Chapter 2276: 603
"Was that the woman from earlier?" Tang Yu said. "She doesn't seem like an ordinary person. I'm not sure if she's wearing some powerful item, but based on her physique and aura, she doesn't appear to be a player."
Xu Huo's spiritual realm was enough to cover this residential complex. While the others were talking, he had already quickly searched the entire area but found no trace of that woman.
"I'm not sure if this is caused by an item," he said. "That woman from earlier has disappeared."
"Not in the complex? Then she must be a player. An ordinary person couldn't have walked out either." Old Cai's expression darkened. "We can basically rule out an instance. If this isn't an item, I really can't think of anything else that could achieve this effect. The more powerful an item, the stronger its restrictions. Since she's not here, the only remaining answer is that the item's coverage extends beyond just this complex."
"Let's go out and take a look." Xu Huo turned and walked toward the main gate. Tang Yu and Zhu Xiaojin hesitated, about to say something, when an old lady burning paper money in the distance suddenly called out to them, a hint of urgency in her voice. "It's already dark. What are you young people still doing outside? Hurry up and go home!"
Xu Huo stopped in his tracks and turned back to ask her, "We don't live here."
The old lady was startled, then said with some irritation, "You youngsters don't know the rules. Is this place somewhere you can just come and go as you please? You should have left earlier... It's already dark. You won't be able to get out. If you really have nowhere to go, come to my place. I live in 603."
After saying this, the old lady hurried away, muttering under her breath things like "The living walk the main road, the dead don't block the way" and "Dead ghosts, recognize the face."
It wasn't just her. Several other old ladies did the same—hurriedly finishing their paper burning, then rushing back to their own buildings and disappearing into some stairwell.
"We're not really trapped here, are we?" Zhu Xiaojin tentatively reached his hand out past the main gate. There was no obstruction, but beyond the gate was another identical residential complex.
"Space has been restricted." Xu Huo tried to manipulate spatial power, only to find a spatial barrier outside the complex that was completely unshakable. Unlike the blockade barriers of ordinary spatial items, which had traces to follow, this was like the very edge of this world—no gaps to exploit whatsoever.
"Then it's most likely an item." Old Cai stood by his judgment. "Looks like some kind of ghostly item. Mental interference has to reach a certain level to actually affect reality—meaning mental power must be able to materialize into objects. We're all B-rank players. General mental interference is hard to take effect in a short time. If it wants to cause damage, it has to condense its power into a physical form, similar to the situation in mental-type instances."
Similar to the "Seventeenth Hospital," where players' imaginations in the instance could deepen to the point of having lethal power. That was no longer purely an illusion brought on by mental interference, but a tangible condensation of mental power, akin to the materialized objects of mental evolution.
Given the players' strength, if mental interference couldn't achieve its goal quickly, the best approach would be a direct attack. That should also be the purpose of that player luring them here. But with a physical entity, it could attack the players, and the players could attack it in return.
However, there was really no need for them to waste time here, so they tried to leave the complex. But the moment they stepped out the gate, they found themselves back where they had been standing—because of the rain, their footprints were still at the entrance, so after stepping out, they returned to their original positions.
"It looks like we really can't get out." Tang Yu said, "Maybe we should go inside and look around?"
No one objected, so they headed straight for the nearest building. Searching floor by floor would obviously be inconvenient, and Xu Huo had already searched earlier, so Zhu Xiaojin directly placed a bomb on the first floor. "Instead of us looking for her, let's make her come to us. Maybe this explosion will blow that item to pieces!"
After setting the bomb, they retreated a safe distance. With a deafening explosion, Building 1 began to collapse from the bottom, even dragging down Building 2 next to it.
At that moment, the rain stopped. As billowing dust clouds burst outward, all the lights in the complex went out. Darkness flooded in like a tide, swallowing Xu Huo and the others. But only a moment later, the lights came back on.
The scattered points of light were no different from when the sky had suddenly darkened earlier. The rain began to pour down again, and the building that had just been blown up stood there perfectly intact.
Xu Huo and the others were still sheltering from the rain at the main gate.
"It's already dark. What are you young people still doing outside? Hurry up and go home!" The old lady burning paper money called out to them from a distance.
"What the hell, did time rewind?" Zhu Xiaojin blurted out.
"We don't live here. We just came in to get out of the rain," Xu Huo asked the old lady. "Ma'am, which way can we get out?"
The old lady answered off-topic, "It's not safe outside when it's dark. If you have nowhere to go, you can stay at my place for the night. It just so happens my grandson is away at school, so there's an empty room. You can squeeze in together."
"Sure." Xu Huo agreed lightly, then said to Zhu Xiaojin and the others, "Let's go take a look."
Blowing up the building hadn't worked, and there was no better option for now. They had to figure out what was really going on here.
The group followed the old lady to 603.
The old lady was quite hospitable. As soon as they entered, she handed them towels, poured them water, and even brought out cookies and fruit she was reluctant to eat herself to entertain them.
It was a three-bedroom, one-living-room apartment, kept very clean. But since a funeral had just been held, there was a photo of an old man enshrined in the home, and some folded old clothes were piled on the sofa.
"Those clothes are ready to be thrown out. Now that he's gone, these things can't stay." The old lady rambled on about family matters.
Her son and daughter-in-law had died in a car accident years ago. She and her husband had raised their grandson together. The husband had been strict with the boy, and the two often argued over schoolwork. The grandson had no talent for studying. After spending money to get into a mediocre university, he soon started skipping classes and stopped going altogether.
This had driven the relationship between the grandson and his grandparents to the freezing point. Even when the old man passed away, the grandson didn't come back.
The old lady took out her grandson's photo, wiping it over and over. "My good grandson, come back soon. Grandma has made you something delicious."
Unable to sit still, Zhu Xiaojin used the excuse of going to the bathroom to open the door to one of the bedrooms. A moment later, he came out with a face like he'd eaten a fly, pointing at one of the rooms. "The grandson is enshrined in there. The room is plastered with talismans, and there's a coffin on the bed."
"Ma'am, your cookies are pretty good. Could I have some more?" He sent the old lady away, then said to Xu Huo and the others, "Wait here. I'm going in to set a fire."
"No need." Xu Huo, through the gap in the door, sliced the coffin and the corpse inside it into pieces. Immediately, a bloodcurdling scream that didn't sound human rang out. (End of chapter)