Chapter 40.2
“Son! My son!” As soon as the middle-aged woman saw them coming back, she rushed towards the little boy and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h the child back. “You traffickers! Give me back my son!”
The little boy let out a scream and ran to Xiao Tangqiu and hid behind him. “You’re not my mother! You’re not my mother! “
The middle-aged woman’s agitated expression twisted at once. She decided to attack Xiao Tangqiu by scratching his face and lunged at him. “It’s all because you people have misguided by son! Give me back my son!”
Xiao Tangqiu grabbed the middle-aged woman’s hand and asked impa.s.sively, “You say he’s your son, what proof do you have?”
The middle-aged woman paused, but soon she growled righteously, “He is my son! What proof do you want? You villains dare rob me of my son?! I’ll kill you!”
“You said he’s your son, then tell me his name, how old he is, and which school he goes to.” Xiao Tangqiu calmly found a way to discredit her. “If you can’t tell us, that means you’re a human trafficker!”
The middle-aged woman immediately stammered and faltered for a long time, apparently unable to speak. But soon, she became angry from embarra.s.sment. “Why should I tell you? He’s my son! Give me back my son! Let go! Let go!”
Xiao Tangqiu coldly watched as the middle-aged woman rolled around, making a huge scene. Although he had restrained her earlier, he didn’t know what to do next. If he couldn’t reason with her, he couldn’t start beating her either, could he?
While he was still in a dilemma, a flying knife suddenly brushed the middle-aged woman’s cheek and was embedded into the floor. She was too scared to move.
Duan Hongzhen grinned and said, “You’re too f.u.c.king noisy. I’ll ask you a question. Is your son’s life more important or yours? Choose one.”
The middle-aged women shivered and didn’t dare to move.
Duan Hongzhen pulled out the flying knife from the floor and casually fiddled with it. “If you choose your son, I’ll kill you. If you choose yourself, I’ll kill your son.”
The middle-aged woman immediately shouted, “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me!”
Duan Hongzhen smiled and put away his knife. Naturally, he wasn’t planning to kill the little boy, but the middle-aged woman’s reaction caught everyone else’s attention. The young man suddenly paled. “You lied to us! You’re a trafficker!”
The middle-aged woman hid in the corner, shaking uncontrollably, but at this moment no one cared about her anymore. Xiao Tangqiu looked at the young man’s body that was covered in blood and frowned slightly. “What happened?”
Hearing Xiao Tangqiu’s question, the young man suddenly exploded, “Don’t you know what happened? This morning I took a few people out to find a way to escape this place, but the result was… was… “
There was a look of fear on his face. G.o.d only knows what he had seen. “They’re all dead… Dead …I’m the only one who escaped… I’m the only one left!”
Xiao Tangqiu’s heart sank at once. All the others who left with this guy died?
Tang Mianmian asked, “What did you see then?”
The young man suddenly shivered with fear, obviously unwilling to recall the scene from earlier. Instead, he accused Xiao Tangqiu and the others, “You must’ve known what was out therek2026; Why didn’t you stop us then! If you had stopped us, so many people wouldn’t have died! I wouldn’t have lost an arm either! So many people died! They were all killed by you! “
It wasn’t until then that Xiao Tangqiu noticed that the young man’s right sleeve was empty and one arm was indeed missing. However, perhaps it was because of timely treatment and the hemostasic agent that he was lucky enough to escape with his life.
Listening to this guy’s indiscriminate accusation, he almost laughed from anger, “Didn’t I stop you then? You were the ones who didn’t believe me!”
The young man burst out, “If you had told us the consequences, we wouldn’t have thrown our lives away like that! You clearly knew what was outside the castle! Why didn’t you tell us?!”
Xiao Tangqiu never expected that even this could be blamed on him, just like a pot that fell out of nowhere and landed accurately on his head. He was speechless but heard Shen Yuan suddenly say, “Seek death and you’ll die. Serves you right.”
The young man was obviously about to explode from indignation, but as soon as his eyes met Shen Yuan’s, he immediately deflated like a balloon that was p.r.i.c.ked by a needle. He froze at once, too afraid to even breathe.
“Okay, okay, everyone calm down. There’s no need to argue at this point. Don’t make things worse.” At this time, the middle-aged man tried to be a mediator. “We can only find a way out if everyone is united. Unity is strength… Where’s the young lady?”
Xiao Tangqiu said faintly, “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” The middle-aged man paused for a moment, then expressed regret. “What a pity, such a beautiful young lady.”
There were a total of five newbies who had left the castle in the morning. Four died, so including Lu Si’er, five players had died in one day.
So far, only 13 players remained.
A number of people had already died today, and 13, this unlucky number, gave Xiao Tangqiu a bad feeling. Everyone in the hall, except those senior old players, had an ugly and gloomy expression on their faces.
