In front of the dark house, Zhang You took a deep breath.
The thermal gear distributed by the student union made her feel heavy and breathless, but it was indeed effective. At least now she could walk normally in the freezing temperatures.
The student union members were looking at her sinisterly from behind, which reminded Zhang You of the scene where a boy was dragged into the swamp on the ice.
Through the fog that hung over the pitch-black swamp, one could only vaguely make out a monster that resembled a giant loach and a black snake. Human strength was utterly emaciated by the monster, and the boy, without even the strength to struggle, was swallowed up and vanished.
Zhang You couldn't even remember his name, but the despair, coldness, severe pain and stiffness of losing consciousness during his struggle seemed to be transmitted to her senses through the mist, filling her limbs with coldness and making her mind terrified and uneasy.
Zhang You tried hard to calm himself down.
She knew that Tang Xin Jue wouldn't waste time. Since he had forced the students to choose this place as their investigation location, it meant there was likely an opportunity here that could help them pass the level.
Concentrating 100% of his attention, Zhang You pushed open the door of the lounge.
"Okay, Zhang You has arrived outside the lounge. Let's hope she's not too afraid of the dark... Why isn't she leaving?"
Lily pinched her throat and reminded, "Does Zhang want to give up at the last minute? In the spirit of humanitarianism, we can accept this. After all, which is more severe, the punishment for breaking the rules, or the consequences of failing the test? Tsk tsk tsk tsk, this requires the students to find the answer for themselves."
Zhang You remained silent for several seconds before she spoke hesitantly: "I want to contact my roommate."
Lily: ??? Are you addicted to asking for help off-site?
"No!" She screamed without thinking, but Tang Xinjue's phone was faster than hers and the connection was automatically connected.
"Please tell Zhang You that I'm here."
Through the phone, Tang Xin Jue was like a tranquilizer, instantly relaxing Zhang You's tense nerves a little, but she still hesitated to take action, as if she was struggling in her mind.
Tang Xinjue immediately noticed his roommate's abnormality and said to the student union, "I want to video chat with my roommate."
Lily: ...Are you really treating them as tools, ordering them around?
"No," the student union refused without hesitation: "There is no such rule."
"But my roommate suffers from congenital color blindness." Tang Xinjue did not hesitate.
Lily sneered: "There's no light in the lounge, so color blindness won't affect her movements."
"But beyond that, she also suffers from dark fear, claustrophobia-induced cardiac complications, multiple fractures leading to limb incoordination, a history of epilepsy, and intermittent vision loss due to severe color deficiency. To sum up, strictly speaking, my roommate, a severely disabled person, isn't a complete person. Only by video chatting with me and helping her find the way can we collaborate to create a normal human motion system."
Tang Xinjue answered fluently.
Zhang You suddenly developed more than a dozen diseases and was forced to become a disabled person: "..."
Student Union: “…”
The situation was deadlocked for about half a minute before the other side reluctantly met their request.
Lily reminded him fiercely, "You only have one hour left. If you exceed this time, you will still be considered a failure."
Finally, the video was successfully connected. Tang Xinjue could feel Zhang You's hands trembling slightly. There was no time to talk, so she immediately asked him to turn the camera of his mobile phone, and then there was darkness in front of her eyes.
Thick, cold, hidden or gathered in the room in front of them, it instantly reminded people of the first day when the game came and there was an lingering darkness outside the dormitory.
Zhang You said softly, "Before this exam started, I redeemed a limited-time item from the mall. It can remind me of the malicious intent around me."
If the malevolence it exuded near the Student Union had nearly overflowed, then at the entrance to this lounge, it nearly exploded in Zhang You's pocket.
This is also the reason why Zhang You didn't dare to move and had to video chat with Tang Xinjue and others.
Ghosts and monsters lurk in the darkness, and she hardly dares to imagine how many inhuman beings are waiting to spy on her in the darkness before her.
At this moment in the dormitory, Tang Xinjue was not the only one staring at the screen of his mobile phone, but also the trembling Guo Guo.
[Yin Yang Eyes (Basic): It can help you better distinguish ghosts and monsters, and the world will become more colorful in your eyes.]
This is the Yin-Yang Eyes ability that Guo Guo just acquired, and using it at this moment is simply a natural choice.
She gritted her teeth and stared for a long time before saying in a trembling voice, "I feel like there are shadows everywhere. There are shadows on the left and on the right, one piled on top of the other..."
How many ghosts are there in this house?
"It's okay. Just report what you see and gain experience at the same time. After all, there aren't many opportunities to practice without actual combat." After comforting Guo Guo, Tang Xin Jue said to Zhang You, "Back off, then go left. You can go in now."
With a harsh friction sound, the door of the lounge was pushed open completely, and the temperature, which was even colder than outside, made people shiver violently.
"Don't look back, don't look to either side, look straight ahead and keep turning left."
Zhang You turned around according to the voice in his ears.
Tang Xin Jue: "Go forward, there's a wall over there, there should be a light switch. Wait, you're shaking, why?"
The roommate took a deep breath and tried to control his voice: "I heard someone calling my name behind me."
