绝代双骄 林志颖

Dark red mottled traces were spreading on the blue-gray wallpaper, looked very abrupt under the flickering lights.

It was an exact copy of the downstairs layout.

Rooms 501-504 were arranged in sequence in the silent corridor, the paint on the doors was faded and each room had its door tightly closed, remaining still indifferently in the darkness.

Just like on the floor downstairs, the windows on this floor were tightly sealed by wooden boards, without a single gap.

Ge Xiu reached out to try and push the first door.

Unexpectedly, the door did not budge.

Ge Xiu raised his eyebrows with slight surprise and walked forward along the corridor. From No. 501 to No. 504, each door seemed to be firmly embedded in the door frame, without any sign of loosening at all.

The whole floor was like an airtight iron barrel.

Ge Xiu frowned.

He hesitated for two seconds, but still slowly reached into his pocket and touched the 502 room key.

The surface of the metal key was cold and hard and it weighted heavily at the bottom of the pocket. It was cold and metallic to touch.

However, before he could take out the key, a piercing scream came from downstairs. The scream was sharp and penetrating, spreading throughout the building in an instant.

Ge Xiu paused and moved decisively.

He let go of the key and hurried downstairs to where the voice came from.

When he arrived, some players had already gathered there. They gathered around a window facing the stairwell and everyone was looking through it, their faces pale and solemn.

Ge Xiu looked out through the gap in the crowd.

Through the window, one could see the viscous, seemingly insoluble boundless darkness, surrounding the solitary building. The open space below extended to a distance, its edge shrouded in darkness.

In the very center of that open space lay an indescribable… thing.

Several severed arms were twisted and bent at soft joints to form a skeleton structure similar to a box. In the box made up of whitish limbs, could be seen body of a man whose limbs had been severed and whose belly had been cut open.

There was a big black hole on his abdomen, the gurgling blood and chopped internal organs stained the ground red, his dead gray face twisted in fear and pain, solidified a stiff mask of fear in death.

But the corner of his mouth was pulled upwards by some unknown force, revealing a strange and hair raising big grin.

The two eye sockets were dark and empty, staring in their direction fixedly.

Such a scene was too strange and terrifying, frightening everyone from the bottom of their hearts. Even players who had experienced multiple game instances couldn’t help but feel their scalps go numb.

Lin Xue, who had poor mental endurance, took two steps back with a pale complexion, then leaned on the wall to retch violently.

“Look! This… this seems to be Cheng Cheng!”

One of the players suddenly exclaimed!

The others were taken aback and they all looked again at the corpse deformed into that horrible appearance. From the deathly pale face covered in blood, one could indeed vaguely see some familiarity.

…It was indeed Cheng Cheng.

The wounds on his body showed the characteristics of corpses from two floors at the same time, then he appeared outside the building in such a strange posture, further puzzling the onlookers.

Ge Xiu narrowed his eyes and suddenly said:

“Aren’t there a bit too many limbs?”

Indeed, if one wanted to use human legs and arms to make a box structure, only one person’s limbs would not be enough .

Cheng Cheng wasn’t the only dead, there were at least two more people.

So… where was the rest of them?

Ge Xiu looked down at the corpse box below thoughtfully, his eyes darkened slightly.

At this moment, there was a loud “bang” coming from corridor on the side and one of the doors was slammed open with great force, dust and blood mist flew up under the lights in the corridor.

Everyone was taken aback and quickly turned their heads to look in the direction of the sound.

They saw Chen Jian stumbling through the open door, dragging another player on his shoulders. That player’s face was paper-white and he kept wailing. One could see that below his knees, only the while bones remained and all of the flesh and blood had been peeled off cleanly leaving only two dangling snow-white leg bones.

Chen Jian gritted his teeth and limped forward.

Several players rushed forward, lifted the injured player off his shoulders and placed him carefully on the ground in the corridor.

Chen Jian’s face was ugly, he took a breath, and then he said in a succinct way:

“I did a simple hemostasis treatment for him, put him there and try not to move.”

Lin Xue walked forward cautiously and asked a little timidly:

“He, his leg is like this, can it be cured?”

Another player replied: “As long as you don’t lose your life in the game, all the wounds can be healed after returning to reality.”

“That’s true.” Chen Jian took over the conversation: “We just need to find the remaining two special items before he loses too much blood and dies.”

There were only two left.

That means that Chen Jian had obtained a special item in that room just now.

In the chaos, Ge Xiu suddenly asked without warning:

“What kind of ghost did you meet?”

Chen Jian was also slightly taken aback, as if he didn’t expect Ge Xiu to ask such a question.

But he still replied truthfully: “An old lady.”

Ge Xiu nodded.

