IWOL Chapter 189: Startled Scream

The man’s hand was large and dry, as if telling Cui Zuojing that he was there and giving him support, just like two people seeking comfort from each other.

Cui Zuojing didn’t know whether Dong Zheng had woken up before or after him. Since his mental power had rapidly grown with the progress of his kernel, Dong Zheng’s five senses had become more acute than Cui Zuojing’s.

Something was coming.

The curtains were pulled tightly closed, completely obscuring the moonlight outside and leaving the bedroom awashed in darkness. Cui Zuojing was just thinking that Dong Zheng might improve his night vision by increasing the data in his visual port when he suddenly found that his vision had gradually become clearer.

The link from the blood contract hadn’t yet been restored, but Dong Zheng could still assist Cui Zuojing through Arabidopsis in the center of his kernel.

So, this was why both of them saw the figure on the ceiling.

It seemed to be a woman, clinging to the ceiling like a gecko. Her thick, black hair hung down. It was long that the tip of her hair was a mere ten centimeters from the tip of Dong Zheng’s nose, and Dong Zheng could smell the stench of it at once.

The woman crawled silently on the ceiling. She didn’t realize that the two people below were awake and continued climbing toward the wall where the head of the bed was. She had her head hanging down and her feet up, so naturally her long hair swept across Cui Zuojing’s forehead.

Itchy.

Cui Zuojing didn’t move, but the hand that Dong Zheng was holding under the comforter tightened.

He made a tactical gesture, and Dong Zheng tapped his index finger twice to indicate that he’d received it.

The woman, or rather the female ghost, stretched out a pale and thin hand, her nails like five long and extremely sharp daggers. Her goal was very clear. She was aiming for the reclining and seemingly ignorant Dong Zheng.

Whoosh—!

The comforter shook up suddenly and flew up over the female ghost’s head. Dong Zheng immediately rolled off the bed and grabbed the Tang Sword that was leaning against the corner of the wall. He stared at the startled female ghost and maximized the visual port to transmit information to Cui Zuojing.

Cui Zuojing yelled, grabbed the long, black hair, and yanked it in his direction.

The female ghost was trying to pull the comforter off her head, and only her legs were keeping her body attached to the wall. All of a sudden, she was torn off the ceiling with amazing strength!

Dong Zheng flipped the switch with a “Pop,” and the light instantly flickered on, illuminating the entire bedroom. Victor flew across the room, and like a ball of white lighting, rushed at the female ghost who’d finally managed to pull off the comforter. She’d just raised her head and was in the process of moving her hair when she got clawed in the face.

The female ghost let out a mournful scream. By this point, Cui Zuojing had already confirmed that she wasn’t really a ghost at all. He grabbed her hair and forced her to raise her head so that he could see her face clearly. “Why are you here deceiving people?”

The light suddenly went out.

“Ahhhhhhh―!”

Loud screams pierced the sky, startling even Cui Zuojing, who hadn’t been afraid. In an instant, darkness once again descended. Even if Dong Zheng increased his night vision, the sudden change in brightness still left a white spot on their retinas. Victor’s narrowed pupils quickly expanded into a circle.

But in less than a second, before they could react, Cui Zuojing felt the force in his hand suddenly loosened, followed by the muffled sounds of something quickly scrambling away. When his vision was clear again, the woman that was pretending to be a ghost had disappeared.

The door that they’d locked before going to bed was wide open, and the hallway outside was pitch black. Dong Zheng strode to the switch, flicked it a few times, but the light didn’t turn on again, confirming that it’d either been tripped or the power was cut off.

Cui Zuojing walked to Dong Zheng and took the Tang Sword from him. Victor nimbly and soundlessly jumped off the bed and whispered, “There’s something outside.”

“Sure enough, I was right. I knew it was impossible for us to stay here peacefully all night.”

Both Dong Zheng and Cui Zuojing were prepared. The fact that the prisoner link hadn’t been restored was the best kind of reminder; they’re still in the “arena” even now.

The elimination wasn’t over.

“What to do? Go out to explore or stay and guard the room?” Cui Zuojing asked Dong Zheng.

Dong Zheng said, “Let’s observe for a while.”

It wasn’t clear what the situation was. Although Cui Zuojing and Victor were both here and Dong Zeng also had a lot of confidence in his own strength, aggression had never been his style.

He was about to close the door when he heard another scream.

“Ahhhhhhhh―”

The sound was loud enough to puncture their eardrums. But suddenly, two cat ears perked up. The scream sounded familiar, just like Wang Que’s!

‘Go!” Dong Zheng immediately opened the door, and Victor rushed out from under his feet. Victor was small and agile, and he possessed strong night vision. In case there was danger, he could easily avoid it, making him the best guide.

They took two steps and suddenly realized that something was wrong.

The hallway in front of them was endlessly long. Wang Que and Xia Qiongyun’s room was next door to them. It stood to reason that it would only take two steps to reach them, but no matter how they moved forward, all the closed doors on both sides of the hallways displayed the room number 208.

It was the room number to their own room.

The scream still sounded like it was only two steps away. Cui Zuojing stopped and pulled on Dong Zheng’s sleeve. He asked softly, “This isn’t an illusion?”

“No.” Dong Zheng gave him a definite answer. His firewall hadn’t intercepted any abnormal data, meaning that everything in front of him was real.

