Chapter 89.2 Crimson Sunset Expedition
A thought crossed the teenager’s mind—similar to the chubby worms, snakekin seemed to undergo a complete transformation, retaining only human language and some habits.
The interior of the exhibit hall was spacious. What he had seen earlier was just the tip of the iceberg. Stepping further in, he discovered dozens of display cases of various sizes.
Bending down to almost touch the glass, the teenager barely made out a thin layer of small objects underneath. At first glance, they resembled paper, with outlines resembling human ears. The label identified them as “Earworms.”
【Spotted Earworms: A skilled eavesdropper.】
This row of cases displayed various types of earworms.
The teenager had never been to the second floor of the House of Screams, or he would have recognized that the wallpaper there was made up of these diverse earworms.
Moving ahead, he encountered miniature living fossils.
【Little Lightfly: Pursues light, steals light.】
Judging by the description, it seems to steal vision.
“I heard that Sunset Town is conducting research on organ reconstruction. As long as you sign up, you can get a chance to regain your five senses for free. I signed up,” the audio guide recounted a horrifying experience, “Many experimental subjects, like me, signed up too. We underwent a series of live experiments at the cosmetic surgery hospital.”
The teenager shook his head. If the cosmetic surgery hospital was associated with Frank Hospital, then the current hospital was really just a facade.
A row of slogans was posted on the wall directly opposite the display case: “You need to walk to the end of the exhibit.”
The teenager continued forward, the flashlight’s beam revealing no display cases ahead. The walls, covered in snake-skin patterns, were adorned with ears, while the ceiling was adorned with at least a thousand little lightflies. Every blink seemed to shift the position of the walls, sometimes closer, sometimes farther, making it hard to discern direction and confusing perception the longer he looked.
The term “Ghost Wall” flashed through the teenager’s mind.
Below the ceiling wasn’t a floor, but a narrow wooden bridge. The bridge was incomplete, with several breaks along its length, connected by smooth, round stones. Below, it stretched all the way to the basement. The teenager vaguely saw numerous snakes poking their heads out and wriggling, resembling a pit of countless serpents.
The audio guide sneered with a hint of darkness in its prompt, “Please refrain from making sounds exceeding ten decibels, otherwise you will permanently lose your ability to see and hear.”
The teenager fell silent for a few seconds. Combining these requirements, even with his shapeshifting ability, the likelihood of safely passing through was slim.
The most troublesome aspect was the ghost wall-like arrangement. The【Homeward Bound】could help him find the way back, but it couldn’t explore uncharted paths. If he spent too much time here, he might not even make it out before the museum closed.
The lingering pain from hunger was still present, and he didn’t want to go through a second round of depletion.
“I should’ve let him handle this.”
Urged on by the audio guide, the teenager’s expression turned cold as he conjured a sword in his hand.
Seeing him with a sword, the audio guide found it rather amusing. “Intending to use that as a cane?”
Before entering the instance, Wen Shi had over nine thousand points left. The teenager had the same amount, enough to use【One Strike Flattens All】once.
Raising the sword, he made a light swipe, and sword energy surged in all directions. A simple move, yet it had an earth-shattering effect.
Live experiments were brutal, but the snakekin gained sight and hearing shortly before death. Now reduced to a complete monster, its vision was exceptional.
It clearly saw countless tiny objects falling from the sky—reproductive organs of the earworms and fireflies. Seconds later, these things lost their heads as well.
“……”
Such small things, and they were accurately sliced off!
The audio guide trembled, and looking down at the pit of countless snakes was even more gruesome. Not a single snake escaped with its two XXs intact.
The snake-skin walls were damaged, and the ghost wall effect vanished. The teenager leisurely walked forward along the narrow bridge, sometimes walking, sometimes jumping. The earworms, responsible for stealing hearing, were gone now, so he didn’t need to worry about making noise.
“What’s inside the next exhibition hall?” he asked.
The audio guide quivered with a perverse fear, “I-I can’t say.”
