Chapter 138 The Horror Club
As Wen Shi resumed walking, his thoughts had become clearer. The current storyline posed no significant difficulties, but this time, the instance had strictly limited the survival rate, which meant that some players had to die.
Tiny ashes floated in the air, easily entering the body with each breath if one wasn’t careful. Along the way, there were only a few straight utility poles, keeping Wen Shi company. The air was damp and cold, and when his skin touched these strange ashes, it burned.
Wen Shi kept a close eye on his surroundings, trying to spot any other figures.
However, he remained alone throughout the desolate countryside. The building that seemed not too far away took a long time to reach.
Just as Wen Shi began to feel a bit weary, the overwhelming sense of emptiness around him was cut off by a building that bore the marks of time. He had finally reached his destination.
It was quite different from what he had imagined as a ruined and crumbling place. When Wen Shi stood in front of this building, which was rumored to have been destroyed by fire, he discovered it had been renovated. On a rainbow-shaped stone plaque, there were three large words engraved: “Orphans * Manor.”
The font was as dark as ink, and the middle character seemed naturally blurred, like a mosaic, making it impossible to read. But invisibly, it drew the attention of anyone who looked at it.
Wen Shi stared at it for several minutes before suddenly snapping out of it.
Immediately afterward, he noticed his rationality points had dropped by ninety-eight.
Since the game hadn’t given him any other quests, he had no choice but to steel himself and walk into the “Orphans * Manor.”
With no security guards at the entrance, the rusty iron gate made it easy to enter.
The interior was plainly visible at a glance. What first caught his eye was the red house directly opposite. Under the dark clouds, some parts were so red they bordered on purple, creating an eerie color contrast.
To the left of the house, there was a slide and some exercise equipment that appeared unused for a long time, covered in leaves.
The door of the red house wasn’t locked. Wen Shi initially planned to walk right in, but as he passed by the slide, a middle-aged woman appeared out of nowhere in the shadows.
The woman was very thin, her limbs resembling burnt branches. She fixed her cloudy eyes on Wen Shi and asked in a hoarse voice, “Do you want to adopt?”
Wen Shi instinctively furrowed his brow, not primarily considering the safety of adoption but because he had promised A’Sang that their family would only had one child.
A’Sang might appear silly most of the time, but when it came to important matters, he was quite resolute.
“Do you want to adopt?” the woman asked again.
Even from a distance, Wen Shi could feel a cold, charcoal-scented breeze wafting towards him.
After some thought, Wen Shi smiled and asked his first question, “Is this an orphanage?”
The woman didn’t respond. She began to approach him, and within a few short steps, more moisture seemed to evaporate from her body and bones were becoming visible in her fingers.
Before the woman could transform completely, Wen Shi changed his words, “I want to adopt.”
The silent anger in the woman seemed to finally subside. “Follow me.”
She led Wen Shi into the red house with only half a door. The bricks outside were somewhat faded, and the lampshade on the ceiling inside was dirty. Yellowed walls bore incomplete handprints of children.
Wen Shi stared at the woman’s back, squinting as he pondered something. After a while, he deviated from his usual behavior and brought up these suspicious details, “Are those children’s pranks on the walls?”
The woman didn’t answer as she continued to walk forward without glancing aside.
They passed through several rooms in succession. The dim light of old bulbs provided limited illumination, and the hallway, devoid of many windows, played with shadows. When they reached a window, the woman finally stopped.
Some of the dark clouds outside had cleared. With the help of a few faint rays of sunlight, Wen Shi saw dust particles in the air.
In this lighting, the woman suddenly turned around, her voice dry and unpleasant. For Wen Shi, who had grown accustomed to beautiful voices in the previous instance, it was a form of torment.
“Are you genuinely here to adopt?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
Looking sincere, Wen Shi replied, “No guarantees.”
They locked eyes for a moment, until the woman’s lips slowly curled into a smile. The smile grew wider until her whole face began to crease with folds.
“Very well,” she praised Wen Shi.
Wen Shi didn’t show it on his face, but he felt a slight relief in his shoulders.
When he had asked earlier if this was an orphanage, the woman hadn’t answered at all, which had given him a strong sense of unease.
As an NPC, if the ultimate goal was to convince players to adopt, she should have nodded in agreement.
Later, when he saw the handprints on the wall, Wen Shi tried again. He even came up with an excuse related to children’s pranks, but the woman still didn’t respond. It would have been better to just say something casually to persuade potential adopters.
