For the awakened Black Team member, making a decision wasn't particularly difficult.
After all, he had no other options left now.
Though the two of them were on opposing sides, the decision to cooperate had been reached faster than ever before.
Before long, a one-sided and unequal agreement had been successfully signed: Wen Jianyan was responsible for getting the other man out of this place, while the other party had to answer all his questions truthfully and obey all of his commands without question.
"You can just call me Wu Cheng."
The man got up from the ground and said.
Wen Jianyan's gaze fell on his face.
From the moment he removed the talisman to the time they finalized the agreement, only a few minutes had passed. Yet Wen Jianyan could clearly see a new crack had formed on the mask that Wu Cheng was wearing.
Wu Cheng clearly noticed Wen Jianyan's gaze as well. He gave a bitter smile and raised his hand to touch his mask.
"You've probably realized it by now—this mask won't last long in this area."
He had only realized this after entering the area.
The mask didn't have a time limit while walking along the road. But once he left the path, it started cracking over time, eventually losing its function entirely.
"In fact, that's exactly why I was lying there."
Wu Cheng said.
"The longer you stay here, the more cracks the mask gets. If I hadn't used a talisman to fake my death, I would've ended up like everyone else who came in here—dead within ten minutes."
"But…"
Wu Cheng's eyes landed on Wen Jianyan's face—on the flawless white mask—and he paused in surprise.
"Your mask doesn't seem to be having the same problem."
Of course not—the source was different.
Unlike the others in this instance, Wen Jianyan's mask was purchased using ghost coins, not simply snatched from the store without payment.
Still, he had no intention of explaining that.
"Do you have any other useful information to share?"
Realizing the other man didn't want to go into details, Wu Cheng didn't press further.
"We need to move. We can't stay in one place too long."
He pointed at the ground beneath their feet.
"The soil is starting to swallow us."
The yellow earth beneath them was loose and unstable, almost like quicksand. If they stood still for too long, they would sink deeply into it.
They started walking.
Darkness surrounded them. There wasn't a single point of light in the sky—it was suffocating. In every direction stretched an endless graveyard of tomb mounds, rising and falling, exuding an eerie chill.
"Don't get too close to the lower mounds," Wu Cheng said as they walked. "One of our team members got pulled into one."
"Pulled in by what?" Wen Jianyan asked.
"I don't know." Wu Cheng shuddered and shook his head. "I didn't see anything."
Before they could even react, it was over. The person had vanished into the darkness without even managing a scream.
Wen Jianyan: "You didn't try to leave?"
Wu Cheng: "Of course we did."
"In this area, although the system store and live broadcast system are still functional, none of the items work."
"Low-level guidance items are completely ineffective. High-level ones can still activate, but all they do is make us wander in circles. No matter where we go, everything around us looks exactly the same."
Wu Cheng's voice was full of despair.
"We were completely trapped, with no way out."
Of their group, some had been dragged into the mounds, and others had their masks shatter after reaching the time limit.
Once the mask broke, that person would be immediately sucked into the earth and never crawl out again.
Faced with this hopeless situation, Wu Cheng had ultimately spent all the points he could use in this instance, placing all his bets on a desperate move: he used an epic-grade talisman he'd obtained in a higher-level instance on himself, faking his death and sending out a call for help.
Wen Jianyan walked beside him, listening intently while his mind worked at full speed.
In fact, Wen Jianyan had already guessed the dilemma Wu Cheng and his group would face before luring them here.
Anyone walking the road who veered off it would end up leaving the path entirely—because the road and the space beyond it weren't part of the same dimension. No matter how long they wandered here, they wouldn't escape.
Low-level items didn't work, high-level ones were useless—only epic-grade tools had any effect…
Behind his mask, Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes.
"That's all I know."
After finishing his explanation, Wu Cheng looked uncertainly at the young man beside him.
The other man wore the same type of mask as him, yet it hadn't cracked even a little. He walked calmly and gracefully among the mounds, completely unbothered by the unchanged surroundings, as though he knew exactly where to go.
After a moment of hesitation, Wu Cheng asked cautiously:
"Um… you know the way out, don't you?"
