In the Horror World, it is difficult to mind one’s own business. Who would dare overestimate their own luck and risk their life to save someone?
After Qing Li spoke, the expressions on each player’s face varied. They stood still, no one daring to approach the elevator.
Maybe Ma Yue really was in the elevator, but who could say there wasn’t some unknown danger lurking inside?
No one dared to use their own life to test it.
【Heh, just now they were self-righteously scolding our little village girl, and now they’re all curling their necks like turtle grandsons.】
【That Zhou Ya is such a white lotus. Back then, the little village girl saved her, and instead of showing gratitude, she’s been opposing her at every turn.】
【By the way, where’s Dr. Chu? Couldn’t hold on last night, just woke up now.】
【Dr. Chu already left. I camped in the livestream room all night, and nothing happened between them under that blanket.】
【Something’s definitely wrong between the little village girl and Dr. Chu!】
Qing Li ignored the playful banter in the livestream. With a cola straw still in her mouth, she slowly stood up from the sofa and walked toward the elevator.
Wen Yi’s gaze had been fixed on Qing Li. Seeing her head for the elevator, he quickly followed.
“Should we go take a look too?” Wang Tingting hesitated and asked.
“Let’s go. I want to see if Ma Yue is really in that elevator or not.” Zhou Ya followed with a grim expression.
The dilapidated elevator had probably gone unused for too long. A thin layer of dust covered its tightly closed doors, and the up-and-down button indicator light flickered intermittently.
“Hand… handprints.” Huang Lina suddenly shouted.
She pointed at the elevator doors, her enlarged pupils full of terror.
On the dusty surface of the elevator doors, two handprints stood out starkly, as though someone had once placed their hands there, trying to push the doors open.
“Could these be Ma Yue’s handprints?” Zhou Ya said.
Ma Yue’s disappearance now hung over everyone like a heavy shadow.
Qing Li didn’t speak. She pressed the button to go up. From the elevator shaft above came the sound of gears driving the steel cables.
“Ding—”
The elevator’s arrival at the first floor was accompanied by its chime, but the doors didn’t open.
“Looks like this elevator really is malfunctioning,” Chen Dalei said in a low voice, sarcastically implying that Qing Li was paranoid, dragging everyone into her hysteria.
But as his words fell…
Blood—bright red blood—began to flow from the lowest crack of the elevator doors.
“Hiss—hiss hiss—”
The sound of nails scratching against the iron walls of the elevator came from within.
“Bang—bang bang—”
Immediately after, violent banging sounds echoed.
The entire elevator trembled.
“Is Ma Yue really inside?” Huang Lina asked in terror.
But no one answered her…
Maybe Ma Yue really was in there, but no one could guarantee that what was inside was human or something else!
“If you want to know, just open it and see.”
Qing Li narrowed her eyes. Before the others could react, her hand was already pressed against the handprints on the elevator doors.
Someone with slight mysophobia like her would naturally not touch the dust directly.
“Ka-cha.”
Under Qing Li’s brute force, the elevator doors were pried open.
The scene inside the elevator was revealed before everyone’s eyes.
“Urgh—”
Wang Tingting couldn’t hold it in and dry-heaved on the spot.
【Holy shit, is this an elevator or a slaughterhouse? This is disgusting.】
【I can’t take it, brothers. I just ate soup dumplings this morning, and I puked them right back up. Goodbye to my six yuan.】
【Heh, dumplings are nothing. I puked up last night’s dinner.】
【Dinner is nothing. I puked out my shit.】
【You win.】
The livestream was filled with screams.
The four walls of the elevator were stained a dark red with blood. From the ceiling, a steel cable was tightly wrapped around Ma Yue’s neck, his head hanging lifelessly, the bulging eyeballs marked by dried trails of blood.
What truly made the scene unbearable, however, was that Ma Yue’s skin had been peeled off.
Below his neck, his body was drenched in blood, exposing white fat and crimson flesh. Bones could even be faintly seen. His chest and abdomen had been cut open, the internal organs missing entirely. Only the intestines hung out, swaying back and forth as his corpse dangled.
“Drip, drip…”
Blood dripped from his body.
Aside from Qing Li and Wen Yi, the other players couldn’t hold back and vomited one after another.
The bloody and brutal scene before them nearly shattered their mental defenses.
“This is too cruel. Killing someone is one thing, but why skin Ma Yue alive like this?”
Wang Tingting had tears in her eyes—not from sorrow over Ma Yue’s death, but from the physiological reaction caused by intense vomiting.
Qing Li stared directly at Ma Yue’s corpse, her gaze unwavering, and said flatly, “The flesh and tissues on the body have already stiffened. The trauma from the peeling was extensive, but there’s not much blood flowing out…”
Wang Tingting didn’t understand. She furrowed her brows, forcing down her nausea, and asked, “What are you trying to say?”
Qing Li: “The body wasn’t skinned alive. It was done after he died.”
“…”
Wang Tingting was speechless. She couldn’t comprehend how the seemingly innocent and harmless girl in front of her could say such things in such a calm tone!
Did she not feel even a shred of sadness for her companion’s death?
“What do we do next?” Huang Lina, with tears brimming in her eyes, looked pitifully at Wen Yi.
Ma Yue’s sudden death had terrified her. She feared she might be next, and at this moment, Wen Yi was her only hope of survival.
Wen Yi placed his hand gently on her thin shoulder, smiled softly, and said, “Don’t be afraid. I will protect you.”
Huang Lina was moved to tears and threw herself into Wen Yi’s arms, sobbing.
“What about Ma Yue’s body? Are we just going to leave it hanging like that?”
Wang Tingting shivered as a chilling image crept into her mind. She imagined the elevator doors slowly opening in the dead of night, and the blood-drenched, skinless corpse crawling out…
The steel cable around Ma Yue’s neck had already torn his flesh apart. That dangling head wouldn’t hold for much longer.
“We shouldn’t move Ma Yue’s body for now. The way he died was so gruesome—it might be a warning from some ghostly entity,” Wen Yi analyzed. He then looked down at Huang Lina in his arms and asked, “After you and Ma Yue went back to your room last night, did he act strangely?”
Huang Lina shook her head. “No. Last night I told him we should sleep separately. I slept on the floor while he lay down on the bed and fell asleep immediately.”
After all, she was now in another man’s embrace. She conveniently omitted any deeper conversations with Ma Yue.
“There was,” Qing Li suddenly spoke.
All the players turned to look at her. Qing Li slowly raised a finger. Under their confused gazes, she said unhurriedly, “One minute.”
“Huh?” Everyone’s faces were full of question marks.
Qing Li: “Last night, Ma Yue in the next room… finished in one minute.”
Everyone: “…”