Chapter 19 Our Promise 11 The City Flooded
Going to find Li Hu would be a bit troublesome, because he's in a detention center quite far away, and Ya He is already wanted, supposedly because a prisoner has escaped.
They had to hide on the road, and neither of them could drive. So Wu Wangwang scanned an electric scooter on the road and asked Yahe to give her a ride. But most of these shared electric scooters were single seats, and they couldn't find a double seat because they were going to some remote areas. Wu Wangwang was in great pain, as if she was hanging on the back of the scooter.
The entire journey was along narrow paths, making it extremely bumpy. Yahe's legs quickly went numb, and she couldn't help but exchange other information with Wu Wangwang to distract herself.
"How did you disappear later?" Awa still remembered this.
“Du Luo pushed me into the sea. Luckily, I ran into some fishermen returning home. I stayed in the hospital for five days, and when I came out, you were all gone,” Wu Wangwang replied simply. She hadn’t expected that Ya and the others would find an excuse to hide in the detention center. They were really brave, weren’t they afraid they wouldn’t be able to get out?
Then Wu Wangwang asked about Chu Ping, because Chu Ping said that whoever went to her would be told the truth.
Yahe got angry when she heard this: "We didn't know Shi Rong and Du Luo were ghosts at first. We can't say that. We've become players. Whether they are ghosts or not doesn't matter. We didn't know if they were bosses, so we wanted to test them."
Yahe didn't test the waters. She brought up the possibility at home, with only Yang Bin and Li Hu by her side. The two of them were completely clueless when they came over, having no idea what role they were playing. It was only when their parents mentioned it that Yang Bin and Yahe learned that they were engaged and would be getting married at the end of the year.
After having thoroughly examined the information on the three men's phones, Li Hu contacted Shi Rong privately, saying he wanted to meet.
Yahe and Yang Bin secretly followed from the shadows, and thus they received the firsthand truth from Shi Rong: that the seven of them had conspired to kill Chu Ping and Guo Tianyin, and that Chu Ping wanted them to send Hua Jiao to surrender herself, which meant they were going against Guo Tianyin.
After receiving the news, the three went home to discuss it and felt that Chu Ping's words could not be completely trusted, because Chu Ping's condition was obviously not right and her words were sometimes very vague. The only useful information was her name and identity.
With a name and identity, Yahe can be investigated.
But the clues were hidden too deeply, and Awa had to search for them bit by bit according to his life story. It wasn't like having a name would immediately lead to the strange place.
It took her more than a month to look through tens of thousands of data points with Yang Bin and Li Hu, and they finally found something strange: Shi Rong had an abortion record, while Chu Ping did not. However, Chu Ping had obviously threatened Yang Bin and Li Hu, demanding that they pay for the abortion, and Yang Bin and Li Hu each paid a quarter of the cost of one abortion.
It was at this moment that Yahe realized something was wrong. If Shi Rong was the one who had the abortion, then was Chu Ping actually pregnant? Assuming she wasn't, where did her receipt come from?
Through this incident, Ya and the others guessed that there must be some conflict between the three ghosts, Shi Rong, Chu Ping, and Guo Tianyin, and that this conflict was something the players could exploit, perhaps their only way out.
During the gathering, they wanted to continue their investigation, but unexpectedly, Wu Wangwang disappeared. The three realized that they might have inadvertently triggered the rules of death by knowing too much, so they quickly fled for their lives.
The rule for escaping from a dungeon is to avoid running to the safe zone alone.
Yahe and Li Hu went together, Yang Bin and Liu Ke went together. Lai Jie was supposed to go find Liu Ke as well, but when he arrived, he couldn't find Liu Ke and Yang Bin anymore. Yahe and Li Hu entered the safe zone first and lost contact.
Lai Jie was so frightened that he didn't dare to leave the house, fearing he would be hit and killed on the road, until Wu Wang looked over.
Before entering the safe zone, Ya and the others took turns checking on Chu Ping, mainly to find out what Shi Rong's condition was, but they couldn't find out. Chu Ping said that she and Shi Rong were in the same body, but Shi Rong had never appeared.
They couldn't get the information provided by Shi Rong, and they couldn't communicate with her; it was all Chu Ping's side of the story.
Wu Wangwang provided additional information, which made the story complete: Yahe wanted to kill Chu Ping, who had disrupted the balance of their small group of three. Fu Mei, worried about Shi Rong, who was actually pregnant, simply helped Yahe and the others by killing Chu Ping, who knew the truth, so that no one would ever know where that test result came from.
