Salted Fish Zombie

【Please go to the 4th, 5th, and 6th floors to choose their rooms for check-in.】

The system did not assign rooms to them; it was obvious that they were supposed to allocate and select rooms on their own.

The other players remained stationary, waiting for Shi Tianzhu to go to the 6th floor before they started moving around.

Of course, the majority of people were trying to secure a room on the 6th floor, feeling more at ease being closer to the elite players.

Ning Su didn’t really care and went directly to the 4th floor with Zhu Shuangshuang, selecting two rooms next to each other. Ji Mingrui hesitated for a moment before choosing the room across from Zhu Shuangshuang.

The castle was very large, with six or seven sets of rooms on each floor. The rooms didn’t seem cramped at all and each set had a wardrobe, bathroom, study, and even a children’s room.

Ning Su: “We got better rooms than the Huaiyang Village villa!”

The child nodded, tugging on Ning Su’s sleeve and looking at the large bed.

Ning Su took him for a tour around the room, feeling extremely satisfied.

Not only was the room spacious, but everything they needed for their stay was also provided, with the wardrobe full of clothes and the study not only containing books but also a small fridge filled with milk and juice.

Ning Su’s eyes lit up. “This is so great, if only we could live here forever.”

The child nodded.

Ning Su stepped on the soft carpet, his eyes flickering with something, but he quickly dismissed the thought.

This wasn’t a mystery dungeon instance!

Ning Su took a relaxing hot bath and even gave the child a bubble bath in the large tub.

Gui Sheng had never had a bubble bath before, countless bubbles surrounding him, making his eyes shine with a childlike wonder, as if he was a normal child.

Ning Su put a bunch of bubbles on his soft hair and said “cute” to the little child. The child immediately looked up at him, flapped his small arms, and hugged him with joy, closing his eyes.

Ning Su’s newly changed clothes became wet, but he didn’t mind. He touched the child’s head and said, “We don’t lack food now. Don’t go picking the witch’s bugs. It will offend the big shot. You know, it’s not easy to raise a Gu worm. Sometimes you have to use a lot of essence blood.”

The child nodded.

Thinking of the little witch, Ning Su murmured in confusion, “Strange.”

He didn’t say what was strange, and the child didn’t care about others at all.

After muttering, Ning Su continued to instruct the child, “Here, you have to be lively and polite, talk more, and it would be better if you could make friends.”

Gui Sheng hesitated, “Um, talk.”

The two of them washed up and came out of the bathroom.

Ning Su said, “Let’s wait for our ghost friend to come. Thanks to this friend, we can live like this. We should welcome them well.”

The child nodded.

“Where will our ghost friend come from?”

Ning Su took the child for a walk and speculated, “Crawling out of the toilet? Sneaking out from under the bed? Crawling out of the TV?”

After speculating for a while, Ning Su lay down on the bed.

It was not yet evening, and the system did not say that players could not visit each other. Zhu Shuangshuang and Ji Mingrui cleaned up a bit and came to knock on Ning Su’s door.

Coincidentally, Ji Mingrui came out of the room and said to her, “Let’s discuss it together.”

“Okay.” Zhu Shuangshuang hesitated for a moment before knocking on Ning Su’s door.

The response was from Guisheng, whose voice was cold and crisp, very easy to recognize. “We’re tired, we’re going to sleep.”

Zhu Shuangshuang: “...”

Helplessly, Zhu Shuangshuang went with Ji Mingrui to his room to discuss the instance.

The child who completed the task quickly ran back to bed, and Ning Su squeezed his face in satisfaction. “It’s not easy to get into a survival dungeon. How can we work hard like we did in the decryption dungeon?”

Gui Sheng nodded in agreement.

The two little boys lay happily on the big bed, waiting for their ghost friend to arrive.

Of all the players, only they were like this.

Across the diagonally opposite room, Ji Mingrui was discussing dungeons and players with Zhu Shuangshuang. Upstairs, even Shi Tianzhu and their group were talking about this dungeon, although only a few words were exchanged.

***

Yan Nuo, a member of the Yinhua Guild who entered the dungeon with Shi Tianzhu, he was the one who gave Shi Tianzhu a massage that night. When his hand moved up a bit, he thought he was done for, but unexpectedly, after Shi Tianzhu heard him sing a song, she asked him to follow her to the next dungeon.

A big pie fell from the sky and hit him on the spot. Yan Nuo couldn’t believe what he had heard.

When Shi Tianzhu entered a dungeon, it was usually a new one. If he could come back from this dungeon, his position in the guild would definitely rise.

More importantly, it was Shi Tianzhu who took him here.

In the game base where the strong were respected, those without strength had no dignity in the guild. There were some sex slaves serving people of high status in some large guilds, which was not a secret on the base.

As the president of the Yinhua Guild, Shi Tianzhu had the most copies of local maps, which meant she had the most vitality. She was also a top-level player, and there were many people, both men and women, who wanted to climb into her bed.

When Yan Nuo was giving her a massage, he too became infatuated with the idea of being with her.