Wen Shi concluded that the woman didn’t like lies, or perhaps, in Orphans * Manor,【Telling Lies】was a death rule.
This deduction sent a shiver of malicious intent down his spine. Most people would instinctively choose to say something nice when facing this NPC’s question, even though the rules could be deduced with careful consideration.
A sharp whistle snapped Wen Shi back to reality. The woman in front of him blew the whistle hanging around her neck and called out, “Gather!”
Her dry throat couldn’t produce sound, making her strained voice sound like it was on the verge of tearing apart.
The sound of the whistle echoed down the hallway ahead, then one of the doors that had been lurking in the shadows slowly creaked open.
Wen Shi stood behind the woman, with one perplexity still unresolved in his mind. Clearly, he had entered a new plotline, but why hadn’t the first short story begun yet?
•
In fact, Wen Shi’s initial deduction wasn’t wrong. Players didn’t necessarily gather in one short story, but their storylines would eventually converge.
Let’s rewind to last night when they just entered the instance as a team.
Compared to Wen Shi, who had almost been strangled, Pei Hongxin had a very good start when he entered the instance. He woke up on a small bed, with several identical beds around him all covered with matching white blankets. It seemed like everyone was still asleep.
The game’s notification sound rang out immediately:
【Due to significant fluctuations in instance difficulty levels, the two weakest players in this round will be placed in 『Orphans？Manor』 with a relatively low starting difficulty.】
【You need to compete with another player for adoption eligibility.】
The words “relatively low starting difficulty” made Pei Hongxin breathe a sigh of relief. He raised his hand in front of his face, feeling quite incredulous.
His little hands were soft and clean, without the calluses that had formed later due to holding pens incorrectly during his school days. He had somehow returned to his childhood appearance, looking about seven or eight years old.
There was an indescribable strange smell in the room.
He had no idea where this was. A kindergarten? A hospital…?
There were many possibilities. Pei Hongxin contemplated whether he should get out of bed and take a risk to see. As he turned to look for his shoes, he suddenly met a pair of creepy eyes!
The child in the bed next to his had actually been lying there with open eyes, unmoving, and staring at him.
A gust of wind made Pei Hongxin shiver slightly.
The short window with greasy glass didn’t let any moonlight in. The night breeze fluttered the curtains, and a candle illuminated the room.
The curtains nearly brushed against the candle several times. Just when Pei Hongxin felt this might lead to a fire, he smelled a strong smoky scent. On the other side of the room, the child lying on the bed wore a grin, and amidst that eerie smile, their head began to char. Pei Hongxin’s body under the blanket instantly tensed up, but he didn’t close his eyes. Instead, he bravely lifted the blanket.
He asked nervously, “Want to go to the bathroom together?”
The child nodded strangely.
In any ghost story, going to the bathroom at night was a very dangerous thing, especially when inviting a burnt creature.
But Pei Hongxin always remembered that this was a role-playing scenario. He had to consider himself as one of these children. The fact that these kids chose to go to bed at a fixed time implied they followed human life habits subconsciously.
He had to boldly approach them to prove that they were the same.
Pei Hongxin suppressed the trembling in his legs and walked out with the child.
As he passed each bed, he carefully observed. Some children were burnt like charcoal.
This fire element stirred up an unpleasant memory for Pei Hongxin. When he forcefully pushed down the memory, he finally saw a child who looked like a regular human. He immediately judged that this was another player like himself.
He stopped and asked, “Bathroom?”
It was a strange invitation, and with the system’s prompt about competition, the other player naturally wanted to refuse.
Pei Hongxin looked at the old ceramic cup on the table. “You drank quite a bit of water before bedtime. Are you sure you don’t want to go?”
He tried to stretch his lips into an eerie grin, feigning sophistication, but there was a hint of trembling in his voice. The charred child was getting close behind him, poking half of their head out to look at the player on the bed.
“Not going,” the player became more certain that the other had triggered some troublesome quest and was trying to deceive him into going together.
“Seems like none of us really slept much.” It looked like Pei Hongxin had lucked out this time, encountering an opponent with average intelligence and strength. He asked, “Do you want to come back and play a little game…”
He didn’t move, and the child didn’t move either, just staring at the player.
The player felt his skin crawl under the intense stare. He despised Pei Hongxin’s deliberate attempt to divert the NPC’s attention. So, he pretended to yawn and said, “I’m tired, going to sleep now.”
After saying that, he pulled the blanket over himself, acting as if he couldn’t hear anything.
