Volume 1: Days Moving Bricks at the Construction Site
Options
What is your choice?
Shen Maomao originally thought they could dig out many severed hands, but even after the two of them dug out a large deep pit, this did not happen.
Since the two were digging together, the hole’s diameter was very wide, enough for both to swing their shovels without the cramped feeling from when the Golden Retriever was alone.
After digging for a while longer, Shen Maomao struck down with a shovel and brought up a mud-covered severed hand.
“Whoa!” She was startled and shouted loudly upward, “Sister Lou! There’s a corpse down here!”
Xiaolou poked her head out from above and shouted, “Keep digging!”
The two people below endured their fear, quickly continuing to dig downward. As they dug continuously, the corpse deeply buried under the soil gradually revealed its full appearance.
The corpse was not yet completely decomposed, its body covered with mud, resembling a middle-aged man. He was wearing a blue work suit, with the big characters “Shuitian” printed on it, exactly the same as those on Shen Maomao and the others. The corpse’s forehead had a festering wound, with some white maggots wriggling inside.
Golden Retriever reported everything happening below to Xiaolou, who nimbly jumped down from above, bravely reaching out to touch the corpse.
In that instant, the corpse’s originally tightly closed eyes suddenly opened, revealing hollow eyes, and its mouth emitted a sharp, piercing eerie laugh. At the same time, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble, with a very heavy footsteps sound coming from the ground, gradually approaching them.
In such a narrow environment, trying to avoid it was very difficult.
A slender black arm stretched in from above, grabbing Shen Maomao’s body and pulling her out of the hole.
Shen Maomao screamed and struggled, kicking her legs forcefully, but she couldn’t affect the monster holding her.
The monster that had followed her back from the supermarket had now grown from the height of a person into a small mountain. Its belly had become even larger, with seemingly more faces on it. At such a close distance, Shen Maomao finally saw the appearance of some of the faces clearly—Auntie, Ding Hou, Glasses… all nine of the dead people, not one missing, appeared on the monster’s belly.
They seemed to have lost their consciousness, only able to emit meaningless curses together with the other faces, or look with resentful eyes at their former acquaintances.
Xiaolou covered her ears with one hand, picked up Shen Maomao’s shovel with the other, and aimed at the male corpse’s neck: “Shut up!”
The man was unconcerned and laughed unrestrainedly. His laughter, along with Shen Maomao’s screams, drifted far into the night.
He raised his hand and gripped the iron shovel, bending it lightly, causing the once rigid shovel to curl and lose its lethality.
The man slowly climbed up, his fragile bones creaking as if they might fall apart at any moment.
“It was Shi Xin who wronged you!” Xiaolou knew how much strength was hidden within his seemingly fragile body. She remained cautious, stepping back two steps, “You don’t need to waste time with us!”
Golden Retriever trembled, wishing to bury himself in the soil where no one could see.
“Except for Shi Xin…” the man bent down and picked up his arm that Shen Maomao had severed with the shovel, chuckling softly: “You all are not innocent either!” After speaking, he got up and attacked Xiaolou.
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The moment he left his original position, a dazzling and blinding white light struck towards Xiaolou’s eyes. Her pupils contracted as she sidestepped to avoid the man’s attack, and she shouted loudly to Golden Retriever: “That is the exit!”
Golden Retriever was overjoyed. He dug himself out from the soil and was about to rush towards the exit when he remembered Shen Maomao was still above. He immediately stopped: “Sister Lou! What about Sister Rabbit?!”
Shen Maomao, who had been screaming earlier, was now silent. Xiaolou looked up worriedly and urged him: “You go first! I’ll find a way to save her!”
Golden Retriever looked back at her deeply, gritting his teeth: “I can’t leave you all!” As a man, how could he leave two women to escape first? How could he face others afterward?!
“Sister Lou, hold on!” He climbed on the pit wall and quickly climbed up, “I’m going to save Sister Rabbit!”
Shen Maomao once thought she would be eaten or dropped to her death, then become part of its belly and curse this f*cking game alongside those faces.
It would be very simple for it to kill her, just needing to lightly loosen its fingers. But even when Shen Maomao struggled until she couldn’t move, this monster did nothing else to her.
The clouds in the sky quickly moved, revealing the sickle-like crescent moon in the night sky. Shen Maomao saw the face on its head, or rather… it was her own.
The monster’s head, originally like a black salted egg, regrew facial features and hair. It was a woman’s face, more than forty years old, covered with scars.
She looked at Shen Maomao, as if looking through her at something else.
Shen Maomao stopped her meaningless screaming, hesitated for two seconds, and chose to communicate with her: “You… can understand what I’m saying?”
The woman opened her mouth to say something, and Shen Maomao quickly said: “I can’t hear you! Can you put me down?”