The truth about Shi Rong and Chu Ping remains unknown, and it's unclear whether the two ghosts are on the same side. However, since Fu Mei has been solely focused on Shi Rong from beginning to end, there must be something else that the players haven't discovered yet.
They finally managed to ride their electric scooter to another district. Based on the detention center Li Hu had previously visited and the gossip of the locals, they found the general direction and learned that someone had run that way and the police were chasing after them.
The rest depends on Wu Wangwang's extraordinary intuition—actually, it's long-distance perception.
They led Ya and others to take a detour to intercept Li Hu first, and then made Li Hu run with them. Li Hu was almost out of breath, but in order to survive, he had to keep going even if he was spitting blood.
Wu Wangwang led them to a nearby place where there were electric bikes. With Yahe's help, they scanned a different brand of electric bike using a mini-program. Only after riding the bike did Li Hu come back to life.
I need to go to Wu Wangwang's house to pick up my computer now. With Wu Wangwang as my safety guarantor, I'll have a safe journey.
The three of them dared not separate and followed Wu Wangwang upstairs.
When I opened the door to the rented room, the floor was covered in mud and water, mixed with hair.
Yahe and Li Hu were almost scared into screaming, thinking the boss was attacking. They instinctively covered their mouths and pretended to run away.
Wu Wangwang ignored it, waded through the water, and found the computer. Luckily, it wasn't wet.
After packing up anything that might be useful, Wu Wangwang came out and locked the door in one smooth motion, without showing any fear, which astonished her companions.
Aya looked at her with admiration: "Aren't you scared? How did you dare to go in?"
“This isn’t a dungeon with a guaranteed kill rule. I’ve encountered this many times. Their rules for killing are strange and always seem vague. Generally speaking, dungeons rarely have death rules that allow people to exploit loopholes, but since there’s a way to exploit it, why not take advantage of it?” Wu Wangwang shrugged.
Upon hearing this, Li Hu and Ya He both gave a thumbs up.
Li Hu then asked, "By the way, where should we hide now? It's only 2 p.m., and there are still 18 hours until 8:30 a.m. tomorrow."
“If we go to Hua Jiao’s house, we might run into Du Luo. Could going to Du Luo’s house be one of the death rules? So, if it is triggered, you guys run away quickly and don’t worry about me.” Wu Wangwang said without hesitation, trying to leave herself a way out.
As long as no one sees her, no one can bother her once she gets on the bus tomorrow.
Yahe hesitated for a moment, thinking that this was not a good idea, but in such a life-or-death situation, who wouldn't want to live? If someone is willing to sacrifice, then he should just rush forward with all his might, so as not to waste the lives sacrificed by his teammates.
The three of them made their decision and headed to Hua Jiao's house. On the way, Li Hu bought some things at a hardware store and a lock-picking blanket. He said that he was actually a locksmith, which coincided with the fact that Li Hu often hired people to have affairs and knew how to pick locks, so no one would suspect anything.
Only then did Wu Wangwang realize that Yahe had been mixing things up before. She hadn't expected that it was Li Hu himself who had learned to pick locks because of his affair. The player was actually doing this job and was even more skilled than Li Hu himself.
So Wu Wangwang adjusted the setting she had memorized, skipping the step of having an affair, and could say that she was the one who unlocked the door.
Hua Jiao's home was quite far away. They drove from a sunny day to a place where the sky was gloomy with rolling thunderclouds, and a downpour was about to begin.
Whenever it rains, the mud and water will follow you, like another kind of curse.
On the way, Li Hu kept looking up at the sky, very worried: "It looks like it's going to rain. It seems like the last day is unlikely to be easy for us. If it keeps raining until 8:30 tomorrow morning, won't we be killed on the way?"
"Stop babbling. That's why we need to use this time to find out all the secrets. After we know everyone's secrets, we either live or we trigger the death rule and die. I still want to take the gamble," Yahe said through gritted teeth.
Li Hu could not hide his fear. There were seven of them when they came, but now there were only three left. If they didn't try, they would all disappear. At least they weren't alone now, so they weren't so desperate.
Upon arriving at Hua Jiao's house, having learned from her previous experience, Wu Wangwang directly stated that she had come to visit Du Luo. The security guard, who had never seen Du Luo leave the house, naturally agreed.
