Chapter 117 | The Horror Game Gave Me a Witch's Talent

“...They sure ran off fast.”

On the other side, Cen Yao and her companions had already been completely swallowed by a sudden flash of white light.

The feeling of weightlessness came incredibly fast.

Cen Yao instinctively reached out to grab Zhu Lingxi's hand, but her fingertips only met a cold, empty white.

It felt as though countless static noises exploded in her ears at once, only to be abruptly pulled away in the next second.

The world plunged into a brief, dead silence.

Immediately after, the System's cold yet cheerful notification tone rang out deep within her consciousness.

【Ding—Welcome players “Bling Bling,” “Nuo,” and “Siren” to the Horror Game.】

【Ding—Congratulations to players “Bling Bling,” “Nuo,” and “Siren” for drawing the A-rank dungeon—Reaping What One Sows.】

【The main quest for this dungeon is: Survive successfully for thirty days.】

【Side quests will be triggered randomly.】

【The top three teams with the highest points in this dungeon will receive one Permanent Team Card.】

【The Permanent Team Card must be used by no fewer than two people and no more than six people.】

【We wish players “Bling Bling,” “Nuo,” and “Siren” a pleasant game.】

After the System's broadcast finished, the white light in front of Cen Yao's eyes finally dispersed.

The first thing that flooded her nostrils was a thick, nauseating smell of blood.

Cen Yao abruptly held her breath.

She opened her eyes, and what met her gaze was an extremely cold and gloomy room.

The walls had a grayish-white hue that only came from years of dampness, and the overhead fluorescent light tube flickered with poor contact, emitting a faint, crackling static sound.

The dim, pale light flickered on and off, making everything in the room look washed out and faded.

Mottled stains were everywhere on the floor.

Red, black, and a sticky, turbid dark green liquid were mixed together, dragging all the way from the wall to the center of the room.

In some places, it had already dried and congealed into a thick layer of grime; in others, it was still slowly flowing, as if something had just been dragged out not long ago.

Several stainless steel operating tables stood against the wall.

Glass test tubes, syringes, scalpels stained with unidentified tissue, and some experimental equipment Cen Yao couldn't name were scattered across the tabletops.

In the corner, there was even a pile of translucent incubation pods.

The pods were already broken.

Shattered glass was scattered all over the floor, with turbid, greenish liquid remaining inside. Floating in the liquid were a few strands of black matter that looked like hair, yet also resembled tiny tentacles.

Cen Yao stared at the thing for two seconds.

Those few strands of black “hair” suddenly twitched slightly.

Cen Yao immediately looked away.

“...This place doesn't look very hygienic,” she muttered under her breath.

Her voice faded, leaving only silence in the empty laboratory.

Cen Yao's heart sank, and she turned to look around.

Neither Zhu Lingxi nor Pei Tinglan was there.

She was the only one in the room.

Cen Yao's heartbeat suddenly quickened.

She immediately opened her player panel.

【Team Information】

【Team Name: Unnamed】

【Captain: Bling Bling】

【Members: Nuo, Siren】

【Team Status: Normal】

【Nuo: Stable vital signs.】

【Siren: Stable vital signs.】

Seeing the words “stable vital signs,” Cen Yao's tense shoulders finally relaxed slightly.

Thank goodness.

They just hadn't been teleported to the same place. Looking at their coordinates, they weren't too far, but not too close either.

Just now, she had really thought her team-up had failed, or that Zhu Lingxi and Pei Tinglan had been thrown into some even more dangerous place by the System.

Now it seemed that at least all three of them had successfully entered.

Cen Yao suppressed the trace of unease in her heart.

“It's just separate teleportation.”

“It's fine, it's fine. I'll look for them later.”

Once she confirmed they were safe, she finally had the peace of mind to examine herself.

Looking down, Cen Yao froze completely.

The Witch's Robe she was wearing was gone.

In its place was a loose, baggy hospital gown.

The hospital gown had very old blue and white stripes. The fabric was washed out, and there were several stubborn dark red stains on the cuffs and hem.

The pant legs were a bit too long, dragging slightly on the floor and picking up some dust.

Cen Yao looked down, looked up, and then looked down again.

“...”

Wait, where did her massive Witch's Robe go?

Where was that Witch's Robe that could block prying eyes, hide her face, defend against attacks, provide boosts, and even came with its own pocket dimension?

What was wrong with this dungeon?

It even confiscated players' clothes?

How could it be so overbearing?

Cen Yao stood in place, her expression blank for a few seconds.

However, she was only shocked.

She didn't particularly panic.

Previously, the main reason she wore the Witch's Robe was that she didn't want people to find her parents through her face and real-world identity.

She wasn't afraid of being targeted herself, but she feared her parents would be dragged into it.

It was different now.

She had left a protective barrier at home, and Xiaobai was guarding it.

Even if someone actually managed to sneak near the Cen residence, they wouldn't necessarily get the upper hand.

Since her real-world safety was temporarily guaranteed, showing her face was no longer that big of a deal to Cen Yao.

She had a hunch that her Witch's Robe was still there, just currently unusable. Thus, she reopened her player panel.

Sure enough, a small red dot had appeared beneath her avatar.

Cen Yao tapped on it.

A brand-new interface she had never seen before popped up.

【Temporary Player Item Storage】

Her Witch's Robe was lying quietly in one of the slots.

Cen Yao let out a small sigh of relief. As expected.

Just as she was about to retrieve the Witch's Robe, a line of small text automatically popped up on the panel.

