Chapter 86.1 Crimson Sunset Expedition
Wen Shi was simply standing there, yet the tour guide’s favorability towards him had dropped significantly. However, her lips still maintained a slight curve, unlike the previous instance’s host who would display his emotions on his face.
“Everyone, keep up.” The tour guide led the way. When she turned around, her smile disappeared, but the flag in her hand swayed cheerfully.
Concerned about angering the tour guide, a few players fell a bit behind, distancing themselves from Wen Shi.
Qian Laiye wasn’t worried at all. He had a carefree personality and avoided fortune-telling. “If I knew the ending too soon, I wouldn’t feel motivated to do things.”
Wen Shi stayed composed. “The tragedy of divination often arises from attempting to alter the outcome and trying to extinguish the so-called source of misfortune, only to be backfired by that source.”
The meaning of this sentence was self-explanatory.
The tour guide kept leading ahead, as if she didn’t catch what was being said behind.
After departing from the train station, the world suddenly turned much calmer.
In the past, this town wasn’t called Sunset Town. With only around twenty thousand residents and a vast area, it had pleasant scenery, making it suitable for retirement. Over time, people started calling it Sunset Town, and most of those who came here were either retirees or tourists looking to relax.
Wen Shi and his group belonged to the latter category.
Having seen various creatures like the chubby worms and turtlekin, as well as the active beastkin on the street, everyone gradually got used to it. Eventually, they even found it quite alright. If they wanted to know significant NPC traits, all they needed was a glance at appearances—this was an advantageous condition.
The route the tour guide took them on was lined with businesses. The indigenous people didn’t appear as fierce as they seemed. The rabbit at the pharmacy with three flaps on its mouth was busy making medicine while standing at the counter, greeting, “Half-price for members on Wednesdays. Come in and see what you need.”
Across the street were residential houses. An elderly cowwoman was peeling lotus seeds, calling out to everyone passing by, “Very fresh, three yuan per kilogram.”
“Simple and honest folk,” Yu Xingzhou said calmly, “When Xiao Hua applied to join the guild for the first time, she appeared just as genuine.”
Xiao Hua wanted to deny but stayed silent after seeing Shadow Xiao Hua lingering between the guild leader and his shadow.
These shadows were practically their demon-revealing mirrors.
Wen Shi helped her find a step to sit on. “The environment is quite nice.”
As of now, this place wasn’t an animal kingdom. It looked more like a fairy tale town.
The cozy atmosphere was broken by a inn tucked away in a deep alley. The building had an antique style, with three floors, each adorned with accordion-like foldable lanterns.
The town’s temperature was much lower than the previous few stops. The focus wasn’t on testing people with the weather anymore. As they neared this dim inn, players felt not only the long-awaited coolness but also a bone-chilling cold creeping into their marrow.
A signboard hung directly above: “Lai Fa Inn.”
The alley’s light was too dim, and the four characters written in red paint felt oppressively heavy.
The tour guide didn’t go in directly. She dutifully explained, “The building we’re in now has a history of over two hundred years.” She playfully winked. “Many things in the inn are several cycles older than you, but due to some unfavorable rumors, business has been poor. The travel agency only managed to secure the opportunity for everyone to stay as a group.”
Everyone automatically translated her words: Haunted, cheap, group deal.
Welcoming visiting tourists was the inn’s source of income, yet during the day, its main gate remained tightly shut. The tour guide explained, “The landlord prefers silence. Everyone line up and enter one by one.”
Looking around, she eventually settled on Wen Shi. “Hurry and get in line, you stand first.”
Indeed, he was the target.
Wen Shi sighed, prophets really caused trouble.
Faced with the closed unknown space, it was better to go in later. For one, it allowed for mental preparation, and second, it was easier to deduce things based on traces left by those ahead. If someone got hit and died, the position they fell, the wounds, could reveal the death rules.
The moment his palm touched the panel door’s surface, a sticky and thick sensation transmitted through his skin. Wen Shi subtly pushed. The old wooden door opened sluggishly due to its age, emitting a creaking sound that lingered in the air.
Holding his suitcase, he had just stepped over the threshold when he felt a cool breeze behind him. Without looking back, he knew the door had closed automatically.
There wasn’t a single window open inside. The place relied solely on old light bulbs for illumination. Several round redwood tables were arranged in the lobby, and the rightmost counter belonged to the landlord.
“Register here.” The landlord’s voice was muffled. His mouth was long, like a needle, making it hard for him to speak. His belly was round and plump, as if filled with some kind of liquid.
Mosquito? Wen Shi’s thoughts flickered. If the inn didn’t have enough customers, how could it survive until now? It seemed like a bloodsucking profiteer.
“Quick, complete the check-in procedure. There are people waiting outside,” the mosquito landlord urged.
The tour guide had mentioned the landlord’s preference for silence, so Wen Shi approached with his suitcase held high.
The mosquito landlord took out a booklet and a brush, instructing him to fill in the registration. He also provided a few rules that needed to be followed inside the inn, including but not limited to not allowing an increase in the number of residents.
