Zhan Rong, Fan Lan, and the others were wary of Zhao Ai. Impression was hard to change so even though the female lead softened her att.i.tude towards them and explained her side, their dislike of her remained. However, while it was true it would usually be illogical to let somebody like Zhao Ai, a mean daughter of a rampant criminal, go with them into the city, there were just some things that happened without a reason. But who made her the darling of heaven?
In the end, the girl was not driven out.
Fan Zheng was still infatuated with her. His infatuation towards her rekindled or rather, burned fiercer than before, after hearing her side.
She was not really bad. She only did those things to make the foreigners go away... She did not want them to become victims but because she was powerless and afraid of those people, she could only use that clumsy method.
In other words, he was correct about his initial a.s.sumptions about her when he first saw her! "I should have known. There is no way, my heart would suddenly skip a beat for a horrible girl.," back then, he thought.
The male lead forgot about the egg-breaking experience and thought that Zhao Ai was different from the rest of the villagers. Because of this, he convinced his friends to at least let her go with her until they exited the jungle.
"Everyone, I know the first meeting has been bad. But let"s not be too harsh on her, alright? In the end, it"s still a fact that she helped us," he said in a righteous tone.
Fan Lan looked disbelievingly at her brother. "You already forgot what she did to me yesterday at the temple? I was badly bullied!"
Zhao Ai looked awkward but still said sorry and repeated the reason for her behavior. "My mistake. I ask for your forgiveness, Miss Fan. I just don"t know any other way to force you all away. If I directly warned you foreigners about my father and the rest, I will become a traitor in their eyes. I"m afraid my fate would then be worse than anybody in the village."
"Worse than the mothers and kids there?" Guo Hanying hissed.
Zhao Ai looked down, feeling her cheeks burning red from their stares. She stuttered out, "You lot simply have no idea what they can do…"
"Are you an exception?" Zhan Rong asked coldly. They saw so many women with dead eyes at that place. She wanted to know if she had ever extended a helping hand to them.
Zhao Ai was silent, momentarily intimidated by the calm but frigid glare from the other pretty girl. Before she knew it, her helpless gaze fell on Fan Zheng. Seeing her that embarra.s.sed and without a clue what to do, he felt bad for her.
"Hey, our great Lady Rong. Don"t be like that, okay? Think about this. No matter what she"s the one who gave us that precious opportunity to escape. We at least should repay this favor."
Zhan Rong silently glared at the young man.
She had yet to reply when the eldest chimed in, "... We first need some guarantee that this girl is not coordinating with those people. I can"t be at ease because she"s that person"s daughter."
Because Fan Zheng looked like he would fight them if they keep their stance, the group had no choice but grit their teeth and accept. Zhan Rong became very annoyed though. If a voting session happened, it would be 7 to 1, but for some inexplicable reason, even though the others were against it from the bottom of their hearts, they couldn"t win against Fan Zheng. The girl momentarily wondered if Zhao Ai was a witch, buffing the stupid guy with some eloquence.
"Tie her up, throw away the laser toy," she could only say.
Fan Zheng"s face showed relief. He then nodded. The girl in question smartly cooperated knowing the one in charge did not like her at all.
When ten minutes pa.s.sed, Zhan Rong acted deaf when the girls asked for an extension and forced everyone to stand up. She no longer spoke after.
Thankfully, when they began to move again, they encountered no more human obstruction. Still, the return journey was not that smooth. It had been a long-established rule that whenever the children of heaven were together, troubles would find them.
The poor group experienced being chased by a bear, a two-meter python, a horde of bees… Some of them even stepped on traps made by hunters.
How were they still alive?
It was pure luck from the leads" halos that saved them all, a miracle per se considering they were carrying kids.
But while Fan Zheng and Zhao Ai were successfully brought closer by these strange experiences, the others were plain traumatized. They were exhausted, and tired of eating meat jerkies stolen from the village. The kids had also woken up and began to cry and make a fuss. It took a lot of energy to deal with them. With their bloodshot eyes and cranky heads, they were on the verge of planning to just burn the whole thing down once they exited from it.
