A screeching voice erupted from behind, no longer sweet and pleasant but raspy and grating, piercing through the eardrums and sending a dull ache through their heads.
Gu Jiu dragged Lu Ji into the elevator.
The others were quick to follow, close on their heels.
Gu Jiu reached to press the elevator buttons.
But the doors didn’t close. Everyone looked nervously toward the lobby, where the entire hall was engulfed in a crimson flood. The red hue surged like torrents of blood, or perhaps a mist, emanating from the female server’s body, brimming with overwhelming resentment and rage.
Bound by scarlet threads, the female server struggled to move toward the elevator.
Although her movements seemed labored, her speed wasn’t slow—she advanced nearly a step every few seconds. At this pace, she’d reach them in no time.
Just one glance at her current appearance was enough to instill fear. No one doubted her combat ability—it was utterly horrifying. There was no way the players could stand against her. Moments ago, she’d been sweet and harmless; now, she had transformed into a terrifying banshee, pushing the players’ tolerance to its limit.
Fear was written all over their faces, even on the item player Zhan Shaohong, who shouted frantically, “Press the button, hurry up!”
“I did. It’s not responding,” Gu Jiu replied.
Unconvinced, the others reached out to press it themselves, only to find the elevator doors still unresponsive.
Why wouldn’t the elevator doors close?
As they wondered, the once pristine elevator began to lose its luster, rust creeping across its surface.
Like the server’s face, aged unnaturally fast, the elevator now bore the marks of time. The doors emitted harsh scraping noises, struggling to slide toward the center, as if caught on something.
It wasn’t just the elevator. The area outside the elevator, untouched by the crimson flood, also dimmed. Once bright and clean, it became grimy and dull, as though it had aged by centuries.
Wan Xingzhou cursed, “Damn it, breaking down at a critical moment! The equipment in this game world is absolute trash—it doesn’t even self-repair!”
His outburst echoed the thoughts of the players. The idea that they were stuck in this predicament because of a broken elevator—forcing them to face a horrifying monster—was maddening.
It wasn’t the monster that was screwing them over; it was the defective game-world equipment. The thought alone made them resentful.
The server was drawing closer to the elevator.
She was so near now that they could see the grotesque expression on her withered face. Her tongue, slithering like a snake, slid out unnervingly, making her look bizarre and revolting.
A raspy, witch-like voice broke the air: “You’re all going to die!”
Wan Xingzhou broke down. “Sister, can you be reasonable? We didn’t even provoke you!”
In truth, they had no idea what had happened to her. Why had she suddenly turned on them?
The server remained silent, continuing her determined advance toward the elevator.
Her body was covered in scars, crisscrossed with dense scarlet threads connecting her to the blood-red mist behind her. It was impossible to tell if the threads were trapping her or if they were fused with the mist.
One thing was certain: her current strength was immense. She was clearly the boss of this game world.
“Is she the boss?” someone speculated. “Could she be the Lingyuan?”
The players were still clueless about what Lingyuan truly was. Yet, looking at the server now, they couldn’t help but suspect her. Without any leads or hints for clearing the level, their uncertainty only grew.
Chai Yingying stared at the female server for a moment before turning to Gu Jiu. “Gu Jiu, what should we do?”
She wasn’t particularly willing to ask Gu Jiu for advice, but since Gu Jiu had taken the registry, the other players had lost the opportunity to uncover the hidden truths of this game world. They didn’t even know why the female server had become like this.
At this point, Gu Jiu was their only hope for clearing the level.
Gu Jiu watched the female server as she slowly approached the elevator door. She turned to Wan Xingzhou and said, “Your Red Thread of Fate. You bought it, right? Hand it over.”
Without hesitation, Wan Xingzhou pulled out his Red Thread of Fate and handed it to Gu Jiu. He watched as she tied one end of the red thread around her wrist and then threw the other end outward.
Though the thread was soft and limp, it suddenly stretched straight as it was tossed, extending swiftly toward the female server.