Jiaojiao had told Wu Wangwang the house number before and even wanted Wu Wangwang to live with them to discuss countermeasures, but Wu Wangwang was really too busy, her work was so demanding that she never went.
The residents of this community are all wealthy and powerful. It has two apartments per floor and the apartments are very large. After going upstairs, Yahe first tried to destroy the surveillance camera. Then Li Hu quickly picked the lock with the tools at hand. He was a professional and the whole process took less than five minutes.
Wu Wangwang loved it and wanted to learn it too, as it was incredibly useful in dungeons.
Noticing Wu Wangwang's gaze, Li Hu said, "If you're going to learn this, remember to report it to the police station, otherwise you'll easily get arrested."
Upon entering Hua Jiao's home, the three of them were all very surprised—it was so beautiful. The entire house was decorated like a princess's room, with all sorts of beautiful, precious, and sparkly decorations, and the tables, chairs, and appliances were all matched in a fairytale style.
It has six bedrooms and two living rooms, and it's incredibly large. This is the world of the rich.
The study was where Hua Jiao used to write, and it was equipped with very advanced technology. As soon as Ya He entered, he stopped in his tracks, touching the machine and saying, "This is the machine of my dreams..."
Li Hu didn't care about these things. He was touching all the locked places and opening one in a few seconds. Without looking up, he urged, "Stop dreaming and hurry up and find it. Fu Mei, don't you know about Hua Jiao? Tell Ya He quickly. She has a direction and can find it quickly."
Wu Wangwang was observing them. When her name was called, she walked over and said, "Oh, then don't stray too far from me. Don't go near water for now. Let me explain briefly..."
Very little is known about Hua Jiao, mainly because Guo Tianyin refused to leave anything behind, and there is no information about Du Luo's death. Shi Rong can at least guess that Li Hu discovered her pregnancy, which led him to kill her.
The reason for Du Luo's death is completely unknown. Liu Ke and Lai Jie should have killed Du Luo along with Hua Jiao, but the reason is currently unknown.
The only information we could find was the form Lai Jie gave us; it seemed Hua Jiao wanted to have an abortion for someone quietly.
Wu Wangwang, based on the original owner's family's guarantee, would definitely give it to Hua Jiao's mother.
After listening to Wu Wangwang's words, Yahe flexed his fingers, picked out the coolest keyboard from Huajiao's keyboard, and said, "You want to have an abortion for your mother? Leave it to me, I can trace her ancestors back eighteen generations."
Once she started working, Wu Wangwang, like a headless fly, said to Li Hu, "Let's look for Du Luo's room. I heard them say that the two of them lived together, but Du Luo is probably controlled by Guo Tianyin's soul. Guo Tianyin will definitely continue to collect Hua Jiao's things, and maybe we'll find something."
Li Hu nodded and followed Wu Wangwang to check several rooms around the area. He also had to go back to check on Yahe from time to time to prevent her from being attacked and killed by ghosts.
Of the six rooms, Hua Jiao has two bedrooms, seemingly sleeping wherever she feels like. One is a study, and the other three are a toy room, a storage room, and a gym. Du Luo doesn't have a room.
Wu Wangwang didn't quite understand the traces of humanity; she could only read things with written words. Li Hu, on the other hand, kept opening cabinets and locks.
Finally, in the storage room, Li Hu pulled a bed out of a cabinet. Only then did they realize that Du Luo was actually living in the storage room.
The storage room wasn't particularly big, but it wasn't small either. After all, it belonged to a wealthy family, so it couldn't be too small. However, the fact that someone lived in it as a storage room was somewhat insulting.
Li Hu carefully examined the cabinet and all the walls, but found nothing.
There wasn't much to see around, so I could only return to my study to wait for Yahe's message.
A bunch of incomprehensible things were running on the computer screen. Wu Wangwang yawned and lay down on the beanbag chair next to her, lost in thought.
Li Hu then went to examine the safe in the study.
As darkness fell, Wu Wangwang remembered that humans need to eat. Hua Jiao couldn't cook, and she had mentioned that she and Du Luo always ate takeout. So she opened her phone and searched for food.
Wu Wangwang is now very proficient in using these convenient software programs; it's even more convenient than going to her own temple to offer free food.
This is a house in the city center. It has a lot of stuff, but it's a bit expensive. Wu Wangwang doesn't have much money left in her account. Fu Mei's job doesn't allow her to save much money to begin with, and with all the running around lately, her expenses have been quite high.
