Chapter 8: “She’s so afraid of noises.”

Of course, it wasn’t some ridiculously twisted rule-based horror game.

Mao Ziyu was just frustrated that he couldn’t figure out the rules of death, so he cracked a joke in irritation.

All veteran players knew that even in rule-based instances, it was never something as absurd as stepping with your left foot or right foot determining whether you lived or died.

There were no hints about left or right around the escalator, and they had checked thoroughly when entering the mall—no available clues anywhere.

So, what the hell happened to the female player who tumbled down the escalator and got her legs eaten by it?

The escalator, after swallowing her legs, hesitated for a moment before resuming its automatic movement. The male player who had stepped on with her had already reached the bottom, his dazed expression and unsteady steps making it clear he hadn’t processed what had just happened.

Gu Ziyan, who had suggested taking the escalator, stammered, “S-sorry, I… I didn’t think…”

No one blamed her, not even the short-tempered guy from Zhang Guan’s team. They all understood that Gu Ziyan had no way of knowing this would happen. Sure, she made the suggestion, but they had all agreed to take the escalator together—and besides, they were still alive.

Mao Ziyu pulled her behind him and crouched down, reaching out to examine the female player’s body, only to be shoved aside by the male player who had stepped off the escalator. “What the hell are you doing?! Don’t touch her! None of you touch her! Baby, baby, are you okay?!”

The man, looking utterly unhinged, shoved everyone away, stepping in warm blood as he bent down and cradled the half-body of the woman.

After the escalator had eaten her legs, she had tumbled down. It was unclear whether her neck had broken in the fall, but her head now hung limply to one side. Blood gushed from her severed waist, staining the man’s pants and pooling into the escalator’s grooves.

He was probably her boyfriend or husband. Tears streamed down his face, his grief overwhelming, pushing everyone away in a desperate attempt to shield her. They had no way to properly check her condition.

But honestly, they didn’t need to check. It was obvious something was off. The escalator was wrong. The way she died was wrong. A human body wasn’t that fragile—there was no way an escalator could slice clean through her torso like tofu, leaving the upper half intact to roll down while the machine continued running smoothly.

Zhang Guan scowled and barked, “What good is crying now? Can’t you see? Every death in this game is unexpected—you have to be cautious at all times! Laughing and joking while stepping onto an escalator—did you come here to play house?”

Sang Chen instinctively shrank back. The way Zhang Guan spoke reminded him of the old chairman at his company—strict, intimidating, and even more overbearing than a school principal.

Chewing out the guy while he was already grieving made Zhang Guan seem a little heartless.

The man only sobbed harder under the scolding, alternating between crying out “Baby!” and “I’m sorry!” His wails echoed through the mall. Passersby, the original residents of Xiangyang Town, stopped to watch, their expressions indifferent—at most, faint curiosity and confusion.

“It’s just an escalator,” one of the locals muttered. It was the only clear sentence that drifted over from them.

There was no time to dwell on the man’s sorrow. Zhang Guan strode onto the escalator without hesitation, despite the fact that someone had just died there.

Mao Ziyu lingered near the base of the escalator, searching for something. Sang Chen guessed he was looking for an emergency stop button. He had checked earlier himself—there wasn’t one. This escalator didn’t have a stop button at all.

Failing to find it, Mao Ziyu stepped onto the escalator as well.

Gu Ziyan hesitated, carefully testing the first step with her foot but didn’t step on fully.

She watched Zhang Guan and Mao Ziyu examine the escalator and whispered to Sang Chen, “I read a news article about an escalator death once. The person got sucked in when the top cover plate collapsed as they stepped off.”

Sang Chen had seen that horrifying news too, but he had been busy working at the time and hadn’t looked into the details.

In horror games, enclosed elevators always seemed to be hotspots for ghosts and deadly accidents. Escalators felt safer—but after what just happened, who knew if the next one wouldn’t be just as deadly?

More and more players gathered behind them, whispering in hushed tones, murmuring questions among themselves.

Sang Chen had been close enough to witness the whole thing unfold. All that was left now was to step onto the escalator himself. But just as he was about to move, he suddenly realized—his belly had grown bigger again.

His awareness of his abdomen was getting sharper. At first, he had only noticed when he caught people staring at him strangely, like when his belly had reached the size of a five-month pregnancy. But now, he could feel every change—his belly was growing, even if it wasn’t obvious to the eye.

