Chapter 8 Testing
Yin Xiu's eyes darkened. They were taking advantage of him; to be precise, the other party was testing him, wondering if he could push his luck.
The atmosphere between the two froze again. Yin Xiu didn't want to respond, and the other party wouldn't budge either.
In the midst of the silence, a shrill scream came from another house not far away. This time, the voice was familiar, and even Yin Xiu could clearly recognize it as the little girl's cry.
Before two seconds had passed, another shout rang out. It was a terrified figure, frantically moving from the house to the outside, screaming all the way.
Yin Xiu abruptly averted his gaze from Li Mo and quickly got up to open the door to the room where the little girl was.
She was still inside, clutching her rabbit plushie and looking confused. "What's wrong?"
"It's alright, don't come out." Yin Xiu closed the door, turned around and walked to the window, then quickly pulled open the curtains.
A blinding light instantly flooded the room, making it impossible to open one's eyes. Almost the instant the light was turned on, a strange face was slapped against the glass window, startling the players watching from outside the screen.
It was a pale-faced woman with bloodshot eyes. She pressed her face against the glass window, straining to look into the house, as if searching for something, muttering to herself, "Is it here? Is it hiding here...?"
For Yin Xiu, who had witnessed the Empress's intimate moments countless times, this scene was nothing new. He casually glanced past the woman before him and turned his head to look outside.
The scene outside the house looked like a remote mountain village, which didn't quite match the small town mentioned in the background. The house he was in was an ordinary bungalow, each one very small, just enough space for a family to live in.
The neighbors next door are players from other plane towns in this instance. Each person occupies their own space and goes through the early stages of the instance together. As the story progresses, they will gradually come out of their respective areas and reunite.
At that moment, a player, terrified to the point of near insanity, stumbled and fell onto the grass outside the house. He clutched his head in horror, staring in the direction of his house, his pupils unfocused. "Dead...she's dead...she was killed...I'm going to die too...I'm about to die..."
He muttered something incomprehensible, and as he muttered it, his hands uncontrollably and slowly rose up.
Before Yin Xiu could figure out who the "she" he was talking about was, the player suddenly grabbed his own neck, silencing all his voice.
His hand seemed to be controlled by some invisible force. No matter how the body instinctively resisted, it still held tightly to the neck and did not let go until the player's face turned purplish-blue and his eyes bulged out. In front of everyone, after struggling for a long time with sobs, he rolled his eyes and fell to the ground.
"Holy crap... what happened?" came the voices of players from other rooms, filled with shock and astonishment.
This is a beginner dungeon, and most of the players are newbies who have been in their rooms since waking up. They are a little frightened to see such a scene for the first time.
"He's dead! He must have broken the rules!" someone shouted in a panic.
"Which rule did he break?! I'm so scared!"
"That was so scary out of the blue..."
Amidst the murmurs that drifted from the side, Yin Xiu had no time to be shocked by the player's death. He slowly turned his gaze to the woman who was now leaning against his glass window.
He remembered that the man had been muttering "she" was dead. This "she" must have been in his room, otherwise he wouldn't have been so terrified that he rushed out of the room in a panic. So, the only person whose death would affect his survival was the little girl.
It wasn't that he broke the rules, but rather that he didn't keep a close eye on the little girl, which allowed her to break the rules.
"Is it inside...is it hiding inside?" The woman by the window remained glued to the glass, staring intently inside, muttering to herself, showing no sign of leaving.
Even when she noticed the little girl's belongings in the room, a wide smile slowly spread across her face, her eyes shining. "I see it! Her things are in the room! She's in the room! She must have been hidden in this room!"
Dungeon Survival Rule Five: Do not open the door to anyone outside, and keep the little girl's existence a secret.
And Mom's third note: Don't open the door for anyone, don't let them find you.
The rule that appears on both slips of paper must be an extremely important one: the little girl must never be discovered by outsiders.
If the door is accidentally opened and someone outside discovers the little girl inside and comes in, the outcome might be the same as what happened to the player just now.
The woman by the window grew increasingly excited, seemingly wanting to verify her idea. She tried to push the door open, but it was locked.
Upon realizing this, she immediately turned and walked away, still muttering to herself, "I'm going to call others to look for her! We absolutely have to find her!"
"Wait!" Yin Xiu's brow twitched, and he quickly called out to her. The other people she mentioned gave Yin Xiu a very bad feeling. "Who are you looking for?"
The woman chuckled, then turned her head, her pale, bloodless face radiating a sinister aura. "Girl, a monster little girl, is she hiding in your house?"
"She's not at my house," Yin Xiu calmly denied. "I only have one daughter, who is studying in another city and hasn't come back yet."
"Daughter?" Yin Xiu's nonchalant lie startled the woman, who didn't react for a moment. After a two-second pause, she belatedly followed up on Yin Xiu's words, "So those were your daughter's things..."
Before she could react, Yin Xiu quickly asked, "What do you plan to do after finding that monster girl?"
A sinister smile crept across the woman's pale face once more. "She's a monster, a scourge on the town. Of course, she must be killed!"
It's clear that the player's mistake was accidentally letting the woman into the house and kill the little girl. But judging from what the woman just said, if she becomes suspicious, even if she can't get into the house now, she will call for help to force her way in.
We probably have to appease this person, or the consequences will be unimaginable.
After a brief pause, the woman pressed herself against the glass window again, her eyes darting around eerily. "You look very young. You don't seem like someone who's married with a daughter, and a daughter who's already old enough to go to school. Your age... doesn't match up, does it?"
The comments section instantly filled with panic: Holy crap, are monsters these days so clever? Is this even the same newbie dungeon I played before?!
Yin Xiu hadn't expected her to suddenly launch into such a tricky interrogation. After a few seconds of silence, he coldly replied with a blank expression, "Adopted."
"Oh? You adopted a daughter who's old enough to go to school at such a young age?" The woman's smile suddenly turned meaningful. "What's your reason? Or are you saying you don't actually have a daughter, and she's the one living in the house?"
Yin Xiu calmly took a deep breath, "What reason could there be? We can't have children, so we adopt. Is there any other reason for adoption?"
"Can't have children? Who can't have children? Is it your wife who can't have children? Or are you the one who can't have children?" The woman pressed on with increasing malice, smiling as if she had gained the upper hand. "Could it be that you didn't even have a wife, so you went and adopted someone else?"
Under the woman's sharp questioning, Yin Xiu calmly turned to the side, revealing Li Mo sitting in the corner of the room. "He can't have children."
The woman peered inside, and her previously sharp and arrogant demeanor froze the moment she saw Li Mo.
A man? His wife is a man? ...Then they really can't have children.
But this...this...
The other person's actions were so chaotic that she couldn't regain control for a while. She was stunned for a while before continuing: "So you two couldn't have children, so you adopted a daughter?"
"Is there a problem?" Yin Xiuli asked confidently, his eyes narrowing. "You can kill a little girl at will, but I can't adopt a daughter and cherish her?"
The woman's expression became unpredictable, but she couldn't find any other fault. After hitting a wall with Yin Xiu, she could only slowly take two steps back. "Fine, I'll believe the things in your room belong to your daughter. Just don't let me find her."
As she spoke, she turned and headed towards the entrances of the other players' rooms.
Just as the other person turned to the side, a loud thud came from the door of the room behind Yin Xiu, as if something had hit the door, instantly attracting the attention of the woman outside.
Her face snapped back against the glass, her eyes wide as she surveyed the room, her voice becoming excited, "Isn't your daughter away at school? Who was that noise coming from inside just now?! Was it her?!"