Chapter 34: Coming Back from Death
This world’s time had suddenly stood still, and it was not even half a minute before Bai Yan had finished reading the choices presented to him, but this time, he had never felt that the five minutes given to him become so short.
He took advantage of his five minutes of safety and ran towards the kitchen to look outside the window.
Outside was the scene of a girl standing on tiptoe and looking into the peephole. Her arms held a dog that had a severed hand dripping with blood, looking somewhat more frightening than the young girl.
Bai Yan’s gaze wandered into a distance to the bloodied staircase leading to the fourth floor.
At the small corner of the stairs, he vaguely saw an arm without a hand and a man, whose head had already been bitten half off, eerily crawling on the ground. At the side exposed a tattered up woman’s hand that seemed to be also struggling to climb down.
These two must be the girl’s parents!
It seemed that their family of three had been completely wiped out.
He wasn’t sure if the ghost dog had bitten them all to death when they fell asleep, or if it first killed the girl, and then the girl along with the ghost dog murdered the husband and wife together.
He weighed his options once again with his eyes fixated on the twenty seconds displayed on the countdown. In the end, he pressed on Option B, wanting to first try going through Yi Zihan’s route.
“Jingang, we should go to the master bedroom and escape there. Yi Zihan must have been killed by the ghost baby. It’s too awful!”
Bai Yan listened to himself shout as Wu Jingang listened and clenched his teeth in admission.
From his point of view, every ghost in this game was equally terrifying. Rather than dying inside the house, it was better to fight for their lives and escape.
“Okay, Yanyan. I’ll jump out first and then I’ll catch you from below.”
Wu Jingang yelled, but as he used his hands to pry the window open, he suddenly hesitated. He stared at the legs hanging on the other side of the glass and immediately wondered if he should continue opening the window.
“Hehehe… Uncle, aunty, don’t pretend to be dead. My precious dog is starving. Quickly let us in!”
The girl and dog’s incessant barking drilled through the walls of their home. Thinking of the hell that awaited them outside the door, Wu Jingang didn’t have second thoughts anymore and used all his strength to open the window, jumping down as soon as he entered a crouching position.
“Pak.”
Wu Jingang landed on the bushes downstairs. He quickly got up and didn’t seem to be seriously hurt.
Seeing Wu Jingang land safely on the ground, Bai Yan also stepped on the window sill, preparing to jump off. But as soon as he poked his head out of the window, the red shoes’ sharp points started nudging him on his head.
“Tak. Tak. Tak.”
The red shoes on top swept across his head, causing his scalp to feel numb and to slowly ooze out fresh blood.
Almost in an instant, blood ominously trickled down Yi Zihan’s legs and seeped out of the red shoes, causing blood to drip onto Bai Yan’s eyes and ears. Amid the intense pain caused by the liquid, Bai Yan’s ears turned deaf, and his line of sight turned red with blood.
“Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!”
He cried loudly from the pain but still intended to jump. However, at this moment, the window was already covered in a thick layer of sticky blood. The layer of blood that replaced the glass seemed to be alive, steadily flowing, and soon, ruthlessly pushing Bai Yan into the room.
Helplessly lying in the pool of red liquid, Bai Yan was stuck to the ground and couldn’t move an inch.
He forced his eyes to open wide and saw the beautiful, red-soled legs landing on the window sill. It slowly entered the room and chillingly drew nearer to his body, step by step.
As the blood washed over him, Bai Yan’s eyes moved upwards uncontrollably.
At this moment, Yi Zihan had finally stood in front of him with her red shoes strongly pressed against his face. Bai Yan’s eyes carefully trailed up along her snow-white legs, only to see that atop her legs was nothing but space. She didn’t have an upper body!
Following him dying a frightening death, Bai Ya looked at the options in front of him again with his bloodshot eyes.
He licked his dry lips and pressed on Option C without the slightest hesitation, preparing himself to break through a different path.
The app had once again assumed complete control over his body.
