Chapter 8 Let's Set Sail, ███! "Is it your luck today...?"
The cat tricked her into getting close in order to steal her earphones. Pu Fengchun put away the tattooed man's smartwatch, took out another earphone from her inner pocket, and put it on her right ear: "You told me to only wear one on my face, did you expect this to happen?"
"I suspected it would be robbed, but I really didn't expect the robber to be a cat." Xue Chao disconnected the left earpiece and watched through the monitor as the white cat carried the earpiece all the way to the French window, poked at it like a ball of yarn for a long time, and even put its cat ears in front of the earpiece, as if it wanted to hear him speak, meowing sharply, giving the feeling of talking to a non-existent friend.
This cat is probably smarter than some players, but it's a bit crazy.
The dirty white cat, receiving no response, seemed to realize the toy was "broken," and suddenly lost interest. With a capricious flick of its tail, it swept the headphones under the massage chair.
It turned and ran into the aerial tunnel on the third floor where it boarded the ship. Suddenly, it turned its head, smiled like a human, looked straight at the monitor, flicked its beautiful, blood-stained long tail, and deftly made a heart shape before leaping into the sea.
The cat was watching him. Xue Chao felt a chill run down his spine, but also a sense of absurdity at being teased by a mischievous cat.
“We should leave as soon as possible. Whether it’s a summoning or a resurrection, this cat is related to this traveler. He’s not dead, but we don’t know when he’ll wake up… Madam, there’s no need to go back the way we came. Keep going forward.”
Sure enough, there was an exit ahead.
The cloth covering the end was not a curtain, but a black cloth covering the ticket hall window, hanging from the second floor to the first floor, the two floors connected, with several giant syringes standing upright, corresponding to several windows, the needles pointing upwards, the pistons stuck halfway, the upper part filled with deformed human flesh, facial features, limbs, and internal organs mixed together, tightly sticking to the tube wall.
I've always been curious about the comments section of the ticket hall:
"Yue, exciting, yue..."
"So the ticket window is like the bottom of a syringe. After passengers go in, the piston under their feet moves up and squeezes out their blood... This isn't a needle, it's a juicer."
The needle at window number three was broken, and a few people were squeezed and deformed and fell back to the first floor. It was the only one that did not get stuck to the wall.
The bottom was littered with blank tickets, which were provided by the window for passengers to "bleed" for their money.
This should be the window Zhu Wen chose. He broke the needle, and other players who wanted to "get a shot" would also choose the same window, then enter the warehouse to get the blood bottle. Those cats and fish might have been alive just now, serving as obstacles in this level. Finally, they dripped blood to obtain the complete ticket.
But Zhu Wen didn't leave the warehouse directly and go to the customs area. Instead, he deliberately took a long detour, going back to the ticket hall from the syringe. Why?
The kid discovered that the ticket hall and the warehouse had no surveillance cameras and were only separated by a wall. The player who followed him into the ticket hall was just trying to get on camera and was definitely not Bao Bi. He didn't want to expose the existence of the warehouse from among his group, so that the real Bao Bi could take advantage of the situation.
Zhu Wen swaggered out of the ticket hall, using a stack of plane tickets as a fan, which seemed somewhat enticing—but Bao Biwei, realizing there was no other way, could only slink back to the ticket hall to be "squeezed dry."
He wasn't trying to sabotage the memorial tablet; he was provoking the host behind it.
Xue Chao turned his "eyes" and saw the petite boy sitting in a shopping cart in the mini-supermarket, swinging his legs and chewing gum while happily building Lego in the toy section.
The seventh-ranked player also knew his worth, so he neither collected clues nor took the next step in the task. He acted like a big shot, thinking, "Anyway, the prediction camera isn't on me." He just wanted to see the host make a fool of himself and force the host to beg him.
That's wishful thinking.
The stench of blood hidden in the fish and cat blood was completely "revived," and Pu Fengchun couldn't bear it, so he leaned on the ground and dry heaved.
After recovering, she followed the broken syringe back to the first floor and found that all the blank tickets had smiley faces drawn in blood on the back, exactly the same as the pattern on Zhu Wen's hood, with the paper pierced through.
Whether damaged, marked, or contaminated, these tickets are no longer valid.
Pu Fengchun pursed his lips: "There's also a ticket machine."
"I'm afraid the ticket machines are temporarily unavailable for you." This was because the first thing Zhu Wen did after leaving the ticket hall was to instruct a player wielding a knife to destroy all the ticket machines.
The fish standing upright had its head cleanly severed, revealing the fish bones and human remains inside. On the wall was a smiling face carved with a knife, just as cheeky as Zhu Xiaoguitou's, with "hello! byebye!" written next to it, full of malice.
Pu Fengchun stopped in front of the second machine Xue Chao mentioned and found a severed finger.
Xue Chao remembered that it was when the player cut off an NPC's finger to identify biometric information and obtain the ticket.
Comments section:
"The one in the trench coat, right?"
“I’ve seen him before. His player nickname is ‘Wang Song.’ He’s a killer type. He’s somewhat interesting.”
"Everyone is more interesting than this Pu Fengchun..."
"Seventh Brother has blocked the path to the precious memorial tablet, hahaha!"
"She doesn't really think she'll stay lucky forever, does she?"
