Hell App (Web Novel CN)

Chapter 45: Level End

The girl’s face was swelling and colored purple, while her eyeballs burst out of its sockets. Even if the haunted house wasn’t well lit, Wang Ziwen could still tell that this wasn’t a living person.

But… the face was indeed Xu Xiaojing’s.

“Xiaojing, you…”

Wang Ziwen took two steps back from the shocking revelation. Her best friend had turned into this, she was obviously already dead.

Wang Ziwen kept instinctively recoiling back as Xu Xiaojing slowly stood up and moved forward, taking small strides.

“Wenwen, do you not recognize me?”

“Didn’t you say that we’re the bestest friends?”

“Being hanged alone made me feel so cold and empty inside. Would you join me?”

While being hanged in the rope’s noose, Wang Ziwen was frantically wide-eyed. She couldn’t believe what was happening and just stared at the insincere smirk her close friend had on her face. She and Xu Xiaojing were face to face, and amid her anger and resentment, she didn’t dare swallow her breath.

“F*ck! She’s dead!” Su Yize nervously spat out, “The two NPCs are dead. The next ones should be us!”

After saying this, the two people had already overtaken the dead body hanging on the rope and ran towards the haunted house’s exit. In the face of the pitch-black exit, the two stopped in their tracks and stood there for quite some time, not daring to enter.

“Bai Yan, have you figured out a way to survive?”

“No, did you?”

Bai Yan shot a glance over to Su Yize. He truly hasn’t figured it out yet, but even if he did, he wouldn’t tell Su Yize. If he did find a way out, why should he share it with others?

Bai Yan gazed at the exit, still not wanting to walk over after quite some time. Right now, there were no NPCs that they could send to death, and the next one to disappear when they entered would be him. They stood in front of the exit as Bai Yan sunk into his bitter thoughts. During the two times they went into the haunted house, only people disappeared and no one had died. Then, why is it that someone had suddenly died now?

Did they somehow trigger a route leading to their deaths?

Bai Yan looked at the time. As of now, the 13 minutes have already passed since they started their third round in the haunted house. Based on this round’s gaming experience, Bai Yan only felt that it was extremely confusing. The clues were all over the place. Besides the note written in blood by the newly deceased that wanted them to return to the entrance, how was that of any help?

It didn’t even mention…

Not being able to solve a way out of the game using the clues, Bai Yan’s heart sank, so he reevaluated the series of events that had happened during their time in the escape room.

Each of the two escape rooms could be completed within ten minutes of playing. For the first one, they only needed three and a half minutes to clear it, so nothing unusual took place at that time. For the second escape room, they used up 15 minutes to clear it, taking into consideration Xu Xiaojing seeing the female ghost hanging on the ceiling as well as their investigation on the violently swinging rope.

After going through the escape room, their team formed a straight line to enter the haunted house. According to their normal pace, ten minutes would have sufficed to completely go through the whole path, but because Xu Xiaojing had many recurring instances of squatting down and crying due to fear, more than ten minutes were added to their trip. And just before they got out, the sight of the female ghost greeted their eyes. They left the place in the same order and had the guide disappear out of nowhere.

In their second round of the haunted house, they consumed eight full minutes to finish the journey, including the guide’s eerie curse, the ghost’s broken hand, and the human head, yet these ghouls didn’t bring any harm to the players and the NPCs. After they passed through the exit once more, Xu Xiaojing suddenly disappeared.

The third time was also like this right now. They used up 13 minutes to complete it, but midway, they encountered the mummified corpse of the earlier player, receiving a clue about the entrance, and finally, Xu Xiaojing murdered Wang Ziwen, making all of the NPCs totally dead.

Moreover, the road leading to the exit of this haunted house became more and more treacherous the further they went in, leading the area around the entrance to be the cleanest, which was confirmed by the dead player’s message. The entrance must be the real way out of here…

Looking back at the entire sequence of events, Bai Yan sensed that there was something missing. He then reviewed what had happened yet again and felt that he had finally caught onto something.

“The piece of paper with bloody writing wanted us to go back to the entrance, while the haunted house’s environment also suggests that the exit is extremely dangerous.”

“Each escape room was ten minutes, and the guide said that it also takes 10 minutes to get through half of the haunted house…” Bai Yan stared at the countdown on his phone’s screen and thought deeply. “During their time in the second escape room as well as their first trip in the haunted house, they were able to see a ghost’s image, but neither the players nor the NPCs were hurt. When the ghost appeared, I wasn’t able to take note of the time, but it’s been a while since they cleared it. Now that I think about it, is it possible that it was also ten minutes?”

Bai Yan’s train of thought became clearer, leading him to gradually understand the situation. His previous experiences in the app’s games had given them hints. After exceeding 10 minutes in each game, the ghost would kill a person!

They cleared the first escape room rather quickly, so they didn’t cross paths with a ghost. But during the time at the second escape room, their clearance was slightly delayed. As a result, when the time hit the 10-minute mark, the ghost started to appear inside the escape room. That was the hint the game gave them.

During their first round in the haunted house, Xu Xiaojing’s constant squatting down and wailing wasted everyone’s time, so the tour guide’s initial 10-minute route was extended. After ten minutes, a beam of the female ghost flashed right before the exit. But, there was a possibility that the ghost still had not killed anyone during the first round because it was the second hint the game gave them.

“There was also the second round. We only used up eight minutes to complete the journey, so the ghost merely threatened us with its presence, not opting to hurt anyone. When the third round came, we got caught up reading the note, so once 10 minutes had passed, we came across Xu Xiaojing…”

Bai Yan truly believed that this theory was the most probable one. Combining the ill intentions of the haunted house that wanted them to die in this creepy place, every time the haunted house put something in their path, it surely never meant good news for them.

