21 Time Difference
◎It turns out that surviving is not that easy◎
Li Yiqing's words reminded Qi Qiuxue.
Upon hearing this, Qi Qiuxue quickly came to the door, placed her fingertips on the door as Li Yiqing said, and slowly slid them down. Sure enough, she touched a dark pattern near the handle.
The structure and direction are indeed complementary to the pattern on the hotel owner's necklace.
"That necklace is the key," Qi Qiuxue murmured softly, expressing her speculation. "If we can get that necklace, perhaps we can find the key to open this door. Based on the various clues we have so far, I think there's a good chance that the way out lies behind this door."
After he finished speaking, all the players present were excited.
"Very good!"
"Woo woo woo, I can finally escape from this nightmarish place!"
"Really?!" Zheng Miao burst into tears with excitement. "Zhang Xue, are you serious? Can we finally go home?"
"Who knows if it's true or not!" Before Qi Qiuxue could say anything, Geng Hao at the side refuted her reasoning, "Are you 100% sure that your reasoning is accurate?"
"Of course not," Qi Qiuxue said, not forcing herself to defend herself. "Nothing has absolute probability. Even something that is 90% certain can still go awry, let alone in a copy like this, which is full of variables."
Geng Hao snorted coldly: "Then why are you still pretending here?"
"I'm just stating my own speculation." Qi Qiuxue smiled, her eyes sweeping calmly across Geng Hao's face, as if he were some clown. "Whether you're willing to believe it or not is entirely up to you."
"Besides, we have no other choice now. Even if this inference has only a one in ten thousand chance of being correct, we have to verify it in order to survive, right?"
That's true, because they have no other choice.
"Tsk." Geng Hao turned his head away and stopped talking.
The other players were too lazy to give him any more glances and began to gather together to discuss plans. Tomorrow was the last day, and in the evening they would be able to meet the innkeeper. This would be their last chance to take action. They just had to control her and take off the necklace from her neck.
According to the time pattern in the copy, dinner should be served at 12:17 tonight, and the latest escape deadline given by the system is 6:00 in the morning. There is still plenty of time. Even if something unexpected happens, it will not be a problem to quickly resolve it and then escape.
As we were talking, time finally came to five o'clock.
The sound of a bus moving could be heard faintly in the distance. Everyone realized that the masked man might have returned, so they quickly dispersed and returned to their rooms.
After a whole day and night without rest, the body should be tired, but perhaps because of hope, no one felt sleepy at this moment.
Everyone is looking forward to it, hoping that tonight will come sooner.
-
After a short rest, everyone gathered in the hall before six o'clock and got on the familiar bus again.
There were no emergencies today and everything seemed to be going smoothly. The players took the time to take a few naps on the bus to recharge their energy for tonight's action. After a day of sightseeing, the bus returned with the hopeful players.
"I'm finally leaving." Zhang Xin placed his hand on his chest, feeling his rapidly beating heart. "Can you tell? I'm so nervous."
"Me too." Shen Wei gently stroked her shoulder and comforted her softly, "We will definitely be able to escape safely."
The difficulty of this copy was the most difficult one they had ever encountered. In addition, too many things happened in just a few days, with companions betraying and dying. Shen Wei felt very tired. She thought that she must have a good rest after returning to the real world.
“…”
There was still some time before the hotel owner would return with his umbrella, and everyone was nervously and excitedly gathering in groups of three or four, chatting and cheering each other on. Even Liu Ge was inspired by this scene, and looked at Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing beside him with great emotion: "We're finally leaving."
"Nice to meet you guys." She said sincerely, "I hope we can meet again in the next dungeon."
"I'm glad to meet you too." Li Yiqing sniffed, his tone sounding full of reluctance. "It would be great if we were friends in the real world."
"That's not impossible." Liu Ge laughed, paused for a few seconds, and finally extended an invitation to the two. "Actually, like Shen Wei and Zhang Xin, I also belong to a guild. Our guild has pretty good benefits and is very friendly to newcomers. Would you like to join?"
Li Yiqing blinked: "What guild?"
Liu Ge pretended to be mysterious: "I can only tell you after you agree. However, our guild has a threshold, not everyone can join. If you want to come, there will be a corresponding assessment process within the guild. I think Ah Xue will definitely have no problem. As for Ah Qing..."
"?" Li Yiqing felt insulted and was about to scold her, "You..."
Before he could finish his words, a loud music suddenly rang in his ears. This had never happened before. What was going on? Why did the scene that had been repeating itself suddenly change at this moment?
Almost in an instant, the players who were originally talking suddenly fell silent.
No one knew what was going on. The minute hand of the marble clock continued to turn regularly under everyone's gaze. Click, click, seventeen minutes had passed.
The innkeeper did not show up.
Where is she?!
"Please wait a moment," a masked man suddenly appeared in front of everyone. "The innkeeper has been delayed due to some matters, so he asked me to treat you well. Please take a seat and enjoy your dinner with the music."
Enjoy? How could they have the heart to enjoy it properly?
"I don't have the appetite for dinner!" Dong Peng covered his blind eye and yelled in despair, "I just want to know when the hotel owner will be back?!"
His unreasonable appearance did not cause any dissatisfaction among the masked man. He looked up at the clock on the wall and said after a moment, "In an hour."
One hour, and they had to wait another hour.
The excitement and anticipation in the players' eyes dimmed a lot as these words ended, but fortunately, the innkeeper would come again, and there was still a lot of time left, one hour, just one hour, and they were not unable to wait.
What's more, it would be a little after one in an hour, and the masked men would have gone to offer sacrifices. Without them there, accidents would be less likely to happen, which would help them escape smoothly.
