Chapter 72 Old School Days: This is the true owner of the sunflower head...
"You actually dared to come." The girl stood in the center of the morgue, her red rose head the same color as the blood-stained shoe prints on the floor, and mocked, "You're too eager to die, making you look smart... No one can control everything."
"I'll die because of my own actions, so I'll at least have half my life in my own hands." Xue Chao glanced at her. "You're different. If you die first, will you need to get approval from your master?"
A red laser flashed instantly. Xue Chao turned the frame and glared fiercely at the head gnawing on the cage. The "OOC" warning sounded again: "These days, you can't even die cleanly. There's a bunch of spectators in the cabinet behind you. Fighting and killing isn't good... If you drop below the resonance level again, you might not be able to leave this instance alive. Even if you learn the secret from me or Pu Fengchun, it's meaningless if you can't get out."
He chuckled and said, "But it's good to be assimilated into an NPC. Consider it as expanding my network. Next time I bring players into this dungeon, I'll give them a few tips out of respect for our old acquaintance."
The flash went out, and the girl walked right past him: "Don't dirty my hands. Have you forgotten that you started this fire yourself?"
Flames were seen flickering from one of the metal cabinets, and the pungent smell that permeated the morgue was coming from there—the fire had spread all the way from Minmin's "body world"!
The pipes were independent of each other, but the morgue was a shared starting point. Xue Chao quickly retreated, not forgetting to guard against Red Rose's obstruction, but she completely ignored him, not blocking the door or blocking him at all, leaving him with her back to her, as if afraid that he would not chase after her.
An ominous premonition surged into his heart. Then, the flames roared like a sonic boom, crushing through the pipes. At the same time, it seemed that there was a hidden fire inside his body that erupted in response, like a pot of boiling water being poured into the hole in his skull, scalding every inch of his bones and flesh.
Xue Chao slammed one knee to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood. He couldn't relieve the burning pain. His head was filled with heat, and he felt dizzy as if he had heatstroke. He frantically patted his surroundings with his hands, grabbed the handle of the mortuary cabinet, and forced himself to stand up. Then he pulled out the cabinets one by one. The headless corpses struggled in the flames. Only a twisted black figure could be seen in the firelight. The edges of the corpses were burned, and the gaping mouth made a scream before being burned out again.
He seemed to be searching for something, and he stumbled and fell once, but got up in a disheveled state and continued searching. His curly hair was a mess, like a dandelion with its fluffy seeds bursting open, and his face was ashen, but his raised eyes were as cold as two frozen glaciers, and any flames that collided with them were extinguished with a hiss.
He pulled open a mortuary in the second row, and his eyes lit up... He finally found something unusual. The body was lying quietly in the fire, showing no signs of coming back to life, and was "completely" dead.
After dragging the body out, Xue Chao immediately took off his only shirt to put out the fire. The body had already been burned by a third and could be described as "unrecognizable," but judging from the physique, it was most likely an old man.
He then searched through the mortuary and found a burnt white hair in a gap on the side of the cabinet. It must have been on his sleeve and fallen into the gap.
Xue Chao held the hair in his hand, examined it in the firelight, and a thought suddenly struck him—the mortuary was full of headless corpses, so how could there be hair there?
Not to mention that everyone else besides him and the protagonist of the episode is an alien, even if this person is one of the victims, the victim's "parts" are all in the "organ assembly line" deep in the brain. Hair that is pulled out separately, hair that is cut off with the scalp attached, hair that is transplanted to other heads, etc., are all in this mutated "inner world". Most of the morgue is still in the outer world. These are just headless corpses. The head and body are separated. Where did the hair come from? Unless the head was cut off here.
Xue Chao reached into the corpse's cavity, dug through the rotten flesh, and poked deep inside. He grabbed a bloody section of "rope"—not a blood vessel, but one that felt very familiar, making his palm itch. It was a part of the body, with each branching root integrated into the flesh and bones.
He pulled hard, and the root broke off one after another. When he unfolded it, he saw that it was a section of sunflower root.
There's another possibility... this is the true owner of the sunflower head.
The size was a bit strange, and the middle part looked like it was being forcibly propped up. Xue Chao cut it open with a blade, and a girl's little finger fell out, instantly igniting a fire that engulfed a person and a corpse.
The instinctive shout evaporated in his throat, and Xue Chao fell heavily to the ground. The flames blazed even brighter, faintly revealing the shape of an angel's six wings.
"【Deng Dayun】Damn, there's no escaping now!!"
"【Deng Dayun】This guy will definitely burn to death...who put gasoline in there, huh?!"
"【Deng Dayun】So thoughtful...he just cremated my brother...bye."
"【Deng Dayun】It's over. The show was just getting exciting for a bit, and now I have to go back to watching Brother Ruzhen."
"【Deng Dayun】Hilarious, now he's chasing after someone."
"【Deng Dayun】The host is practically dead, what is Deng Dayun still searching for..."
"【Deng Dayun】The film! He found the film!"
"What's the use of Deng Dayun finding the film...? To see how his future freakish head will dance around Xue Chao's cremated grave..."
"【Deng Dayun】Damn, you're right! You really are jumping around next to a fire! Hilarious! What goes around comes around. As long as you endure long enough, the people you hate will die right in front of you, hahaha!"
"【Deng Dayun】Wait, if Xue Chao really dies, I can understand why the cage might become ineffective since it's his prop. But now not only has the cage disappeared, but the head isn't even in the painting! Isn't the painting something from within the instance...? Who released him...?"
Seeing his own head rolling around in the film, Deng Dayun suddenly remembered the word "help" in the second half of the letter, and everything connected.
