Chapter 2280: A Special Way to Hide
The passage wasn’t as dangerous as they had imagined, but it also wasn’t the exit they had hoped for. The end was a morgue, with walls full of cold storage cabinets.
Zhu Xiaojin casually opened two of them. “These are the old ladies we saw in the residential area.”
Old Cai pulled open another one on the opposite side. “It’s not just them—there are some of us too.”
The others looked over and saw that the cabinet he had opened contained a corpse with the exact same appearance as Tang Yu, with another one of Zhu Xiaojin lying right next to it.
The Painting Woman ran over and opened all the cabinets. Including herself and the young man, all six of them were lying there in perfect order.
“Real or fake?” Zhu Xiaojin reached out and touched one, then immediately changed expression. “My senses have already been affected.”
Old Cai also touched “himself.” The feel was like a living person—he could even sense body heat.
“What’s the use of copying us?” Tang Yu asked. “Even if they came to life, they couldn’t use items. What difference would that make from the others in the residential area?”
Without a word, the Painting Woman pulled a dagger from her backpack and stabbed the “herself” in the cold cabinet. The blade went straight into the face. The corpse, which had been lying still, immediately opened its eyes and screamed, clawing at the Painting Woman’s arm before quickly shriveling into a dried-up, unrecognizable corpse.
The Painting Woman pulled out the knife, glanced at Xu Huo first, then stabbed the person in the next cabinet. That corpse also changed, but Xu Huo himself remained unaffected.
Seeing her raise the knife and walk toward him, Zhu Xiaojin quickly stopped her. “I’ll do it myself, no need for you to trouble yourself.”
He didn’t dare stab the face directly and instead chose to cut the arm. In fact, his caution was justified, because after making the cut, he felt the pain himself.
“Looks like I’ve fallen for it,” he said. “So this is the killer move of this damn place.”
“What do we do with these?” Tang Yu asked. “It’s not safe to carry them around, but leaving them here risks other players using them.”
“The jamming device doesn’t work,” Old Cai said. “We need to find the holder as soon as possible, or who knows what this will turn into by tomorrow.”
After some discussion, they decided to take the “corpses” out. Considering that close contact might deepen the psychological suggestion, they opted to place them in the green belt of the residential area and protect them with items.
There was no exit under Building 7, but it wasn’t a total loss. Xu Huo found another numbered corpse in the cold cabinets—a female corpse with an unfamiliar face.
“Could this be the holder?” Zhu Xiaojin glanced at it. “Besides us, there are no other players here.”
“Let’s test it.” Xu Huo mobilized his space power and severed the female corpse’s left hand. The body showed no reaction, like a real corpse.
“Let’s take it along,” he said. “The other party lured us to Building 7 just to show us these corpses. Sight and touch deepen psychological suggestion. Even if these weren’t living people, there’s no reason for the pain to be linked.”
“Then let’s get out of here quickly,” Tang Yu couldn’t help saying. “I don’t know if it’s an illusion, but I feel like my hair is standing on end. I’m a bit scared.”
“Don’t let yourself get drawn in,” Zhu Xiaojin reminded her.
Tang Yu nodded and then brought up the red-dressed child from earlier. “What was that kid about?”
“There’s nothing else here. It might be a restriction from the item,” Xu Huo said, releasing his spiritual realm and thoroughly checking the surrounding space. The space was sealed, with no place to hide. It wasn’t much different from other parts of the residential area.
After leaving the underground garage, Xu Huo tried to stir the time power here.
Once night fell in the residential area, he had sensed that the time power here differed somewhat from that of Buliucheng outside. However, after checking everywhere, he hadn’t found any particularly dense concentration of time power. It felt like an ordinary space, just with time not synchronized with the outside—it didn’t mean time power was actively at work here.
But now, as he activated the time power, he noticed that within the entire residential area, Buildings 5 and 7 occasionally emitted a fluctuation of time power. It was brief and rapid, with a small range, so subtle it was almost imperceptible if one wasn’t paying attention.
How fascinating.
Xu Huo’s expression shifted slightly. It seemed time power was clustering in Buliucheng. Even an item could have such intricate time rules—no wonder they hadn’t been able to catch the person for so long.
He carefully observed the time fluctuations in the two buildings. The time power on both sides seemed to alternate. Within less than five seconds of a different time power appearing in Building 5, Building 7 would also have one. Then there would be a pause of about five minutes, followed by another flash of time power in Building 5, and then Building 7 again.
Due to the special rules, the space in this residential area was unstable. However, judging from the movement of space power, even if someone disappeared from the area, they would only be teleported to another part of it, not directly into some unknown space.
The time power, on the other hand, seemed to form an independent zone, cycling at a fixed location.
Yet it truly wasn’t in another space… To describe it, it was a bit like the chaotic space-time that had appeared in Zone 014, as if the time power from another space had claimed a foothold here.
He didn’t fully understand what that time power was, but that didn’t stop Xu Huo from capturing these two forces. Estimating the next occurrence of the time power, he directly moved into Building 5 and caught a glimpse of the female player flashing through the stairwell.
Both sides were surprised when they met, especially the female player, but the next second, she vanished from her spot again.
“Don’t run,” Xu Huo said, remotely activating the time power that differed from the rest of the residential area. The female player, who had been heading toward Building 7, fell from midair, landing right in view of Old Cai and the others outside.
“Grab her!” Zhu Xiaojin shouted, appearing beside the female player in a flash. But before his item could take effect, the person in his field of vision abruptly disappeared, only to reappear ten meters away.
Old Cai and the others didn’t understand what was happening, but as long as she had shown herself, she wouldn’t get away so easily!
“Falling Leaves Return to Roots!” Old Cai called out. The airborne female player was suddenly yanked toward the ground. Her figure flickered once more, but she couldn’t get far before being blocked again.
“Dazzling Confusion!” The female player used her trait as well. While Zhu Xiaojin and the others were blinded, she charged straight for Building 7. But just before she could enter, her foot was suddenly grabbed.
The Painting Woman looked up at her with a smile, then pointed upward. The female player’s face changed drastically, but it was too late—she couldn’t even turn her head, because the materialized object had already wrapped around her neck.
The moment she was caught, the time power in the residential area violently fluctuated. Then, the sky returned to brightness.