CH 41

41: Clearance

Run!

Quick, run!

Luo Ming swallowed through the dryness of his throat and sprinted forward with all his might.

The wind blowing on his face felt knife-sharp, and his throat was so dry that it was about to start smoking, but he didn't dare to slow down or stop.

He watched helplessly as the ugly thing, covered in pus and blood, killed a player in front of him, blood spurting out of his neck and spraying everywhere.

It turned out that blood from the human body was so hot that it tasted fishy¹.

Now the ugly thing was coming towards him.

As Luo Ming ran, he ripped out the rabbit that had been clamped onto his body and hurled it to the ground. Compared to his fear of the faceless ghost behind him, the pain from the wound he had torn on his body was nothing.

Chi--

Chi--

The sound was getting closer.

His legs felt heavy as lead. Luo Ming's running speed was getting slower and slower, and his expression revealed his despair.

What to do? He had no strength left.

In a panic, Luo Ming ran into the depths of the castle.

A small building with only two floors, the outside was covered with withered black vines.

The damp wooden door covered with moldy green spots was slammed open, and then slammed shut with a bang at an even faster speed.

Luo Ming didn't notice all that. He tripped on something that got underfoot in the dark, fell to the ground panting, and began laughing.

The sound was gone, the sound was gone, the thing couldn’t keep up!

He was still smiling and laughing, until his face suddenly went rigid.

The sound of slow footsteps was particularly clear in the dark, quiet environment.

Luo Ming froze and looked in the direction of the sound. Not far from the stairs, a man covered in white and holding a candlestick was slowly walking down the stairs.

Seemingly noticing Luo Ming's gaze, the man raised his head: white hair and red eyes, his grinning mouth exposing two huge front teeth.

Rabbit.

It was also a monster²!

Luo Ming backpedaled in horror, but felt something behind him. On holding it in front of him, it turned out to be a small sword carved with strange patterns.

Luo Ming, who had no time to think about what it was, threw the small sword at the man, then got up and ran.

The man holding the candlestick didn't even bother to dodge. In his opinion, the human in front of him obviously couldn't hurt him.

The small sword hit the man's shoulder and, under the pull of gravity, fell back to the ground.

The man stared sideways at the scorched black marks on his shoulders, where he had seemingly been corroded and burned, and his expression suddenly became very ugly.

Outside the castle, by the barren tombstones:

"Wa--wa--"

The crows hovering around the dry trees made the morning seem ever more ominous.

The faceless ghost was dragging the long hook through the tombstones. Behind it, a bloody player had been hooked. The player was breathing weakly, and a faint cry for help came from his mouth.

Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had come here after chasing the faceless ghost, and watched it pass through the forest of withered trees and disappear into a cave whose entrance was covered by dead vines.

Shen Qingcheng: "Look at the size of that cave, is that the NPCs' lair?"

Lu Qi didn't answer, and after pinning Shen Qingcheng with a glance for a second, he took the lead into the cave with his long knife.

The cave was dark, and the air had an foul, rancid stench.

The two wound through the cave, and the further they went, the stronger the smell, now mixed with a strong fishy smell.

After about 20 minutes, Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi finally reached the end of the cave--a huge, empty space comparable to the castle’s hall.

The player who had been dragged into the cave by the faceless ghost on the tip of its hook was dying. The faceless ghost squatted down, took a new long hook from the blood-stained chopping board, and hooked it through the player's mouth.

More blood spattered out.

The faceless ghost lifted the newly hooked prey to his feet and hung the hook on the iron frame.

An iron frame with many human beings like the player just then hanging on it.

All of these people had been hooked through their mouths and hung naked on the shelf. Most of them had rotted into a mass of black carrion, and only the most recent ones were fresh.

Shen Qingcheng tried identifying them: the skinned, slender one was Xiao Liu, the skinned one with a hole in his chest was probably Wei Tian, and the other had the same hole in his chest and had had his limbs chopped off.

He didn’t know that person, but judging from the freshness of that his person's body, he should be in the same batch as the other players.

