Salted Fish Zombie

Chapter 45.2: Manman (18)

June 19, 2023 by Wyrd

To enter the first floor from the garden, you need to climb two steps. The boy’s legs made a “thud, thud” sound as Gui Sheng pulled him, but even so, he was too lazy to bother getting up and walking by himself.

It wasn’t just those two steps, but also the long stairs from the first floor to the second, from the second to the third, and from the third to the fourth.

“Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud...”

“...”

It was only when he entered the bathroom that the lazy boy finally felt like getting up to clean himself.

The other players remained silent for a while, then slowly stood up, supporting themselves against the walls as they made their way towards the castle.

On the tenth day of entering the castle, the players were finally able to eat again after almost a day of starving.

Surely everyone wanted to eat a lot for this meal, but they had to limit their food intake. Before the players came down, Shi Tianzhu had already divided the breakfast into 11 portions and placed them on 11 plates in front of each seat.

The four people on the fourth floor still sat together, and each of the three shared a bit of their breakfast with Ning Su.

Zhu Shuangshuang gave him a meat bun, Ji Mingrui gave him an egg, and Meng Jiang gave him a custard bun.

This was... so blissful!

Sometimes happiness was having endless food to eat, and sometimes happiness was simply having twice as much food as others.

Ning Su secretly checked and indeed, he had twice as much.

He glanced around discreetly and started eating very modestly.

When he reached the last slice of toast and was about to pick it up, his nose twitched, and he carefully lifted it.

There was a fried egg hidden underneath!

Ning Su sneakily glanced at Shi Tianzhu, who remained calm and composed, and quietly ate the egg hidden inside the toast without anyone noticing.

He felt that this meal was even more satisfying than the one on the day they had first entered the castle.

After he finished eating, Shi Tianzhu spoke up, “The luck values of the three players are now at full 8. After breakfast, let’s try to see if you can leave the castle.”

The dining table suddenly fell silent.

Zhu Shuangshuang put down her spoon and said, “Should we try it now? Or should we stay a few more days?”

She still remembered that the players from the fifth and sixth floors helped them last night, allowing all of them to survive. Shouldn’t they stay behind to help them too?

Moreover, Ji Mingrui’s luck value was only one point away from reaching 8 points.

Shi Tianzhu said, “Let’s give it a try.”

Zhu Shuangshuang opened her mouth to say something, but remained silent.

After finishing their meal, all the players didn’t return to their rooms. Instead, they gathered in the garden, which had nothing left to play or watch.

Ning Su walked up to the iron gate and grabbed the door handle.

Ji Mingrui and Meng Jiang stared at him intently.

They were the first players who attempted to leave the castle. They remembered it vividly—on that night, they couldn’t open the gate no matter how hard they tried. Their attempts to forcefully ram it were all bounced back.

Ning Su tightened his grip and exerted a gentle force.

Creak—yaa—

Waaah—waaah—waaah—

The door opened effortlessly.

Simultaneously, the sound of a loud baby’s cry filled the air.

The players alternated between staring at the opened iron gate and looking up at the white fetus statue on top of the castle.

They noticed the statue as soon as they entered this instance.

It was incredibly lifelike, resembling a real fetus pierced by the sharp tip of the castle’s pinnacle.

At this moment, it was flailing its limbs and crying with closed eyes.

The sharp spike penetrating through it seemed to be softening and bending.

Although the bright sunlight fell upon them, the players, witnessing this eerie scene, felt a chilling sensation creeping up from the soles of their feet.

“I-Is it crying?”

“Don’t babies cry when they’re just born? It’s because they’re about to ‘be born.’”

Ning Su said to Meng Jiang, “Let’s go.”

Meng Jiang averted his gaze, grabbed his ghost friend, swallowed nervously, and walked towards the exit.

Previously, he had longed to leave this castle, but now that they could actually leave, he wondered if they could truly make it out. The dungeon lasted for 30 days, and today was only the 10th day. Would they really be able to escape?

If they did, where would they spend the remaining 20 days?

Lost in these anxious thoughts, Meng Jiang snapped back to reality and realized that he had actually stepped out of the iron gate of the castle.

“I actually... got out?”

“He really made it out!”

“Gathering 8 Luck Points can really allow you to leave!”

Next to go out was Zhu Shuangshuang.

“Hold on,” Ning Su stopped her. “Let Ji Mingrui go first.”

“Me?” Ji Mingrui snapped out of it when he heard his name and hesitated for a moment.

He had just seen Meng Jiang leave, and Zhu Shuangshuang was about to leave as well. His heart sank little by little.

After the three of them left, he would be the only one left on the fourth floor. He was uncertain whether the monster children would go to the fifth floor tonight or be lured back to the fourth floor.

Even if he managed to hide for another two days, he wasn’t sure if he could gather enough luck points to leave this place. The next time the fourth floor’s windows opened, he would undoubtedly meet his demise.

Just when he felt incredibly burdened, he heard Ning Su calling him.

“But my luck points aren’t enough yet.”

Ning Su: “The door is already open, give it a try.”

Ji Mingrui held onto Sui Sui’s hand and walked toward the door suspiciously.

To their surprise, they weren’t bounced back.

