In the dark room, pairs of blood-red eyes glowed, watching the doorway ominously.
An expression of terror crossed Old Lady Ghost and Old Li’s faces. No longer concerned with stopping the players, they let out a shriek and turned to flee, running toward the deeper, darker parts of the courtyard.
A swarm of half-human-sized ghost dolls burst from the dark room, lunging toward them.
The ghost dolls were lightning-fast, swarming onto them and tearing at them with sharp ghostly fangs and claws, like savage beasts. In mere moments, the two were shredded into pieces.
The players were frozen in shock at the sight.
Wu Yang, along with Fatty and Skinny, eyed the ghost dolls warily, while Lin Dandan and Wang Peiping collapsed on the ground, too frightened to move. They couldn’t tell if releasing these ghost dolls had been a wise decision or a fatal mistake. The appearance of these dolls reminded them of the same ones that had attacked them two nights in a row, making them question if Wu Yang and Gu Jiu’s judgment had been wrong.
Could these ghost dolls, transformed from the spirits of children, be the scariest entities of all?
Gu Jiu, still leaning on her rolling pin, gazed at the ghost dolls with an indifferent expression.
After shredding the two ghosts, the dolls ignored the players, instead bouncing their way out of the courtyard, giggling in a soft, eerie manner. They held each other’s arms, hopping along in a lively, almost adorable manner.
Gu Jiu stepped forward. “Follow them.”
Lu Ji silently held up an oil lamp, walking beside her without a word, his presence almost unnoticeable.
Wu Yang and the two brothers bore the pain from their wounds, following without hesitation.
Seeing this, Wang Peiping called out in a trembling voice, “Wait for us!”
He and Lin Dandan were both so shaken by the previous scene that their legs felt weak. Seeing the others choosing to follow the ghost dolls out, they quickly braced each other and hurried to catch up.
They couldn’t muster the courage to stay behind; even knowing how dangerous the ghost dolls were, they had no choice but to follow along, gritting their teeth.
Seven people, holding oil lamps, kept close to the ghost dolls.
At this point, the oil lamps were their only source of light. Though the lamps’ glow seemed faint, they burned steadily, refusing to go out.
There were four oil lamps in total, the same ones from their rooms.
Wu Yang glanced at the ghost dolls ahead, then at the oil in the lamps, and said to Gu Jiu, “Miss Gu, we have to leave Qingshan Village before the oil runs out, or we won’t make it.”
This wasn’t just a message to Gu Jiu but also a warning to everyone present. By addressing her directly, he was subtly showing his trust in her, considering her a reliable ally. In the game world, trusting a stranger was rare, but Gu Jiu had proven her reliability with her skills.
Gu Jiu nodded. “Then let’s speed up.”
The oil in the lamps would last for only an hour; they had used less than ten minutes since coming downstairs, leaving fifty minutes. If all went well, that time should be sufficient.
Upon leaving Old Li’s courtyard, they were engulfed in darkness, with only the faint glow of their oil lamps to guide them.
The ghost dolls laughed and ran ahead, their ethereal voices echoing through the darkness.
Noticing the ghost dolls were heading toward the village outskirts, Fatty and the others sighed with relief, realizing they had gambled right. The ghost dolls must be the guides provided by the game’s instance for the players.
Wang Peiping followed nervously, his eyes darting around in fear of the supernatural. Trembling, he asked, “Why did those children turn into ghost dolls while the cursed adults appear as traditional ghosts?”
Logically, shouldn’t the cursed adults be the ones in the form of ghost dolls?
Furthermore, the ghosts that attacked them at night were also ghost dolls.
Wu Yang said, “It’s probably because we released the spirits of the trapped children. The previous attacks by the ghost dolls were meant to confuse us and cloud our judgment.”
Hearing this, everyone suddenly understood, sensing the malicious intricacies of the instance. It wasn’t just about survival; it also included deliberate ploys to mislead them. If they made the wrong choice and sided with the wrong faction, they wouldn’t even know how they died.
This was another characteristic of the game world: a single misjudgment could lead to death at the hands of the ghosts—a real, irreversible death.
As they were talking, they sensed a shift in the atmosphere around them.