Pei Hongxin smiled, this time with genuine warmth.
The child laughed, crawling onto the player’s bed, startling the player.
“Why not join us?”
The frail limbs moved faster than a gecko, and the child’s dark hand pressed down on the player’s shoulder. “Why—”
His voice suddenly rose, and the candle flame flickered.
An experienced player would have remained calm at this point, agreeing to all the proposals before. But this player hadn’t had many experiences. Pinned down, he saw those hands inching closer to his neck, and a surge of intense panic engulfed him. He emptied his points to exchange for an attack item.
Shaking off the child, he desperately ran toward the door.
Pei Hongxin, who had been prepared, was even faster. In a swift stride, he reached the player first, slammed the door shut, and locked it with a loud clank!
It was this one action that finally made the children consider him one of their own.
One by one, the children climbed down from their beds, barefoot, and approached the player.
Cold sweat dripped from the player’s forehead as he repeated, “Stay calm, stay calm…”
It seemed like he had finally realized something, “I’ll play with you, I—”
It was too late.
Where the charred little hand touched, the skin instantly erupted in a searing pain, like a branding iron.
“Help, please, help…”
Hands covered his mouth. The room was filled with the smell of burning flesh, as the player’s facial tissue was forcibly dissolved and sunken.
Feeling a bit queasy, Pei Hongxin moved towards a more ventilated spot.
Amidst the piercing muffled screams, he received a notification sound from the game—
【You’ve eliminated your competitor.】
【But it doesn’t mean you’re safe. Please get along harmoniously with your ‘friends’ until the adopters arrive tomorrow.】
“Adopters,” Pei Hongxin confirmed his current environment and self-identity.
He was an orphan in an orphanage, waiting to be adopted.
Having played the grieving father who lost his beloved child and portrayed the kind-hearted philanthropist for so many years, Pei Hongxin was never short on acting skills.
He could even delve deep into the rules while role-playing.
Going against the grain.
This rule seemed to break away from conventional thinking. In the game, for example, what some might think should be declined actually required active acceptance.
Carefully and cautiously, Pei Hongxin spent most of the night interacting with these little creatures. As the first light of day arrived, the candle that had been unsettling him all night finally went out.
Every minute that followed, he eagerly awaited the arrival of the adopters, or at least to step out of this terrifying orphanage.
“Gather!”
The loud whistle sounded, the woman’s awkward voice suddenly sounding pleasant to his ears. Pei Hongxin tidied up his clothes and walked out with all the children.
Just before opening the door, he looked at one of the beds, where the charred child from last night, the player he had eliminated, sat motionless. Now, he had become one of these children.
“Goodbye.”
These damn little creatures, this damn orphanage, he could finally leave it all behind.
In the dimly lit corridor, Wen Shi noticed a group of children with extremely uncoordinated limbs swaying in his direction. These kids were tightly packed together, almost like a group of charcoal sketches from afar. Wen Shi forcefully suppressed the urge to gasp for air.
As they got closer, one of the children, who appeared remarkably normal, immediately caught his attention. The child’s innocent face displayed an unsettling expression that only adults should have.
This face was both familiar and strange to Wen Shi, a shrunken, proportional replica of Pei Hongxin’s features.
Wen Shi couldn’t hide his surprise.
Pei Hongxin didn’t look much better either. The joy he had when he first emerged had completely vanished. On his face, which had always been composed, there was now a lightning-struck expression. His pupils visibly shook for a moment.
It was this change in expression that confirmed to Wen Shi that it was indeed Pei Hongxin!
How ironic and absurd it was that after more than a decade, their roles had undergone an extreme reversal. Previously, Wen Shi had been unsure of how to handle Pei Hongxin, how to truly let go of his pent-up frustration. It felt like no matter what he did, it fell just short, like no ending would be satisfying enough.
But now, Wen Shi felt refreshingly clear-headed.
So satisfying!
At least back in his own time, he had choices. He could decide which adopter to follow. Now, in “Eagle’s Vigil”, there was only one player left. Pei Hongxin had no choice but to be adopted.
He composed himself and calmly asked, “May I adopt him?”
The woman replied coldly, “Those who don’t lie have the privilege to adopt as they please.”
Wen Shi’s face immediately lit up with a fatherly smile, while Pei Hongxin instinctively took a step back.
In the dimly lit space, Wen Shi opened his arms invitingly and spoke with a gentle tone that could melt hearts, “Quick, come to Daddy’s arms.”
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