With the sword tip pressing against it, the audio guide’s dark voice gained a hint of desperation. “I really can’t say. I work here, and I have a confidentiality agreement.”
It seemed very dangerous.
The teenager lowered his gaze. The task didn’t have a strict requirement to visit the next exhibition hall. He decisively gave up on it, spending fifteen minutes in the second hall before heading to the sixth floor to find a staff member for a stamp.
In the meantime, the audio guide’s red light flickered, as if sending a message.
On the sixth floor, a staff member hunched over, her bangs covering her glasses. She practically lay on the table, reading a newspaper, her face barely visible.
He handed over his badge, and the staff member stamped it absentmindedly before tossing it aside.
The teenager didn’t let his guard down. He turned and made sure the staff member remained in her place before leaving the room with relief.
Almost in the instant he stepped out, the system’s icy voice rang out:
“You haven’t spent fifteen minutes in the Perfect Specimen Theme Hall.”
The teenager’s steps abruptly halted as he glanced at the guide maps near each entrance. The Perfect Specimen Theme Hall had changed from the fourth floor to the sixth.
He suddenly understood something. The staff member responsible for stamping the card was the Perfect Specimen herself. Wherever she went, the exhibition hall followed.
WTF!
The audio guide abruptly transformed into a long snake, lunging towards his throat. The teenager sensed the movement, but the sensation of hunger rebounded infinitely, like severe hypoglycemia, leaving him with no strength even to raise his hand.
He triggered the death rule, and was completely suppressed by the audio guide.
In the instant the venomous fangs pierced through his throat, his limbs turned icy. He struggled to maintain his composure.
No, this wasn’t an absolute death rule. Only the forbidden words listed in the notice column at the entrance were the ones that invoked absolute death rules. The monster attacking him was just a creature. As long as it didn’t follow up with the final blow, he might still have a chance to survive.
While thinking this, the teenager collapsed dazedly, his body crashing onto the cold ground, another spatter of blood flying out.
He had already prepared himself for death before coming here. He even felt this was his trump card. The mere thought of the monster believing it had successfully hunted him down, only to be unaware that this marked the beginning of its own demise, gave him a faint sense of excitement.
However, the actual sensation of dying wasn’t as satisfying. The life force was stripped away in an instant, leaving him with a feeling of powerlessness as he fell into darkness.
It must be an illusion.
How could he, a shadow, possibly fear death?
The staff member emerged, dragging the teenager inside. With a cheerful smile, she said, “An intact shell like this one, I’ve hit the jackpot this time.”
The ‘unyielding in death’ teenager saw the staff member’s face clearly—it was the ticket seller from the House of Screams. She had changed her appearance. She was now wearing a thick-framed ponytail that covered half her face.
No wonder she always kept her head down.
The teenager pushed aside his stray thoughts and seized the time to prepare to ingest a healing potion.
However, just as he was about to take the potion, a sense of uncertainty crept in.
There were two ways to use potions. One was to take them out like items and drink them as normal potions. The other was to use the [Use] button in the attribute panel. A brief animation of a little figure administering the potion would flash in his mind, followed by an increase in his health points.
The game enjoyed playing with words. Secretly consuming a potion might violate the rules against eating inside the museum.
The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a description like【Consumption in any form is strictly prohibited】.
Without replenishing his health, it wouldn’t be easy for him to fight back.
The ticket seller crouched down and took the audio guide from the teenager’s hand. The audio guide returned to its original form. It was clear that this device held significant value as museum property.
As she placed it on the counter, the audio guide’s mouth was still slightly open, as if it couldn’t believe it had really bitten the lunatic to death. The ticket seller sneered, “You really have no backbone.”
Scared like this by a mere human.
The audio guide couldn’t stand for it and said, “Do you know how terrifying it was? He took out thousands of earworms and fireflies with just one slash of his sword!”
The ticket seller’s expression suddenly changed.
The teenager inwardly cursed—he was in trouble! He used up his last bit of strength to draw his sword and was about to throw it towards the back of the ticket seller.
