Let's give space a touch of Chinese horror!

Chapter 28 Aced

"Yan Junchi!"

"Yan Junchi!"

……

It was getting dark, but since Yan Junchi hadn't returned, Geng Yao and Tian Baiwei, having learned from their previous experience, didn't wait around this time and went out to look for him.

Although... they already had a bad feeling, they still had to search...

At least we need to know how Yan Junchi "died," and... Tian Baiwei smiled slightly: she also needs to record Yan Junchi's death so she can laugh at him freely after the game ends!

The two of them called out Yan Junchi's name as they wandered through the deserted village, which seemed to be devoid of any living person.

"Hey! Bai Wei, look over there!"

Geng Yao grabbed Tian Baiwei's hand and excitedly pointed towards a corner of the village, "There's light there!"

"Could Yan Junchi be over there?!"

Tian Baiwei looked in the direction she pointed and indeed saw a house standing alone in a very remote corner, beside a sunken slope at the end of the village. The wooden door was ajar, leaving a gap about a hand's width wide, through which a faint light was seeping out.

"Let's go take a look!"

But the closer they got, the slower their pace became.

"Why do I feel..." Geng Yao said softly, "the light in the room... looks red?"

"It is indeed red..." Tian Baiwei nodded. Not a bright red, but a dark red.

It looks very ominous.

The two exchanged a glance, mentally preparing themselves for what they were about to see, before cautiously approaching the crack in the door.

But after seeing the interior of the house, the two realized that their preparations were far from adequate.

The house was empty, unlike the typical layout found in the village; only three walls were covered with rows of wooden shelves, on which were densely packed rows of black memorial tablets; and in front of the tablets, white candles burned.

However, the light from these white candles was dim, barely illuminating the white characters on the memorial tablets; the light that truly illuminated the room came from the center of the room—

Facing these three memorial tablets, in the center of the room, a person is kneeling on the ground.

Good news: They found Yan Junchi.

The bad news: it's almost impossible to recognize Yan Junchi anymore.

He was contorted into a bizarre pose:

He knelt on the cold, muddy ground, his back hunched, his hands tied behind his back, and his upper body clothes had been removed.

But at this moment, neither Tian Baiwei nor Geng Yao had time to care about the other's figure; their entire attention was focused on his exposed skin.

They weren't sure if they should call it "skin," because it now looked... completely unlike what a human body should look like: the surface showed no skin texture, and the texture was more like a translucent gel, more like... a kind of wax?

It's translucent with a slight yellow tinge.

Furthermore, because the skin was filled with contents, the entire "skin" was stretched very thin, making Yan Junchi look like a balloon, appearing full and round. Therefore, under the stretched skin, the dark red liquid flowing slowly could be clearly seen.

The liquid resembled stained grease or highly condensed blood; when heated and flowing, it would wriggle slightly with its "skin," making it appear almost alive.

As for why it "gets heated"...

Tian Baiwei's gaze slowly shifted to the top of Yan Junchi's head—

A thick, black candle wick of unknown material emerged from the center of his scalp and was burning faintly.

The heat of the fire activated the oil under his skin, and Yan Junchi's entire body radiated a dark red glow from the inside out; the melted oil slowly flowed from his sunken eye sockets, which had no eyeballs, and accumulated into layers of deep red tears.

Black smoke slowly drifted out from above his head, and an unpleasant odor, a mixture of greasy smells from burning oil, a strong, nauseating smell of blood, and the cloying sweetness of cheap perfumes, began to slowly permeate the room.

In addition, the entire room was bathed in a dark red glow from the candlelight, as if the air inside was soaked in blood.

"What...what is he...?"

Tian Baiwei stared blankly at Yan Junchi's corpse for a long time before finally finding her voice, "Why...why did it become like this..."

This was the first time she had ever heard that a person could be made into a candle!

This is too scary!

Just how twisted is the creator of this game?!

Although Fang Haoyu and Gao Yang's "corpses" were also terrifying before, it was only because the scene where they were discovered was horrifying. Their "corpses" were still intact and within their acceptable range.

