04.
It was dark and cold here.
I couldn't help thinking of those rotting, dried-up corpses.
I suddenly felt like throwing up.
I kicked my legs, trying to crawl out, but no matter what I did, I couldn't find the entrance I'd come through.
How strange!
I searched all around the walls, but still couldn't find a way out.
It seemed this cave had been sealed shut the whole time.
Then how had I gotten in here just now?!
Maybe it was my imagination, but the cave seemed to be getting colder and colder.
Even with my rabbit fur keeping me warm, I couldn't help shivering.
But more than the icy chill seeping into my body, I was afraid that this mummy would suddenly sit up and swallow poor little me, a rabbit, whole.
If there was no way out underground, I'd have to put my bunny powers to use and try jumping up.
Maybe the cave entrance was above me.
I bumped and felt around back and forth who knew how many times.
As I jumped, I kept grumbling about how the dried corpse beside me was in the way.
Every time I jumped, I fell right back down—and landed on top of it.
Though it was just a dried corpse, it seemed to have been preserved pretty well. It had a great physique, a lot like my boyfriend's.
When I fell onto its stomach, I could even feel its eight-pack through its clothes.
But when I thought of the hideous faces of those dried corpses, I didn't want to waste another minute.
I kept jumping until I was exhausted, but still couldn't get out.
That's it, I might really have to spend the night with this dried corpse.
The gloomy, silent space around me was enough to make anyone afraid.
Especially when the corpse, which had been lying motionless beside me, suddenly moved.
It had been lying flat, but suddenly tilted slightly toward me.
It was pitch-black all around me; I couldn't see a thing.
But in that dark, silent place, I could feel something staring right at me.
My body went rigid, and my scalp prickled.
But the corpse didn't move again.
Later, in the middle of the night, it got so cold that I curled into a ball and reluctantly crawled under the hem of the dried corpse's clothes.
It didn't seem quite so cold anymore.
05.
I made it back alive.
Night was when the monsters feasted and caroused; daytime was when players could relax a little.
A lot of people were eliminated last night.
Lư Y was thrilled to see me.
“Khương Tảo, I knew you'd make it back alive!”
She'd been hanging her head dejectedly, but the moment she saw me, her gossipy side came out.
“You actually dared to pee on that female ghost—you've got guts! You should've seen how mad she was. Even all that makeup couldn't hide her scowl. Hahaha…”
I relaxed quite a bit too. “You're pretty impressive yourself. You managed to get away from the female ghost.”
Lư Y shrugged. “Maybe she was so mad she forgot all about me. Now she's waiting with the other demons for the Ghost King to wake up—or whatever. Right, the boss of this instance…”
Before she could finish, someone roared angrily in the courtyard:
“You ungrateful bastard!”
“Old Liu even pulled you back and took you on a mission last night, and when things got dangerous, you shoved him into the monsters!”
“Which of your eyes saw me shove him?! He charged in on his own!”
I turned around and saw two men swinging at each other.
One of them looked familiar. He was the newcomer who'd tried to run outside and been pulled back by a kind stranger last night.
Betrayals like this weren't uncommon in horror-game instances.
The others spared Old Liu a few brief, pitying seconds. He'd saved a snake, only to lose his life at its hands.
After that, we started comparing what had happened the night before.
“Every monster I ran into yesterday said the Ghost King was about to wake up. I'd say the Ghost King is the boss of this instance!”
“A veteran who's been through this instance warned me that we absolutely have to finish our missions before the Ghost King wakes up!”
“When will the Ghost King wake up?”
“Probably around the fifth or sixth day. Nobody knows for sure. Anyway, the sooner we finish our missions, the better.”
06.
After the first delivery, the number of players was down by ten.
This escort agency had four courtyards: East, West, South, and North.
I was in the North Courtyard.
There were twenty couriers in the courtyard.
Half of them had died after just one night.
Everyone who'd survived was shaken.
Players who successfully completed their first delivery could rest during the day; the second delivery would begin at night.
This time, everyone was more cautious and wanted to find a partner.
But this mission was clearly harder than the last one.
Most people had different destinations and routes.
Quite a few people had to split up from their partners.
This time, Lư Y's customer and mine were far apart, too.
But for the first half of the trip, someone else was headed in the same direction as me.
“Damn it, this time I'm stuck sharing a route with some useless woman. I'd be better off going alone.”
The man who said that was the one sharing my route.
He was also the newcomer who'd repaid kindness with betrayal and tried to run away as soon as he entered the instance.
He looked decent enough, with a buzz cut. At first glance, he seemed handsome and easygoing, but once he opened his mouth, he didn't seem much like a man at all.
