Players, Please Board the Train

”It’s not necessarily the Ghostly Shadow that caused the suffocation deaths,” Gan Qing said. ”Didn’t that guy in the rubber suit also use a plastic bag to kill Wan Yunrong?”

”But aren’t they allies?” Chu Yuan couldn’t believe it. ”Zhu Rumin was clearly marked as one of the Kong Siblings’ people.”

”That’s not necessarily true either,” Wu Xiaonan said. ”We only heard Ge Pan say that. Who knows if he was just talking nonsense?”

Chu Yuan instinctively looked at Xu Huo.

Xu Huo’s expression changed slightly. The alliance between Ge Pan, Mao Wei, and Zhu Rumin was definite. A plastic bag could indeed suffocate someone to death, but the Kong Siblings had no reason to kill their own people. Therefore, Zhu Rumin died at the hands of the Ghostly Shadow.

Zhu Rumin had the ”ghost” identity. Logically, she should have been the player who could legitimately kill others according to the game’s rules, but she was killed by the Ghostly Shadow first. This indicated that the Ghostly Shadow simply didn’t care whether a player’s identity was ”human” or ”ghost.” The reason the Ghostly Shadow appeared on players was to incite them to kill each other.

The reason players couldn’t sense when they became ”ghosts” was also based on this logic, because there was no fixed ”ghost.” They were all randomly selected by the Ghostly Shadow.

If it weren’t for Dr. Deng and his group, Zhu Rumin definitely wouldn’t have died yesterday. As for the Ghostly Shadow killing the Kong Siblings’ group, it’s possible they violated the Ghostly Shadow’s taboos.

This laboratory was very clean. Xu Huo had previously speculated that the Ghostly Shadow had a method for cleaning the laboratory. So, damaging the laboratory might draw its attention... He looked at Dr. Deng. ”What were the results for the people the Bolun Family sent previously?”

”Of course, they found nothing,” Dr. Deng said. ”Either they returned empty-handed, or they were completely wiped out. A few survived sporadically, but they never mentioned anything about a Ghostly Shadow.”Xu Huo gave a slight nod. Train ticket players, even if they didn’t die by the Ghostly Shadow’s hand, would be killed off by the Bolun Family’s players. And players who came in searching for potions sometimes became targets of the Ghostly Shadow’s attacks, and sometimes they didn’t.

Of course, there was also the possibility that train ticket players and non-train ticket players wiped each other out, but the probability of that coinciding every time wasn’t high.

How interesting. The Bolun Family wanted to kill all train ticket players to prevent the Deep Blue Laboratory from being leaked, while the Ghostly Shadow, to avoid exposing itself, would also randomly kill all non-train ticket players. The so-called cycle of cause and effect was probably just like this.

”Does the Ghostly Shadow really exist?” Qiu Xiangdong was skeptical. ”If we’re talking about planting their own people among train ticket players, the Bolun Family definitely isn’t doing this for the first time, right? Why hasn’t anyone brought news of the Ghostly Shadow out?”

”That’s simple. They were all killed,” Chu Yuan said casually. ”Even if they weren’t killed, it’s not like they could find this many players to enter every time, right?”

”He’s right,” Xu Huo said. ”Bribing players who come to the Sayir Coast is easier than constantly collecting train tickets for the Deep Blue Laboratory dungeon.”

Train tickets weren’t easy to buy. Even if you bought them, you couldn’t sustain a long-term supply.

And the Ghostly Shadow clearly had intelligence. If it wanted to hide, no one could find it.

So, the problem before them was that the Ghostly Shadow most likely intended to kill everyone in the laboratory.

”The Ghostly Shadow even kills ghosts, so it definitely won’t let us off either,” Chu Yuan couldn’t help but complain. ”This dungeon is too unfriendly to train ticket players. Either way, it wants us dead.”

