Chapter 63, Chapter Ten: The Fantasy Mansion
Holding onto the wall, Wen Ting walked with a slight limp.
I didn't feel anything when I was terrified, but when I came to my senses, I realized I had kicked too hard, and my ankle seemed to be swollen.
She couldn't tell whether it was a dream or reality.
If this is a dream, why does my foot hurt so realistically?
If this were reality, how could Gong Baidie have become like that?
There were few people on the 13th floor, and not even a faint light source. Wen Ting touched herself and realized she hadn't brought her phone. It was more likely a dream.
She leaned against the wall and walked to the emergency exit sign, which was the brightest spot on the floor.
Using the dim green light, she crouched down to check her ankles, when she suddenly heard the sound of chains dragging across the ground.
Wen Ting held her breath.
She pressed herself against the wall and listened; the sound of chains was coming from the stairwell.
Have they caught up yet...?
Wen Ting limped back.
She returned the way she came, but the elevator was still stuck on this floor.
Wen Ting pressed the elevator button while turning her head to look at the stairwell.
I pressed the button more than a dozen times, but the elevator door remained motionless and unresponsive. Only the sound of chains dragging on the ground grew closer and closer.
No, we can't wait any longer.
Wen Ting decisively abandoned the elevator and ran forward.
There were fewer game materials on the 13th floor, with only a few posters scattered on the wall. However, even these few posters were not spared, and the characters on them were all marked with red crosses.
The bold black and red markings completely obscured the figure's face, and in some places, the paint splattered like blood, revealing a cruel and blatant malice.
Wen Ting pushed open the doors of every office she encountered, only to find that, just like the offices downstairs, every single one was locked.
She pushed the doors open one by one until she reached the director's office at the far end of the corridor.
Wen Ting pressed the handle without much hope—
The door opened.
She was startled. Behind her, she could hear not only the clanging of chains but also the rustling of fabric.
With no other choice, Wen Ting immediately pushed the door open and tried to lock it, but the lock was broken.
The voice was getting closer and closer, as if it knew she was there, and it came straight towards her without veering off course.
Wen Ting quickly surveyed the director's office. It was pitch black and no one was there except for the incense burner on the coffee table, which was emitting red incense.
She ran behind the desk and tapped the edge of the butterfly.
The butterfly split in the middle, and she hid inside, sitting by the door with her ear pressed against it, nervously listening to the sounds outside.
Click—
Almost as soon as the butterfly closed, she heard the office door open.
He came in; he was in the office!
"Master Wife...Master Wife..."
Wen Ting covered her mouth and nose to avoid making any sound of her breathing.
The cries from outside were like weeping and lamenting, as poignant and beautiful as poetry.
The chains scraped against the tiles, making a tinkling sound, and lingered and searched outside the wall.
"My lady...where are you? I can't find you..." The call grew hoarse, filled with tears. "My lady, my lady...I was wrong, don't leave me behind..."
Wen Ting's eyes flickered slightly, and she finally remembered something—
What does Gong Baidie want to do by pursuing her?
His spider-like crawling appearance was too terrifying, and coupled with his drastic change in temperament in her dream yesterday, she began to flee for her life without thinking.
But why did he pursue her?
The shouts ceased, and only low sobs remained outside the door.
Wen Ting slowly lowered her hand and tried to turn over.
With a slight movement of her waist, a loud noise suddenly erupted from the warehouse where she was hiding!
Wen Ting turned around abruptly and saw a huge hole in the ceiling. A blurry figure fell through it, crashing onto the shelves and instantly overturning three or four of them.
The stainless steel shelves collapsed to the ground like dominoes, and all the goods fell down, crashing and breaking, turning the once orderly warehouse into a complete mess.
Wen Ting was stunned.
The person who fell rolled twice, fell off the tilted shelf, and lay motionless and silent on the ground.
Knock knock
The sound of knuckles knocking on the door came from behind me.
The warmth lingered from head to toe.
He heard it, noticed it, and skillfully knocked on the butterfly-shaped cabinet.
The cabinet doors parted smoothly to the sides, letting in a sliver of light from behind.
Wen Ting stood frozen in place, even the thought of running away vanished.
"My wife..."
The sounds of pearls clattering and shackles dragging on the ground mingled together, and a chilling sensation pressed against her from behind, tightly binding Wen Ting.
Cardiac and pulmonary arrest.
The two arms that were wrapped around her were entwined with long pearl chains, the white pearl chains digging deeply into their arms, which were tightly wrapped around her body.
Light surged from behind her, still dim, but she finally saw what had fallen from the ceiling.
Qin Mu.
She was the first leading actress in Green Forest.
He fell to his death on the ground, his neck broken, his face turned toward her, his eyes wide open, blood spreading from beneath him.
This is her drawing of a character from yesterday's death scene. She chose the easiest character to draw and hastily finished OA's drawing.
