Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 45.1: Manman (18)

June 17, 2023 by Wyrd

When all the monster children were subdued, players on the fifth and sixth floors watched in silence and astonishment from above.

It was a sight they had never imagined.

The garden was filled with yellow-white liquid, body remnants, and small skulls.

The dense lily vines spread wildly, its leaves green and black, with tendrils tinged with red amidst the green, and blood flowers blooming.

Underneath the lily vines, numerous monster children struggled and roared in anger and helplessness.

Four filthy children lay on the lily vines, looking so tiny from above. Beneath them lay countless monster children that had terrified them before.

“They... Did they really succeed?”

“I never thought they would be able to subdue the monster children.”

“I never imagined that they would...”

The players’ emotions were complex as they stared blankly at them.

“Wait, look over there! Another group of monster children is coming!”

“Damn it! What the f*ck...”

“Now, they really have no way out, right?”

Originally, they had not held high hopes for the players on the fourth floor, but for some reason, not a single person was happy to see another wave of monster children attacking.

In the swollen eyes of Zhu Shuangshuang, corroded by the liquid, tears fell incessantly.

“If it’s me and Zhi Zhi who die tonight, don’t bury me in that corner. Let the oil-painted puppet take our ashes out. I never want to stay here again.”

Meng Jiang: “I don’t want to stay here either. Perhaps the despair of becoming a ghost is still lingering in my soul.”

Ning Su: “Help me turn over.”

Meng Jiang had no strength left, but after lying down for a while, for someone with strength, flipping Ning Su’s small body shouldn’t be a problem.

Although he didn’t know what Ning Su wanted to do, he still followed suit.

The six-year-old boy who appeared to be only five years old was easily flipped over by Meng Jiang, his face facing the lily flower vine.

Compared to the other three people, he was relatively clean. With a pale and transparent face, he pushed away a skull and bit down on the lily flower petals there.

The monster children climbed up the iron gate one after another, while he quietly ate the lily flower.

The three people stared at him blankly, as if they understood what he meant, but couldn’t believe it.

He didn’t give up.

However, the lily vines that could suppress the monster children had already been taken off by him. They couldn’t suppress the monster children on a large scale anymore.

He even had clearly lost the strength even to flip over.

They had no strength left either, and couldn’t even stand up.

How could they possibly deal with this new batch of monster children?

Perhaps one monster child alone could kick all four of them away.

The three of them looked at him in shock and disbelief, their eyes moist with a certain light gathering, about to burst forth.

Ning Su didn’t know how many flowers he had eaten. When he raised his head, there was still a petal between his lips.

His hand rested on the lily vines, and the black fine blood vessels on it became visible, spreading from his hand to his arm.

He slightly propped up his upper body, and the black blood vessels spread from his arms to his collarbone, neck, and face.

Under his fair and delicate skin, tiny black blood vessels formed intricate ancient patterns, appearing eerie and mysterious on his young and exquisite face.

A group of monster children jumped in front of them, and the black energy under his hand suddenly formed a circular shape, dispersing.

Just then, a giant octopus descended from the sky.

The octopus was color blue. Its numerous long and sturdy tentacles spread out in the garden, leaving no monster child untouched as they pressed them down.

Ning Su blinked.

Zhu Shuangshuang struggled to turn her head and said, “This shouldn’t be something from Huaiyang Village.”

Huaiyang Village was an inland village, while this towering octopus that almost reached the crescent moon was clearly a deep-sea behemoth.

Ji Mingrui exclaimed, “What is this thing again?”

Meng Jiang gasped for breath and said, “It’s a blue octopus summoned by Shi Tianzhu, a monster from the fifth-level deep-sea dungeon instance.”

The three of them were stunned.

The first wave of monster children was suppressed, but another wave rushed in.

A group of eerie insects with human-like heads, emitting a green light, crawled densely and endlessly onto the monster children. In the blink of an eye, a row of monster children was reduced to just skin.

Meng Jiang said, “The corpse gu nurtured by the Gu Witch.”

Another wave of monster children crawled up, but countless sharp arrows emitting a chilling silver light pierced through them, pinning them firmly to the ground.

Meng Jiang said, “Bai Shuang’s silver arrows.”

“Charge, brothers! We can defeat the monster children!”

“They don’t eat humans! Don’t be afraid! Attack!”

“Charge! Bring them down!”

Players from the fifth and sixth floors all rushed down.

Tears welled up in Zhu Shuangshuang’s eyes again.

She bit her lip and stood up tremblingly, tying a red hairband around her long hair. It floated in the cold and fishy night breeze, growing larger and larger. The blood-red hairband covered the moonlight, concealing the entire castle.

She stared fiercely at those monster children and said, “Come on, fighting to the death is better than waiting for death.”

Ji Mingrui held a lily vine in his hand and stood up. At the end of the lily vine was a round trap, which he had set while lying down earlier.

Meng Jiang also stood up and said, “Let’s see whose strength is greater!”

Shi Tianzhu stood on one of the octopus tentacles that had rushed into the air and said coldly, “Two hours. Hold on until midnight!”

“Alright!”

No one knew how many monster children were in the children’s playground, but they knew that as long as the monster children rushed into the garden, they would all be subdued.

There were lily flowers blooming in the garden.

There was black energy spreading along the vines, drilling into the feet of the monster children, making them dizzy.

There were numerous octopus tentacles growing, chasing after the monster children.

There were more green insects searching for food than there were monster children.

There were arrows and long knives...

Some people ran to various corners with lily nets and trapped the monster children.

Some people followed Ji Mingrui’s lead and used pre-prepared lily vines as lassos to capture the monster children jumping to high places on the walls to fiercely throw them down.

Before this, they either treated each other coldly or schemed against one another.

