Chapter 83: Hopeless Sea (VII) Greed

The two didn’t discuss the wings further. If leaving the Hopeless Sea was as simple as being killed, then the faction mission should be renamed ‘Good Deeds Start with Me’.

Killing someone from another faction wouldn’t just stain oneself with sin, making atonement harder; it would also allow the opponent to clear the game painlessly—what a grand drama of self-sacrifice for others.

—It didn’t fit the underlying logic of the Eerie Game at all.

Disordered footsteps sounded outside the door, moving from far to near. Presumably, the other players had finished dinner and come up to the second floor.

Qi Si listened as the footsteps dispersed, disappearing into their respective rooms amidst a succession of unlocking sounds. Silence settled in the air once more.

After an unknown amount of time, a “thump, thump, thump” sounded at the door—three unhurried knocks. The polite manner made it hard to feel any ill will.

Qi Si walked over and pulled the door open, looking at the person standing outside with a faint smile. “Professor Lu, have you come to the wrong door?”

The person was indeed Lu Li.

He pulled the lapels of his trench coat together, a gentle smile spreading across his face. “After you two went upstairs, we discussed tomorrow’s plan a bit more. There are some things I thought I should tell you.

“I’ve made a preliminary judgment that there are three places worth exploring: the Altar, the Clock Tower, and the Coconut Grove. Among them, the Altar may pose a greater danger. I suggest as few people go there as possible.”

“I understand.” Qi Si smiled and said word by word, “We won’t go to the Altar tomorrow.”

“I’m just making a suggestion; where you actually go is for you to decide. Regardless, safety comes first.” Lu Li sighed, looking quite hurt at being misunderstood.

He stepped back to the side, making a move to close the door. “It’s getting late, let’s all sleep early. Since the rules mentioned a specific sleep time, it might be dangerous to stay up late in this instance.”

Chang Xu had stood by the door at some point, his voice cold. “Lu Li, your eyesight and memory seem quite good to be able to find our room.”

The numbers on the keys were very inconspicuous. Unless one paid close attention, it was highly unlikely they could match the rooms to the people.

Lu Li chuckled and shook his head helplessly. “I’m just better at observing than others. I came up with them, so I remember which room everyone entered. By process of elimination, it’s easy to know the overall information.”

There was no fault to be found in this explanation. Chang Xu lowered his brow slightly and closed the door.

The sleep time specified in the rules was “when the bell tolls ten times,” which converted to 8:00 PM on a twenty-four-hour clock.

The players had dinner promptly when the bell tolled nine times, which was 6:00 PM. After accounting for miscellaneous chores, there was basically not much free time left.

Qi Si lay on the bed, sleeping in his clothes. Just as he was getting drowsy, the door was knocked on once again.

Chang Xu got up to open the door.

Yuna, dressed in a long blue dress, stood outside with a smile, holding two bowls of soup.

Qi Si got out of bed, a polite smile once again on his face. “Yuna, is there something you need this late?”

Yuna walked into the room on her own, placed the soup on the bedside table, and gestured to tell them that it was for calming the nerves and aiding sleep.

Chang Xu stared into her eyes and asked coldly, “What happens if we don’t drink it? What happens if we can’t fall asleep at night?”

Yuna smiled and looked toward the window, gesturing: “Maybe nothing will happen, or maybe you’ll die.”

It was an ambiguous answer with no hint of alarmism; it seemed that whether the players drank the soup or not had nothing to do with her.

Qi Si seemingly casually blocked the door and asked, “If we fall asleep on time, we won’t die, right?”

Yuna nodded and then shook her head: “Everyone dies eventually.”

“What happened to Viscount Crouch, who lived in this room before? Do you know his whereabouts?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you heard of angels? Do you know how a soul can get wings?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

Her formulaic answers and mask-like smile were stingy, refusing to give any more information.

Qi Si stepped aside with a hint of disappointment, allowing Yuna to walk out of the room and depart.

In the silence, Chang Xu glanced at the bowl on the nightstand, then looked at Qi Si.

Drinking the soup might be a path to survival, or it might lead to a bad outcome; with a fifty-percent probability, no one could say for sure which choice was right.

But trusting the decision of an intelligence-type player was always more reliable than acting blindly on one’s own.

Qi Si looked toward the door and said with a smile, “I don’t know what trump cards you have, but if you think no matter what noise there is outside, it won’t wake you up, you don’t have to drink it.”

He casually picked up a bowl of soup, brought it to his lips, and took a sip, holding it in his mouth.

—The concoction was colorless and tasteless; from appearance to mouthfeel, it was no different from plain boiled water, utterly ordinary.