In the "Integrity First" live room barrage:
[Pfft! He doesn't know shit!]
[LMAO, bet the other guy never expected it—the anchor knows even less than he does!]
[Started with nothing, faked his way through it all. Classic Wen Jianyan!]
[A master of pulling something from nothing!]
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan came to an abrupt stop.
Startled, Wu Cheng quickly halted as well.
"Of course I know," Wen Jianyan said, turning his head. Beneath the mask, his gaze was sharp and intense.
In the "Integrity First" live room barrage:
[?]
[???]
Then Wen Jianyan opened his system inventory.
A moment later, a worn piece of parchment appeared in his hand.
In the "Integrity First" live room barrage:
[!]
[Damn! I almost forgot about that thing!]
[Seriously—only in situations like this do you realize how OP an item that answers all your questions is…]
Wu Cheng gasped: "That's—!"
"Looks familiar, doesn't it?"
Wen Jianyan turned to glance at him. In that split second, their eyes met—and under that steady, penetrating gaze, a chill ran down Wu Cheng's spine.
"I know the Gentleman used this to guide your team."
Although Wu Cheng had no idea how Wen Jianyan got hold of such an item—or how he knew all this—he didn't ask. Instead, he just nodded nervously.
"Yes."
Wen Jianyan lowered his head and looked at the parchment.
It was yellowed and tattered, blank at first glance—like it was just some discarded junk.
But… this was their only hope of getting out.
"How do we leave here and return to the Xingwang Hotel?" he asked.
Clear writing rapidly appeared on the parchment.
Wu Cheng quickly looked away, afraid to stare too long.
As the words emerged, Wen Jianyan frowned.
Only a single line appeared:
"Use a soul."
Use a soul?
Was it referring to the item that woman in white gave him—the one that could prematurely platinum an instance?
But why would using that get them back to the Xingwang Hotel?
That didn't make any sense.
More importantly, Wen Jianyan had made an agreement with the Black Team: he couldn't use or activate the item until the final three minutes of the instance.
But no matter how many more questions Wen Jianyan asked, no new text appeared on the parchment.
One soul allowed for three questions—and apparently, that one had already been used.
Only one question left.
Damn it.
But there was no other choice.
Gritting his teeth, Wen Jianyan made up his mind.
He asked again: "How do we leave here and return to the Xingwang Hotel without using a soul?"
That was his final question.
This time, the parchment remained blank for a long time.
Just when Wen Jianyan thought it was broken—or that it didn't have an answer—some words finally began to emerge, slowly and reluctantly.
Wen Jianyan's eyes lit up as he scanned the message, then started walking briskly: "Follow me!"
Wu Cheng blinked and hurried after him:
"Right—coming!"
Wen Jianyan moved quickly, glancing down at the parchment from time to time as new instructions surfaced, murmuring under his breath:
"Count the mounds in the direction we're facing… turn right… count eight mounds… turn 45 degrees left… third mound…"
His pace quickened.
They raced through the darkness.
The surrounding tombs looked the same as before—silent and still, rising and falling like a massive, inescapable maze.
At last, Wen Jianyan stopped.
Wu Cheng, panting heavily behind him, finally caught up: "Are we… there?"
Wen Jianyan didn't answer. He simply stared straight ahead.
There, just a few steps in front of him, was a half-collapsed tomb mound—at least half the height of the others, as if worn away by time and on the verge of structural failure.
It was exactly the kind Wu Cheng had warned him not to approach.
"This is…"
Wu Cheng gasped softly.
Wen Jianyan lowered his head again and carefully examined the yellowed piece of leather paper in front of him.
The last line of text had appeared, and no further changes occurred to the paper.
"What's happening?" Wu Cheng asked anxiously from the side.
The cracks in his mask had spread across 60% of his face, and he was barely able to hold on anymore.
"We can only try it," Wen Jianyan said with a long exhale, then bent down to unwrap the gauze around his palm.
This was the wound he got earlier in the labyrinth, when a shard of mirror had cut him. Although it had been treated urgently and the bleeding had stopped, it was still seeping blood, showing no signs of healing.
