Chapter 25: Not a Single One Missing

It wasn’t until dark, when the villagers brought their dinner, that the scar-faced man still hadn’t been brought back.

This made Ling Ji and the two girls feel very uneasy.

“How about we go look for him after we eat?” He Jia suggested. “This village isn’t big. Maybe he’s staying somewhere else. Do they have a clinic? Maybe he was injured and taken there?”

Meng Xinyi nodded in agreement. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

Ling Ji also said, “Missing someone could affect our mission progress, and it’s already been more than half a day. We don’t have a single clue. I’m afraid we won’t be sleeping tonight.”

The three of them voiced their opinions and then simultaneously turned to Chu Xihen, who was silently eating dinner.

The villagers had sent a balanced meal of meat and vegetables, and the rice was very fragrant. Although time in the real world was frozen, their bodies had indeed entered the instance. All five senses were active. With such good food, they naturally wanted to enjoy it.

“Hey, Mr. Fox, can you please participate a little? After all, this is a team instance. We need to pool our wisdom to clear it, and we don’t have much time,” Ling Ji said, seeing Chu Xihen’s indifferent attitude, his blood pressure soaring.

“Oh, my opinion is not to go out. Don’t go out after dark. You need to stay alive to clear the instance,” Chu Xihen said, acting as if he would only move when someone pushed him.

But his opinion was as good as not saying anything.

“If we don’t go out tonight to look for clues and wait until six o’clock tomorrow morning, we’ll waste at least nine hours. We only have forty-eight hours!” He Jia was so anxious that she couldn’t even eat her dinner.

In the apocalypse, she worried about not having anything to eat. Now that she was in the instance with food, she worried about not surviving.

“The mission doesn’t say that the whole team has to pass, and that Scarface didn’t even want to clear the instance properly. Why are you bothering with him?” Chu Xihen had already finished eating while the three of them were trying to come up with a solution. He put down his chopsticks, wiped his mouth, and asked.

“We’re looking for clues while we look for him,” He Jia explained.

Honestly, as long as it didn’t affect the mission, it would be Scarface’s own fault if he died.

“Aren’t you worried at all that we won’t be able to complete the mission?” Ling Ji stared intently at the mask on Chu Xihen’s face.

Although he was curious as to why the other party was wearing a mask in the instance – weren’t they strangers, which made this redundant?

But everyone has their own privacy, so Ling Ji didn’t ask.

“Not worried, because I can complete it,” Chu Xihen said as he stood up. “I’m going back to my room to rest.”

Seeing his calm demeanor, Ling Ji’s brows furrowed slightly.

He Jia asked, “Brother Ling, should we listen to him?”

Chu Xihen gave He Jia a very mysterious and unreliable feeling. She didn’t know whether to listen to him or not.

“Listen to him. Let’s get through tonight first, see what happens, and then decide,” Ling Ji said. After communicating with the two girls, he returned to his room.

One night passed, and when the few of them woke up the next day, the sun had already risen.

The villagers brought breakfast right on time. When they saw that all four of them were sitting at the table, their eyes were filled with horror.

“You… you didn’t go out last night?” The villager asked hesitantly.

Ling Ji didn’t miss his abnormality and asked back, “What’s wrong? Are we supposed to go out?”

When he returned to his room last night, he thought that he would be too anxious to sleep, considering the tight timeframe and how they were using it to sleep. Who knew that he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and wake up to find it bright outside?

Seeing the villager’s reaction now, he felt that Chu Xihen’s approach might be right.

“No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that the moonlight was very beautiful last night. It’s strange that you didn’t go out to take a look,” the villager said, hastily making up a reason to brush off Ling Ji.

But Ling Ji caught the flaw in his words. “We just didn’t leave the guesthouse, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy the moon. Why would you say that?”

Chu Xihen raised his eyes and looked at Ling Ji at this moment.

Ling Ji was a little confused. Did he say something wrong?

Then he heard the villager say, “There are no windows in the rooms of our guesthouse. If you want to enjoy the moon, you have to leave the room.”

No windows? Ling Ji recalled, and he hadn’t noticed this detail. No wonder he felt strange when he entered the room last night.

But he still calmly said to the villager, “We can watch it in the courtyard.”

The villager seemed to be very frightened and no longer wanted to argue with Ling Ji. He picked up the empty basket and ran away.

Ling Ji quickly asked Chu Xihen, “He was clearly certain that we hadn’t left the room, right? Did you discover anything?”

He Jia and Meng Xinyi also looked at Chu Xihen.

Chu Xihen hadn’t slept all night and missed Lou Su’s embrace a little. He spoke weakly.

“He saw that none of us were missing, so he was sure that we hadn’t left the room. Think about it yourself,” Chu Xihen said, then put down his bowl and chopsticks again, his whole body as if glued to the sofa.

Ling Ji understood Chu Xihen’s hint and froze in his chair, as if struck by lightning.

He Jia asked, “What does that mean?”

Meng Xinyi explained to her, “It means that if you leave the room at night, you will definitely die. The villagers seem to assume that we won’t all appear intact this morning. Look, the breakfast on the table is almost all in portions of three.”

Because there were many varieties, including steamed buns, eggs, and sweet potatoes, all placed in one basin, it was not easy to notice if they weren’t distributed individually.

After hearing this, He Jia suddenly felt a chill down her spine. “They knew we couldn’t go out at night but didn’t remind us, just waiting for us to seek our own deaths?”

“Thanks to Mr. Fox for the reminder,” Ling Ji said, breathing a sigh of relief after surviving the ordeal.

As expected of the infinite world instance, which was rumored to be full of dangers. A little carelessness could cost you your life.

If Chu Xihen hadn’t told them not to act last night, all three of them would have been done for.

“Could that perverted man have already died last night?” He Jia asked.

Although they all disliked that scar-faced man, they couldn’t be happy at the thought that he might have already died in the instance last night.

Because someone had died before they had even figured out the rules of this instance, which was not a good thing.

“Perhaps,” Meng Xinyi responded to He Jia.

This accident made the three of them lose their appetite for food again and began to worry about their next actions.

“Can we go out during the day?” He Jia asked Ling Ji.

But Ling Ji subconsciously looked at Chu Xihen, who had fallen asleep again!

“We should be able to act during the day, right? Shall we go out and look for clues together?” Ling Ji sought the opinions of the two girls.

As for Chu Xihen, he didn’t dare to disturb his rest at all.

The three of them wandered around the village together for a morning. When the villagers saw them, the enthusiasm in their eyes was gone, replaced by panic and resentment.

They originally wanted to inquire about the konjac, but they were too scared by the villagers to speak.

They walked to the other end of the village and saw a path in the woods leading into the distance. When they tried to go over and take a look, they were stopped by the villagers.

“This is a forbidden area in our village. Outsiders are not allowed to enter.” Then the three of them were driven back to the guesthouse.

Despite being rebuffed everywhere, Ling Ji was still excited when he returned to the guesthouse and said to Chu Xihen, “Mr. Fox, we’ve found a clue!”