“Jingang, there’s no time left. We need to run away from this place!”
Wu Jingang looked at the window with eyes full of doubt while biting his lip nervously.
The ghost baby crawling on the window was incredibly terrifying but comparing it with the ghosts blocking the door and the miserable-looking pair of white legs, the ghost baby looked like the best option.
“Okay, Yanyan. I’ll jump out first and then I’ll catch you from below.”
Hearing the incessant knocking sounds outside the door, Wu Jingang didn’t dare doubt his actions and quickly opened the window.
Wu Jingang saw the ghost baby outside the window, and with a cruel heart, he pulled the ghost baby’s body off the glass and used all his might to throw the baby away.
“Get the hell away from me!”
Wu Jingang shook his arms using all his strength, but the ghost baby stubbornly stuck close to his arm, gradually climbing up his wrists.
In a blink of an eye, the ghost baby already climbed up his arm, and when he saw this, Wu Jingang’s eyes became wild. His blue veins bulged out, and he jumped down while letting out a hearty roar, “Yanyan, don’t worry about me! Jump!”
Wu Jingang brought along the ghost baby with him on his way down. Bai Yan quietly observed the brother for a moment before closely following his lead, cautiously crawling out the window and preparing to jump as well.
As he adjusted his posture to jump down, he watched Wu Jingang fiercely pulling away the ghost baby on his arm. With the view of the top of his head from above, it seemed like Wu Jingang was opening his mouth and yelling something inaudible.
Seeing that Wu Jingang was having unnatural movements, Bai Yan had a menacing premonition in his heart, but with an arrow pointed at his back, he had no other choice but to go for it.
He strongly lept out of the window and was now in midair, but something seemed to have caught his legs.
Bai Yan’s legs were dangling in the air, so he stiffly turned his head around, and to his surprise, Yi Zihan’s upper body was unknowingly trapped at the anti-theft net on the fourth floor.
In this situation, her legs were already inside the room, coming his way, while her arms were forcefully stretched out, grabbing his legs, as tears of blood streamed down her face, causing Bai Yan to expose a dry smile.
“Tak. Tak.”
The two bare legs had finally reached the room leading to his window.
Yi Zihan, who was feebly hanging on the fourth floor’s anti-theft net, had finally loosened her grip, making Bai Yan fall headfirst into the ground.
“Haha!” Bai Yan laughed dryly. He pulled out his phone and felt a headache, “I didn’t expect Yi Zihan to be more powerful and that the ghost baby would hold back Wu Jingang. As expected, the ginger is old and spicy(1).”
- It is a common Chinese saying that entails that older people who are more experienced are more sophisticated and stable. It is an analogy relating to how an old piece of ginger is still spicier than a new one.
Bai Yan looked at his phone and immediately ruled out the wrong options, leaving only two options to choose from.
Right now, he only had one resurrection coin left. If he used it up, his next death would become real.
At this moment, he couldn’t help but doubt the game. Like what Li Ming had said, do these choices exist for the players to live?
No matter his skepticism, the app restricted the actions he could make, so he had no choice but to choose.
Whatever the case, Option D wasn’t something he would ever choose. Yi Zihan, together with the dog in the girl’s arms, would never let him get away. But on the other hand, he won’t feel at ease if he stayed with the possessed Wu Jingang.
Bai Yan pressed Option A and immediately heard himself yell, “Let’s rush outside the door! Jumping outside the window is too dangerous!”
“But there are two ghosts outside the door.”
Wu Jingang gritted his teeth in fear. He didn’t want to face the dreadful girl. But, as he thought about it more thoroughly, the two windows were also crawling with ghosts and if they dropped from the third floor and were gravely hurt, the ghosts would have an easy time catching up to them and ending their lives.
So, Wu Jingang bit his lip until blood started leaking out and summoned his courage, saying, “Okay. We’ll surge through the door. Just watch me first, I’ll knock them over, and when I do, Yanyan, you should seize this opportunity to sprint as fast as possible and not turn your head back.”