Seeing this, Chang Xu thought of the same thing.

On the first night at Rose Manor, Shen Ming’s death was a recent lesson. In this kind of rule-based ghost story instance that explicitly required sleep, waking up startled in the middle of the night would definitely lead to serious consequences.

At that moment, he picked up the bowl and drained it in one gulp.

Qi Si watched him finish before swallowing the mouthful of soup he had been holding and continuing to sip the remaining liquid in the bowl.

A few seconds later, he set down the bowl and lay flat on the bed near the door.

Chang Xu lay on the other bed and asked abruptly, “Si Qi, is the Pocket Watch of Fate still with you?”

“It’s still here.” Qi Si raised his left hand, revealing the watch on it, a lie coming easily to his lips. “But it merged with a reward item I got in the third instance. I don’t know how to separate them for now. If it really doesn’t work, I’ll return the whole thing to you.”

Chang Xu remained noncommittal, his voice flat. “Pay attention to the time in this instance. I have a hunch that time might be very important.”

Qi Si gave an “mm,” his eyebrows arching slightly as he caught the subtext that Chang Xu didn’t intend to take the pocket watch back.

Then he heard Chang Xu say seriously, “According to the rules of the Eerie Game, whoever has the item when they leave the instance, it belongs to them.”

“Thanks, Brother Chang.” Qi Si smiled gratefully and tucked his left hand under the covers.

He knew in his heart that Chang Xu was only being so generous because he didn’t know the true effect of the Pocket Watch of Fate and only treated it as an ordinary timing device.

And this was exactly what he wanted.

After meeting Lu Li, he had sensed a faint, hidden sense of crisis.

In the struggle for survival, players competed in nothing more than force, wisdom, and information.

He had no advantage in force. While his wisdom was barely superior, there was always someone better; he couldn’t be the only smart person.

Among the old players, there were veterans who had cleared dozens or even hundreds of instances. In extreme cases, there might even be old-timers who had been struggling in the game for thirty-six years.

No matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t bridge the gap accumulated over those decades, let alone oppose the foundation of a large guild with tens of millions of people on his own.

To win the competition, he had to hold tightly onto the few limited cards in his hand.

The 【Pocket Watch of Fate】, which could reverse time, was his greatest reliance in the short term. It was precisely because there was room for regret that he could boldly explore and try new things… The sedative soup gradually took effect, his thoughts scattered, and drowsiness surged like a tide.

Qi Si yawned several times in a row, his consciousness fading, but he felt a gaze fall on him as if it were tangible.

He opened his eyes a crack and, through his hazy vision, saw the man in the white robe in the oil painting “Moses’ Exodus” on the opposite wall leaning forward, his eyes streaming bloody tears.

“Brother Chang, are you asleep?” Qi Si asked softly.

Chang Xu opened his eyes and sat up. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

He followed Qi Si’s gaze and saw the strangely shaped oil painting on the wall, his brow furrowing slightly.

Qi Si’s tone was natural. “There’s something wrong with the painting. I’ll have to trouble you to handle it, Brother Chang.”

Chang Xu was accustomed to the capable doing more work and also knew he possessed a talent for restraining the supernatural. He climbed out of bed and walked to the mutating oil painting.

The man in the painting stared at him with bloodshot eyes, his face no longer holding any sense of sacred compassion, but instead looking as distorted as a malevolent ghost crawling out of hell.

The waves surged, making hallucinatory sounds of the tide. He raised his hand to take the painting off the wall. His fingers seemed to feel moisture through the frame and touch uneven fish bones.

It was as if… something was trying to escape through the painting… Chang Xu held the frame high, making a move to smash it on the ground, when a line of blood-colored text refreshed in the void at the right moment, visible to both people in the room:

【Please do not damage the furnishings in the hotel; Yuna will be very angry if she finds out!】

…Then never mind.

Qi Si got out of bed, pulled off the sheet depicting the Virgin Mary, and handed it to Chang Xu. “Cover the painting with the cloth first, and we’ll figure out a way tomorrow.”

Chang Xu did as told, wrapping the entire painting tightly and throwing the whole bundle of sheet and painting onto the floor.

He looked at Qi Si, who had returned to bed, and raised an eyebrow. “No problem now, right?”

“Maybe. We’ll know tomorrow morning if we’re alive or dead.” Qi Si rolled over, his back to Chang Xu, signaling he didn’t want to talk.

Chang Xu gave an “mm,” blew out the oil lamp by the bed, and also lay down with a rustle.