It was a bizarre sensation. There was no heaviness, no discomfort. Visibly, the difference was subtle. But he knew. Something inside him was expanding, like an invisible force accumulating within him.

Sang Chen glanced again at the female player’s lifeless face, deep in thought, when the player carrying the unresponsive Fang Jing turned to him and Gu Ziyan—the two most inexperienced players—and said, “Watch over Fang Jing for me. I’m going up to check things out.”

“Got it,” Sang Chen responded immediately, accepting the task without hesitation.

He and Gu Ziyan supported Fang Jing as they looked around, searching for a place to sit. A few steps ahead on the right side of the escalator, they spotted a row of massage chairs. Yan Mo had somehow wandered over at some point and was now sprawled out in one, fast asleep.

“…”

“He really does have the perfect face and body for a kept pretty boy,” Gu Ziyan whispered as they walked over. “Good-looking, great figure, zero ambition.”

Sang Chen nodded in agreement.

A little envious, honestly.

The kind of envy that comes from being ground into dust by work.

They placed Fang Jing onto one of the massage chairs and, struggling to breathe in the thinning air, stood by her side while keeping an eye on the escalator.

Sang Chen took the opportunity to scan the shopping mall at the town center again. The first floor looked like any regular mall, mostly jewelry stores selling gold and cosmetics counters. The majority of the food outlets were on the fourth floor, but there was also a milk tea shop and a bakery on the first floor.

A rich, buttery aroma wafted from the bakery, warm and comforting. Compared to the lifeless second and third floors, packed with clothing stores, the first floor felt oddly vibrant.

Maybe it was the smell of freshly baked bread.

Sang Chen sniffed the air, taking in another deep breath. Sweet, warm, inviting.

The bakery was just a short distance from the escalator. On the other side stood the cosmetics counter, the most eye-catching display being rows upon rows of lipsticks. Behind the makeup section were the gold jewelry stores, as eerily lifeless as the second floor—like they weren’t even meant to do business, as if the stores existed for some other reason.

They hadn’t been standing there long before Mao Ziyu called them over for a meal.

Fang Jing was hoisted onto the male player’s back again, while Sang Chen reached out to shake Yan Mo awake for dinner.

There were no new discoveries about the escalator.

As they walked over, they overheard a player insisting that ghosts were responsible. “This isn’t something science can explain! It’s got to be supernatural! A ghost must have grabbed her from inside the escalator, just like how Xu Feng got pulled into the toilet last night! The same ghost hand!”

Mao Ziyu and Zhang Guan had already gone up to the second floor. They’d tested the escalator and confirmed it was safe now, but Sang Chen and Gu Ziyan were still extra cautious as they stepped on.

As soon as Gu Ziyan got on, she grabbed Sang Chen’s arm. Sang Chen instinctively reached for Yan Mo’s. Yan Mo’s fingers twitched reflexively before his half-lidded eyes glanced at Sang Chen, then went still again.

“Did you find anything?” Gu Ziyan asked the moment they reached Mao Ziyu.

Mao Ziyu shook his head and sighed. “It’s just like what happened to Xu Feng last night. We found severed limbs and chunks of flesh, but nothing else.”

The male player carrying Fang Jing spoke up. “Watching that player die in the escalator just now… it reminded me of a movie I saw before boarding the time-travel train. It was a hit at the time—called ‘Final Destination.’”

Sang Chen and Gu Ziyan both turned to look at him. They weren’t sure if he was referring to the first film or one of the many sequels that had come out by the time they boarded the train.

Since he was on Zhang Guan’s team, and Zhang Guan was from the past, he made sure to explain things in detail. He summarized the movie plot, taking deep breaths in between sentences, before adding, “In the movie, a lot of so-called ‘accidental deaths’ were actually orchestrated by Death. Don’t you think that’s kind of like this game?”

Sang Chen hadn’t seen the movies but had watched a breakdown of one of them. The deaths were brutal, gruesome, and eerily coincidental—just like what had happened to Cai Chang on the first afternoon and the female player on the escalator. Accidental, horrific, bloody, and disturbingly convenient.

But there was one person who didn’t fit that pattern.

The person currently slung over this guy’s back—Fang Jing.

Something about her was off.

Mao Ziyu also pointed out the oddity. “You might be onto something. Maybe these deaths aren’t just coincidences—maybe something, like Death itself, is orchestrating them. A grim reaper, or something like that. But if Death is out for blood, why is Fang Jing still alive? Why is she… like this instead?”

