Chapter 449: The Method of Escape
“Death by suffocation might not necessarily be the work of the Ghost Shadow,” Gan Qing said. “That one wearing the plastic coat also used a plastic bag to kill Wan Yunrong, didn’t he?”
“But aren’t they allies?” Chu Yuan found it hard to believe. “Zhu Rumin was clearly marked as one of the Kong siblings’ people.”
“Not necessarily,” Wu Xiaonan said. “We only heard that from Ge Pan. Who knows if he was just making it up.”
Chu Yuan instinctively looked at Xu Huo.
Xu Huo’s expression shifted slightly. The alliance between Ge Pan, Mao Wei, and Zhu Rumin was certain. A plastic bag could indeed cause suffocation, but the Kong siblings had no reason to kill their own people. Therefore, Zhu Rumin had died at the hands of the Ghost Shadow.
Zhu Rumin had the identity of a “ghost.” Logically, she was the player who could follow the game’s “legitimate” killing rules, yet she was killed first by the Ghost Shadow. This showed that the Ghost Shadow didn’t care whether a player’s identity was “human” or “ghost.” The reason the Ghost Shadow appeared on players was to provoke them into killing each other.
The fact that players couldn’t sense themselves becoming a “ghost” was for the same reason—there was no fixed “ghost”; the Ghost Shadow randomly chose its targets.
If not for Dr. Deng and his group, Zhu Rumin definitely wouldn’t have died yesterday. And the reason the Ghost Shadow killed the Kong siblings’ group might have been because they violated some taboo of the Ghost Shadow.
This laboratory was very clean. Xu Huo had previously speculated that the Ghost Shadow had a habit of cleaning the lab, so damaging the lab might provoke its targeting… He looked at Dr. Deng. “What was the outcome for the people the Bolen Clan sent before?”
“Of course, they found nothing,” Dr. Deng said. “Either they returned empty-handed, or they were all wiped out. A few survived sporadically, but none of them mentioned the Ghost Shadow.”
Xu Huo nodded slightly. Ticket players, even if they didn’t die at the hands of the Ghost Shadow, would be killed off by the Bolen Clan’s players. And players who came in search of the potion sometimes became targets of the Ghost Shadow’s attacks, and sometimes not.
Of course, there was also the possibility of ticket players and non-ticket players killing each other, but the odds of such coincidences happening repeatedly were low.
How interesting. The Bolen Clan, to keep the Deep Blue Laboratory secret, wanted to kill all ticket players. Meanwhile, the Ghost Shadow, to avoid exposing itself, would randomly kill all non-ticket players. Karma, perhaps, worked in circles.
“Does the Ghost Shadow really exist?” Qiu Xiangdong was skeptical. “Planting one’s own people among ticket players—the Bolen Clan must have done this more than once, right? Why hasn’t anyone brought news of the Ghost Shadow out?”
“That’s simple—they were all killed,” Chu Yuan said casually. “Even if they weren’t killed, they couldn’t always find so many players to bring in every time, could they?”
“He’s right,” Xu Huo said. “Bribing players who come to Saleil Coast is much easier than constantly searching for ticket players for the Deep Blue Laboratory instance.”
Tickets weren’t easy to buy, and even if they were, it couldn’t be sustained long-term.
And the Ghost Shadow was clearly intelligent. If it wanted to hide, no one could find it.
So the problem at hand was that the Ghost Shadow would likely kill everyone in the lab.
“The Ghost Shadow even kills ghosts, so it definitely won’t spare us,” Chu Yuan couldn’t help complaining. “This instance is way too unfriendly to ticket players. Either way, we’re doomed.”
“Logically, becoming a ghost should be safer,” Qiu Xiangdong said. “Zhu Rumin’s death was probably an accident. We can’t rule out that the Kong siblings did it. That Kong Hui seems unhinged—maybe she was angry at Zhu Rumin for failing and had her killed.”
“The Ghost Shadow doesn’t appear during the day. By night, we’ll all have turned into ghosts anyway, so the distinction between human and ghost doesn’t matter,” Xu Huo said. “To escape the threat, there’s another way: clear the instance now.”
“But where are we supposed to catch a ghost?” Wu Xiaonan said. “Aren’t we stuck and looking for the potion because we can’t clear it?”
The game’s second task was harder than Xu Huo had imagined, because the Ghost Shadow didn’t choose a fixed target, and might not even need to attach itself to a person at all. This made judging who was a “ghost” from the players meaningless, and controlling the Ghost Shadow through controlling players was impossible.
“I’m telling you, the Ghost Shadow is just a shadow. How can you catch it?” Chu Yuan said. “It can even change its form. I saw it with my own eyes—once as a man, once as a woman.”
The group pondered without results and fell silent for a while. After a moment, Xu Huo stood up. “I’m going to the restroom.”
“I’ll go with you,” Chu Yuan quickly followed. “Don’t let the Ghost Shadow come out and kill people even in broad daylight.”
Xu Huo didn’t refuse his kindness, but he didn’t go to the restroom. Instead, he chose a nearby room and signaled Chu Yuan to keep watch outside the door.
“Do you know how to catch the ghost?” Chu Yuan asked, both surprised and excited.
“I’ll give it a try.” Xu Huo walked into the room alone. The bright lights illuminated every corner clearly.
Directly opposite the room was a large observation window. With the curtains open, one could see the deep sea. To the left was the entrance to the bedroom and restroom, and to the right was a full decorative mirror.
He observed the room’s ventilation system, used a few items to attach some strong adhesive strips to it, and then drew the Crimson Sword, slicing everything in the room to pieces.
The intact furniture, a few decorations, the paintings on the wall, the lights—he dismantled everything until the room was in chaos and plunged into darkness, with only a faint light coming through the observation window.
Carelessly kicking aside the broken painting at his feet, he walked toward the observation window with a smile, carving marks into the glass with his sword and scraping back and forth along the lines.
This glass, like the metal reinforcing the lab’s outer walls, was not easy to damage. The scraping sound was harsh and grating.
But Xu Huo didn’t mind; he seemed to take pleasure in the repetitive motion.
Just then, a ghostly face suddenly appeared on the glass in front of him. A pale face with black blood streaming down it lunged ferociously toward his head!
“Slap!” The Ghost Shadow, like a shadow or a thin sheet of paper, didn’t cleanly wrap around Xu Huo’s head as it had with other players. Instead, it awkwardly smacked against a transparent glass barrier, spinning around it, unable to find a way in.
Having prepared an item for this very moment, Xu Huo quickly pulled out “Invisible Protection,” draping the transparent raincoat over his head like a bag and yanking down the Ghost Shadow that was clinging to him, trying to rush at his face.
The Ghost Shadow was indeed just a thin, painting-like thing, but it was agile enough. After its ambush failed, it slipped through the gaps in the raincoat and darted straight for the door.
However, the room was soundproofed, and the door was sealed shut. Seeing it head for the door, Xu Huo called out, “That way’s blocked. Try the ventilation system.”
No sooner had he spoken than the Ghost Shadow turned and flew toward one of the vents. But at that moment, Xu Huo pulled the kite string, and the Ghost Shadow slammed directly into the strong adhesive strip.
(Chapter End)