Chapter 34

Lin Tu had never turned off notifications on the [Anju] app, because she liked the tactile buzz of her phone after killing a monster—it felt like a salary hitting her account. So when she felt something off earlier, checking her phone now, she realized what it was: where was her salary? Had it been swallowed up or what?

"Creak... creak..." At that moment, strange sounds came from the basement corridor door.

It sounded like someone sneaking a bite in the dead of night, chewing on meat shreds and bones, even gnawing on their own fingers, all in the pitch dark.

"Hello? Hey?" Luo Yongzhi shouted nervously into the doorway.

The two lackeys had been so hurried to help Zhang Jie that they'd left the corridor door open. Everyone could clearly see the darkness beyond—not a single ray of light. The three who'd just entered seemed swallowed whole, leaving no trace. No one answered Luo Yongzhi's calls.

"What happened? Where... where are they?" Yi Ying clutched her magic wand tightly.

But no one could answer her.

Everyone silently inched away from the basement corridor, waiting for Zhang Jie and the others to respond, and for Lin Tu to recover some strength. But half an hour passed, and Zhang Jie and his men stayed silent as the dead.

Even stranger, in the middle of it, Luo Yongzhi and Yi Ying—despite knowing something was wrong—kept trying to go in again. Even Lin Tu inexplicably felt the same urge.

"Let's head back," she said, feeling something was truly off.

But when they reached the stairs and were about to climb to the second floor, they hit an invisible wall and found they couldn't return no matter what.

Back in the first-floor lobby, panic filled everyone's hearts.

Lin Tu, however, kept frowning, periodically pulling out her phone to check it.

"What are you thinking?" Luo Yongzhi asked.

"I'm just wondering..." Lin Tu shook her wrist, glanced at her slender arm, then looked at Yuan Que and Yi Ying, and finally fixed her gaze on Luo Yongzhi. "How do you quickly wake someone up who's asleep?"

"You'd punch them, of course. But... what does that have to do with anything?" No sooner had he spoken than Lin Tu clenched her fist and slammed it into his face.

Luo Yongzhi screamed, feeling something warm trickle from his nose. Before he could protest, his tall, burly figure blurred and vanished from sight.

"You..." Yi Ying stared at Lin Tu in shock, then turned to where Luo Yongzhi had disappeared. "He..."

"It was an illusion," Lin Tu said, looking at the two remaining. "Who's next?"

"I'll do it myself!" Yi Ying hurriedly slapped herself across the face. A crisp smack rang out, and her figure gradually blurred until she too disappeared.

Only Lin Tu and Yuan Que remained.

Lin Tu kept staring at Yuan Que until a faint blush crept across his face.

"The vines were an illusion, they two were illusions—are you an illusion too?" Lin Tu asked, tilting her head slightly.

She thought Yuan Que should never have appeared here. As a local, without any players' lifesaving measures, all those supplies in that house were his only means of surviving the coming disaster. How could he have abandoned them and so boldly followed her here?

"What do you think?" Yuan Que took a step forward, somewhat annoyed.

"Maybe," Lin Tu said, feeling a bit guilty. After all, this was an illusion space, and she truly believed her own longing could have conjured him here.

So she had been slow to leave. She worried that once she returned to reality, Yuan Que would vanish and Luo Yongzhi and the others would ask her why.

Of course, there was also the urge to stay a few more seconds—after all, if this were an illusion... Lin Tu stepped forward and suddenly reached out to ruffle the boy's short, messy hair.

His jet-black hair was cool to the touch, the soft tips slightly prickly. It was different from the little yellow dog —Xiao Huang— she'd had as a child, but the feel was even better—like a hedgehog that had just been bathed, its fur soaked soft.

Lin Tu withdrew her hand in satisfaction, silently condemning herself, and used that self-reproach as momentum to land a solid punch on her own shoulder.

"Hey..." Yuan Que tried to call out, but he was a step too slow.

When Lin Tu opened her eyes again, she felt a dull ache in her waist. She looked up and saw a pair of bright, glistening eyes beneath black, shaggy hair. Looking further up, she saw a face tinged with red.

Lin Tu bolted upright as if she'd seen a ghost and stumbled back two steps. "You... why are you here?"

"Huh? Isn't this your friend, Sister Lin?" Luo Yongzhi said in surprise. "Didn't he suddenly show up and save you? I thought you'd asked him to wait for us here."

Yuan Que obediently shuffled forward two steps. "Sister, I was worried about you, so I followed."

Lin Tu could still smell his fresh, clean scent, and her hand still carried the sensation of having just touched a little dog that had been drenched in water. "..." Was that the point? The point was what she'd just done!

The two of them stared at each other—one embarrassed, the other gazing intently—while Luo Yongzhi looked back and forth between them, utterly confused.