But now... Yan Junchi's corpse, his death, his horrific state, have clearly exceeded her previous understanding.

Just one glance and her stomach began to churn uncontrollably.

Tian Baiwei couldn't help but wonder: what had the creator of this game gone through to come up with such a terrifying way to die in the game?!

"Geng Yao, you agree, right..." Tian Baiwei stared intently at Yan Junchi's corpse, complaining while still talking to Geng Yao.

The main reason was... in this terrifying scene, if there was no sound around, she was genuinely worried that she would lose control of her instinct to run away.

She waited for a while, but still didn't receive a reply from Geng Yao.

Ok?

Tian Baiwei looked down in surprise.

"!!!"

She gasped sharply—

Geng Yao remained in the position of peeking through the crack in the door, her neck muscles tense and veins bulging, but the skin on the back of her neck had turned a deathly, abnormal bluish-white.

Tian Baiwei felt as if her breathing was about to stop.

She swallowed hard, moved over step by step, slowly circled around to Geng Yao's side, and tremblingly shifted her gaze to Geng Yao's face.

Her eyes were still open, her eyelids were forcibly held open by muscles, and her eyeballs were covered with dense blood vessels. Her pupils were completely dilated, and not a single ray of light could be seen. Her lips were bitten tightly by her teeth, and even at this moment, she did not forget to control herself from making a sound.

His entire face was frozen in utter horror.

Tian Baiwei took a deep breath, her hand trembling as she reached out and gently touched Geng Yao's shoulder with her fingertips.

The cold, stiff touch on her fingertips made Geng Yao's body sway, and she fell straight to the side like a door that had lost its support.

"Thump!"

Geng Yao remained clinging to the crack in the door, then crashed onto the dirt road in front of it.

The dim red light shining from inside the room slanted across Geng Yao's face, illuminating the frozen expression of horror on her face.

Tian Baiwei let out a short, choking gasp.

She lunged to the side, her stomach churning again—and this time, she actually vomited.

"vomit--"

Tian Baiwei braced herself on the ground with both hands, her shoulders heaving violently.

When exactly...?

Just minutes ago, Geng Yao was talking to her, but a few minutes later, she silently "died" beside her...

Tian Baiwei suddenly understood how Yan Junchi felt when he woke up this morning and saw Gao Yang's body lying quietly beside him.

After her churning stomach finally calmed down, Tian Baiwei was torn between whether or not to take her friend's body back home.

Of course, Yan Junchi's body was clearly not within her consideration.

Putting aside her relationship with Yan Junchi... just considering the current state of Yan Junchi's corpse, Tian Baiwei didn't know how to proceed.

For example, the candlelight above his head... should it be extinguished? What if it burns her if it's not extinguished? But if it's extinguished, she always feels that something else will happen...

For example, his skin was bulging like a balloon, looking like it would burst at the slightest touch... Tian Baiwei worried that before she could even lift him up, the corpse would be ruined in her hands.

It would be better to leave it where it is; at least that would leave Yan Junchi with a "complete corpse"...

Tian Baiwei thought this with a clear conscience, her gaze lightly sweeping over Yan Junchi in the room.

But less than a second later, she quickly looked away.

...Did she see it wrong?

Was Yan Junchi's face facing her just now?

But she clearly remembered that Yan Junchi's head had been slightly lowered before, and from their angle, they could only barely see the red candle tears flowing from his eyes.

But at this moment, that face full of "blood and tears" had turned completely around, its dark eye sockets facing her.

Even though her eyeballs had long since disappeared from their sockets, Tian Baiwei seemed to feel two cold and slippery gazes precisely and firmly locked onto her, pressing down on her with a heavy weight.

The blood in her body seemed to freeze in that instant, and her heart felt as if it had been squeezed hard by an invisible hand. All Tian Baiwei could hear was the loud, drum-like pounding of her own heart.

On the contrary...

She stared at Yan Junchi's corpse as she carefully and slowly backed away.