However, in reality, no one in their Guild had succeeded in doing so, at least not openly.

The fact that Shi Tianzhu had brought him into the instance had already made everyone in the Guild take notice of him.

Yan Nuo felt that he was somewhat special.

He was excited and nervous, grasping this opportunity, carefully and eagerly trying to show himself off.

“Madam President, the bathwater is ready. I’ll massage you after you’re done washing.”

Six-year-old Shi Tianzhu sat on the rocking chair on the balcony, looking out at the Fairy Tale Town beyond the castle, lost in thought.

Night was falling, and the town was shrouded in a dark, misty haze. Only the nearby children’s amusement park was lit up with bright lights.

The faint sound of the carousel’s music could be heard, as well as the childish and hollow voice of the children.

Shi Tianzhu took off her riding hat, and the strands of hair beside her cheeks gently swayed in the cold night breeze.

“Why does he look so much like me?” She seemed to be asking herself.

Yan Nuo knew who she was talking about. He had heard someone else mention it when he was going upstairs.

That strange little boy, who looked a bit dim-witted, resembled Shi Tianzhu like a younger brother.

Today, that little boy named Ning Su stole the show with his eye-catching tricks.

Thinking about how he was sitting next to the Little Gu Witch eating so heartily, Yan Nuo felt nauseous.

Didn’t he see how dirty and smelly she was?

He didn’t expect that these tricks would also catch Shi Tianzhu’s attention.

“Could it be that my father had another secret child outside?” Shi Tianzhu tapped her cheek with her index finger.

Yan Nuo inexplicably felt a sense of inferiority.

He had heard in the guild that before becoming the leader in this game, Shi Tianzhu was the young lady of one of the most prestigious families in the world.

Her maternal clan was noble, and her grandmother held a hereditary title.

His father had power and money but was licentious. Occasionally, he would bring back a younger brother or sister, or even a brother.

Unfortunately, these illegitimate children all met with a bad end.

All of them were written by the young lady, who was not even ten years old at the time.

“But when I saw him, I didn’t want to kill him at all,” Shi Tianzhu murmured softly, recalling the feeling of seeing Ning Su for the first time.

Yan Nuo pulled the corner of his mouth, “There are so many people in the world, looking alike doesn’t mean anything. If you can’t figure it out, just don’t think about it.”

Shi Tianzhu laughed, and Yan Nuo felt that she was in a relatively good mood.

She said, “Okay, let’s not think about him. Tell me, is this your first time entering a level three dungeon? Do you know what’s happening?”

“What?” Yan Nuo was confused.

They had just entered the dungeon.

Shi Tianzhu lifted her eyelids and looked at him. “The system made it so clear, don’t you understand?”

In that instant, Yan Nuo felt very keenly the gap between players in this terrifying cycle.

He felt that Shi Tianzhu had already understood how this dungeon worked just by listening to the system’s introduction and prompts.

Shi Tianzhu’s two most common activities were entering dungeons and looking at the dungeon maps brought back by members of the Yinhua Guild. The number of dungeons she had experienced and mastered was unimaginable, and her experience in horror games was unmatched.

She was like a character in a martial arts novel who had read all the secret martial arts manuals in the world. As soon as someone showed their moves, she could tell their fighting style and approach.

She’s one of the people who could be invited by the system to design duplicate games.

Shi Tianzhu said, “Let me highlight the key points for you: the luck value mentioned multiple times by the system, the important NPC Ghost Friend, the relationship of guardianship, and then think of the name of this dungeon instance.”

Yan Nuo was engulfed by a deep sense of powerlessness. This feeling of accepting his own mediocrity and even incompetence, and the feeling of a gap that seemed to never be bridged between him and top players, made him incredibly exhausted.

Even though the key points were highlighted, he still couldn’t understand.

Shi Tianzhu stared at the carousel in the amusement park for a while.

“Can you figure out why we turned into five or six-year-olds?”

She always had something to say.

Yan Nuo felt a huge sense of frustration from Shi Tianzhu, which made him even more eager to perform in front of her and prove himself.

“Is it because this Fairy Tale Town is full of children, and the system said that the Ghost Friend that is about to be born is a companion ghost, so we became smaller to get along better with them?”

Shi Tianzhu’s voice was slightly cool. “Is that all you can think of? Unless we become newborns again, being smaller won’t fit the story of a companion ghost, so that’s not the point.”

Yan Nuo opened his mouth to explain, but Shi Tianzhu was not interested in listening anymore and said lightly, “Sing that song again from last night.”

The song that rang out from the sixth-floor balcony drowned out the eerie nursery rhymes from the amusement park, making many players feel much better.

But the song lasted only three minutes before being interrupted by the system.

【Please return to your own room. The first Ghost Friend is about to appear.】

***

The night completely shrouded the Fairy Tale Town, with blackness invading recklessly. A pitiful, pale crescent moon hung over the castle.

The statue of a pierced fetus on the top of the castle was as smooth as jade in the moonlight.

The entire castle was plunged into deep silence.

All the doors on the sixth floor were tightly closed, and a ticking sound came from the red wooden planks in the corridor.