But everything had been happening so quickly, there had been no time to pay attention to the wound.
As he unwrapped, the lower layers of the gauze were completely soaked with blood, sticking tightly to the uneven wound.
Wen Jianyan furrowed his brow, gritted his teeth, held his breath, and then suddenly yanked!
"…Damn!!"
The pain made him gasp, and he couldn't help but curse. A fine layer of sweat had appeared on his forehead, and tears had welled up in the corners of his eyes.
Damn, it hurt like hell!
After he regained his composure, Wen Jianyan took several deep breaths, gripped his wrist with one hand, and pressed hard on the gory wound in his palm.
Thick, crimson blood dripped from his pale fingers and quickly soaked into the soft ground beneath him, where it was swiftly absorbed by the soil.
Almost immediately, Wen Jianyan felt an eerie coldness coming from deep within the earth, crawling up from the soles of his feet.
The air seemed to have… changed.
There was a rustling sound from deep beneath the soil.
Wu Cheng seemed to have realized something, and struggled to turn his head to look behind him.
His face went pale beneath the mask.
Strange, unsettling noises came from beneath the countless graves. The yellow earth, which had been calm moments ago, now seemed to breathe, rising and falling like it was being pushed from below.
"Rustle. Rustle."
A pale, bony hand reached out from beneath one of the graves.
Then a second, a third…
Centered around the spot where Wen Jianyan's blood had dripped, the graves began to shift. The already soft yellow earth crumbled away, and corpse after corpse crawled out from beneath the soil.
The scene was one that seemed to belong only in a nightmare.
Wu Cheng almost forgot how to breathe, staring dumbly at the scene before him.
Pale, rotten, and decayed spirits crawled out from the graves. Their faces turned towards the direction of Wen Jianyan, and their hollow eyes seemed to "look" right at him.
The atmosphere became increasingly eerie.
Wen Jianyan, too, felt a chill run down his spine, his hair standing on end. He was overwhelmed by a strong desire to run.
But he had no choice but to stay rooted to the spot, maintaining his position to let the blood continue dripping.
"Wh-what do we do?" Wu Cheng's voice was shaky.
What could they do?
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, forcing a sound from his throat.
"…Wait."
As if guided, the thick blood trickled into the collapsed grave ahead, and then…
The next second, it completely caved in.
The blood-soaked yellow earth surged upwards, as if the mud had become conscious, creeping up to his ankle. The darkness beneath seemed to be pulling something, tugging at him to descend.
Before Wen Jianyan could react, he felt a heavy weight beneath his feet, as though he had fallen into mid-air, pulled down sharply by gravity.
His scream hadn't even escaped his mouth before everything ended.
Wen Jianyan fell in.
So did Wu Cheng.
The cold, wet soil pressed against his chest and throat, and it seemed to have a will of its own, pushing away the mask from his face, flooding his nose and mouth.
The smell of blood, earth, and rotting corpses overwhelmed him, flooding his senses.
In the last moments of consciousness, Wen Jianyan remembered stretching out his hand as if to use the last of his strength to grab his mask.
His fingers gripped the edge of the mask tightly.
He clung to it desperately.
The next second, the soil collapsed on top of him, sealing everything.
The world fell into complete silence.
Time seemed to slow down exponentially.
No, to be precise, it was his mind that slowed down, his thoughts becoming sluggish and slow, as if his entire being were trapped in thick ice, freezing his brain.
It felt like… sleep.
Wen Jianyan felt himself drifting, not knowing where he was going.
It seemed like he was in a small town.
The sky was pale.
There was no sun.
Although it was daylight, the town was eerily silent, like a ghost town.
The doors and windows were hollow, empty.
He heard crying.
The sound was soft, intermittent, coming from behind a dilapidated house.
"They're dead… Everyone is dead… It's my fault… I can't go on… I can't go on anymore… If this continues… everything will be over… everything…"
Wen Jianyan felt his body being drawn closer, inexorably moving forward.
He circled the back of the broken house and saw her.
A woman dressed in white stood there, her back lonely, as if the wind would blow her away at any moment.
She held something in her arms, a square box of some kind.
