CH 5

005 – Lab Rat(s)

※·※「someone said, we live and die together. 」

Before the torch arrived, Gentleman Rosa had already shifted in front of Su Er, gripping his shoulders harshly and shaking them. “Don’t you know what you are doing?”

All these years as a host and he’d never seen someone with so many ideas!

Before this, the host always looked like he was watching a good show. Suddenly seeing him this flustered, Su Er couldn’t quite refrain quirking the corner of his lips up, though regained control of his facial expression very quickly. “I shouldn’t have broken the rules.”

It’s only in a newbie round with its low difficulty level that he’d dare do experiments like this. If he successfully survived this, he’d never do something this dangerous again.

Xuanyuan Aoyu seemed to understand something then, and looked in his direction with gratitude — the other had taken a risk for him.

Su Er didn’t say too much. He wasn’t a busybody; in fact, there’s a cold indifference about him that was bone-deep. It was just that to not appear too inhumane usually, he tended to operate under the normal set of moral rules on for the daily basis.

If, during their interactions, Xuanyuan Aoyu had shown any inclination towards finding someone to die in his place, or if he had ignored Su Er’s request in the end and, thinking of having everyone die together, had given up on telling the child a bedtime story, Su Er definitely could bring himself to watch the other find his own death.

“I found a torch!” Li Li jogged over, turned it on and handed it to him.

A beam of light illuminated the night. Having spent the first night frightened and caught up with struggling to survive, few actually paid attention to the world outside. As the small area outside became clearer, a thought surfaced in everyone’s mind in unison: fortunately, I didn’t look yesterday.

In the empty void, the child had stopped pretending to be asleep. His body resembled foam that was being squashed squashed — every now and again, a part of his arm would dent in multiple coin-like shapes. Even with the window between them they could imagine the sound of bones shattering. His ability to recover was pretty strong though, and very soon his body returned to normal and he instead opened his mouth at the air, making a motion of chewing.

Xuanyuan Aoyu’s goosebumps rose. Although that moment of desperation had inspired in him an urge to dash out of the door, it was only after seeing this with his own eyes that he understood how terrifying that was.

Even being bitten to death by the wolf might be better than being compressed until his organs exploded.

Zhang He squinted. “He seems to be shifting bit by bit.”

Not more than a few centimetres each time, but he was definitely moving towards the door.

Su Er turned off the torch. “We don’t have much time left.”

They couldn’t be outside of their rooms after midnight, leaving them with less than three hours.

After saying this he looked towards Xuanyuan Aoyu. “Even if he’s locked outside, it doesn’t mean that the physical realisations of the parts of the horror story wouldn’t appear.”

Xuanyuan Aoyu had calmed down quite a lot and nodded. “I know.”

This appeared to be the best case scenario. At least there was some hope that could be seen.

After scattering to search for clues again, Su Er suddenly felt cold. He turned around and saw the Gentleman Rosa staring at him unblinkingly, pupils unmoving.

Killing intent… this time he really, truly felt the other’s killing intent.

Su Er pointed outside the door. “That child is not related to you at all.”

A petal appeared ready to fall off; the Gentleman Rosa’s expression turned uglier. “If something happens to him, this whole dungeon world would collapse.”

Su Er asked, “Will I die?”

“Obviously.”

Su Er: “Will you die?”

Gentleman Rosa: “What inanity.”

Meaning that if a small world collapsed, any lifeform within it needn’t even think about escaping.

Su Er walked up and hugged the air in front of the other. “Then we have the relationship of those who will live and die together.”

“…”

He crooked a finger. “Love you ~”

“…”

He’s so young, why wasn’t he trying to be a human? [1]

At the moment, there was no opportunity to kill him. Holding onto the thought that if he didn’t see it, his thoughts wouldn’t be cluttered with it, Gentleman Rosa found a dark corner upstairs to stand in.

Su Er didn’t follow him upstairs, instead sitting down on the sofa to go through the booklet again. The chapter about the Chimimoryo was very clear about the way to deal with them: once one’s force level exceeds 150, there was a certain amount of damage that could be dealt. In other words, if one was strong enough, one could kill even the Boss.

This contradicted what the Host had just said.

Su Er lowered his eyelids. Gentleman Rosa had no reason to lie, and the booklet seemed to be pretty reasonable too. After all, if they could not kill the monsters, then this was a game over.

He got up and walked over to the child’s bed. The blood splatter was still visible on the blankets, reminding him of what had happened earlier that day… it’s understandable for ghosts to eat humans, but what’s up with eating themselves?

“Look at this.” Zhang He came over with a few photographs. “Under the idol.”

Su Er took a long look at him. Both of them were humans, but when the other lifted the idol up to retrieve the photos, nothing happened. In contrast, he had only just randomly glanced at a family portrait in the bedroom and almost was done for.

Normally when taking photos, people would subconsciously shift closer to each other to show how close they were. In this photo, everyone sat properly and primly, their smiles all a tug on the corner of their lips, no one even revealing their teeth.

“They must all be part of the cult.” Zhang He looked disgusted. “There seems to be quite a number of them.”

Su Er suddenly raised his head and asked the Gentleman Rosa upstairs, “Can multiple people stay in the same room at night?”

Gentleman Rosa said impatiently, “The only rule is that one cannot go out after midnight.”

His reply agreed with what the booklet said. The host would explain the rules clearly, and in this regard they could be believed.

Zhang He said, “We’re staying together?”

The first night everyone had thought that Su Er would run into disaster, so no one questioned anything.