When facing this group of monster children who tormented them night after night, they all stood on the same front, exerting all their strength from their exhausted bodies, determined to press these monster children to the ground.

On the sixth floor, the spatial props protected the ghost friends.

On the fifth floor, the black insects densely covered the windows.

On the fourth floor, Gui Sheng stood in front of the four ghost friends, blocking them and continuously throwing animal ghosts downstairs, saying, “Protect!”

On all floors, the castle was covered with a deep red cloth.

Red could be both a terrifying color and a warm color.

All the players were positioned higher and higher, with a growing pile of monster children beneath their feet. Many monster children from the lily vine net overflowed outside the door.

Various limbs, blood, mucus, insects, and hair were scattered throughout the garden.

The players no longer had the energy to think, and one by one, they slowly fell down.

It was unknown how much time had passed.

The garden grew quieter and even the roars of the monster children became much softer.

[Congratulations to players Ning Su, Zhu Shuangshuang, Meng Jiang, and Ji Mingrui for receiving 1 Luck Point from the Ghost Friends.]

[Congratulations to players Shi Tianzhu, Gu Yangwei, Zhu Ya, Ling Guangqing, and Dai Jiuming for receiving 2 Luck Points from the Ghost Friends.]

[Congratulations to player Bai Shuang for receiving 3 Lucky Point from the Ghost Friends.]

The players opened their trembling eyelids, their consciousness hazy, unable to clearly hear what the system was saying.

They only confirmed that it was past midnight, and when the next day arrived, the monster children had disappeared. They closed their eyes heavily.

The pile of monster children beneath them suddenly vanished, and they fell from such a high height onto the lily vines at the very bottom, without even opening their eyes to take a look.

Their white shirts were stained with red, yellow, and white liquids, along with a lot of dirt, obscuring the color of the shirts.

In this way, the Gu Witch looked at the boy in a dirty shirt, with a dirty face and dirty hair, and he felt even happier.

It seemed that this way, he was no longer a pristine butterfly flying in the air.

He bent down, planning to help the boy up.

When his dirty hand was about to touch the boy’s arm, it was suddenly grabbed by a fair and clean hand.

Even though it appeared to be the form of a six-year-old, it exuded an air of privilege and strength. The fingers slowly pulled his hand away from the boy.

Shi Tianzhu’s voice was unusually cold. “Witch, I warn you, don’t touch him.”

“You can do whatever you want with this instance, but touching him is not allowed.”

Shi Tianzhu shook his arm, bent down, and carried the boy, who was sleeping soundly on the ground, to a spot against the wall. She made him sit on the ground and lean against the wall while using a wet towel to wipe away the stickiness and mucus from his face and hands.

His face regained its brightness and cleanliness.

The little Gu Witch stood silently, tilting his head slightly as he watched Shi Tianzhu naturally wipe the boy’s face and hands. His figure appearing like a zombie in the moonlight.

Around him were players sprawled all over the garden, fast asleep.

They could no longer muster any strength, not even enough to open their eyelids, let alone climb the stairs back to their rooms. They slept soundly in the sticky, foul-smelling garden.

Ghost friends emerged one by one from the castle, finding their respective companions and lying down beside them.

Gui Sheng ran to Ning Su’s side while holding Blood Doll’s hand. The two of them sat on both sides of him.

Gui Sheng held his arm just like when they first met, licking his neck and whimpering like a puppy.

Blood Doll pressed against his other arm, her bloodshot eyes gazing at the crescent moon in the sky. Amidst the blood-red haze, there seemed to be confusion.

Shi Tianzhu shifted her gaze away from their faces, briefly scanning the lily flower hairpin on the Blood Doll’s head. She held the wax doll and walked into the castle.

It was an exceptionally quiet night.

Most players fell into a deep sleep in the garden, accompanied by their ghost friends who either slept beside them or silently watched over them.

Emotions fermented under the pungent air in the moonlight.

Soft, angry, doubtful, struggling, and chaotic.

When the sun rose high the next day, players gradually opened their eyes under its scorching rays.

After only having a light breakfast yesterday morning and fighting through the night, they all remained lying in place, hoarse and speaking weakly.

“Was last night just a dream? Did we manage to subdue the monster children?”

“Seems like it. It’s hard to imagine how I managed to make it through last night.”

“We actually... deserve a week of celebration.”

“Hahahaha, even the monster children weren’t all that.”

While they were talking, Meng Jiang opened his eyes and said, “Thanks, guys.”

One male player said, “It’s because of you guys that we saw the possibility and hope.”

If the fourth floor couldn’t resist last night, they would only be watching who would die from upstairs.

It was their success in restraining a group of monster children that made them realize that monster children weren’t completely invincible. They had hope of surviving. After Shi Tianzhu and Gu Witch made their move, they charged directly.

“You guys are really something!”

“Thanks to you too. We gained so much luck last night.”

“Hey? Did someone among you reach Luck Value 8?”

The garden suddenly fell silent.

They all knew that the second batch of monster children who arrived from the amusement park last night was far fewer than the first batch that came from various places in Fairy Tale Town.

And over 90% of the first batch was controlled by the lily vines, not to mention those who were caught by lily vines. The proportion was terrifying.

They desperately helped the fourth floor avoid death. Now that the main force on the fourth floor had left, who would help them?

Meng Jiang opened his mouth, not knowing how to respond.

Ji Mingrui said, “It’s not necessarily possible to leave with Luck Value 8. Let’s try it after we’ve rested.”

Ning Su was the last person in the entire garden to open his eyes, and as soon as he did, he sniffled.

Gui Sheng understood very well and dragged the lazy person lying on the ground toward the castle.

While other players remained silent due to their luck values, Gui Sheng led a boy past them and became the first to enter the castle.

“...”