Chapter 115: Aberrant 5

In the Horror Domain, players must survive for seven days. According to past patterns, Aberrant would wake up on the night of the third day, choosing a prey to feed on.

But this time, due to the interference from a few Pyramid members, Aberrant woke up on the very first night, greatly increasing the danger of these seven days.

A creature that wakes up too early often falls into a frenzy, killing everyone in its nest.

Many team wipes in dungeons occur because the BOSS goes berserk.

This time, Teacher Wen had initially thought they wouldn’t make it, but unexpectedly, they were lucky.

Although the Boss Monster in Tianzi Building was awoken early, it mysteriously fell back into a deep sleep.

Without the threat of Aberrant, the five-person team successfully reunited and managed to escape the Tianzi Building safely.

Nurse looked at Big Bear, his eyes slightly red, and choked out, “That child… is still in Tianzi Building.”

Big Bear silently patted his shoulder. They had seen too much death, and the child’s fate was likely sealed the moment she was dragged into the bizarre domain by the survival System.

“Now that Aberrant is asleep, maybe we can go back and search again…” Nurse glanced at Teacher Wen.

Teacher Wen shook his head, his voice heavy, “This entire building is a bizarre entity. No one knows how many other bizarre entities there are in it. A defenseless child would never survive here. You should understand that, Nurse. Stop thinking about it.”

“We have more important matters to face now. Aberrant’s data is far more terrifying than what the Association has collected. My Shield was originally expected to block Aberrant for three minutes, but in reality, it lasted at most thirty seconds. We lack experience in facing Aberrant head-on. This mission may fail.”

White Eagle shot down a low-level ghost that lunged at them, speaking quietly, “We were sent by the Association to take the lead. There’s a high probability we’ll get stuck here. I’ve always said your estimates were too optimistic, Captain.”

Teacher Wen smiled wryly, “Anyway, let’s retreat to the observation point, rest for a while, and decide what to do next. No matter what, we need to bring back more data about Aberrant.”

The five of them left the vicinity of the Tianzi Building, and Nurse, who was walking at the back, glanced back at the building.

Silent and shadow-like, Black Cat gave him a push and softly said, “Let’s go.”

Since the arrival of the ghost domains and the Survival System, who hasn’t lost loved ones? But they couldn’t stop for anyone’s death because if they did, they too would die.

In the corridors and some rooms of the Tianzi Building, the faint smell of blood lingered.

With the intruders gone, most of the bizarre entities in the building fell into silence. Only the windows that still had lights on showed little insects moving toward the light in the dark night.

Qian slept peacefully in Aberrant’s arms.

She opened her eyes, instinctively nuzzled into Aberrant’s chest, then lifted her head to look at her face.

Aberrant was still asleep, and so were the babies.

But once Qian woke up, she couldn’t fall back asleep. She crawled off Aberrant and walked around the area.

She touched the walls, knocking here and there, though she didn’t know what she was touching. Suddenly, the light dimmed, and she found herself transported from the warm, yellowish space back to the room full of shelves.

Qian steadied herself by the table with the Guanyin statue and looked back. Behind her was a wall.

She glanced at the offering table and touched the offerings. She found that the fruit on it was made of plastic, so she put it down.

She ran over to the nearby shelves, curious about the boxes and jars on them.

The jars were heavy, and she couldn’t lift them. Each one was sealed with a label, with names written on them.

Qian cupped her face, reading them one by one: “Hong Xin… Mei Lan, Li… Yu Yun… Shu…”

The room’s windows were all sealed, and the dim red lights made it hard to read the names. Soon, she lost interest in the jars and boxes that looked alike.

She went to the door and tried the lock twice on tiptoe.

With a soft creak, the door opened, and bright light poured in.

It was already dawn.

Like a cat, Qian slipped out and closed the door behind her.

The morning sunlight bathed the Tianzi Building, the light slanting through the corridor, painting the freshly painted walls in golden hues.

At this moment, the Tianzi Building was unusually quiet, looking completely ordinary, as if it weren’t the same place as the one in the dark night.

With her messy hair, Qian glanced around in the corridor.

She was on the fourth floor, holding the cement railing and pressing her face into the gap above the railing to look down.

There was no one in sight at the bottom of the building. The stone-paved courtyard below had two small vegetable plots.

Qian’s gaze quickly fixed on the bougainvillea across the way. The plant was unusually large, hanging down from the fifth floor all the way to the second, with cascading clusters of bright pink flowers, almost covering the green leaves, leaving only vivid red.

The sound of little footsteps echoed in the corridor, and Qian ran to the bougainvillea.

She remembered seeing this flower the day before.

If you touched it, the flowers would bite you. But during the day, they looked harmless, so Qian reached up to pick a flower.

The moment she touched the flower, the bougainvillea snapped shut around her hand, like a clamp, but it didn’t hurt.

Qian played with it for a while, then picked several more flowers and placed them in her hair. As soon as the flowers touched her hair, they instinctively clamped down, turning into bright red hairpins.

With her hair full of bougainvillea, Qian happily swished her head.

But she hadn’t brushed her teeth, washed her face, or combed her hair this morning. She was dirty and unkempt.

After living with her meticulous father, Tong Yingdi, the child had already developed a sense of pursuit for her own appearance. She insisted on being clean and beautiful every day.

She began searching for a place to brush her teeth and wash her face.

There were many rooms in the building, most of them with doors closed, and only a few were open. Qian walked toward the open doors, peeking inside.

This room was small and messy, looking as though it hadn’t been tidied up. Upon entering, she saw a bed, an open wardrobe filled with skirts, and clothes draped over a chair beside it. In the corners of the room, and under the bed, there were rows of shoes, many high heels and leather shoes.

