Chapter 28.3 Just entered the Boundary
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The outside was pitch black, and Lin Zhaohe’s vision was poor, so he couldn’t see anything clearly. In his line of sight, he only saw a dark figure suddenly pouncing towards him, accompanied by a sharp voice shouting, “Give it to me—give it to me—”
It turned out to be the man who had been cowering in the corner earlier!
He was even scarier than the monsters themselves, his face contorted in extreme ferocity as he reached out to snatch the flashlight from Lin Zhaohe’s hand.
How could an elderly person like Lin Zhaohe compete with a young man? After struggling for a moment, the flashlight in his hand was forcibly taken away by that man—his nuclear-powered flashlight—without any regard for his feelings.
Lin Zhaohe felt a heartache like never before, thinking that a few punches would be less painful than this.
That lunatic took his flashlight and rushed into the darkness, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Poor Lin Zhaohe, this elderly man, cried out in pain, “This despicable scoundrel…”
Zhou Ze ran out of the nearby cabinet and saw Lin Zhaohe sitting on the ground. He quickly went over to help him up and asked, “Are you okay, Grandpa?”
Lin Zhaohe replied, “My flashlight was stolen.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I have a spare one,” Zhou Ze said, taking out a backup flashlight and handing it to Lin Zhaohe.
There was no other choice but to use this one. When a person is vulnerable, they couldn’t even protect a flashlight. Lin Zhaohe shed a tear of sorrow.
“It seems like the monsters have gone far away,” Zhou Ze confirmed the situation around them. “Strange, why isn’t this light working?”
The lights above their heads should have been constantly illuminated, but now they were out.
“Do you still remember the rules?” Lin Zhaohe asked.
“Of course, I remember,” Zhou Ze paused for a moment, then recalled the second rule: “Don’t stay in the dark.”
As soon as he thought about it seriously, Zhou Ze felt that something was off in his surroundings. He looked around and in the endless darkness, there seemed to be something elusive hidden within. He wanted to look closely, but the view was unclear. If he had to describe it, it was like there were thick glasses in the darkness, distorting the images in his field of vision. Behind the glass, indiscernible creatures lurked.
“Oh no,” Zhou Ze said, “I was just thinking, why did he snatch your flashlight…” His smile seemed forced. “Grandpa, let’s not use your flashlight anymore. Let’s keep it as a backup. I’m afraid my flashlight doesn’t have enough batteries.”
Lin Zhaohe: “…My flashlight!!”
There was no other option. Without a source of light, the giant room on the second floor became even more terrifying, especially since they had to return to the previous room to place the bodies down.
The whole process was hard to bear, even for someone accustomed to it. Zhou Ze was clearly not used to this situation and as they walked, his legs grew weak. Lin Zhaohe fared slightly better, being older and not having to worry about his legs giving out.
They returned to the morgue and slowly laid the bodies down, then began searching for the numbers on their bodies.
The bodies had been dead for some time, and rigor mortis had already passed, making them soft. Zhou Ze couldn’t bring himself to touch them, trembling as he cowered next to Lin Zhaohe.
Lin Zhaohe reluctantly put on his reading glasses and muttered an apology for disturbing the bodies. He began searching for the passwords while sweating profusely.
Finding the passwords was no easy task. Lin Zhaohe worked up a sweat before finally gathering them all.
The passwords were printed on the chest, thigh, and ear. While searching for the last one, Lin Zhaohe had just turned the body over when he noticed Zhou Ze’s flashlight flickering on and off, the light continuously flashing.
“Out of batteries?” Zhou Ze exclaimed in surprise, quickly taking out a spare flashlight. “How is that possible? This flashlight is meant for camping. How could it run out of batteries so quickly?”
Lin Zhaohe said, “Quickly, replace the batteries!”
“Alright, alright,” Zhou Ze hastily replied, holding the spare flashlight in his hand and attempting to replace the batteries.
Just as he was taking out the batteries and opening the packaging, his hands trembling as he tried to insert them into the flashlight, the alarm that had just stopped suddenly started blaring again.
“Ah!” Zhou Ze was startled by the sound, and the batteries in his hand scattered onto the ground.
“Let’s go, let’s hide for now!” Lin Zhaohe said. “We’ll come back later to search!”
Zhou Ze was drenched in cold sweat, his mind in disarray. He followed Lin Zhaohe dumbfoundedly as they quickly ran back to the cabinet and hid inside.
Once inside the cabinet, Lin Zhaohe turned off the spare flashlight to conserve power. He waited until the monster outside had moved away before emerging again. Using the spare flashlight, he found Zhou Ze.
“Stop trembling,” Lin Zhaohe felt concerned about the child’s mental resilience. They hadn’t even encountered any ghosts yet, and he would need to change his pants multiple times. “Let’s quickly go and find batteries to recharge—”
Zhou Ze was already crying.
He never wanted to touch this game again in his life. When the flashlight was shining brightly, he didn’t feel it, but now with only the spare flashlight, he felt the things in the darkness pressing closer and closer. Those things resembled a pile of blurry faces, greedily gazing at them, just waiting for the moment the light would go out to pounce mercilessly and devour them, leaving nothing but bones.
