CH 11

Chapter 11: Dormitory Civilization Code

Guo Guo finally understood what it felt like to be cold from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet.

She wanted to ask, if Xiaohong is her, then who was she? But when she opened his mouth, she couldn't make a sound.

Seeing to see her thoughts, Tang Xinjue replied softly: "When you have reason, consciousness, self-awareness and thinking ability, of course you are Guo Guo."

Only when you lose yourself and reason will you truly be like the test's "Xiaohong", as it implied.

Guo Guo was stunned. She thought of something, and suddenly took out her mobile phone to check the body information interface——

[Sanity Collapse: your san value has dropped significantly, and the surrounding environment is no longer safe for you]

She had read the words several times. Upon seeing them again, Guo Guo seemed to have fallen into an ice cellar. The vague clues were finally linked together with Tang Xinjue's words, presenting the cold and terrifying facts in front of her eyes.

Why was it always her?

It turned out that from the beginning, she was the chosen prey.

Tang Xinjue wrote down on the paper again, but this time, next to Xiaohong was Guo Guo's name, and the two names were tied to a balance, shaking like it was about to fall.

Her own identity, and the infiltrated "Xiaohong" identity, were superimposed on Guo Guo at the same time, like two ends of a scale.

Every time the san value decreased, every time there was a hallucination or even a collapse, the balance would be tilted more and more in the direction of "Xiaohong".

And when the balance was completely tilted... Guo Guo bit her lower lip, "What will happen then?"

Will she become a real "Xiaohong"?

Tang Xinjue shook her head: "I can't be completely sure, but if the above analysis is true, this should be the hidden condition of the quest item and the implicit logic of the test.

"—Xiaohong's item needed to be taken by herself."

This was why, why their search the next day came to nothing.

In fact, Xiaohong's reaction at night had already made Tang Xinjue suspicious. The ghost's greed revealed that it didn't really want people to help her find things at all, while not worrying that they would find it.

In this case, either the task item had a pit, or the task itself had a pit. An even more outrageous situation...

"...Zhang You is right, Xiaohong is not a human being, and ghosts have natural malice towards us." Tang Xinjue's eyes were heavy: "Now that I think about it, if I were an NPC, I would do the same thing."

What, how?

Guo Guo was paralyzed. At this moment, she even wished that she had no ability to think, so that she would not be afraid of what happened immediately.

It was now approaching six o'clock in the afternoon, and in less than ten minutes, the night would come again at eight o'clock. If they couldn't get the quest item, they might die, and if they get the quest item, they might still die.

Deaths all around?

No... Guo Guo suddenly realized from despair that since Tang Xinjue could analyze all this, maybe she had already found a solution?

She struggled and asked with the last ray of hope, "Then what can we do now?"

Tang Xinjue was as gentle as always, but there was something sharp that she couldn't understand: "Wait, the time will come soon.

"Remember, even in the most painful times, don't forget your own name, don't forget who you are."

This was Tang Xinjue's experience summed up from countless nightmares.

Not sure if she understood this sentence, Guo Guo's eyes were fixed on the interface of the electronic clock that was passing by. She felt her brain start to swell, and a familiar auditory hallucination sounded in her ears. She could only use her last sobriety to catch Tang Xinjue, "Xinjue, if I really have three longs and two shorts*, when you clear the game and return to the real world, you must..."

*三长两短=sān cháng liǎng duǎn, three longs and two shorts, refers to an accidental disaster or accident, specifically the death of a person. This relate to the pieces of woods of a coffin.

"What do you want me to do?" Tang Xinjue took her roommate's hand back.

Her roommate's breath was weak*: "You must delete the content in my D drive...and the P station account... and Baidu Cloud..."

*Original text is 气若游丝=qi (breath) like gossamer. This metaphor is to describe the breath, the signs of life are very weak, the metaphor of life is dying.

Tang Xinjue: "...Don't worry, you will be fine."

Guo Guo was obviously not convinced. She opened her mouth in sadness and wanted to speak, but her voice stopped abruptly.

