Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 140

Chapter 140: Dark Shadow of the Ancient Temple 7

Xue Li was too close to Zhou Zhou. When she took out the talisman paper to paste it on him, Alvia couldn’t stop her in time.

If the Faceless Buddha was the last ghost, then there were only nine Buddha statues and nine talisman papers in the temple. The talisman paper obtained by Xue Li from worshiping the Faceless Buddha was definitely problematic.

Alvia instantly understood this, but Zhou Zhou was already frozen.

Even if he immediately tore off the talisman paper, Zhou Zhou didn’t recover.

Wisps of mist began to spread around them. The mist in the dark temple had a faint bluish tint, different from what they had encountered before.

But at that moment, no one noticed this subtle difference.

The ghost went into Zhou Zhou’s body, and Zhou Zhou was also frozen! The others surrounded Zhou Zhou, at a loss for what to do, anxiously pacing around.

Behind them, where the mist was spreading, two strange people appeared.

One wore white, the other black. Both were expressionless as they emerged from the bluish mist, their feet unmoving as they drifted over. The players on the outermost layer first noticed the eerie pair.

Could these two be…the Black and White Guards of Impermanence?

The players widened their eyes, watching the two figures charging straight at them. They instinctively wanted to dodge, but the figures passed right through them, as if they were virtual projections. The players only felt a slight chill as the Black and White Guards entered the crowd and stood in front of Zhou Zhou.

The others were also taken aback, watching the Black and White Guards ignore them and trying to take Zhou Zhou away. The crowd immediately became agitated.

“Don’t touch him, you’ve got the wrong person.”

“What are you doing? Don’t touch Zhou Zhou.”

“He’s not a ghost!”

But no matter how agitated the crowd was, they found they couldn’t touch the two figures, their outstretched hands only meeting air.

Yet the Black and White Guards could touch Zhou Zhou.

The Black and White Guards seemed unable to hear the surrounding voices. They grabbed Zhou Zhou’s shoulders, one on each side. The next moment, the mist obscured everyone’s vision, and they couldn’t see anything.

When the mist cleared, Zhou Zhou and the two Black and White Guards had disappeared.

Just like the previous ghost-catching process, the suddenly appearing and untouchable Buddhas took the ghost away. The only difference was that this time, they took Zhou Zhou away.

“Zhou Zhou, has he been eliminated?”

Qian Le was a bit confused. Although Zhou Zhou being taken away was unexpected, they could still see the eliminated Zhou Zhou after leaving the instance. So in his view, this incident wasn’t too serious.

Xue Li and Ke Li exchanged a worried glance. They knew Zhou Zhou’s identity but didn’t know what would happen to him after being eliminated. After all, according to the normal process, eliminated players would be kicked out of the game. If they didn’t have enough points, they couldn’t even log in.

Zhou Zhou’s current points were more than enough to revive hundreds of times, but he wasn’t human. What would happen after he was eliminated?

The two originally wanted to ask Al since he also knew Zhou Zhou’s true identity. Moreover, Al was close to Zhou Zhou, and they had done many instances together. But when they looked over, they saw Al’s expression was difficult to describe.

Alvia never expected Zhou Zhou to disappear right before his eyes. And after Zhou Zhou disappeared, whether he would be eliminated and what would happen after, no one knew.

He shouldn’t have let Zhou Zhou continue doing instances. Zhou Zhou could have become human soon, and then he could continue entering the game after that.

Originally, everyone was discussing what to do next in a clamor of voices. But gradually, their voices became quieter until there was complete silence.

Everyone looked towards Alvia. His expression seemed no different from usual, but his entire being emanated an astonishing sense of oppression. Everyone fell silent, not daring to make a sound, even breathing softly.

Alvia didn’t notice the others’ reactions. He opened his task panel and kept writing something on it.

The others couldn’t see his task panel but could tell he seemed to be trying to do something.

What could be done with the task panel?

Alvia was hacking into the system, searching for traces of Zhou Zhou.

“Nightmare City” was Zeus’ domain, and all the rules were set by Zeus. It was the common belief of the interstellar people that no one could hack into Zeus’ system.

But no one knew that their emperor was the only one who could hack into the system. If it were normal times, Zeus would have immediately reacted the moment he sensed someone trying to hack into his domain.

But Alvia encountered no obstruction, guessing that Zeus probably knew what he was doing, which was why Zeus didn’t interfere. Alvia relaxed a bit, and it seemed Zhou Zhou was fine. Otherwise, Zeus would have been the first to report it.

