Soon after Wandering Child left, Annan put away the book in his hand.
He didn’t plan to read it in the first place.
He just wanted to appear “I’m busy, don’t bother me” so that these players wouldn’t come over and chat or request a mission.
Why do the players keep bothering me? I don’t know what to do as well.
Annan sigh.jpg
Annan made himself a cup of tea, brought a plate of pastries, closed the door, lit the lamp, and leaned against the bed happily.
Salvatore stayed up all night in the basement to prepare the reagent. Annan felt uneasy as he watched the live broadcast and ate snacks at the same time.
It might be due to the thinning conscience deep down in Annan’s heart was struggling desperately.
But still, Annan opened up the live broadcast happily in the end.
“…Eh?“
Annan realized that Jiu Er seemed to be in a dungeon instance he hadn’t seen before.
“Ha…ha…ha……”
Jiu Er panted heavily, leaning against the wall and looking back vigilantly.
She wasn’t using Amos’s body this time.
It was the body of a homeless man who was about fifty years old and had a haggard-looking face.
Who is this? Where is this? Annan was a little surprised.
Annan quickly skimmed through the bullet text history, then selected Jiu Er’s live broadcast video. Then, using the bullet text as the timeline reference point, he fast-forwarded the video and watched it for a while. Soon, he realized what happened.
Annan quickly understood what was going on.
Jiu Er entered this dungeon through the nightmare’s second level.
In theory, it was the simplest level in the whole nightmare.
Its name was [Gallery: Feast For The Hungry].
The way to enter this level was simple. However, many people couldn’t calm down and think under “Brother Sledgehammer’s” pursuit.
Jiu Er realized that that tomato might be the critical prop [1].
But it wasn’t within reach. If the dungeon challenger went to the next level, they might not be able to come back.
In other words, the item critical to grab the tomato must be on this level.
So after she put on the blood-stained windbreaker, she turned back.
—Indeed, she turned back.
Seeing the crack in the wall smashed by the sledgehammer, Jiu Er walked directly in. It was the entrance to the “Gallery: Elle Morrison” on the third floor.
Within that place, she found a long bloody dagger.
Then Jiu Er turned back again. She found that with the dagger in hand, the tomatoes could be taken away.
She originally wanted to go to the third floor like this, but she turned back for the second time due to the peer pressure from the bullet text.
This time, there seemed to be nothing at the end of the passage.
With Jiu Er holding a dagger and tomato, when she approached the falling chandelier, the death flag here was removed.
Yesterday, other players had explored this location.
But when they turned around and approached the falling chandelier, countless shadows under the chandelier dragged them in, allowing the chandelier to tear them into pieces. It was all due to the lack of the critical item: Tomato.
However, when Jiu Er returned with the tomatoes, the shadow did not appear.
After that, she moved a little closer and triggered the cinematic graphics (CG).
In real-time, it just so happened that Jiu Er was put under a chase. Hence, there was nothing else noteworthy.
“Let me stick through the CG cutscene.”
Annan did not hesitate to play the CG part of the video.
It was different from experiencing CG by himself previously.
Annan was now observing painter Amos from a third-person perspective from the shoulder.
Amos wore a white robe stained with blood, holding a tomato in one hand and a knife in the other. He slowly approached the falling chandelier under the gaze of countless portraits.
Amos staggered, but he was not as scared as he was in the third level.
Annan saw Amos staring under the chandelier, breathing heavily.
It was like looking at something that ordinary people couldn’t see.
Finally, he sighed in a low volume, “Sorry…”
As Amos spoke, with a trembling right hand and a knife, he slowly cut a slit on the tomato in his hand.
Only then did Annan notice-
The extra rosy tomato was full of bright red plasma.
It was like a fountain, with a steady stream of blood pouring out. Amos raised it high with his trembling left hand.
The blood ran down his arm and dripped on the floor. The shadow under the chandelier was like a living thing, sipping the blood on the ground.
The blood contained in the tomato was dozens of times larger than its volume. The volume was like the blood of several adults.
Finally, the tomatoes gradually dried up.
On the innermost side, there laid a tongue.
The tongue and the skin of the tomato cut in half seemed to form a mouth, resembling a smile.
“Hehehehe…” Annan heard the girl’s deep laughter again.
It was exactly the same laughter he heard when Annan was on the second floor before Brother Sledgehammer attacked him!
Only this time, the laughter was more evident, as if it sounded right behind him.
The shadow finally sucked up the blood on the ground under the chandelier.
Wait, it was not completely sucked up.
There were still traces of it.
The leftover blood squirmed on the ground and formed a string of intermittent words,
“Look…your…back…” Amos read it out. Immediately, he breathed in cold air while panic struck. He shivered and looked back subconsciously.
At the end of the corridor where he had just walked out was radiating a disturbing blood-red glare.
Since the chandelier fell, the wall where the portraits were hung became dim. Somehow, there were some glimmers, at least to the extent that the portrait above him became visible.
There were portraits of men, women, and children with weird smiles.
Suddenly, all the portraits became Amos himself!
All of them became Amos himself, looking up at the dim environment with a panicked face!
Just like how he was at that moment!
It was as though there were not portraits but countless mirrors hanging on the wall.
But unlike the mirror surface, in the countless portraits of him, behind him stood a tall, silent man with a hideous face looking at him.
…Or, perhaps they are indeed mirrors rather than portraits.
Amos stayed on the spot, staring blankly at the man holding the hammer within the mirrors, slowly raising the hammer.
At this time, all the portraits began to burn.
A circle of scorch marks appeared, burning away the “Amos and Brother Sledgehammer” on the surface, revealing another painting underneath.
It was a homeless man with shabby clothes, a lean face, rough skin, and a skinny body.
The despair of life could be seen in the homeless man’s eyes.
White and sacred hand filled with hope and gratitude was reaching into the portrait.
At that moment, Amos’s eyes met with the homeless man.
He felt someone pull his hand suddenly.
He stumbled forward a few steps.
At this time, the surrounding pictures suddenly changed.
The main point of view was the homeless man.
With a decent smile and gentle face, Amos stood in front of “the dungeon challenger” and made a polite invitation with his clean and white right hand.
It was different from “Gallery: Elle Morrison.”
Amos had blond hair mixed with his brown curly hair.
One of his eyes was still deep blue.
—The other eye turned into a beautiful, jewel-like, clear, and charming green.
“Good morning, sir.”
Amos Morrison was polite and repeated his previous words, “Can I hire you to be my model?”
[1] More details are available in Chapter 40. Excerpt: There was almost no difference compared to the first visit in the narrow room, except a bloody maroon trench coat hung on the coat rack. In the collection cabinet on the left, there was one additional… tomato.