"Where's the host? They haven't shown up yet?"
"He must be kicking himself. Being targeted by the seventh-ranked player, he's got quite a reputation. He's probably trembling with fear somewhere, hahaha. It's okay, Wenwen is the best at catching mice."
Pu Fengchun's face darkened. All the usable blank tickets had been destroyed, so he could only try to find a solution from the NPC: "There are no tickets here..."
"There's a boat ticket behind the machine in front of you," Xue Chao interrupted her at the opportune moment.
Pu Fengchun was taken aback. Sure enough, she managed to find a blank ticket in the gap between the machine and the wall. Because it was in such a deep place, it was spotless. She remembered that this was the first blank ticket that had appeared!
At the time, everyone's attention was focused on the machine that suddenly went haywire and the people that were swallowed up; no one cared about the ticket that brought misfortune.
"You told me to go this way just to find this ship ticket, right?"
The blood bottle dripped twice.
Where the bloodstains spread, information was revealed, like invisible handwriting illuminated by ultraviolet light—names and details, and by class, the Destiny cruise ship that was about to arrive.
Xue Chao glanced at the comments section filled with regret and said with a smile, "You're lucky today."
The announcement came on at the right time: there were still 20 minutes before the Destiny was to dock. Xue Chao said, "You should proceed to the customs area."
The journey to the customs inspection area went smoothly. There were four inspection machines in total, but Xue Chao still couldn't sense any electronic response. The familiar black curtain hung from the ceiling to the floor, blocking his view. There were already quite a few passengers queuing up.
To reach the border inspection on the third floor, you must go through the customs on the second floor.
Pu Fengchun only had a boat ticket and a pair of headphones that were half-held hostage. She was more worried about border control than customs—where was she going to conjure up a passport?
But her naiveté was revealed the next second when the sign turned around and read "Lie down."
"..."
Isn't this machine for looking things up?
She forced herself to lie down, and soon darkness enveloped her. The surroundings were terrifyingly empty, like entering a giant warehouse two or three times the size of an ordinary room.
She was on a long conveyor belt, wide enough to accommodate two adults. The entire "assembly line" was filled with passengers, spaced one meter apart. There were no detection devices, and the conveyor belt slowly moved forward, winding and turning, with no end in sight.
It reminded her of airport baggage carousels or conveyor belt sushi restaurants.
She is that plate of sushi right now.
The AI seemed to sense her tension and thoughtfully asked, "You don't need to answer me. Just think of me as a radio station. I can play commercials or music for you to help you relax, or I can tell you a joke to help you unwind—do you know why the sea is blue? Because the fish in the sea blow bubbles that look 'blue blue'."
"..." Artificial intelligence is indeed different from humans. At least in terms of humor, humans are not immediately defeated by AI.
The black curtain isolated the sounds from the front and back. In the vast space, Pu Songying could only hear the hum of the conveyor belt. Even the endless waves seemed far away, making her drowsy.
She suddenly realized—there were at least forty or fifty people on the four conveyor belts, some numb, some uneasy, each with their own thoughts, but all quiet and still, as if afraid of disturbing something.
...What are you afraid of disturbing?
"Ho—"
A low growl from a vicious dog suddenly rang out, accompanied by sticky breath. The sound was not loud, but it was like a thunderclap falling on a graveyard.
The vast space became even quieter until the hyena-like creatures let out low growls as they searched for prey, at which point the "sushi" noticed that other living beings had entered.
Their footsteps were silent, but their panting, like that of a broken bellows, never stopped. As they approached, if you listened carefully, you could also hear the "splattering" of saliva hitting the floor. A rotten, sticky, and disgusting stench filled the air, like a mixture of foul seawater, animal blood, garbage, and waste oil.
Yan Bocheng carefully and quickly covered his mouth and nose, not daring to look around carelessly, for fear of attracting the creature's attention. He was certain that it was the sound of a dog barking, or perhaps the drooling bark of something preparing for a meal.
There was more than one hyena. They were muscular and over a meter tall. They snorted and moved at least six legs, wandering among the goods on the conveyor belt. Every now and then, they shook their huge, deformed heads and sniffed around, as if searching for something. Occasionally, a dark green light would flow across their bodies, as if a layer of disgusting scales grew under their black fur.
He realized that these hyenas were like customs search dogs—smelling and randomly checking for contraband such as drugs, explosives, firearms, and tobacco—except that in Giant's Harbor, they had completely replaced the "inspection machine."
What are the prohibited items in Giant Harbor? Are they also these "ordinary" things?
"ah--"
"..."
Further ahead, a short scream had just begun when it was suddenly silenced, as if covered by a hood—there were four passages in total, converging at the midpoint and branching out into two new passages. Four hyenas guarded the midpoint, sniffing at everyone. They carried a small group of people through different passages. One of the passengers, whose collar was being grabbed, cried out in fear, and the hyenas opened their mouths wide, swallowing the person's head from above.
Blood splattered out like a broken faucet, pouring onto the people in front, behind, and to the sides, yet no one dared to make a sound. The entire customs inspection area fell into an even deeper silence, with only the crunching sound of hyenas wolfing down and chewing on human skulls.
……damn it.
So this level is about dodging zombies at zero decibels? All you have to do is endure the fear and the pungent smell?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com