The other end of the thread attached itself to the female server.
Her advancing movements stopped abruptly. The ferocious expression on her face softened into one of calm serenity. Her gaze toward Wan Xingzhou became warm and kind, like she was looking at a loved one she would willingly sacrifice everything for.
Wan Xingzhou: “.…” This feels… not great.
Before he could voice his concerns, his surroundings shifted suddenly. He found himself no longer in the rusted elevator but on a balcony.
The balcony was connected to a room with an open glass window. Through the dim light, he could make out the layout of the room—it was the same as the room they’d been staying in for the past few days at the Ai Hui Hotel.
What left Wan Xingzhou even more baffled was that it wasn’t just him; the others were there too.
The players, all equally confused, instinctively scanned their surroundings, dreading the possibility that the terrifying female server might suddenly appear and slaughter them.
Suddenly, their attention was drawn to the bed inside the room, where a woman lay.
The woman had her back to them, her long, jet-black hair cascading over the bed. She was dressed in a form-fitting black uniform.
That silhouette, that outfit… A sense of foreboding settled in the players’ hearts.
Could the woman on the bed be the female server?
Instinctively, the players took a step back, pressing themselves against the balcony railing. They stared at the woman on the bed as though facing a mortal enemy, bracing themselves for her sudden attack.
The woman on the bed remained motionless. Then, the door to the room swung open.
Two men entered, one after the other. The man in the lead was a portly, middle-aged man with a beer belly, while the one behind him was a tall, thin man in a suit. Gu Jiu recognized the pair immediately, her eyes turning cold.
The tall, thin hotel manager said, “She’s on the bed. She’s already been drugged and won’t resist. She’ll do whatever you…”
He let out a sinister chuckle, leaving no room for misunderstanding.
The beer-bellied man grinned in satisfaction. “You’ve done well. I’ll make sure you’re rewarded. Now get out.”
The hotel manager bowed obsequiously, beaming with excitement as he exited the room and closed the door behind him.
Unable to contain himself, the beer-bellied man rushed toward the bed, his face twisted with lecherous glee.
By this point, the players had pieced together what was happening. A surge of rage shot through them, hot and uncontrollable. Wan Xingzhou was the first to leap off the balcony and charge at the beer-bellied man, landing a solid punch on his despicable face.
The other players weren’t far behind. They swarmed him, their fists raining down mercilessly on the disgusting predator.
Chai Yingying was the most ruthless of them all. She raised her leg and delivered a powerful kick to the man’s most vulnerable area. His scream of agony filled the room, causing the male players to instinctively clamp their legs together in shared pain.
Sister Chai will always be Sister Chai!
Chai Yingying cursed loudly as she beat the man. “You dirty pervert! You ruined the future of a young girl in her prime, turned her into a ghost, and now we’re suffering because of it! Why don’t you just drop dead? Did your mother give birth to you just so you could ruin young girls? Why didn’t she just bite off that wretched root of yours and raise you to be a decent human being…”
The players banded together, pummeling the middle-aged man until he was nothing but a motionless, battered heap, yet they still felt their anger was far from satisfied.
After witnessing the earlier scene, it was clear what had happened to the young waitress. The hotel manager, in an appalling attempt to curry favor with an important client, had drugged the beautiful employee the client had taken a liking to and delivered her to his bed…
Such a thing would be enraging in the real world, let alone in a game world, where the resentment of wronged individuals after death could turn them into vengeful spirits seeking retribution.
Gu Jiu and Lu Ji did not intervene.
The two stood not far away, watching everything unfold.
At some point, the young waitress on the bed had regained consciousness. She sat there quietly, her expression calm as she watched the players brutalize the middle-aged man. Her beauty remained, but her eyes—those crimson ghostly eyes—betrayed her as something no longer human.
Zhan Shaohong glanced at the bed unintentionally and locked eyes with the waitress. He let out a sharp cry, jolting the other players into awareness. They turned their shocked and frightened gazes toward the waitress on the bed.
