Players, Please Board the Train

Bai Wenxian’s corpse was quickly swallowed by the wax. After it disappeared from sight, the kite string began to move.

The wax on the walls wasn’t melting very quickly, but the air in the room was starting to turn foul. A wave of heat radiated from all directions, and both Xu Huo and Xie Ling put on their protective suits.

The kite string wasn’t very practical because the corpse quickly passed through the first room. Xu Huo opened holes in the wall, and as time passed, the string in his hand grew shorter and shorter.

”Is the Wax Figure Hall really this big on the outside?” Xie Ling asked in surprise. ”We measured the thickness difference between the inner and outer walls when we came in. It shouldn’t be this deep.”

The Wax Figure Hall was inside Museum City. A single dungeon shouldn’t have two separate venues, which meant this Wax Figure Hall was most likely a large-scale item. That was why the Similarity Seeker couldn’t identify other items.

So the question was, how were they supposed to get out when they were trapped inside an item?

As Xu Huo walked, he used ”Narrow Escape” to check the odds. The Wax Figure Hall had the same low probability as everywhere else, including the Horror Story Room.

The kite string finally stopped at the floor of the funeral hall. After Xie Ling confirmed that the item was underground, Xu Huo used his Crimson Sword to cut open the floor and dig deep downward.

As expected, beneath the floor and the path the string had traveled, there was not only dirt but also a thick layer of wax. Xu Huo poured the Combustion Potion he had just replenished over it and set it on fire.

The temperature in the room climbed higher and higher. Xie Ling simply took out her tools and started shoveling the melted wax away. ”Waiting for it to burn dry could take forever. It’s so hot in here, and I’m guessing the ventilation openings are already blocked. I don’t want to suffocate to death.”Xu Huo glanced at her. ”Don’t worry. Before that happens, you’ll probably have already been turned into a wax figure...”

Before he could finish, he swung his sword behind him. ”Using that trick again!”

The wax figure that had silently appeared behind him had the appearance of a middle-aged man. Xu Huo’s single strike chopped off its head, and the body flew backward as well. But it hadn’t lost its ability to move. The wax on its neck melted slightly, and then it actually picked up its own head and reattached it!

”What the hell! It’s definitely getting stronger now that night has fallen!” Xie Ling shoveled even faster.

”Watch your back.” Xu Huo fired a shot at her direction, blasting a hole through the head of a wax figure that was cautiously creeping up on her.

”Die!” Xie Ling spun around and saw that behind her stood two small wax figures stacked on top of each other. Furious, she grabbed her shovel and started beating them to death. ”How dare you scare me!”

The two wax figures were smashed and melted, but the molten wax stuck to Xie Ling’s shoes. Just as she was pulling her feet free, several wax figures suddenly sat up from the coffins and lunged at her to embrace her!

Xu Huo’s situation was similar. More and more wax figures were appearing. If they were cut, they reattached themselves. If they were shattered, they melted into liquid wax.

After burning off a wax figure’s head, he let out a cold laugh. ”Still trying to maintain a human shape. Aren’t you wax products being too rigid in your form?”

At that moment, the wax layer on the floor melted into a large hole, revealing several wax-sealed human heads. Among them, Bai Wenxian’s face was fully exposed. Wax had been poured into his ears and nose, and it was now dripping out. The others didn’t look any better. Several of their skulls had been crushed, mixed together with fragments of metal and glass.

It was clear that these players had tried their best to protect themselves before being sealed in wax. Unfortunately, they hadn’t anticipated that the Wax Figure Hall was so determined to create reasonably proportioned wax figures that it had crushed their heads to fit the mold.

Sensing movement from a wax figure nearby, Xu Huo struck at its shoulder. The figure peeled away from the wax layer, and then the wax shell on its head cracked open. Long Aotian jumped out from a cylindrical item that had been squeezed out of shape, threw his head back, and laughed. ”I knew it! Your boy wasn’t going to die that easily!”

Xie Ling rolled her eyes. ”First, take a look at the situation!”

Long Aotian barely dodged a wax figure that was trying to ”embrace” him. After looking around, he said, ”How the hell did things get this messed up!”

Xu Huo pulled the kite string back. ”Head to the Horror Room.”

”Wait! Xu Ruosi is right next to me!” Long Aotian jumped into the underground wax layer where the flames had already died out and knocked on the spot where he had emerged. ”Xu Ruosi! If you’re still alive, give me a sign, and I’ll dig you out!”

”Thump!” A faint knocking sound came from somewhere. Long Aotian grinned, conjured a dagger, and slashed from top to bottom. Peeling away the outer wax shell revealed a layer of glass beneath.

Once the glass disappeared, Xu Ruosi stumbled out on her hands and knees, gasping for air.

”Any later, and you’d probably have suffocated,” Long Aotian said with a laugh. ”Don’t thank me. Thank them instead.”

”Stop dawdling. Let’s go!” Xie Ling shouted.

The wax on the floor of this room was already three inches thick!

Xu Ruosi glanced at Bai Wenxian’s corpse, then pulled out a sawtooth-shaped item and slashed. The wax layer, along with the entire room’s floor, was split open with a gash. From the edge of the crack, they could see that beneath this room, the entire space was filled with standing corpses. Some were rotting, while others were still fairly well preserved.

The wax on the walls was melting faster. After seeing what was inside the wax layer, the group passed through the funeral parlor one by one and headed toward the lounge in front.

The area in front of the Horror Room had the least amount of wax. Xu Huo and Xie Ling charged in without hesitation. Xu Ruosi hesitated for a moment behind them. ”The Horror Room sinks. If we go in, we could get buried!”

”There’s an exit above!” Xie Ling shouted, already following Xu Huo as they climbed through an opening in the ceiling of the room and into the crawl space.

By the time Xu Huo and the others entered, the entire Wax Figure Hall began to rise. Exiting through the crawl space, they found themselves back in the lounge.

”How are we still here!” Long Aotian exclaimed.

”The wax melting has slowed down,” Xie Ling said to Xu Huo. ”Your guess was right.”

Xu Ruosi and Long Aotian, who had been out of the loop for a while, didn’t know what was going on, so Xie Ling quickly and briefly explained things to them.

”So you all encountered something from the horror stories? I thought I was just unlucky,” Long Aotian said with a shrug, but his focus quickly shifted. ”Why was my story the only one that didn’t give a clue or turn into something real?”

No one paid him any attention. Xu Ruosi took out the clue she had obtained. ”Mine and Xie Ling’s are similar. They’re also related to the story I told.”

”The person calling you from behind.” Long Aotian leaned in to look. ”What does that mean?”

”I don’t know either,” Xu Ruosi said. ”At first, I thought it was literal, but you saw what happened.”

Xu Huo turned to Long Aotian. ”How did you end up sealed in wax?”

”Don’t even mention it,” Long Aotian scratched his head. ”I saw someone in a coffin who looked a lot like Xu Ruosi. I was just leaning in to take a closer look when suddenly I got knocked out cold. If I hadn’t reacted quickly, I’d probably be buried down there forever, serving as a stepping stone.”

”But anyway, we found the bodies now. That counts as solving the mystery of the disappearances, right?”