Two days pa.s.sed and the dirty miserable bunch finally reached a town.
"Finally!" A cry of joy escape from everyone"s mouth.
"Hahaha, we have escaped from h.e.l.l!"
"We"re back to civilization! Hallelujah!"
The residents were scared by the sight of the beggar-looking students crying and laughing madly.
Hours later, the extra pieces of baggage on them were left in the station for the police to deal with. The latter did not make things difficult for them after seeing their state and their IDs. The contrast of the pictures from their current appearance made it easy for the officers to believe they had just gone through so much difficulty escaping from traffickers and rescuing the little ones.
"We have verified your ident.i.ties but since there are things we still want to discuss with you all, we will contact you soon."
"Thank you for your consideration," said Fan Zheng.
The chief nodded and asked, "Do you need our help to get in touch with your guardians?"
The group shook their heads, raising their phones. "We already contacted them."
"Good."
Two officers were then sent to escort them to the nearest hotel.
Zhao Ai? She had long disappeared before they reached the police station. Not even Fan Zheng was informed of her plans and destination. In fact, he didn"t even know when she left them.
After dropping them off the hotel and helping them with accommodations, the police officers drove away. Everyone then burst into cheers, laughter, and tears. The mixed reactions simply made them look crazy, garnering odd stares from those who saw them on their way to their rooms.
"It"s been h.e.l.l," cried Guo Hanying in a tired voice.
To this, An Ming madly laughed, "Yes. It"s been a heck of an adventure. But look! We survived! We faced ghosts and monsters, but we survived! Hahaha!"
"... I promise to not go anywhere near a mountain in the future. I"ll be a good daughter from now on. I swear."
"Me too."
"Hmm. Let"s go to sleep. We can"t forget to go back later to the station to report. The pictures are not enough. I"m sure they need our testimonies and only let us off after seeing we"re in a bad shape."
"Fine." They nodded. Anyway, they were really tired.
Together with the other girls, Zhan Rong entered the room, groggily washed up, and then burrowed into the comforter.
She was so sleepy that she simply closed her eyes without removing the towel wrapped around her hair. But before sleep took her away, she seemed to have heard a voice speaking directly inside her brain…. A voice she was sure not from her female friends since it sounded so stiff and robotic.
[Name, Zhang Rong... Age, 21… Good day. This is system 025 speaking.]
[Congratulations! You successfully cleared the horror survival game, h.e.l.l-Level Dungeon: Den of Devils!]
[Main reward: Nothing, or rather, no more haunting from the Dungeon BOSS, Li!]
[As the person to first suggest leaving the most dangerous area of the forest, you are declared the MVP of your batch.]
[Congratulations on being the MVP!]
[Unconditionally receive the reward.]
[Host, would you like to bind with it now?]
With barely a thread of awareness remaining in her, Zhan Rong let out a groan of confusion and knitted her brows. Her brain was too muddled to understand half of what had been spoken to her. No. Actually, she didn"t even manage to hear clearly the second sentence because in between bouts of consciousness, she wondered if she was already in dreamland, hearing and experiencing weird stuff.
"Ah, I think I"m still haunted in my sleep. But whatever, I"m off." This was the last thing she thought after tossing once. This happened when the voice was still halfway in its announcement.
The system which was quite impatient with her did not check whether the girl was already asleep or not and simply took her soft "Hmm?" as a yes.
Without even counting down or projecting a progress bar for the so-called binding, it said in a monotonous tone,
"Alright! Thank you for your affirmative response. System has been successfully loaded."
"And congrats again! You"re now bound to the "Ghost Petting System"!"
...
"Alright! Thank you for your affirmative response. System has been successfully loaded."
"And congrats again! You"re now bound to the "Ghost Petting System"!"