There is no way, all we can do now is wait.
Everyone walked slowly to the table and sat down. The masked man turned and left. The only thing left was the increasingly loud music echoing in the hall.
The music was so loud, but the source couldn't be found, making it impossible to turn it off. Even though the players were sitting so close to each other, they had to shout to be heard clearly.
Gradually, the time finally came to 1:17, and the hotel owner came slowly with elegant steps.
"Three, two, one..." Everyone held their breath and counted down silently in their hearts. When the hotel owner got closer and closer to the dining table and she was about to sit down without any preparation, a group of people pounced on her and restrained her.
Zheng Miao tried to take the necklace from the hotel owner's neck, but when she put her hand on it, she found that the pendant of the necklace was embedded in her skin. Driven by the desire to survive, Zheng Miao grabbed the pendant and pulled it out with force.
With a "hiss" sound, like the sound of cloth tearing, the hotel owner's skin actually broke in front of everyone's sight, revealing a pile of wriggling flesh under the layer of human skin, and the key they had been looking for was embedded in that pile of flesh!
"Ugh!" Zheng Miao's stomach began to churn, but she suppressed the urge to escape and controlled herself from letting go. With the help of others, the key was finally taken out as expected.
"Success!" The players cheered loudly and turned their eyes to the door in the corner, but at this moment, Geng Hao and Dong Peng suddenly stepped forward and snatched the key from Zheng Miao's hand.
"Who knows if there's a limit to the number of people who can survive!" Geng Hao sneered and ran to open the door with the key. "Even if we can all survive together, I'm going to escape the dungeon before any of you!"
After he finished speaking, he inserted the key into the keyhole on the door, turned it hard, and the door finally opened slowly.
At this moment, a system prompt sounded: [Congratulations to all players for opening the escape door.]
"Great!" Geng Hao laughed wildly upon hearing the prompt tone and immediately stepped into the door.
But... the imagined smooth escape did not happen. Countless hands suddenly stretched out from inside the door and grabbed Geng Hao tightly.
Geng Hao was terrified and tried to struggle reflexively, but those hands didn't even give him a chance to struggle. They tore him apart and devoured him easily.
A living person was torn into pieces right in front of all the players. Witnessing all this were the stunned players and the prompt board that popped up again.
System: [It seems the ghost inside the door doesn't want you to leave.]
【Help them~】
“…”
It turns out that surviving is not that easy.
Qi Qiuxue was the first to come to her senses. She turned around and shouted, "Quick! Pull that pile of meat over here and throw it through the door!"
"Okay, okay!" Everyone didn't understand why, but still obeyed and threw the piece of meat in at once. The ghost hands hidden in the door extended out again and swallowed the piece of meat quickly.
Qi Qiuxue breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing this. Only in this way could the regeneration of the flesh be blocked from the root. It was safer to cut the weeds completely than to let it go without taking any action. After all, everyone still had to stay in the dungeon for a while.
She quickly glanced at the clock. Fortunately, there were still a few hours left before the deadline, so there was still time. She called out to the desperate and angry players, "Let's go, split up, go to the Mask Shop and the Orchard, destroy their faces, and dig out their eyes!"
"Hurry up!" Liu Ge, who was a little slower to react, also reacted and helped Qi Qiuxue to call everyone out together. "The buses we drove back are nearby. The masked men are all going to the sacrifice ceremony now, so going out is not too risky. Everyone, find an excuse to hide the taboo and go out quickly. We'll go together..."
She didn't have time to say the next words because she saw eyes, pairs of shining eyes hidden behind masks gradually emerged from the forest or grass not far away, getting closer and closer to them.
What's going on?
Qi Qiuxue was stunned for a moment, her brain racing at that moment. She thought about what everyone had said, all the mechanisms and taboos that appeared in the dungeon, and even various clues and inferences...
Then, she suddenly understood something.
It's the time difference, a time difference that the system deliberately conceals. Even though the player's exploration time on the island and the villagers' sacrifice time are both five days, if you think about it carefully, the starting time of these two intervals are not the same.
Regarding the player's five days, the system said: [You are a paranormal enthusiast with a passion for adventure... We are traveling here together to begin a five-day investigation.]
These five days would begin when they actually started to tour and explore the island, and did not include the night they entered the dungeon.
And the villagers' five days...
Qi Qiuxue recalled the first night she entered the dungeon. At that time, all the villagers on the island who participated in the sacrifice wore masks, which meant that the villagers actually participated in the sacrifice one day earlier than them. Today was the fifth day for the players, but it was already the sixth day for the villagers.
Tonight... no sacrifice.
【Author’s words】
The next chapter will be released soon, and I will update the three-in-one chapter at that time~ I hope everyone can come and see me~
I've also arranged illustrations for our little skeleton. Once they're all finished, I'll put them in the illustration event. You can get the corresponding avatars by participating in the event. When you leave a comment in the comment section, you can use our Axue or Aqing's avatar, or even a double avatar of the two babies.
Hehe, looking forward to it, kiss my babies, thank you all for your support and love for so long, mua!
Thanks to the little angel who threw the rocket launcher: 2028., 1 indifferent to the world;
Thanks to the little angel who threw the grenade: Shi Yi 1;
Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: Lu Baibaibaibaibaibai, Tu Huhu, Qiu Lang is a beautiful fairy, Langli's dog, Internet police, Internet addiction, Huaiyi, and Mancao1;
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: Lingxingxing 20 bottles; Shiyi 12 bottles; Jinxi and Luxunfeng 10 bottles; Don’t Want to Go to Work 7 bottles; I Don’t Want to Ship Three-Dimensional CP 3 bottles; Jingran Qin Jiaren Yi 1 bottle;
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