"Don't believe it, that's not a human being."
"But..." Zhang You gritted his teeth, "The sound is getting closer."
It was far away at first, but each shout brought it closer to her, and the shout just now... was clearly right behind her!
Tang Xinjue narrowed his eyes and said, "Squat down!"
Zhang You quickly squatted down, and a cold wind blew past the place where his head was originally. With the whispers fading away quickly like the tide, the room returned to silence.
His heart almost jumped out of his chest. Zhang You felt a layer of cold sweat on his body, which quickly stuck to his skin in the cold weather, making him feel very uncomfortable.
"That must be the long-tongued ghost."
Tang Xin Jue's concise explanation.
In fact, the monsters in the nightmare had no names. She gave them these names based on their characteristics.
As the name suggests, the long-tongued ghost can speak with its tongue and imitate human voices to call in the dark, but its body only has a long and thin tongue, which it uses to ambush behind people and devour their heads.
Zhang You paused for two seconds, then suddenly frowned and sniffed twice: "I seem to smell a strange smell."
"It smells really bad and sour, a bit like a dead rat, but..." she trailed off, "and it smells like blood."
I didn't notice anything when I was standing, but when I squatted down, I smelled something strange in the air near the ground. And the smell seemed evenly distributed throughout the room, with no sense of where it came from.
"If I can't find the direction, then they're everywhere." Tang Xinjue said calmly, "Long-tongued ghosts often appear in piles of corpses. There should be at least several corpses in this room."
Zhang You: ...Don't say such things in such a calm tone, she will be scared too!
Fortunately, Tang Xin Jue didn't continue describing. Guo Guo also added quietly, "There are many shadows on both sides, but the place where the long-tongued ghost pounced just now is still there. There seem to be especially many shadows around it."
Tang Xinjue seemed to be thinking, and then suddenly instructed Zhang You to walk in the direction where the long-tongued ghost had just pounced.
"Long-tongued ghosts are one of the few ghosts with intelligence. They should guard the light source and prevent you from passing through."
As instructed, Zhang You turned the video screen to face Tang Xinjue's face towards the darkness and asked cautiously, "Will this increase my chances of avoiding danger?"
Tang Xin Jue: "No, this way when they pounce on us, we will be able to see them more clearly."
Zhang You: Crying.
Guo Guo: ...crying too!
Having said that, when Zhang You successfully moved near the light source and the ghosts hiding in the darkness swarmed towards her, Tang Xinjue and Guo Guo immediately determined the least dangerous direction of action and helped her dodge left and right.
[You are being eroded by something -10 health points]
[Your spirit is under continuous attack and your sanity value is rapidly decreasing]
[You have obtained negative Buff: Bleeding]
[You have obtained negative buff: Frostbite]
…
It was impossible to avoid all the monsters in the darkness. They surged forward in layers, further weakening Zhang You's already severely weakened constitution. Tang Xinjue frowned, trying to identify each and every ghost and apparition in the shortest possible time.
Suddenly, she seemed to see something, her eyes sharpened, and she shouted sharply, "Meet that big head on the left! Crash into it!"
In fact, Zhang You could no longer see where the "big head" was. She instinctively lunged to the left, and then felt a strong sense of malice with her hair standing on end.
However, this malice was not directed at her... but at the video screen in her hand?
In the dormitory, Tang Xinjue put down his phone, held the toilet plunger in his hand, and pushed his two roommates, who were jumping up and down as if they were in the scene, away.
"This ghost is called a phantom. It has the ability to travel through space with the help of electronic devices."
Guo Guo and Zheng Wanqing: "!!!"
Can you travel through time with the help of electronic devices? ? That cell phone...
It happened so quickly that before he could finish his words, a skinny, dark hand suddenly stretched out from the phone screen and grabbed Tang Xinjue!
[Ding Dong, attacked by a high-level ghost, triggering the passive buff: Light of Righteousness]
[The light of righteousness shines upon the earth!]
A dazzling golden light suddenly burst out from Tang Xinjue's body, illuminating the area within a few square meters as if it were under the scorching sun. However, it flashed by in just two seconds and disappeared completely, as if it had never appeared.
The skinny arm that happened to be stretched out was suddenly roasted to a charred black and dried up, with two pieces of debris falling off.
Before it was about to break, Tang Xinjue pressed the toilet plunger button, and a stream of water gushed out from the rubber head, falling on his arm and freezing instantly, turning it into a long popsicle. He broke it off and put it aside.
Zhang You, who witnessed all this, opened her mouth silently. On her side, the situation also changed suddenly.
The influence of [The Light of Righteousness] did not seem to be limited by the mobile phone screen. The moment it erupted, the ghosts near Zhang You also retreated several meters. She took the opportunity to touch the wall and found the light switch.
At the same time, Lily's surprised voice rang out over the radio: "She's not dead... Ahem, classmate Zhang actually succeeded?"
“Pah.”
Zhang You pressed the switch hard, and the cold white light illuminated the lounge.
The creatures that moved in the darkness disappeared in the light, and the scene inside the room was clearly seen by everyone.
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