They didn’t even have time to grieve for their dead companions. They were all worried about their present situation, and even more concerned about the unpredictability of tomorrow. Of course, they didn’t actually know if they had a tomorrow. Maybe after going to sleep tonight, they would never have the chance to open their eyes again.
Confusion, fear, terror… Their hearts were flooded with all sorts of emotions.
Then, Duan Hongzhen’s casual remark broke the silence. “It’s almost twelve o’clock. Captain, should we go back to sleep? I’m so tired.”
Shen Yuan nodded his head and added, “Let’s all go back to our rooms.”
At his command, Duan Hongzhen and the others immediately went back to their rooms without a second thought. The others also instantly got a rude awakening – it would soon be midnight! They must return to their rooms before then! Otherwise, G.o.d knows what would happen!
With the previous warning, they naturally didn’t dare to do anything out of line again, and immediately rushed back to their rooms.
Xiao Tangqiu followed Shen Yuan and the others, feeling some hesitation, Last night, he and Tang Mianmian’s candle had gone out, which drew the monster to them. He and Tang Mianmian had to stay in Shen Yuan and Duan Hongzhen’s rooms respectively. But what should they do for tonight? Should they continue to be shameless and refuse to leave?
After returning to the second floor, he ran to check the candle at their door. However, the candle was still extinguished and hadn’t been rekindled. Suddenly, there was a scream in front of him. “The candle at our door went out!”
Xiao Tangqiu looked up. It turned out to be the young man with a missing arm. He stood at the door of his room with a face full of panic, and the candle in front of him was extinguished.
Another candle had gone out!
The young man cried incredulously, “How is this possible? It was still burning when we left the room this morning! Why did it go out now? Did the wind extinguish it? This is impossible!” Today’s bitter experience made him frightened. Although nothing had happened yet, he had already turned pale with fear and was short of breath.
The middle-aged man shared a room with him, and right now, only the two of them remained. After hearing what the young man said, he immediately cried out in disbelief, “How is that possible? How did the candle go out?”
He immediately looked at Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian’s candle, seeming to suspect that they had secretly switched them. However, the candle at their door remained extinguished.
“Calm down first.” Duan Hongzhen suddenly said with a smile. “Try to rekindle it with a lighter.”
Xiao Tangqiu couldn’t help but look at Duan Hongzhen. Although he didn’t know Duan Hongzhen very well, this guy was obviously not the kind of person who was willing to help others or cared about the newbies. Duan Hongzhen casually gave him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
The middle-aged man took out his lighter and started to light the candle with trembling hands. However, no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t light it.
The young man suddenly fell into despair. “How did this happen? Why doesn’t it light up? Does anyone have matches? Try it lighting it with a match!”
The lighter didn’t work, so even if they tried using a match, it wouldn’t light up either. But these two men were too anxious to care about anything. They groped around their pockets then looked to the others for some matches. However, few people carried matches with them these days. After asking everyone, they still hadn’t found a match.
The two men turned pale and trembled like a leaf. The middle-aged man asked Duan Hongzhen with that last bit of hope, “Is there any other way?”
Duan Hongzhen smiled casually at him. “How should I know?”
Seeing the middle-aged man get more and more fearful, Duan Hongzhen smiled and added, “Maybe it can only be lit by the fire from this old castle. You can try using the other candles.”
The middle-aged men suddenly caught a glimpse of hope again. He quickly picked up the candle at their door, went to the other candles and tried to light his own but only met with failure.
“It doesn’t work! It still didn’t light up! What should we do? What should we do?!”
Duan Hongzhen’s lips curved, revealing a nasty smile. “Maybe the fire is too small. You can try using firewood from the kitchen.”
“Kitchen? Yes! There’s the kitchen! There must be fire in the kitchen!” The middle-aged man hesitated, “But the kitchen is on the first floor, and it’ll be midnight soon…”
“We still have ten minutes!” The young man looked at the time on his cellphone with his only hand and immediately cried out, “Ten minutes should be enough!”
“Alright then! Let’s go to the kitchen!” The middle-aged man grit his teeth and finally decided, rushing downstairs with the young man at once.
Duan Hongzhen casually watched the two men go downstairs. Then, he turned to Shen Yuan and said, “It seems that once these candles are extinguished, there’s no way to light them again.”
Shen Yuan said impa.s.sively, “That’s not a surprise.”
“Yeah, that’s within our expectations.” Duan Hongzhen waved his hands. “If the candles really went out one by one, would we all have to squeeze into a room on the last day?”
Tang Mianmian finally responded, “What should Qiuqiu and I do about tonight?”
Duan Hongzhen looked at him with a smile that could hardly be described as a smile. “There’s no other way. You can only wait for death.”
Tang Mianmian glared at Duan Hongzhen one eye, but he soon turned away. If you weren’t powerful enough as others, you had no choice but to lower yourself.
Xiao Tangqiu was also uneasy, but he could only wait for Shen Yuan’s decision. If Shen Yuan told them go back to their room, then, they could only steady themselves to return to that dangerous room.