Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: Strange Shadows in the Villa

Zhou Zhou’s eyes lit up. That’s right, if he stood on a stool, he could catch the ghost without anyone’s help.

“Qian Le, thank you.” Zhou Zhou said as he stepped onto the high stool and reached up to grab the ghost on the ceiling.

The two people below looked at each other.

Qian Le glared at Al. This man was too despicable, taking advantage of Zhou Zhou’s innocence to try and take advantage of him.

With him around, no one would dare take advantage of Zhou Zhou!

Alvia showed no expression, completely uninterested in such childish sulking behavior. Since the other party’s scheme had been exposed, he didn’t need to keep up the act either.

However, this Qian Le seemed to have some issues. Although his background seemed simple with no abnormalities, his protectiveness towards someone he had only known for less than two days was itself very abnormal.

He would have to get Zeus to investigate him thoroughly later.

Ignoring Qian Le’s provocative gaze, Alvia stepped back and leaned against the wall, scanning the hallway. Where did Heya go?

Zhou Zhou was struggling to peel the ghost off the ceiling. The ghost’s body was extremely elastic, able to flatten into a thin sheet or scrunch up into a ball. Currently, they were all stuck to the ceiling like three sticky posters that couldn’t be peeled off.

After finally peeling one off, the ghost immediately inflated like a balloon after leaving the wall, becoming the same size as the other three in Zhou Zhou’s hand.

Holding the four ghosts tightly, Zhou Zhou looked up to grab the remaining two.

Huh?

He looked puzzled. The other two, which had previously been attached like a single entity, were no longer in their original spot but had moved quite far away, out of his reach.

He climbed down from the stool, dragging it forward a few steps before climbing back up.

After peeling off the second ghost, Zhou Zhou kept a close eye on the last one.

Sure enough, this ghost was sneakily inching forward! And it had moved even farther away, almost to the end of the hallway.

He had to climb down again, dragging the stool over to the window before standing on it to grab the ghost.

The ghost kept inching forward, sticking itself to the window.

It clung much more tightly to the window, and Zhou Zhou struggled for a while before finally peeling off a small corner and pulling down, unveiling a thin, pale white ghost sheet.

Behind it was a sinister, horrifying woman.

A ghastly white face, blue-tinged lips, pitch-black pupils filling the entire eye sockets, disheveled black hair hanging over her face, just looking at her would send chills down anyone’s spine.

The person outside was at the same height as Zhou Zhou, and they stared at each other face-to-face through the glass.

Black hair swayed outside the window. She gazed at Zhou Zhou expressionlessly, those lifeless eyes bulging as she stared fixedly at him.

The corners of her mouth seemed to be pulled up into an eerie smile. Then, two blood-stained hands slammed against the window, as if trying to break through.

Blood trickled down the window, leaving streaks of red.

Zhou Zhou simply stared back, as if petrified.

Why wasn’t the blood mosaic here? Zhou Zhou didn’t quite understand. Wasn’t blood usually mosaic when players died? But here, the bloodstains were clearly visible.

The woman outside slowly pressed her face against the window, their distance now less than five centimeters apart. Her ghastly features were distorted as she clung to the glass.

Zhou Zhou stared blankly, as if just realizing something. He suddenly peeled the last ghost off the window.

The woman’s full figure was now revealed, a crimson dress against the darkness, a horrifyingly macabre sight that would drain anyone’s sanity upon seeing it.

Zhou Zhou hurriedly clutched all the ghosts in his right hand, then raised his free left hand and pressed it against the window…

Zhou Zhou’s left hand overlapped the woman’s right hand through the glass, a pale porcelain hand meeting a bony, withered one. The two completely different hands pressed together, instantly changing the tone of the scene.

The vengeful spirit outside: ?

She didn’t quite understand this player’s intent. Looking at his hand on the glass, then back up at his face, a flicker of confusion showed in her hollow black eyes.

Zhou Zhou had almost forgotten the meaning of this gesture. Since she had pressed her hand against the glass, he needed to press his hand there too from the other side, making it look like their hands were intimately touching through the glass. He had done this many times before, yet failed to react properly just now. And next, he would have to…

He smiled gently at the woman outside, his pure eyes seeming to sparkle with a soft light. Slowly, he leaned his forehead against the window, eyes downcast to avoid directly looking at her.

Cheek to cheek.

Now, separated by the transparent glass, their hands touched and foreheads leaned together. Ignoring the vengeful spirit’s terrifying appearance and the blood dripping down the window, the scene almost looked romantic.

The woman outside suddenly jerked her head up, seeming startled by his actions. In an instant, she floated away from the window at an astonishing speed, a mere red blur in Zhou Zhou’s upward gaze.

