Global Collapse

Chapter 539 Intermittent Resurrection in My Hands

"Brother Chu!" the fat man exclaimed excitedly, "The announcement is out!"

His voice attracted the attention of Xiao Hong, who was holding a green dog plush toy by the window. Upon hearing this, Xiao Hong pressed her melancholy face against the glass, her gaze sweeping across the dimly lit street outside.

Chu Changge also saw it. He stared at the "died in the line of duty" on the announcement for a while before shifting his gaze downwards to the list of those receiving compensation.

There are only two names: Gu Mian and Ke Ke.

The fat man hesitated before asking, "So... in this amnesia scenario, only the doctor and Miss Coco survived?"

When Gu Mian and Keke returned to the real world, they found that it was already dark.

The sales clerk behind the glass counter glanced up at the two of them listlessly, then quickly lowered her head again, as if afraid of attracting Gu Mian's attention.

There was no one at the ticket booth. It was the first day that the death protection mechanism was off, and not many people were rushing to enter the dungeon.

Coco moved her foot. She had sprained it in the dungeon before, and it would throb with pain whenever she moved it. But now she could move it without feeling anything. All the injuries she had sustained in the dungeon would be healed after returning to the real world.

Only death is irreversible.

In fact, she almost died; Zhao Shuang caught her just as she ran out of the cave.

But the other party clearly did not expect that Gu Mian was also at the cave entrance.

Coco recalled the last thing she saw before being teleported out of the instance—

Gu Mian grabbed her hair and lifted the female ghost, whose face was contorted and whose expression was terrifying, like a rabbit. She even said a line that ghosts often say.

Finally, he did what those psychopaths in horror movies often do.

He took a saw and cut the woman in half at the waist.

Just like Cang Yue being cut in half at the waist.

In that instant, Coco felt not only the joy of escaping death, but also fear.

She feared Gu Mian at that moment, feared the indifference, terror, and madness that erupted from him.

Coco looked up at the person to the side as she thought about it.

Gu Mian was still as kind and approachable as ever, looking down at him and asking, "What's wrong?"

“It’s okay,” Coco immediately shook her head. “It’s late now, let’s go back.”

The two then left the ticket booth with a friendly farewell from the ticket seller.

The weather at the end of June wasn't too hot yet. When I stepped outside, a breeze carrying the scent of leaves blew in. The grass by the roadside, which hadn't been cleared for a long time, had grown to my ankles and was swaying in the wind.

The sun had completely set, leaving only its afterglow on the earth, casting long shadows of the two people.

There was no one on the road, and the two of them slowly wandered down the street, one in front of the other.

Coco followed behind Gu Mian, looking up at his back.

"Gu Mian." Gu Mian, who was in front, suddenly heard Keke calling her from behind.

"What's wrong?" He turned around.

Coco looked at Gu Mian and suddenly asked a strange question: "Have you ever liked anyone? Or loved anyone, such as your parents, brothers, or lovers?"

This touches on Gu Mian's area of ​​blind spot.

He thought about it carefully for a while and realized that he didn't have any of the things Coco mentioned.

Gu Mian answered truthfully, "That's probably not the case. Why?"

"It's nothing," Coco said, pulling her coat tighter around herself and continuing to walk forward into the breeze. "I was just asking."

In the final moments of her amnesia, what she saw was Gu Mian's expression and eyes, which resembled those of a heartless person, giving her a great sense of threat.

She couldn't help but begin to doubt whether the person in front of her had any human emotions.

But that was only for that moment.

After the instance collapsed, when I saw Gu Mian again, he was the same as usual, speaking very gently and giving me a sense of security.

“Speaking of which,” Gu Mian, who was walking ahead, asked, “I just saw the announcement and found that the other people are dead.”

They did not complete the "survive for 36 hours" mission in this instance.

It was because Gu Mian accidentally cut Zhao Shuang in two that the instance could not continue, which is why the remaining players were kicked out.

The compensation list only included their two names; the fate of the others was self-evident.

Coco nodded: "Yes, I was suddenly pulled into that tunnel and saw the bodies of Cang Yue and Xia Jianren... They both died tragically."

"When Zhao Shuang regained her memory, the two of them were closest to each other, so they were naturally the first to be affected."

Coco continued, "After we went in, I found that Wang Chuan had also been pulled in by the ghost. We both tried to escape, but we chose the wrong direction at first. We ran towards the wide end, but we didn't expect that it was a dead end."
"At the very end was a wall, and beneath the wall were corpses that had begun to decompose, including Zhao Shuang. When I ran there and looked back, I saw her standing behind me. Wang Chuan was nowhere to be seen. I knew he was dead."

Gu Mian asked, "How did you escape?" Being cornered by a ghost seemed like a sure way to die.