Su Er nodded. “Xuanyuan Aoyu’s staying across from you. At night I’ll stay with you and see what’s going to happen.”

Coincidentally, Xuanyuan Aoyu had just exited the washroom. He spread his arms a little helplessly. “You really do like carrying out experiments.”

Outside the window, the child was still struggling to nudge bit by bit towards the main door. Initially, Xuanyuan Aoyu was fearful, but now, upon seeing this scene, he suddenly felt that the other was just like him: a lab rat in someone’s eyes.

Once he thought about it that way, the monster didn’t appear that scary anymore.

“No one has any idea what’s going to happen at night.” Su Er was very clear. “We can try our best for things we might be able to help with, but if it’s too troublesome then good luck.”

Xuanyuan Aoyu nodded. The other’s already very friendly and kind, after all last night no one had thought about helping Su Er out.

He went to the kitchen and got a rusty vegetable knife. Su Er took a fruit knife, and found a pickaxe from the cabinets.

After entering the room, he began ‘taking care’ of the door.

Zhang He was confused. “What are you doing?”

“Creating a hole.” Su Er asked, “Or are we supposed to lie down and observe through the slit?”

Zhang He asked, “What if the thing outside noticed it?”

Su Er said, “For every debt there is a debtor — the person it wants to find tonight is Xuanyuan Aoyu.”

The Xuanyuan Aoyu opposite who had yet to enter his room felt like something had poked him in his heart, but he couldn’t find anything to say to refute that.

To observe the child’s latest movements, Su Er drew the curtains open. The moonlight streaming in happened to light the patch in front of the bed. It had no temperature, but Zhang He felt like his body was being barbecued, so he got up and moved to a different location.

It was a few minutes to midnight. Zhang He rubbed his hands together a little nervously and glimpsed Su Er huddling near the door, occasionally making time to glance at the booklet to see if he had missed anything.

“…” Zhang He asked, “You’re not scared?”

Su Er opened his mouth and spouted some made-up nonsense on the spot: “Since young I’ve been attractive to those dirty things. I was young then, and stupid enough to tell the people around me. Everyone thought I was a weirdo, and eventually I got used to it.”

After picturing that, Zhang He looked pitying. “That’s pretty awful.”

After midnight, the walkway remained very quiet. Su Er stood there for about half an hour and was a little tired when he returned to the bed to rest.

Zhang He exhaled wetly. “It should be fine now.”

Last night, the sound of a snake slithering could be heard the moment midnight passed.

Su Er frowned and gave voice to something he had found confusing. “A mass suicide had happened in this villa before, but until now I’ve only seen the ghost of the female owner of this villa — where did the rest of the ghosts go?”

Zhang He first paused for a second, then almost jumped up from the bed. “Mass suicide? The female owner’s ghost?”

When was all of that!

Su Er dug the photograph out from his pocket. It was wrapped in thick layers of paper and was unrecognisable.

Zhang He was about to pick it up and take a closer look when Su Er said, “I’ve flushed it in the toilet multiple times.”

“…” Zhang He sulkily retrieved his hand.

“Turn around first.” Su Er prepared to take off the wrapping. “This photograph is able to bewitch people.”

Zhang He hurriedly turned around.

Su Er said darkly, “You should be more wary, what if I suddenly stab you in the back?”

“…” Zhang He felt the cold air assaulting his back and, quaking, said, “Don’t be bewitched by it.”

“Year three in high school, doing the past five years worth of university entrance exam papers and the past three years worth of simulated entrance exam papers every single day.” Su Er emphasised, “My willpower is strong.”

“…”

The woman in the photograph had long since been angered to the point she’d lost her temper and was staring forward numbly.

“Where did those that committed mass suicide with you go?”

“No idea.” The woman said, “When I regained my consciousness again, I was already trapped here.” Her tone turned frightened. “Right, that devil that had occupied my child’s body — it had tried to consume me before.”

“Then?”

The woman said, “It suddenly became very weak again, I’m not sure about the details.”

The sharp voice entered his ears and, thinking about the image of Su Er conversing with the ghost, Zhang He shivered. “Can I turn around now?”

To prevent the photograph from acting up and enticing the other to attack, Su Er wrapped it up properly and put it back into his pocket before slowly saying, “Yeah.”

Zhang He looked at him with a complicated expression. “Now I believe that you really are attractive to those things.”

Su Er wanted this effect.

By two, nothing had happened; to save energy, Zhang He laid down on the bed. He tossed around a few times. “What if I can’t sleep?”

Su Er began humming. “Go to sleep, my dear treasure…”

His voice dissipated in the room.

Zhang He hugged the blankets tighter. “… stop singing.”

He’s not sure if it was just in his head, but he felt like he could hear the thing outside getting its bones crushed and then mending them again. He couldn’t help asking softly, “Is the windows closed?”

Su Er was still studying the photos Zhang He had found and didn’t even look up when he replied, “Yeah.”

“Ay, I still can’t sleep.” Zhang He was like a squirming maggot, the sound of his rustling duvets headache-inducingly noisy.

Su Er, “If you don’t sleep, the Big Bad Wolf would come and eat you.”

“…” Could they not have fun together anymore?

the author has something to say:

Ghost Child: Open the door, if you’re so capable you can open the door for me!

Su Er looked towards Gentleman Rosa: Tell this brat about what happens to those who open the door without thought at night.

Gentleman Rosa:……

=

t/l: cin

notes:

[1] implying, why was he trying so hard to become a ghost?