1TWITF[C Chapter 43

Chapter 43

The elevator game offers a choice: stay inside the elevator or venture out to explore. But their task clearly isn’t so benevolent as to let them pass through unscathed.

The four had barely rushed out when they stopped in their tracks, simply because they didn’t know where to go. The corridor before them was long, dim, and chilling, the surroundings vaguely indistinguishable, making it feel like walking through a cloud of gray mist.

“Everyone be careful, let’s not get separated,” Chu Xiu said. “It’s best if we hold onto each other’s clothes.”

The corridor was too narrow to accommodate two people walking side by side, so they simply formed a single line, each grabbing the hem of the person in front. Chu Xiu led the way, followed by Shi Yan, then Nie Yunzhen, and Ye Shengke. The four quickened their pace forward.

“Remember, it’s easy to get lost in another world, so we must not get separated, and we must remember the way back,” Chu Xiu emphasized again, increasing his speed.

But… why was this corridor becoming more and more bizarre?

The walls barely showed a hint of their original white color, covered in thick dust and traces of messy scribbles. Mostly strange, childlike drawings, Chu Xiu glanced at them briefly and continued forward, unconcerned.

Chu Xiu looked back; all three figures were behind him. Reassured, he continued forward.

The ground had a soft, rotten texture underfoot, as if covered in decaying animal corpses and expired fruit. But no matter how much their shoes sank in, even seeming to press out some juice, they walked steadily, their soles remaining dry.

“This corridor is so long,” Shi Yan behind him said softly after an unknown amount of time.

“Indeed, I wonder if it’s caught up,” Nie Yunzhen, following Shi Yan, said in a low voice.

To prevent anyone from getting lost, they had agreed to take turns speaking every few minutes, saying anything as long as they made a sound.

After Nie Yunzhen spoke, it was Ye Shengke’s turn next.

But no sound came from behind him for a long time.

Nie Yunzhen’s body stiffened.

He suddenly felt that the hand gripping his coat was so cold, and the footsteps behind him were very strange, light and airy, lacking any living person’s touch.

Nie Yunzhen didn’t speak, afraid of alarming the enemy, and continued forward. Before long, he noticed the position of that hand had changed, gradually reaching towards his back, the four fingers digging straight into his skin, with increasing force.

“Little Ye, stop poking me, it hurts,” Nie Yunzhen said after a while, feigning nonchalance.

There was no response from behind, and the hand slowly moved towards his neck.

In fact, his words were full of loopholes; none of them were wearing shoes with laces. If a shoelace came undone during an escape, it would be a fatal mistake.

Sure enough… Ye Shengke was gone.

The string in Nie Yunzhen’s heart tightened sharply. To be able to take Ye Shengke away without any of the three of them noticing, this ghost’s ability was too terrifying.

He withdrew his gaze, pretended to tie his shoelace for a while, and stood up, his brain racing.

What to do? The corridor was so narrow, and he was standing in the third position, with two people blocking him, making it impossible to suddenly run past. But if he let them run first, wouldn’t he be at the very back?

And where did Ye Shengke go?

To avoid attracting the attention of the ghost behind him, Nie Yunzhen had to maintain a calm facade no matter how much he trembled. He slowly stood up and reached out to grab the hem of Shi Yan’s clothes again.

At the same time, the ghost behind him also reached out and grabbed the hem of his clothes.

“Let’s go,” Nie Yunzhen said, forcing himself to remain calm.

Wait! Why was the hem of Shi Yan’s clothes as light as paper?

In Nie Yunzhen’s astonished gaze, Shi Yan and Chu Xiu, who was walking in front, slowly turned their heads.

And their faces… had completely turned into paper effigies. Pale faces, bright red mouths, their heads turned 180 degrees, looking at Nie Yunzhen, emitting giggling sounds.

“What’s wrong?”

The paper figure behind him also stepped forward, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder, a slit-like mouth opening and closing, uttering words exactly like Ye Shengke’s voice.

“What’s wrong?”

