Chapter 28: Chapter 27, 2nd Loop
Swallowed a mouthful of saliva, Chen Xinyi racked her brains in that instant, concentrating her attention like never before.
She didn't want to passively await death.
"Right, I'm a Player too, I can also ask questions."
It seemed she guessed something, frantically typing a line of text: "Will it jump out of the window?"
Please!
Answer "Yes" quickly!
I'm begging you!
Please, I'm begging you!
Let it jump out!
However, regrettably, the final answer that appeared was— "No."
She typed again, "Will it jump out of the window?"
"No."
Another no.
Tears and snot burst out all at once, but she had to bear the suffering, shivering in a corner.
Chen Xinyi finally realized that she had encountered the long-awaited... supernatural phenomenon!
Yet as soon as this phenomenon appeared, it went straight for her life!
In the end, the despair-inducing cellphone screen once again showed a message.
"Am I hiding under the bed?"
"Yes!"
This time, the result even had an exclamation mark; the other side seemed very excited to have found her.
With tears blurring her vision, she crawled under the bed, feeling like she had become a shape similar to a vacuum-packed spherical chicken.
A woman in red high heels was bending over slowly.
The bending motion was laborious and slow, resembling that of a zombie, with the sound of bones rubbing together.
Strands of the woman's hair fell onto the ground.
The stench got closer.
For Chen Xinyi, it was torture.
She couldn't see the woman's face, shrouded in gray mist; the woman seemed to be laughing or crying, and a withered hand with black lines like disheveled thread slowly reached out...
Chen Xinyi... stopped breathing.
...
...
...
On the brink of death, she suddenly saw a flame!
This flame was dark red, floating towards her mind from some far-off place in an unfathomable dimension.
"What is this... Bodhisattva?" Chen Xinyi thought fuzzily, "Namo Gatling Bodhisattva?"
She didn't believe in deities; she had seen this term in a novel and had found it funny at the time. Now, it came back to her as an instinctive reaction.
"You are dead, do you want to start over? You will have to pay the corresponding price."
Compared to "death," what was there that she couldn't pay?
Dead, she would have nothing left.
She immediately chose to agree.
...
...
"Hmm? Just like that, dead, without any resistance?" Wang Hao frowned, slowly recovering from the immersive state of terror.
He scratched his head, beginning to ponder some questions.
This Game scenario truly relied purely on intelligence; he hadn't clearly seen how the character "Chen Xinyi" had died.
This signified a gap between the two sides akin to that between humans and amoebas!
"Chen Xinyi" was found and easily crushed to death.
"However, the first death still yielded quite a lot of valuable information, and was not without its worth.
Wang Hao confidently thought, \"I should be able to clear the game within three lives.\"
\"The difficulty really isn't that high.\"
...
...
In the very next second!
Time began to flow backwards, and the world in front of her brightened.
Chen Xinyi returned to ten minutes earlier.
The phone screen displayed a line of text: \"When it's quiet at night, the group often initiates the Turtle Soup Game. But over the past week, the number of active players in the group has been diminishing, with one fewer active player at the same time each day. We were discussing this when suddenly, I heard a rapid 'thump thump thump' at the door.\"
At the same time, the sound of high heels clacking 'clack clack clack' came from afar.
\"I... have resurrected?\" Chen Xinyi's eyes widened in shock and confusion at what had just happened.
Bodhisattva?!
The Q&A on the phone continued uninterrupted: \"Does it involve metacritters (supernatural)?\"
\"Yes.\"
\"Is it Red Soup (involving death)?\"
\"Yes.\"
Chen Xinyi felt a shiver run through her, and before she could celebrate her resurrection, she discovered that a mysterious force had taken over her body.
\"I can't move.\"
Most of her muscles were under its control, and now she was like a marionette, the only thing she could do was blink her eyes.
Under the control of this mysterious force, she walked straight to the kitchen and grabbed hold of the smooth and sharp kitchen knife, which still bore a hint of the smell of garlic.
\"No way... it can't be!\" Chen Xinyi was so frightened she felt paralyzed, but unfortunately, her body wouldn't obey her commands.
She couldn't do anything but cry.
\"It must be a confrontation between the Bodhisattva and the demons... I must believe in the Bodhisattva right now.\"
Chen Xinyi kept reassuring herself: \"Relax, relax... the Gatling Buddha will definitely win.\"
\"I am someone who has been resurrected once after all, I can be resurrected a second time.\"
But no matter how she comforted herself, the tears flowed fiercely, her bladder felt uncomfortably full, and even her stomach began to ache.
A big one was coming.
Thankfully, her body was under control, so even though she felt an urgent need, it was forcefully held back.
\"Thump~thump thump\" the sound of knocking on the door came right on time, and she glanced out through the peephole to see nothing but darkness.
A few seconds later, the same question appeared on the phone screen.
Question: \"Will I (the main character) open the door?\"
But this time, shockingly, there was no answer!
The sound of unlocking came from outside the door.
Just like last time, after the deadbolt was unlocked, it couldn't be fastened again.
As a bystander, Chen Xinyi found her body motionless, her right hand holding the kitchen knife tensely, muscles taut, her left hand gripping the doorknob, ready to open the door at any moment. Her gaze was fixated on the phone on the floor, seemingly waiting for something.
She watched helplessly as the door lock was slowly turned, and the \"thing\" outside was about to enter the living room.
At that moment, the answer appeared on the phone screen: \"No.\"
It was responding to the question \"Will I (the main character) open the door?\"
Chen Xinyi suddenly understood the intention of the \"Bodhisattva\"; if the answer to the question had been \"No\" preceding the action, she would have immediately opened the door to create a contradicting reality to the given answer.
But now, the other side had answered only after unlocking the door! How cunning!
There was no time to hide.
A direct confrontation!
The woman in front of her, donning high heels, was like a frosty automaton, her stiff head slightly raised, her face revealing a strange and ugly smile. A black yarn ball-like substance emerged from her eyes, wriggling like leeches. It was this ball of yarn-like substance that had effortlessly killed her in the previous loop.
Chen Xinyi swore that in her past world, such a mysterious \"black yarn ball-like\" substance did not exist.
And at that instant!
The kitchen knife swung down fiercely!"