Chapter 93: Hopeless Sea (17) Queue

Pustulent yellow eyes occupied half the sky, drawing the entire island into their field of vision.

A gentle breeze carried the sound of singing from afar; fish-scale-like shadows floated on the fog-shrouded sea surface, and the floating corpses of the wrongly dead, having come from afar to pay homage to the gods, prostrated themselves piously.

Countless fragmented thoughts flooded into his mind, nearly occupying his original rational thinking and becoming his entire perception.

His consciousness was slowly torn apart, his emotions categorized and layered, settling down. Qi Si felt as if he were a molting snake, stripped layer by layer of his outer shell, leaving only the most fragile remains to face the most eerie terror.

A perspective looking down from a high place was suddenly granted to him.

He watched helplessly as his own body crawled up from the bed, walked step by step to the window, and gazed at the distant sea with near obsession.

— It looked like it would jump down at any moment.

【Identity Card hidden effect “Lucid Dream” has been triggered. It cannot be activated again in this instance.】

The evil spirit on the card anxiously twisted its tentacles formed of black smoke, and bubbles of sanity expanded and burst, making a “crackle” sound.

Qi Si briefly pulled himself out of the grotesque hallucinations, and the clues he had sorted out earlier scrolled and replayed before his eyes: the wide-open window in Xu Maochun’s room, the recording that could dispel hallucinations…

The moment inspiration struck, his wandering soul poured back into his body. Qi Si turned the volume of the Recorder to the maximum, and his drowsy brain regained clarity after a moment of daze.

He raised his hand to close the window, then leaned back against the center of the window frame with a “bang.”

The strange song came to an abrupt halt, and the eerie scene was blocked outside. Behind his ears came a “creak,” like sharp fingernails digging into the wooden wall.

The half-centimeter-thick wooden board was suddenly as thin as paper, transmitting the sensation of something rubbing against his clothes. From time to time, there were heavy thuds striking from various directions, growing heavier, as if testing from which angle it would be easier to smash the window open.

Qi Si vaguely felt an itch on his back. He raised his hand to touch his arm, which was pressed against the window frame; it was covered in goosebumps, and the touch was ice-cold.

Good news: the first death point indeed came from the window; as long as the window was closed, he would be safe.

Bad news: the window was about to be smashed open.

Qi Si’s gaze slowly shifted to Chang Xu, who was lying on the bed in front of him, dead to the world, and then fell onto the bedside table next to him.

He used his foot to hook the bedside table to the window, placing it right under the window gap, then lunged onto the bed in a few steps and dragged the corpse-like Chang Xu down.

Chang Xu looked thin, but he was quite heavy to move. Qi Si was pressed down and stumbled, almost falling to the ground.

In just one second, the window was blown open by the wind again.

Qi Si stood Chang Xu’s body upright in front of him, blocking his eyes, forcing himself not to see the scene outside the window.

He took small steps to the bedside table he had set up earlier, positioned Chang Xu so that he was sitting on it, and closed the window again. After letting go, Chang Xu’s back pressed perfectly against the wooden window — perfect!

Chang Xu’s eyes were tightly closed, and he leaned against the window, unaware of anything. The “bang-bang” sound of impacts echoed outside the window, never ceasing.

Qi Si stepped back, touched his chin, and examined it for two seconds, still not quite reassured.

So, he pulled a thin wire from his bracelet, laid it across the side of Chang Xu’s neck, and then fixed the other two ends into the wall board.

The second rule stated very clearly that it is safe to sleep in the hotel room.

And as soon as the window was smashed open, the thin wire would cut Chang Xu’s neck, which would contradict the rule.

Qi Si watched the old wooden window with composure, smiling with full malice:

“You can certainly keep trying to kill me, but you first need to figure out how to blow open the window without hurting this sleeping person…”

“The rule is supreme; even gods must obey it — can you bear the cost of violating the rule?”

