Jiang Che put the bracelet on his wrist, then walked out of the stand-alone building under the watchful eyes of the Blood Slaughter.
Even after he walked some distance, viewers of the livestream didn't see Blood Slaughter come after him.
[Wait, what? He just left like that?]
[For real? Blood Slaughter isn't chasing?]
[He's definitely hiding somewhere in the dark. Blood Slaughter loves these hunting games.]
[Why did Blood Slaughter give him that bracelet? That's a special item from the dungeon! We've tried everything and haven't gotten a single useful item, and he just plays house with Blood Slaughter and is given one?]
[You guys don't get it. Blood Slaughter gave him the item for one simple reason: to tell the other evil spirits, 'This is my prey, hands off.' Besides, that bracelet for sure carries Blood Slaughter's scent. No matter where he goes, Blood Slaughter can easily track him down.]
...
At this, everyone looked at the bracelet on Jiang Che's wrist, and the envy in their eyes disappeared—what remained was only sympathy.
There are a lot of items with special functions in the dungeon. People call them dungeon items.
But not every item in the dungeon has a special power. Some of them form their abilities by gathering the dungeon's energy, others are custom-made by evil spirits, or are tools they often use.
But not all of these things are marked with the evil spirit's aura, because what humans find precious is often worthless to evil spirits.
The only things evil spirits care about are maybe their personal weapons—like Blood Slaughter's Saw Meat Knife, or the nurse's scalpel and suture needle.
As for everything else: if they lose it, then so be it.
Most of what humans get are these kinds of things.
They sneak in when the evil spirit isn't home, and quietly take special items from the house.
These things don't have deliberately stored auras—there's just a faint residue. So if they go missing, the evil spirits usually can't track them down.
But Jiang Che's situation is different. The Finger Bone Bracelet exuded a faint pink hue, looking glossy and slick all over,
You could tell at a glance this bracelet was deeply beloved by its owner, played with so often in fresh blood that it developed this beautiful color.
No one would believe Blood Slaughter didn't leave a trace of his aura on this thing.
Jiang Che walked away from the small building. There was no such thing as a 'residential complex' here; from a distance, you could see all sorts of bizarre architectural styles, each representing different areas—the evil spirits' own domains, each with a distinctive vibe.
Some areas were laid out similar to Blood Slaughter's place: apart from the main building, there were mostly scattered, abandoned, uninhabited houses, and endless scorched earth and ruins.
Others looked just like city blocks—a building after another, looking as if you'd entered some urban city, if you ignored the constant, unnerving silence and sense of unease on the streets.
This seemed even more like a small city. There were more rooms suitable for people to rest and live, and unlike the Blood Slaughter Region where the evil spirit's lair was obvious, but here, it was actually even easier to run into a ghost.
Unless you had brain damage, you would never willingly step into Blood Slaughter's main building.
But in this maze of identical buildings and rooms, no one could tell whether the direction they chose led to an evil spirit's den.
As Jiang Che moved farther away, the ground was no longer scorched earth—no longer the appearance of plants burnt by fire.
Fresh green grass had grown, but beads of blood clung to every blade, dripping down one by one, irrigating the cracked and blackened ground.
The ground was soaked in blood red. Clearly, this was another evil spirit's domain.
Jiang Che lifted his foot; ever since stepping into this new area, he'd felt a sticky sensation underneath his shoes.
The blood stains covering the ground were always half-dried, thick and disgusting.
He walked a few steps, immediately leaving a trail of footprints behind him—but before long, the sticky bloody prints slowly merged back into the surrounding stains, erasing any trace of a human's passage.
Squish—
Squish—
No matter how lightly Jiang Che walked, each step made that grating, unbearable noise from stepping on the ground.
Jiang Che frowned—his own home was better than this.
But he wasn't planning on going straight back. Since he was out, he meant to get familiar with the area.
Going farther in, things got complicated.
All around him were shops, their display windows filled with merchandise.
Standing before one of the glass cabinets, Jiang Che saw what it was: a human mummy, made into a mannequin, contorted into a grotesque pose and put on display.
Jiang Che looked at it—the shriveled mannequin's eyes turned to look at Jiang Che as well.
It was still alive!
Viewers watching the livestream through Jiang Che's perspective were just as startled, goosebumps rising all over their skin.
When watching the stream, they'd assumed these displays were fake, just dried corpses of previous victims made into mannequins.
"Help...help me..." The mannequin opened its mouth, but aside from the eyes and mouth, their limbs couldn't move at all.
Jiang Che stared at the dried corpse, thinking it looked familiar. He stroked his chin in thought for a moment, then finally recognized him.
It was the doctor who had been in charge of their checkups at the hospital.
Jiang Che looked at his wrist. He remembered this doctor always wore a watch, and once, when a patient accidentally touched it during a checkup, the doc beat him up for it.
Beside the display counter was a small door, apparently the access to the display window. Once Jiang Che confirmed he couldn't move, he opened the door directly.
The space inside was a bit tight, but you could still move around all right.
Jiang Che reached for the mummy's immobilized wrist,
The audience was stunned at this scene.
[I was floored when the mummy rolled its eyes and spoke! Never thought it was still alive!]
[I know who that is. He's one of the doctors that entered this weird dungeon with the current batch. Caught as soon as they got in, made into a mummy mannequin for display, and not even allowed to die.]
[This psycho might be crazy, but he's actually a good person.]
[This mummy's got a few buddies watching from a distance.]
[Friends? Where?]
...
Viewers could jump to the perspectives of different Survivors, so a lot of people were already aware of the situation here. Unlike lone wolves like Jiang Che, some Survivors arrived in a group when the dungeon started.
But as soon as they dropped in, before they could run far, they were chased down by evil spirits.
Following the rule of 'the slowest gets screwed,' this doctor ended up getting caught and turned into a mummy.
His companions hadn't gone far, just hiding upstairs in a building, quietly observing everything.
They didn't dare step onto the street at all. The bloody, sticky mire covering the ground was like a spiderweb radar—anyone who set foot on it would be detected by the evil spirits.