Coco replied, "Actually, I received a special item during the college entrance exam event. It's called 'Money Makes the World Go Round'."

Gu Mian touched her chin. This was a very reasonable and special item.

"When you use that thing, your game currency will be instantly reduced to zero. This money will cause nearby spirits to involuntarily grind the millstone, and the time spent grinding the millstone is proportional to the game currency you spend."

Gu Mian fell into deep thought.

This is a very good thing.

If he saves up enough money later, he might be able to use this special item to help the ghost clear a dungeon in a short time.

Seemingly sensing Gu Mian's thoughts, Coco glanced at him and said, "You probably don't need this kind of thing."

This special item is extremely rare and can hold back ghosts.

Of course, the cost is also high.

Having all your in-game currency gone means it will be even harder to survive in the real world, and a few hundred in-game currency can only hold off the ghost for a few dozen seconds.

For the average player, it would take several dungeons to accumulate enough in-game currency.

Coco would never use this thing unless absolutely necessary.

She continued, "At that time, I was driven to the brink of despair and had no choice but to take this out, which bought me a little time to turn around and run out of the tunnel... I even saw Wang Chuan's body along the way."

In fact, she had almost no hope of surviving at the time.

She knew that even if she ran out of the tunnel, into the sunlight, and into the woods, she still couldn't outrun the ghost.

But her survival instinct made her run desperately, which led her to Gu Mian.

Coco looked at Gu Mian while thinking, "Were you just arriving at the cave entrance?"

“Indeed,” Gu Mian said as she walked forward, “After you disappeared, I continued in the direction Cang Yue and Zhao Shuang left. I followed a ditch for a while and then I saw a conspicuous hole and half a body.”

It is Cang Yue's lower body.

Half of her body was hastily thrown away by Xia Jianren at the entrance of the cave.

"Actually, when you ran out, I was at the cave entrance thinking about something..."

"What's the problem?" Coco asked Gu Mian.

Gu Mian patted her guitar bag: "This bag is a bit big. I saw that the opening was very narrow, and I was just thinking about how to get it in. I didn't expect that you would rush out while I was still thinking about it."

Of course, there's also Zhao Shuang, who was brought out by Coco.

Now Gu Mian no longer needs to worry about how to transport the guitar bag in; she can simply solve the dungeon problem with one strike.

Coco remained silent. The contrast between her frantically fleeing for her life and Gu Mian's focus on how to transport the guitar bag into the cave was striking, and her expression turned strange.

Coco regained her composure: "Regarding the amnesia scenario, combined with the clues we found before, I guess Zhao Shuang probably already knew that her boyfriend was having an affair with Jiang Mei, and that many people knew about it behind her back."

The chat history they saw on Xia Jianren's phone at the beginning should have been about this matter.

“Then, still harboring resentment, she started arguing with others on the bus. I guess in her extreme anger she might have tried to grab the steering wheel,” Coco continued. “As a result, the bus plunged into the mountain, killing most of the people on board instantly, including Zhao Shuang.”
"But Zhao Shuang's resentment was far from over. She turned into a vengeful ghost and chased after the other survivors. In the end, she hid her own body together with the survivors, then returned to the mountainside and lost her memory."

The instance has set a huge trap, waiting for players to fall into it.

“I don’t think those dozens of people who died long ago had any good intentions towards us either. The ghost brought Wang Chuan to Jiang Mei’s room and let him discover an important clue that could awaken Zhao Shuang’s memory. I guess that those people who died long ago not only harbored resentment towards Zhao Shuang, but also wanted to kill us. However, they may have been restricted by something and could not harm the players.” Coco pondered.

Gu Mian knew that this was a limitation imposed on the copy by Earth.

When the day comes that the ghosts in the dungeon can kill people at will without any restrictions, it will surely mean that Earth has lost this battle against the lower-dimensional world.

The two had already reached the hotel building when they started talking.

Because the fat man kept protesting that the name of the inn was unlucky, Liu Ruyan removed the wooden signboard of "Wang Sheng Inn".

Later, the fat man chopped up the signboard, saying he was keeping it for starting a fire in the winter.

The first person to see Gu Mian was Xiao Hong, who was pressed against the glass.

Gu Mian was still walking forward when she heard a "bang" from above.

Looking up, I saw Xiao Hong smash open the window and climb out of the house with her hair disheveled. She climbed vertically down the outer wall of the building, but slipped and fell to the ground when she reached the second floor.

He landed face-first.

Xiao Hong didn't care about that. She quickly pulled her face off the ground, then excitedly rushed to Gu Mian and clung to him.

It even poked its head out, trying to nibble at Gu Mian's head.

Hello everyone, I'm dealing with intermittent zombie-like behavior.

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(End of this chapter)