Why did she leave?

Zhou Zhou pressed against the window, eyes wide as he gazed upwards, but saw nothing at all.

Had he done something wrong just now? Zhou Zhou withdrew his left hand, staring at his palm in confusion.

“Zhou Zhou, you caught them, so come down carefully and don’t fall,” Qian Le said, keeping a wary eye on Al in case he tried to force his way to Zhou Zhou in the middle of the hallway.

After a while, he turned around to see Zhou Zhou holding six ghosts of normal human size in one hand, the ghosts swaying back and forth and almost engulfing him altogether.

“Oh.”

Hearing Qian Le call him, Zhou Zhou immediately gave up searching for that girl and jumped down from the stool, dragging it back to its original spot.

The ghosts’ jiojio at the bottom were just small wisps, so Zhou Zhou could hold them all in one hand, but their combined area was quite large, almost filling up the space above the hallway.

The resentful wails rose and fell, like cries for life in the darkness, sending chills down one’s spine.

“Come out, Zhou Zhou has caught all the ghosts,” Qian Le said, shaking his head at the few players left in the hallway.

The doors that had been closed slowly opened, and the players seemed a bit embarrassed as they silently walked out.

“Thank you.”

“If not for you, we would have all been annihilated.”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect someone so small to be so powerful.”

“And brave too.”

“You’ll definitely have the highest score among us after clearing this.”

Compliments and flattery poured out freely. Zhou Zhou was delighted, his eyes crinkling as he smiled shyly, everyone was praising him.

Though young, Qian Le’s extensive work experience told him these people were just buttering Zhou Zhou up, not genuinely wanting to praise him. He had originally intended to expose them so Zhou Zhou would be more wary, but seeing how happy he looked, he decided to let it go.

Heya came up the spiral staircase, scowling loudly, “What was all that pushing just now? You people almost shoved me down the stairs.”

His gruff voice boomed like thunder, and combined with his domineering expression, no one dared say anything more.

The chaos earlier had been too disorienting in the dim light for anyone to know which player had the audacity to try pushing that big guy down the stairs.

Al’s brow furrowed slightly as he leaned against the wall, observing Heya’s uncharacteristic behavior. He now had an obvious look of vexation, as if he could explode at any moment.

As someone who had trained alongside the Empire’s heir from a young age, Heya was an outstanding talent who wouldn’t easily let his emotions show. Even after all these years as a mercenary, he shouldn’t be getting this openly angry over a small hindrance in a game.

Al’s suspicious gaze then turned to Zhou Zhou, who was still beaming happily, the dimples in his cheeks never fading.

Was this his doing again?

The neon green guy sidled up beside Al and, noticing his intent “admiring” gaze towards Zhou Zhou, sighed softly, “Brother, that was really too bad earlier.”

Al turned to look at the neon green guy, his expression still blank but with a hint of puzzlement in his eyes. Too bad?

“Yeah~ I even pretended to be dead and gave you light, but you were too slow to seize the chance. Just a little bit more and you could have embraced him,” the neon green guy lamented, shaking his head as if he himself had narrowly missed hugging Zhou Zhou.

“But I still support you guys. You two look so matched, go for it!” He made an encouraging gesture at Al, then sauntered into the crowd, “I’m here to bring you all a streak of green light in the darkness!”

Al stared at the neon green guy, his lips twitching slightly. What nonsense was this guy spouting?

The players were about to move to the next room when one of them stood in the hallway, gazing at the window in a daze.

“What are you spacing out for? Hurry up or you’ll fall behind,” someone nudged him.

The player looked puzzledly at the window at the end of the hallway. Now that the clouds had dispersed outside, the faint moonlight shone through the window. What was that on the window?

He squinted hard, even taking a few steps forward to make it out, two handprints that had turned reddish-brown, and a few bloodstains below them.

“Quick, come look at this!” The player immediately called out in alarm to the others who had entered the room.

“What is it? What are you looking at?” Those coming out of the room followed his finger and saw the bloody handprints too.

More and more people came out, causing an uproar when they saw the prints.

“When did those appear?”

“I checked the windows during the day and there was nothing on them.”

“They showed up at night? You don’t think a player put them there, do you?”

“Are you stupid? Who would just leave handprints like that, and are those bloodstains? Why aren’t they mosaic?”

Seeing everyone discussing it, Zhou Zhou explained, “A girl left those prints.”

“A girl? Which girl?” The players turned towards the female players in their group.

Zhou Zhou shook his head, “Not someone here, she was out…”

Before he could finish, the glass with the bloody handprints shattered loudly, raining shards down into the hallway.