Global Collapse

Chapter 401 Gu Bengbeng, the Novice

This is a young man.

After the initial shock, he finally turned his gaze over, and then the Adam's apple on that withered neck began to bob up and down, as if he had seen a mouthwatering delicacy. Only his slightly bulging eyes reflected the light in the dim cave on his emaciated face, a light that only appeared after he saw the "Holy Maiden".

Gu Mian saw the person in front of her roll their prominent Adam's apple a few more times before opening their mouth to ask a question, and a line of text appeared at the bottom of the screen.

"Holy Maiden... what are you doing here?"

He didn't notice the black kitchen knife in the saintess's hand; it was originally intended for tomorrow's breakfast.

Gu Mian stared at the screen, expecting a dialogue option to appear in the next second, but he didn't intend to let it slide. Gu Mian's idea was to take them down one by one, dealing with the lone ones first before considering the rest. Unfortunately, there was a lone person right in front of him.

So the moment the line of text below appeared, Gu Mian began frantically clicking the attack button in the lower right corner.

The spurting blood splattered onto the gray, earthen wall beside him. The Adam's apple, which had been bobbing, was instantly covered by blood. The greedy eyes on his gaunt face could no longer shine with the light of staring at the delicacies. The person in front of him covered his neck tightly and opened his mouth wide, but in the end, he could not make a sound. He convulsed and fell to the ground, dying with his eyes wide open.

Perhaps they couldn't believe that food, which should be quiet and unassuming, had taken up a cleaver and become a butcher.

At this moment, Gu Mian held the knife in her hand and looked at the curtain in front of her that covered the entrance of the cave but did not block out the light. Orange light shone through from behind, so there should still be someone inside.

"This person is so young, he can't be the village chief, so is the village chief still inside? Did the sound I made just now alert the people inside?"

Gu Mian couldn't hear the game's sounds, so he couldn't judge how loud the actions he had just made were.

Separated by a curtain, Gu Mian couldn't guess the movements of the person behind it. Perhaps the person inside had already heard the noise and was lying in ambush on both sides of the cave entrance. If he lifted the curtain, he would be ambushed and killed by the person next to him.

But he cannot die, not even once.

A heavy atmosphere suddenly filled the quiet cave, with unease and anxiety lingering in the air, creating an oppressive atmosphere.

The birds that have gone out may return at any time. If they find that the saintess is no longer in the room, she will immediately become alert. The worst outcome will be that she will immediately notify everyone to gather together and go here to capture the saintess.

Behind the curtain in front of them, several hungry people were hiding, waiting for their chance to strike.

In a daze, Gu Mian felt as if he had returned to a tragic afternoon when more than twenty loud noises erupted on a wide elevated road. It was a chain-reaction collision of twenty-eight cars, and he was in the middle, where death was inevitable for both those in front and behind him.

It's very similar to the current situation.

But Gu Mian knew he couldn't hesitate any longer. He took a step forward in the restless air and then took a lighter out of his inventory.

He now has two lighters, and he is already holding one of them in his hand.

This was underground, and the earthen room was difficult to light. Although sweet potatoes were usually buried underground to roast, Gu Mian didn't intend to do anything to this earthen burrow. He turned on the lighter with a "snap" and quickly stretched his arm forward. The flame, about the size of his index finger, was already close to the tattered curtain. Gu Mian saw options appear on the screen.

[Should a lighter be used to burn the 'old, tattered curtain'?]

Gu Mian had seen this option before when the house was burned down, and of course he chose the same option as before.

"Yes."

A flame the size of a thumb immediately began to devour, burning a round hole in the middle of the tattered curtain. The ring-like flames quickly spread outwards until the entire curtain was reduced to a large, curled-up patch of ashes.

Light shone from the unobstructed opening, and Gu Mian, who had already withdrawn her hand, could see the scene inside.

Two simple brass candlesticks were nailed to the wall, each holding a candle of a slightly different color. A mat, resembling a tattered blanket, covered the floor; despite trying to choose similar colors, the visual effect was still not very appealing. A rather expensive-looking desk was placed to the left of the entrance, and beyond that was an old, brown wardrobe taller than a person, next to which was a bed made of sponge cushions. A small bulge appeared on the rug beside the bed, as if something was hidden underneath.