These were the last words Nie Yunzhen heard. Immediately, his consciousness was plunged into darkness.

If Lu Yanli were here, he would surely recognize that the paper figures on the scene were extremely similar to the ones he encountered in Honghe Village. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here; inadvertently, he had stepped into an even deeper dimension.

*

“This corridor is so long,” Shi Yan finally couldn’t help but say after walking for a very long time.

These drawings are also very strange… Shi Yan thought.

She turned her head to the side and met the gaze of one of the drawings. Alarmed, she immediately rubbed her arms and looked away. But when she came back to her senses, she discovered that the other three people were all gone!

How… how could this be?

She didn’t think that the three could disappear so silently. She hadn’t yet discovered a phenomenon in this task where the ghosts killed multiple people at once. So, perhaps the problem was with herself.

Calm… calm down.

Shi Yan desperately suppressed a scream and tried to think.

She had only made eye contact with a drawing and became separated from the three of them. So, were the drawings the key?

However, to her disappointment and relief, all she could hear was her own footsteps, no matter how hard she listened. The other three were nowhere to be found.

Where… is this?

Shi Yan suddenly heard rustling sounds coming from all directions. She looked around questioningly, but the overly dark environment prevented her from seeing anything. Several times, she almost felt dizzy from the dense drawings on the walls.

Yes, these drawings were becoming increasingly dense. Despite their crude style, that face… that face was exceptionally clear!

For some reason, the moment Shi Yan saw that face, she felt extremely uncomfortable. Her heart was gradually overwhelmed by an unknown sense of unease and oppression. She involuntarily avoided that face, eventually quickening her pace and running.

Where should she run?

This corridor had no end!

Shi Yan gritted her teeth, hardened her heart, and suddenly turned around to run back!

A common piece of advice in ghost stories is: never turn around! Because story protagonists often see ghosts and monsters when they inadvertently turn their heads. Suddenly turning around while running like Shi Yan was a very risky move.

But she couldn’t care less.

By now, the female ghost in the elevator should have been lured away, right? It shouldn’t matter if she went back.

But to her shock and despair, the path ahead was also getting narrower and narrower!!

Not good! This path is changing!

Once she realized this, the human faces on the two walls began to become clearer and clearer, slowly highlighting the outlines of skulls. One by one, venomous and ferocious faces stared at her maliciously from all directions, bumps rising and falling on the walls.

The two walls were also getting closer and closer. No matter where Shi Yan hid, she couldn’t escape. She kept running forward, trying to get closer to the elevator. But cruelly, when she was only ten meters away from the elevator, she was completely stuck by the walls and couldn’t pass.

“No!!” Shi Yan wailed. She tried to reach out, constantly trying to squeeze through the cracks in the wall. Even if those monsters with only a head bit parts of her body, it didn’t matter, as long as she could get out, as long as she could go back alive.

But she could no longer escape back into the elevator.

“Mom…” She uttered her last word before dying.

“Crunch, crunch…”

A chewing sound came from inside the wall, a feast for the faces on the wall who had been starving for many years.

A large amount of blood spurted out and was then sucked into the wall, quickly returning to its previous state and slowly opening to both sides.

*

He led his three teammates forward for a few minutes and then stopped, preparing to hold back for the time being.

But when he said these words, there was no response from behind. Chu Xiu suddenly turned around, shocked to find that there was no one behind him!

Then… who was grabbing the hem of his clothes just now?

Chu Xiu didn’t think much about it. He immediately turned around and ran back, but after running for a while, he immediately changed direction again.

The reason was simple. On the ground, a distorted figure, whose bones seemed to have been broken and reassembled, wearing a school uniform, was crawling towards him, dragging a long trail of blood behind her.

Although she wasn’t crawling very fast, the distance between them was getting closer and closer, so close that Chu Xiu could smell the stench on her several times.

This girl… was none other than Wen Qing!

After being killed by Granny Ghost, Wen Qing had prayed to God, asking to be able to start over, correct her mistakes, and save everyone. The omnipotent God had granted her request, but demanded a price: sacrificing the people of an entire hotel as offerings.