Integrating the two ideas together, Bai Yan decided that he didn’t care if his reasoning was right or wrong. He only needed to run as fast as he could during the next round and reach the exit within 10 minutes. It didn’t matter what he would encounter in his path, he wouldn’t stop for anything!

Once he secured his plans, Bai Yan raised his head and saw Su Yize still racking his brain. Obviously, he still hadn’t figured out how to survive the haunted house.

Bai Yan recalled that this apathetic person was the one who just stood there and watched as he was slowly consumed by the ghostly hands from the wall. He didn’t even offer help or yell out. So, Bai Yan softly chuckled, and without the other noticing, he slowly moved his body, entering headfirst into the exit.

He was never the one to hold grudges.

But in the first place, he wouldn’t have shared any clues with him, so it was all good.

Su Yize only realized that Bai Yan was walking past him, and just when Bai Yan was about to pass through the exit, he abruptly came over, “F*ck! You come back here!”

“Why are you leaving?”

Su Yize wasn’t a dunce. Seeing that Bai Yan didn’t inform him that he was leaving, he instantly knew that this guy somehow figured it out.

The players who have reached the fourth level had average IQs, so it was impossible for them to die of ignorance. The disappearances were according to their order of entering the haunted house, so the next one to go away would be Bai Yan. If he dared to go in, it meant that he had a grasp of the situation and was quietly slipping away because he held a grudge about what had happened earlier…

If he had known before that Bai Yan wouldn’t die, Su Yize would’ve lent a hand!

Su Yize was full of regrets, but it was too late.

“Well, in any case, the one who’s in greater danger isn’t me. Even if you weren’t here, I can still think of a way out of here. If worst comes to worst, I’ll just stay behind here for a while with a foolish expression on my face.

Su Yize’s plan consisted of just continuing to stand by the exit, waiting for him to solidify a plan to get out of here alive. Unfortunately, after he waited for two full minutes, he saw Wang Ziwen and Xu Xiaojing’s tongues out and were walking towards him, hand in hand, slowly drawing near the exit.

Seeing the two people fast approaching with the hovering rope right above their head, they seemed to be trying to find a third person to join them as ghosts who died from hanging. Su Yize cursed under his breath, turned around, and dashed towards the exit, entering his fourth-round inside the haunted house.

…

Bai Yan stood by the entrance he knew so well and opened his phone. He quickly swept a glance across the entrance and made sure that there weren’t any missed clues near it. He then quickly made a break for the exit’s direction.

Compared to his third round in the haunted house, the fourth round’s environment was even more dangerous.

Other than the small area near the entrance, the path in front was densely packed with hair. Bai Yan stepped on it, leading the ghostly hair to start winding around his legs and feet.

Under the obstruction of the ghostly hairs, Bai Yan’s speed was basically as slow as their first round. Just as long as there were no unexpected incidents, he would surely reach the exit within 10 minutes and maybe even with time to spare.

Bai Yan carefully evaded the walls to avoid wasting time getting pulled in. He skillfully dodged ghost hands protruding out of the wall and completely ignored the corpse and the note by the corner as well as any kind of enticing clues that fell on his path, focusing his attention on rushing forward.

After reaching a third of the way, a frightened youth came across his path, and when he saw Bai Yan, the youth’s expression brightened up. He quickly stopped in his tracks and asked, “Hello, are you also a trapped player in this place? I’ve also walked around here quite a few times…”

“You’ve been walking around here in circles. Leave me the f*ck alone!”

The young man didn’t move and blocked the path. Bai Yan exerted his strength and pushed the man away, not caring that the youth fell to the ground, even stepping on his body as he continued to sprint forward.

As Bai Yan went straight ahead, the youth turned into a dried-up skeleton and was quickly dragged into the wall, its limbs instantly joining the sets on the wall.

Once he knew how to clear this level, it didn’t matter what monster Bai Yan faced because he would stop at nothing to reach the exit.

‘Crash!’

Up above him, the ceiling began to rain blood, and along with those warm red raindrops, an endless storm of broken arms fell from the sky, colliding onto Bai Yan’s body.

Bai Yan tore away the broken hands plastered on his face and threw them aside without a second thought, not caring that there were also others attached to his body. He did his best to maintain his fastest speed to continue going forward.

As he was nearing the exit, Bai Yan saw a wall of human heads, standing in front of him and blocking his way.

Looking at the time, the 10 minutes was about to be up.

Bai Yan immediately faced the wall full of heads with ruthless eyes and used his legs that were previously entangled by the ghost hair to kick them away.

The human heads were kicked to the side and produced bitter roars as they landed on the ground. In response, Bai Yan covered his ears to block the irritating sound and ran across the heads, going through the exit.

The haunted house’s exit led to the store’s cashier, where they had bought their tickets. Bai Yan probed his head and scouted around but didn’t see a single sight of Su Yize, not knowing where he had run off to or if he was still inside the haunted house.

Outside the exit, the previously possessed guide on the pager was standing outside the door, putting on a full smile as she saw him go out.

When he heard someone exit, the acting boss had also come over, “How was it? Was my haunted house good?”

“It was good, but there could still be improvements. I suggest that the boss should also have a go and play.”

Bai Yan flashed him a sincere smile, while at the same time, quickly pushing the return button.

As if it were an inside-joke from the game, the boss’s sister was still hanging on the beam, and right now, it seemed like it didn’t move for a very long time.