Chapter 28.1 Just entered the Boundary
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He knew only these four rules at the moment until he entered the next room, where new rules would appear.
Lin Zhaohe quickly searched for clues in the room.
The room had ample lighting, devoid of any darkness within sight. It wasn’t large, and after searching around, Lin Zhaohe found no traces of the password. With only five minutes remaining, he couldn’t waste time and thought swiftly about the relationship between the rules and the password.
Except for the first two rules, only the last two were useful: Rule 3, indicating that they liked him, and Rule 4, warning against staying in the dark.
What were they? Were they something lurking in the darkness? Since they liked him, should the password be hidden in the dark? However, the room lacked even a hint of a shadow…
No, Lin Zhaohe suddenly realized there was a shadow—he lowered his head and saw his own shadow.
Lin Zhaohe slowly crouched down, took a deep breath, and reached his hand towards his own shadow.
“Aww.” A strange pain coursed through his skin, but it invigorated him, at least confirming that Lin Zhaohe’s approach was correct. After exploring for a while, he indeed felt a piece of paper within his own shadow. He quickly picked up the note.
As he delved his hand into the darkness, it was covered in dense bite marks, some of them deep enough to draw blood. The bite marks almost resembled those of humans. Lin Zhaohe took a sharp breath, but he didn’t have much time to be surprised. The countdown timer in the top right corner now showed only two minutes remaining.
With a clear view of the password “3327” on the small note, Lin Zhaohe squinted his eyes and entered the code he saw.
After inputting the password, there was a light click sound, and a narrow tunnel appeared in the corner of the room. The tunnel was pitch-black, devoid of any light source.
Lin Zhaohe pulled out a flashlight and strapped it to his body, but he didn’t intend to use it for illumination. Instead, he attached it in the opposite direction—trying to keep the light on his own body. Darkness seemed to be their dwelling, and the consequence of staying in the dark was being devoured by them.
The tunnel was extremely narrow, allowing only one adult to crawl through it slowly.
Gritting his teeth, Lin Zhaohe crawled forward slowly. His body didn’t allow him to pass through the tunnel quickly, so any areas not illuminated by the flashlight were mercilessly devoured. Even his ears bore a few bite marks.
Fortunately, the tunnel wasn’t too long.
After crawling for about seven to eight minutes, when Lin Zhaohe felt like his old bones were about to fall apart, he finally found the entrance to the next door. He reached out, pushed it open, and hastily crawled inside, sitting on the ground, gasping for air heavily.
After taking a short rest, Lin Zhaohe began to survey the room.
The room was square-shaped with four entrances in each direction. One of the entrances had a young man sitting outside, also taking a break. When the young man noticed Lin Zhaohe’s gaze, he friendly greeted him, “Hello, Grandpa.”
“Hello,” Lin Zhaohe responded.
“Can you still crawl?” the young man asked. “I thought it was tough enough…”
Lin Zhaohe: “Did you crawl here forcefully?”
The young man: “Yeah, freezing cold.”
Lin Zhaohe: “Cold? You only felt the cold in the tunnel?”
“Yeah,” the young man answered inexplicably, “what else?”
Lin Zhaohe muttered to himself, “What’s wrong? Do they prefer chewing on old men because of the texture?”
While the two were talking, there was a sound from the nearby passage, and a stiff person almost tumbled out of the passage in a pouncing posture. It was evident that the person was freezing cold.
“Damn, it’s freezing!” The person had yellow hair and appeared to be a delinquent teenager. After being rescued, he cursed, “Why would they design such conditions in the passage to the next level?”
The young man: “Yeah, in games, the passage to the next level wouldn’t have this kind of situation.”
Judging from their conversation, both of them seemed to be experienced gamers.
“What’s the next level like?” the yellow-haired teenager asked.
“I haven’t checked it yet,” the young man replied.
As he spoke, he stood up and pushed open a nearby small door.
Lin Zhaohe followed suit and saw what was behind the small door. Three dolls, the size of humans, were placed on the ground. Behind the dolls were two doors, one blue and one red.
On the doors in front of them, there were inscriptions:
Rule 1: Do not enter.
Rule 2: If you happen to enter, leave this room within ten minutes.
Rule 3: It resides in the darkness.
Rule 4: Red will shatter the darkness.
As they finished reading the rules, a ten-minute countdown appeared above their heads.
“What are these dolls?” the yellow-haired teenager pondered. “Don’t you guys think that the appearance of these three dolls resembles the three of us?”
