Love NPC in Nightmare Game - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: Doll’s House 8

Night arrived as scheduled.

This time, almost as soon as it got dark outside, a large group of ghosts appeared, just as Xia Yan had said, all the dead players had turned into large ghosts, and more than a dozen ghosts completely surrounded this house.

“What do we do now? If we don’t find a way, we’ll really be wiped out today.”

Eddie tried to close the windows on the first floor, but the windows had no locks, either inside or outside, so they couldn’t be closed.

Moreover, every floor and every room in this house had windows, no matter where they hid, they couldn’t avoid it.

“Come to hell with me~” The large ghosts outside kept shouting, and then they grabbed the eaves and started shaking them.

The prepared crowd found that the shaking frequency now seemed not very fast.

“Their movements seem to have slowed down?” Eddie, who had chosen a position today where he could see outside, found that the ghosts’ movements were a bit slower than yesterday. Was it because there were more of them, so their movements were not as agile as yesterday?

Although it was not too strenuous for now, for the players who had already played dodgeball for an entire day, they couldn’t hold on for too long.

A few minutes later, the ghosts behind also floated over, then grabbed the eaves together, and the shaking force started to increase.

The people inside the house were shaken dizzy, and some had already lost their grip.

The first person let go because they had no strength left, as if it was a signal, and several other players inside also let go.

Although they didn’t fall out of the window all at once, they were rolling left and right on the floor, occasionally hitting the furniture or walls inside the house.

Xue Li and Ke Li were two of them, and Eddie was also about to lose his grip.

“Xue Li! Ke Li!”

Zhou Zhou kept looking back at Xue Li and Ke Li, who were trying to grab onto something on the ground, wanting to go over and rescue them, but it was too far away. Even though there were a few times when they happened to fall near Zhou Zhou, before he could reach out and grab them, the two people had rolled back to the other side again.

If they kept shaking like this, sooner or later a player would fall out of the window. The ghosts, due to their large numbers, not only shook back and forth when shaking, but also swayed to the left and right sides, and those few players sliding on the ground were getting closer and closer to the open windows.

“Ahhh, help me, I can’t hold on anymore!”

Ke Li finally half fell out of the window during one of the shakes, although he managed to grab onto the window frame in time, but he probably wouldn’t be able to hold on for long.

“Ke Li!” Seeing Ke Li about to fall out, Zhou Zhou suddenly let go, and during the next shake, with the tilting force of the house, he crashed into the entrance. The main door of the house faced outward, but it was the only one that was closed, and even during the shaking, it wouldn’t open by itself.

Zhou Zhou grabbed the door handle, and during the next tilt of the house towards the door, he opened the door and ran out.

Sensing that someone had come out of the house, the ghosts simultaneously stopped their actions and looked towards the small figure on the ground.

“Ke Li, hurry up and go inside!” Zhou Zhou looked at the large ghosts outside and shouted to Ke Li, who was hanging from the window.

At this time, the shaking of the house had also stopped. Ke Li hurriedly crawled into the window, and Xue Li also quickly got up from the ground and grabbed Ke Li’s sleeve to help him.

“Zhou Zhou, you hurry up and come in.” After finally helping Ke Li crawl inside, Xue Li hurriedly shouted to Zhou Zhou outside the window.

Zhou Zhou stood not far from the entrance, his eyes fixed on the large hands reaching out from the ghosts, then suddenly turned and dashed towards the entrance. At the moment when the ghost’s large hand was about to land on Zhou Zhou’s back, he successfully ran through the main door.

Xue Li was scared into a cold sweat, thinking for a moment that Zhou Zhou was about to be caught.

“Come to hell with me~”

The ghosts could only say this one line, but this time, their shouts seemed to carry the anger of being fooled.

Then, as the ghosts stood ready to shake the house again, Zhou Zhou ran out from the entrance again.

“I’m right here!” he shouted at the ghosts, waving his arms, afraid the ghosts wouldn’t see him.

The ghosts stopped their actions again and reached their large hands towards the small person on the ground.

