Global Collapse

Chapter 534 Who are you? Why is this book being updated?

"What's wrong?" Cang Yue straightened up and looked at Zhao Shuang, who was gazing into the distance.

Zhao Shuang got off the bus at the base halfway up the mountain. Cang Yue hadn't expected her to remember anything in this place she'd never been before, but things turned out differently than Cang Yue had anticipated.

"I have a feeling... there's something in that direction..." Zhao Shuang said, her brows furrowed in confusion.

Telepathy? Cang Yue wondered to herself.

Some players do indeed develop an incredibly accurate sixth sense when their mental stat reaches a certain level, but unfortunately, attribute points are extremely rare in dungeons...

Cang Yue interrupted her thoughts about attribute points at the right moment and looked up at Zhao Shuang, who was gazing into the distance.

At this moment, Xia Jianren leaned closer and said, "Isn't that what they say in those horror movies and novels? The protagonist senses that something might be in a certain place, and then there must be something there."

It's not surprising that Zhao Shuang suddenly had this feeling; it might be an instruction given by the instance.

Cang Yue pressed the fruit knife in her pocket: "Then let's go take a look over there."

If Zhao Shuang's premonition is accurate, there should be important clues over there.

Perhaps we can find a few missing people, and if any of them are still alive, then the truth can come to light.

Once the truth is clear, a way out is right in front of us.

Both of them were somewhat excited.

Cang Yue found it strange, though. The police had searched the area for many days without finding anything. How could they find it so easily?
At this moment, Gu Mian and Keke had successfully climbed down from the main road and entered the dense forest. The two identified their location in the greenery and headed towards the direction where the bus had crashed.

As Coco walked forward, she said, "I didn't expect that Wang Chuan was taken away by a ghost but didn't die."

"You sound like you're hoping he dies."

"No, that's not it." Coco said as she pushed aside the branches blocking her way. Many of the branches grew very low, and she had to push them aside to move forward, so progress was very slow.

Gu Mian knew that Keke had no interest in the life or death of others; she only cared about the lives of those she cared about.

Coco continued, "It's just a bit strange. The ghost took him away but didn't kill him. Instead, it sent him back to the staff dormitory so he could find a lot of clues about Zhao Shuang. It seems like they were trying to get us to discover Sun Zihao and Jiang Mei's affair. What benefit would they get from doing this?"

Coco paused here: "And the reason the ghosts didn't kill Wang Chuan might be because they can't kill people? Or rather, they can't kill us."

Looking back, it seems that from the moment we entered this instance, those ghosts were just bluffing.

Neither the knocking on the door, the footsteps, nor what happened at the company caused them any real harm. It was only a psychological blow.

Gu Mian stepped on the messy grass: "A dungeon cannot be without a threat to players. In other words, if these ghosts are not a threat to players, then there must be something else in the dungeon that could endanger their lives."

Just like in the taxi scenario, the ghosts pose no threat to the players, but the driver, who isn't a ghost, is incredibly dangerous when he attacks them.

Coco nodded thoughtfully. She felt that something was strange, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

The two continued walking forward, but still found nothing. However, they did receive a phone call from Wang Chuan.

By this time, Wang Chuan had also arrived at the cemetery, panting heavily. Apart from the relationship between Sun Zihao and Jiang Mei, he had not found any other clues.

Hearing that everyone else had come to the cemetery, he headed over by himself. He didn't dare take a taxi anymore, so he grabbed a shared bicycle on the roadside and rode all the way up the cemetery.

When he reached the foot of the mountain, he called Cang Yue, but she probably didn't hear the call because her phone was on silent. So he called Ke Ke instead.

Coco told him that Cangyue and the others had separated at the place where the bus accident happened, and asked Wang Chuan to go to the accident site first.

Wang Chuan rode his bicycle uphill, passing several police cars parked on the side of the road.

When he arrived at the scene of the accident, he saw a group of police officers having a heated discussion, surrounded by a crowd of onlookers.

Upon listening to what he heard, he learned that the police had come here today and found that the bus was missing, and were asking around whether any branch office had taken the vehicle.

Wang Chuan already knew that Gu Mian had driven the car away. Feeling a little guilty, he bypassed the crowd and planned to find a secluded path to the woods below.

Just as he was about to continue riding forward, he suddenly caught a glimpse of an uncle fanning himself with an advertising flyer by the roadside.

