to say it—everyone had seen what happened to him firsthand.

"There seems to be another space behind the wall," Zhao Yu said uncertainly, then turned to a player who had kept a low profile in the team and said to him, "Can you try it? Just like Zhang Hui did—reach out and feel if you can pass through the wall. We'll have your back, and if there's danger, we'll yank you right back."

Her expression was serious, her attitude relatively gentle, and she had planned an escape route.

But the player's face still changed color, looking like he wanted to let out a stream of curses.

However, aside from him, everyone else present stood to gain from this test, so no one spoke up to help him; instead, someone impatiently urged him to act.

Zhao Yu had put this player in a tight spot. In such a situation, if he refused, the consequences might not just be getting kicked out of the team—there was also the possibility of being attacked or coerced outright.

He didn't dare gamble on what these players might do, so he gritted his teeth, swallowing the hatred churning inside him, and hesitantly stepped forward. With bated breath, he reached out cautiously toward the wall.

As expected, just like Zhang Hui before him, he touched nothing but air.

He silently let out a sigh of relief and was about to withdraw his hand and say something to Zhao Yu and the others when a sudden, overwhelming force shoved him from behind.

"What the—" The player only got out half a curse before he was completely shoved into the wall.

From the outside, it looked as if the wall had swallowed him whole.

For a moment, none of them dared to act rashly. Even Zhang Hui, who had pushed him, stepped back several steps in lingering fear, wanting to get as far from the wall as possible.

But after he steadied himself, Zhang Hui noticed the others looking at him with strange expressions.

His face darkened, and he sneered bitterly, "What? Wasn't that exactly what you wanted? Don't act like a bunch of saints—are any of you any more noble than I am?!"

As he said this, his gaze locked onto Zhao Yu, who had first singled out that player.

Zhao Yu wasn't stupid. She understood the mockery in his words.

She bit her lip, embarrassed, deliberately ignoring Zhang Hui's contemptuous glare, and tried to steer the conversation away: "There must be something strange about this wall. Let's split up and check if the other walls are the same."

"How are we splitting up?" Cheng Jingjia suddenly spoke, her voice cold. "There are only six of us now, and three walls left. By 'splitting up,' do you mean we check the walls in pairs? I don't want to do that. I'd rather not have someone shove me into the wall while I'm checking. I may be a fool, but I don't want to die so pathetically without knowing why."

With that, she scanned the group again, as if she had made up her mind: "If you still want to team up, go ahead. I'm out. I'm the weakest and least capable of defending myself among those left. I think it's better for me to stay away from you, or else I might die at your hands before I even face any ghosts."

Her words were anything but polite—they practically ripped the masks off Zhao Yu and the others and ground them into the dirt.

She didn't bother letting anyone save face.

After speaking, Cheng Jingjia, her face cold, turned and walked straight out, clearly determined to leave the team for good.

"..."

Those left behind all fell silent.

Zhang Hui's face shifted through shades of livid as he glared hatefully at Cheng Jingjia's retreating figure.

Humiliated and wretched after being rejected repeatedly, Zhao Yu had lost the composure she'd had just moments earlier, standing before the group.

She dug her nails into her palms, and the surge of self-pity, embarrassment, hatred, and resentment threatened to drown her entirely.

Again!

Again!!!

From her childhood in the orphanage to her new family, she was always stuck in these awkward situations. Why? What right did they have?!

Why was she always the one who ended up the clown? Hadn't she done everything right? Every choice she made had been the most beneficial and least costly at the time!!

Why couldn't they understand her thoughts? What gave them the right to belittle and despise her like that?!

The rage and bitterness inside her nearly consumed all her reason, but the sharp pain in her palm kept her clinging to the last shred of sanity.

Flushed and flustered, she finally gritted her teeth and forced out a remark to save face: "Maybe... he's not dead. Maybe he's just trapped inside. If we can unravel the secret of this wall, we might save him."

Nearby, Qi Jing, who had observed everything, sighed helplessly and took over her words to address the remaining players: "That's right. This dungeon is still a beginner-level instance. The game mechanics probably won't include an instant death scenario. The player who just went in was probably just trapped inside; he might even find some key information there. So there's no need to worry too much about his safety."

Of course, this was just an empty comfort, a way to change the subject, since no one there really cared whether that player lived or died. They were just embarrassed by Cheng Jingjia's sudden blowup.

So Qi Jing's words gave them a good way to save face.

After the group's expressions softened a bit, Qi Jing continued: "But we shouldn't go exploring this wall any further. We don't know what's inside. If we throw all our remaining manpower into it, it'll be more loss than gain. So the priority now is to search this room for other clues. Maybe we can find information about the wall or the orphanage."

With that, he reminded everyone to be careful.

As for backstabbing and betrayal, after the recent incident, even if the remaining players harbored ill intentions, they would all be on their guard. So a sudden attack probably wouldn't happen again.

No one had any objections to Qi Jing's arrangements.

From the start, Qi Jing had been the unspoken leader, but he tended to offer direction subtly, while Zhao Yu was more straightforward. Although they had the same starting point, Zhao Yu's actions had provoked Cheng Jingjia's dissatisfaction and earned her the scorn of the others.

Thus, Qi Jing effortlessly took back the leadership of the temporary team from Zhao Yu.

Zhao Yu, of course, was unwilling, but she had no choice for now. Even her status as a former orphan couldn't get her any more advantages.

She could only immerse herself in searching the room with the others, trying to find more clues, hoping that her past as an orphanage resident would let her analyze hidden information faster and more accurately.

Only then could she turn the tables.

Even though Qi Jing had never intended to compete with her for dominance, Zhao Yu's mind was already a mess. The accumulated self-pity, embarrassment, and other negative emotions desperately needed an outlet.

No one knew what she was thinking, and no one cared.

They rummaged through the cabinets and bookshelves in the room, through yellowed, faded papers. The only sounds were the occasional rustling; otherwise, the room was silent.

As for the player who had been pushed into the wall, it was as if he had never existed.

Outside,

Cheng Jingjia hadn't actually gone far.

Not because she didn't want to, but because the orphanage was that small, and this was a horror game instance. Even though she knew daytime should be safe, she didn't dare act like those movie protagonists who wander off alone and trigger something ominous.

Cheng Jingjia didn't think she was a protagonist with plot armor, and she was terrified of ghosts. So despite her harsh words, she didn't dare walk further after stepping out. Instead, she stood in the hallway, staring blankly into the dark corridor.

Maybe it was because she had been staring too long, but she felt the corridor was eerie and gloomy. She wasn't leaning against the wall, but she felt a chill all over, as if enveloped in a dark wind, making her heart pound and her breath catch.

After a moment's thought, she couldn't bring herself to go back and pretend to get along with the group. The corridor was making her blood run cold, so she gritted her teeth and ran toward the large patch of sunlight at the end of the corridor.

Once she was truly under the warm sun, she felt a violent shiver, and as the blood in her skin began to thaw, her teeth chattered.

She hadn't realized how cold it was inside until she came out.

She squinted at the healthy rosy glow gradually spreading across the back of her hand, finally understanding, in a daze, what that chill had truly felt like.

Her grandmother had died in the sweltering heat of midsummer, and the cold she'd just experienced was exactly the chill she'd felt while keeping vigil beside the ice-packed casket during the seven-day wake—a bone-deep cold that seeped out, thread by thread, from the cracks in the coffin lid.

"Author's Note"

I just realized after finishing writing—there's literally zero Fish content in this chapter!!

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