Wen Shi placed the scarecrow in front of the landlord. “He’s not human.”
An old lady peeked out from the suitcase, half of her head exposed. Her entire arm seemed to have shed all its bones, able to twist into different shapes. She kindly said, “I’m not human either.”
The mosquito landlord’s eyelid twitched, and he opened the booklet. “Copy the rules on the left in detail, not a single word should be missed. Write ‘I agree’ at the bottom, and fill in your check-in information on the right.”
After saying that, he turned an hourglass over, as if timing something.
Wen Shi dipped the brush in ink and quickly wrote. Accustomed to using a hard pen, he struggled with the soft brush, especially since the paper space was limited, and he had to control the font size.
“Write faster.”
“Don’t miss any words, don’t miss any words…” The landlord repeated these phrases over and over again, sounding like a mosquito buzzing persistently in one’s ear.
The scarecrow really wanted to poke a hole in the landlord’s belly to see what black liquid would come out. However, even though he didn’t have much intellect now, Jian Qingrong’s subconscious influence was still present, particularly when Wen Shi was on a mission. He exercised restraint.
Wen Shi’s demeanor while writing was highly focused, completely unaffected by external factors. It was as if this wasn’t a terrifying inn, but rather a school desk.
Calmly transcribing the rules, when he finally wrote “I agree,” the mosquito landlord’s murmurs quickened, “Aren’t you going to check it?”
He even nudged the hourglass toward him, which had already emptied more than half.
The inn was too quiet. The sound of fine sand was audible, a constant reminder that time was running short.
Wen Shi’s writing speed accelerated as he began filling out the other half of the guest registration form.
Just as his pen was about to touch down, the mosquito landlord’s needle-like mouth tightened with excitement.
“Heehee.”
The influence of the mechanical cat’s odd tone led Wen Shi to realize that this word could inexplicably amplify the mockery. He skipped the first line and smoothly completed each remaining box, leaving only one blank space: name.
Back at the train station, the tour guide had mentioned not to casually leave personal marks of their journey.
The landlord’s belly seemed to deflate a bit upon seeing this.
With the last grain of sand passing through the hourglass, a smile formed on Wen Shi’s lips.
The nonexistent Crimson Sunset Travel Agency on the map, along with the illusory train that harmlessly passed through bodies and collaborated with the travel agency, made the entire agency seem as if it didn’t exist. From this perspective, as a tourist, one had to cooperate as well, leaving as little trace as possible.
He scoffed, “As if they can’t stand the light.”
Since none of the guests were hit, the mosquito landlord felt extremely disappointed. Unwillingly, he took a key off the wall and handed it over.
The surface of the old key had a cloth tape with the number 204 written on it.
When Wen Shi took it and started ascending the stairs at a slower pace, his intention was to give the next person a hint. However, the landlord didn’t give him that chance and issued a warning, “Please don’t linger on the stairs for too long, the wooden boards aren’t sturdy.”
Indeed, the stairs were somewhat decayed.
Wen Shi was still carrying a suitcase. If he caused it to collapse, he figured the bloodsucking landlord might demand compensation.
He didn’t linger any longer. He swiftly turned into the corridor on the second floor. The lighting wasn’t good to begin with, and both sides of the walls were lined with uniform black bricks. Amid the gloomy atmosphere, that suffocating sensation deepened.
The room’s door lock wasn’t easy to open. As the key struggled with the lock, a strange sound reached from downstairs.
It wasn’t an ordinary scream. It resembled the sound of a dull knife slicing meat intermittently and faintly. At this moment, Wen Shi’s door also opened, and the sudden noise of the door opening overwhelmed the sound from below.
The landlord had already given a hint before, and Wen Shi didn’t send the scarecrow to investigate the situation. After all, he was already pushing the boundaries by adding occupants, so avoiding trouble was wise.
The room was dim and damp. Apart from the adjacent bathroom, there was only an iron bed.
The first thing Wen Shi did upon entering was to open the window for some fresh air. Just as he pushed the wooden window open, something was thrown out from downstairs.
A male figure, whether a shadow or a player, he couldn’t tell. Most of the blood in his body had been drained, and there was a hole in his temple, with residual brain matter oozing out.
The big mechanical cat’s vision allowed for a clearer view. It substituted for speech, “There are blood spots around the carotid artery.”
The fact that the landlord was a bloodsucker wasn’t strange, but this method of death was quite agonizing.
A body was thrown out, and someone downstairs waved, hinting that Wen Shi could share some knowledge.
Noticing that the tour guide on the other side didn’t show any intention to intervene, Wen Shi turned around with an expressionless face and walked to the edge of the bed.
He had seen that observing expression on the tour guide’s face a few times on the train, always when players were about to face danger. It indicated that openly spreading information to a group of people could likely trigger the rules.
At the inn’s entrance, the player with burned injury mocked, “His joy in saving people came from tormenting them. But now, he’s not acting like a human butcher, so naturally, he’s no longer interested.”
The player with burned injury was still holding a grudge against the creature near Wen Shi that caused him to trip.