They stepped outside as well.

Ji Mingrui widened his eyes in shock.

The other players were also excited.

“How did he get out, too? Doesn’t he have insufficient luck points?”

“Is it because we controlled the monster children and broke the situation yesterday? There’s no point in staying here anymore?”

“We entered the castle together, so we should leave together, right?”

“Does that mean I can also go out now?”

Zhu Shuangshuang turned to look at Shi Tianzhu. Did she already know this, which was why she said that during breakfast?

Little Gu Witch knew too? That’s why she wasn’t worried about luck points?

Seeing Zhu Shuangshuang’s gaze, Shi Tianzhu smiled at her and said, “While there is a medical concept of delayed delivery, most multiple births occur on the same day.”

Zhu Shuangshuang: “...”

Indeed, if there were many children, they could perform multiple caesarean sections.

She truly hadn’t expected the system to be so meticulous.

After Ji Mingrui went out, the other players became extremely excited. They were all eager to leave this haunted place.

However, as they raised their feet to step forward, they hesitated and finally realized that they should let the two big shots go first.

When it was Shi Tianzhu’s turn to leave, Ning Su opened the door wider and flatteringly said, “Please, President Shi.”

Shi Tianzhu smiled, “Thank you.”

Ning Su: “No thanks, no need for a tip either.”

Shi Tianzhu: “...”

She hadn’t planned on giving one anyway, but now it seemed a bit unlike a good president if she didn’t.

Next was the Gu Witch.

Ning Su: “Little Gu Witch, please.”

Then the rest of them.

Ning Su: “Hurry up, I’m tired.”

“...”

Ning Su, the doorman, was the last one to leave the castle.

All the players turned to look at the castle that had trapped them for ten days, feeling a mix of excitement, confusion, and unease.

What would come next?

[Congratulations to all players on your birth, and congratulations on the complete awakening of your ghost friends.]

What did that mean?

They understood the first half of the sentence, but what did it mean by the complete awakening of their ghost friends? What kind of awakening?

All the players lowered their heads to look at their ghost friends and realized that as they were born into this world from their mother’s body, their ghost friends underwent significant changes.

They became more like humans, or rather, they had taken on a human form.

Whether they were made of wood, paper, or wax, at this moment, they had transformed into human skin.

Although their skin color was somewhat abnormal—either extremely pale, tinged with a layer of ash, or shades of blue and purple.

They all kept their heads down, silent.

Whether it was because of their transformation or not, the players suddenly felt a sense of unfamiliarity and terror under the sun.

[Please accompany your respective ghost friends back home.]

The players were being pulled along by their ghost friends.

After their ghost friends were born, they had grown slightly taller but still remained shorter than the players. They bowed their heads and purposefully led the players forward, their faces obscured from view.

This hand-holding action had been repeated many times before, but never had the players felt such resistance, causing cold sweat to trickle down their backs.

The small hands in theirs no longer felt like the familiar sensation; instead, they felt the touch of real human children’s tender skin. Yet, it wasn’t the sensation of a living person—it was icy cold, devoid of any human warmth.

In an instant, many players’ minds were filled with words like “dead people,” “corpses,” and “skin painting.”

Cold sweat broke out on the players’ backs.

On the road, the players once again saw the children they had encountered when they entered Fairy Tale Town.

Back at the castle, they had speculated that these children appeared normal during the day but transformed into monster children, crazily attacking the castle at night.

Now, in broad daylight, they stared silently, with small curves at the corners of their mouths, resembling both smiles and cries.

All the players were pulled into a street by their ghost friends.

There were houses along this street, each with a different style that didn’t seem to belong on the same street, or even in the same country.

What they had in common was the dark and eerie atmosphere that surrounded them, like houses rising from the graveyard.

This street felt like a street from the underworld.

One by one, the players were led into different gloomy houses by their ghost friends. In the end, only Blood Doll, Ning Su, and Gui Sheng remained, with Blood Doll pulling them forward.

As Ning Su surveyed the houses along the way, she asked Blood Doll, “Ah Fei, our house shouldn’t be too shabby, right?”

He had just seen a player being pulled into a dilapidated house, while another player was taken into a thatched cottage.

He didn’t want to live in a thatched hut.

“I’m not called Ah Fei,” a sweet yet chilling voice sounded ahead.

Ning Su looked at the Blood Doll who spoke.

She was walking ahead with her head slightly lowered, pulling him along. Ning Su could only see her straight long hair that was black and dense, completely covering her small shoulders, as well as the delicate skirt embroidered with a circle of tiny lily flowers.

He pursed his lips and asked, “Then what’s your name?”

The Blood Doll finally turned her head.

Ning Su sometimes couldn’t distinguish between beauty and ugliness, but at this moment, he felt that this little girl before him must be the most beautiful little girl in the world.

She was beautifully eerie.

Standing quietly amidst the dark and gloomy houses and heavy aura behind her, she resembled a blooming flower in the depths of hell.

The most uncanny thing about her were her eyes, incredibly large eyes with disproportionately large black pupils.

A faintly stiff smile appeared on her pale lips. “Mommy, you must remember, my name is Manman.”

Ning Su: “...”

Ning Su: “............”