The Shtick Must Survive - Chapter 7 - The Old House 7

Qiao Yuanbin watched the three people leave the room and beckoned Gu Xiyue to come over. “How much do you know about the Realm of the Undead?”

Gu Xiyue replied, “I know the content of the ‘Plan’ contract, and the rest is just what I’ve heard, not sure if it’s true or not.”

That basically meant she knew very little.

There were too many rumors outside; only those who have really entered the Realm of the Undead knew what was inside.

Qiao Yuanbin said, “I actually think the exit is upstairs, and you should know that it’s the weakest point in the entire realm, but you might not know that the weakest places are guarded by the strongest undead.”

Qiao Yuanbin wanted to tell her that her decision to stay was the right one. Qiao Yuanbin’s favoritism was too apparent, and Gu Xiyue felt that it was not just because she stood out among the newcomers, but also because of some emotional reasons, which made her take extra care of her.

Gu Xiyue said, “I didn’t plan to go with them. Qiao-Jie, you’ve been really kind to me, and I feel safe with you.”

Qiao Yuanbin was momentarily stunned by the directness, and sighed, “You trust people too easily.”

Now there were six people left. This floor on the map was marked as all rooms, and the room next door was also a large suite. The designer suddenly came online at this time, rarely making the layout very rational. As usual, they searched the room, which was very messy, with marks of knife slashes and bloodstains on the floor.

After seeing these two rooms, Gu Xiyue suspected that a murder had taken place in this house. In this room, the only valuable clue found was a note: “Sister-in-law, I’ve put the necklace you wanted in the safe deposit box, the code is Yuanliang’s birthday.”

The note mentioned a safe deposit box but they didn’t know where it was. This wasn’t a small item; if it was here, they would have found it by now after searching both rooms. No safe deposit box with a lock was seen.

Gu Xiyue said, “The key is on the Paper Man, could the safe be inside the mirror?”

She was referring to the mirror that hid the Mirror Woman.

This guess made a lot of sense in this realm; important things were always on monsters, like the key, killing the monsters could also yield some information, forcing you to confront them directly. In Gu Xiyue’s view, it was manageable, like when they discovered the Paper Man, and could choose to deal with it immediately by burning it, which would still yield the key but avoid the danger of the Paper Man coming to life and killing people.

It was as if telling the visitors, don’t be afraid, just confront it directly.

At this moment, there were no ghosts in the mirror. Gu Xiyue turned on the tap, and saw the Mirror Woman’s figure slowly emerge. When she appeared, the mirror could no longer reflect the people outside, it was solely occupied by her.

Seeing Gu Xiyue, the Mirror Woman stiffened.

Gu Xiyue asked, “Do you know where the safe is?”

Hua Meng looked at her in surprise; he was a veteran among veterans and had never seen anyone asking a ghost directly like this. Unexpectedly, the Mirror Woman actually responded to her by shaking her head.

Gu Xiyue said, “You actually answered, you must be lying.”

Mirror Woman: “……” I’m going to kill her!

Hua Meng doubted his eyes because he saw the Mirror Woman actually shaking with anger. It was always people who trembled in front of ghosts… He suddenly doubted whether he was too inexperienced, or if it was because Xiyue’s approach was too bold!

Gu Xiyue turned to Hua Meng, “Can I just smash the mirror?”

The Mirror Woman… The Mirror Woman cried tears of blood.

It looked like it was smashable. Gu Xiyue had this idea from the start; smashing the mirror could result in two outcomes: either killing the Mirror Woman or allowing her to escape from the mirror and harm people freely. There was no need for action to verify which one it was, just verbal verification was enough.

The Mirror Woman was the only ghost they encountered so far that could communicate normally, probably because being a ghost made her more emotional, making her seem somewhat naive.

The test was simple.

Hua Meng asked, “Who will do it?”

Gu Xiyue replied, “I will, I still have three lives left.”

Everyone else left the bathroom, but they didn’t close the bathroom door. Gu Xiyue found a baseball bat and hit the mirror, only cracking it. The second time, she clenched her teeth until her face turned red and smashed the mirror, shattering it everywhere.

Gu Xiyue exclaimed, “Come and look!”

Everyone gathered around, and inside the mirror was a dark passageway. Hua Meng illuminated it with a candle, and they could only crawl on all fours to enter, it was so narrow that only one person could pass through. The passageway was about three meters long, and at the end, a person was sitting on the ground, hugging a silver-white box, almost completely enveloping it with their body, their face unclear.

As expected, this box was the safe deposit box they were looking for.

Hua Meng observed for a long time, “The skin is pale, probably a dead person.”

Throwing some odds and ends into it, the dead person made no movement, Hua Meng looked at Gu Xiyue.

“Not asking me to go, right?”

Gu Xiyue shrank back, “No, it’s too scary, I’m afraid to go in.”

The male player who also glanced at Gu Xiyue felt a bit embarrassed, sending a new female player to grab something from a dead person’s arms was indeed a bit tough. In the end, the three men played rock-paper-scissors, Li Ke initially argued that he was too fat for this task, no one listened to him, and he actually lost.

He sighed and, with a mournful face, crawled into the passageway with the help of the two men. His corpulent body blocked the view inside. Honestly, his crawling was somewhat comical, but no one could laugh at the moment.