During this situation, the system had given Bai Yan control over his body. Bai Yan didn’t reply and simply watched the door attentively, waiting for the opportunity that Wu Jingang had mentioned.
Although he didn’t look through the peephole, Wu Jingang could sense that the girl was standing outside the door.
His hands perspired excessively. Although he had his heart set on protecting his wife and charging out, he was still reluctant when it came to opening the door.
“Hehehe… Uncle and aunty, are you guys dead?”
Maybe because it was too impatient to wait that the sounds of urgent knocks suddenly came through, “Uncle, aunty, we’ll be going in now.”
There was an abrupt and violent crashing sound from the outside, leading Wu Jingang’s face to immediately turn pale.
This was an absolute horror of life and death. Although it’s easier said than done, this 1.85-meter man’s forehead was fully covered in sweat. Soon, the bumping sound against the door became louder and louder, he curled his hands into a fist and hurriedly opened the door, slamming into the dead girl and her dog.
“Run away! Run away quickly!”
There was no need for Wu Jingang to say this since Bai Yan took advantage of his ramming into the girl and quickly stormed out without turning back.
Behind him was Wu Jingang letting loose a miserable scream that could make anyone’s blood run cold, harmoniously mixing with the dog’s barking and the girl’s dark laughter. With just these sounds, Bai Yan could only imagine the type of horrific torture Wu Jingang had suffered for him.
Bai Yan took a few strides to the second floor and turned around, preparing to continue running down the stairs. But as he swept through the staircase, his legs couldn’t help but run faster.
Atop the stairs, the grizzled white-haired granny bent her back and was standing over there, her hand lifting a bloodied kitchen knife.
Behind the old lady were the other people living on the second floor.
The three apartments on the second floor were wide open with small traces of blood spilled in front of each door.
Bai Yan took a step back as he saw this shocking scene. His attention immediately went to the opened apartment 303. Maybe Li Ming was able to escape early, didn’t let the old grandma catch him, and was able to flee the building.
“There’s no way out anymore.”
Bai Yan gently touched the glass on the window and quickly turned it over without uttering another word. He protected his head as he jumped down, rolling into the bushes and ultimately landing safely. Other than receiving a few scrapes here and there that didn’t hinder his movements, he was fine.
He promptly lifted his body and raised his head. He saw the old grandmother standing by the second floor’s window, having a sinister expression on its face while staring at him. The knife she had at hand was raised high, leading Bai Yan to tremble.
In fear of running into more trouble if he stayed idle for too long, Bai Yan stopped watching and rushed towards the district’s gates, continuing to run past them until he could no longer see the building anymore. He then slowed down his speed and stayed under a street light he had come across.
“I’ve already run far away. It ought to be finished already.”
Bai Yan patiently stood beside the street light for around half an hour, but no matter how much he waited, Wu Jingang didn’t show up.
Wu Jingang was a real man, but Bai Yan felt that Wu Jingang’s fate had always been pointed at disaster. His heart beat rapidly for half the night. Bai Yan didn’t feel like finding a place to stay since in any case, he was a man, and sleeping on the streets wasn’t dangerous for him. He languidly leaned on the post and fiddled with his phone. From time to time, he lifted his head to reexamine if there were any changes in his surroundings until his phone vibrated ferociously.
[It’s already dawn. You look up in the sky with tear-filled eyes.]
[Wu Jingang was forever trapped inside that haunted building to save you. Even if you start your new life, you will always remember him, but you also won’t ever go back to that haunted place.]
[The game is over. Press the Return button to leave the game.]
It was finally over.
T/N: Helloooo just wanna remind you guys that I’ll be going back to my old schedule next month so stay tuned!
Also, I’m currently doing some research on pay-per-chapter platforms hehe If you would like a chance to win 4 advanced chapters of Hell App and Young Masters’ Little Maid, please answer this survey! 。◕‿◕。 This survey closes on April 20, 2021, 11:59 PM (GMT +8), so be sure to answer it by then!