He quickly pulled up the entire instance’s structure framework and found Zhou Zhou’s location.

Zhou Zhou hadn’t been eliminated; he was still in the instance, just in the next scene.

Alvia closed the task panel and strode towards the faceless stone statue. With a light push, the massive, heavy statue came crashing down, shattering into rubble.

The others didn’t understand what he was doing, venting his frustration?

The next moment, they received prompts from the task panel.

【Mission progress 10/10, ghost-catching quest completed.】

【Clear mission: Find the exit.】

【Mission hint: Find your companion.】

One message after another popped up, and everyone finally realized that to defeat the last ghost, they only needed to break the statue, no talisman paper was required. So the purpose of that talisman paper was to treat Zhou Zhou as a ghost vessel, making everyone think the ghost had been attached to Zhou Zhou all along, causing them to overlook the statue.

They thought catching ten ghosts would allow them to complete the instance, but now it seemed they couldn’t complete it yet. And the clear mission’s hint was to find their companion, which was Zhou Zhou. This meant Zhou Zhou hadn’t been eliminated but was somewhere waiting for them to find him.

Before everyone could rejoice, they saw Al looking down at the shattered statue remains, and then he vanished.

“Where did he go?”

The crowd hurried over and discovered a straight hole under the toppled statue. It was pitch-black inside, and even with their lighting equipment, they couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

“Did Al accidentally fall in?”

“Impossible, he wouldn’t fall in even with his eyes closed. Could Zhou Zhou be down there, so Al jumped in?”

“Huh? But it’s so dark inside, how did he know Zhou Zhou was down there?”

“Maybe it’s a couple’s intuition. Plus, the temple is only so big. If Zhou Zhou was somewhere in the temple, we’d find him easily with a simple search. That clear mission would be too simple, so the exit is probably down there.”

“So what should we do now, jump down too?”

Xue Li was very determined: “Jump.”

If it weren’t for her, Zhou Zhou wouldn’t have been taken away. Even if Zhou Zhou wasn’t down there, she was prepared to be eliminated. If Al dared to jump, what was she afraid of?

Xue Li looked at the varied expressions of the others: “I’ll go down first. You all wait a bit and then come down one by one, or what if you step on me?”

After saying that, she jumped down without hesitation.

Ke Li waited a few minutes and followed.

Qian Le and Eddie did the same.

As for the remaining two players, although they hesitated for a long time, they still jumped into the cave together.

The temple was peaceful, the shattered statue restored to its original state, and the previously messy temple also returned to how it looked when they first arrived, as if they had never been there.

The next round of players had already arrived at the foot of the mountain.

Zhou Zhou felt his mind was in a jumble, flashing through many scenes, him and Alvia, doing quests with Xue Li and Ke Li, the scenes of him being an NPC in the game a thousand years ago, chatting and drinking tea with Alvia in the Romance Academy. Various scenes intertwined, and in the end, it was like a replay, going through all his experiences again.

There were even some memories he had long forgotten.

After Zhou Zhou sorted out all his memories, he opened his eyes and found himself in a cauldron.

Zhou Zhou: ??

The water in the cauldron shimmered with a metallic glow, sparkling like starlight. It didn’t look dirty, even quite beautiful.

He was sitting in the cauldron, the water reaching his chest. The water wasn’t scorching hot, giving a feeling like soaking in a hot spring.

Zhou Zhou didn’t understand where he was now and didn’t act rashly. Instead, he sat in the cauldron, observing his surroundings.

The environment here was dim, but Zhou Zhou’s night vision was excellent, and he could see clearly even in the distance.

This was a huge, rugged cave. The ground around was very flat, with several identical large cauldrons placed on it. Wooden logs were burning fiercely under the cauldrons, the flames making the fires especially vigorous, and metallic bubbles were rising from the cauldrons.

So, there were also burning logs under the cauldron he was in?

Zhou Zhou belatedly realized he seemed to be getting boiled.

Suddenly, a scream came from nearby. Zhou Zhou looked over and saw there was also someone in the next cauldron, but that person didn’t seem as relaxed as Zhou Zhou.

He was struggling in the cauldron, seemingly trying to climb out, but there seemed to be a barrier around the cauldron’s edge, trapping him inside.

That person’s expression was pained, and after struggling in the boiling water for a few moments, he was submerged.