The submitted death image appeared before my eyes once again, exactly the same as the image of Yun Heli who died the previous night.
Her mind went blank; Wen Ting had no idea what would happen next. Everything was beyond her comprehension.
She stared blankly at the young man who had fallen to his death in front of her, her lips trembling, and her tongue tasting a hint of saltiness.
Overwhelmed by extreme fear, tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face.
Snap.
It fell onto the arm covered in pearls.
The muscles in his arms bulged, pulsated with a rhythmic breath, and then he picked her up and carried her out of the warehouse.
Wen Ting was placed on the chair behind the desk.
The cabinet closed, and the closed butterfly pattern shone with golden light, illuminating the room.
Wen Ting sat there numbly, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.
She was lost in thought for a long time before she regained some awareness and the strength to think.
A silk handkerchief was gently placed under her eyes. Her eyelashes trembled, and as she lowered her gaze, tears and her eyes fell to the ground.
She saw Gong Baidie kneeling on the ground, looking up to wipe away her tears.
“You,” she said sullenly, “what do you mean… what exactly do you want to do?”
Gong Baidie gazed at her, the golden butterflies on the cabinet wall casting a golden glow over the butterfly patterns beneath his eyes.
He wanted her to suffer unbearable pain, to watch the characters he created die one by one before her eyes, and to experience the loneliness and despair of being trapped in the game and having no one to turn to.
He wanted her to break down and become helpless, to beg him, to cling to him cautiously—
"The white butterfly only asks to stay by its master's side."
But tonight, not his entire soul entered; what entered his dream was only the crazed, abandoned husband on his phone.
He knelt humbly at the foot of the chair, his long black hair cascading down his back, bathed in a pale golden light. He took Wen Ting's hands in his own and wept with her.
"My lady, Bai Die is worried about you."
Wen Ting closed her eyes, and the last bit of tears were squeezed out and flowed down her cheeks.
She bent down straight and slammed her forehead into the crook of Gong Baidie's neck.
"You scared me to death..." she sobbed as she spoke, "What are you doing, like a ghost chase... Who chose such a ghostly outfit for you..."
After all that fuss, it turns out he just wanted to talk to her.
She was so scared she felt like her soul was about to fly away.
"White Butterfly... has it disturbed my wife again?"
A trembling hand adorned with pearls gently touched the back of Wen Ting's head, tentatively stroking her.
Wen Ting hugged his neck and buried her face in his chest, sobbing.
She was so frightened that she needed a hug.
Gong Baidie's pupils suddenly contracted as she was being held.
His face was still streaked with tears, and his lips had involuntarily parted to reveal his teeth and tongue.
That beautiful face burst into exaggerated laughter, bathed in the golden light of the butterflies, her laughter twisted and excited, to the point of being ferocious.
He forced out a gentle voice: "Is my wife injured?"
Wen Ting nodded in his arms, raising her legs, "It hurts when I walk." It's all his fault for chasing her like a ghost.
After complaining, she remembered: "How are you? Did I kick you too hard?"
Her shoes were taken off.
Wen Ting was startled and turned her head to look. She saw Gong Baidie supporting her calf with one hand and holding her foot with the other, gently rotating her ankle.
"Hmm." Wen Ting frowned.
Gong Baidie knelt upright, placed her feet on her knees, twisted her waist to open the desk cabinet door, and pulled out a medicine box.
He skillfully found the medicinal wine, "I rubbed the blood clots together to disperse them, it hurt a bit, and my wife grabbed me."
Wen Ting watched him apply the medicine to her, her gaze drifting to the three-tiered medicine box.
As the initial panic subsided, reason gradually returned.
“White Butterfly,” she said.
Gong Baidie looked up: "Did I hurt you?"
Wen Ting asked, "How did you know there was a medicine box there?"
The fingertips that were rubbing my ankle paused, the icy touch mixed with the bitter taste of the medicinal wine spreading upwards.
Wen Ting unconsciously moved back into her seat.
In the dim golden light of the butterfly, he smiled at Wen Ting and said, "My lady, have you forgotten that this is a dream?"
Wen Ting was taken aback, then thought of something else, "What about before? Was the night before, when Yunhe cried out and died, also a dream?"
“It was a dream, of course,” Gong Baidie said, seemingly finding her question amusing. “If it wasn’t a dream, how could you have seen Yun Heli?”
Yeah, she asked all sorts of pointless questions.
“I always feel like there’s something wrong with my memory; it’s fragmented, disjointed, and chaotic.” Wen Ting rubbed her temples. “Maybe I’ve been scared out of my wits. Lately… a lot of strange things have been happening.”
Gong Baidie sealed the medicated wine and put away the medicine box.
He took out a handkerchief from somewhere and wiped his hands, cleaning each finger that was stained with dark red medicinal wine.
“My lady, do not worry,” he reassured her with a smile. “It’s just a dream. Yun Heli and Qin Mu are not dead.”