He sat on the bed unhurriedly, his fingers tapping the edge of the bed intermittently. The sound of impacts outside the window gradually ceased, and only the song played by the Recorder could be heard in the room.

The oil painting on the wall had once again shaken off the bedsheet covering it during the chaos just now. Moses’ robes had been torn to shreds, revealing a blood-dripping skeleton.

Below, the fish bones that had sprouted feathers were topped with huge human faces, their mouths full of blood, but their expressions were filled with panic and fear, each looking outside the frame as if wanting to escape.

Qi Si waited for a while, but when no incident occurred, he simply stood up and walked over, staring eye-to-eye with the Ghosts in the oil painting through the glass of the frame.

He touched his chin with a serious air: “You are trapped in the painting and want to regain your freedom now, don’t you?”

There was no response, only the rustling sound of snakes and insects crawling in the corridor, signaling the arrival of the fish-headed, human-bodied monsters.

Qi Si took down the frame unhurriedly, revealing the friendly smile of an evil god deceiving believers: “You’ve been hanging here for so many years without ever fulfilling your wishes; why not try changing your investment target? I just don’t know — are you interested in signing a Contract with me?”

The oil painting naturally could not express its meaning clearly. After Qi Si proposed the clause requiring the Ghosts in the painting to provide their full assistance, the golden dice in his Hall of Thought automatically entered the throwing phase.

99 points, greater than 80, the Contract was concluded.

Qi Si walked out of the room carrying the frame, meeting the fish monsters filling the corridor, but unexpectedly, those fish monsters all quieted down upon hearing the recording.

He turned off the recording, but the fish monsters still refused to step forward, clearly not daring to bear the responsibility for damaging the oil painting.

Qi Si had no choice but to raise the frame and smash it onto the head of an unlucky fish monster.

The moment the frame shattered, specks of white light flew out from the hole, turning into colorful liquid that poured down.

Qi Si saw the mass scene he had once seen in his dreams, only this time, the High Priest standing in front of the church was replaced by Yuna in a blue dress.

Her face was holy, and the huge wings behind her covered the sky and sun. After the believers finished their prayers, she tore off her feathers and scattered them over the earth, and golden blood droplets fell like rain.

The believers’ wishes became more and more exaggerated; Yuna tore off more and more feathers, and her wings became smaller and smaller, deformed and ugly. Finally, one day, she held the Idol of the Sea God, causing the monstrous waves to submerge the town.

The believers died, and their souls were trapped in the painting. All the feathers on Yuna’s body fell off, and she began to grow dense fish scales…

Qi Si understood at this point that the greatest help the paintings could provide was filling in the clues related to the world-building background — but this was enough for him.

He turned the Recorder back on, walked down the stairs, took down the angel painting behind the counter in the lobby on the first floor, and did the same, with a new scene appearing before his eyes.

The battered Yuna asked the High Priest: “Must I pay with my flesh and blood, burning my life, to gain their acceptance and adoration?”

The High Priest smiled and said: “They initially believed in God only to gain spiritual comfort. After I arrived, they obtained material satisfaction and naturally assumed it was the promised thing.”

“When you — or other gods — take over from me to govern this place, they will long since be unsatisfied with small favors and will covet greater benefits. Desires are endless, and greed is everlasting; this is humanity.”

Yuna asked again: “You knew all this long ago; why did you still do it?”

“Because it’s interesting.” The High Priest’s smile deepened. “Luring them to get used to getting something for nothing, then pulling out one day, and watching them rot to death here, or be destroyed by some ill-tempered entities — don’t you think it’s interesting?”

Yuna said: “I regret it. I don’t want to be your angel anymore. I just want my mother to come back to life and leave this rotten town with me.”

The High Priest lowered his eyes and placed his index finger to his lips: “Destruction is easy, but repairing is very troublesome, and I don’t want to bear such trouble for you. Poor child, you can no longer turn back.”