He casually pushed open a room that had been searched by the players and glanced inside. The decorations and furniture inside were old-fashioned and outdated. From the printed tablecloth to the rigid and angular outline, they all had a very old-fashioned feeling, seeming like a room where elderly people would live.

So these three floors belonged to three different age groups.

What else besides this? Were there any other rules?

Ge Xiu lowered his eyes, lost in thought.

At this moment, the sound of the clock chime came from downstairs, mellow and slow, gradually spreading to everyone’s ears along the narrow and dark corridor.

It’s time for a game break.

The players worked together to move the man whose legs had turned into bones into his room and then hurriedly walked towards their rooms depending on the key number in their hand.

The rules of the game were set in stone.

As long as they were determined, there was no room for maneuver.

And no one wants to suffer the consequences of breaking the rules of the game.

Ge Xiu returned to the fifth floor.

The corridor on the fifth floor was silent and secluded, every door was tightly closed and all windows were sealed shut.

The moment he stepped on fifth floor, all the sounds from downstairs disappeared, as if he had entered a completely independent space and domain, and no sound, light or shadow from the outside could get in.

Ge Xiu took out the key, inserted it into the 502 room keyhole and turned it slowly.

The subtle sound of metal clanking sounded in the dead corridor.

The door opened.

Ge Xiu pushed open the dark red door in front of him and the decoration inside the door came into view.

Full of dazzling red.

Red curtains, red tablecloths, red carpet, and—

The large and conspicuous “Xi” character pasted on the wall.

*both red colours and character 喜 (meaning happiness) are traditional decorations for a marriage

Ge Xiu: “…”

He conveniently closed the door behind him.

The furniture and home appliances in the room all seemed to be brand new. The table was covered with a bright red tablecloth and on it was a box full of fruit, which contained piles of wedding candies as well as peanuts and melon seeds.

Ge Xiu grabbed two candies and put them in his pocket.

While slowly peeling open the candy, he walked into the room.

The decoration in the bedroom was still brand new, bright red filled the entire room, red tassel decorations were hung on the chandeliers and curtains, quilt sheets and pillows were all embroidered with patterns of mandarin ducks playing in water, the huge red “happiness” characters were particularly eye-catching.

Very traditional, very tacky, very festive…

Ge Xiu: “…”

Not knowing why…

It just felt weird.

There was an empty crystal vase on the bedside table beside it, half-filled with clear water, as if it was waiting for something.

Ge Xiu looked down at the rose in his hand.

Although the flowers were still delicate and beautiful, but because some time had already passed, the petals became slightly wilted.

Ge Xiu hesitated for a moment and finally put the rose into the crystal vase.

He lowered his head and quickly peeled off the candy and stuffed it into his mouth.

After turning the entire room around, Ge Xiu did not find any trace of energy fluctuations.

This was just a simple room, without any special items.

Ge Xiu opened the curtains and found that the windows behind were nailed tightly by wooden boards just like the ones in the corridor.

Through the gap, one can vaguely see the thick and dense darkness outside the building.

Ge Xiu walked around the room twice more idly, but couldn’t find anything else to do.

Can only sleep.

He yawned, turned off the light in the room and lay down on the only bed in the room.

The walls and the sealed windows cut off all of the dim light, and even the lights in the corridor were automatically turned off, making the entire room shrouded in a thick layer of darkness.

Ge Xiu opened his eyes, stared at the ceiling in the darkness, and waited quietly.

There was not a single sound in the room.

The dead silence like from vacuum space isolated him, as if floating in a silent ocean.

Time passed by little by little and drowsiness struck uncontrollably.

Unknowingly, Ge Xiu slowly closed his eyes.

The passage of time gradually became imperceptible.

—After an unknown amount of time.

Consciousness fell into the gap between half-dreaming and half-awake, stuck in space between clarity and chaos, everything around him became extremely distant and his sobriety was faltering.

At this moment, a pale and slender hand protruded from the darkness, wrapping Ge Xiu’s waist gently, but unquestionably.

Ge Xiu lost all sleepiness in an instant.

The senses were infinitely magnified by the darkness, after losing the sense of vision all other senses in the body became extremely sharp.

The icy body that suddenly pressed behind him became extremely impossible to ignore.

Ge Xiu’s body stiffened subconsciously.

The arms across his waist tightened slowly, their bodies closely fitted together, the ice-cold feeling on the other person’s body was clearly transmitted to the back through the thin clothes.

The lips without any warmth nearly touched his soft and warm earlobe.

A deep voice sounded in the darkness, a cold breath with a careless hoarseness spread in the air, causing a slight vibration through the chest:

“Do you like the gift I gave you?”