Before Zhou Zhou could call out and ask, a skeleton emerged from the cauldron.

That person had been boiled into a bare skeleton.

Zhou Zhou: “……”

He felt the temperature of the cauldron he was in. It didn’t feel particularly scorching hot. Was this like boiling a frog in warm water?

He wanted to get out of the cauldron, but Zhou Zhou found there was indeed a barrier around the edge, trapping him inside.

Unable to escape, Zhou Zhou could only obediently stay in the cauldron and get boiled.

In the surrounding cauldrons, people were constantly being herded in by creatures that were not human but rather ghosts less than a meter tall with horns on their heads.

After herding these people into the cauldrons, the little ghosts immediately added firewood to stoke the flames until the people turned into skeletons, then fished the remains out and replaced them with new people.

Zhou Zhou’s cauldron had already had firewood added several times. The horned little ghosts surrounded the cauldron, looking perplexed, seemingly not understanding why this person wouldn’t melt down.

Was his skin too thick?

Zhou Zhou didn’t know why either, watching the little ghosts under a meter tall toiling to add firewood and water, yet the temperature in the cauldron remained comfortably warm.

Unfortunately, these little ghosts couldn’t understand what he was saying, and he couldn’t understand them either, so he could only sit boredly in the cauldron.

Gazing at the sparkling, starry water, Zhou Zhou originally wanted to wash his hair, but remembering how this water had boiled others into skeletons, he gave up in the end.

So bored. He didn’t know how the others were doing. Zhou Zhou leaned over the cauldron’s edge, staring at the neighboring cauldrons and hoping Alvia would appear.

After Xue Li jumped down, she felt like she was falling endlessly. She originally thought the hole would only be a few dozen meters deep, but she had been falling for a long time without reaching the bottom.

From her initial panic to her current calmness, Xue Li even changed poses a few times midway.

Looks like she was doomed. Once she hit the bottom, she would splatter into a puddle of mud, Xue Li thought calmly.

But the result wasn’t what she expected. After who knows how long, Xue Li’s descent slowed until she lightly landed on the ground without a scratch.

After standing up, Xue Li realized she seemed to be in a cave, and Al, who had come down earlier, was nowhere to be seen.

She didn’t know where to go to find Zhou Zhou and the departed Al, so she ended up waiting at the same spot for her other companions to come down.

As for Alvia, after landing, he immediately headed in Zhou Zhou’s direction.

For this instance, he could say he had cheated by hacking into the game system to find Zhou Zhou’s location. This method of completion was naturally not allowed, but he couldn’t wait to slowly search. He would deal with the aftermath once they were out.

Passing through one cave entrance to another, the caves here were rugged and bizarre, one connecting to the next, and there were countless little ghosts inside. But these little ghosts had low combat power, even if they discovered the intruder and tried to capture Alvia, not a single one posed a threat.

Soon, Alvia found the cave where Zhou Zhou was.

When he arrived, Zhou Zhou was so bored that he was about to teach himself swimming in the cauldron.

Upon seeing Alvia, he immediately waved his arms: “Al, I’m here.”

Seeing Zhou Zhou unharmed, Alvia closed his eyes, and the tightly clenched fist he had been gripping finally loosened.

Thank goodness nothing happened.

Zhou Zhou couldn’t get out of the cauldron, but Alvia didn’t sense any barrier at all. He pulled Zhou Zhou out of the cauldron, not encountering any obstruction.

The little ghosts under a meter tall brandished knives and forks, trying to subdue the intruder, but only ended up sending more and more headless bodies.

Xue Li waited for the others to come down before going to find Zhou Zhou and Alvia.

Following the traces of Alvia’s battle, they quickly found the place where the two were.

With so many players, the little ghosts couldn’t win and had all fled, leaving only the large cauldrons behind.

Upon learning that Zhou Zhou had been put in a cauldron to boil, Qian Le laughed until he couldn’t stand straight: “Were they giving you a welcome bath?”

“No, I saw the other people who entered the cauldrons all turned into skeletons,” Zhou Zhou pointed innocently at a pile of bones in the corner.

Eddie couldn’t laugh anymore, thinking that these people had been boiled alive, even if it was just a game, it seemed a bit deranged.

However, they later saw words carved on a cave wall and realized this was the underworld, and those placed in the cauldrons had done many bad deeds in life, so they were being punished after death.

“Was Zhou Zhou fine in the cauldron because he was mistaken for the ghost vessel, so he wasn’t harmed?” Ke Li guessed.