”Logically, becoming a ghost should be a bit safer,” Qiu Xiangdong said. ”Zhu Rumin’s death was probably an accident. We can’t guarantee the Kong Siblings didn’t do it. I think that Kong Hui is a bit neurotic. Maybe she was angry that Zhu Rumin didn’t handle things well and had someone kill her.”

”The Ghostly Shadow won’t appear during the day. By nightfall, we’ll almost all have turned into ghosts, so the distinction between human and ghost becomes meaningless,” Xu Huo said. ”If we want to escape the threat, there’s another method: clear the dungeon now.”

”But where are we supposed to catch a ghost?” Wu Xiaonan said. ”Didn’t we think of searching for potions precisely because we couldn’t clear the dungeon?”

The game’s second task was more difficult than Xu Huo had imagined, because the Ghostly Shadow didn’t choose fixed targets. It might not even need to attach itself to a person at all. This way, judging who the ”ghost” was based on the players was meaningless, and it was also impossible to control the Ghostly Shadow by controlling the players.

”I’m telling you, the Ghostly Shadow is just a shadow. How could we possibly catch it?” Chu Yuan said. ”It even changes forms. I saw it with my own eyes, one time as a man, another time as a woman.”

Everyone pondered without reaching a conclusion and fell silent for a while. After a moment, Xu Huo stood up and said, ”I’m going to the restroom.”

”I’ll go with you,” Chu Yuan hurriedly followed. ”Don’t let the Ghostly Shadow come out to kill people in broad daylight.”

Xu Huo didn’t refuse his kindness, but he didn’t go to the restroom. Instead, he chose a room next door and signaled for Chu Yuan to keep watch outside the door.

”Do you know how to catch the ghost now?” Chu Yuan asked, surprised and delighted.

”We’ll give it a try,” Xu Huo said, walking into the room alone. The bright lights illuminated every corner of the place clearly.

Directly opposite the room was a huge viewing glass. Opening the curtains would reveal the deep sea. The left side led to a bedroom and restroom, and the right side was a full wall of decorative mirrors.

He observed the room’s ventilation system, then used an item to attach several sheets of super-strength adhesive paper to it. Only then did he draw the Crimson Sword and proceed to slice everything in the room to pieces.

Intact furniture, a few decorations, the paintings and lights hanging on the walls... in the end, he dismantled the place into a complete mess, plunging the room into darkness. Only a very faint light seeped in from outside the viewing glass.

Completely indifferent, he kicked aside a shattered painting at his feet and walked toward the viewing glass with a smile. He used his sword to scratch marks on it, going back and forth repeatedly along the lines.

This type of glass, like the metal reinforcing the laboratory’s outer walls, wasn’t easy to damage. The only thing was the scratching sound was piercing and unpleasant to the ear.

However, Xu Huo didn’t mind. He seemed to be enjoying himself as he performed the repetitive motion.

Right at that moment, a ghostly face suddenly appeared on the glass before him! A pale face streaming with black blood, it twisted grotesquely as it surged toward his head!

*Slap!* Like a shadow, or perhaps a thin sheet of paper, the Ghostly Shadow didn’t cleanly and efficiently envelop Xu Huo’s head as it had with other players. Instead, it awkwardly slapped against a transparent glass cover, circling around it once with nowhere to get a grip.

Xu Huo, who had long prepared an item and was waiting for its arrival, quickly took out ”Invisible Protection.” Using this transparent raincoat as a bag, he draped it over his head, pulling down the Ghostly Shadow that was pressed against him, trying to pounce on his face.

The Ghostly Shadow truly was just a thin layer, something like a painting. However, it was agile enough. After its sneak attack failed, it escaped through the gaps in the raincoat and bolted straight for the door.

However, this room had soundproofing protection, and the door was sealed shut. Seeing it head for the door, Xu Huo spoke up to remind it, ”That way is blocked. Try the ventilation system.”

Before he even finished speaking, the Ghostly Shadow turned and flew toward one of the ventilation openings. But at that moment, he pulled the kite string, and the Ghostly Shadow slammed right into the super-strength adhesive paper.