Chapter 451 – Palpitations from That World – Found You (19)
Bai Tang glanced at the afterimage and somehow read a sense of despair from that pitch-black blur.
He chuckled and readily agreed to Wen Junnan’s suggestion.
The afterimage shrank into the corner: I feel terrible right now. Really terrible.
With not enough people, the game couldn’t continue. By the time Wen Junnan returned with Bai Tang, the remaining players—who had only just begun to relax—tensed up again. Now that they were back, it meant the game would resume.
The bottle spun lazily, and when it stopped, it pointed at Li Pai. Chen Wan, sitting next to him, was overjoyed. Among those present, only he and Wen Junnan hadn’t been chosen yet. In the next round, he could pick Truth, giving him a fifty percent chance.
Li Pai, missing an arm, wore a gloomy expression.
Suddenly, he pulled his lips into an extremely ugly, eerie smile. From his pocket, he took out a switchblade and stabbed at Chen Wan beside him.
“Ah…” Li Tefeng sucked in a sharp breath. He could understand the game’s hidden boss making a move, but players turning on each other like this was something he had never imagined.
Ning Sitong remained unmoved. She simply tugged Li Tefeng backward a little. She had seen plenty of players who couldn’t handle the pressure—Li Pai’s case was still minor.
Very quickly, Wen Junnan shielded Bai Tang while Ning Sitong dragged Li Tefeng back. Even the two puppet-like figures sitting on small stools couldn’t help but shuffle backward. With Li Pai at the center, an empty space with a three-meter radius formed around him.
A dark shadow crawled across the ground and, with a whoosh, burrowed into Li Pai’s body. The frenzied Li Pai suddenly stopped and waved at them.
“Continue the game.”
Li Tefeng: Is something wrong with this guy’s brain? Why does he think we’d still listen to him? Anyone who goes over must be the real idiot…
And yet, the “idiot” Wen Junnan actually led Bai Tang over.
Li Tefeng: …
Chen Wan wasn’t dead—the knife hadn’t hit a vital spot.
Ning Sitong took out a medical kit and began bandaging him. When her gaze fell on a brownish mark on his arm, Chen Wan suddenly jerked his hand back like a startled animal, hiding it inside his long sleeve.
“Don’t move too much,” Ning Sitong instructed before retreating with the medical kit to her original spot.
Looking at Chen Wan, who was barely hanging on, Li Pai said, “You can only blame yourself for not paying attention to my story.” In his story, the protagonist stabbed the person beside him in the stomach. But Chen Wan had been too immersed in the joy of not being chosen and had overlooked this detail—so Li Pai conveniently used him as a scapegoat.
Chen Wan burned with resentment, but due to his condition, he couldn’t do anything to Li Pai. In the end, he could only try to “kill” him with his glare.
The dark shadow moved from Li Pai onto Chen Wan, but in less than two seconds, it returned to Li Pai.
A flash of understanding passed through Wen Junnan’s eyes.
So it was him.
Chen Wan’s performance had been very convincing—timid, cowardly, afraid of trouble, afraid of death. But after being stabbed by Li Pai just now, his disguise was no longer perfect. At the very least, he had lost his fear of the game.
Someone who isn’t afraid in a life-or-death game is either very powerful… or they’re part of the game itself—someone who knows the inside story and therefore has nothing to fear.
As for the difference in Chen Wan’s behavior before and after, Wen Junnan was more inclined to believe the latter: the mastermind behind the game—the bandaged man.
The game continued. The “judge” spun the bottle, and this time it pointed at Chen Wan.
Chen Wan was terrified. His eyes widened as he trembled and backed away. “No… I won’t choose a dare. I don’t want to die—I don’t want to die…”
No one wanted to die. The Wei sisters hadn’t wanted to die either—but they still died.
Sympathy was one thing, but none of them could help Chen Wan.
Wen Junnan handed Bai Tang over to Li Tefeng. “Take good care of Tang Tang for me.”
Bai Tang grabbed him. “Where are you going?”
Wen Junnan kissed the boy’s forehead. “Be good. When I come back, we’ll go home.”
Then Wen Junnan walked toward Chen Wan, grabbed his flailing hand, and said clearly, word by word, “I’ll switch with you.”
Chen Wan suddenly calmed down. He looked at Wen Junnan in disbelief. After saying that, Wen Junnan didn’t look at him again, but instead turned to the judges. “I’m volunteering to switch with him. That’s allowed, right?”
The two puppet-like figures, wearing bizarre and comical expressions, stared at them for a while. A glint flashed through Chen Wan’s eyes. Then the two puppets nodded, indicating that it was acceptable.
You can even do that? That’s unbelievable.
Li Tefeng hurriedly said, “Junnan, have you lost your mind?” Why would he rush to his own death? In the next round, he could have easily chosen Truth and passed. Li Tefeng simply couldn’t understand his decision.
“Bai Tang, hurry and talk some sense into him!” Li Tefeng urged anxiously.
Supported by Ning Sitong, Bai Tang’s gaze was steady. “I trust A Nan.”
I trust him. No matter what he does, I’ll support him.
“Crazy, you’re all crazy. Every single one of you is crazy.” With even his brother’s lover supporting this, what else could he say?
Ning Sitong advised Li Tefeng, “Let’s just wait and see.” She had a feeling that everything would end tonight.