Being quite observant, Lin Zhaohe looked over as well upon hearing the suggestion and noticed that the three dolls did bear a striking resemblance to them.
“How about throwing the dolls over there to test it?” the yellow-haired teenager proposed.
“Could these be some sort of voodoo dolls?” the young man asked, expressing his concern.
“I don’t think so,” the yellow-haired teenager replied. “If they were, there would surely be hints. The Boundary isn’t the kind of game that’s out to kill you… I think these three dolls might be a trial and error opportunity specifically meant for the three of us.”
“That makes sense,” the young man nodded, rubbing his chin.
The yellow-haired teenager picked up Lin Zhaohe’s doll.
Witnessing this, Lin Zhaohe didn’t argue. He knew he didn’t have the grounds to oppose at the moment.
The doll had a similar size and weight to a real person. The yellow-haired teenager held Lin Zhaohe’s doll and threw it into the red door.
At the moment the doll was thrown inside, it suddenly burst open, as if countless sharp blades had sliced through its skin. In an instant, it turned into a pile of broken cotton.
The yellow-haired teenager gasped, while Lin Zhaohe let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, he himself was unharmed.
“That’s it,” the yellow-haired teenager said. “Shatter the darkness? Huh, where did the darkness come from for this doll?”
The young man stroked his chin and said, “Is it the shadow? But that doesn’t make sense either because it mentioned ‘the darkness,’ and tearing apart a shadow wouldn’t affect the doll… Oh, I know! Why don’t you try removing the doll’s clothes?”
“Right!” the yellow-haired teenager exclaimed. “Wearing clothes would definitely cast a shadow, and that could be considered darkness.”
They quickly analyzed the situation and wasted no time. They immediately bent down and stripped the doll of its clothes.
Lin Zhaohe remained quietly by their side, observing the entire process.
The now naked cloth doll was once again thrown into the red door. This time, it violently shook for a moment upon hitting the ground and then remained still. It appeared unharmed from the outside.
“I think we got it,” the yellow-haired teenager smiled. “Shall we go? Seems pretty straightforward.”
“Wait,” Lin Zhaohe said. “Why did it shake?”
“I don’t know, maybe it just bounced?” The yellow-haired teenager didn’t pay much attention to Lin Zhaohe’s question. It seemed that the old man had too many words for his liking. “It looks fine to me.”
Indeed, it appeared fine.
“Let’s go, time is running out,” the yellow-haired teenager urged. “Only four minutes left.”
Lin Zhaohe wanted to be more cautious, but the two of them swiftly stripped off their clothes, grabbed their flashlights, and prepared to enter. They treated his cautionary reminder as if it were a passing breeze.
The unexpected happened in the instant when the yellow-haired teenager stepped into the room. As soon as his foot touched the ground, a horrifying scream escaped his mouth, and he collapsed lifelessly inside the room.
The young man was startled and quickly stepped back. “What happened—”
Lin Zhaohe showed a helpless expression.
“How did he die?” The suddenness of death overwhelmed the young man, and his cold body was instantly covered in sweat. “He—”
Lin Zhaohe fell silent for a moment and spoke softly, “We cannot enter the red room.”
“Why??” the young man asked. “The doll was fine—”
“We cannot escape the darkness within ourselves,” Lin Zhaohe looked at the deceased man with pity. “Your bones, your blood, even your organs—they all have places untouched by light.”
The young man stood frozen in place.
“We seek illumination,” Lin Zhaohe said. “But we can never rid ourselves of the darkness—unless you dissect yourself.”
The flashlight slipped from the young man’s hand, landing on the ground with a loud thud, producing a piercing sound.
Lin Zhaohe sighed and said, “Let’s go.”
In this era, coupled with working in an insurance company, witnessing death had become a common occurrence for Lin Zhaohe, and he had long grown accustomed to it.
Unfortunately, it was evident that the young man before him lacked such awareness. He might just be a well-protected child, persuaded by someone with ulterior motives to participate in this event.
“He said this place is more real than VR, so I came,” the young man lowered his head and followed behind Lin Zhaohe, devoid of the previous excitement in his eyes. “I’ve cleared this game hundreds of times already, so it should be easy for me…”
Lin Zhaohe: “Have you ever completed it without any mistakes?”
The young man squinted slightly, “Uh, occasionally, I still make mistakes.”
“Then let us pray,” Lin Zhaohe said slowly. “That you won’t make any mistakes in your current playthrough.”
Making a mistake would lead to the fate of the person from earlier.
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