Players, Please Board the Train

”Whether it counts or not is up to the Wax Figure Hall to decide.” Xu Huo continued forward while using ”Narrow Escape” to check the escape probability of the Wax Figure Hall, which had already returned to the surface.

Sure enough, after going through the entire venue, the greatest escape opportunity still lay with the giant wax figure at the entrance, which had now risen back to 65%.

Earlier, Bai Wenxian must have known that the giant wax figure was the true exit of the Wax Figure Hall. That’s why he became furious and attacked it after discovering the hall had returned underground and the entrance’s escape probability had dropped.

Now that the Wax Figure Hall was back on the surface, no Strange Tales characters appeared, but the melting wax on the walls hadn’t stopped. That meant they were still trapped inside the venue with no way out.

Xu Ruosi and Long Aotian split up to attack the venue’s walls, failed, then regrouped to analyze their escape options.

”Could it be that we have to wait until daytime tomorrow?” Long Aotian suggested.

Xu Ruosi checked the time. ”It’s not even midnight yet. Even if we want to test that theory, we’d have to survive until then.”

”Since we’ve already found the bodies, maybe we can piece together the missing person mystery,” Xie Ling mused. ”Riddles don’t just have a main body; they also have causes and effects, right?”

”It’s nothing more than the Wax Figure Hall turning living people into wax figures. That’s hardly a difficult puzzle to solve,” Xu Ruosi said. ”If that were the key to passing, we should have received a game notification the moment we saw the bodies.”

Xu Huo walked back from the entrance to join the three, then began adding information about the Wax Figure Hall:”First, the Wax Figure Hall is a confined space that, in coordination with the Strange Tales at Night room, turns the characters from those tales into wax figures.”

”Second, the Wax Figure Hall tells a story about a large number of deaths caused by disease. People entering the venue might be defaulted as infected, with sealing and burning possibly intended to prevent the spread of the epidemic.”

”Third, the Wax Figure Hall enters a cleaning state at night, removing living people from the venue and remaking the wax figures.”

”In other words, the reason so many bodies are buried beneath the Wax Figure Hall is a legitimate one—disease prevention and control.”

After laying out these three points, Xu Huo paused. When he didn’t receive a game notification after some time, he was about to add a fourth when he saw the dungeon task on his game panel change to ”Solve the Mystery of the Disappearances (1/6).”

At the same time, the task information for Xie Ling and the other two also changed. All three looked utterly baffled, while Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. ”So the answer was that simple.”

”Simple?” Long Aotian was the most shocked. ”I never would have thought of that at all! Even if I had to guess a motive for murder, I’d have gone straight to a psychopathic killer. Why did you think of disease prevention? Does the Sun Museum City even have anything to do with this?”

”You all saw the wax figure display during the day. It was a complete story,” Xu Huo said. ”In its early years, Museum City conducted human experiments. Exactly what kind, no one knows.”

”But evolution in nature is quite miraculous. Some viruses or pathogens can survive and even thrive under the most extreme conditions, achieving immortality in a way.”

”If I were a dying man afflicted with some disease, I might take that gamble.”

Of course, this wasn’t something an ordinary businessman could pull off. How Museum City was actually built remained uncertain.

Xu Ruosi went to test the front door. The giant wax figure was still melting, completely blocking the entire entrance. ”Still can’t open it.”

”What does that mean? We solved the mystery of the disappearances, but we still can’t leave?” Long Aotian pulled out an item, ready to force his way through.

Xu Huo saw that the ”Narrow Escape” probability had already risen back to 80%, so he said, ”Haven’t you noticed the wax has stopped melting? The Wax Figure Hall is being rebuilt now. We might really have to wait until morning to get out.”

Even as he said this, he wasn’t entirely certain. The Wax Figure Hall had turned into a large-scale item and was currently reshuffling and restarting. It was hard to say whether there would be unexpected changes.

”The air doesn’t smell as bad as before either,” Xie Ling said, taking a deep breath. ”It’s like the venue has been ventilated!”

”So we just wait?” Long Aotian stowed his item away and slapped his thigh. ”Zone 009 just merged with the game. New dungeons might have items in them. Since we’ve got nothing better to do, why don’t we go looking?”

Xu Huo waved his hand to show he wasn’t interested. Xie Ling also said, ”Those wax figures are each more dangerous than the last. I think it’s better to just stay put.”

Xu Ruosi had clearly been shaken by the earlier ordeal too, and she said she’d stay in the entrance hall to keep checking whether the door had opened.

Long Aotian felt a bit embarrassed and ultimately didn’t go.

The group rested in the main hall. After sitting quietly for a while, Long Aotian wanted to play cards. Xu Huo rested with his eyes closed. Xie Ling and Xu Ruosi were clearly less composed, so they used cards to ease their inner anxiety.

Just as the atmosphere began to relax, sounds of children running and jumping, along with the ”click-clack” of footsteps, echoed through the venue again. They were much more vivid than the vague sounds before.

Xie Ling listened carefully. ”Could Bai Wenxian still be alive?”

”He’s dead and buried,” Xu Huo said without even opening his eyes. ”And what he used to confuse people was just an E-grade item with no offensive capabilities.”

The other three found his calm demeanor a bit strange, but since the wax figures hadn’t come to the front hall, they decided to pretend they hadn’t heard anything. They’d know for sure by morning anyway.

If the Wax Figure Hall weren’t a large-scale item, Xu Huo might have gone back to check. But since it was an item, killing the wax figures was meaningless unless the item itself was destroyed.

He just wasn’t sure if this venue counted as an ownerless item.

The four of them endured until dawn. Suddenly, all sounds inside the Wax Figure Hall vanished. The wax clinging to the front door rapidly melted and fell away, revealing the entrance once more.

Xie Ling and the others rushed forward. Only after confirming the door could be pushed open did they show relieved expressions. They turned back to call Xu Huo and leave.

As Xu Huo stepped out, his gaze unconsciously drifted toward the Beheaded Cemetery direction. There, one tall and two short, stiff-limbed figures were running silently, quickly disappearing into the hazy morning light.

Xu Ruosi noticed his gaze and followed it, but saw nothing.

After leaving the Wax Figure Hall, Xu Huo said, ”I wonder how the other players are doing.”

If even the Wax Figure Hall—which seemed like an ordinary amusement venue—had this many twists, it wasn’t hard to imagine that the other areas weren’t any better.

In fact, by the time they reached the crossroads, only half of the players had returned.

Of Xu Huo’s group of five, one was missing—Bai Wenxian—leaving four.

Of the Curly-haired Female Player’s group of four, two had died, leaving two.

Of the group that went with the middle-aged man, there were also four. Three had died, leaving only him and one female player.

Of the fourteen players who had come yesterday, six had died in a single night. The Curly-haired Female Player had even lost an arm. The situation was brutal.

As the group reconvened, the once harmonious atmosphere became tense. Suspicion and hostility toward one another filled everyone’s eyes.