NOVEL NEXT Chapter 41
“????”
Qian Lai blinked twice, his intoxicated eyes showing deep confusion: “Wait, don’t you stay in the solitary room for a day? You two… burp!”
The inappropriate question was interrupted by a wine burp. Qian Lai took a moment to react and simply asked: “Where is the key?”
“Outside of… the sanatorium.”
“???” Qian Lai frowned, the confusion in his eyes getting deeper and deeper: “We can’t get out if we can’t find the key. Now you’re saying it’s outside?”
His vision was blurred. Qian Lai cheered up and shook his head. When his vision became clearer again, Yu Qing had already displayed his system panel in front of him.
The young man bent down, raised his slender knuckles, and explained to the clear information listed above: “This dungeon is essentially Xu Han’s dream. We are in his dream now. Look here…”
Yu Qing pointed to Xu Tang’s diary: “It says here that my father and mother had a fight. My father said that if I lose weight again, my mother will become a handful of bones. The little nurse at the front desk really turn into a skeleton at night. Just ‘a handful of bones’.”
Sitting upright for a moment, Qian Lai became a little more serious.
Yu Qing continued, “Here, Xu Tang asked, when dad gets rich, can he buy the entire sanatorium? The dream includes the entire sanatorium.”
“And the strange ‘old lady who sprays water’ we saw is actually a story Xu Han told Xu Tang. This story exists in his memory and is shown in the form of a dream.”
Turning the page of system information, Yu Qing continued: “According to the diary we found on the ninth floor, the dean was performing a mysterious angel sacrificial ceremony. These people all experienced inhuman torture before being turned into animals.”
“They dare not speak loudly because if they do, they will be whipped.”
“Xu Han has also experienced this, so,” Yu Qing looked at Qian Lai, “when you first screamed loudly in the corridor, a whip would come out of the wall and hit you.”
“It proves that in Xu Han’s heart, this kind of whip that beats people is everywhere, so he got such thing in the dream.”
Qian Lai understood and sat up straighter.
In order to wake himself up, he even raised his hand and pinched his eyebrows twice: “You mean, Xu Han has also been tamed in this way?”
“Yes.”
“But…” Qian Lai questioned, “he was not made into an animal.”
“Xu Han is the priest,” Yu Qing said. “Based on the arrangement of the twelve zodiac signs under the angel statue outside, Xu Han is the priest of this sacrificial ceremony.”
“So, he still maintains his human form.”
Qian Lai looked deeply, thought for a while, and then motioned for the other party to continue.
Yu Qing touched the system again and turned down a page: “Sacrifice must be tamed.”
“First they will be taken to the cafeteria to eat human flesh. After eating, the lights will be turned off, and the cafeteria granny will change clothes and pretend to be ghosts to scare them.”
“If I guess correctly…”
Yu Qing turned to look at the four female ghosts sitting in a row on one side and asked, “When the old lady in the cafeteria scared you, she was wearing long black hair and a red dress.”
It seemed that his words were too sharp, and the horrible memories of the female ghosts were evoked. They froze and shuddered subconsciously.
After a while, they all nodded three times.
“That’s right!” The corners of Yu Qing’s lips raised: “Xu Han has also been scared like this. In Xu Han’s heart, what is really scary is the clothes, not the old lady in the cafeteria herself.”
“That’s why, in the dream, that suit of clothes seems to be alive, standing behind the window and bringing us food!”
Qian Lai lowered his eyes, thought for a long time, and then questioned: “What if it’s his memory? The memory after being… tortured?”
“Not a memory!”
Yu Qing insisted, “It was a dream!”
“Because when I was looking for information on the ninth floor, I hit Tangtang and made her cry. The whole ninth floor started to tremble.”
“I tried to stand up by holding on to the wall, and then the wall I had been holding on to had shattered.”
“I saw a dark purple light shining in the endless abyss.”
Lifting his eyes, Qian Lai’s expression suddenly dimmed, as if he had finally believed his reasoning.
Yu Qing continued, “Also, when I came back to take a bath just now, Xu Han wanted to kill me in the bathtub. I saw the same dark purple light at the bottom of the bathtub where his hand stretched out.”
Qian Lai, born into a family that practiced metaphysics for generations, knew better than anyone that people’s dreams had colors——
Everyone’s dreams were wrapped in a layer of color that protected them.
Sweet dreams were wrapped in warm tones, and the most beautiful dreams appeared red; nightmares were wrapped in cold tones, and the worst dreams appeared pitch black.
These warm or cold colors wrapped the dream and reflected the dream situation. Among them, there was a “spiritual core” that could control the entire dream.
The “spiritual core” was generally the size of a table tennis ball, exuded white light, and represented the consciousness of the dream owner.
It was the key to unlocking dreams!
“So…” Qian Lai said, “We had to break the current environment and find the spiritual core outside the dream.”
“The spiritual core was the control center of the entire dream, and the key was probably inside it!”
After thinking about this, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he looked at Yu Qing excitedly: “This dream only included the nursing home, so let’s smash the wall of the nursing home and walk outside the dream.”
“If we find the spiritual core, we can find the key and leave the dungeon.”
Yu Qing hesitated—that was what he had thought at first.
If it was a dream, it stood to reason that the key should be hidden in the spiritual core.
‘Find the key and you could clear the instance.’
‘In this kind of horror survival dungeon, the further you went, the more dangerous things you experienced would be.’
It was as if, just then, Yu Qing felt something following him quickly and slowly, making his heart tremble and his whole body feel cold.
But…that wasn’t right!
He always felt that something was wrong, but for a moment, he couldn’t put his finger on it.
According to Xu Tang’s diary, Xu Han should have been a very good person. He was a good husband and a good father. No matter how dangerous his nightmare was, it was impossible for him to rise to a high-risk dungeon like level five.
He couldn’t figure it out…
So, the young man took a breath and said, “For now…that’s all.”
“Then…” Qian Lai stood up: “Let’s find a place first and smash the wall!”
Taking advantage of the darkness, Master Qian bought a big hammer. He was supported by a few female ghosts and drunkenly found a place on the mezzanine of the third floor where the wall was relatively weak.
‘Break through the wall, break through the dream, and you could see the spiritual core!’
Zhizhizhi——
The old lady in the cafeteria had long since died, but the lights on the third floor still kept the habit of flickering on and off.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
The sound of heavy hammers breaking through the wall came one after another, which was a bit harsh, covering up the cold and sticky sounds behind him.
In the dark night, the red suit with black hair floated around, wandering in front of and behind everyone.
The empty head, not attached to anyone’s face, seemed to have inherited the will of the old lady in the cafeteria and continued to scare people.
But…
Beside Yu Qing and Qian Lai, there were dozens of female ghosts dressed in white clothes or hospital gowns. They had been frightened by these clothes when they were alive, and now their resentment gathered, almost tearing the thing into pieces.
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Qian Lai bought sobriety medicine and hit the wall with a hammer again and again, cracking it a little, then cracking it a little more, getting closer and closer to the hope of escape.
But at the same time, Yu Qing felt the coolness behind him becoming more and more obvious.
The sticky voice was no longer far away from him; this time, it was actually close to his ears…
Right on the back of his neck!
Holding his hands tightly, Yu Qing moved forward quietly. It was useless. He couldn’t get rid of it…
So, he walked to the base of the wall, tried to summon the golden needle, and slowly, slowly turned his head.
But unexpectedly: “Ahhhhhhh–”
The ferocious screams of the female ghosts pierced the eardrums. The moment Yu Qing turned around, what he saw in his sight was…!!!