From Tang Xinjue's point of view, Guo Guo's eyes began to become sluggish, and the ominous blue-white color spread across her face.

[Health value -70, get a negative state: life is dying]

[Sanity Collapse (severe): the environment has become extremely dangerous for you, a certain force has eroded your will and ego... At this moment, are you still yourself?]

The phone fell to the ground, but Guo Guo didn't know it. She stood up stiffly, ignoring everything outside, and turned to look at her desk.

Guo Guo seemed to be attracted by a certain part of the desk and became very interested. She pounced on it and slowly opened the vertical cabinet door under the desk.

And just before Guo Guo had hallucinations, there was a ghost in the screaming cabinet, and at this moment, an object was quietly displayed.

The moment she saw it, Tang Xinjue's pupils shrank.

That's a human head!

"Giggle..."

Guo Guo's eyes showed fear, but a strange smile appeared at the corner of her mouth, and she couldn't help reaching out to touch the head.

"Guo Guo!"

By the time Tang Xinjue pulled her, it was too late, the head had already fallen into Guo Guo's hands. Its long black hair was parted, revealing the face below - blank.

This head had no face?

"I found it, I found it."

Guo Guo smirked, at the same time, cold air rushed from her arm all the way to Tang Xinjue's body. The ice-cold and sticky touch made Tang Xinjue subconsciously stop.

She immediately realized that the gloom was not only coming from Guo Guo, but the whole room.

The temperature in the dorm dropped sharply, as if a thin layer of cold mist rose from the ground and covered the line of sight. Under the fog, an indescribable sense of danger gushed out—

Tang Xinjue yanked Guo Guo, who was dragged to the point of staggering, the head fell to the ground, and gululu*... rolled out two meters away.

*骨碌碌=gū lū lū, describes turning quickly.

The next second, she clearly saw a giggling corner of the face with a blank head, then the texture of the skin, and then down... A hand stretched out from the ground below the head, with blue and white fingers open.

"Dear roommate, congratulations on finding what I lost..."

Tang Xinjue looked at it coldly: "You lost your head?"

That was inadvertent.

The corners of the mouth on the head sank. It didn't expect Tang Xinjue to dare to talk back at this time. Below it, a gap opened silently on the floor of the dormitory. Two blue-white hands groped and climbed out. Behind the arms was a twisted and slender body.

——It was exactly the same as the body of "Xiaohong" at night.

Tang Xinjue could feel that with the appearance of cracks in the ground, a certain boundary between the dorm and the outside world, day and night, was broken.

Since "Xiaohong" entered the dormitory with the help of a human head during the day, the rules and restrictions no longer have an effect on it.

This was the biggest danger and trap in the entire test.

Xiaohong crawled faster and faster, and in an instant, most of her body had appeared in the dorm. At the same time, the head at the top of the body gradually began to grow into a human face, but whether eyebrows or facial features, it was more and more like Guo Guo's.

On the other hand, Guo Guo, who was standing beside Tang Xinjue, seemed to be covered by mist, and her facial features became more and more blurred.

"In order to thank you for helping me find the item, I decided to let you stay here with me forever, okay~"

Xiaohong raised its face, a pair of eyes had already grown on it, and the next second, it giggled and opened its eyes.

"Caught you...?" There was darkness in front of it.

Xiaohong's smile froze. Could it be that the chosen one was blind?

Immediately it reacted, it was not a problem with the eyes, but something covered its face, causing darkness in front of it.

Not only that, the thing seemed to hold all of its facial features, and the facial features that were not fully born were suddenly blocked from growing and forced to stay in place.

Xiaohong: "?"

It shook its head subconsciously, but the absorption force on its face was stronger than it imagined. The force in the opposite direction was thwarted, and the facial features were immediately flattened, sinking into the skull.

Xiaohong: "……Ah ah ah ah ah! ! !"

In the place where it couldn't see, Tang Xinjue was holding the toilet plunger, and the rubber end was tightly fastened on Xiaohong's face, firmly resisting its crawling step.

Feeling the weight in her hands, Tang Xinjue's eyes were cold and she spoke softly.

"Caught you."