Then Zhou Zhou ran back inside.

He seemed to have timed it well, each time running inside just as the ghosts were about to catch him. Then, when the ghosts grabbed the eaves and prepared to shake the house again, he would run back out.

Back and forth several times, the ghosts fell for it every time.

After all, they were NPCs made by the system, and would only act according to their settings, so Zhou Zhou’s fishing-like method was very effective, giving the other players time to rest.

Xue Li watched Zhou Zhou running back and forth, and said with some surprise: “Zhou Zhou seems to have decent stamina. He worked so hard playing dodgeball today, but now he still has the energy to lure the ghosts back and forth.”

Ke Li, sitting in a chair catching his breath, also nodded in agreement: “Indeed, before the game ended and we returned to the house, he looked about the same as us, but now, he has recovered so quickly.”

Zhou Zhou had actually forgotten about this. At first, he just wanted to buy time for Ke Li to hurry back into the house, but after a few rounds back and forth, he found that this method allowed everyone to rest for a while, so he kept running back and forth. The issue of NPCs not being able to exhibit abnormalities, as well as normal human stamina, had long been thrown to the back of his mind.

Afterwards, the other players took turns luring the ghosts back and forth with Zhou Zhou, and after half an hour of getting nowhere, the ghosts finally stopped and slowly floated away.

At this time, everyone could finally rest properly, collapsing randomly on the ground, feeling that this instance was exceptionally tiring.

Ke Li lay on the ground, tilted his head, and said to Zhou Zhou, who was sitting in a chair hugging the fat duck: “Zhou Zhou, thank you, if it weren’t for you, I think I would have been eliminated.”

Zhou Zhou shook his head: “This is what I should do.” After all, their relationship was no longer ordinary!

What he should do? Because they were good friends, good companions? Ke Li was deeply moved.

After resting for a long time, everyone discussed looking for clues again.

“Since yesterday, after we returned the dolls to those children, there has been no other activity on the main quest. So if the exit clue is not in this house, then it must be with those children,” Xia Yan guessed.

“But where do we find those children?” They had almost looked through all the other rooms in this five-story house, and there were no traces of children anywhere, and they didn’t know where they were staying either.

“Last night at midnight, we were teleported to different rooms, and tonight, we don’t know if it will be the same routine.” Xia Yan glanced at the clock, and it was still some time before midnight.

“If tonight at midnight, we are teleported again, it’s best for everyone to ask those children about the clues, or pay attention to whether there are any words related to the tree hole in what they say.”

At this time, Xia Yan seemed to have become the main pillar among everyone, mainly because what he said did make a lot of sense.

Before midnight arrived, everyone looked for clues outside the house, but still found nothing, so it seemed they really might need those children to find the clues about the exit.

The clock chimed at midnight, and the crowd searching for clues in different places was once again teleported to different rooms.

One player was teleported to a pitch-black, cramped place, unable to see anything, and wherever he reached out, there were obstructions on all four sides.

“What is this place?” He tapped in front of him and found it was a wooden board, so was he now in a place like a wooden cabinet?

The player tried to push open this wooden cabinet, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t push it open.

“Knock knock knock.” Someone knocked three times outside the wooden cabinet.

“Is anyone there? Can you help me open it?” The player shouted outwards.

“Uncle, I found you.”

The voice outside the wardrobe was very familiar, it was the little brat he encountered last night, the one who chased after him last night wanting some green dinosaur toy. If he hadn’t pushed the brat away and ran, he probably would have been eliminated yesterday. But now, this brat had actually come back again.

The player remained silent, wanting to wait for the kid to leave before figuring out how to get out of here. The kid outside didn’t say anything either, separated by a layer of wood, so he couldn’t tell if they had left or not.

Rubbing the wooden board near the front, the player pressed his ear against it, trying to listen for the child’s movements.

Then the familiar childlike voice sounded behind him: “Uncle, what are you doing?”