In the darkness, the vigorous and heavy sound of the bell drifted from afar, tolling ten times unhurriedly, long and distant… In the room near the stairs, the backpacker lay stiffly on the bed, eyes tightly closed, counting sheep.

【2. The bell in the Clock Tower tolls every two hours. Please fall asleep when it tolls ten times and wake up when it tolls four times; please believe that it is safe to sleep in the hotel rooms.】

The rule was clearly written on the system interface. He didn’t dare to be negligent and tried every method to fall asleep quickly, but he only became more awake.

His name was Xu Maochun, and he was a game streamer. It was common for him to have his days and nights reversed, and at thirty, he suffered from neurasthenia. Falling asleep in reality was already difficult, let alone in the completely unfamiliar environment of the Eerie Game.

After the ten tolls of the bell, the backpacker was not sleepy at all. The eerie oil painting on the wall had already been covered by him with a sheet, but the fear of the unknown still wove like a net in his heart, leaving him anxious and unable to sleep.

He took a deep breath and recalled various funny jokes in his mind, attempting to relax. He thought with gallows humor that at least he was close to the stairs and could run away in time if something happened.

Time passed minute by minute, and the backpacker finally leveled and slowed his breathing, allowing his consciousness to become dazed.

In his haze, a melodious and ethereal song drifted from afar, faint and elusive, like a sacred hymn chanted by an ancient priest. The lyrics and melody, whose content could not be heard clearly, mixed together. The strange pronunciations with a mysterious aura seemed to become a kind of musical instrument themselves, beautiful and harmonious.

The wooden window was blown open by the wind at some point, and the sea breeze carried the sound of ocean waves into the room. The singing was diluted by the waves, as if it were just a call from nature.

The backpacker found his mind calming down involuntarily. He slowly got up, walked to the window, and looked out at the azure sea under the orange-yellow sky.

The shimmering surface of the sea seemed to be covered with a layer of silver flakes. He seemed to see the falling feathers of angels and thought of the bliss of heaven.

I really want to go to the beach and see… I really want to go to the beach… The backpacker turned around, walked toward the door step by step, and pushed it open, jolted by the cold wind in the corridor.

Wait! What’s wrong with me? I can’t go out!

His remaining reason issued a danger warning. He stopped abruptly by the door and stiffly twisted his limbs, wanting to retreat back into the room.

His joints creaked as they rubbed together, eroding all his strength. The distant singing occupied him through every pore, smoothing over his alertness, thinking, cognition, and memory inch by inch… His brain suddenly went blank. He felt wonderful, his body light as cotton, ready to fly with the wind and ascend to heaven at any moment.

A joyful smile appeared on his face, and he began to skip with light steps, going down the stairs one by one, passing through the empty first-floor lobby, and walking toward the sea.

The white schools of fish floating on the surface of the sea grinned at him with identical smiles, one after another turning into white-feathered angels and rising into the high sky.

As if encouraged, he walked into the sea step by step, allowing the water to gradually submerge his knees, abdomen, and the top of his head… In the middle of the night, Gao Musheng was awakened by a rustling sound.

In the evening, he, like the other players, had pinched his nose and eaten the fish on the table to fill his stomach.

Others might not have been able to tell, but he was absolutely certain that those “fish” all tasted like human flesh!

Although he had long been used to this kind of ingredient, in the Eerie Game, related food was often linked to danger. He wasn’t willing to lose his life for the sake of his appetite.

Knowing the food was problematic, anyone who drank the soup Yuna sent would be a fool—Gao Musheng didn’t believe that NPC had any good intentions.

The bowl of soup was placed by the bed; he didn’t touch a drop, simply covered his head, and fell asleep.

Gao Musheng always prided himself on being adaptable and able to fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow; it was the first time he had been awakened by such a light rustling sound.

He quickly realized this was a trick of the Eerie Game’s mechanics, muttered a low “fuck,” and then reached for the soup bowl by the bed.

The subtle rustling sounds outside the door were dense, like hundreds of pythons moving together through a dense forest, dragging a light “rustle” as they approached the door, searching together for prey to swallow.

A knock sounded at the door, and Gao Musheng felt a chill rush from his spine straight to the crown of his head. He didn’t dare to be negligent and hurriedly poured the entire bowl of soup down his throat.

Drowsiness surged in time. He casually tossed the bowl onto the floor and leaned back, about to fall back asleep.

“Thump, thump, thump…” The knocking continued and grew louder, about to break through the door.

Gao Musheng realized something, and fear and regret suddenly reached their peak. He propped up his body, wanting to sit up, but could no longer find the strength.

In his last glance, he saw the door of the room being knocked open from the outside, and countless strange black shadows flooded in…