He stopped abruptly.

Cang Yue and Xia Jianren had followed Zhao Shuang for quite a distance, walking along the ditch for about two kilometers. When they reached a spot where the weeds were a little thinner, Zhao Shuang suddenly stopped.

“There should be something around here. I remember dreaming about this place yesterday. There seems to be a cave here…” Zhao Shuang said, looking around.

She looked around, then suddenly squatted down and slid into the ditch below. The two followed her down and saw Zhao Shuang reach out and turn over some thick weeds. After about half a minute, she actually managed to create a hole.

The opening is 1.5 meters high and just wide enough for one person to walk through alone, and barely wide enough to turn around inside.

The two people above stared at the cave entrance, speechless.

So, the missing person came here?

Cang Yue and Xia Jianren exchanged a glance, their expressions both quite strange.

It's no wonder the police couldn't find the missing people. This place is so far from the scene of the incident and so secluded. Logically, the survivors wouldn't come to such a hidden place, so it's unlikely that anyone would carefully search through the weeds.

"Did you dream about this?" Cang Yue looked at Zhao Shuang with suspicion.

Zhao Shuang's expression was also not good: "I seemed to have dreamed about this place when I had a nightmare a few days ago. I dreamed that they were very scared and hid in here."

She became more and more certain as she spoke: "They must be inside!"

Cang Yue frowned and reached for her phone to contact Gu Mian: "Then let's wait for Gu Mian and Keke to arrive before we go in..."

Unexpectedly, Zhao Shuang, who was standing in front of the cave entrance, had no intention of listening to her at all. Instead, Zhao Shuang covered her head and, as if recalling something, suddenly lifted her foot and ran into the cave entrance.

This startled Xia Jianren: "Wait!"

But Zhao Shuang didn't stop at all; her figure disappeared into the darkness.

"What should we do?" Xia Jianren stared blankly at the dark entrance.

Cang Yue frowned deeply. This might be a crucial location in the dungeon. It wasn't a problem that Zhao Shuang had run away, but who knew what was inside? She was afraid that she might recklessly trigger a dead end and implicate everyone.

“Look,” she suddenly said, taking out a bundle of rope with a safety belt attached to the end. She quickly wrapped the safety belt around her waist and fastened it, then handed the other end to Xia Jianren. “This is a special item. Just hold this end and stand here without moving. If anything happens to me, it can get me out instantly.”

This thing looks a bit like a measuring tape. The switch is on the seat belt around Cang Yue's waist. Pressing it will make it spring from one end to the other.

Without uttering any further words, Cang Yue swiftly vanished into the darkness.

Xia Jianren, left only at the entrance of the cave, stared nervously at the dark hole.

Meanwhile, Gu Mian and her companion deliberately took a detour to avoid the location where the bus had crashed. The police had already arrived at that point, and it would be difficult to explain if they saw them emerging from the nearby woods.

Coco navigated through the dense forest, saying, "If we keep going, we'll be in the direction Cangyue and the others went. If they haven't gone too far, we'll run into them soon."

Gu Mian nodded, as if remembering something: "By the way, what were you going to say to me at the place where the bus crashed?"

"What?" Coco was stunned for a moment.

"It's the 'run' that the doll was talking about. You can say those two words not only when you're fleeing the scene of an accident, but also in another situation. When you said that, the person handing out flyers interrupted you."

“Ah,” Coco remembered, “you should also know that this phrase can be said not only when committing a hit-and-run, but also when running away from danger.”

Indeed, Gu Mian often heard players shouting these two words in the horror dungeons.

When most people are being chased by a ghost, they will blurt out the word "run!"

“If that’s the case,” Gu Mian stroked her chin, “those survivors might have been trying to escape something, which is why they dragged their badly injured bodies and ran away desperately. And splitting up like that… isn’t that exactly what we often do when we’re being chased by ghosts?”

Coco's expression changed as if she had just thought of something.

Then she noticed that Gu Mian's pocket was glowing.

“Someone is calling you,” she warned.

Gu Mian took out her phone and saw that it was a call from Wang Chuan.

He pressed the call button, and Wang Chuan's urgent voice came through: "Did you just say that Zhao Shuang left with Cang Yue and Xia Jianren?"

Let me do the math. If I write three chapters a day and save one chapter each day, I'll have thirty chapters saved up in a month! Then I can take a month off after two months!
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(End of this chapter)