Chapter 44 The Cycle of Curse: Even Death Is Not a Great Loss
Whether it was shortness of breath or something else, Zhang Weiming's face turned completely red.
He shook his hands, trying to brush off the dirt. Then he straightened his wrinkled collar and spoke slowly as if nothing had happened.
"Of course, I'll definitely let you get in the car."
His hysterical outburst just now seemed to be the most insignificant part of his mask.
Zhang Weiming raised his hand and brushed away the non-existent dust from his shoulder.
“We are all good brothers and good teammates. You have risked your lives for me, so how could I possibly fuss over such trivial matters?”
The man's facial muscles trembled uncontrollably, his lips twitched awkwardly, and he didn't know where to put his hands.
"Thank... thank you, Brother Zhang..." he stammered, a stark contrast to his previous tense demeanor.
The lights inside the parking lot flashed more frequently, signaling that the level had officially entered its final countdown.
An unknown danger was quietly approaching, but Zhang Weiming showed no sign of panic.
He still had that confident expression, as if the final outcome was entirely in his grasp.
Zhang Weiming, as if casually tossing away trash, first grabbed the office worker by the torn collar, then tossed him carelessly onto the seat.
"You, go inside and sit down first."
The flattered office worker thanked them repeatedly, his eyes shining as he climbed into his seat, like a traveler in the desert who had longed for rain.
The moment his body touched the seat, the office worker felt a heavy, restrictive force.
Seeing that his teammates had been secured by their seats, the remaining man was eager to try, and his body involuntarily leaned forward towards the parking space.
"Brother Zhang, I..."
The man's words of volunteering were stopped by a gesture from Zhang Weiming.
Zhang Weiming put his finger to his lips, signaling him to calm down.
"Wait a minute, what's the rush? Everyone has a seat..." He slowly strode into the carriage, "One by one, you can come in after I'm seated."
The initiative was now in Zhang Weiming's hands, and the man couldn't afford to be too presumptuous. All he could do at that moment was nod.
But his nervous little movements gave him away. He had almost completely wiped the blood and dirt off his hands, but there were now more marks on his pants.
You never know when, but the shadowy demon will suddenly appear in the corner of Block B. Every second it lingers outside your seat doubles the threat to your life.
This fear of unknown danger is the most real. Witnessing the man's anxious expression, the other passengers in the carriage began to talk amongst themselves.
The girl with blue eyes was clearly anemic, and Lao Ren had poached her from another organization. So, the only ones who could openly express their opinions on this matter were Liang Jun and Gu Keke in the front row.
Gu Keke clung to the car window beside her, "Do you think Zhang Weiming will really let him in? He just..."
She turned around and made a throat-slitting gesture towards the crowd.
Liang Jun shook her head, "No..."
No, it won't.
Not only the two people in the front row, but even the blue-eyed girl who had been weak couldn't help but cast a glance at the old man who suddenly spoke.
Old Ren did not respond to them. His wrinkled eyes were fixed on the man still standing outside the car.
“Zhang Weiming would never let him get on that car.” Old Ren’s tone was almost desperate.
"What do you mean by that?"
Seemingly sensing something amiss, Liang Xun keenly pressed, "Could it be that the two of them had some prior conflict?"
Old Ren sighed, "No, that's not true... but Zhang Weiming, he's always been a selfish person..."
As if recalling something, a layer of moisture gradually filled the old man's somewhat cloudy eyes.
“When he was working at our neighborhood committee, he always tried every possible way to squeeze some money out of people like us who run small businesses.” Two bitter tears slid down Old Ren’s cheeks, which he quickly wiped away. “For people like me who sell meat at the market, he would come and collect things like stall management fees, garbage collection fees, and market protection fees…”
Old Ren smiled helplessly, making the wrinkles on his face appear even deeper.
"All that miscellaneous money ended up in his pocket, but I can't even afford to rent a stall..."
Gu Keke crossed her arms over her chest, making a very obvious defensive gesture.
"Since he treats you badly, why do you still obey him so blindly?"
"There's nothing we can do about it..."
A bitter smile appeared on Old Ren's lips. "The rest of us are all old, weak, sick, and disabled. He's the only one who can still be considered mentally sharp. If we were to fight alone, we probably wouldn't even survive the first round..."
Ultimately, when it comes to matters of life and death, even the greatest humiliation can be ignored.
But Gu Keke still felt uneasy.
She shifted in her seat to adjust her posture, then looked out the window again.
Zhang Weiming and the other office workers had already settled into two of the seats. Behind them, there was one empty, brightly lit blue seat.
The man's eyes revealed an undisguised greed. If his eyes were a broken water vat, his desire would pour out like cold, clear water gushing from the crack.
His hands involuntarily climbed onto the metal frame of the vehicle. "Brother Zhang, can I get on now?"
Zhang Weiming didn't bother to look up, but his head moved up and down slightly a few times.
Upon seeing this, the man was overjoyed.
His steps became lighter, but when he hurriedly prepared to turn over and go in, it was as if he had encountered some invisible barrier and was forcibly blocked outside.
A flicker of terror crossed his face for a second, as if he were under a spell, and he stubbornly placed his hand back on the frame.
As if scorched by intense flames, the man hissed and quickly withdrew his hand.