To this end, Wen Qing hid in the elevator and killed everyone.

But she never expected that her father would also be inside. By the time she found her father’s head among the body parts scattered on the floor, it was too late—God would not grant the same wish twice.

But before that, her father had also made a wish, which was to revive his daughter. To do this, the price he had to pay was: killing all the creatures his daughter loved most in her lifetime.

He killed Wen Qing’s black cat and grandmother, killed Yun Qian, but he missed one person—himself.

When he himself was killed by Wen Qing along with the people in the entire hotel, the condition was met, and Wen Qing was resurrected.

After resurrecting, Wen Qing, who had not yet regained her memory, once again came to Yinming Road with her friends, repeating that death over and over again.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

The Four Corners Game and the Elevator Game could all plunge them into the chaos of time and space. Even if someone survived and successfully lived to the next round of the game, they would have to face a greater test, because the difficulty of this task was entirely increased by the task-takers themselves!

Chu Xiu was running very fast, but the corridor was too narrow, and there were also unobvious turns from time to time, which greatly affected his running speed. As he ran, he suddenly felt something was wrong.

Why had the sound of that thing crawling behind him disappeared?

No, no, it hadn’t disappeared. It was…

Chu Xiu suddenly squatted down, dodging the flying claws of the ghost.

That thing… had run onto the ceiling!

When Chu Xiu was desperately running just now, it had been chasing after him on the ceiling!

What to do?

What was their path to survival… after all?

While sliding, his whole body suddenly fell to the ground. When Chu Xiu climbed up and looked around, he was shocked.

Where had he come to?

Had he returned?

No, impossible. Walking out of the elevator door would lead to another world. He had heard that this world might be extremely similar to his original world, but it was definitely not the original world.

Chu Xiu stood on the bustling street, feeling somewhat dazed. He was disheveled, but his temperament was cold and stern. Soon, someone noticed him. Several girls passed by and secretly took two pictures.

Strange… could this game really have such great power? To be able to create a world?

Chu Xiu was still motionless. He stood in place and turned around to look. The stairs and the hotel behind him had all disappeared without a trace.

At the end of the street, a team of people wearing long red and white robes was walking towards him.

As soon as he saw these people, Chu Xiu frowned.

Chu Xiu moved to the side of the road to give them a path, so they wouldn’t notice him. Unexpectedly, just as this team was passing by, the woman in the lead suddenly stopped in front of him, staring at his face and scrutinizing him carefully.

“Sir, do you believe in an all-knowing and all-powerful God?”

Chu Xiu didn’t intend to respond, but the woman didn’t let him go. She smiled gently and serenely, waved her hand, and had the people behind her bring the idol over.

That idol—was damn familiar!

“Believe in our Lord, and you will gain eternal life. Our Lord knows everything and can do everything.”

“Is that so?” Chu Xiu said, “Then can it send me back?”

The woman’s smile became even gentler when she heard him ask a question. “Our Lord can do everything, but there must be an equivalent exchange.”

“Equivalent exchange?”

Before Chu Xiu could continue to ask, someone in the distance shouted his name loudly. Chu Xiu didn’t respond, but turned his head to look.

Ye Shengke was standing across the street, waving at him, looking so natural.

If the shadow on the ground behind him didn’t have such a long extra section.

Chu Xiu’s steps, which were originally about to run over, stopped abruptly. His heart was full of suspicion.

Just then, he heard another call.

“Chu Xiu, come here.”

He hurriedly excused himself, and ran upstairs without hesitation.

“What did you see?” Lu Yanli asked bluntly.

Chu Xiu: “The All-Knowing God Cult, have you heard of it?”

Lu Yanli had naturally heard of it.

“I plan to make a wish to him and give it a try. Otherwise, it will be difficult for me to get out of my current predicament,” Chu Xiu muttered to himself.

Lu Yanli didn’t feel the slightest bit strange.

Because, not long ago, he had also made a wish to this all-knowing God.