"I can't let anyone… I can't let anyone take it… I can't…"
She repeated herself, as though entranced, saying the same words over and over again.
"…This is a nightmare, a nightmare, a nightmare…"
The scene made Wen Jianyan's hair stand on end, and his spine shivered.
He couldn't think. He was forced to watch the scene unfold before him, and he was helplessly drawn closer.
The distance shortened, shortening, shortening.
Too close.
So close that Wen Jianyan could smell the thick, damp scent seeping from her hair, filling his face.
Without warning, the woman suddenly turned her head.
With only inches between them, face to face.
Wen Jianyan's heart stopped.
He couldn't see her nose, mouth, or any other features. All he could see were her wide, horrified eyes.
One was a deep, blood-red, grotesquely moving, while the other was human, black with bloodshot sclera, wide open with the eyelids forcibly held up, as if pinned there with a stapler or some even more extreme method, forcing them to stay open.
In that eye, there was a look of madness, of horror.
Tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes, one drop, then another, and another.
Drip, drip, drip.
Wen Jianyan smelled the pungent, rain-drenched odor.
The next second, those terrifying eyes moved away.
She turned her head and took a step forward.
She stepped onto the edge of the well, then jumped.
Head down, falling.
"——————!!!!"
Wen Jianyan felt as though his throat was being strangled by something invisible, letting out a silent scream, which then turned into a violent coughing fit that erupted from his throat.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, cough!!!!"
He smelled many different scents—blood, rot, and… the smell of rainwater.
Damp, eerie.
Tick, tick.
The sound of raindrops began, and cold rain fell on his face, shoulders, and hands, washing away the dirt clinging to his face, one chunk at a time.
The crust of dirt on his face broke, and a small piece fell off.
Wen Jianyan's eyelids fluttered, struggling to open his eyes.
It took him several seconds to realize his current situation.
He was standing, walking.
His legs, as though defying his will, moved stiffly, step by step, forward, completely unresponsive to his commands.
There were many figures around him.
Wen Jianyan cautiously moved his gaze, peeking through the small crack in the dirt on his face.
No, rather than figures, they were… ghosts.
They moved with the same stiff steps, one after another, and Wen Jianyan could almost hear the "rustling" sound of them moving, feel the cold, eerie presence emanating from their bodies.
"..."
At the moment he realized this, Wen Jianyan's mind nearly collapsed.
Damn it.
He was walking with a group of ghosts!
What a deathly scenario this was!
However, no matter how panicked he felt inside, Wen Jianyan couldn't fully control his body for now. He could only grit his teeth and, under the influence of this chilling force, take step after step forward.
Tick, tick.
The rain continued to fall, and another chunk of dirt fell from his face.
Wen Jianyan's eyelashes fluttered, and the dirt pieces fell off, merging with the raindrops at his feet.
He slightly raised his eyes and looked up.
The sky was dark gray, and light raindrops fell from the sky, hitting his body.
Rain…
Only the nightmare-created mirror world had rain, but in the real "Xingwang Hotel" instance, there was no rain. The reason for this, Wen Jianyan still hadn't figured out.
But…
Suddenly, a glimmer of light flashed through his mind.
Wen Jianyan froze for a moment, and an earlier, almost surreal image flashed in his mind.
A woman with eyes wide open, one eye replaced by writhing red flesh, not resembling human eyes, and the other eye battered, vacant, and constantly spilling tears.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan remembered that before he approached the well, the broadcaster who could write with his talents had given him a guiding drawing—disordered, childlike doodles, with a crooked well at the bottom, and a large, wide-open eyeball from which countless raindrops emerged.
Or perhaps… fell?
That's right, fell.
After all, mirrors and reality are opposites.
Wen Jianyan was stunned.
Wait a minute!
Does that mean the rain in the mirror instance town… is actually the tears of the woman in white? Or, rather, the tears of the real, suffering human?
After all, the writhing, crimson eyeball was clear inside, and there were no tears falling from it.
Wen Jianyan still couldn't fully control his body, but in some ways, this was a good thing. At least he could now focus his energy on thinking carefully.