However, most powerful creatures in nature are not lacking in speed.
The sword struck empty air.
The ticket seller smirked darkly, “Foolish enough to fall for such a little trick.”
His sword skills had clearly been sealed yesterday. The fact that he could activate them suggestsed that this person wasn’t the original. Consequently, his ability to revive should remain unaffected.
She picked up the sword and approached, aiming once again for his shattered throat.
The cold gleam of the sword was reflected in her pupils. The rush of air caused by the sword’s thrust brought a chill to his already injured throat.
Was this it? Was he going to die?
The teenager gently moved his finger. Once the ticket seller was on guard, even risking taking a potion wouldn’t be useful anymore.
Just as the sword’s tip was about to pierce her throat, the ticket seller’s ponytail was suddenly seized and forcefully pulled back. Behind her appeared a figure that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. With swift and ruthless precision, they used a kitchen knife to slice through the slender neck. As blood gushed out, the newcomer skillfully closed their eyes, preventing any contamination from the splattering blood.
Everything happened in a blur. Only the audio guide, the observant bystander, could capture it all. A cat-eared teenager dashed forward like lightning, his killing movements executed with seamless fluidity.
The ticket seller’s eyes widened, brimming with disbelief.
All her attention had been fixated on the teenager. She hadn’t anticipated that another would launch a surprise attack at that moment.
The blood spurted out, streaming down the teenager’s smooth forehead. It accentuated his pallid skin. Wen Shi wiped it away with his sleeve, released the ponytail, and covered the wound. The ticket seller clutched her throat, attempting to say something, but only gurgling blood bubbles emerged from her throat.
Looking down from above, Wen Shi spoke coldly, “This is what a genuine surprise attack looks like, not the way you were arrogantly treating your sword like a hidden weapon.”
The teenager was surprised by his sudden appearance, but when he looked closer, he saw the girl standing not far away. She walked over and stared at the wound on his neck, a concerned expression on her face.
Wen Shi bent down to pick up the sword and proceeded to stamp hid badge.
“Death is not a plaything. When you attempt to toy with it, you often end up dying miserably.”
He finished speaking and waited for the fifteen minutes to pass. During this time, he had the girl help hang the ticket seller’s body upside down out the window, a sort of warning.
Glancing at his phone, Wen Shi came over and half-crouched down, lifting the teenager onto his back. As he walked out, he said, “Killing and arson, those are just the crudest forms of retaliation. When you’re on the brink of death, have you ever feared that the people who are still alive will grieve for you?”
Some of the blood from the teenager’s throat smeared onto Wen Shi’s body. The teenager didn’t speak, not wanting to admit that his instinctive reaction in that moment was that the girl would cry herself to death beside his corpse.
After a moment, he managed to rasp out a question, “How did you get in?”
Wen Shi: “Your Grandma was handing out flyers on the street, and I was busy working non-stop. In the end, we barely scraped together enough money.”
The teenager was momentarily stunned, not expecting that his original self could accomplish this much.
“I bought a full-price ticket. All the change I had was spent,” Wen Shi said softly. “I just hoped you could understand… burp…”
Teenager: “?”
Wen Shi looked slightly embarrassed and let out a satisfied burp, “I was in such a rush to get here that I gulped in some cold air.”
The teenager lowered his head and sniffed, catching a faint aroma of barbecue on Wen Shi’s back.
The girl beside them had been twitching her shoulders all along. At first, the teenager thought she was crying, but now…
The teenager struggled to turn his head, and the girl averted her gaze as she nervously said, “We really were worried… burp.”
She quickly covered her mouth.
It had been a while since she had crazily eaten anything. Today, she suddenly ate too much, and when she saw the teenager bleeding and got anxious, she ended up burping.
“We have money for a taxi, and plenty of time. Let’s go to the food street first,” the girl paused for a moment before honestly admitting, “Actually, we arrived much earlier, but I swear on your life not to intervene the first time you die.”
