video tape
Yu Zou curled his lips: "Still saying you don't want to win."
Du Pianjian reiterated, "I don't want to."
Yu Zou glanced at the time on his bracelet and waved the diary in his hand: "There are still sixteen minutes until the Blood Moon ends. Should we go to the first underwater level? There might be a key item there."
Du Pianjian nodded in agreement, asked Yu Zou for permission, and assembled the scope.
After returning it to Yu Zou, the bracelet immediately displayed a notification: "The current [unclear] can be used for long-range sniping. Congratulations, you can now hide in the shadows."
Yu Zou asked curiously, "How did you know?"
Du Pianjian said: "Sailor's Diary".
"Was it the crew log that reminded you to go to the lower level?"
"right."
On the first underwater level, there are rooms on both walls; some can be opened, while others cannot.
Yu Zou turned the doorknob of the room with the sign for the storage room. Du Pianjian and the others walked straight ahead without waiting, saying, "Go ahead, come find me when you're done."
Yu Zou watched him walk for a while before entering the storage room. The storage room was small and filled with clutter. Following the instructions in the diary, he found a small, still-functioning refrigerator behind a stack of cardboard in the corner.
The small refrigerator is square and can only be used for either refrigeration or freezing. It is currently in refrigeration mode. Inside the refrigerator is a cardboard box, and inside the box is indeed a small piece of cream cake. The shape is irregular and looks more like a leftover.
A small flag was stuck on the cake. When the flag was pulled out, a note was rolled up inside, which read: "Holidays are for rewarding yourself, but don't be too hard on yourself on ordinary days."
Yu Zou brought the bracelet close to the cake, and the bracelet popped up a prompt: "Give the cake to C8 privately. C8 will regain a brief period of consciousness and can become your teammate. The zombie's sense of taste is short-lived and can only last for five minutes."
There was a thin booklet under the cake, which, when opened, was still C8's diary, which only contained entries for three days.
Sunny on September 19
The food was dwindling, and everyone was starving. I couldn't let anyone know I was hiding a piece of cake, or they would kill me. I begged the crew to fix the equipment and contact someone to rescue us.
October 2nd sunny
The sailors finally caught a fish! But it looked very strange, I'd never seen one before, and it was... disgusting! I asked my dad how to cook this fish, and he said, "Like any other fish."
But there are many ways to cook other fish, and I didn't know which one to use, so I tried all the fish cooking methods I knew.
They ate with gusto. I didn't dare to eat.
October 12
How terrifying! They've all gone mad! I'm so scared, what should I do? They're here! Help me, help me, help me...
At the end of the diary, only C8's cry for help remained.
It's not hard to imagine C8 huddled alone in the corner, helplessly waiting for death to slowly break through the door. Just as Yu Zou brought the bracelet close to the diary, the storage room door was suddenly slammed shut, and a screeching sound came from above.
Yu Zou drew his crossbow, checked the bolts, quickly went to the door and locked it. Through the glass, he saw two zombies banging on the door. He timed it for five minutes, but they still showed no sign of leaving. The zombies could no longer see him, yet they still wouldn't leave. Was there something else in the storage room attracting them?
Yu Zou scanned the storage room, pondered for ten seconds, and placed the cake on a high shelf opposite. Then, he returned to the door, pressed against the wall, picked up the gun with his right hand, gripped the doorknob with his left, took a deep breath, and slowly pressed the doorknob.
The zombie pounded on the door, and with a slight loosening of the lock, the door was pushed open. The zombie staggered in and went straight to the corner where the small refrigerator was, pounced on the cardboard, and began to gnaw on it without a care in the world.
It neither pounced on itself nor looked for cake. It had no sense of smell or taste. What was it eating?
Yu Zou suddenly felt that his serious preparations were a bit foolish. He switched to a red-feathered arrow, aimed, fired in one second, reloaded in one second, and the zombie fell to the ground. The broadcast announced the results: "Congratulations to V24 for taking the first step to victory, killing S14 and S15."
Yu Zou originally intended to grab the cake and leave, but the moment he got close to the zombie, his bracelet flashed a notification, a horizontal ripple appeared, and C8's projection appeared behind the small refrigerator. He was curled up in the corner, his head bowed low, his whole body trembling, when a violent knocking sounded at the door again.
Yu Zou immediately turned around and raised his gun. The doorway, which had been wide open, was now shaking. With a click, the door was twisted open, and S14 and S15 rushed in, heading straight for this corner. S14 picked up C8 and roared, "Did you do all of this?!"
C8 was so frightened that his face turned pale and he couldn't say a word.
Seeing that he remained silent, S14 slapped him twice and ordered, "Speak! I advise you to take out the reagent right now! Otherwise, we'll kill you before we die!"
C8 was slapped until he was dizzy, his cheeks swollen, and he said tremblingly, "It wasn't me, I didn't."