The player’s heart dropped, and he abruptly turned his head to look back, finding a little boy standing behind him in the pitch-black cabinet, his expressionless pale face with two blood-red tear stains standing out starkly in the darkness.

“Ahhh, help!”

The cabinet shook violently a few times, and then there was no more movement inside.

With a creak, the cabinet opened, and a little boy walked out of it. He scratched his head, muttering to himself: “Such a small fry, scared into fainting so quickly?”

The room’s lights came on, and it turned out the player had been inside the wardrobe in the room, which also had a green dinosaur plushie taller than a person. Despite its fluffy, cute appearance, the dinosaur waddled into the cabinet, then let out a roar and swallowed the player whole.

The little boy held the dinosaur, which had turned back into a small toy: “Let’s go, we should hurry back. Yesterday, a player actually dared to scare Xiao Jin, we’ll go take revenge on him!”

After saying that, the little boy disappeared.

Zhou Zhou found that this time, he had been teleported to a very large room with a pristine white ceiling from which many small dolls were hanging, also painted with suns and rainbows. The surrounding walls were also pure white, and the bright lighting along with the childlike decor indicated this was probably a children’s playground, containing many toys as well as small sandpits and slides.

More than a dozen children were playing, some on the slides, some with sand, some with toys. Upon noticing Zhou Zhou who had suddenly appeared in the center, they all put down their toys and surrounded him together.

If it was just one or two kids, it would be fine, but being surrounded by more than a dozen children, even though these kids all looked very cute, they were staring at Zhou Zhou with expressionless gazes, a situation that would probably give anyone the creeps.

Zhou Zhou didn’t show any abnormality at all. Hugging the little yellow duck, he looked around and didn’t see the little angel-like boy from last night. He couldn’t help but ask the other children: “Hello, is there a little friend here with golden hair and golden eyes?”

His main quest was still not complete, he needed to give the duck to that child.

The blonde, blue-eyed little girl who looked like a doll frowned in accusation: “It was you who scared Xiao Jin yesterday and made him cry.”

Last night the child did indeed cry and walk away, but that was because Al suddenly kicked open the door and scared the child, not because of him.

Zhou Zhou blinked, feeling very innocent, but thinking that Al had also kicked down the door in order to find him, scaring the child, so he obediently apologized: “I’m sorry.”

Seeing his apology, the children’s attitudes improved slightly, but they still said fiercely to Zhou Zhou: “What exactly did you do last night?”

“Last night, it wasn’t me who scared Xiao Jin into crying, I only told him a few bedtime stories. The one who scared him was my friend, he suddenly kicked open the door, and that’s what scared Xiao Jin.”

Bedtime stories?

The children’s eyes lit up. Last night when Xiao Jin came back, he just kept crying and didn’t say why he was crying, so everyone unanimously thought it was that player who had scared him, which was why Xiao Jin cried.

The group of children huddled together on the other side with a rustle, occasionally glancing back at Zhou Zhou, who looked at them curiously, discussing in a jumble of voices.

“Bedtime stories huh, I’ve never heard them before.”

“Weren’t we supposed to punish him? Scare this player until he cries too.”

“But he can tell bedtime stories, and it wasn’t him who scared Xiao Jin either.”

“So what do we do? Do we still want to scare him?”

“Why don’t we have him tell us bedtime stories first, and after that we can scare him.”

“Okay.”

“Agreed.”

“Let’s do that.”

The group of children discussed and agreed, then rustled back over to surround Zhou Zhou again.

“If you tell us bedtime stories too, then we’ll forgive you.”

Zhou Zhou thought it was fine, he had already consoled a child last night, and he had told stories very well to the child last night too. Now it was just that there were more children, only a dozen or so, it should be about the same.

“Okay, last night I only told Xiao Jin two stories, but since there are so many of you today, I can tell a few more.”

The children all sat down on the ground, surrounding Zhou Zhou in the middle and nodding eagerly, the more bedtime stories the better.

“Then I’ll tell the first one, about a little child who likes to hide in the fridge, searching for his dad and mom every night.”