At that moment, the scene shifted again, and the players realized the location had changed.
The waitress had still been assaulted. Moreover, because the client had peculiar tastes, she had been so brutally mistreated that she had nearly died.
But surviving wasn’t her fortune; it was a descent into a deeper hell.
The waitress had been imprisoned by the hotel manager, who used his position to keep her plight hidden from the outside world. Once she recovered, she was sent to another client with even more perverse desires.
The client, using some foreign drug, grotesquely aged her once-beautiful face to that of a seventy or eighty-year-old woman. When she was no longer beautiful, the client discarded her, brutally killing her in the end.
Her death left behind a mountain of resentment, transforming her into a grotesque, malevolent ghost.
The malevolence of the ghost was overwhelming, forcing the players to back away in fear.
From the doorway, the players watched the ghost exact her vengeance. She hunted down everyone who had wronged her: the clients, the hotel manager, and even the accomplice employees, killing them all in a horrifyingly brutal manner.
The ghost’s victims were buried in the vacant lot in front of the hotel. Saturated with intense resentment and malice, the corpses turned into vengeful spirits themselves.
The ghost clashed with these newly formed spirits, turning the entire hotel into a haven for malevolent entities.
An invisible force enveloped the hotel, trapping the vengeful spirits killed by the waitress on the hidden third floor.
…
The players found themselves back in the elevator, staring once again at the terrifying visage of the waitress.
This time, they were less afraid of her. Instead, their hearts were filled with curses for the beasts who had driven her to such a tragic fate.
“If we’d known those scum were on the third floor, we’d have taken them out ourselves,” Wan Xingzhou said, seething with righteous indignation. Even as vengeful spirits, those creatures were nothing but wretched animals.
The others agreed, but unfortunately, they didn’t have the strength to do so.
As they spoke, Wan Xingzhou suddenly noticed the red thread in his hand had disappeared.
The waitress’s tranquil demeanor dissolved into a furious snarl as she lunged at them once again.
Panicked, Chai Yingying hurriedly tied one end of her Red Thread of Fate to her own wrist and flung the other end toward the waitress, only to realize that the thread’s power seemed to have waned. The waitress continued to struggle fiercely, inching closer to the elevator.
“She’s breaking through!” Chai yelled in alarm. “Where are your red threads? Throw them at her now!”
The Red Thread of Fate, a defensive item, was precisely for situations like this.
Other players quickly pulled out the Red Thread of Fate, tying one end to their wrist and the other to the waitress.
The waitress quieted down once again, but this time, they weren’t pulled out of the elevator by the thread. They remained inside, with the elevator doors still stuck, making a constant clattering sound as they failed to close.
Chai Yingying’s mind raced, but she couldn’t think of a solution to break through the predicament. She turned to Gu Jiu for help. “Gu Jiu, what do we do?”
Zhan Shaohong leaned over and suggested, “How about I use an item to kill her and see if that lets us clear the game?”
Rather than unraveling the thrilling truth behind the game world, Zhan preferred the straightforward, brute-force approach of clearing levels with items—confidence typical of an item-focused player.
Chai Yingying finally lost her temper. “Get out of the way!”
To her, clearing the game wasn’t as important as earning points! They were so close to uncovering the truth about the game world. If he used an item to force a clearance, she would be so furious she might cough up blood—and beat him senseless.
Gu Jiu shoved Zhan Shaohong further into the elevator, blocking his way. “She’s pitiful, yes. But after her death, she became a vengeful ghost and began brutally killing everyone who had a karmic connection with her in life. She’s already transformed into a spirit of malice.”
Vengeful spirits were inherently evil, harboring deep hostility toward the world. Any living being who entered their domain would face merciless slaughter—except in the hidden third-floor area.
Gu Jiu glanced at the waitress, who had once again fallen into a peaceful state, and suddenly said, “I know where the Lingyuan is.”