Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 38.2: Manman (11)

May 25, 2023 by Wyrd

Today, it gave Chen Jinpeng a total of 3 luck points. Every time he gave luck points to Chen Jinpeng, Chen Jinpeng would treat him with a smiling face and behave gently, just like before. However, shortly after, Chen Jinpeng would start another round of intimidation and coercion.

At this moment, it might be another round.

The doll was locked outside the door, not going far, still closely pressed against the door, sitting there with its arms wrapped around its knees, head hanging down.

The doll was made entirely of soft cloth, with inner seams in its body and joints. At this time, many red threads were broken, and long and short lines hung from the joints.

Tattered and worn out, like a discarded rag doll.

Leaving a dim silhouette in the dark corridor.

As they passed by, Ning Su glanced at the rag doll, and Gui Sheng and Blood Doll were also looking at it.

The rag doll also lifted its wet eyes to look at them, stiffly and sadly.

It looked extremely exhausted, like a discarded robot that had used up all its energy. Even lifting its head was difficult.

Its gaze swept across Ning Su and then shifted to the Blood Doll, making a “bwu” sound, and pressed closer to the door.

Ning Su remembered when Zhu Shuangshuang secretly asked him a question when their ghost friends weren’t paying attention.

“Su Su, do you think they will seek revenge?”

At that time, they were on the balcony of room 407, and she couldn’t bear to look at the situation below anymore.

She still remembered that the ghost friends were essentially a Gu Man Tong, and she remembered the note that Ning Su left for her, which said what was inside her ghost friend’s body.

They were not regular Gu Man Tong made by a White Robe Azan.

Before dinner, when he went to the dining room restroom to wash his hands, Ning Su also overheard similar discussions.

The time before dinner, when going to the restroom, was the only time they were separated from the ghost friends. Gradually, many players liked to stay a little longer in the restroom, chatting, especially about the ghost friends.

At that time, they were discussing new methods of obtaining luck points.

“Don’t use scare tactics. Whenever you can’t resist the temptation of luck, think about the feeling of the first night staying in the castle when they knocked on the door.”

“Just because you’ve been eating and sleeping together these past few days, and they’ve become dependent on you, do you think they’re weak and gentle little angels?”

Many players were worried about being retaliated against by the ghost friends.

Ning Su shifted his gaze and glanced at the Blood Doll, continuing to move forward.

Gui Sheng next to him suddenly ran to the rag doll and crouched down to look at it.

He reached out his small gray hand and patted the exposed little shoulder, saying, “Don’t cry, you’re cute.”

“Sob...” The little rag doll let out a soft sob, stiffly lowering its small head, tears dripping and falling between its two feet.

Noticing the gaze of the Blood Doll, Ning Su said, “Gui Sheng, come back.”

Gui Sheng immediately ran back.

Ning Su knocked on Shi Tianzhu’s door, and Shi Tianzhu opened it with the wax figure doll. She glanced lightly at the door of Room 603 and let them in.

Shi Tianzhu allowed everyone to diet and turned a blind eye to Ning Su at the dining table, but there would be no milk for him in her room.

Ning Su sat in the same place as before, looking towards the garden, and asked her, “Did you see it in the afternoon, the iron gate?”

Shi Tianzhu replied, “I saw it.”

She turned her head to look at Ning Su and said, “Why are you so proactive this time?”

Ning Su said earnestly, “To be loyal to the thigh, to be a qualified lackey.”

“...” A faint smile appeared at the corner of Shi Tianzhu’s mouth.

This little boy always had the ability to make people smile unexpectedly.

Ning Su became even more proactive and said, “You stay here and watch. I’ll go and try.”

Shi Tianzhu said, “Try again tomorrow. It’s getting dark, and the monster children will be coming.”

Ning Su responded with a “Hmm.”

Shi Tianzhu spoke gently, “Go back. The hallway is about to be sealed.”

Ning Su replied, “Okay.”