The area that had just been touched was now corroded, with a layer of skin gone. Ripples spread around the wound from the charred black skin, revealing fresh, tender flesh the color of cherry blossoms, oozing round, reddish droplets of blood.
Clearly, the man hadn't expected this. He looked up in a panic at Zhang Weiming in the front row, only to find that the end of the light cord above the other man's head was swinging with inertia.
Looking up along the light cable, a blood-red parking light was already lit.
"You..." The man's breathing became rapid, his eyes bloodshot, "You fucking dare to play me?!"
Like a mad bull in a bullring, after roaring loudly in the corner, he mustered all his strength and tried to rush onto the frame.
Although the bicycle frame was old and worn, Zhang Weiming had indeed pulled down the parking lights. Whether or not there's a freezing mechanism against demons is currently unknown, but it definitely provides protection for players.
The man's fist, which he originally intended to land on Zhang Weiming, was now forced to land passively on the frame itself due to the frame's protective mechanism.
The sound of burning flesh reached his ears. Zhang Weiming glanced at the man who had collapsed in pain, then frowned slightly and looked away.
He spoke as if he had seen some filthy garbage, his words filled with contempt.
"So what if someone as two-faced as you is played? What difference does it make?"
Zhang Weiming sneered, "To put it bluntly, someone like you isn't worth losing even if you die. You can abandon your closest family members so easily. Do you think I would dare keep you by my side?"
"Is it?" His gaze swept over the office worker sitting to the side, who was practically trembling like a leaf. Even his nasal tone carried an unyielding quality. "Hmm?"
Office workers felt as if they were wearing only a thin shirt and had been thrown into a giant ice cellar at minus 20 or 30 degrees Celsius, their whole bodies shivering uncontrollably.
After a long pause, he finally managed to give a response.
"Um……"
His supreme power was once again recognized. Despite being in a dangerous dungeon, Zhang Weiming's expression remained relatively good.
He seemed to be able to block out the man's desperate curses and shouts outside the car, calmly taking out a familiar prop from his pocket.
The top of the prop emitted a dazzling light, as if it could pierce through the darkness and illuminate all the gloom in the world.
Gu Keke pressed her entire face against the car window, as if she had seen something incredible, and hurriedly turned to look at Liang Xun.
Liang Jun realized something was wrong, so she turned around and looked at the blue-eyed girl in the back row.
Her grey-blue eyes blazed with fury, and her wounded hands clenched into fists.
Liang Jun said in a deep voice, "That flashlight..."
“Mine, that’s mine.”
Every word the blue-eyed girl uttered was resounding: "They beat me up and then stole my flashlight, just so they could better check the seats."
By the end, her voice trembled, as if she didn't want to recall this brutal experience.
She simply described the brutal bullying as "being beaten up" in a lighthearted way.
Liang Jun glanced at Lao Ren casually, and the man immediately trembled like a leaf.
"No, no, no... I didn't do it..."
Old Ren repeatedly shook his calloused hands. Through his dark skin, Liang Jun could even detect a few streaks of dark red.
"They did it all..." Old Ren kept his head down, not daring to meet Liang Jun's eyes. "They even made me hit them, but I didn't dare, so I could only stand there..."
Liang Xun's lips twitched downwards slightly, and she didn't say anything more.
Gu Keke, who had been observing the situation outside, suddenly grabbed Liang Jun's sleeve and announced urgently, "Sister Jun, it's a demon!"
Upon hearing this news, everyone stopped dwelling on the little incident and turned to look outside.
The demons who had previously gone astray had now gathered at the corner entrance. Two satiated shadowy figures followed closely behind the other monsters, forming a black waterfall that could never be breached.
The man, isolated in one place, was like an ant on a hot pan.
The surrounding area was full of empty parking spaces, but it was no different from a guillotine that had already been defined.
In the face of death, the excruciating pain of burning flesh is nothing.
The man hysterically lunged at Zhang Weiming's seat, ignoring the smell of barbecue wafting from beneath him.
You'll die a horrible death!
The first dark shadow surged onto the man, and the area being devoured gradually expanded, followed by the second and the third.
NPCs only know how to execute fixed routines; they don't give players time to say their last words. The man slowly collapsed in front of their parking space, his final roar mercilessly swallowed by the shadows—
"You won't get out of here alive!"
A mocking smile appeared on Zhang Weiming's lips.
He seemed to be watching a spectacular show, and even as a pool of blood-red liquid began to spread in his field of vision, he showed no change in emotion whatsoever.
The demons beside him had already swarmed forward, frantically devouring the man's mutilated limbs.
Zhang Weiming turned the flashlight on and off repeatedly, as if he were playing with an extremely cheap toy.
"I won't make it out of this alive?"
He seemed to find the man's last words ridiculous, and repeated them with amusement, "There are only a few minutes left until the end of the dungeon. Sorry, I won again."
Under Zhang Weiming's control, the direct beam swept back and forth across the platform in front of him.
He glanced at it casually, the mockery in his eyes still lingering, but the muscles on the lower half of his face began to twitch uncontrollably.
Bathed in warm light, the shadow of a fleeting, ethereal bat was reflected before his eyes.
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Author's Note: Writing this level/dungeon wasn't going very smoothly. I'll adjust the outline a bit more later. ToT
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