The others also thought so. After that, they searched nearby for the exit, but before they could find it, those little ghosts returned.

This time, they not only brought many little ghosts but also some powerful-looking ghosts, including the Black and White Guards who took Zhou Zhou away. They should all be considered underworld messengers.

So they fought the small fry, and the big shots came?

Chased by the underworld messengers, the group could only flee. During the chase, Zhou Zhou discovered a clue about the exit.

In the underworld, Zhou Zhou found the Karma Mirror.

This mirror was said to reflect a person’s past and present lives. Just by standing in front of it, one could see the scenes they wanted to see.

If they wanted to find the exit, this mirror might be useful.

Sure enough, Zhou Zhou saw the exit in the mirror, but the scene he saw was invisible to the others.

The others also tried standing in front of the mirror and found that each person saw a different path.

So this time, the exit wasn’t just one, each person was different.

After discussing, they decided to split up and search for the paths they each saw.

Only Alvia was unwilling to separate from Zhou Zhou and didn’t go to find the path he saw. Instead, he followed Zhou Zhou and left through the path Zhou Zhou discovered.

When everyone found their respective paths and left through them, they finally completed the instance successfully.

Although they exited from different places, the rendezvous point was the same.

The two players expressed their gratitude, saying without Zhou Zhou, Alvia, and the others, they couldn’t have completed it.

The only one who failed to complete it was Alvia, but he didn’t mind.

Even if he had succeeded, based on his previous actions in the instance, any points he earned would have been deducted.

As long as Zhou Zhou was safe, that was good enough.

This time, Zhou Zhou still earned the most points, but now he already had over a million. The instances he designed were running smoothly, so the points from this instance didn’t really matter to him.

The others also had bountiful gains. Xue Li and Ke Li happily went to purchase items with their points, while Eddie and Qian Le had to log off.

As for Alvia, he was still shaken by the experience. The uncertainty surrounding Zhou Zhou in the game was too great. If he suffered serious harm or was eliminated in an instance, no one could guarantee he would continue to exist.

It was for this very reason that Alvia’s desire to turn Zhou Zhou human became more and more urgent.

For a period after that, Zhou Zhou was strictly forbidden from participating in instance missions, so he could only stay home designing new instances.

Until finally, Alvia came to tell him that his physical body in reality had fully developed, and the time for him to become human had arrived.

Zeus, who hadn’t been seen for a long time, finally reappeared after hearing this news. This time, he didn’t stop Zhou Zhou but said awkwardly that after Zhou Zhou became human, he had something to tell him.

Alvia glanced at Zeus but didn’t interrupt their conversation.

Zhou Zhou patted Zeus’ head: “Actually, I know what you want to say. When I was possessed by an NPC in that instance, I found I was missing memories, but I’ve recovered them now.”

Zeus looked at Zhou Zhou with shining eyes: “Then you…”

Zhou Zhou smiled and nodded.

Zeus immediately rushed over and hugged Zhou Zhou’s waist: “That’s great.”

Beside them, Alvia was completely confused: “What are you two talking about?”

Zhou Zhou and Zeus exchanged a smile: “A secret, we can’t tell you.”

The research institute’s location was very secluded. Ever since Zhou Zhou told Alvia he wanted to become human, they had begun cultivating his body here based on his data. During this period, they used drugs to rapidly age the body. Currently, this soulless body was perfectly maintained at eighteen years old, the same age as Zhou Zhou in the game.

This technology had been under development for over a hundred years, originally researched for Zeus by the scientists. But Zeus had no desire to become human, so the technology was shelved. However, over these many years, all aspects of the technology had become quite mature, so Zhou Zhou could undergo the procedure with no risks.

Zhou Zhou was excited yet apprehensive.

At the moment he fell into slumber, he saw Alvia and Zeus by his side.

Whether it succeeded or not, he would be grateful to have met everyone and everything.

Zhou Zhou’s data had been imported into this body, but an adaptation period was needed, so it wasn’t clear when he would wake up.

Alvia stayed by Zhou Zhou’s side at the institute while Zeus continuously monitored Zhou Zhou’s body data.

A week later, Zhou Zhou’s body data finally changed, his brain waves suddenly strengthening, he was about to wake up.

For Zhou Zhou, it was just like taking a regular nap. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Alvia and Zeus gazing at him joyfully.

“Zhou Zhou, welcome back.”