This was a rather solemnly decorated room—if only those two dirty, old pieces of clothing hadn't been peeking out from behind the opening.

There were people hiding behind the cave entrance, one on each side.

Seemingly realizing that the curtain covering them had been burned, the two people behind the cave entrance kept shrinking back, but unfortunately, due to the cave's design, there was no space to hide behind the entrance.

"These two probably wanted to finish me off as soon as I got close to the cave entrance, but they didn't expect me to burn the curtain with a lighter. They didn't have time to hide anywhere else, so they could only desperately shrink back and pray that I wouldn't discover their trick."

Gu Mian saw it, of course, but he pretended to be oblivious and took a step forward, slowly walking towards the cave entrance.

Just then, a shovel suddenly appeared on the screen; it was a fatal blow thrown by the person behind the door after a long period of preparation.

Having anticipated this, Gu Mian quickly retreated, naturally dodging the shovel that was aimed directly at her head. The person wielding the shovel also came into Gu Mian's sight due to the large movement. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Gu Mian immediately picked up a kitchen knife, stepped forward, and controlled the knife to bravely slash forward.

The outcome was exactly what he had expected.

A third body has been found in the dimly lit underground space; he doesn't look very old.

Just then, Gu Mian saw another person hiding behind the cave entrance suddenly rush out. Just as he was preparing to fight the person who rushed out, he saw the person slip past him by the wall, like a mouse frantically scurrying along the corner of a wall in the dark.

The short young man scurried along the wall towards the well, his mouth agape in exaggerated disbelief; even though Gu Mian couldn't hear him, she knew how loud his voice was.

"Murder! Help me!"

With such a loud noise coming from an underground passage, the group of people at the wellhead must have heard it.

Gu Mian took two steps forward, wanting to chase after him, but the guy who was running away frantically had taken the initiative and was using all his strength. If she chased after him, she would probably be caught by the people who were coming from the other side before she could catch up. Chasing after him would definitely get her caught, and if she didn't chase after him, she would be caught if she waited here... What should she do next?
Gu Mian frowned and stood there thinking for half a second before turning her head to look at the room, which was no longer shaded by curtains.

He quickly went inside and lifted the rug beside the bed, which seemed to be hiding something.

A hinged door mounted on the ground appeared before him, secured by a worn-out brass padlock.

Looking at the lock, Gu Mian immediately took out the key she had found on the butcher.

"Click"

The fat man opened the metal-cased lighter in his hand.

The faint flame flickered in the night wind, as if it were about to go out.

"If we all burn down the save points left by the doctor, then the character controlled by the doctor will have to start all over again after death."

The fat man fully understood the meaning of "starting over".

"This means the doctor will restart the game... Brother Chu, what about that exiled world you mentioned earlier..."

"Excerpts from figures in the world of exile." Chu Changge's calm voice came through the microphone.

“Yes, that’s it,” the fat man nodded repeatedly into the microphone, “Could you describe the goddess’s features again?”

Without a pause, Chu Changge's voice immediately came through the microphone, as if he had memorized the passage perfectly:
"The goddess has never truly died;"
New souls will be born from the burning black books;
The flesh and blood of the living will give the goddess a new body…

As the fat man listened, his gaze fell upon the three books stacked on the table: "The black books are the save files the doctor gave us, so the save files are a deception. As long as the character controlled by the doctor revives through a save point, everyone at that save point will be devoured... The doctor saved three saves here, and the character will revive from the last save point when they die; so if the doctor's last two saves were both here, and the character he controlled unfortunately died, the goddess would revive here and eat me, and then there would be no one alive at my save point; so if the doctor dies a second time and revives here, what will the goddess eat?"

“Two possibilities,” Chu Changge’s voice came through the microphone. “The first possibility is that she will eat you in several stages, but that’s unlikely, because it’s hard to guarantee that she can keep you alive even after eating a third of you.”

"The second possibility is that she eats you whole, and after you are resurrected a second time, she exists as a soul. She will only have a body again when she is resurrected at another save point."

The fat man asked, somewhat puzzled, "Can the soul die?"

"You should have seen Gu Mian kill ghosts."

"...Then, if that's the case," the fat man hesitated before speaking, "the doctor's character had a body as soon as he entered the game, and that body was obtained by devouring living people?"

Could it be that it devoured the players who entered this instance in the previous instance?