Shen Qingcheng pondered for a moment, and suddenly his eyes lit up, "I got it!"

He turned to Lu Qi and said, "Do you remember the day you came to pick me up, when we entered the copy? In the woods, I was tripped by a limb. There’s an eighty percent chance that the limb belonged to this person!"

He affirmed: "He is a player!"

A player who died as soon as he entered the copy.

In addition to the most obvious features on the dead players, the flesh of their abdomen and thighs was obviously cut up, and Xiao Liu was the worst off.

Seeing this, Shen Qingcheng knew where the food the players had been eating those days probably came from.

The players didn't eat the first roast suckling pig , so the player who had been dismembered didn't have much meat cut off, but the players ate up the second roast suckling pig, explaining the state of Xiao Liu's body.

No wonder they killed a player on the first day: the NPCs needed to prepare "food" for them in advance.

Shen Qingcheng thought further. When Wei Tian had died, he had doubted whether Wei Tian's death had had any connection with the oil painting in his room.

But because the two had only had a wound on the chest, which could be excused by simple coincidence, head never figured it out.

Now, seeing this player who also had a hole in his chest, but whose limbs were cut off, Shen Qingcheng remembered again. It turned out that the black bear in the oil painting did not correspond to Wei Tian!

"Lu Qi!" He couldn't wait to share his findings with Lu Qi.

Lu Qi drew him behind him, "Tell me later."

Shen Qingcheng was stunned for a while, but when he heard the faceless ghost's "he--he--" voice, he finally remembered that there was still such an existence. He had babbled so much he’d caught the faceless ghost's attention.

He consciously stepped aside to make room for Lu Qi to fight.

The faceless ghost charged towards the two intruders, dragging its long hook.

Clang! The first collision reverberated out, the sound of a long knife and a long hook meeting each other.

Looking at the man who was exuding ferocity through every move³, Shen Qingcheng held his hands in the shape of a megaphone⁴, "Lu Qi jiayou, chongya⁵!"

"Go forth bravely, and the fans will always follow!"

Lu Qi: "..."

Seeing that Lu Qi was keeping the upper hand, after watching for a while, Shen Qingcheng went to explore the other parts of the cave.

He found some kitchen utensils in the corner, on the other side of the iron shelf, and they were even used utensils.

It seemed like the utensils that had disappeared from the kitchen have been moved here?

Let’s see, there were all kinds of pots and pans in the cave.

Tomato sauce in a jar? Mushy human flesh. Fresh milk in a bucket? Stinky human blood.

Shen Qingcheng pinched his nose in disgust. The smells remained just as disgusting as before, forcing him to move away.

Next to the kitchen utensils was an old wardrobe. Shen Qingcheng was pleased: the wardrobe was made of peach wood!

But then his hope withered away. Because the peach wood had been placed in this "filthy" place for a long time, it had turned purple and black, so corroded it could no longer be used.

Not cherishing what they had⁶!

Shen Qingcheng didn't open the wardrobe; he could guess what was inside, nothing more than some dresses made of human skin, with some decorations made from eyeballs or hair.

There was a sewing basket next to the wardrobe, and inside it was a coil of colorful hair.

Shen Qingcheng suddenly thought of a question.

Would those animals feel the same way as he did, seeing these kitchen utensils, wardrobes, and sewing baskets, when they saw humans wearing fur and feathers?

He frowned. No, he couldn’t compare them to him.

Just as Lu Qi finished his battle and came over, he pulled at him and asked, "Lu Qi, how do you feel when you see this?"

Lu Qi looked at the things in front of him and spit out one⁷ word, "Absurd."

Absurd? Indeed, it was absurd.

Humans and animals, hunters and prey, who could tell?

Forget it, the problem was too complicated, he didn’t want to think about it.

Shen Qingcheng put his musings aside, "You finished fighting?" He turned to look at Lu Qi, and saw a small spot of blood on his face, probably from the battle, so he wiped it off for him.

Lu Qi closed his eyes and remained silent for a moment, but the other man couldn't wait for the answer and had already walked away to see the result, so he said quietly, "En."