The scene came to an abrupt end. Qi Si returned to the second floor with great interest, pulled the second thin wire from his bracelet, and began to pick the locks of the rooms one by one.

…

Inside the room, Liu Yuhan leaned against the wooden window, burying her head in writing and drawing in her notebook.

Perhaps because she and Zhang Hongfeng had gone to the kitchen, Yuna did not send a bowl of Calming Soup to their room.

According to the experience of the first day, without the Calming Soup, even if she could fall asleep, she would inevitably wake up in the middle of the night. It would be better to use the remaining time to deduce, perhaps she could obtain key clues and survive the death crisis.

Liu Yuhan repeatedly copied down what she had seen and heard since entering the instance, even down to the expressions and behavior of each player, like a failing student in the last half hour of an exam, eager to fill in the blanks on the test paper and get some partial credit.

The bell rang, announcing that another two hours had passed.

The countdown to death ticked on, and past memories surged up in waves, like the lantern of life that people are said to see when they are about to die.

Liu Yuhan saw the small town where she had lived for the first half of her life, with mountains of exercises and red banners intertwined, and trains puffing white smoke rushing toward high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete.

At a certain moment, the barrier in the sky shattered with a roar, and she fell uncontrollably into the pitch-black abyss, endless accusations and curses drowning her, and the trivial, tangled entanglements ensnared her…

“What’s the point of a girl reading books? You only know how to waste money!” “You jinx, you cursed your father to death, and now you’re squandering his compensation…” “You still have the nerve to cry? Get to work!”

The noise and chaotic images were crushed into a ball, and in the mottled color blocks, a black metal card stood out exceptionally clearly. A year ago, she reached out to touch it as if possessed, just as she had received that fountain pen from her father many years before.

【In the Eerie Game, you can get everything you want.】

That voice told her so.

At that time, she said without hesitation, word by word: “I want a new life.”

The midnight bell struck twelve times, and Liu Yuhan heard a rustling sound outside the door. The sound was sometimes far and sometimes near, as if it were wandering around looking for something.

Zhang Hongfeng sat blankly on the side, not daring to make a sound before, but now he couldn’t help but ask with a mournful face: “Are those Ghosts here? What should we do?”

“Soon, wait a moment,” Liu Yuhan said.

The pages of the notebook in front of her flipped, and the dark golden handwriting, like embroidered thread catching fire, burned lines of crimson gilt on the paper.

【Clue analysis in progress… Analysis progress 1%】

The wooden window behind her shook violently, as if some giant monster was about to break through, almost pushing over Liu Yuhan, who was sitting against it, through the wooden board.

The unknown existence outside the door had already locked onto the target, the rustling sound stopped at the door, rubbing against the door panel, making a swishing, snakelike sound.

Liu Yuhan’s voice was slightly cold: “Uncle Zhang, take down the frame and stand it in front of the door.”

“Oh, oh!” Zhang Hongfeng didn’t understand, but he still took the “Moses Leaving Egypt” oil painting, which had undergone significant changes, off the wall, held it in front of him like a shield, and stood stiffly at the door.

【Analysis progress 3%】

The things outside the door began to knock, the “dong-dong-dong” sounds rising one after another, not for inquiry or request, but more like probing and intimidation.

The knocking became louder and louder, almost like pounding on the door. The group, one after another, wanted to smash into the room with brute force, and the rotten wooden door was already overwhelmed…

【Analysis progress 11%】

The door was smashed open from the outside, and countless black shadows surged into the room. They were fish-headed, human-bodied monsters, their bodies dotted with strange fish scales, dripping with suspicious mucus.

The fish monsters stretched out their sharp claws to grab Zhang Hongfeng, who was standing at the door, but after noticing the oil painting in his hand, they hurriedly stopped their actions, retreated, paced anxiously at a distance of half a meter, and let out bursts of angry low roars.