Everyone knew he was distorting the facts. Losing limbs and a tongue was a result of breaking the rules. The first newbie who was hit almost became the passengers’ meal. However, there were inevitably a few people who unjustly blamed Wen Shi because he didn’t provide hints.
Xiao Hua tried to mediate with a smile, “Maybe he’s worried about breaking the rules. Didn’t the tour guide say the landlord prefers quiet?”
The player with burned injury sneered while taking a potion, “Reducing the number of people is a more reasonable excuse to lower the game’s difficulty, right?”
It was well known that the fewer players there were, the easier the game became.
Once they finished arguing, the tour guide spoke up, “Stop dawdling, the next person can register.”
The player with burned injury went in, seething with resentment. But he wasn’t entirely lacking in cleverness. Otherwise, during parkour, he wouldn’t have thought to trail behind Wen Shi. He had enough time to consider the restrictions on leaving his name.
Xiao Hua looked at him entering with a smile and said to Yu Xingzhou, “This person has issues with his mentality.”
There were subjective factors, as well as objective ones. Selfish and despicable traits inherent in the character got mixed with some unknown underlying causes.
Yu Xingzhou hinted with a sidelong glance towards the shadow.
The shadow of the player with burned injury wasn’t on the train from the start, indicating that something happened before boarding. After the shadow died, certain aspects that the player initially restrained seemed to gradually magnify.
However, it wasn’t an absolute rule.
Song Yan was a newbie. When his shadow died in the railway he himself appeared unaffected.
Yu Xingzhou’s gaze flickered briefly, perhaps suggesting that getting injured was a triggering point. Being injured and having the shadow die seemed to gradually erode a person’s self-control.
Xiao Hua: “Keeping him around is troublesome.”
She casually dropped a bloody hint at wanting to get rid of the player with burned injury.
The game’s provocation, changes in character, and the brutal evolution system all seemed like preparations for players to eventually turn against each other. It was necessary to remove unstable factors in advance.
Yu Xingzhou: “Your call.”
He didn’t care about the details.
Xiao Hua looked at Li Nan. Involving a decrease in the team’s numbers required gaining the agreement of some people.
Li Nan’s attitude was just as casual as Yu Xingzhou’s. “I want variability, not randomness.”
Implying that she could do it as she pleased.
Xiao Hua said with a smile, “I hope we encounter suitable rules in the House of Screams tonight.”
Directly killing each other wasn’t allowed, which for these experienced players, was a somewhat unenjoyable restriction.
The three of them had been speaking quietly earlier, with most people eager to get close to the inn’s door to eavesdrop on the sounds inside. Only a few noticed them, but two players did catch their words, shivering with goosebumps.
Even in the virtual world, it was well-known that Ji Yuanzhi and Xiao Hua were Yu Xingzhou’s right-hand and left-hand, respectively. Their personalities were quite extreme.
Ji Yuanzhi was the rational type, while Xiao Hua was the complete opposite. She seemed friendly and easygoing on the surface, but there were rumors that she had a strong sadistic desire. Even those notorious for their brutality, like Tu Bianxi, didn’t want to have any contact with her in instances.
When the inn’s door was opened again, no bodies were thrown out. This time, it was a shadow’s turn to enter.
One after another, as registration finished for most people, the prelude to dusk finally arrived, painted by the setting sun.
The orange-yellow light pierced through a few scattered clouds, casting wildly in all directions. The sunset turned increasingly red. Unable to resist, Wen Shi walked to the window. Sunset Town was bathed in deep red hues.
He oddly felt empty inside, as if he had woken up on a cloudy day in an empty room with closed curtains, where everything suddenly seemed meaningless.
It wasn’t just him. The entire Sunset Town fell quiet at this moment. The bustling train station’s calls had vanished, the rabbit at the pharmacy perked its ears, the elderly cowwoman leaned against her door motionless. Every brick, every existence in the town emitted negative emotions.
The mingling emotions seemed like an invisible pair of hands subtly infiltrating their consciousness, causing even Wen Shi to turn pessimistic.
Crimson Sunset Travel Agency was fake, his name wasn’t in the inn’s registry. So where was he? Who was he? Did he really exist?
Trashy propositions that wouldn’t even normally cross his mind were now driving him crazy.
A soft arm extended from his luggage, covering Wen Shi’s wrist as the old lady timely called out, “My dear grandson.”
The voice, neither light nor heavy, pierced his eardrums. It was as if he had just woken up from a dream. He tightened his grip on the window ledge, feeling the glaring light of the setting sun.
“Something’s odd about this sunset.” The sunset here seemed to endlessly tug at people’s negative emotions. Wen Shi looked at his suitcase. “Grandma, do you feel this sense of unreality too? Like life has lost its meaning.”
The old lady shook her head. “What kind of emotion is left for someone half-buried in the ground?”
She had been turned into a walking voodoo doll in her childhood, and later she had put an end to everything. She was in a state of detachment, without desires.
Wen Shi looked at the mini scarecrow. “And you?”
The mechanical cat spoke earnestly, “I don’t have a brain.”
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