Chu Changge also fell silent.

Just then, the fat man suddenly spoke up: "By the way, you know that doctors can't hear us, right?"

"Ah."

“Didn’t I tell you that the doctor disappeared after leaving with a woman? I called out to him when he and that woman passed by here, but he still couldn’t hear me… but the woman seemed to have heard me.”

Chu Changge's slightly trembling voice rang out: "Are you sure she can hear me?"

"Yes, after that woman took the doctor away, she brought a group of people past me. Just now, when I jumped off the table, they carried several corpses past me. I think they all heard the sound of me jumping off the table."

“Theoretically speaking,” Chu Changge said, “if other NPCs can hear our voices, Gu Mian should be able to hear them too.”

But all these phenomena indicate that Gu Mian really cannot hear their voices.

At this moment, Chu Changge's steady voice came through the microphone again: "If what you said is true, then the problem lies with Gu Mian. He can't hear the sound perhaps because if he hears any sound—the secret will be exposed."

What could that be? The fat man was completely baffled.

"In short..." Chu Changge frowned slightly and looked out at the dark door, "Don't burn the save file."

The three black books on the table were neatly stacked together.

007 leaned back on the table. The chandelier on the ceiling was always swaying. She noticed it the first thing when she woke up. The swaying chandelier seemed to be saying, "I have a secret."

At this moment, 007 finally pulled out the secret from the chandelier: a lighter.

"Click"

This poor lighter, even the flame is only the size of a bean.

"What's going on?" A gaunt, curly-haired man walked ahead, asking as he went, while next to him was the short man who had been scurrying away like a rat right under Gu Mian's nose.

Behind the two were nearly twenty emaciated people, mostly young or middle-aged men.

"The Holy Maiden killed people! The village chief went out through the secret passage and told us to watch the door, and then we heard the Holy Maiden arrive," the short man gestured wildly, "She...she had a knife and killed two people!"

The curly-haired man twisted his neck: "That's impossible. The Holy Maiden warned us a few times before, but she just randomly hit people with a wooden stick or a kerosene lamp. She never actually killed anyone. The most serious injury she ever caused was just breaking someone's skin. Where would she get a knife?"

However, when they passed by the saintess's room earlier, they glanced inside and found that the dark room was indeed empty.

"Come with me and you'll believe me!" The short, thin man was extremely anxious; he fearfully hid in the crowd. "Quickly, arrest her!"

When they arrived, all they saw were two corpses lying across the doorway.

A strange atmosphere suddenly filled the air, and everyone looked at each other in bewilderment.

The curly-haired man at the head of the group opened his eyes wide. He quickly stepped forward, over the corpses on the ground, and looked into the now uncovered house.

The carpet in the room had been largely lifted, and a hinged door was wide open, revealing a dark passageway underneath.

That's a tunnel leading outside.

A short, thin man emerged from the crowd: "Look, they ran away!"

The curly-haired man stared incredulously at the wide-open hinged door. After several seconds, he seemed to snap out of his daze and said to the woman beside him, "Go and call Ah Man. Tell him the person has run away and ask him to come and catch them."

"Okay, okay." The woman strode towards the door.

At this moment, whispers arose from the crowd.

"Was this really made by the Holy Maiden? She wasn't this powerful before..."

"The Holy Maiden couldn't possibly kill two people at once; she doesn't have that ability."

"She couldn't possibly kill a single person, could she?"

"..."

Just as everyone was whispering among themselves, the woman returned.

With a look of terror, she collapsed to the ground, then looked up at the others with a horrified expression: "He's dead! He's dead!"

The initial buzzing whispers quickly escalated into incredulous skepticism.

"What?" "What did you say?!" "Who died?"

Everyone turned to look at the woman who had fallen to the ground, their wide, shocked eyes reflecting an eerie light.

“Aman, Aman is dead! His knife…” The woman’s voice trailed off as she spoke, “His knife was taken away too.”

"Yes, it was taken by the Holy Maiden!" The short, thin man almost jumped up. "I saw her kill people with a knife!"

An overwhelming sense of terror washed over everyone. They turned their necks to look at the others and, sure enough, saw fear and bewilderment in their eyes as well.

Did the Holy Maiden kill Aman?

In other words, a woman who was powerless... killed the butcher?

(End of this chapter)