Yi Ying, on the other hand, pressed her lips together and stifled a smile. "It seems we were all caught off guard when our emotions were stirred and fell into the illusion. I was when Zhang Jie was scolding me..." Her expression darkened, but then she went on. "Thinking back on it now, it was like I saw you all standing still, as if you'd lost your souls, but Zhang Jie and the others didn't notice anything wrong. We even thought you were fighting the vines."

Speaking of Zhang Jie, Lin Tu realized that Zhang Jie and his two lackeys were gone.

"Where are Zhang Jie and the others?" She looked up and was horrified to see that the entire hall—from the floor to the walls to the ceiling—was covered in blood-red mandala flowers. Their pitch-black, thick pistils writhed in the air like octopus tentacles.

And at the very end of the house, there was indeed a door leading to the basement. But in front of it stood a black Venus flytrap nearly two meters tall, its mouth clamped shut, crunching and grinding whatever was inside.

If Lin Tu wasn't seeing things, they were Zhang Jie's two lackeys.

"Both mandala flowers and Venus flytraps have hallucinogenic properties," Lin Tu realized what had happened. "Either we never fought the vines and died beneath the mandala flowers, or we thought we were walking into the basement corridor but actually walked right into the flytrap's mouth."

The group clutched their chests, their stomachs churning.

Zhang Jie had been tossed at the base of the flytrap, motionless. They had no idea why the flytrap hadn't eaten him, but they all had a bad feeling.

Sure enough, when a mandala pistil brushed past him, his body burst open like a torn down jacket, and pitch-black dandelion fluff gushed out from within. The pistil disdainfully veered around him, then tentatively reached toward the flytrap's mouth before being smacked back.

Yi Ying took a fearful step back. "He... how could he!"

"It must have been when Cai Dui breathed on him earlier. Two or three dandelion spores crawled in through his face. I thought it was nothing at the time," Luo Yongzhi said with a sigh for his deceased compatriot, despite not liking Zhang Jie. "He must have fallen into the illusion like us. An hour or two with no water was enough to let the dandelion multiply inside him."

Yi Ying suddenly understood, and said hatefully, "Who's to blame? If he'd pitched in earlier in the illusion, we might've gotten out long ago!"

In the end, Zhang Jie had only harmed himself.

In [Infinite Calamity], when a player dies, all their points and items return to "nature." Fortunately, Zhang Jie had already handed over all the items from the Black Factory to Lin Tu. Otherwise, he would have hurt others as well as himself.

"Let's do it the same way as before. Use [Disaster Aura] to boost me, and we'll head straight into the basement," Lin Tu said, rubbing her forehead, recalling the unpleasant side effects when [Disaster Aura] wore off.

"But..." Yi Ying hesitated. Zhang Jie's words still echoed in her mind. She had snapped back at him, sure, but... "What if it doesn't work in reality?"

"Let's try."

Saying this, Lin Tu pulled Yuan Que over to her side. "Do you trust me?"

Yuan Que nodded without hesitation.

"Then imagine you're in a world where you never tire, where your strength grows beyond control, and your whole body is hard as steel."

"Hey, right, I haven't been introduced to this brother!" Luo Yongzhi sidled over, meaning to give it another shot. "This brother is a player too, right? He fights monsters without any items—must be pretty skilled!"

Lin Tu silently glanced at Yuan Que. He looked back with a hint of confusion, but also a flicker of understanding. Reassured, Lin Tu turned her gaze away.

"I'm not," Yuan Que said, not clarifying what he wasn't. He simply said, "My name's Yuan Que. I came along with Sister."

"Got it, got it," Luo Yongzhi said, winking at him. "I'm Luo Yongzhi. Me too."

"You too?" Yuan Que looked at him, his fists clenching again.

"Ready?" Yi Ying wanted nothing to do with their odd exchange. Nervously, she switched on her flashlight—or more accurately, her magic wand—and fixed her eyes on Lin Tu, describing that imaginary world with the utmost seriousness.

Lin Tu closed her eyes slightly, hypnotizing herself. The two people beside her closed their eyes as well, one after another.

Three minutes later.

Lin Tu opened her eyes. That familiar, foreign power—not her own—seemed to have returned to her body.

Luo Yongzhi enthusiastically raised his steel rod and struck the stair railing... it bent slightly... He cast a mournful look at Yi Ying. "Still doesn't work for me..."

Yi Ying ignored him and nervously turned her gaze to the last person. Following her eyes, Lin Tu and Luo Yongzhi also looked at Yuan Que.

"Sister, my body feels a bit uncomfortable..." He frowned slightly, and his slender fingers reached for Lin Tu's wrist, but as if thinking better of it, he grabbed the stair railing instead—

With a loud creak, the railing snapped clean off under his grip.

Everyone stared, dumbfounded.

"I did it! I did it! I told you I wasn't useless!" Yi Ying shouted excitedly, practically dancing circles around Lin Tu and Yuan Que.

"Is it very uncomfortable?" Lin Tu asked with concern.

"A little," Yuan Que said, looking up with slightly glazed eyes. "But if it means I can be like Sister, it doesn't seem so bad."