Step by step, it came closer.

This was obviously the so-called ghost friend that the system had mentioned. The players didn’t expect the birth of a ghost friend to come directly from an unknown place into the corridor.

The system compared the ghost friend to a guardian angel, which sounded plausible during the day. But in the eerie castle at night, the emphasis was on the first word, “ghost.”

When the castle fell silent, the children’s song on the carousel in the amusement park became clearer.

[Mom’s belly is so warm, I want to pull it down to accompany me to hell.

When I died, it trembled, but its attachment to me?

When you grow up, why do you always disappear from me?

I’m trapped in a cold room. Can you hear me crying?]

Faint sadness, childish voice, and suffocating melody.

Accompanied by the rhythmic footsteps approaching with a “tick-tock” sound, it sounded like a little ghost was murmuring and approaching the corridor, lingering at the door.

Everyone listened intently to the sound outside the door, swallowing their saliva.

As the footsteps approached, Yan Nuo was already sweating profusely and nearly exhausted.

But he leaned against the door, forcing himself not to sit down.

He not only didn’t want to sit on the ground but also didn’t want his feet to touch the floor. He had taken a square cushion from the sofa and placed it behind the door, and at this moment, he was standing on it, with his feet off the ground.

He remembered the conversation he had with Shi Tianzhu when he came out of her room.

As soon as he heard the system prompt, he immediately wanted to return to his own room.

 When he put his hand on the doorknob, Shi Tianzhu suddenly asked him, “Don’t you think the carpet is too soft? It seems to be trembling slightly?”

In this luxurious castle, except for the corridors, every room was covered with thick, soft wool carpets. The correct consciousness transmitted to the brain when stepping on it was the feeling of softness. Generally, no one would doubt whether the carpet was too soft or not.

Because everything here was luxurious and extravagant, the softness of the carpet was could be subconsciously thought of as reasonable compared to what people usually encounter.

As for the slight tremor, it could be said that the brain had been implanted with a slight dizziness since seeing the blurred distance of the fetus statue at the castle gate. One would not even notice whether the floor was trembling.

This time, Shi Tianzhu did not continue with her usual oppressive and torturous questioning, but said directly, “You must not lift the carpet and take a look. I’ll tell you my guess directly.”

Shi Tianzhu was sitting on a recliner on the balcony, looking up with her eyes closed, and said, “I guess each room must be the uterine wall.”

At that moment, Yan Nuo seemed to feel the tremor under his feet.

Countless small blood vessels spread out, supporting the tremors of the small heart.

Yan Nuo wiped the sweat off his forehead without making any sound and smelled the indescribable odor that had been present in the air all along: fishy and cold, rotten.

Yan Nuo’s brain cortex was too active at this moment. He imagined that this smell was coming from a dead body that still had a pulse, not yet dead.

Only then did he realize that the unbearable stench did not all come from the worms of the Gu witch.

The strangeness of this castle was not just ghosts.

The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and Yan Nuo didn’t know if the vibrations in his ears were from the approaching footsteps, his heartbeat, or the floor trembling.

He couldn’t distinguish anything anymore.

Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang bang!

A clear knocking sound echoed through the sixth-floor corridor.

The hearts of the players on the sixth floor jumped when they heard the sound, but they breathed a sigh of relief when they realized it wasn’t their own door being knocked on.

However, they still nervously listened for any movement outside.

Yan Nuo bit his lip, trembling and unable to move a step from where he was standing.

With no response, the knocking became more urgent and louder.

Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang bang!

Mixed with a strange, childish voice that sounded like it had been iron sheets rubbing together, “Woo-ha, woo-ha, woo-ha-ya...”

The voice grew sadder and heavier, wrapped in a deep sob, “Woo-woo-ha, woo-ha-ya...”

The people listening felt their scalp becoming more and more numb, their hearts being pierced by sharp and dark needles, causing either great pain or a kind of repulsion that made their whole body shiver.

Finally, Yan Nuo, drenched in sweat, prepared himself for what was to come.

The six-year-old boy, amidst the banging and heavy sobs of “woo-ha,” timidly descended from the staircase.

His hand was on the doorknob, his palm sweating profusely on the copper surface, and in a sudden banging sound, he unconsciously used his strength.

Creak-ya-

The door opened.

The hallway was empty, with other room doors silent and tightly closed.

The complicated and gorgeous chandelier had small candles on every strand, which could only illuminate a small area under the light, and the red floor of the hallway got darker and deeper from near to far, like a cut open vein.

On a red floor, under the dim candlelight, a small copper statue looked at him.

The color of the copper was yellowish, close to gold. The facial features on the statue were stiff and fake, with plastic-looking eyeballs, and a twisted smile on the mouth, as if it was a cheap Buddha statue that had come out of a deceitful temple.

“Ooh, ha ha.”

Yan Nuo fell down on the floor.

Soon after, he seemed to feel the vibration on the floor and, thinking of Shi Tianzhu’s words, he jumped up in a sudden.

But his limbs were weak, and he couldn’t move.

Yan Nuo finally collapsed.