Why were these tears appearing?
Combining his previous experiences in the rainy town and the images he saw during his lost consciousness, a vague guess slowly emerged in Wen Jianyan's mind.
Perhaps, the rain in the town was created to stop something.
What was it trying to stop?
The answer was obvious.
It was trying to prevent the broadcasters from bringing more drawings into the hotel, from preventing the banquet, so the rain would kill anything trying to enter the town. As time passed, the closer the banquet came, the harder the rain fell, and the greater its murderous intent.
By the end of the instance, the mirror instance had become dilapidated, and rain poured into the buildings from every crack. Perhaps there was no need for the nightmare to maintain the mirror anymore, but at the same time, it was because the rain's power had increased.
It was trying to stop everything.
By flooding everything with rain.
This rain was clearly not a product of the mirror instance, or rather, not something created by the nightmare.
On the contrary, it was a product that defied the nightmare's will.
The real woman in white had not only nailed her eyelids shut to prevent herself from falling into a dream, where her body would be controlled by entities from beyond the world, but even in her last moments, she jumped into the well with the terrifying entity threatening to consume her will, carrying a box containing a crucial soul.
—Under the well, her corpse showed signs of crushed cervical and cranial bones.
However, although the nightmare no longer maintained the mirror instance, the rain, originally confined to the mirror instance, did not disappear. Instead, it invaded the real instance.
Wen Jianyan felt a chill running down his spine.
He felt that he was very close to the truth now.
Only one final crucial clue remained, and everything would connect.
The rain continued to fall, slowly, drop by drop. It wasn't much, or rather, compared to the torrential rain in the town earlier, it was more like a light drizzle.
Wen Jianyan felt as though he had regained some control over his body.
His fingers, hanging by his side, moved slightly.
Soft.
Under the influence of his willpower before losing consciousness, his stiff fingers had maintained their original position, and at that moment, the white mask was hanging from his finger.
Thankfully…
Wen Jianyan breathed a slight sigh of relief.
He glanced beside him.
Wu Cheng was still there.
Like him, his body was also controlled by some invisible force, taking stiff steps, slowly moving forward. His mask was half broken, with half of his face visible, while the other half was covered in thick dirt, from his eyes to his nose, ears, all completely concealed.
In the drizzling rain, the unaware ghosts moved slowly ahead.
As time passed, the dirt on Wen Jianyan began to fall off, and the human scent slowly leaked out.
Several corpses beside him sluggishly turned their heads, their hollow gazes falling on Wen Jianyan. Perhaps because some dirt remained, they hadn't attacked yet, but once the rain washed away all the dirt, they would probably strike without hesitation.
Wen Jianyan gripped his mask, trying to remain calm under the gaze of these "eyes," walking step by step with the ghostly group.
Now was not the time.
Seconds ticked by.
A shadow appeared ahead on the road, like some…
A building?
Wen Jianyan's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately understood what it was.
It was Xingwang Hotel!
As expected, just as the brown paper had said, they had indeed left the graveyard and returned to the hotel!
However, before Wen Jianyan could feel any joy, the building ahead was rapidly getting closer, and he began to see the full picture of Xingwang Hotel.
"...!"
Wen Jianyan's pupils shrank.
His joy froze; a heavy weight settled in his stomach, making him feel extremely uncomfortable.
In the distance, at the end of the road, the building was clearly Xingwang Hotel as he remembered, but it was also not entirely the same.
The appearance was similar, but the material was completely different from what he remembered!
It was a building made of flesh and blood, crimson in color, with exposed muscles twitching irregularly in the open air, like human muscle stripped of skin, wet and sticky, oozing disgusting, blood-red slime. The gaps between the muscles split open, revealing countless crimson eyeballs, rolling wildly as if searching for something.
This was simply a test of the human tolerance threshold.
"..."
Damn, so disgusting.
Wen Jianyan's face turned pale as his stomach churned again. If he hadn't lost control of his body, he would have likely vomited right then and there.
…In a way, this was also a good thing?
Wen Jianyan tried to comfort himself bitterly, but he could only stiffly move forward, walking with the ghost group.