He took Gui Sheng and Blood Doll to the doorway, where he heard Shi Tianzhu ask, “Who will die tonight?”

For most players, the answer to this question was Bai Shuang.

She was the female player who moved from the sixth floor to the fifth floor.

That night, Shi Tianzhu withdrew her spatial props and placed the monster children on the sixth floor, indicating that she would no longer protect the sixth floor as before. In the second half of the night, Bai Shuang moved to the fifth floor and was accepted there.

Unexpectedly, the next day, Shi Tianzhu announced that in order to protect the castle, the floors would be opened in rotation. Due to her joining, the fifth floor would be open for three consecutive days.

She had just moved in and hadn’t fully integrated yet, and now, because of her, the fifth floor would be open for an extra day.

Even she herself believed that she would be the one to die tonight.

At this moment, she was hiding behind the door of Room 505, nervously embracing her ghost friend.

When she first came to the fifth floor, she was arranged to stay in a female player’s room on the fifth floor by the Gu Witch. When Qian Dongfang died, this room became available, so she naturally moved in.

The position she was in behind the door was where Qian Dongfang died last night.

She was well aware of how Qian Dongfang died. The people on the fifth floor helped him recover, but it meant that he had to withstand one day of attacks from the monster children.

She was present when they discussed it.

Kong Sheng instructed Qian Dongfang not to close his door tightly when he left to deliver food.

If his door was still closed when the monster children arrived at the window, the people living nearby would break open his door, in order to lure the monster children inside and avoid hurting other ghost friends.

There seemed to be a thin straw on the floor that hadn’t been cleaned up completely. She could smell the stench left behind by Qian Dongfang when he was alive, as well as the bloody scent left behind when he died. She tightly gripped the doorknob.

She felt that there were several players standing outside her door.

They were just waiting for the monster children to appear at the window, then they would burst open her door and lure the monster children inside.

Even though she reinforced the door with several layers of wooden boards and metal sheets, it was useless against their combined impact.

[Mom’s belly is so warm, I want to drag it to hell for company.

When I died, it was trembling. But was it a longing for me?]

Bai Shuang held her ghost friend in one hand and tightly gripped the doorknob with the other, biting her lip tightly as she choked back tears.

She regretted it a long time ago.

If she had stayed on the sixth floor, at least the players on the sixth floor wouldn’t be pounding on her door from the outside. Each person would fend for themselves, and her chances of survival would be much greater.

Sweat dripped densely from her forehead, and she took out a lighter from her pocket.

Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly widened her eyes, finding it hard to believe what she had heard.

As the night fell, Ning Su returned to the fourth floor.

In the corridor of the fourth floor, there were brightly lit skeleton lamps. Three players and three ghost friends sat on the blanket, discussing the player’s intimidation of ghost friends today.

The focus was on Chen Jinpeng and his ghost friend, the rag doll.

After Ning Su sat down, he said, “He drove the doll out of the door.”

He recounted what he had seen on the sixth floor to them.

Ji Mingrui said, “Let’s see after tonight.”

All three of them knew what he meant and what they were going to see.

To put it more bluntly, it was about Zhu Shuangshuang’s questions during the day to Ning Su and what the player said in the restaurant restroom.

A faint children’s song could be heard.

They knew that the monster children were coming, so they stopped talking.

Although they didn’t have to worry these past few days, every time the monster children came here, it meant someone would die. Their mood couldn’t possibly be light.

Ning Su suddenly opened his eyes and looked towards the arched window in front.

“What’s wrong?” Zhu Shuangshuang noticed his abnormality and asked him.

Ning Su didn’t reply to her. He walked directly to the arched window and pushed aside the lily vines to look outside.

The other three followed him and looked outside through the gap he had opened, their eyes widening in astonishment.

Outside the window, a tender and chilling children’s song came from below, accompanied by a cold and fishy smell.

Under the pale moonlight, a tattered rag doll hung just outside their window.

“Buwu...“

A thin red whip was tied around its neck, and the limbs hung down as the monster children prepared to climb the wall.