"I'm not worried about them." It was indeed a dream; Wen Ting didn't feel any pain until the medicine was applied.
Gong Baidie suddenly looked up.
In an instant, his gaze turned clear and cold, as if piercing right through Wen Ting.
"Aren't you worried about them?" he repeated her words lightly.
Wen Ting asked in bewilderment, "Why should I worry about them?"
"They are your characters, the children you are proud of."
"Shh—you can't say that." Wen Ting laughed. "Logically, they are first and foremost the children of the planners; in terms of the experience of playing the game, they are first and foremost the children of the voice actors."
She rotated her ankle; it felt warm there, and she could no longer feel the pain.
"If I say this, I'll be talked about behind my back by other departments and torn to pieces by the female gamers."
Gong Baidie stared at her, as if she didn't quite understand what she was saying.
"Don't you understand? Are you the pre-3.0 version of Miyazaki?"
A strand of hair was stuck to his forehead. Wen Ting reached out and removed it for him. "The characters here are a little different from the ones I created for you back then. A character is created by multiple people. In terms of closeness, I can only be considered their... aunt?"
Gong Baidie's face remained puzzled.
Wen Ting pondered that after version 3.0, she left Wanluo. At that time, Wanluo already had dedicated copywriters and artists. Gong Baidie after version 3.0 should be able to understand these words.
It seems he is the previous version, the Gong Baidie in her hands.
Gong Baidie glanced at the wall cabinet out of the corner of her eye.
Through the cabinet door, Qin Mu, his body shattered to pieces, still stared in their direction with wide-open eyes.
Ah, he's watching them.
"You won't shed tears for them?" Gong Baidie murmured.
Wen Ting herself was on the verge of death, so she didn't have time to shed tears for the paper doll.
"I just find it eerie."
It's one thing for strange tales to appear in reality, but dreams have become so bizarre too.
Yun Heli and Qin Mu, let's assume she drew them during the day; dreaming of Gong Baidie three times in a row, probably because she opened "Desktop Lovers" before going to sleep.
These are two things I think about every day.
But why does Gong Baidie become so dangerous in her dream?
Was it because "Desktop Lovers" was about to shut down and his existence was about to be erased that she connected it to the vengeful ghost of someone who died unjustly...?
That's possible.
Wen Ting had completely calmed down and was frowning as she pondered the connection between her dream and reality.
Gong Baidie, however, held her back and persistently asked, "Yun Heli and Qin Mu died tragically, aren't you sad for them?"
Why is she sad about two paper figures? What baker would be sad because their cake was eaten?
Wen Ting was puzzled, but Gong Baidie in front of her was eager for an answer.
Why did he ask that question?
Wen Ting suddenly became alert.
Yu Guangli saw golden butterflies, and the intricate butterfly pattern on the wall cabinet illuminated the darkness of the room.
A chill crept up Wen Ting's back; the enormous butterfly seemed to be pressing down on her, making it hard for her to breathe.
This is the third time in a row that I've had a dream featuring the White Butterfly.
"Like I just said, making them is different from making them, and I'm not familiar with them."
Wen Ting didn't know what role Gong Baidie played in this bizarre and grotesque world.
Is it black or white? Is it the sinister hand that persecuted her, or the shield that protected her?
Regardless of whether he is black or white, his value is understated.
On the contrary, saying nice things doesn't cost money.
"White Butterfly," she whispered helplessly, "Don't ask them anymore. You know, I've only ever shed tears for you."
Gong Baidie trembled.
It was as if another soul was boiling over, anxiously pulling his soul out, desperately and violently wanting to take over this body.
"I feel the same way, only my wife can make me weep!" He held on to his body, declaring with overwhelming joy, "Even if my body is destroyed, as long as a wisp of my soul remains, the white butterfly will follow my wife."
He excitedly grasped her hand: "My lady, don't worry, I have a way to ensure your safety. After you wake up, you only need to..."
His face and voice suddenly became indistinct. Wen Ting instinctively felt that he was about to say something important, but her head was spinning and she could only see his lips moving, but could not hear a sound.
No, we can't stop here!
Gong Baidie's expression clearly showed that she was going to teach her how to leave the ghost story!
An unknown force pushed Wen Ting away.
She opened her eyes and woke up at this crucial moment.
My mind was foggy, and I slept until I was completely exhausted.
Wen Ting sat up in bed and stared blankly for a while, feeling dizzy.
She seemed to have had a terrifying nightmare, and there was even a chase scene, but she couldn't remember anything else.
The dream is not important; what matters is that dawn has broken.
Gazing at the rising sun outside the window, Wen Ting recalled the huge trouble she had caused herself last night—
I have to meet with the new director today to explain why I hid food in his office and give him a clear answer.
But she didn't know the new director's character at all, nor had she figured out the rules of this strange tale.
Knock knock
There was a knock on the door. Wen Ting looked through the peephole and saw more than a dozen colleagues standing outside, holding registration boards.
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