The closer he got, the more the grotesqueness of the building made him feel sick.
He suddenly remembered that in the mirror instance, when he was in the collapsing Xingwang Hotel, on a whim, he had peered into a crack in the wall and locked eyes with an eyeball staring out at him. At the time, he thought something evil was hiding behind the wall watching him, but he never imagined…
This was the true appearance of the Xingwang Hotel!
Wen Jianyan suppressed the churning in his stomach and continued to move forward, step by step.
Some of the rules in Xingwang Hotel resembled those in Changsheng Building, but clearly, unlike Changsheng Building, it was not human-made. On the contrary, it was created by those huge eyeballs he had briefly encountered in the Fantasy Amusement Park.
It had started as an illusion in the dream of the diary owner, never existing in the real world, but over time, with nightmare after nightmare, it had gradually invaded reality, becoming a real building, even taking on a seemingly "real" shell.
The group suddenly stopped.
All the ghosts halted in place, no longer moving forward.
?
What's going on?
Within the range of his control, Wen Jianyan carefully turned his body, adjusting his angle, and peered through the gaps between the ghosts ahead.
At the bottom of Xingwang Hotel, among the blood and flesh, a gap had appeared, leading deep into darkness, like the only large door or perhaps a giant, gaping, black hole of a mouth.
The shape of the gap…
Wen Jianyan felt a bit familiar, but for a moment, he couldn't recall where he had seen him before.
However, this was an opportunity.
Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze, clenched the mask in his hand, and tentatively moved his hands and feet.
Hmm, almost there.
He glanced sideways at Wu Cheng, who still appeared to be under control, standing straight and stiff with an eerie, frozen breath, motionless.
Rescuing him was still possible.
This guy might still be useful.
His thoughts whirled quickly, and Wen Jianyan made up his mind.
He raised his hand and placed the mask on his face.
The moment the mask covered his face, the gazes that had been clinging to him since earlier vanished, and Wen Jianyan breathed a sigh of relief. He slowly moved toward Wu Cheng, raised his hand, and cautiously began to peel the dirt off his face. As the mud fell away, Wu Cheng's motionless posture shifted slightly, as if he was gradually starting to wake up.
After removing only half of it, Wen Jianyan stopped.
Wu Cheng's mask was half-shattered, and because of the dirt, it hadn't completely fallen off. He couldn't guarantee that once he removed all the dirt from the other person's face, it wouldn't cause the mask to fail and return him to a human state.
There were ghosts all around.
Becoming human again wasn't a good option right now.
Wu Cheng, whose eyes had just been covered with mud, blinked, showing a dazed expression, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.
Wen Jianyan lowered his voice, "Don't ask questions, follow me."
After saying that, he turned and restrained his movements as much as possible, slowly making his way through the crowd of ghosts toward the building.
The distance was closing slowly.
Wen Jianyan could see that the gap in the wall was getting closer.
Beneath the mask, he frowned, momentarily distracted.
That shape… where had he seen it before?
Only a few steps left.
As the distance narrowed, Wen Jianyan began to realize that the "gap" wasn't very large, just about the height of one person, only wide enough for one person to pass through; it would be a tight fit for two.
The hotel's main door, though small, wasn't this small.
It almost looked like a picture frame—
Wen Jianyan's pupils constricted, and he suddenly stopped.
Behind him, Wu Cheng, who hadn't anticipated the stop, collided into him unexpectedly.
The mud on his face, which had been loosely attached due to the rain, fell off in pieces, dropping to the ground.
At that moment, it was as if the ghosts on the road simultaneously sensed something or received some command, and they slowly turned their heads, all staring in this direction.
"Run!"
Wen Jianyan shouted.
He then gathered all his strength and charged toward the gap in the flesh wall!
Wu Cheng was quick to activate his life-saving item, gritting his teeth, and followed closely, rushing after Wen Jianyan's back!
Against so many vengeful ghosts, even the rarest of items would only last for two seconds.
The cold, deathly aura followed closely.
Wu Cheng was covered in cold sweat, his body trembling.
Only three steps left.
Two steps.
One step!
