Chapter 22

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Chapter 22: Star Death Reality Show (V)

What was happening? Feeling as though he was blindfolded, Qi Leren and He Yi looked at each other nervously.

“Mark? Are you all right?” He Yi also asked loudly.

There was still no sound in the room.

“Let’s go in and have a look,” He Yi said nervously.

Qi Leren’s heart beat faster. According to the routine in horror games, the loud noise just now was likely an indication of danger, suggesting that Mark had met some big trouble inside.

Had he met the monster? Qi Leren became suspicious. From the task background’s information, he clearly knew that the monster in the “glowing stone” had hatched by this time, although he wasn’t sure whether this monster was a simple and rude physical attack type or a parasitic type like an alien. If it was the former, it would very likely eat people, and its target…

Qi Leren pulled out the knife assigned by the program company and said to He Yi: “Okay.”

He Yi looked at the knife in his hand in surprise: “…Do you need a knife?”

Qi Leren was dazed and realized that he had overreacted a little. To an NPC, this copy task was just an ordinary reality show. They didn’t know what they were going to face and they were unprepared for it.

“Be prepared.” With a straight face and posing as an experienced leader, Qi Leren boldly pushed open the door, as there was no warning from [Rain-Day Laundry] in his card slot.

Mark had fallen not far from the door. There was no blood on the ground. Instead, there was a fallen bookshelf, from which a large stack of objects such as vases and books had fallen to the ground, along with the axe. Obviously, when the black man had come in he had stumbled and knocked over the bookshelf. He was probably hit on the head by something, shed a little blood, and suddenly fainted.

Qi Leren breathed through the corners of his mouth, put the knife back into the sheath as if nothing had happened, and leaned over and lifted the man up: “Come and give a hand.”

He Yi also came to help, and the two men lifted the upper body and the lower body, and reluctantly put the big black uncle on the bed.

“Now what? They’re still waiting for us, ” He Yi said.

Regardless of the obvious inhumanity of leaving someone unconscious aside, Qi Leren thought for a moment: “Well, you look after Mark here, I will take the axe over, and then I’ll call Dr. Lu… Er, I mean Lu Cangshu.”

He Yi smiled: “I know, I heard that his dream is to be a doctor, so his nickname is Dr. Lu."

It seems that this copy world has also automatically filled in some settings, Qi Leren thought.

The two reached an agreement and Qi Leren took the axe and walked out of Annie’s house, walking towards Jing Siyu’s house. Walking halfway, Qi Leren suddenly remembered what He Yi seemed to be about to say to him before Mark’s accident. He had said that he’d seen something in the middle of the night…

Qi Leren looked back at the church in the middle of the village. Could it be related to the glowing stone inside?

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When he returned to the house Jing Siyu was staying in, the group of people were waiting anxiously for him in this narrow room. Xue Jiahui saw Qi Leren coming back alone and couldn’t help but ask: "Where’s He Yi?”

“He Yi didn’t come back with you?” Lara also asked.

Poor Mark was forgotten by the girls because he wasn’t handsome. Qi Leren felt deeply in his heart that this was really a world where looks were most important.

“Mark fell and fainted. He Yi is looking after him. I decided to bring the axe first.” Qi Leren handed the axe to his teammate Du Yue, giving him a chance to show his skills.

Du Yue took the axe, smiled at Qi Leren, and began to split the wooden trap door. The dust on the carpet flew up, and several of the women ran out covering their noses, unable to stand the dust. Annie was the worst. She coughed wildly and rushed out without looking back. He could still hear her heavy coughing from afar.

“She’s not allergic to dust, is she?” Out of occupational sensitivity, Dr. Lu felt that her cough didn’t seem to be choking, but rather an allergic reaction. “We don’t have antihistamine drugs here.”

“It won’t be a serious allergy. We’ve all received physical examinations to detect allergens, and at most it is mild allergies,” Francis said calmly.

“It’d better be…” Dr. Lu muttered.

“Let’s go and see Mark later,” Qi Leren said to Dr. Lu.

“Oh, okay,” Dr. Lu readily agreed.

Du Yue, an honest boy, worked hard and diligently. He chopped the trap door to the basement a few times, revealing the dark environment below, which gave off a sense of dread.

The ladies were outside, Mark and He Yi were not there, and there were only Francis, Alex, and Qi Leren in the room, a total of five people.

Dr. Lu, who knew the routine well, had no choice but to help: “Well, it seems that we have to go down and look. Who will go down first?”

“I’ll do it.” Francis stood up.

