Ke Xingyun came running over, shouting and waving his arms, wanting to help her up.
Yang Chaoyu tried several times on her own, but her legs were too weak to support her. A chill still lingered inside her body, crawling upward from her calves.
She turned her head to look and saw a bluish-black mark on her left ankle, as though someone had once grabbed it fiercely and left the mark by exerting too much force. An external injury like this would usually cause intense pain, but Yang Chaoyu had been able to walk normally before, without feeling the slightest discomfort.
She remembered that the only time someone had grabbed her ankle was when she had narrowly avoided being struck by the overseer.
At the time, she had even felt fortunate. But now…
Yang Chaoyu: “It’s so cold.”
The chill around her ankle and the coldness that had rushed into her heart were like two forces vying for supremacy. They rapidly expanded their domains and were about to merge.
Yang Chaoyu felt as though she had been stripped naked and thrown into icy water. Her entire body trembled.
Ke Xingyun noticed it too and said, “According to the older generation, when someone is possessed by yin energy, their entire body becomes ice-cold. Big shot, are you about to become possessed?”
Yang Chaoyu glared at him. “Can’t you say something more auspicious?”
“Ah, this batch of newcomers is truly miserable. One has a broken leg, one has yin energy entering their body, one is completely deranged and will probably need to consult a psychologist after getting out, and there’s also one who’s hopelessly obtuse and utterly useless.”
The baseball cap criticized them one by one while swaggering toward the stairwell.
Yang Chaoyu glared at her, wishing she could eat him alive.
She understood now, too.
Using a game as an analogy, Wen Shaoqiao was a one-time attack Puppet fixed at the stairwell. As long as someone took the damage in another’s place and the threat was removed, the path would become completely unobstructed.
But knowing that now was already too late!
She narrowed her eyes and said to Ke Xingyun, “Are you a completely useless man?”
“Big shot, although you are a big shot, you can’t personally attack me like that!” Ke Xingyun was shocked.
“Then now is the time to prove yourself. Charge! Find the hidden clue before her.”
“Big shot, you know where the clue is again?”
“Isn’t that obvious? The mini-boss has already been defeated, so the treasure chest is close by. If you keep dragging your feet, that detestable baseball cap will become the winner of life. Are you really willing to accept that?”
Ke Xingyun’s expression already told Yang Chaoyu the answer: he actually did not care.
Yang Chaoyu widened her eyes, and Ke Xingyun immediately cowered. He could only get to his feet and walk toward the baseball cap.
She was extremely dissatisfied. “Walk faster.”
Ke Xingyun shuffled forward a little, then could not help turning back to ask, “big shot, can I avoid going downstairs? It’s the thirteenth floor. I’ll have to climb back up later, and by then I’ll have half my life left.”
Yang Chaoyu looked at him for a while, then sighed. “Fine. When you come back, I’ll go myself.”
As she spoke, she tried to get up, but the two currents of cold had already merged, leaving her entire body as stiff as if frozen solid. She braced herself against the floor but could not get up for a long time, and Ke Xingyun hurriedly begged for mercy.
“Oh, I’m the kind of person who yields to gentleness but not force. Big shot, you’re already in such a pitiful state, so you should rest. I’ll go. I’ll go.”
By then, the baseball cap had long since vanished, yet he was still strolling forward leisurely. Yang Chaoyu was so furious she could hardly contain herself.
It was at that moment that a slender figure walked past them.
Yang Chaoyu could not help asking, “Are you going down too?”
Zou Qing brushed back her hair and said, “Since things have already come to this, I might as well give it another shot. At least I’m someone with 300 points.”
Yang Chaoyu, who had only 100 points: Ah, I’m so angry.
If it had not been for Ke Xingyun and Qi Yang, those 300 points would all have belonged to her!
Then she would not have been the bottom-ranked person, and Qi Yang would not have had to rely solely on Ke Xingyun’s luck to save his life.
But when her emotions grew agitated, she felt the cold throughout her body intensify.
She immediately suppressed her inexplicable desire to compete and her anxiety. Why was she comparing scores with these people? In such a strange place, did not having fewer points simply prove that she was normal?!
After consoling herself miserably for a while, she noticed a line of sight.
She turned her head and saw the old man standing at the entrance of Room 1302, smiling at her.
Yang Chaoyu’s brain, slowed by the cold, stirred. She surveyed the situation around her and was suddenly horrified.
At this moment, only three people remained in the corridor: the old man, herself, and an unconscious Qi Yang. She could not move right now. If the old man wanted to do something, she would have no ability to resist at all!
The old man slowly stepped out of the room and approached her.
He asked casually, “Why didn’t you go downstairs with that group of people?”
Yang Chaoyu’s pupils trembled. She desperately tried to stand, but could only move her fingers slightly.
She pretended to remain calm. “I’m injured, so I had Ke Xingyun help me downstairs.”
The old man continued smiling.
“You really are a kind girl. Always willing to help others, selflessly devoted, and extremely trusting of your companions.”
He seemed to be sincerely praising her.
But as Yang Chaoyu watched him draw closer, she felt a fine chill rise from the soles of her feet and continuously surge toward her heart, making her already terrible condition even more rigid.
Damn it, move!
She screamed furiously inside, but could only watch helplessly as the old man came right up to her.
Perhaps because her entire body was trembling, her pants pocket finally could not hold her phone, and it slid out, landing beside her hand.
Yang Chaoyu’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
She merely glanced at the phone, but the old man suddenly sprang right in front of her.
“I like people with the purest hearts and noblest qualities best, because their flesh is exceptionally delicious.”
Yang Chaoyu: What kind of development is this…?
“It seems you still don’t understand. Then again, you newcomers have always been like this.”
As he spoke, his bones crackled as though they had been dislocated. He had originally been wearing a black outfit, with only the wrinkled character skin visible at his cuffs and collar. But now that skin was being pulled apart and stretched taut. The old man’s figure gradually grew longer and larger in Yang Chaoyu’s pupils. Then his clothes burst open, revealing a gaunt torso of flesh and bone.
His height shot up to three meters, and his character skin hung like decorative cloth over the surface of a gigantic human silhouette-shaped skeleton.
Yang Chaoyu had forgotten how to breathe. Her throat was hoarse as it produced strange sounds—her vocal cords had gone rigid from the horrifying sight before her.
An irrepressible terror surged into her heart, and she felt that she was about to pass out.
But she could not. She still had to save herself!
She could definitely do it.