Chapter 211 – Nightmare from Ten Thousand Years Ago – The Second Plane Opens (07)
The four of them found a relatively safe place and stopped to exchange the information they had gathered while separated.
“Did the one-legged girl who was chasing you have a red string like this?” Mu Quyan asked, holding a half-faded, badly worn red string in his hand.
Wei Kexin and Qi Jiu exchanged a glance and both shook their heads.
“I don’t know if she had a red string on her wrist. Every time we run into her, she tries to kill us.”
In an emergency, most people truly don’t have the presence of mind to observe such details. Wei Kexin and Qi Jiu barely had time to escape, let alone notice something like a red string.
“But I don’t think she’s the girl in the photo,” Wei Kexin added. “The girl in the photo has short hair, but the one chasing us has long hair.”
“We found this,” Qi Jiu said, taking out a cassette tape and a double-bar pregnancy test stick.
Bai Tang pressed the play button on the recorder. A few fragmented voices of girls came through.
“Please let me go, I’ll get a job and earn money for you guys…”
“You think washing dishes will make you enough money? I want to buy the latest cell phone, and you couldn’t afford it even if you worked for a year.”
“Exactly. You’re crying so pitifully—might as well introduce you to those people. They’re really generous. The money they give in a month could buy two phones…”
“I’m begging you, I can’t go. If my mom finds out, she’ll kill me.”
“If you dare refuse, I’ll tell Li Zihao about what you did…”
“I’ll go! Please don’t tell Zihao…”
The recording cut off there.
The four of them looked at each other in shock.
Wei Kexin reacted the most strongly. “Bast*rds! They actually forced a girl into prostitution…”
From the note they’d found earlier, it seemed the girl had been a victim of school bullying. But the bullies had gone even further—not content with just tormenting her, they had forced her into prostitution.
The situation was gradually becoming clearer. The mother-daughter photo, the woman in the red dress, the one-legged girl, the tragedy at the courtyard… Putting all these pieces together, it seemed the woman in the red dress had been living alone with her daughter. Her daughter was bullied at school and ended up pregnant. To avenge her daughter, the woman in red lured the bullies to the old town one by one—and killed them.
By process of elimination, the girl in the courtyard was one of the bullies, and the one-legged girl likely was too. So then… where was the bullied daughter?
“Dong dong dong—”
Suddenly, the chime of a wall clock rang from the next room, startling them with its hourly strike. Bai Tang jumped in fright. At the end of the hallway, a flash of red appeared—it was coming toward them.
“S-She’s coming,” Wei Kexin said, her voice trembling.
Mu Quyan grabbed the stunned Bai Tang and kicked open the door to a nearby room, pulling him inside to hide.
Qi Jiu followed quickly with Wei Kexin.
As the door quietly clicked shut, the woman in the red dress had already arrived at their door.
She didn’t see the four of them. Holding a dark red switchblade, she continued walking forward.
“Follow her,” Mu Quyan said.
He actually wanted to tail the woman in red.
“Rather than running around like headless chickens, we might as well follow her. She’s definitely going after another one of the bullies,” he explained.
Qi Jiu agreed with Mu Quyan’s plan.
“But it’s too dangerous,” Wei Kexin still felt it was too much of a risk.
Bai Tang took out three protective talismans. “Take these. They can temporarily keep the residual shadow from detecting you.”
He had exchanged points for them in the system’s space.
“What about yours?” Mu Quyan asked. He couldn’t take Bai Tang’s talisman—if he did, what would happen to Tangtang?
“I have you~”
I have you~
Have you~
The boy smiled sweetly, the dimples on both cheeks adorably showing.
With a quick motion, he transformed—slipping out of his clothes came a small squirrel, squeaking “Zhi zhi zhi” as it ran toward Mu Quyan.
“Tang Tang…”
Mu Quyan gently cupped the little squirrel and placed him into the breast pocket of his shirt.
Seeing that the woman in the red dress was about to leave, the other three didn’t dare delay. Crouching down, they followed her, using the abandoned furniture in the hallway as cover.
The woman walked and paused, walked and paused. Several times, Wei Kexin almost got them exposed because she wasn’t paying close enough attention.
The talismans could mask their presence, but only if they kept a certain distance from the residual shadow. If they ran directly into her, the talismans would lose their effect.
The woman in the red dress turned and began walking toward them.
The three of them circled around a sofa to keep out of her line of sight. After several tense rounds, Mu Quyan pulled Qi Jiu along, and Qi Jiu dragged Wei Kexin with him. They all hid under a table.
Meanwhile, in the little white room, Qiu’er gnawed on a pork knuckle, speaking with his mouth full, “As expected of my Tang Tang’s hubby—he even knows how to use the Qin King’s Circling Pillar technique. Tang Tang’s male lead is awesome.”
“Want some soup?” Xiao A, seated nearby, had a hot pot bubbling beside him. Qiu’er was enjoying the food immensely.
“Yes yes yes…” Qiu’er’s eyes lit up, his attention completely diverted.
In Qiu’er’s heart, as long as Tangtang wasn’t in danger, food was always the top priority.
Inside the little white room, everything was warm and cozy. Qiu’er couldn’t have been more content.
Inside the nightmare space.
Mu Quyan, while rolling, hadn’t buttoned his shirt properly. As a result, the little squirrel spun 360 degrees through the air and landed next to a table leg.
The squirrel wobbled dizzily and shook his head to clear it. Suddenly, a pair of legs appeared in front of him.
Bai Tang: “!!!”
He didn’t dare make a sound. A hand suddenly reached behind him and grabbed him.
Mu Quyan pressed the squirrel back against his chest. Seeing that the woman in the red dress hadn’t noticed, he quietly exhaled and continued following her.