This was one of the conditions Wen Shi had set when he bought tickets and brought her in.
There were two more conditions, namely to have a meal first, and to work as a bodyguard.
“After coming in, he first went to visit the projects in the North Zone.”
The projects in the North Zone were relatively easier, with each exhibition hall requiring only ten minutes of stay. With the girl accompanying him, Wen Shi quickly acquired two points.
Although the old lady had advised against relying on outside help, having a bodyguard in critical moments was never a bad idea. With the girl around, whether it was hiding or observing secretly, everything became quite simple.
The teenager gripped Wen Shi’s clothes tightly, almost wishing to bite his throat as he spoke intermittently, “Last night, you could have just let her accompany you inside.”
They went around in a big circle just to let him die once?! No, it was also about depleting points, making it impossible for him to use “One Strike Flattens All” to kill him quickly later on.
Wen Shi shook his head. “I didn’t know about the half-price ticket at that time.”
However, the teenager’s deduction wasn’t wrong. Those were indeed Wen Shi’s intentions.
When they reached the building, Wen Shi stopped and used the bought lighter to ignite things around him.
In the glow of the fire, a smile slowly formed at the corner of his mouth.
The flames quickly consumed half of the room. The teenager paused, thinking about who had just said that killing and arson were the crudest form of retaliation.
Watching the fire blaze, Wen Shi maintained his smile and said, “I’m doing all this to vent for you.”
“……”
Immediately after exiting the museum, the teenager struggled to jump down from Wen Shi’s back and began using potions frantically to heal.
After his throat felt somewhat better, he raised his head as if to scold.
Wen Shi calmly said, “I didn’t plan on letting you bear everything alone.”
Even with the girl present, he had still taken some risks by entering the museum. The final “Perfect Specimen” exhibition was indeed a trap, and Wen Shi had also failed to realize the danger until he saw the teenager being defeated.
The tickets for full-price admission had a special note: “The Perfect Specimen Exhibition is very dangerous. Please think carefully before proceeding.”
The teenager and Wen Shi shared a similar mindset when it came to significant choices. At that moment, Wen Shi also made the decision to gave up on it without hesitation.
The teenager was about to say something more when Wen Shi preemptively pulled out a movie ticket and waved it. “Let’s go, watch a movie.”
“……”
Damn, got caught real hard!
•
The Royal Cinema was the most luxurious movie theater in Sunset Town, even the seats came with built-in silent massage functions.
While Wen Shi and the others enjoyed the movie, the tour guide went to the cosmetic surgery clinic first and then rushed over from the distant train station.
In the taxi, a turtlekin tried to shrink their body, on the verge of tears, “What on earth are you planning to do?”
It had been minding its own business at the stall and got inexplicably picked up and put into the car.
The tour guide sneered, “You said I’m extremely unlucky. Now, I’ll take you to see it for yourself. That fire pit you stepped over must be ice cold by now.”
In order to find this turtlekin, she wasted quite a bit of time at the train station.
The turtlekin helplessly hugged itself. No matter how it looked at the other person, she seemed perpetually unlucky!
The taxi finally entered the bustling Wangjing Road, with flames soaring in the distance.
The taxi moved slowly, traffic congestion being a daytime norm in the commercial subdistrict.
The tour guide looked towards the direction of the fire, feeling a sense of unease. Just as the taxi came to another stop, the driver, in a restless mood, rolled down the window and struck up a conversation with a passerby to pass the time, “Where’s the fire?”
“The museum.” The passerby munched on his grilled meat skewer with contentment.
“What did you say?” In the back seat, the tour guide suddenly stretched out her slender arm, grabbing onto the passerby’s collar.
Confronted by those terrifying eyes, the passerby abandoned his plans to curse and managed to swallow the chewed-up meat. “There’s a huge fire at the museum. The area around it is completely blocked off. Oh, and it seems someone died too. The body is hanging outside the window, roasted beyond recognition…”
If you enjoy this novel, support the Translator ginevre on her ko-fi account :))