After looking at it, Wu Wangwang decided to buy noodles for all three of them, as they were cheap, large portions, and filling.
When the noodles arrived, Yahe suddenly spoke up: "I found a medical record. It belongs to Huajiao's mother. She had prenatal checkups at the hospital some time ago, but soon after, she broke her leg, which led to a miscarriage. She was hospitalized for half a month."
After listening, Wu Wangwang and Li Hu quickly went over and indeed saw the medical record stored in the hospital. This medical record was quite old and was uploaded as a photo, so it wasn't very clear.
Li Hu asked in confusion, "So, Hua Jiao's mother didn't miscarry because she ate something bad, but because she fell?"
Yahe, stroking her chin, said, "This kind of record shouldn't be faked, and there's no need to fake it. So, is this information useless?"
Time was of the essence, and we couldn't get bogged down in details. Wu Wangwang still had other questions, so she said, "Let's put that aside for now and look into Du Luo. I heard her say that Du Luo didn't go to university with Hua Jiao, but they were neighbors when they were little and got along quite well. Later, Du Luo failed the civil service exam and was kicked out of her family, so she lived with Hua Jiao."
This information is much easier to find. The food delivery had just arrived when Yahe finished looking it up, because Du Luo was preparing for the civil service exam and was a college student, so he had submitted his materials everywhere.
According to the latest records, Du went to university in another city. She was a student from a poor family, studied hard, and even won several scholarships.
After graduating, she wanted to take the civil service exam in the city where her university was located, but she failed in her senior year. She couldn't find a job and couldn't support herself. She wanted to go home and look for a job at the same time, but her parents told her to try for another year and take the civil service exam so that she could help her family and younger brother.
Du Luo agreed. After staying at home unemployed for a year, she applied for several exams, but failed to pass any of them, and didn't even get an interview.
Her parents were very angry, but her younger brother was also taking the college entrance exam in those years, and Du Luo's grades were still quite good, so they tolerated her and let her stay at home to continue tutoring her brother while also continuing to take the civil service exam.
All of this can be seen from Du Luo's social media posts. She hates her younger brother and her parents, and wishes they were dead every day.
After failing the civil service exam repeatedly, and with her younger brother getting into university, Du Luo was finally kicked out by her parents. Left with no other choice, she had to go out and find a job. However, since she had been unemployed for several years after graduation, no one wanted her when they heard that she had failed the civil service exam.
With no other option, Du Luo started doing odd jobs, such as delivering food and working as a temporary housekeeper. Coincidentally, one day Hua Jiao needed to hire a housekeeper to clean her room, and Du Luo got the job.
The receipt showed it was from a year ago, after which Du Luo moved into Hua Jiao's house and began taking care of Hua Jiao's daily life.
The art design skill was something Hua Jiao forced Du Luo to learn. You can see that Du Luo's alternate account really hates drawing and doesn't want to be an artist. However, she lives in Hua Jiao's house for free without being paid. If she does a good job, Hua Jiao will give her money. Besides, Hua Jiao never cares about the pocket money she occasionally earns as an artist.
The incident occurred about four months ago when Du Luo posted a very strange message on her alternate account.
We're just as bad as each other, so why are you always so lucky?
Judging from other content from the same period, it's clear that Du Luo knew some of Hua Jiao's secrets, because in her previous posts on her alternate account, she had gone from thanking Hua Jiao for taking her in to harboring dark thoughts about Hua Jiao on numerous occasions.
What is this secret?
Did Hua Jiao kill Guo Tianyin, or was it something else?
Du Luo then posted a few more sarcastic messages about Hua Jiao, still saying that she had done something wrong but wasn't afraid of ghosts knocking on her door.
Du Luo seemed to have a break in the middle, and it's unclear what she was doing. Judging from other records, she seemed to be having a relatively happy time.
Three months ago, Du Luo suddenly started venting again.
[What's so great about you? You're just arrogant because you're an only child. If your mother had given birth to a son, you'd probably be living a worse life than me!]
In the edit history, there was also a sentence that read, "You must be terrified that others will find out what you did, right? Your parents hate you so much, otherwise why wouldn't they take you abroad?" But it was probably edited out because they were afraid of being found out.
After that, Du Luo's account was never updated again.
