Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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As the two chased after them, they immediately felt a chill creep over them, the biting wind whipping their faces, and the rustling of leaves against each other. Everything felt so real, completely different from before, as if some kind of protective shield was slowly disappearing.
Gu Wuji realized something. “When we first entered this place, we felt like strangers, completely out of place. But as time went by, we seemed to become increasingly integrated into this space…”
“You mean,” Yang Shao thought, gripping the prop in his hand tightly, “that if this continues, we’ll be completely controlled by this space? And we’ll be noticed by those ghosts?”
“I think that’s definitely the case.” Gu Wuji pondered, “I felt something was wrong before. The vengeful ghosts here couldn’t possibly be doing charity by providing us with information, and we haven’t encountered any danger since we entered. There’s something wrong with that…”
Now, thinking about it, it was simply a limitation of this space. Because this space posed too great a threat to humans, perhaps exceeding the abilities that the vengeful ghost should possess. So under normal circumstances, they couldn’t be directly harmed until they meet certain conditions, at which point the vengeful ghosts would kill them.
“By then, we’ll likely be in danger,” Gu Wuji frowned. “But it didn’t seem to happen so quickly before. Does this mean the more we know, the more trapped we’ll be in this space?”
This was incredibly insidious. After all, players wouldn’t refuse to investigate more information; for them, it was practically a second life. Moreover, the system hadn’t even released the main quest yet. If the main quest was to uncover the truth of this instance, they would be even less likely to miss the opportunity.
Besides, even if they knew nothing, they still didn’t know how to leave this place.
The two followed the woman ahead and soon reached a hidden mountain path, where they saw a scene similar to what Xiao Qin had witnessed. However, because they had followed the woman, they only heard the subsequent conversation.
It was just a typical elopement story. Gu Wuji was quite astonished.
If this person was really himself, could he have actually fallen in love with the NPC in this village? But no matter how he thought about it, he felt he didn’t have any special feelings for that woman.
The next instant, the scene changed.
It became what Xiao Qin saw: the two eloping, surrounded by villagers. And no matter how you looked at it, the young man was a scumb*g, seemingly ready to abandon the woman there, which was about 80% accurate to the rumors… Under normal circumstances, no one could resist watching such gossip.
Especially since it concerned the truth of the entire instance. Even knowing it was a trap, one couldn’t help but want to watch.
Seeing this scene, Gu Wuji felt a faint pain in his forehead, and some images he had never seen before vaguely surfaced in the depths of his mind, as if he had actually been to this instance once, but everything had been forgotten.
Moreover, he subconsciously sensed a strong danger, telling him he couldn’t stay here any longer.
“What’s going on?” Gu Wuji pressed his forehead. Yang Shao, seeing this, quickly supported Gu Wuji, shocked by his sudden weakness after punching ghosts and driving all night.
“Are you alright? Was there a ghost attack?”
“No…” Gu Wuji turned his head, wanting to ask if he had noticed anything, but suddenly saw a few words carved on a tree trunk.
‘Leave quickly! We can’t look any longer, what we need to do now is go back to the village!’
Seeing Gu Wuji’s eyes freeze, Yang Shao also turned his head sharply, “It’s Xiao Qin’s handwriting, it seems he has finally regained his memories in this place.”
At least the system arranged them to have some memories of their classmates, so they still remembered things like handwriting. In order to prevent people from remembering so quickly, the system made these memories half true and half false, which was extremely deceptive, and that’s why it made things a little easier for them at this time.
“Something’s definitely not right here, let’s go.” Without thinking, Gu Wuji grabbed Yang Shao and walked back, he always trusted his intuition.
Yang Shao hesitated, “This might just be a smokescreen in this illusion, and we’re about to get close to the truth of the dungeon…”
“I don’t know, but I do know that if we stay here, we won’t be able to leave.”
Yang Shao wanted to say something more, but when he looked up, he saw Gu Wuji’s extremely pale face. A dark shadow seemed to be gathering behind him, giving off an extremely strong sense of oppression, even distorting the surrounding space.
What was going on?! Was this also caused by the illusion of this place? But this sense of oppression was already comparable to the fierce ghost bosses in many dungeons he had experienced! No, even stronger.
Yang Shao was stunned, his legs unable to move. He wanted to say something to Gu Wuji, but suddenly felt a cold, sinister gaze fixed on him from nowhere, making him unable to utter a single word for a long time.