Lin Zhaohe didn’t have time to tend to Zhou Ze’s psychological defenses. If he could run, he would have already. Unfortunately, his crutch couldn’t leave his hand, and he arrived at the morgue panting heavily.
“Hurry, hurry,” Lin Zhaohe urged. “Quickly find four batteries—let’s use four to buy some time.”
One person cried with tears streaming down their face, and the other person wore reading glasses as they knelt on the floor of the morgue, searching. Soon, Lin Zhaohe found two batteries, and Zhou Ze found one. They just needed to find one more—however, the spare flashlight was also starting to flicker on and off.
“Damn it—faster—” Lin Zhaohe couldn’t help but shout. “Find one more—”
Zhou Ze cried and crawled around on the ground, but no matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find the seven or eight batteries they should have had. He had turned the small room upside down—
Lin Zhaohe shifted his gaze to the corpse he had just put down. Unsure if it was his imagination, he felt like the body had moved ever so slightly.
Lin Zhaohe swallowed nervously and slowly approached the body. Then, he began searching on the corpse. There was nothing on it… Just as Lin Zhaohe was about to breathe a sigh of relief, his fingers touched something hard and stiff within the clenched fist of the corpse.
It was the sensation of the batteries.
At the same time, the spare flashlight, which had been flickering for a while, extinguished its light, plunging the room into complete darkness.
Many years later, Zhou Ze couldn’t forget the scene he had witnessed.
In the instant darkness fell, those things surrounding them almost instantly pressed against his body. He felt like a fish pulled out of the water, engulfed in a painful suffocating sensation. He sensed his body being continuously gnawed on by something, and waves of pain washed over him.
Light—a gentle light suddenly illuminated—darkness was instantly repelled, and the pain vanished.
Zhou Ze’s eyes widened and saw a man wearing a yellow dress appear in front of him. He seemed to have a strange coordination with this peculiar attire, even the two banana hair accessories on his head were dazzling.
“Yellow Banana Girl transformation!” the man exclaimed, and in the next instant, his entire body was filled with a gentle yellow glow. No one knew where this light came from. It simply appeared inexplicably.
“God, godly brother!” Zhou Ze couldn’t help but shout.
Lin Zhaohe nearly spat out blood from this “godly brother” exclamation. If it weren’t for the dire situation, he would have been extremely reluctant to use this last resort.
Even if it meant encountering ghosts, even if it meant almost losing his own life, he hadn’t used this ability until now, preserving his final stubbornness. But now he had no choice. He couldn’t let this child die alongside him.
Lin Zhaohe’s tears flowed freely as he stomped on his shattered sense of shame and once again shouted, “Yellow Banana Girl transformation.” The light beside him illuminated once more, but the light in Lin Zhaohe’s eyes dimmed.
Zhou Ze survived, and he even felt that his effort to crawl and retrieve the batteries was somewhat unnecessary because Lin Zhaohe stood beside him, shining like a bright bulb.
“Where… where did you come from?” Zhou Ze looked at Lin Zhaohe, his own face turning red and feeling a bit embarrassed. “Yellow… Yellow Banana Girl—I know you!!! You look so beautiful… Are you here to purify this game?”
Listening to his jumbled words, Lin Zhaohe really wanted to curse and ask, “Which magical girl have you ever seen purifying a survival game?” But out of consideration for Zhou Ze’s fragile state of mind, he held back and said in a gentle tone, “Call me Grandpa.”
Zhou Ze: “…”
The atmosphere in the room became incredibly silent.
Zhou Ze and Lin Zhaohe stared at each other, and Lin Zhaohe was getting annoyed with the stare. “What are you looking at? Haven’t you seen a pretty girl before? Hurry up and pick up your batteries! They will still be useful later!”
This tone was quite similar to that of the old grandpa from earlier. Zhou Ze shed tears in his heart while picking up the batteries, thinking about how the older generation truly possessed unique skills. In their youth, they even dabbled in the magical girl industry. He couldn’t help but feel inferior.
However, the batteries seemed somewhat unnecessary now because the transformed Lin Zhaohe himself was a glowing entity, so prominent and shining like a beacon in the dark night, illuminating their future.
In the following moments, the two of them silently found the last password and the remaining batteries. Not a word was spoken.
It was not that Zhou Ze didn’t want to speak, but rather that he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know how to address Lin Zhaohe anymore. Should he call him Grandpa or Magical Girl? Or perhaps Yellow Banana Girl would be more appropriate?
Lin Zhaohe seemed to see through his thoughts and tossed the corpse aside. He said, “My name is Lin Zhaohe, you can call me… Brother Lin.”
Zhou Ze obediently said, “Brother Lin.”
“Next, we should go open the rooms,” Lin Zhaohe said. “Let’s conserve the batteries and leave them for those who need them.”
Zhou Ze: “Brother Lin…”
Lin Zhaohe: “Spit it out.”
Zhou Ze’s cheeks turned red. “I… I actually grew up watching the Fruit Magical Team. I really, really like all of you.”
Lin Zhaohe looked skeptical. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
Zhou Ze mustered up his courage. “Do you know Strawberry? Can you help me get her autograph?”
Lin Zhaohe: “…” As a magical girl, why was he being subjected to such humiliation?
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Just waiting for Lin Zhaohe to regress into a dilf