After managing to discipline the difficult mermaid doll, Gu Jiu turned all her attention to the puppet rats in Station 6.
The number of puppet rats remained overwhelming. Even when Chai Yingying’s Greedy Ball was stuffed to the point of bursting, the seemingly endless flow of rats tumbling down from escalators, stairs, and ceilings was enough to induce trypophobia.
The group fortified their position on the second basement level, their backs against the safety barrier in front of the train tracks.
As long as the train arrived, they could turn and board, so no one was particularly panicked or desperate. In fact, they were even curious to see if they could manage to wipe out all the puppet rats.
Wan Xingzhou suddenly remarked, “I don’t think we’ll be able to finish them all off.”
“Why?” Li Jing, who was standing nearby, asked.
“Because before we do, another boss might show up.”
At the stations along the train’s route, players face additional dangers if they linger for more than thirty minutes. These dangers are unpredictable, but their purpose is clear: to force players to flee onto the train.
Even if they could hold their ground against the puppet rats, other dangers were likely to follow.
Sure enough, after half an hour, the puppet rats abruptly retreated.
Chaotic footsteps echoed from the first basement level, followed by a group of staggering “people” descending via the escalators and stairs. Their lifeless complexions, upturned eyes showing only whites, and mechanical movements revealed their true nature.
“Zombies!” Old Hei’s face turned grim. “Of course, they wouldn’t let the players have it too easy.”
The puppet rats withdrew, only for the zombies to take their place.
In any case, the players were never meant to catch a break.
Before long, the train arrived again.
Chai Yingying, looking uneasy, said, “Forget it, let’s just get on the train.”
When they encountered Lu Ji the other day, they had narrowly escaped a subway station overrun by zombies. That experience left Chai Yingying with a deep psychological shadow—she didn’t want to face another encirclement.
The train doors opened, and all the players turned and boarded.
The zombies surged forward but stopped at the doors. They pressed against the safety barrier, peering in through the glass windows. Despite having only white in their eyes, it felt as though they were staring directly at the players.
The train doors closed, and with a rumble, the train moved forward, leaving the zombies behind in the subway station.
Gu Jiu watched the abandoned zombies as they clawed and scratched at the glass safety barrier, as though they too wanted to board the train.
“Miss, what are you looking at?” Chai Yingying asked, sitting down beside her with a pale face.
“Watching the zombies,” Gu Jiu replied.
“What’s there to watch?” Chai Yingying asked sharply. “Did you notice something?”
“No.”
“Really?”
Seeing that she had nothing to add, Chai Yingying sighed in disappointment.
Trapped on the Death Train for so long, everyone was desperate to escape this nightmare. Any sliver of hope was enough for them to fight for it. Right now, Chai Yingying placed all her hopes on Gu Jiu. She believed that if even Gu Jiu couldn’t find a way, the others likely couldn’t either.
The train arrived at the fifth station, and everyone got off.
At the fifth station, dark shadows emerged and began pursuing the players.
Although there were only eighty players, the tight spaces and chaotic flight from the shadows made the situation tense and prone to accidents. In the end, someone used defensive tools to hold back part of the shadows.
Gu Jiu instructed the mermaid doll to devour the shadows.
The mermaid doll was reluctant but dared not throw a tantrum this time.
At least eating the shadows was better than swallowing dead rats—it treated the shadows like jelly and gulped them down.
Chai Yingying, having just cleared a portion of the trash from her Greedy Ball, also sent it to join in on devouring the shadows.
One ball and one mermaid doll, under their owners’ commands, gnawed on the shadows as they fled. The scene was both absurd and amusing. Players standing within the safety barrier cheered for the two items, but the mermaid doll was unimpressed, shooting them a disdainful glance.
“It’s mocking me!” Li Jing exclaimed, incredulous. “Can items really be this intelligent?”
“What’s so strange about that? The mermaid doll is a supernatural item, so it naturally has its own personality and quirks,” Old Hei explained with a knowing tone. “You’ll encounter more items like this in the future. And these kinds of supernatural items, if used properly, can even be upgraded.”