Anyway, the corpses in this game won't be retrieved, so she can come back tomorrow morning to "collect the corpse" for Geng Yao... Now, she should go back to her room first, it's getting late.

Tian Baiwei carefully walked backwards until she could no longer see the red-lit room or the face slowly turning with her movements through the crack in the door. Only then did she take off running and scramble back towards her own house.

She practically crashed into her room, slammed the door shut with her bare hands using muscle memory, and then stumbled and ran toward her bed.

In her haste and panic, she slammed her foot into a table leg. A sharp pain shot through her, and Tian Baiwei lost her balance, collapsing to the ground with a startled groan.

The red cloth that had been taken out of the water tank yesterday and placed on the table also fluttered down to the ground as the table shook, landing next to Tian Baiwei.

Tian Baiwei originally didn't want to get involved, but she was worried that if this obviously unusual red cloth stayed on the ground, given the nature of this game, some unnecessary trouble would arise.

So after thinking it over again and again, she turned her head and decided to pick up the red cloth first and put it back on the table.

But when his fingertips touched the red cloth, "Huh?"

Tian Baiwei looked at the red cloth that had fallen to the ground and spread out in confusion.

There was an extra piece of embroidery on the part that had been folded up before.

The embroidery is meticulously stitched and exquisitely crafted. The petals, interwoven with gold and light pink, are layered upon each other, with the outer layer generously extended and the inner layer subtly closed, the golden lotus heart being wrapped by the petals from the outside in.

It blooms so vividly on the red cloth that it seems you could touch the soft petals with just a fingertip.

Was there embroidery on this piece of cloth before?

Tian Baiwei tilted her head and examined the embroidery carefully.

For some reason, she felt that this flower... seemed a little crooked?

There was an abrupt empty space next to the flower, giving the whole flower a strange sense of imbalance, making it appear to hang there alone, with a very unstable center of gravity.

It seems like... there should be something else nearby.

What's missing?

Unbeknownst to her, Tian Baiwei moved a little closer to the red cloth.

The cold red cloth was almost touching the tip of her nose. Perhaps because it was too close, the image she saw was distorted. She actually thought she saw Xuanxuan's face on that strange flower.

At first, there was only a vague resemblance, but after realizing this, the more Tian Baiwei looked, the more she felt that the curve of the petals resembled the lines of Liang Lexuan's cheeks, the texture on the petals resembled a nose, and the lotus heart resembled eyes... The more familiar the eyebrows and eyes became, the more they were gradually peeling away from the flower and revealing themselves, quietly looking back at her.

Tian Baiwei's heart skipped a beat, and she felt her blood run cold.

Could it be...? It can't be what she's thinking...?

It must be...it must be that she just misread it, right?

How could a living, breathing person like Xuanxuan possibly appear in the embroidery on the red cloth? Haha... Haha... Tian Baiwei tried hard to convince herself.

She spread the red cloth out on the ground, preparing to check if there were any other embroideries on it that she hadn't seen before.

Because her attention was entirely focused on the red cloth, she didn't notice that behind her, at her feet... in places she couldn't see, the red cloth, which had been lying quietly on the ground, was slowly crawling towards her.

Like warm blood flowing over the skin, or like a silent, spreading blood mist, it slowly and with a chilling patience glides along the ground.

The red cloth quietly climbed up Tian Baiwei's ankles, then ascended to wrap around her calves and around her waist... By the time Tian Baiwei finally caught a glimpse of the silently spreading shadow in her peripheral vision, the red cloth, with its soft yet irresistible force, was like a gaping maw of an abyss, closing in on Tian Baiwei.

The world before her eyes was instantly swallowed up by a thick crimson, and the already weak light was completely blocked. Tian Baiwei could only see the lonely lotus flower rapidly magnifying in front of her, with Xuanxuan's smiling face appearing and disappearing among the flowers.

A moment later, the red cloth fluttered back to the ground.

On the red cloth, a twin lotus flower is quietly blooming in an empty room.