Chapter 96
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
Lou Yan hadn’t finished his bowl of vegetarian pulled noodles when he heard a commotion behind him. Turning around, he saw that Li Sanxin was right, the hunters were indeed coming.
It was still the three familiar hunters, standing at the entrance of the restaurant without entering. The irritable hunter wearing a clown mask impatiently kicked the restaurant door a few times, “Bang, bang,” the sound like thunder, full of impatience and resentment, “Clear the area! No one is allowed to stay in the restaurant, go back to your rooms, if you haven’t finished eating, take your food with you! Don’t come out of your rooms once you’re back in! D*mn it, that little pretty boy is treating us like dogs, making us check the rooms and chase people out. I’ve never been bossed around like this even outside…”
Even the always smiling little girl said coldly, “What can we do about it? We can’t beat him.”
After grumbling for a while, the irritable hunter became even more furious when he saw the prisoners in the restaurant hesitating without moving, roaring, “Hurry up!”
Even though they knew that the hunters couldn’t kill anyone on this level, the prisoners were still afraid of the hunters laying hands on them. Unlike Lou Yan, they didn’t know that Fu Xuezhou had set rules for the hunters on this level. They only knew that even if they weren’t killed, the hunters had a thousand ways to make their lives worse than death.
Therefore, after being yelled at, all the prisoners moved quickly, rushing to the tables and grabbing the food, then hurriedly walking out with their heads down.
Lou Yan and Li Sanxin, along with a few others, also stood up amidst the chaos, following the crowd to the tables and grabbing plenty of food. Li Sanxin, being quick-eyed, grabbed two roasted chickens and stuffed one into his and Lou Yan’s arms, whispering, “I smelled and examined the meat, it’s normal roasted chicken, eat without worry.”
Lou Yan nodded and also grabbed some instant food, putting it in his arms. He whispered as well, “I know your room number, if I have a chance, I’ll come find you guys. But Fu Xuezhou knows that you and I are together. If he can’t catch me, he might focus on you. If he really arranges people to watch you, I won’t come over to stay with you… Did you see an empty space in the guest area with two pots of chrysanthemums? If there’s a situation, we’ll meet there. Remember to be careful, don’t let the hunters find out.”
Li Sanxin furrowed his brow inconspicuously and said directly, “Where are you staying? I’ll stay with you.”
Lou Yan shook his head, looking grim, “You staying with me won’t rest well. That dog, Fu Xuezhou, will definitely try to harass me and force me out.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Li Sanxin clicked his tongue, insisting, “It’s better for the two of us to be together in case of anything. Where we sleep doesn’t matter. I can’t just watch you being targeted by Fu. Alright, stop saying more, I’ve made up my mind, no matter what you say, I won’t change.”
With that, Li Sanxin quietly told Lin You, who was nearby, about his plan.
Lou Yan didn’t say anything more. He and Li Sanxin, along with Wen Yian and Lin You, separated and left the restaurant, blending into the crowd and leaving quietly. As soon as they left the restaurant, the two of them quickly headed to Lou Yan’s room.
Fortunately, the room Lou Yan chose was indeed secluded. On the way, they didn’t encounter any other prisoners besides themselves. When they arrived at the room, they found that the keys were still neatly inserted in the doors of the surrounding rooms, indicating that no one else had chosen rooms in this area.
Lou Yan took out the key and opened the door, raising his chin towards the adjacent room, “You’re staying next door?”
Li Sanxin removed the key from the room opposite, smiling, “I’m staying across from you.”
If the room were a bit larger, both of them could stay in one room. However, there was only one bed in the room, and it was a single bed. Both of them were so tired that they wished they could sleep for three days and three nights, but they didn’t have the energy to compromise now.
If they didn’t rest properly on this level, they wouldn’t be able to handle the next floors.
Both of them entered their respective rooms, and Lou Yan placed all the food from his arms on the table. He opened a bottle of mineral water, moistened a tissue, wiped his hands, and then laid down on the bed.
The single bed wasn’t particularly soft, but as soon as he laid down, the exhaustion from his entire body surged up, and Lou Yan closed his eyes, his mind filled with chaotic thoughts. Eventually, he was overwhelmed by sleepiness.
Lou Yan’s consciousness gradually blurred… However, just as he was about to fall asleep, there was a sudden knock on the door!
“Yanzi! Open the door quickly!” Li Sanxin’s voice sounded anxious.
Lou Yan woke up suddenly, immediately sat up on the bed, his black hair disheveled, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep, “What’s wrong?”
Li Sanxin held a bundle made from a prisoner’s uniform in his hand, which should be his new clothes from his room. Inside the bundle were all kinds of food and drink. Seeing Lou Yan come out, Li Sanxin didn’t even take the food that Lou Yan had put on the table in the room. Instead, he grabbed Lou Yan and ran outside in a hurry, speaking quickly, “I just finished eating and was going to wash my hands when I saw the hunters coming this way. They might be about to search our area.”
Lou Yan wiped his face, waking up, “They’re really fast… Then let’s go to where they’ve searched.”