Players unfamiliar with this concept were delighted. “How do you upgrade them?”
“I’m not entirely sure. It depends on how far the player progresses,” Old Hei said after some thought. “If Gu Jiu one day enters a B-level arena and gains some fortune there to feed to the mermaid doll, the doll can upgrade to a B-level item.”
Items, like players, had levels. For example, the mermaid doll, generated under the rules of a C-level game world, was a C-level item. If Gu Jiu could find the right opportunity in a B-level game field, it could become a B-level item.
Chai Yingying brightened. “Then my Greedy Ball can upgrade too!”
She couldn’t help feeling a bit envious of Gu Jiu’s mermaid doll. Though temperamental, it always managed to surprise. Even the blood of the red high-heeled woman could be consumed—a feat suggesting its level was much higher than her Greedy Ball.
Someday, when her Greedy Ball leveled up, it could devour even more junk and might surpass the mermaid doll.
The Greedy Ball and the mermaid doll devoured a considerable amount of shadows until the train arrived. Everyone rushed to board.
Gu Jiu grabbed the mermaid doll, poking its little belly. She noticed it was swollen.
“Are you overstuffed?” she asked in surprise, switching from poking to prodding.
The mermaid doll slapped her hand away, looking as if it might throw up if she continued. It let out a few wailing sounds, half like a roar, half like a complaint, but refrained from using its claws to scratch her—evidence that Gu Jiu’s earlier threats had worked well.
The mermaid doll truly was overstuffed. Its function was to consume supernatural waste, and the more it devoured, the greater the benefit to itself. Supernatural waste was essentially one of its food sources. However, it was extremely picky and wouldn’t touch anything it deemed disgusting.
Gu Jiu didn’t push it further.
In fact, although the tools players bought from the game store came with simple usage instructions, figuring out advanced applications required experimentation. Items like mermaid blood or the mermaid doll had additional potential uses beyond what the game instructions provided. It was up to the players to discover and utilize them to their fullest.
Gu Jiu stuffed the full mermaid doll into her pocket and once again gazed at the dark train tracks outside.
The tracks were pitch black—seemingly empty yet filled with an unsettling mystery.
“Ah Jiu.”
“Hmm?”
Lu Ji lightly tapped her hand. “Do you want some water? I also have milk.”
“Sure.”
Lu Ji pulled out a carton of milk, inserted a straw, and held it up to her lips. He watched her drink, gulp after gulp, his gaze so focused that it seemed as if the entire world had narrowed down to just her.
The others, seeing this, were green with envy, as though their very molecules were splitting apart in jealousy.
How they wished they had someone so attentive to look after them!
After finishing the milk, Gu Jiu shook her head and refused more, declaring matter-of-factly, “Drinking too much means I’ll have to use the bathroom. Too much trouble.”
Lu Ji: “…”
As someone not quite human—someone half-divine, even—the need for a bathroom was rarely an issue for him. He had never seriously considered this. When he did use a restroom, it was mostly for appearances.
Something seemed to cross his mind, and his face turned a faint red. In a low voice, he said, “I can stand guard by the door for you. Don’t worry.”
Gu Jiu grinned brightly. “Then I’ll trouble Ah Ji for that.”
The two spoke without much effort to lower their voices, so the rest of the train car heard every word clearly. Unable to resist, several people rolled their eyes.
The relationship between these two had grown so close that they casually discussed eating, drinking, and even bathroom matters. It seemed they were only one step away from breaking down the thin wall between them. Yet they continued to act oblivious, showering dog food everywhere, leaving everyone itching to lock them in a room together already.
—
The train stopped at the fourth station, then the third, the second, and finally returned to the first station.
When the train arrived, the group cautiously observed Station 1. They only disembarked as the doors were about to close.
Wan Xingzhou exclaimed in delight, “It looks like there’s no hunter and no little girl, Sasha!” His luck seemed to have turned for the better—surely because of the presence of the young lady and Lu Ji.
Every time he was with them, his fortune noticeably improved.
As before, a portion of the group stayed behind on the second basement level, while Gu Jiu and her team moved up to the first basement level to investigate.