The three humans and one squirrel all breathed a sigh of relief. They followed the woman in red to a small house.
“Be good, Xiao Yu. Mommy has everything ready. Just take a nap. When you wake up, everything will be better.”
The woman in red spoke gently to a short-haired girl as she placed a bowl in front of her.
Judging by her appearance, the short-haired girl called Xiao Yu looked very similar to the one in the photo. She was most likely the woman’s daughter—the one who had been bullied.
Xiao Yu’s lower abdomen was slightly swollen. A flicker of hesitation crossed her eyes, but in the end, she obeyed her mother and drank the abortion medicine in one gulp.
Very quickly, the girl collapsed onto the floor in pain, rolling and writhing as blood gushed from beneath her, spreading across the floor and out the doorway.
“Sleep now… sleep…” the woman murmured. “Mommy will avenge you. Just one more. One more to go…”
The woman in the red dress soon left. The girl lying on the ground was alive or dead—it wasn’t clear.
Wei Kexin activated her “female lead saintly Mary Sue” aura again. She ran over and helped the girl up.
“Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu…”
The girl’s face was deathly pale. She weakly opened her eyes and looked at Wei Kexin. “Help me… help me…”
Blood continued to pour from beneath Xiao Yu. A blood clot slipped out and splattered all over Wei Kexin.
Mu Quyan quickly covered the little squirrel’s eyes—the scene was far too gory for Tang Tang to witness.
The sticky fluid carried a strong metallic stench. Wei Kexin had never seen anything like this before; she was utterly terrified, frozen in shock.
It was Qi Jiu who pulled her back—just as the door behind them opened. The woman in the red dress stood there, her face twisted with rage.
“Ah—!”
The woman lunged at them with a spring-loaded knife.
Mu Quyan dodged with the squirrel in his arms, and Qi Jiu did the same. Off-balance from the charge, the red-dressed woman stumbled forward toward the ground.
That might have been fine under normal circumstances, but unfortunately, Xiao Yu was lying right where she fell.
The knife plunged straight into Xiao Yu’s body. The girl let out a miserable scream, and the world around them began to collapse.
Wei Kexin grabbed Qi Jiu. “What’s happening? Does this mean we can leave now?”
But Mu Quyan wasn’t nearly as optimistic as she was. Because of their interference, the woman in red had ended up killing her own daughter. That definitely didn’t count as a happy ending.
The ground beneath their feet split open, and the three humans and one squirrel plummeted downward.
In midair, the little squirrel curled into a ball, his fluffy fur fluttering in the wind like a puffball.
“Zhi zhi zhi—!”
The squirrel’s light weight made him fall more slowly.
Mu Quyan grabbed the spring-loaded knife the woman had dropped and, with all his strength, jammed it into the cliffside. The sharp rock tore his hand open, and he scraped along the wall, blood streaking down as he slowed his fall.
His descent began to slow, and he gradually drew closer to the little squirrel.
“Tang Tang!” Mu Quyan shouted.
Bai Tang widened his eyes and clearly saw where Mu Quyan was. He spread his limbs and leapt toward him.
With a smack, a ball of squirrel landed squarely on top of Mu Quyan’s head.
“Tang Tang, hold on tight!”
At Mu Quyan’s words, the little squirrel dug his claws tightly into his hair, tugging so hard that Mu Quyan winced in pain.
The three people lying on the ground slowly opened their eyes. The first thing Mu Quyan did was look for his little squirrel.
Nothing. Nowhere. He couldn’t find him.
He parted every patch of grass, moved every stone—but still couldn’t find his squirrel.
“TANG TANG—!!”
The man’s hysterical roar echoed throughout the amusement park.
Wei Kexin hadn’t fully regained her senses and was overwhelmed by Mu Quyan’s madness.
“Tang… Tang is missing?” she finally realized something was seriously wrong.
Qi Jiu grabbed her hand. Wei Kexin turned to him, panicked. “Hurry—let’s find Tang Tang!”
The three of them searched frantically around the amusement park, trying to find any sign of Bai Tang.
Meanwhile, Bai Tang had actually already been taken back to the little white room by Qiu’er.
Xiao A was currently analyzing the situation for him.
“The first plane ended in a Bad Ending. Now the second plane has opened. If you don’t achieve a Happy Ending here, everyone will die inside it.”
“Then what’s our task? It can’t just be guesswork again, like with the woman in red—that was way too hard to figure out,” Bai Tang asked anxiously.
“According to the clues from the first plane, the second plane’s goal is ‘Xiao Yu’s Wish.’ All you need to do is fulfill her wish.”
In the first plane, if Wei Kexin hadn’t interfered and attracted the woman in red, Xiao Yu could have survived, and the second plane would’ve opened normally. After completing it, they could’ve left.
They failed in the first plane—but they still got to enter the second one, all thanks to the protective talismans Bai Tang had exchanged for. Without those talismans shielding them from the red-dressed woman’s deadly aura, they would’ve died instantly.
Because Bai Tang wasn’t wearing a protective talisman, Qiu’er brought him into the space.
“I suggest the host hurry back out—your male lead is going crazy looking for you.”
Following Xiao A’s words, Bai Tang looked at the screen. Mu Quyan’s eyes were bloodshot, madness lurking in their depths. He actually looked a bit like the woman in the red dress.
Bai Tang didn’t dare stay any longer and quickly left the little white room.
The moment he stepped out, someone pulled him into a hug.
“I’m back~”
Bai Tang hugged Mu Quyan tightly, burying his head into the other’s chest.
Author’s Note:
Now that I’m home, I can only type on my phone, which is much slower than using a computer. And honestly, I’ve had even less free time since getting home—someone’s always asking me to do something. 😓