Lu Ji, Wu Yang, and Skinny raised their oil lamps, instantly illuminating the ominous silhouettes of ghosts emerging from the darkness. In the faint light, they could make out familiar faces: villagers they had encountered over the past few days, even the village chief and his wife. Their faces were a ghastly pale, with blood-red eyes and altered limbs, indicating they had all transformed into malevolent ghosts with ill intentions toward the players.
Lin Dandan, holding her own oil lamp, nearly lost her mind at the sight.
They seemed to be surrounded by villagers-turned-ghosts, who now blocked their path forward.
“What should we do?” Wang Peiping’s teeth chattered, and he felt faint, fully aware that their small group stood no chance against so many ghosts.
Wu Yang kept a wary eye on the ghost villagers in their way, his gaze then shifting to the ghost dolls ahead.
The ghost dolls, still laughing, lunged at the ghost villagers, tangling with them in a fierce brawl.
The scene was startlingly violent, like two wild animals tearing into each other. The players huddled behind, watching the ghost villagers cautiously. Fortunately, the ghost dolls seemed stronger, and even though the ghost villagers outnumbered them by several times, the ghost dolls relentlessly tore them to pieces.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief.
“Well done!” Fatty said in delight, though he quickly clapped a hand over his mouth when one of the ghost dolls turned to look at him.
After clearing the path of ghost villagers, the ghost dolls continued cheerfully onward, bouncing along as though they were innocent children at play.
Even Lin Dandan and Wang Peiping, who were terrified of ghosts, couldn’t help but feel a bit of affection for these ghost dolls now.
Any ghost that protected players was a “good ghost.”
After another twenty minutes of walking, they finally reached the village entrance.
The village entrance was pitch black, but they could vaguely make out the tall silhouette of a willow tree standing at the edge. A mountain breeze stirred, making the willow branches sway with a soft rustling sound.
The ghost dolls came to a stop.
They gazed in the direction beyond the village, whispering to each other in a language the players couldn’t understand, adding an odd sense of unease.
Wu Yang, sensing some hidden danger ahead, cautioned the others, “Be careful.”
Fatty asked, “Brother Wu, we’re at the village entrance. As long as we leave, we should be able to clear the level, right?”
Although the ghost dolls had cleared the path, they had still encountered numerous dangers. For a D-rank game field, the cursed village’s threats and faction traps were alarmingly life-threatening. If the players hadn’t chosen to share information and cooperate from the start, they would have easily been misled into choosing the wrong faction.
Fatty felt that the most dangerous aspect of the cursed village was the faction choice.
“Yeah, Brother Wu, can we leave now?” Wang Peiping and Lin Dandan asked urgently.
According to the game’s rules, if they simply walked down the path out of the village, they should be able to complete the level and exit the game world.
Wu Yang didn’t respond, his eyes scanning the darkness as his body tensed with an inexplicable sense of danger. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he found himself unable to take another step forward.
Wu Yang’s unusual behavior caught everyone’s attention.
“Brother Wu, what’s going on?” Lin Dandan asked anxiously.
Wu Yang replied in a dry voice, “I don’t know why, but I feel like there’s something very dangerous up ahead.”
Experienced players often have a natural sense of danger. While Wu Yang wasn’t exactly a veteran, he’d been through a few games, and in the previous four, he’d narrowly escaped death more than once, all thanks to this intuitive sense of danger that had helped him avoid critical threats.
He trusted his instincts.
The sensation of danger prickled densely in his chest, stabbing into his brain like needles. His eyes were wide open, yet he couldn’t discern the source of the threat.
From the darkness, Gu Jiu’s voice sounded, “Did you forget something?”
“What?” Everyone instinctively looked at her.
“The Mountain Ghost.” Gu Jiu’s voice floated gently. “As the one who cursed Qingshan Village, shouldn’t the Mountain Ghost have shown up by now?”
The Mountain Ghost, as the final boss of the Cursed Village, had yet to make an appearance.
Earlier, Gu Jiu had specifically asked Fatty and the others about their game experiences and noted that each game instance had a boss. This boss always posed a lethal threat to the players and never hid without reason; it would always appear at some point.
And yet, they hadn’t seen any sign of this so-called “Mountain Ghost.”
Cold sweat broke out on Wu Yang’s forehead, and his voice grew raspy. “Miss Gu is right. We almost forgot about the Mountain Ghost…”
A suffocating silence fell over the group.