He was impossible to like.
I picked up this delivery. It was a fairly large leather bag, and it wasn't light.
I had no idea what was inside.
As couriers, we weren't allowed to open sealed packages like this without permission.
All we had to do was deliver them to the recipients.
“Hey, is this your first time in an instance too?”
The buzz-cut guy had been complaining, but he still gave me a falsely friendly greeting.
Since I hadn't talked to anyone but Lư Y since entering the instance, he assumed I was a newcomer too.
I didn't want to deal with him, so I walked on ahead.
He cursed and hurried after me.
“What's with the act? You survived and completed the mission yesterday by seducing someone, didn't you?”
I shot him a cold glance.
He ducked his head, then seemed to realize something was off and immediately craned his neck to look at me.
He wasn't worth wasting my energy on.
I walked faster, but he took it as a sign of guilt and leered.
“We're both newcomers. Why don't you come have some fun with me? If you keep me happy, I'll protect you. What do you say?”
A newcomer, and he was already acting this arrogant.
I guess last night still hadn't taught him just how terrifying this instance was.
Cố Mặc Trì and I had watched plenty of horror movies before, and people like him were hardly rare in them.
The more arrogant and stupid they were at first, the more miserably they died later.
I gave him a pitying look.
At the same time, the thick night fog slowly began to rise.
An eerie, yellow-green moon also emerged from behind the clouds.
The ground split open, and dried corpses kept crawling out.
There were several times more of them than there had been last night.
The buzz-cut guy stiffened. He'd been so confident just moments ago, but now he was terrified.
Dried corpses kept crawling out of the ground, blackening the entire area.
Terrified, he tried his old trick: shove me into the mass of dried corpses and buy himself time to escape.
But he was a step too slow.
I kicked him into the monsters.
“Aaaah! Help!”
Even after I left and continued on my way, I could still hear his earth-shattering screams.
I touched the cold pendant around my neck.
It seemed the dried corpses really couldn't attack me.
07.
This time, the recipient was a one-eyed old woman.
She lived deep in a remote, forbidding forest.
When she opened the door, the old woman stooped over, the wrinkles on her face drooping in layer upon layer.
When she saw me, she was even happier than when she saw the package.
The old woman invited me to stay the night.
I declined.
She smiled squintingly and said, “The forest at night is full of all kinds of things. I'm afraid the road won't be easy to travel.”
I turned around. The path, once paved with stones, had turned into a heap of white bones.
A skull on the ground was even reaching out to grab my calf.
As if by accident, I stepped on its hand and broke it.
“It's late already, so I guess I'll have to impose on you.”
The one-eyed old woman warmly ushered me inside.
“Do you live here all by yourself?”
The old woman handed me a cup of tea. Its original color was impossible to make out, and it smelled strange.
“I have a grandson, too.”
My body tensed, and I grew even more cautious.
It seemed I had to watch out not only for the old woman, but also for the grandson who had yet to appear.
I didn't touch the tea. “Where's your grandson? Why don't I see him?”
The one-eyed old woman looked at me. A glint of something sinister appeared in her kind face as she smiled and said, “Him? He's right here.”
Right here?
My palms grew sweaty. I'd looked around the room several times, but hadn't seen any other suspicious monsters.
There was only me and the one-eyed old woman.
I was about to ask when she bent over and slowly opened the leather bag.
She lifted out a blood-soaked newborn.
“Here's my grandson. Isn't he lovely?”
The baby looked chubby, but only on closer inspection could you see that several parts of its body were swollen and rotting.
My scalp went numb, and a chill shot from my feet to the top of my head.
So what I'd been carrying against my body all this time was a blood-covered baby!
“He really likes you,” the old woman said with a smile.
The newborn sucked on its finger and stared at me with big, empty eyes, its mouth stretched open in a grin that could have been a cry or a smile.
It reached out to touch me, but I dodged to the side.
I said, “I'm a little tired.”
“Look at me, getting senile. You must be exhausted after traveling all that way. Let me go simmer you a bowl of hot soup.”
The one-eyed old woman carried the tiny, red newborn outside.
I couldn't sit still. I couldn't stay here long.
But the door wouldn't open.
Half an hour later, the old woman brought out a steaming bowl of soup, but I was nowhere to be seen.
She couldn't believe it. The kind look had vanished from her face, leaving it utterly terrifying:
“How could this be? How did it get outside?”
I hadn't actually gotten outside. I was still in the room.
Somehow, I'd turned into a rabbit, so I hid in a blind spot.
While she had the door open and wasn't paying attention, I slipped outside.