The two of them arrived at the area where the hunters had previously searched, only to find that the hunters had locked the rooms they had searched and removed the keys. Lou Yan couldn’t help but laugh, but being without keys didn’t stop them. Lou Yan picked the locks of two doors, and Li Sanxin moved in with him again.
You either stay awake all the time or sleep well. For a tired person, just sleeping for a short while doesn’t relieve any fatigue but instead makes one even more exhausted. Lou Yan was no exception. He pushed the table to the door to block it, too lazy to even take off his shoes, and just laid down on the bed.
With his eyes closed, he fell asleep almost immediately.
But not even half an hour later, the voices of the hunters faintly reached Lou Yan’s ears from outside the door: “Check! Check all the rooms in this row! Prisoners, come out quickly! Open the doors!”
Lou Yan buried his head in the pillow, annoyed by the noisy opening of doors and the commotion outside. He impatiently opened his eyes, bloodshot with irritation, and cursed, “D*mn it!”
Here they come again!
Lou Yan walked out of the room helplessly, only to see Li Sanxin next to him also coming out with a pair of bloodshot eyes. The two of them glanced at each other, quietly leaving the corridor before the hunters arrived.
They found another even more secluded room to stay in, but the same situation as before happened again. Not even an hour later, the hunters found them again.
Lou Yan and Li Sanxin repeated the process of finding a room, sleeping, being besieged by hunters, and searching for another room three or four times. After this repetition, both of them were even more exhausted than before they reached the fifth floor.
Lou Yan’s eyes were red, his face tired and pale, and he exuded a sense of irritability and drowsiness. Li Sanxin beside him was also languid, with large dark circles under his eyes, looking like he could sleep for days if given a bed.
Both of them were too tired, but the repeated escape and pursuit made it impossible for them to rest peacefully. They were now leaning against a wall in a deserted corridor, taking a brief rest and thinking about where to go next.
“This is unbearable,” Li Sanxin rubbed his temples with a headache, trying to perk up but unable to lift his heavy eyelids, “I feel more tired now than before eating and washing.”
He couldn’t help but yawn.
“Because we rested, but not enough,” Lou Yan closed his eyes, his expression not pleasing, his beautifully shaped lips slightly pursed, “The drowsiness is awakened, can it be less tired than before?”
Li Sanxin yawned again, “It’s strange, every time we’re sleeping soundly, those hunters always catch up with us. They might as well come while we’re just falling asleep, at least we wouldn’t be this tired now.”
Being able to struggle to get out of bed while still sleeping deeply, they relied entirely on their strong willpower. This was much more difficult than being awakened and getting out of bed when they were just sleeping.
The eyes under Lou Yan’s eyelids flickered, he opened his eyes, his eyes full of exhausted bloodshot veins. He imitated Li Sanxin’s gesture, pinching his brow and rubbing his eyes.
His eyes were burning, Lou Yan knew without looking that he must look very unkempt right now. His clothes were wrinkled, his hair was messy. Lou Yan also yawned and said, “Do you think those hunters are doing this on purpose?”
Li Sanxin turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow, “You mean, those hunters deliberately come to search us when we’re sleeping soundly?”
Lou Yan nodded, “That’s the easiest way to drive someone to a mental breakdown.”
Li Sanxin pondered for a moment, moistening his eyes with a bottle of mineral water from the bundle, trying to wake up from drowsiness, “Makes sense… But why would the hunters do this? Just to make us more tired? If Fu Xuezhou’s goal is to have the hunters come and catch you, but they haven’t caught you yet. Several times after they woke us up, they didn’t find out that we had quietly left.”
Lou Yan took the mineral water from him, took a big gulp, his Adam’s apple rolling, and the tiredness on his face dissipated a bit, “I asked Wen Yian before, and her difficulty in passing through is not the same as ours. Although there are dangers from the maze to the restaurant on the third floor, the dangers she encountered are much smaller than what we encountered.”
Li Sanxin didn’t know why he suddenly brought up this matter, “So…?”
“So I suspect that the person behind increasing our difficulty might be Fu Xuezhou,” Lou Yan’s eyes were dark, he tightened the mineral water bottle in his hand, and said lightly, “Look at us now, what do we look like?”
Li Sanxin was puzzled, “What do we look like?”
Lou Yan smirked, but there was no smile in his eyes, “Like hawks.”
Li Sanxin was puzzled, “Hawks?”
“Driven to exhaustion by Fu Xuezhou,” Lou Yan put his hand on his eyes, the slightly cold back of his hand brought some relief to his hot eyes, he self-deprecatingly said, “I just realized… Fu Xuezhou, is actually using the method of driving hawks to deal with me.”
Push him to the limit, exhaust him to the extreme, and then make him unable to rest. Disturb him while he sleeps, let him tire himself out, have nowhere to rest, and make his mind exhausted and body fatigued.
Just like that hawk, that lion, from a ferocious beast to a poultry that only eats food given by Fu Xuezhou.
Either exhaust Lou Yan to death or make Lou Yan listen to him.
The author has something to say:
Brother Lou: Is this kid trying to exhaust me from the first level? (Angry)
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