Looking up along the red whip, they couldn’t see who held the other end.

Shi Tianzhu said that they would open one floor each night based on the current method of protecting each floor. If everyone used this method, the monster children would attack the castle all night, and their power would explode in rage, causing severe damage to the castle.

Therefore, they opened one floor each night.

Opening a floor meant that if the sixth floor was opened that night, Shi Tianzhu wouldn’t use any spatial tools. If the fifth floor was opened, Gu Witch would withdraw her insects.

But the other floors that didn’t need to be opened remained as they were.

Tonight, the fifth floor was opened, and the sixth floor remained hidden by spatial tools. Other players wouldn’t be able to find the sixth floor, making it very safe.

But just by looking at the rag doll, they knew who was on the other end.

Meng Jiang said, “This red whip is Chen Jinpeng’s weapon, known for its speed.”

They immediately knew what Chen Jinpeng was up to.

When ghost friends were scared, they also gave out luck points. What could be scarier for them than a monster child?

This afternoon, Chen Jinpeng received 3 luck points from the doll. He had already tried throwing the ghost friend off the wall to stimulate more luck points.

In order to further scare the ghost friend and elicit more luck points, he didn’t intend to give the ghost friend to the monster children. Instead, he wanted to hang the ghost friend in front of the monster children to frighten it.

As soon as the monster children approached to attack the doll, Chen Jinpeng would swiftly use a whip with incredible speed to pull the ghost friend back to the safety of the sixth floor.

The broken and limp doll hung there, tearfully whimpering in silence.

Seeing the monster children starting to climb up and getting closer to the second floor, the doll struggled desperately. More seams broke, red threads scattered, and its cry became a sharp cry of fear.

“Wuwu! Wuwu!! Wuwu...!“

Zhu Shuangshuang shouted upstairs, “Chen Jinpeng, you’ve gone too far!”

“Hahaha! With 6 luck points, you don’t have to die. Of course, you can stand on the moral high ground and criticize me. How could you possibly understand my feelings?” The voice came from an unknown source.

The chilling aura emanating from the monster children became increasingly intense. They had already climbed up to the second floor, and with a leap, they could grab the doll’s leg.

“Wuwuwuwu! Wuwuwuwu! Ahhh!“ The doll grabbed the whip around its neck and shook vigorously.

With such force that its body contorted, it was telling him that it was scared.

It was a plea for help, yet also resembled a plea for mercy.

“Chen Jinpeng! He’s about to be caught!”

The whip was pulled up a bit, and the doll moved up slightly.

The doll stopped crying, widened its eyes, and softly uttered, “Wuwu.”

Through its swollen eyes, the four people surprisingly glimpsed a heartbreaking joy.

But then, that beam of light extinguished.

The doll was pulled up a bit and then lowered, ending up in the most terrifying position, not far from the monster children.

“Give me luck points! Give them to me, and I’ll pull you up!!!”

“Sob...“

The rag doll struggled desperately, gripping the red whip with both hands. It was visibly exhausted, unable even to shed tears.

It crashed into the wall, and the red seams on its body flew up. One strand fell and was torn apart by the monster children.

In the putrid and chilling air, amidst the furious roars of the monster children, its struggling grew weaker.

The rag doll gave up.

It turned its head towards the window on the fourth floor.

There, two players and Gui Sheng watched it with concern, holding their ghost friend in their arms.

“Sob...“

Those damp eyes revealed a layer of hopelessness and desolation.

The two little hands, grasping the red whip, moved to the stitched line on its neck.

Every part of its body was sewn together with fabric, including its head and body.

One section of the red thread on its neck had already come undone, revealing two loose ends.

“Chen Jinpeng!!!” Zhu Shuangshuang widened her eyes and screamed with all her might.

The two small hands grabbed the exposed loose ends of the stitched line and, with the last ounce of strength, gave a gentle tug.

Only a cloth head remained on the red whip.

T/N: Poor rag doll. (╥﹏╥)