Cui Zuojing frowned. Meanwhile, Victor squatted at their feet and meowed, “Someone has spatial ability and he’d trapped us here.”

Wang Que’s screams disappeared, replaced by a mixture of her and Xia Qiongyun’s terrified cries. Their instinctive screams came in frequent bursts, while the startled screams and curses in various languages that belonged to other pilgrims came from afar, closer to the ground.

They all seemed to be closed in.

Cui Zuojing had a general understanding of what was going on. If this was really a continuation of the elimination, then the clown may use this to exclude him and Victor. After all, compared to this group of pilgrims, it was like they were just here to hang out. Similarly, they could also break the balance of power.

However, just because he and Victor couldn’t participate in the selection doesn’t mean that they must also avoid Dong Zheng.

In fact, Cui Zuojing had always suspected that the clown was deliberately making things more difficult for Dong Zheng and had specifically manipulated the plot in the space arena. Perhaps the clown felt apologetic about the fact that Cui Zuojing was summoned as soon as he’d become a prisoner and was bound with a blood contract. As a result, the clown might be trying to test Dong Zheng’s strength and to disqualify him if need be.

But Cui Zuojing wasn’t concerned. He believed Dong Zheng could pass the clown’s test. This confidence had nothing to do with the subtle, emotional relationship between them but came from his understanding of Dong Zheng’s strength.

Dong Zheng turned his head. The door to their bedroom was gone. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Try it?”

Cui Zuojing nodded and reached out to push the nearest door open.

The bedroom was dark. He wasn’t sleeping honestly and had thrown one leg over Dong Zheng. It was still dark all around them, but something seemed to be approaching.

…….?

Cui Zuojing blinked, having no idea how he was transferred from the door to the bed in an instant.

Everything was exactly the same as it was a few minutes ago.

Dong Zheng held his hand under the comforter and wrote the word “Return” into his palm.

It seemed that the experience with Dong Zheng wasn’t an illusion. Cui Zuojing’s vision became clear again, and he saw that there was nothing on the ceiling. He glanced over and saw the thing standing by the door.

The thing was dressed in a suit and wore leather shoes. His shoulders were no different from a normal human, but the space that should have a single neck was split into two parts, giving birth to two heads. The man wore a top hat and the woman wore heavy makeup.

At this moment, both heads were facing the bed, staring at them without moving.

Cui Zuojing’s scalp went a little numb at this abnormal deformed man, but he’d seen all kinds of monsters before and so his ability to accept this was fairly good.

He narrowed his eyes and almost understood what was going on. However, he didn’t move, leaving everything to Ding Zheng.

Since the clown wanted to test Dong Zheng, then so be it.

Dong Zheng obviously saw the deformed human too. After a long moment of silence, he sat up directly and asked, “May I ask, what are you doing?”

The two-headed man finally moved. He held his gentleman’s cane in one hand and bowed elegantly. Then, he straightened, raised his hand to hold the woman’s head on his left, and completely pulled it out.

Dong Zheng’s pupils dilated. But the scene of blood spurting that he’d imagined didn’t come. The deformed man threw the head into Dong Zheng’s arms!

Dong Zheng had no time to escape. Rather than letting the head hit his body, he could only reach out to catch it. The head fell into his arms and turned around by itself to face Dong Zheng. Then, as it curled seaweed-like orange hair around his wrist, it opened it’s flaming red lips to grin at him.

A second before she could speak, Dong Zheng raised his hand and threw the head into the man’s face, where it bounced off like a standard ball.

He grabbed Cui Zuojing’s hand, took advantage of the deformed man covering his face in pain, pushed him aside, and grabbed the door.

This series of actions was smooth and flawless. They once again ran out into the endless hallway. Even if there was no prisoner link, Cui Zuojing could feel that Dong Zheng was very frightened at this moment, otherwise he wouldn’t be holding his hand so hard.

His hand was nearly crushed!

Dong Zheng was especially afraid of things like ghosts. Cui Zuojing had long known this. Dong Zheng’s courage in relation to this can be gradually developed, but he yet hadn’t experienced many horror type boxes. Unlike Cui Zuojing right now. Even if the ghost rushed at him, he wouldn’t even blink.

Dong Zheng’s grip was so painful that Cui Zuojing had to squeeze his hand out and hold Dong Zheng’s hand instead.

Victor followed at their feet. They ran for more than ten meters. It wasn’t until they were certain that the two-headed man behind them was gone did they finally, gradually slow down.

The number on the doors was still 208, and the screams of other pilgrims still rang out one after another. They may be in different spaces, experiencing the things they were experiencing, but they couldn’t see each other and could only hear each other.

Did this mean that every time they open the door, they would return to the original scene and meet different monsters?

Dong Zheng thought so. He needed to find a way out, and he knew that the way out was related to these doors.

There was a faint, rustling sound, as if something was squirming and crawling.

Dong Zheng took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Victor rubbed his head against his calf, furry and warm.

He reached out and tried to open another door.

A face hung upside down, suddenly appearing in front of him without warning. Wet hair clung messily to its face. Its eyes were extremely dark. There was no mouth, and only a thin, dark butterfly was painted on its face like a cross.

! ! !

The moment he saw this, but before his brain could register it, Dong Zheng’s body acted instinctively. With a cry, he punched the female ghost in the face.

——————
Xixi: Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard. That poor female ghost. She was just trying to do her job.