The letter was torn up like a dog chewed on it; it was obviously a hastily torn piece. The handwriting also had a kind of "beauty" to it, like a will that hadn't been entrusted in time. Such a large sheet of paper contained only five words: "Go to the art studio, help."
He considered several possibilities: Whose life should he save? An important NPC with clues? Other players he could cooperate with? Or could entering the art studio allow him to escape the sculptures and the eerie campus and save his own life?
He thought this was some profound way to guide him, but in reality, there were no important NPCs or players in the studio. The overburdened door was being pounded on by the sculpture. If it weren't for the protective barrier made of discarded tables and chairs, he wouldn't have had time to find the film before the door was broken down and he was pinned to the spot. What kind of rescue was that?
...It's to get him to save Xue Chao himself!
For the first time, Deng Dayun saw this kind of "low-level" operation from what he considered to be a pro player—aren't pro players supposed to be lone wolves who disdain cooperation? How come this has a sense of "save me, or I'll really die" and just giving up?
And that guy clearly knows he hates the host, isn't he afraid that he'll go from being a withdrawn and gloomy guy to an outgoing big boy and celebrate with champagne on the side?
...although his future mind was already doing it.
On second thought, something's not right. What if he dies? What's the next step?
He looked again, and the pale white head was almost blended into the white film, leaving only the sunken black features staring at him... It seemed that without Xue Chao's restraint, it finally had time to focus its gaze on him and do something.
By the way... who says the future him won't hurt himself? He only knows the gruesome way he'll die in the future, but he doesn't know the specific reasons. If this is considered a kind of "past," then can the "future" take his place?
In the gaming world, killing yourself is not uncommon.
Moreover, the other players each have their own agendas, and they are surrounded by wolves. Although they probably don't think much of him and don't want to "play" with him... they can just use him as a pawn or tool without much concern.
And whether it was psychological or not, the audience's "non-existent" gaze seemed to have materialized and had already turned back to him... Except for the first dungeon where he worked hard to earn contribution points to open a camera slot in order to survive, he treated himself like a mushroom in subsequent dungeons, barely surviving without opening a camera slot... Thanks to all the top players who insisted on occupying camera slots and the competitors who fought tooth and nail for them, he really couldn't open most of them at all.
But this instance is special, with only five players who take turns being the main character and are locked to a single camera position, so they can't just "blend into the crowd".
Without the host, the audience has no choice but to watch him.
Deng Dayun pursed his lips, stood up abruptly, grabbed an iron chair, kicked open the door, and swept it aside. The sculpture outside the door, which had been playing dead to lure him into opening the door, was caught off guard and slapped aside. The quail then darted away, carrying a camera with a head rolling around, and headed straight for the stairwell.
Although the steps were gone, a lingering chill remained, confined to the first floor. Deng Dayun stepped onto about the 13th step before being pulled away by a familiar force.
He tried to remain calm, secretly took out the film, and aimed it in the direction of the thrust. The headless boy in the Ninth Middle School uniform was standing behind him. When he noticed that he was peeking, he suddenly turned around.
Startled, Deng Dayun lunged forward and bumped into the steps of the stairwell, returning home.
His throat trembled with fear. He was afraid that Xue Chao was really dead. He didn't have time to think about anything else, but the fire had already spread from the basement level up, and he couldn't go down.
After thinking it over, he immediately returned to Class 2's classroom.
Ultimately, the alienated school is the world he enters after climbing into the pipe. He has never left Ninth Middle School and has always been in this "school memoir" surrounding him. Therefore, the world before and after his pipe is the same. It's just that during the process of climbing the pipe, his slashed face reminds him of nightmares, causing the school to collapse.
His final destination when he climbed out of the pipe was Shift Two.
For him, the morgue was connected to the second shift.
With his hands and feet ice-cold, Deng Dayun opened the classroom door. He instinctively closed his eyes, then realized he should cover his ears. But he didn't hear any swearing or laughter. When he opened his eyes, he realized that all the disgusting mouths and eyes had disappeared.
Regardless of Xue Chao's purpose or whether he took any initiative, judging from the results alone, he did help him escape two nightmares.
So he opened "Deng Dayun's" locker, and the narrow bone squeezed into the long tube made of film, crawling all the way back to the morgue.
He didn't forget to drag a large fire extinguisher with him, jumped off the morgue, and sprayed it wildly at the last spot where Xue Chao had stopped. He was very uneasy... He couldn't even see a mangled figure in the firelight. Could he have already been burned to ashes?
After the flames died down, Deng Dayun coughed and waved his cigarette. A painting lay on the ground, its gold frame blackened by the fire, the oil paint completely melted away, except for a small patch in the center that remained intact. There, a mismatched cat cage was painted, and in the gaps of the cage, a grayish-black figure lay, looking as if it had been dead for a while.
Based on the spatial relationships in the painting, the "corpse" should be behind the cage, appearing larger in the foreground and smaller in the background. Therefore, from the perspective of the painting, it appears to be confined inside the cage, which is why it wasn't burned by the flames.
Xue Chao swapped the head out and went into the painting himself.
As for how he got in... Deng Dayun was too busy escaping to pay attention to what was happening on camera, but the audience could see it all clearly.
"【Deng Dayun】didn't die after all, which isn't surprising, but according to the nurses and the angels who descended to earth in the ward... angels only appear when a person is on the verge of death to guide their soul..."
"【Deng Dayun】can summon angels when he is dying. Angels can freely enter and exit oil paintings, so they can definitely pull out a human head and stuff Xue Chao back in... Moreover, based on the previous information, that angel would love to do that, and he definitely will!"
"【Deng Dayun】Damn, no wonder I came even though I knew it was a trap. I was planning to risk my life to get clues! People who are fearless will succeed at anything (heart emoji)."
"[Deng Dayun]...This can't be scolded, this is truly insane."
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