The woman did not put her down; instead, she raised another black arm and reached towards her head. Frightened, Shen Maomao closed her eyes, imagining the scene of her head being knocked off with a slap—better to think more while she still had her head.
Then she noticed her head was lightly touched.
“Mm?” She opened her eyes wide in surprise, her sight meeting the woman’s gentle gaze towards her.
Shen Maomao felt that the way she looked at her was like her mom looking at her…
While thinking this, she suddenly heard Golden Retriever’s voice coming from the ground: “Sister Rabbit! Don’t be afraid! I’m here to save you!”
The woman’s previously gentle gaze instantly became sharp. She placed Shen Maomao on her shoulder, grabbed Golden Retriever, and directly stuffed him into the big open mouth on her belly.
“Wait a moment!” Shen Maomao inwardly cursed Golden Retriever for recklessly charging to his doom, but since Golden Retriever came to save her, she couldn’t just watch him die and could only try to stop her, “Please wait a moment! He is my good friend!”
If this didn’t work… then she would close her eyes.
The woman’s hand stopped in mid-air, glaring angrily at Golden Retriever, as if looking at a bad boy who abducted her daughter, then raised her arm and tossed him into the sand pile beside her.
“Peh peh peh…” Golden Retriever spat out a mouthful of sand, covered in dust and dirt, as he climbed out from the sand pile.
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Shen Maomao whispered a thank you into her ear, then shouted to Golden Retriever: “Have you and Sister Lou found a way out?! If you have, just leave, don’t worry about me!”
Golden Retriever shouted back: “Are you okay?!”
Being too far apart, she couldn’t hear Golden Retriever’s words but could see his hesitation. So she waved to Golden Retriever, signaling him to quickly get away.
Golden Retriever obediently jumped into the pit, and Shen Maomao sighed with relief, continuing to try to communicate with the woman: “Well… I’m only twenty-two and haven’t properly experienced my own life… you won’t harm me, right?”
The woman lifted her in front of her face, her cloudy eyes showing a hint of sadness.
As if to prove her harmlessness, she gently placed Shen Maomao on the stone slab, stood outside the wall and looked at her at eye level, gently nodding to her.
Shen Maomao cautiously asked, “Then… can you let my friends all leave?” The woman picked her up again, kicked down with one foot the brick wall they had painstakingly built over the past few days, and stepped into the pond.
In the big pit in the pond.
Golden Retriever and Xiaolou unitedly (?) resisted the man.
The man’s corpse looked broken and tattered, easily shoveled off at the wrist by Shen Maomao, but once he moved, he was unexpectedly agile.
Xiaolou found Golden Retriever to be a hindrance, several times wanting to push him towards the exit, but each time was easily blocked by the man. She realized the man’s strength far exceeded her imagination; the current attack was merely a cat’s final play with a mouse.
She, being a woman, had limited strength. If she couldn’t hold on, she herself would be fine, but Golden Retriever and Shen Maomao would undoubtedly die. Shen Maomao was the contractor she was most satisfied with since obtaining the tools, and for this reason, she couldn’t let her die so quickly.
Golden Retriever cried out to her: “Sister Lou! What do we do?!”
“Cold mix!” Xiaolou kicked the man’s abdomen, but he threw her back, violently crashing her into the wet soil, leaving a graceful human shape on the wall.
She fell to the ground, raised her hand to wipe the blood from the corner of her mouth, slightly curled her lips, and mocked Golden Retriever: “I told you to leave earlier, but you didn’t. Now you can’t, right?”
Golden Retriever, holding his weapon and blocking while continuously retreating: “QAQ don’t say anymore!”
Soon he had nowhere left to retreat. The man, appearing to have played enough, extended his sharp nails towards him…
Just as Xiaolou prepared to reveal her trump card and fight desperately, a large shadow blocked the moonlight, covering their heads.
A huge woman from outside poked her head in, and the breathing of the two living people inside paused.
The man who intended to kill them stopped his action and looked at the woman: “What are you doing?!”
The woman opened her mouth and emitted a string of meaningless howls, but the man understood.
“She is not Xiaoxiao!” he said.
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The woman nodded, indicating she understood, and then emitted another string of howls.
The man began to hesitate.
The two ghosts murmured to each other for a while, and finally, the man looked at Xiaolou: “I can let you go, but you must help me with a task.”
“What task?” Xiaolou asked.
“Help me remove all the talisman papers from Shi Xin’s body. However, for Xiaoxiao’s sake, even if you don’t help, I will still let you leave. So—” as he spoke, the man smiled, his eyes directly looking at Xiaolou, “What is your choice?”
Golden Retriever, not yet understanding the situation, automatically fell silent, waiting for Xiaolou’s answer.
Xiaolou fell into deep thought.
This was the option she had mentioned earlier.
In every game, the first player to clear the game has the possibility to trigger this kind of hidden mechanism within the game. The gatekeeping NPC will leave behind two options. It is either a trap or a treasure…