Zhang Hongfeng was dumbfounded: “This… what’s going on? Are they afraid of this painting?”

“They are afraid of damaging the painting,” Liu Yuhan explained calmly. “If the painting is damaged, Yuna will be very angry. These fish monsters are under Yuna’s management and certainly dare not offend Yuna.”

“That’s good, that’s good.” Zhang Hongfeng patted his chest. “Are we saved?”

Liu Yuhan did not speak.

Just a moment ago, she heard a “crack” sound. Whether due to the instance mechanism or some other reason, the frame was slowly being damaged, with cracks growing from the edges.

She could almost foresee that once the glass of the frame completely shattered, the fish monsters would act without restraint, and the people in the room would have no possibility of survival…

【Analysis progress 25%】

The illusory golden fountain pen scribbled on the pages, and the analysis speed of the Strange Tale Notebook was exceptionally slow. Expecting puzzle-solving skills to save the day in a crisis was simply a fantasy.

Liu Yuhan asked: “Uncle Zhang, are you willing to take a gamble with me?”

Zhang Hongfeng held the frame in one hand and scratched his head with the other: “Little girl, whatever you think, just do it. I’m just a rough guy who doesn’t understand anything; I’ll listen to you!”

Liu Yuhan walked to the door and gazed gloomily at the corridor full of shadows: “We’re going to the first floor; there are two more paintings there, enough to hold us for a while.”

The glass of the frame was already half-cracked, Moses’ face was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, and a pair of eyes stared resentfully outside the painting, as if about to break out of the frame at any moment.

Liu Yuhan grabbed half of the frame, and she and Zhang Hongfeng held the frame side by side, walking out of the room.

The fish monsters in the corridor retreated one after another, shrinking back to make a path, not daring to touch the frame, and even trying their best to avoid the players holding the frame, for fear of accidentally scraping it and causing the frame to be destroyed.

The sound of the glass shattering became more and more distinct. Liu Yuhan quickened her pace, leading Zhang Hongfeng toward the stairs, and in a trance, she seemed to hear a hoarse song.

“Fearing, praying, I only see the sea and the drowned souls…”

The singing clearly came from a Recorder, filled with noise after being transcribed through the medium, blurry, but the general lyrics could still be understood.

Liu Yuhan felt the Strange Tale Notebook in her arms release a scorching temperature. Looking down, she saw the analysis progress increasing rapidly at an unprecedented speed.

An eerie image gradually took shape. In the bewildered darkness, a pair of scarlet eyes were embedded. Under the blood-colored gaze stood a pale figure, holding a condescending posture, calm, even indifferent…

【Analysis progress 100%】

With the last stroke, the person in the picture had a face and expression.

It was clearly a familiar face, but now it was so strange. He was smiling playfully, his gaze carrying a kind of pity that a higher being has for insects and beasts, like a god.

“Oh God, save me, the cabin is crowded, corpses and cargo are piled up…”

The singing came closer and closer, and the fish monsters, just inches away, seemed to be appeased, stopping their steps one after another, slowly turning and tilting their ears, looking toward the source of the singing to pay homage.

They were as ignorant as children, dragging their feet and leaving trails of water as they lined up, like sleepwalkers hearing the call of their hometown, following it confusedly and blankly.

Liu Yuhan looked up and gazed, only to see a young man in a white shirt and black trousers deep in the corridor, holding an old-fashioned Recorder high in one hand and hugging a thick stack of oil paintings framed in frames in the other.

Noticing Liu Yuhan’s gaze, the young man smiled gently: “Are you going to get these paintings? I think all the paintings in the hotel should be with me now, so you don’t have to make an extra trip.”

“It took me a lot of effort to collect all these paintings. Big Boss Yuhan, how about we talk about a deal?”

“…Give up, give up, there is no hope of going home…”

The last line of the song rang out just in time, and a new round of the loop began.

Liu Yuhan was silent for a long time, then asked: “What kind of deal?”