He slowly crawled inside, his agility completely unusable in such a tight space. Those watching outside were somewhat anxious, he finally reached the end and stopped, not knowing what he was doing, his body shifting left and right as if fighting with someone inside, his legs kicking out continuously.

Only faint sounds came out during this time, and no one dared to speak. After several minutes, Li Ke retreated rapidly, unable to turn around in such a narrow space, his exit was even more comical.

When he reached the edge, the two men helped him out, he was panting heavily, his neck marked red, clearly having been choked. There were also two bloodstains on his face, running from behind his ear to the corner of his mouth.

He handed the box to Hua Meng and spat out a mouthful of blood, then without waiting to be asked, he said, “I crawled to the end to get the safe, and it suddenly grabbed me…”

You can imagine the terrifying scene at that moment.

The new female player was extremely nervous and blurted out, “Then why didn’t you make a noise?”

Li Ke glared at her sarcastically: “Why would I make a noise?!”

He was holding back anger, so he dropped the act. This attitude wasn’t very friendly towards the new player, which showed that you can’t pretend for too long in the Realm of the Undead, emotions were collapsing and he didn’t care about maintaining a facade anymore.

Li Ke was silent throughout, but his silence was the best choice; who knows whether making noise would have been considered too loud, triggering a death penalty. Even if he had cried out for help, what could it have done? The tunnel was so narrow that even if someone was willing to help, crawling in would have blocked his way out, making it meaningless.

Gu Xiyue glanced at the passageway; as she suspected, the body holding the box was indeed the Mirror Woman’s corpse. Now it lay on the ground, its neck twisted to an extent no human could achieve, as if the bones had been crushed inch by inch, limply sprawled on the floor. Its face, half-rotted, could be clearly seen by those outside, and it could also see the people outside clearly, its foggy eyes staring at Li Ke, as if quietly listening to his recent heroic struggle against it.

Li Ke didn’t look back, still complaining about the life-threatening danger he had just faced and the difficult escape.

This scene left a bad feeling in Gu Xiyue. Now that the safe deposit box was obtained, she suggested leaving the room.

They retreated to the small hall they had passed when they first entered. The safe deposit box needed a password to be opened, the note they found said the password was Yuanliang’s birthday, which might not even be a full name, and his identity was also unclear now, they had to look for more clues.

Hua Meng furrowed his brows, staring irritably at the safe deposit box, feeling like they constantly encountered dead ends… it was frustrating: “What do we do now?”

Gu Xiyue glanced at Hua Meng discreetly, knowing his mind was troubled. Since entering the Realm of the Undead, his direction had always been very clear, even ignoring any suggestions from Min Sanxu, but now he was actively asking those around him.

But who was around him now?

Qiao Yuanbin was clearly not a strategist, not outstanding in any respect, she probably knew this herself, but fortunately, she understood the rule of sticking to a decision, feeling that following Hua Meng was safer, and continued down that path.

Li Ke goes without saying, the female newcomer didn’t dare suggest anything, hoping only that Qiao Yuanbin could carry her. The remaining veteran named Zhu Qing obviously had no opinion of his own, he thought Min Sanxu’s suggestions were good, and found Hua Meng’s words reasonable too.

Even when Min Sanxu left, he had asked Zhu Qing if he wanted to go, Zhu hesitated, hesitated too long and didn’t follow, but after Min left, he asked several times if they should also go upstairs.

In such a situation, Hua Meng’s question seemed somewhat redundant.

Gu Xiyue said, “Hua-Ge, can I see the safe deposit box?”

Hua Meng handed her the safe deposit box, asking, “Do you think the password might be on the safe itself?”

“No.”

This guess was too optimistic, completely baseless, just everyone’s wishful thinking. Gu Xiyue studied the safe deposit box for a while, the password was eight digits, definitely not something you could guess.

Gu Xiyue suddenly asked, “Qiao-Jie, have you ever played with Nine Linked Rings?”

Qiao Yuanbin replied, “Yes, but I couldn’t solve it.”

Gu Xiyue picked up a nearby stool and smashed it hard on the lock of the safe deposit box. The box had been sitting there for who knows how long, and the lock wasn’t as solid as the visitors imagined. With a hard smash, the lid popped open.

Even Hua Meng was shocked by Gu Xiyue’s action, almost jumping up, “What are you doing?”

Gu Xiyue replied, “I’ve also played with Nine Linked Rings, my brother gave me a jade one, they said it was very valuable before the apocalypse, but nobody wanted it afterward. I was young then, couldn’t solve it, just smashed it open with a stone. It’s the same with the safe deposit box, if you don’t know the password, you can just destroy it! Now it’s open, isn’t it?”

It’s not about why you smashed it open, but where did you get the courage to just smash it?!

= …… =

[The corpse’s gaze is so creepy…]

[I got chills down my spine, not kidding, I was unprepared when I met the corpse’s eyes, broke out in cold sweat]

[+1]

[+2]

[Is Xiao Gu a bit too rash?]

[Sometimes you can’t just look at the process when solving a problem, look at the outcome. Did the host run into trouble? No!]

[Ah, it’s so tense, isn’t anyone curious what’s inside the safe deposit box?]