Wary of the hunter or the little girl Sasha potentially appearing at any moment, they acted quickly. Upon reaching the first basement level, they began their search in a swift and orderly manner.
“Ah!”
Wan Xingzhou, following close behind Gu Jiu, suddenly let out a short, sharp gasp. Both Gu Jiu and Wu Yang turned alertly toward him, only to find him staring wide-eyed at something ahead.
They turned to look where he was pointing—a desolate corridor. It was unlit, and the farther into the darkness they gazed, the less they could discern.
“Xiao Wan, what’s wrong?” Wu Yang asked cautiously, his body tense with vigilance.
Wan Xingzhou rubbed his eyes and muttered incredulously, “Miss Gu, I think I saw an illusion again.”
“What kind of illusion?”
“I just saw a lot of people in the subway station,” Wan Xingzhou stammered, his words disjointed. “They were coming and going, like real passengers in the real world. There were even staff maintaining order… I could see the advertisements on the walls and a route map next to them. But it was so quick—I couldn’t see it clearly…”
His voice trailed off, tinged with fear that it might be some ghostly trick, leaving him unsure of what he had truly witnessed.
Gu Jiu and Wu Yang silently observed him, their calm demeanor making Wan Xingzhou’s voice grow weaker. Scratching his head, he muttered, “Maybe it’s just some illusion created by ghosts to mess with me.”
“It’s not an illusion,” Gu Jiu said, her lips curling into a smile. “It’s your awakened innate ability.”
“Huh?” Wan Xingzhou blinked in confusion, staring at her.
Gu Jiu explained patiently, “Think back to the Lingyuan Hotel. The ‘illusions’ you saw there weren’t just illusions—they were faithful recreations of reality. What you just saw isn’t a figment of your imagination, but a glimpse of another reality. You saw another subway station, revealed to you as an illusion.”
Wan Xingzhou was stunned, his face filled with disbelief.
He had always thought his awakened skill was utterly useless—something that only allowed him to sense the emotions of everything around him. Occasionally, he would see strange illusions, but he had always assumed those were tricks by ghosts trying to deceive him or force him to see unsettling images. It had never occurred to him that this might be a reflection of his innate ability.
“I think Gu Jiu is right,” Wu Yang said slowly, breaking the silence. “Just like Gu Jiu and Chai Yingying mentioned, the other subway station—the alternate space—holds the key to clearing this game. We haven’t been able to find a way in, and we still don’t know how to enter it. What you just saw is that alternate subway station, a space that only the ghosts seem able to access.”
Wan Xingzhou’s eyes lit up as he processed Wu Yang’s words. He said excitedly, “If I see more of these illusions, does that mean I might be able to figure out how to enter the alternate space?”
“…”
When no one replied, he looked at them curiously—only to find them staring intently at something behind him.
A gut-wrenching sense of danger washed over Wan Xingzhou. Every hair on his body stood on end, and an oppressive feeling of suffocation gripped him.
Before he could react, Gu Jiu reached out and yanked him out of harm’s way. In the same instant, Wu Yang and Lu Ji sprang into action, their weapons—a black sword and a military dagger—clashing against a massive axe that had been aimed at Wan Xingzhou.
Wan Xingzhou stumbled from the sudden pull, glancing back just in time to see a Hunter, cloaked in black, wielding a giant axe. The air was thick with the stench of blood as the axe swept through the air with deadly force.
The axe came down again.
This time, Wu Yang was forced to retreat. The impact left his palm torn, blood staining his military dagger. His face was taut, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
This was the Hunter from the first station—far stronger than the ones at the other stations. It had appeared without a sound, its speed so terrifying that by the time they glimpsed its cloak, it was already upon them.
In the blink of an eye, Lu Ji and Wu Yang had exchanged several blows with the Hunter.
The Hunter’s axe smashed into the wall, shattering it with a deafening crash.
Hearing the commotion, the other players searching the first basement level rushed over. When they arrived and saw Lu Ji blocking the Hunter’s axe with her black sword, their breaths quickened.