Wen Junnan turned back and looked straight at Chen Wan. “Are you ready?”
Excitement flickered in Chen Wan’s eyes. He grabbed Wen Junnan’s hand, thanking him repeatedly. “Thank you—you’re such a good person.”
Wen Junnan’s lips curved slightly. A good person…?
After a dizzying whirl, when Wen Junnan regained his footing, he found himself inside a small wooden cabin. Unlike a brick house, the wooden structure wasn’t tightly sealed—there were small gaps at every corner.
Wen Junnan understood it clearly—no wonder he had deliberately chosen this story.
During the storytelling session, he had told a tale from a certain country about the “Girl in the Gap.” As the name suggested, when people lived in their houses, the Girl in the Gap would peer through cracks to spy on their lives. Those being watched would develop an intense feeling of being observed. Out of curiosity—or anger at being secretly watched—most people would try to find the source of that gaze. Once someone confirmed that something was wrong within the gap and looked inside, meeting the Girl in the Gap’s eyes, they would be taken away by her.
There was one difference between Wen Junnan’s version and the others. Everyone else’s stories had endings—whether good or bad, even open-ended ones with multiple possibilities. But Wen Junnan’s story had no ending. It revolved around houses filled with cracks, with groups of people coming one after another, endlessly repeating. This type of story only had two possible endings: either the participants died, or they found the mastermind behind the scenes and broke the deadlock.
“It seems I don’t have a choice.”
From within the gap, a pair of eyes stared fixedly at the person standing in the center, not quite understanding what he meant by that.
Wen Junnan then sat down with his back facing the largest crack in the house. The eyes stared at him greedily. Look at me… look at me… be afraid… scream…
Not long after turning his back to the gap, Wen Junnan felt a strong sensation of being watched. The gaze was filled with malice, stirring an uncontrollable anger within him. Who is it? Who’s spying on me? I have to catch this pervert.
For a brief moment, the man’s eyes turned cloudy, but they quickly regained clarity.
Tch—such a low-level trick.
Wen Junnan sat there for a long time—so long that the one hidden in the cracks of the wall was about to lose patience—before he finally moved.
He walked to the door and, with a sharp whoosh, pulled it open.
At that exact moment, outside the dream world, Chen Wan suddenly convulsed and collapsed to the ground. His head hit the carpet with a dull thud.
Bai Tang glanced back, then turned around and continued taking care of the unconscious Wen Junnan.
“The pillow got dirty from being used to support his lower back. Miss Ning, could you help me go upstairs and get a new one?” Bai Tang asked, looking at Ning Sitong.
A Nan had told him that Ning Sitong was someone he could trust for now. Bai Tang believed in his judgment. To prevent anything from happening to Li Tefeng inside the house, the only option was to trouble the only girl present to go upstairs.
“No problem.”
The boy’s gentle and polite demeanor suited Ning Sitong’s tastes. Even in such circumstances, he remained calm and didn’t take his frustration out on others—people like that were the ones she admired.
“I’ll go with you,” Li Tefeng said. “It’s too dangerous here. The game isn’t over yet—who knows if something might suddenly appear upstairs?”
“No need. I’m fairly familiar with this place. You stay and take care of Bai Tang.” Ning Sitong tilted her chin slightly in the direction of where Li Pai was, implying something.
Li Tefeng immediately snapped back to his senses. Right—if he left too, what would Bai Tang do? He was completely defenseless. Thinking back to how Li Pai had stabbed Chen Wan, and with Wen Junnan now trapped in a dream, if Li Pai decided to attack again, Bai Tang wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Then be careful. If anything happens, shout,” Li Tefeng said as he moved back to Bai Tang’s side.
Ning Sitong smiled. “Alright.”
The moment she stepped onto the second floor, she felt as if something was lurking in the dim corridor. A strong sensation of being watched crept over her. But due to the lack of light, she couldn’t determine the source for the time being.
The best way to deal with the unknown was to remain unchanged in the face of it. That thing might not necessarily attack her.
Pretending she hadn’t noticed anything, Ning Sitong walked straight into a room, grabbed a pillow and a blanket, and headed back downstairs.
If you don’t court death, you won’t die. So many players had lost their lives because of curiosity—Ning Sitong understood this well. As long as she didn’t meddle or ask unnecessary questions, nothing would usually happen.
She didn’t look back even once. Safely, she returned to the first floor and handed the pillow to Bai Tang.
Bai Tang asked Li Tefeng to help move Wen Junnan onto the sofa. The carpet was dirty and not soft at all. The sofa wasn’t particularly comfortable either, but it would do.
As for Chen Wan, Bai Tang had no intention of taking care of the injured. The sofa wasn’t big enough—he could make do lying on the floor.
Inside the wooden cabin—
When Wen Junnan pulled open the wooden door, Chen Wan, who had been leaning against it to eavesdrop, lost his support and fell with a thud at Wen Junnan’s feet.
In the dream game, he was perfectly healthy. The game only transported a person’s consciousness into the dream. Chen Wan pushed himself up, looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, and asked in terror, “Where is this? Why am I here?”
His trembling voice and shaking body were convincing—if Wen Junnan hadn’t already caught his flaw earlier, he might truly have been deceived by this performance.
Without revealing anything, Wen Junnan pulled him inside, shut the door, and said, “I don’t know either. I took your place in the dare, and ended up in this wooden cabin. There’s no one else here.”