【To ensure game immersion, please dress in accordance with the dungeon environment~】

Cen Yao: “...”

She stared at the line of text.

Particularly at that exceptionally eyesore of a tilde at the end.

She was silent for a long moment.

Cen Yao could almost imagine the System's smug, irritating tone.

“Immersion, my foot.”

“Why didn't you just give me a nurse's cap while you were at it?”

Cen Yao took a deep breath and closed the panel.

Whatever. As long as the clothes were still there, it was fine.

While she was checking her temporary item storage, a massive wave of viewers had already flooded into her live stream room.

After the events of the Cat Cafe dungeon and the storm of the four major guilds trying to recruit her simultaneously at the exit plaza, the popularity of the codename “Witch” had remained sky-high.

For the past half month, many people had been lurking on the forums every day.

The moment the stream went live, the viewer count began to skyrocket.

【Lady Witch is broadcasting again! Claiming a front-row seat—Holy crap, who is this?!】

【Damn, I didn't get first! Hello, Lady Witch, I missed you so much! ...Wait, who is this little girl? Where is my massive Lady Witch?】

【Oh my gosh, goodness gracious, who is this beautiful girl in front of me? Where is my mysterious, powerful, and peerlessly cool Lady Witch?】

【I have a bold idea, though I don't know if I should say it.】

【If you don't know, then don't say it.】

【Oh man, it can't be what I think it is, right?】

【No way, no way... This can't be Lady Witch's real face, right?!】

【Oh my gosh! So Lady Witch's default skin is actually so vibrant? I love it!】

【Default skin? What a weird way to put it.】

【But she is really vibrant! There's a very obvious difference between her and other players.】

【Is it possible that Lady Witch isn't actually cold and aloof, but we just couldn't tell before because she was wrapped in that robe?】

【The way Lady Witch looks so speechless at the System is so cute. She's completely different from the gloomy, cold, and beautiful powerhouse I imagined.】

【Me too. It feels like seeing the kind of spirit that young people only had before the horror descended.】

【Uh... Do you mean slacking off, being unhinged, and going crazy at any moment?】

【...Are you sure you're talking about before, and not after?】

【Wait, is there a difference?】

【Aiya, that's not what I meant.】

【I mean, she has this vitality bursting from her soul. It's not forced, nor is she pretending not to care.】

【That kind of vitality is the sense of security people only have when their country is strong and stable, and their lives aren't in danger of collapsing at any second.】

【But things are different now. Ever since the Horror Game descended, no matter how strong a player is or how many items they have, it's very hard to hide the anxiety and panic deep in their bones.】

【But Lady Witch... she doesn't seem to have been crushed by these things.】

【I get it.】

【Now that you mention it, that's true.】

【Her first reaction upon seeing this laboratory was actually to find it dirty.】

【Lady Witch: I might be scared, but your hygiene standards are definitely sub-par.】

【To the person above, you successfully made me laugh out loud.】

Cen Yao had no idea that simply showing her real appearance because her Witch's Robe was confiscated had triggered such a wave of bizarre sentimentality among her viewers.

Right now, she was carefully searching the room.

The laboratory wasn't very large; she could see most of its layout at a single glance.

To the left of the entrance was a row of metal cabinets. Most of the cabinet doors weren't shut tightly, stuffed with yellowing file folders, empty medicine bottles, and torn rubber gloves.

To the right were the operating tables and incubation pods.

Further inside, there was also a small door sealed shut by a heavy iron door, which featured a viewing window.

However, the viewing window was smeared with some dark red substance, making it impossible to see outside from within.

Cen Yao didn't rush to approach the iron door. Instead, she started searching from the nearest operating table.

Most of the test tubes were empty.

A few still contained remnants of differently colored liquids—some turbid and yellow, others an unnatural dark green.

Not daring to touch them carelessly, she used her sleeve to pick them up and look at the labels.

The writing on the labels was already blurry and illegible.

Only a few disconnected symbols could be made out.

“Type C...”

“...tissue culture.”

“Gene... collapse.”

Cen Yao frowned. She opened an adjacent drawer.

Inside the drawer lay several scalpels of different sizes, with blackened bloodstains still on their blades.

Tucked furthest inside was also a thin logbook.

Cen Yao took out the logbook.

The first page was thoroughly soaked in blood, making the date barely legible.

The second page, however, contained a string of numbers and experimental records.

【S-016, rejection reaction intensified.】

【Invasive devouring trait increased, isolation recommended.】

【S-017, autonomous consciousness emerged.】

【Language function deteriorated, retained for observation.】

【S-018, abnormal food intake.】

【Recommended to cease supply of ordinary nutrient fluid.】

The subsequent pages had been manually torn out.

Cen Yao flipped to the very end. On the final page, a sentence was written crookedly in red pen.

【They are hungry.】

The handwriting was extremely messy.

The last stroke of the final character dragged on extremely long, nearly tearing through the paper.

Cen Yao remained silent.

She put the logbook back into the drawer.

Next, she looked down at her own chest.

Pinned to the left side of the hospital gown was a metal nameplate.

It read:

【S-019】

Cen Yao: “...”

Well, mystery solved.

She was an abandoned test subject, and the researchers had probably evacuated long ago.

Judging by the current clues, the states of S-016 through S-018 were none too good.

Rejection, devouring, autonomous consciousness, abnormal food intake—none of these sounded like a normal experiment where subjects peacefully recovered in hospital beds.