Chapter 422: The Head Outside the Window
For players who have been in the game for a longer time, they will definitely find a way to circumvent the defect of being unable to see in the dark at night. If conditions are roughly equal, the confrontation between "humans" and "ghosts" is essentially a confrontation between players. Based on this, there will certainly be players who share the same thoughts as Chu Yuan and take action tonight.
More cautious players will observe whether there is anything else in this laboratory.
Unsure of the exact lights-out time, Chu Yuan hurriedly stuffed the food he had brought into his mouth, and even hypocritically asked Xu Huo if he was hungry.
"I have my own." Xu Huo glanced at the observation window, his expression shifting slightly.
"What are you looking at?" Chu Yuan curiously followed his gaze, but there was no one in the corridor.
Xu Huo didn't answer his question directly, instead asking, "Aren't you worried about needing the bathroom after drinking so much water?"
Chu Yuan chuckled and patted the bottle in his hand. "Men, it's easy to handle... I see there's no light switch anywhere. I wonder when the lights will go out..."
As if on cue, the lights in the laboratory went out in reverse order of how they had been turned on. When the lights in the corridor outside them went out, Chu Yuan suddenly dropped the bottle in his hand to the ground and turned to ask Xu Huo, "Did you see that?"
Xu Huo only had time to glance at him before the surroundings sank into darkness. After adapting for two seconds, he turned to the observation window. "See what?"
"I just saw a head floating past..." Chu Yuan lowered his voice, as if afraid of disturbing something. "Just a blurry head, a bit like a shadow."
"You must be seeing things," Xu Huo said calmly. "The observation window in this lab is quite high. If someone shorter were walking outside, their head would just barely be visible. It was probably another player passing by."
"Really?" Chu Yuan's voice paused briefly before speeding up. "Have you forgotten that there are only four female players this time? Apart from Miao Yu, everyone else has long hair. What I saw seemed to be short hair, and Miao Yu is very tall!"
"Damn it, the ghosts that the game said would appear after lights-out aren't players—they're real ghosts!"
"Calm down," Xu Huo said. "Have you ever encountered a dungeon with monsters before?"
"Of course not!" Chu Yuan replied. "But that doesn't rule it out. After evolution, anything can happen! I've seen someone destroy an entire city with a small stone!"
He paced back and forth in front of Xu Huo, then looked up. "I should have bought talismans from Wan Yunrong!"
Xu Huo remained very calm. "It might not necessarily be something from this dungeon. Creating a personal projection is very simple. It could be bait released by other players. If we panic and lose our composure, wouldn't we be playing right into their hands?"
"Right, right," Chu Yuan nodded repeatedly. "If we get scared and run out, we might really get ambushed. Maybe this is the effect of drawing a ghost token? Using fake shadows to confuse players?"
Whether it was a player's doing, Xu Huo wasn't sure, but what he was certain of was that before the lights went out, the shadow he had caught in his peripheral vision darting past from the elevator direction had very long hair. Because it moved too fast, he hadn't seen it clearly, but it quite matched Chu Yuan's description—not like a real human head, but a blurry silhouette.
"Can you see in the dark?" he asked instead.
"No... Can you?"
Xu Huo paused. "Then turn around and see what's outside the window."
Chu Yuan stiffened, his back to the window. "Brother, scaring people can kill them. Don't mess with me."
"I'm telling you to see that there's nothing outside," Xu Huo said. "It's pitch black everywhere, and you can't see anything. Unless that ghost comes with its own fluorescent light, you wouldn't even know if it passed right in front of you."
Hearing this, Chu Yuan's face twitched even more violently. He instinctively bent down to pick up the bottle from the floor.
Xu Huo grabbed the rope and gave it a tug. "Don't be a coward. I'm counting on you to have my back."
Chu Yuan stood still for a moment before forcing a relaxed tone. "You make a good point. Let's rest first and settle accounts with them tomorrow."
The possibility of player involvement couldn't be ruled out, but this laboratory might really be a bit off.
The lab had been emptied out. It was completely unclear what kind of experiments had been conducted here before, but if some radioactive elements remained, it could affect people.
The two found a corner to rest. Before long, Chu Yuan initiated conversation again. "Don't you think it's a bit cold?"
"It's normal to be cold. This is under the island. There might be seawater just one wall away." Xu Huo took out two sleeping bags and handed one to him. "Get some sleep early."
Chu Yuan grabbed the sleeping bag but didn't open it. "I'll move a cabinet to block the door."
"If it's really a ghost, blocking the door won't help. If it's a person, there's no need to block it," Xu Huo said.
Chu Yuan fell completely silent. After Xu Huo lay down, he moved to the side near the wall, simply spread the sleeping bag on the ground, and lay down directly on top of it.
Xu Huo's breathing was steady, as if he quickly fell asleep, while Chu Yuan tossed and turned restlessly, his arm occasionally jerking and pulling at Xu Huo's hand.
As time passed, the originally silent laboratory gradually began to have more sounds.
At first, it was just the sound of running water. Soon, there was the crackling noise that only occurs when objects expand and squeeze. Then came the sounds of furniture being moved and footsteps, as if the entire laboratory had become lively.
"Hey, did you hear that?" Chu Yuan, who had never managed to fall asleep, reached out to push Xu Huo. "There are sounds of many people."
Xu Huo turned his head to look out the window. "It's just an illusion. There's nothing outside. If you're worried, I can go out with you to check."
"No, no." Chu Yuan quickly refused, then listened again. "It seems the sounds have disappeared again."
Silence fell once more. The two continued to sleep. This time, Chu Yuan couldn't hold on either. After an hour of dry endurance, his eyelids were fighting to close. Just as they were about to shut, a scream of indeterminate gender suddenly exploded from outside.
"Damn it!" He sat up like a carp leaping.
Xu Huo also opened his eyes, clearly sensing two people passing nearby and heading in different directions, but he couldn't pinpoint their exact locations.
The spot Chu Yuan had chosen was a small hub—the elevator to the right, and two rooms to the left was a longitudinal corridor.
But this laboratory was arranged in a grid pattern with corridors as lines. Apart from the blocked corridor at the end of the first floor, the interior here was all divided into small sections. Rooms not against the wall were back-to-back, and different directions could lead to the same room.
"This time it's not my auditory hallucination, right? Something happened to a player?" Chu Yuan panted, pricking up his ears to listen for a moment before adding, "These people sure have good composure. No one has come out."
With the situation unclear, whoever went out would be a fool.
Xu Huo said, "Wait until tomorrow morning."
(Chapter End)