The male player, the same one who had cursed when he first noticed Fang Jing acting strange, introduced himself as Chang Ting. Despite his aggressive temperament, he was actually pretty reasonable and open to discussion. “You’re right. I just thought of the movie and thought it felt similar. What do you guys think?”

Mao Ziyu laid out their previous theories about the deaths so far.

“The first sound-related hint led to an ear-related death. That fits,” Chang Ting said. “The second, a foul smell, was linked to the toilet death. That works too, more or less. But what about the escalator? What was the warning sign for that one?”

Mao Ziyu had no answer. He honestly had no idea what the warning could’ve been. Maybe there hadn’t been one. Maybe their theory was wrong.

Instinctively, Mao Ziyu turned to Sang Chen.

Sang Chen responded with a blank look: “Don’t look at me, I got nothing.”

Mao Ziyu dragged a hand down his face. This damn game made no sense. He was never the brains of the team—not that their team even had a ‘brains’ role to begin with. They weren’t exactly deep thinkers. This kind of game was seriously annoying.

But oddly enough, despite how frustrating everything was, he wasn’t as irritable as he should’ve been. He actually felt… calm. He didn’t know why.

He touched his own face.

He was still smiling.

Weird.

Seeing that Mao Ziyu had shifted his gaze, Sang Chen kept his eyes on Fang Jing. “Is there anything special about her? Anything related to sound?”

“Ah.” One of Zhang Guan’s female teammates suddenly spoke up. “Yeah, there is. She’s afraid of sounds.”

Everyone immediately turned to her. Right now, Fang Jing was the biggest anomaly—they might find a crucial clue from her. And now, with just one question, they had a strong correlation. It felt like they were on the verge of a breakthrough.

Mao Ziyu asked, “Afraid of sounds? Explain in detail.”

“It’s not all sounds,” the female player clarified. “At first, I didn’t even notice. She goes about her daily life normally. But she almost never carries a phone. Even when she does, it’s always on silent mode.”

The phones bought in Game City worked just like real-world phones—they could be used for communication, payments, and even checking in for games. Many players bought one after their first game, and in Game City, people looked just like in the real world—practically everyone had a phone in hand unless they had a better communication device.

But Fang Jing was different.

If you saw her in Game City, chances were she wasn’t carrying a phone. Not in her hands, not in her pockets.

“One time, I saw someone call her. We were in the middle of a mission, and her phone wasn’t on silent. The moment it rang, her hands shook.”

The female player continued, “She told me she’s scared of phone calls. The ringing makes her anxious. Even the ‘ding’ of a chat notification makes her nervous. Any loud noise irritates her and puts her on edge.”

Everyone in their team knew about this. What the female player didn’t reveal—out of respect for Fang Jing’s privacy—was the reason behind it. The first call Fang Jing ever received on her phone had been the news of her parents’ death, followed by an onslaught of inquiries, condolences, and people digging for details.

That moment had planted a deep fear in her. To her, a ringtone meant bad news, trouble she couldn’t escape.

As someone who had to take dozens of calls from bosses and coworkers every day, Sang Chen understood why someone might hate phone calls. It was like having your time and emotions constantly drained. But he had never reached the point of panic.

Even so, the blaring car horns and incessant dog barking in Xiangyang Town gave him headaches and anxiety. He could only imagine how unbearable it must have been for Fang Jing, someone already terrified of sound.

Was that why she lost her hearing? And her other senses too?

After the female player finished speaking, Gu Ziyan said, “I think we should focus on the sound aspect for now. It’s likely what caused Fang Jing to end up like this. Those car horns and dog barks were ridiculously loud—even for us, and we don’t have sound sensitivity issues. That has to be a clue.”

Mao Ziyu nodded slightly, then suddenly smiled, his eyes curving into crescent moons. “But the thing is, the residents of Xiangyang Town don’t seem to think the noise is loud at all.”

When they were wincing from the painful blast of car horns, the townspeople barely reacted. They simply stood there, watching them with blank, eerie expressions.

To the people of Xiangyang Town, the deafening honks were perfectly normal. The ones acting strange were the outsiders—people like them, who flinched at the sound.

Mao Ziyu said, “The heavy fog lingers in Xiangyang Town, never clearing. Their faces look distant, cold, like there’s a layer of something separating us from them. They seem… far away. Tell me, don’t you think this game might have something to do with space?”