69novels Chapter 22: Old Zhou? What Old Zhou?
Chapter 22: Old Zhou? What Old Zhou?
Lin Xiaomei reached for the honey jar.
However, they haven't even touched the jar yet.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps came from outside the tree hole, startling Lin Xiaomei, who looked towards the entrance of the tree hole.
What came into view were two large, black figures.
The two figures had indistinct faces, only thick outlines, and no necks. Their limbs were incredibly thick, making them more like some kind of half-human, half-bear monster than human.
Is this a teddy bear?
Lin Xiaomei's eyelids twitched.
The rules clearly state that the bear is friendly.
But the little bear in front of me looks completely unlike anything I'd ever imagined as "friendly"—it's a monster!
The little bear seemed to notice Lin Xiaomei next to the honey jar.
He approached Lin Xiaomei step by step.
When he was less than five steps away from Lin Xiaomei, Zhao Haiyang reacted and suddenly pulled the bolt on the chainsaw, which roared loudly.
"Click-clack-click-clack!"
The saw teeth rotate.
He slashed at the bear's forehead.
The chainsaw frantically slashed through the bear's flesh, splattering out black liquid. Hu Xin and Dong Xing, who were standing nearby, were terrified and hurriedly stopped Zhao Haiyang.
"Are you crazy?!"
"These are staff members! This is murder!"
"Holy crap, how could that thing be a living person? It's definitely a monster! It looks like a monster to me!" Zhao Haiyang's face turned pale.
Without hesitation, he used a chainsaw to split the bear cub in two.
When he saw the bear's body torn in two and the ground covered in thick, black liquid, a pungent smell of blood forced him to calm down.
He then realized that this was a haunted house.
I rely on.
"It really wasn't my fault. Those things felt so real, they were definitely not living people. I guarantee that when I saw those two lumps, they were monsters."
"I'm done playing. Are you going to call the police and arrest me? I'm turning myself in!"
Zhao Haiyang couldn't hold back any longer and, ignoring Hu Xin and Dong Xing's attempts to dissuade him, directly removed his gas mask.
"ah!!!"
A piercing scream rang out.
The next second, Zhao Haiyang vanished into thin air.
Hu Xin and Dong Xing stared wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded, unable to believe that a living person had simply vanished into thin air right before their eyes.
What a joke.
Did the staff at the haunted house assault tourists?
No, there really were staff members. Shouldn't they have all been killed by Zhao Haiyang just now?
Countless questions swirled in the minds of the group, but Lin Xiaomei was quicker. She threw the axe on the ground and tried to run out of the tree hole.
However, he glanced at the bear's corpse.
The sight before her made her eyelids twitch.
On the tattered corpse of the bear, black liquid condensed into countless crows. The crows spread their wings and flew into the air while making strange noises. Among the crows, the figure of a woman in a red cheongsam appeared.
Lin Xiaomei recognized the woman in red.
It's Lingling!
Lin Xiaomei had a very deep impression of Lingling, the victim of the genius girl case in Hanjiang City. Due to a congenital genetic defect, her limbs were disproportionately long and thin, especially her neck, which was three to four times longer than that of an ordinary person, like a hanged ghost.
When he died, both of his hands were cut off by his biological father. He was filled with resentment, and the oil painting he created before his death was auctioned for hundreds of thousands of yuan.
It wasn't until her biological father died in the detention center that rumors about the painting being cursed began to circulate, with some saying that the woman in the painting would open her eyes in the middle of the night.
"This is insane! This is insane!"
"The owner of the haunted house really dared to put Lingling's image in the haunted house!"
"No, Lingling's case is from several years ago. You can't find any pictures of Lingling online. To protect the deceased, we've never released any unblurred photos. How could this haunted house owner have created a 100% accurate representation of Lingling's appearance?"
Lin Xiaomei's voice trembled uncontrollably as she spoke.
That face will always be imprinted in her mind.
She was certain that Lingling's body looked exactly like this back then, at most with her pupils completely blackened and looking somewhat like some kind of bird, exuding an inhuman aura.
However, her appearance is almost identical to that of Lin Xiaomei when the photo was taken.
This is something that cannot be found by searching for information online.
How did the owner of this haunted house manage to get Lingling's appearance?
Or……
Because the haunted house owner bought Lingling's painting before she died, and that cursed painting affected the VR experience, what they were seeing was actually a real ghost?!
"Help!!"
"It's haunted!!"
The three screamed and fled outside the tree hole.
Lingling merely stared at their retreating figures without chasing after them. Several crows cawed, spread their wings, and flew after the three.
……
……
"call……"
"call……"
"Wait...wait, I'm out of strength."
"That female ghost didn't chase after us. Let's rest for a bit. Holy crap, this place is really haunted. The owner of that haunted house is insane! To make money, he dares to sell items that were actually the site of a murder. You know, these things are tainted with the resentment of the dead, so they really can be haunted!"
Lin Xiaomei leaned against a tree, panting.
She wanted to curse Zhang Ze a hundred times in her heart.
Connecting everything that just happened, it all seems to make sense.
Why does the bear look completely unlike a fake, but rather like a real monster? Zhao Haiyang can tear open the wound with a chainsaw because that thing really is a ghost.
"Quickly, find the cellar! If we can't find it, that ghost will definitely kill us!"
"Sister Lin, calm down. We can just take off our gas masks. Have you forgotten? This haunted house is just a VR game at most. Can't we just leave?" Hu Xin advised.
"Idiots, have you forgotten Zhao Haiyang? If he dares to take off his mask, his fate will be a hundred times worse than being caught by a ghost!"
"Maybe this mask is a cognitive filter, and in reality, that female ghost is standing right in front of us, face to face!"
Lin Xiaomei yelled at the two of them almost hysterically.
Hu Xin and Dong Xing were both startled by Lin Xiaomei.
But they fully understood Lin Xiaomei's fear, and they were completely terrified. Zhao Haiyang's inexplicable disappearance and Lingling's sudden appearance pushed their fear to its peak.
"clatter……"
"clatter……"
Suddenly, footsteps sounded again from behind the bushes.
Lin Xiaomei quickly shut her mouth and made a shushing gesture, and the other two also dared not utter a sound.
"Feed?"
Is anyone there?
"I'm Li Yang, a staff member at the haunted house. Are there any visitors here?"
"I'm here to take you out of the game."
The staff has arrived?!
Lin Xiaomei immediately grabbed at the tree cover as if it were a lifeline, almost bursting into tears, and rushed out to see Li Yang.
Li Yang, dressed in a haunted house staff uniform, looked at Lin Xiaomei with a puzzled expression. "Why are there only three of you left?"
"Someone was killed by a ghost! This haunted house is really haunted! Get us out of here, I'm calling the police! You have no idea what kind of monsters have been attracted to this haunted house!"
"Didn't you have that staff member named Old Zhou before? He was also an NPC, and he told us we could only leave through the cellar. Quickly, take us to the cellar!"
Li Yang looked puzzled. "Old Zhou?"
"Besides the owner Zhang Ze, I'm the only staff member in this haunted house. What are you talking about? What Old Zhou?"
Lin Xiaomei's brain went blank for a moment.
Take a breath.
She finally remembered where she had seen Old Zhou's face before!