Volume 1: Breaking the Cage
Escape 13
Legal Hunting
“Shen Shuiyan!”
Seeing the situation, Xin Lan hurriedly went to pull the female ghost off Shen Shuiyan’s body.
Shen Shuiyan’s back ached from the impact, and her head felt dizzy from the knock. Even more unbearable was the female ghost pressing down on her body, with its eerie, terrifying face and sharp teeth, and the nauseating smell of blood assaulting her nostrils.
She pushed against it with her hands, her palms covered in sweat.
Xin Lan grabbed the female ghost’s clothes and forcefully yanked her off Shen Shuiyan.
Shen Shuiyan’s clothes were torn, but as the pressure on her body disappeared, she let out a sigh of relief and quickly sat up.
Xin Lan slammed the female ghost against the wall, her movements somewhat vicious, her eyes cold and piercing.
The female ghost let out a shrill wail, her head tilted at a distorted angle. Xin Lan wasn’t frightened; instead, she continued to slam the ghost against the wall.
Dark bloodstains smeared the grayish-white wall as Xin Lan released her grip.
The moment she let go, Zhou Liwen, with her slightly caved-in head, approached again.
Xin Lan was getting impatient.
Since she had already died once, she didn’t mind making her die again.
She grabbed the female ghost’s hair with one hand and flung her out again. The air resonated with the bone-chilling sound of bones shattering.
The female ghost’s head hung limply, but her limbs were still struggling.
“What should we do now? Go in or…?”
Shen Shuiyan frowned. Now that they couldn’t find the stairs, they could either go in or remain stuck here.
“Let’s go in. I want to see why she’s been forcing us to enter.”
Xin Lan sneered and walked into the area illuminated by the lights.
Shen Shuiyan followed behind her, surveying the environment inside.
The bathroom here had individual stalls, ten in total, with all doors slightly ajar.
The ghosts outside had disappeared at some point, and the air was deathly still.
Xin Lan tied back her disheveled hair and looked at Shen Shuiyan, who was still observing their surroundings.
“Why did you push me away earlier?”
“Just… instinct, I guess.”
Shen Shuiyan was taken aback by the question and answered with some confusion.
“Do you realize that if I hadn’t caught her in time, you could have died?”
“But you did catch her, didn’t you?”
Shen Shuiyan blinked, her eyes curving into crescent moons (an idiom meaning to smile).
“I can handle it. You don’t need to do that next time.”
Xin Lan felt her words weren’t quite right after saying them, but although she opened her mouth, she didn’t add anything.
She had meant to express that her physical condition was better than Shen Shuiyan’s, and that even if a ghost pounced on her, she could immediately counterattack, whereas Shen Shuiyan could only wait for death. But saying it like that seemed too harsh, as if she was being ungrateful.
“What if you can’t handle it? I think what I did was fine, and if there’s a next time, I’ll do it again.”
Shen Shuiyan didn’t understand why Xin Lan said that, and she felt a bit angry that her good intentions had led to this result.
“Xin Lan, are you omnipotent?”
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Looking at Shen Shuiyan’s serious eyes, Xin Lan furrowed her brow.
Clearly, she wasn’t.
“Then are you immortal?”
Xin Lan continued to remain silent.
“Humans can get hurt, feel pain, and die. See, you’re not made of steel either, so don’t be so stubborn.”
“I’m not being stubborn.”
Xin Lan retorted, but saw Shen Shuiyan’s smile.
She just stood there, smiling silently at her. Xin Lan turned her head, but the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.
Xin Lan used to be invincible, waiting to be defeated, like the villain in a harmonious society, destined for a tragic ending.
Sometimes Xin Lan would become self-destructive. If she had to watch herself die, couldn’t she at least choose how to die?
Xin Lan had tried many ways of dying, and although those memories had faded, she had completed so many missions that her perception of death had become quite indifferent.
She indeed wasn’t omnipotent, but sometimes she thought she could be.
The moment Shen Shuiyan told her not to be so stubborn, she suddenly thought of the past.
In her original world, as an excellent ALPHA, she was supposed to excel at everything. But her mother would always look at her worriedly when she came out of the repair cabin, telling her not to be so stubborn.
— Mom, lying in the repair cabin makes all wounds disappear, so you don’t need to worry.
— But you still felt the pain.
Xin Lan concealed the look in her eyes, pretending to observe elsewhere.
Ling Jiu remained silent, thinking this was truly a flavorful display of sisterly affection.
“Should we push open these stalls and take a look? It doesn’t seem like there’s anything here.”
Shen Shuiyan pointed at the red doors, feeling that the red color on the bathroom doors looked strange.
“Let’s open them and see. Anyway, the exit definitely isn’t in this place.”
If the exit were really inside a bathroom stall, that would feel quite indescribable.
Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan pulled open the bathroom stalls one by one. Fortunately, there were no nauseating scenes inside.
The absence of anything unusual was actually the most unusual thing. That female ghost had forced them to come here for a reason.
Suddenly, the sound of flushing echoed in the bathroom. Xin Lan saw crimson water swirling inside, the color of blood.