S14 grabbed C8 by the collar and lifted him up in front of her, their noses almost touching. S14's eyes flashed with malice as she roared, "Give it to me!" She then threw C8 to the ground and tried to kick him, but S15 stopped her.
S15 said coldly, "You won't be leaving or eating until you confess. We're all in this together now. If we die, you won't benefit either."
After S15 finished speaking, S14 went up and kicked him twice more before the two left the storage room.
The storage room fell silent again, making C8's panting all the more distinct. He remained sprawled on the ground, still in the position he had been kicked. Yu Zou knelt before him, unable to bear it, and reached out to wipe away the tears on his face, but his hand passed right through his image.
C8 murmured in anguish, "It wasn't me."
The footage was fast-forwarded, accelerating C8's death. S14 and S15 came several times during this period, inflicting violence before leaving. On the final day, S14, covered in blood, burst through the door, forcibly shoving a piece of fish into C8's mouth, laughing maniacally, "You'll have to do the same! You'll have to do the same!"
As C8 swallowed, coughing incessantly, S14 staggered out of the storage room, clearly indicating that his mental state was extremely poor.
Yu Zou watched as C8 gradually changed, its black pupils encroaching on the whites of its eyes, green blood coursing through its veins. Just when Yu Zou thought this bullying story had reached its end, the door was pushed open, the creaking sound tearing at his nerves—it was S15.
S15 walked up to C8, lifting his chin with his leather shoes so he could see his face clearly. A smile on his face showed he was in a really good mood. He squatted down, took out a syringe from his pocket, and expelled air until tiny droplets of liquid appeared. He said, "Thank you. It's been so useful until the very last moment. Let me see what happens to you after you get this injection. If you're lucky, you might be the first beneficiary."
The injection was pushed into the vein. S15 observed for a while and, seeing that C8's body showed no change, he immediately stopped smiling coldly and muttered to himself, "Another failure. This is the fifth one. I need to keep improving."
Three seconds after S15 left the storage room, the image merged with the current storage room. Yu Zou's bracelet beeped, displaying the message: "Congratulations on unlocking the 'Acrylic Cake Box,' gaining C8's trust and reducing the probability of being attacked by C8: C8 thinks you are very friendly and can't help but want to share his favorite things with you. If this can be shared, can that also be shared?"
The panel shows that the C8 storyline is 50% complete, but the answer to the question still cannot be pieced together.
Yu Zou carried the cake box out of the storage room and walked to the end, where the door to the room was closed. The door opened, and a surge of blue light flooded in. Du Pianjian stood in the center of the room, the ripples of the seawater imprinted on his white shirt, even the subtle cloud patterns seemed to flow. In a glass tank connected to the walls, a mermaid-like creature floated in mid-air, occasionally releasing a series of bubbles from its mouth, its tail twitching slightly, showing signs of awakening.
Unexpectedly, the technology was used here.
"Any clues in the storage room?" Du Pianjian asked, arms crossed, looking at the glass container. His pleasant voice rang out, the emphasis and pauses like a musical movement.
"A piece of cake. After the zombie outbreak, humanity turned against each other, unanimously believing that C8 was the mastermind."
"C8?"
"Didn't you see the zombie in the restaurant who loves desserts?"
"No."
That's right, if I had seen him, I would have killed him long ago. Yu Zou thought to himself, and then described the images in the storage room to Du Pianjian in detail.
"So what do you think?" Du Pianjian asked.
“Someone is experimenting on zombies, but S15 looks sinister, I find it hard to believe he’s making an antidote.”
Du Pianjian slapped a notebook onto Yu Zou's chest. Yu Zou caught it with both hands. The cover read "Research Log." Inside were densely packed experimental data and observation records, proving that a research vessel had once conducted longevity experiments to extend lifespan. However, every few pages ended with shocking red words that pierced through the paper: Failure.
Failure, failure, failure, failure.
It was all a failure.
But Yu Zou looked at the glass pod, and it didn't look like a failure at all. Or was there something else behind its success? He said, "Could he be someone who studies zombies?"
Du Pianjian, following Yu Zou's hand, turned to the last page, emphasizing the date twice. The date was marked 20 years ago. The meaning was crystal clear: if S15 had participated in the experiment 20 years ago, he would be at least 40 years old now, not looking so young, especially since their immortality experiment had failed.
Yu Zou clapped his hands: "S15 must have participated in the experiment. If it wasn't a past experiment, then it must be a current one, which also explains why a successful product emerged from a completely failed experiment."
The two opposing camps were suddenly joined by an ambiguous third party—researchers. They may have been conducting secret experiments on the yacht from the very beginning, turning it into a giant incubation ground.
Yu Zou set up his gun, aimed it at the mermaid in the glass tank, and asked, "Should we resolve this now?"
"Let's wait and see what it can do." Du Pianjian turned and walked out. At this moment, the blood red color outside the window faded, and the blood moon time ended.
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