On the other side, there was a narrow bathroom, and the counter was covered with various bottles and jars of cosmetics.

Qian recognized this. When her father, Tong, needed makeup, the dressing room was full of products like this.

Qian walked into the room and looked at herself in the mirror on the washstand. The bougainvillea on her head was tightly gripped, and she couldn’t remove it, so she gave up. Instead, she rummaged through the cosmetics and found a tube of lipstick, unscrewing it.

She had wanted to play with her father’s makeup before, but he wouldn’t allow it. But here, no one could stop her.

Qian thought of the mother who had held her while sleeping yesterday. She too had bright red lips. Grabbing the lipstick, Qian drew a big red mouth on her face.

As she was seriously playing with the lipstick, a sound broke the quiet in the room. Clothes hanging in the wardrobe fell to the floor.

Through the mirror, Qian saw the clothes falling from the wardrobe. She turned her head and reached for more cosmetics.

Not recognizing what the small box was for, Qian forced it open, took the small brush inside, and began brushing her face, dipping into each color, brushing it on, and brushing some more.

The clothes in the wardrobe fell more intensely, and the clothes piled on the chair also began to fall. A pair of red high heels placed under the bed suddenly moved, as if invisible feet were wearing them, and they walked toward the bathroom door.

Qian had painted herself into a little monster and finally saw the shoes near the door.

She walked over and stared at them for a while before suddenly raising her foot and stepping into the high heels.

As she put both feet into the heels, she seemed to hear a short, sharp scream, but it quickly disappeared.

Qian scratched her face and happily dragged the large red high heels, which were too big for her, as she walked out.

As soon as she stepped out the door, the half-open door slammed shut with a bang.

Huh? Is someone inside? Qian widened her eyes, walked back, and knocked on the door, but no one answered.

She leaned over to the window and looked inside. “Is anyone there? Hello?”

Suddenly—whoosh—the curtains inside were pulled shut.

Unable to get anyone to open the door, Qian clicked her heels and walked forward. She passed another half-open door, but before she could get close, the door creaked shut.

Qian was looking for a door she could open when, suddenly, she heard voices coming from downstairs.

Perhaps because it was so quiet, the voices from the first floor were clearly audible upstairs.

Qian leaned on the railing and saw two people at the front door.

One had already walked into the corridor, and the other was still peering around outside.

“Brother Kai, we’ve already clocked in. Let’s leave quickly and hide at the edge of the domain.”

“What are you afraid of? I checked the forum. It’s daytime now, and many of the bizarre entities in this building won’t show up. Since we’re already here, maybe we’ll come across something valuable. Didn’t someone once find a jar in an S-rank bizarre domain and sell it for a million? If we’re lucky, we might make it big!”

“Forget it, Brother Kai. Valuable things aren’t that easy to find. It’s almost dark, and if we don’t leave soon, it’ll be dangerous.”

“Look at you, always so scared! Fine, fine, we’ll just take a quick look around the first floor, and then we’ll leave!”

The two of them were just regular low-level players. There were many of them, and they usually got dragged into D- or E-rank bizarre domains for the monthly Survival Game. They survived mainly through their youth and physical strength, blending in with the crowd, but they had no special abilities or advanced items.

This time, they were pulled into an S-rank bizarre domain, and they had been hiding all night, barely surviving.

But that stroke of luck was about to run out.

The overly calm appearance of Tianzi Building had lowered Brother Kai’s guard. When he entered the building and saw no bizarre entities, he relaxed considerably.

At first, he just stood at the entrance of a room on the first floor, looking inside. But soon, he mustered the courage to step in.

The other man, standing by the door, kept urging him to come out.

“Hurry up, hurry up!” the man urged. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Brother Kai replied excitedly.

About two or three minutes later, Brother Kai emerged, his face full of excitement as he raised the object in his hand.

“Chengzi, look! Isn’t this an advanced item? I saw it on the forum—a jade token with the word ‘Buddha’ on it, worth five million!”

Chengzi took a few steps back, his face pale. The object in Brother Kai’s hand wasn’t a jade token at all. It was just an old-fashioned TV remote control.

And—

“B-Brother Kai, your eyes…” Chengzi stuttered, staring at the two rough, elderly hands covering Brother Kai’s eyes. His throat made a rattling sound as he tried to warn him.

But Brother Kai didn’t hear him. He was lost in his joy.

“There are several more jade tokens inside the room! I’ve hit the jackpot!” He turned around and went back inside the room.

Chengzi couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and ran.

At this moment, Qian, who had seen them earlier from upstairs, had come down. She reached the first floor just in time to see one man entering the room and the other running away.

Qian walked up to the door that the man had entered, knocked, but there was no sound inside.

She twisted the doorknob. At first, there was some resistance, but after two or three twists, the doorknob suddenly loosened, and she easily pushed the door open and walked inside.

“Huh, no one?” Qian curiously looked around the room but couldn’t find the person who had entered earlier.

The room was fairly tidy. The small living room had a wooden sofa, a TV stand, and a coffee table, with a knitted mat on the table.

A television was placed on the opposite side.

As soon as Qian saw the TV, she wanted to watch it. She went over and turned it on.

But as soon as she turned it on, the TV suddenly turned off with a click. Qian made a confused sound and twisted the knob again.

It turned off again. She twisted the knob once more.

After several attempts, the TV finally stopped turning off automatically.

Qian grabbed the remote control from the coffee table and sat down on the sofa.

The TV was showing Cantonese opera. Qian didn’t understand much of it and randomly pressed the remote control, trying to change the channel.

While pressing the remote, she thought she heard an elderly person cough nearby.