The red on the door panels seemed to be dripping down, like flowing blood.
Shen Shuiyan felt a bit queasy, and her nose seemed to catch the strong scent of blood.
All of a sudden, all the doors slammed shut with a “bang.”
From under the doors, a large mass of hair-like substance emerged, growing and converging rapidly on the ground.
The originally dirty white floor was suddenly occupied by writhing black hair.
Xin Lan immediately grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand and ran outside. As they stepped out of the bathroom, the female ghost with the drooping head appeared again on the wall outside.
Shen Shuiyan looked back inside, where there was a mass of writhing black hair.
Xin Lan now understood why this female ghost had been forcing them to go in – it was to put them in a dilemma.
Compared to the unknown danger of the hair inside the bathroom, Xin Lan preferred to stay outside and deal with this female ghost.
“What’s the point of this game? Aren’t we supposed to find the exit? But now we’re being pushed into a dead end.”
Even Shen Shuiyan couldn’t help but want to curse in this situation.
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If ordinary students had come in, they would have either been bitten to death by the female ghost or killed by whatever was inside.
Xin Lan recalled what Teng Lin, who had disappeared somewhere, had said.
— This is a punishment. It’s good enough if you can survive.
Xin Lan cursed inwardly. If she could get out of here, she would definitely go and beat up Zou Yunfei again.
It was Zou Yunfei who hit her with a chair first. This is really “ri le” (a vulgar expression of frustration, similar to “damn it”).
Ling Jiu could only worry anxiously in the system space. They didn’t know how to provide help with these supernatural things. In its structural analysis diagram, this spatial dimension was clear, but it didn’t show where the stairs were at all.
“Stand back a bit.”
Xin Lan turned her head and said softly. Shen Shuiyan nodded, her back pressed tightly against the wall.
Xin Lan flexed her wrist and became entangled with the female ghost.
The female ghost’s body wasn’t as agile as before. Her head hung at a twisted angle on her neck, her mouth still moving. Because her vision was limited, her left side became her blind spot, and Xin Lan attacked from that direction.
“Tell me where the exit is.”
The female ghost gurgled something incomprehensible, and it wasn’t clear if she understood.
Xin Lan pinned the female ghost to the ground, grabbing her hair.
Half of the female ghost’s face had been flattened during the struggle, with bloodstains and a pitted surface. Her caved-in head hung limply, making her look particularly miserable.
“If you don’t tell me, I might as well twist your head off and smash your limbs bit by bit, leaving you as a ghost that can only crawl on the ground forever!”
Xin Lan’s patience had reached its limit.
Hearing this, Shen Shuiyan silently swallowed and quietly watched the person and ghost not far away.
She now fully believed that Xin Lan had given Zou Yunfei a beating.
The female ghost’s body stiffened for a moment, making a hoarse sound.
“It seems you can understand. If you’re willing, nod once. If you’re not willing… what would happen if I threw you into the bathroom with all that hair?”
Xin Lan glanced at a black mass from the corner of her eye and narrowed her eyes as she asked.
The female ghost quickly nodded her tilted head.
Xin Lan let out a cold laugh and released her hand. The female ghost immediately disappeared from in front of Xin Lan. At the same time, the lights in the corridor began to flicker on, illuminating the stairs.
The female ghost crawled on the ceiling, pointing Xin Lan in the right direction.
As mentioned earlier, this was the second floor, so the stairs led both up and down.
“Let’s go down first to see if there’s an exit. Maybe the exit could be the main door?”
Xin Lan made a conventional guess. Although in this strange place, the most ordinary thing might be the least likely, it was still worth a try.
“Okay.”
Shen Shuiyan nodded, having no objections.
Xin Lan gripped Shen Shuiyan’s hand tightly again.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
If she hadn’t cared much before, Xin Lan was now determined in her thoughts.
She would get Shen Shuiyan out, whether from this strange punishment game or the clue-hunting game outside.
“I believe you. To avoid what happened earlier, hold me like this.”
Shen Shuiyan pulled out the long sleeve of her sweater from inside her clothes, letting Xin Lan hold her hand through the layer of wool.
They couldn’t be sure if the same trick would appear twice in this game.
If she were replaced, Xin Lan would quickly notice that the feeling in her hand was different.
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“What if I’m the one who gets replaced?”
Xin Lan asked, holding Shen Shuiyan’s hand as they walked down.
“I remember the temperature of your palm.”
The hand of a living person is different from that of a dead person. Shen Shuiyan thought it might be because Xin Lan was in good physical condition, but whenever she held her hand, her palm was always warm, making her feel very reassured.
The two arrived on the first floor. Xin Lan saw the main door but didn’t rashly approach it. Instead, she stared into the distance.
Shen Shuiyan followed her gaze and widened her eyes as well.
A young man with a shattered skull and twisted body, brain matter oozing out, grinned at them.
The author has something to say:
Scholar: You think you’re omnipotent? Can you give yourself oral?
Xin Lan: ???
Ling Jiu: What a savage!
↑ The above is not (it is) really the scholar
LP: Re-translated on November 11, 2024