Time was running out, and the chilling aura was too close, almost at his back. But in order to survive, Wu Cheng clenched his teeth, closed his eyes, and pushed himself with all his strength, charging into the nearby door!
Because of his intense speed, he fell face first onto the ground and rolled a few times before finally stopping.
Wu Cheng, dizzy, slowly raised his head, taking several seconds to realize that he had really escaped death.
He stared blankly at the place he had come from.
The wall was still the hotel's wall, smooth, with nothing on it.
No hole.
Outside the hole, there was no road leading to the unknown world, nor were there any vengeful ghosts. Everything that had just happened seemed like a hallucination.
The dim red light above was calm.
Wu Cheng shakily stood up, a sense of surreal disorientation washing over him.
"Ugh!"
A clear dry heave pulled him out of his thoughts.
He turned his head, looking toward the direction the sound had come from, filled with mixed emotions.
The person who had led him into that life-or-death situation and then saved him from it was now hunched over, supporting himself against the wall, with his mask pulled aside. His slender back trembled as he vomited uncontrollably, looking pitiful.
This really was…
So strange.
Wu Cheng sighed deeply and walked over to pat Wen Jianyan's back. "Are you alright?"
"…I'm fine."
Wen Jianyan lowered his head, shook his head weakly, and replied.
…It didn't look like he was fine at all.
Wu Cheng held back his words.
After a while, Wen Jianyan finally recovered from the nausea caused by the grotesque blood-flesh monster with eyes everywhere.
He shakily straightened up and looked toward the place he had entered from.
The wall had returned to its original state.
There was no door or hole.
"I checked," Wu Cheng, noticing Wen Jianyan's gaze, said, "The door we came through doesn't exist. I think, whatever we saw earlier, whether it was the road or the door, it didn't exist in the same dimension as ours."
Though the physical locations overlapped, they were essentially in different worlds.
Wen Jianyan absentmindedly nodded.
He raised his hand and pressed it against the wall.
The wall under his palm was cold and solid, with no signs of illusion.
Yet, Wen Jianyan could still clearly visualize the shape of that doorway in his mind.
—Just like the large hole beneath the picture frame in the virtual space created by the Ouroboros.
Wen Jianyan still remembered how Wu Zhu had fiercely stopped him from entering there when he was out of control, and how he had been warned not to go near it once he regained his senses.
"…"
Wen Jianyan took a long, deep breath, pressing his heated forehead against his cool palm.
It was now clearer than ever.
At first, he had believed that the black hole beneath the picture frame connected to the Xingwang Hotel, which had been sealed in the garden world. However, the reality was far from that.
The hole actually led to a desolate, ghost-filled, deathly place.
Now everything made sense.
Why Wu Zhu had been so adamant in stopping him from entering, and…
The final crucial piece of the puzzle was now in place.
The question that had plagued him for so long was finally answered.
Wen Jianyan's mind was in turmoil.
He closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.
This was all a trap, a huge, intricate trap, not only targeting him but something far larger and more terrifying.
At that moment, Wu Cheng's voice came from beside him:
"Uh…"
Wen Jianyan looked up. "?"
"There are footsteps coming this way," Wu Cheng said nervously.
In the distance, regular footsteps echoed, and shadowy figures moved under the dim red light, walking toward some direction.
"They're guests attending the banquet."
Wen Jianyan said.
"!" As someone who had been tricked into a deadly situation on the first day, Wu Cheng, though he missed a third of the instance, understood what the word "guests" meant in the Xingwang Hotel.
They were ghosts.
He couldn't help but tense up:
"What do we do now?"
"Where do we go to avoid them?"
Wen Jianyan rotated the Ouroboros ring on his finger, his eyes narrowing.
He now knew exactly what he was going to do next.
"We're not avoiding them. We're following them."
He said.
"Eh?"
Wu Cheng was stunned.
What, follow them?
He turned his head, staring blankly at the young man beside him, as if not believing his ears.
"That's right," Wen Jianyan smiled slightly.
He raised his hand, pushing his damp hair back, his pale face now looking full of energy. He winked at Wu Cheng.
"The real show is just beginning."