The faceless ghost was not dead yet. Its head was separated from its body and it was hooked through and tied to the iron frame, but the head on the ground was still panting out breaths, "He--he--".

Lu Qi hung a step behind and said, "It can't die."

Shen Qingcheng nodded. After all, it was a somewhat difficult copy. It seemed pretty reasonable for the mini-boss⁸ to have an immortal attribute?

He turned to look at Lu Qi's right side, where the blade of the long knife was still clean, "It can hurt the faceless ghost, but not the NPCs?"

Lu Qi glanced at the knife, "En."

Shen Qingcheng: "So the NPCs and the faceless ghosts work together and divide the labor, going one by one. The NPCs can do tricks like illusions, and the faceless ghost can attack and hurt people. Items can hurt the faceless ghosts, but the NPCs are immune."

He clapped his hands, "The distribution is very balanced!"

The Faceless Ghost was no longer a threat, so Lu Qi put away the long knife and took out his terminal to submit the task.

Shen Qingcheng approached, "Submit now?"

Lu Qi pressed the word, "En."

Shen Qingcheng: "Have the doubts been clarified?"

Lu Qi typed away, "En."

Rabbits were meat, foxes were fur, birds were feathers, and bears were skin, meat and gallbladder.

Masks were human skins, which referred not only to animals donning human skins, but also players who had human appearances but were actually raised as animals.

Prey and hunter, hunter and prey.

Shen Qingcheng: "Can you fill in my name as well?"

Lu Qi: "En."

Shen Qingcheng emphasized, "My customs clearance method is to live until the end of the mission time."

There were now eight days until the end of the mission.

Lu Qi wrote Shen Qingcheng's name in silence, and Shen Qingcheng soon received a system message.

He took out his terminal and opened it.

【 Congratulations to player 7 for clearing the copy: Masquerade 】

【 Clearance Evaluation: Perfect】

【 Survival Point Reward: 80】

He had watched Lu Qi fill in his name with his own eyes, but there was no system message?

Shen Qingcheng: "The players who cleared the level--there can be fewer names, but not more?"

【 The reward will be settled after the player leaves the game world. Exit the copy immediately⁹? 】

【 Yes/No. 】

Lu Qi chose “No” and looked up, "Well, what do you want to do now?"

As long as a player cleared the level, the other players who chose to solve the story line could get the basic survival points and immediately leave the copy. Players who chose the alternate way to clear the copy would continue to live in the copy until the end of the mission time.

The players at the dance had screamed so miserably, most of them probably didn't have the heart to stay.

In other words, he and Lu Qi were the only ones left in the castle?

Shen Qingcheng immediately excitedly said, "Clean up the battle situation!"

After dealing with the faceless ghost, and there were still four NPCs!

TLN:

¹ 腥 refers to a subset of flavors in meat generally regarded as unappetizing (rotten, rancid, rank, just generally inedible).

² Double meaning here: 怪物 means “monster”, but literally translates to “strange animal”.

³ Lit. “every raise [of his arms] and stomp [of his legs]” (每一举每一投足).

⁴ Like this:

Source

⁵ Lit. “charge the duck”, 冲鸭 is a homonym for 冲呀, which is a cute way of cheering someone on that means they should be full of vigor and fighting spirit.

⁶ Idiom (暴殄天物) originally meaning violent destruction, referring to the annihilation/extinction of natural things, eventually pivoted to mean arbitrarily destroying something without chrishing/appreciating it.

⁷ Raws say two words because “absurd” is two characters (荒诞).

⁸ Lit. small “ss” (小ss), which I think is chatspeak for mini-boss, although I could be wrong.

⁹ Had to alter the formatting for this to make sense in English. In Chinese, 是否 can either mean yes/no or whether. This sentence should be translated as a continuation of the previous, “whether or not the player leaves the copy immediately”, but then the next sentence wouldn’t make as much sense (in the raws, it says 是否), so I split it up and turned it into a question to make it flow better.

Just cleared 100K words!