Alex was one step late and curled his lips. “I’m the second.”

After a little reflection, Qi Leren turned to Dr. Lu and said, “It’s enough for the three of us to go in and have a look. You and Du Yue wait outside, then go to see Mark when we’re sure that Jing Siyu is okay.”

“Alright.”

Francis illuminated the basement with a flashlight. The entrance was very humble, with the ladder that led down only made of wood. Immediately after Francis went down, he found Jing Siyu passed out at the bottom of the ladder, and the three people joined forces to get her up.

The group of women also came back from the outside covering their noses and gathered around Jing Siyu to check the situation. Only Qi Leren and Francis were still in the basement, shining flashlights to check the situation there.

“I thought it should be a basement where sundries were placed, but it turned out to be like a laboratory,” Qi Leren said curiously.

The same was true of Francis. The two were puzzled by the white-painted basement: “Maybe the owner was a researcher?”

This basement wasn’t big, only 20-30 square meters. The ground was made of cement, the walls were painted white, and all the walls were covered with bookshelves and lockers, with a pile of books and unrecognizable organ specimens. Qi Leren tried to read them, but the words above were all unfamiliar characters—obviously this was the language of this civilization, and the “alien” Qi Leren couldn’t understand it.

There were also a lot of materials on the desk, which Qi Leren turned over thickly and couldn’t understand. He opened the drawer and checked it, but there were no items like keys.

“Does the program know that there’s a basement in this house?” Qi Leren asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know. They said that it took only three days to sweep the village and arrange the fixed cameras. They couldn’t have been too careful,” Francis said calmly.

“Right.” Qi Leren looked thoughtfully at the family photos on the desk. The intelligent creatures on this planet looked very similar to them, with two eyes, one nose, one mouth, and no superhuman powers, so one could hardly tell the difference between them and this group of contestants.

“Hey, Francis and Qi, aren’t you coming up yet?” Lara shouted from the entrance of the basement.

“Coming!” The two people who didn’t find anything in particular gave up, grabbed the flashlights, and climbed out of the basement.

Just as everyone climbed out of the basement, there was a dull boom in the distance, like the sound of an avalanche. Several people were shocked and ran out to check. The women outside the door looked in the direction of the church in doubt: “Did something explode in that direction?”

“Did the church collapse from not being maintained for so many years?” Lara asked.

“I don’t know, it was somewhere to the north either way,” Xue Jiahui said. “Let’s go see He Yi and Mark later and ask them which direction the sound came from.”

Jing Siyu was still unconscious, so they didn’t trust to leave her alone in the house. Instead they moved her to Jing Sixue’s house and asked her sister to look after her, while the rest went to visit Mark.

Qi Leren winked at Dr. Lu. Dr. Lu ran to Qi Leren and whispered, “Did you find anything?”

“I feel like there’s something wrong with the basement in Jing Siyu’s house. Go back and call Du Yue to have a look. You search carefully to see if there’s anything,” Qi Leren said.

“Leave it to me!” Dr. Lu the treasure hunter said confidently.

The rest of the people walked towards Annie’s house, and when they passed the church they made a special check and found that there was no place that had collapsed or looked damaged.

Further north was Annie’s house. The group of people walked through snow and squeezed into the house. Qi Leren knew where to go, leading everyone to the room where Mark was lying. The door was open, but there was no sound.

Qi Leren suddenly slowed down: “He Yi? Mark?”

No one answered him. There was no one in that room.

“What’s the matter? Weren’t those two here just now?” Janet asked exaggeratedly.

“Yes, Mark was knocked out by the shelf by the door, so He Yi and I carried him to the bed in this room. He Yi was looking after him. I brought the axe first… Did Mark wake up? Maybe they went out to find us but went the wrong way?” Qi Leren guessed.

“Impossible, they’re still in this room,” Lara suddenly said.

Everyone was shocked by Lara’s words and looked at her.

This female star with short hair and a heroic spirit had sharp eyes, and her eyes swept across everyone’s faces: “It snowed in the middle of the night yesterday, and a new layer of snow was deposited on the ground. I have a habit of looking at the footprints in the snow. I paid attention to them when I came here just now. Before this group of ours came, there were five sets of footprints in front of Annie’s house—those left by Annie when she left in the morning, those left by Qi Leren, He Yi, and Mark when they came to take the axe, and those left by Qi Leren when he left. Only these five sets, no more footprints, do you understand what I mean? Mark and He Yi didn’t leave the house. They’re still here.”

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