“What’s wrong?” It was Gu Wuji who noticed his abnormality and asked, and the oppressive feeling suddenly disappeared.
Was that dark shadow just intimidating him? Moreover, Gu Wuji seemed completely unaware of this matter… In short, Yang Shao realized that if he revealed it, he would probably die on the spot.
Yang Shao immediately abandoned his lingering observation and obediently followed Gu Wuji back hastily, his mind still reeling… Just who was Gu Wuji? Was this some kind of cheat code he had obtained in another instance? But Gu Wuji himself seemed unable to control it.
Regardless, such strength was comparable to a legendary high-level player!
Gu Wuji, however, was completely oblivious to this. His forehead throbbed with pain, cold sweat streamed down his face, and something seemed to flash through his mind, but the next moment it vanished into the mist, impossible to grasp.
Xiao Qin’s hints weren’t over yet; on their way back, they saw fragmented writing on the trees, many of which were corroded, but still quite legible.
“This space is dangerous. The more you know, the deeper you’ll sink. If you know the most crucial information, you’ll be considered someone who shouldn’t live, and you’ll have nowhere to hide, hunted by everything—”
“Only those who know nothing can leave this space directly through the other exit.”
“If you all know, you should find the center of that monster. Other ghosts are afraid to approach there for some reason. I guess that place must be the key to getting out!”
The text ended abruptly there, and no one knew what happened to Xiao Qin next.
“If he was trying to escape, he definitely wouldn’t have had so much time to write this. This must be the result of some kind of prop.” Gu Wuji forced himself to speak, enduring the pain. “But how did he know so much information?”
“I don’t even know if Xiao Qin is still alive.” Yang Shao felt hopeless. “Then let’s get back to the village as soon as possible.”
“Before that, we need to rescue him.”
“What did you say?” Yang Shao looked at Gu Wuji in astonishment.
Gu Wuji stroked the writing on the tree next to him and said, “This space is obviously constantly changing and is being manipulated by a vengeful ghost. How could it easily leave messages for us… So it must be because Xiao Qin was nearby that these messages were left behind.”
“Of course, that vengeful ghost wouldn’t let us discover this so easily.” Gu Wuji looked at the other trees, “So he erased the writing on the trees with the most crucial information.”
“You’re right…” Yang Shao was astonished, but rather than saying he wasn’t careful enough, it was more accurate to say he hadn’t really intended to save Xiao Qin.
After all, losing teammates in a dungeon was perfectly normal; he only came here to investigate this space so he could leave later.
But Gu Wuji’s biggest goal from the moment he entered was to rescue Xiao Qin; as long as there was any hope of his survival, he wouldn’t give up.
“Where could he be?” Yang Shao looked around, but he couldn’t sense anything. In the end, he could only place his trusting gaze on Gu Wuji, since Gu Wuji’s confident demeanor meant he must have discovered more clues!
“How would I know?” Gu Wuji said frankly. “This place is so big, with so many things, and the yin energy here is so dense, how could I just find it anywhere?”
Yang Shao: “…”
“But we have another way.” Gu Wuji directly took out a kitchen knife, the one he had taken when he stayed in the haunted house before and had kept in his backpack ever since. Now was the perfect opportunity to use it.
Then Gu Wuji handed his usual knife to Yang Shao and said naturally, “You too.”
Because everything was so natural, Yang Shao subconsciously took the kitchen knife and immediately felt the chilling aura and killing intent emanating from it. Even a vengeful ghost would probably be afraid of it! What on earth has Gu Wuji been doing with this kitchen knife?!
Then, to Yang Shao’s astonishment, Gu Wuji picked up the kitchen knife and chopped at a tree next to him… He was still holding back a little, afraid that if there was someone hiding inside, he would have killed them on the spot.
But under Gu Wuji’s force, the tree instantly made a loud crash, almost snapping in two by a cleaver… The cleaver in Gu Wuji’s hand even trembled; if it were an ordinary cleaver, it would already be buried.
“What are you doing…” Yang Shao was dumbfounded. Why did such a simple and brutal scene suddenly appear? He thought Gu Wuji would make some amazing deduction!
“Anyway, as long as you destroy everything around you, you can always find some traces, right?” Gu Wuji said with a smile. “Didn’t the tree just say something about being chased by everything? These trees are quite strange.”
In that instant, even the previously clearly audible rustling of leaves disappeared, and the entire forest fell into silence.
Yang Shao looked down at the cleaver in his hand, falling silent.
So why did things turn out like this!
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