According to the information provided by Du Luo, it seems to correspond to Wu Wangwang's previous guess: Hua Jiao really killed the child in her mother's womb, and it was not even known whether it was a boy or a girl. Moreover, Hua Jiao's parents must have had some guesses, which is why they did not continue to live with Hua Jiao.
After reading Du Luo's information, Ya He turned to look at Wu Wangwang: "Fu Mei, it seems your guess was right. Do you know any more information? If we search slowly according to Hua Jiao's identity information, we won't have time to read all the information before eight o'clock. Moreover, it will take at least an hour to get from Hua Jiao to the square, and we can't afford any traffic jams or accidents."
In other words, if they don't wait in the square for the referee to drive, they'll have to leave at six o'clock, leaving them with very little time.
Before Wu Wangwang could answer, the sound of water came from the bathroom in the study, dripping and then the water flowed stronger, as if it was about to rush out and flood the entire house.
The fear of being chased by a ghost, and the panic of not being able to find the final truth, made the atmosphere in the study increasingly tense.
Yahe and Li Hu are not in Huajiao's circle at all. They can use their mobile phones and tablets to find some deleted clues, but how can they check Huajiao's?
Even Hua Jiao's cell phone wasn't left in the house. Luckily, Du Luo and Guo Tianyin didn't know anything about computers, so they left Hua Jiao's computer behind. Otherwise, Ya He might have been much slower using Wu Wangwang's cheap computer. Even so, Ya He still turned on all the computers he had and searched for clues in different directions.
Staring at the computer, Wu Wangwang suddenly remembered that Hua Jiao had mentioned that Hua Jiao had a habit of leaving out outlines. So she hurriedly said, "Outline? Hua Jiao writes novels. She always leaves out very complete outlines when she writes. A person can't write something they don't know. There must be something reflected in her novels!"
Yahe immediately searched on the computer and determined Huajiao's pen name based on the novel websites she frequently used. She then found the corresponding file on the computer, which indeed contained not only the main text but also the outline.
Hua Jiao started writing novels when she went to university. At first, she wrote some short stories. The year she graduated from university, she wanted to publish a full-length novel, so she spent money to buy recommendations for herself and got a contract. Because she had money, she could keep buying recommendations, and her articles always had good traffic and data.
Money makes money, which quickly made Hua Jiao a top influencer on the site.
Her novels mostly feature stories about wealthy families, and many readers, having never witnessed the lives of truly rich people, are often stunned by her content.
There's too much text to read in a short time. Even the outline is too long to finish in a short period of time. Yahe was sweating profusely. "What should we do? There's too much of it. It's almost the same as looking up all of her information."
Wu Wangwang scanned the table of contents in the document, recalling all the content that Hua Jiao had complained about to her: "I remember Hua Jiao saying that after she took over, the readers reacted very strongly, feeling that her writing had declined and criticizing her severely. So, if Hua Jiao really used actual content, she should be criticized by readers. Which article has the most negative comments?"
Yahe quickly wrote a web crawler program on the spot to crawl the chapters and short articles with the most comments. This was relatively simple, as it only required comparing the numbers.
In the end, two results emerged: Hua Jiao's long novel, which performed poorly, was heavily criticized, while one of her short stories was attacked.
These two novels, judging from their outlines, tell the stories of Hua Jiao and Ya He respectively, and largely overlap with the content of the dungeon. In Hua Jiao's story, she kills a fertilized egg that is not yet human. She is a rich heiress, so what's wrong with being ruthless?
If one's methods are not ruthless, one's position will not be secure. Hua Jiao never felt that there was anything wrong with what she did.
However, someone saw her push her mother down and tried to use this incident to threaten her. So, the heroine's admirer suggested that someone else assassinate the person who knew the truth.
The female lead's admirer is surnamed Fu and named Mei.
Seeing this, Yahe and Li Hu slowly turned around to look at Wu Wangwang, but the next second they suddenly opened their eyes wide and screamed, frantically pulling at Wu Wangwang's clothes, trying to pull her to run away.
Wu Wangwang instinctively turned around and saw Du Luo standing behind them, covered in blood, her bloodshot eyes streaming with tears of blood. She held a sharp, bloodstained watermelon knife in her hand, her smile twisted in a grotesque grin, her teeth wobbling as if about to fall out. Each time she opened and closed her mouth, blood, teeth, and bits of flesh would spill out.
"We've found you."
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Author's Note: [End of Chapter]
Wu Wangwang: Huh? Me?
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