Chapter 11: Stop Touching Me

“You seem quite familiar with her? Jiang Chen, did you know Lu Xi before?” Jiang Yanyan smiled warmly, her tone gentle. “What exactly is your relationship?”

Chen Yiyi also turned her head, staring at him with curiosity.

Thinking of Lu Xi’s coldness and distance over the past few days, Jiang Chen deliberately steered the conversation toward speculation.

“Actually, it’s nothing much. We were classmates before. She just clung to me all the time.”

The others responded with drawn-out “Ohh” sounds.

“So, in other words, she was the one chasing after you?” Chen Yiyi covered her mouth, giggling.

Jiang Yanyan was surprised. “Yiyi, don’t say that about Lu Xi. Maybe there’s some misunderstanding.”

Chen Yiyi said, “Yanyan, you’re just too kind-hearted. You always see the best in everyone. You reached out to be friends with her and even gave her fruit, but what did she do? She outright rejected your kindness.”

In the gaming world, cliques were often quite apparent.

Just like in the group centered around Jiang Yanyan, Chen Yiyi was her staunchest supporter.

To exaggerate, wherever Jiang Yanyan pointed, Chen Yiyi would strike.

In Chen Yiyi’s mind, if Jiang Yanyan made the first move to befriend someone and that person didn’t accept it, then that person was ungrateful.

Faced with Chen Yiyi’s misunderstanding of Lu Xi, Jiang Chen deliberately said nothing.

He let the misunderstanding continue.

Amidst all the noise here, Lu Xi, curled up in another room, was completely unaware.

She stared blankly at the ceiling.

Having had enough sleep, she had come to terms with things.

Outside of the novel world, she had long since died of leukemia. So even if she could return to her own world, what difference would it make?

Did that so-called system really have the power to reverse time and send her back?

If it could, that would be wonderful.

But what if it couldn’t?

Or if she returned to the past, only to reach a certain point where she would still die from illness...

Then what meaning would it all have?

Lu Xi was an orphan, abandoned at birth.

Her grandmother, a scrap collector, had found her under a bridge pier and raised her for six years before passing away.

Lu Xi grew up on charity, with every villager acting as her surrogate parent, offering help.

No father, no mother, no relatives, no friends.

Lu Xi sighed, suddenly sitting up with a toss, cheering herself on: “I can’t be so pessimistic. What if the game fails? So what? I’m not completely without options.”

“After all, I still have one way out.”

She flopped back onto the bed, burying her head under the quilt.

In a daze, she thought she heard a low, magnetic laugh.

Lu Xi threw off the quilt and looked around.

There was only her in the empty, shabby room.

Was that brief, one-second laugh just a hallucination?

The house where Lu Xi was staying belonged to an old lady who lived with her left-behind granddaughter.

The old lady was kind and always smiling.

The granddaughter, Cui Cui, was sweet and lovely, with a great personality.

Seeing them always reminded Lu Xi of her own childhood.

No, that was a tangent.

She scratched her head.

So there was no way a man’s voice would appear in Cui Cui’s home.

Especially not a young man’s.

Lu Xi listened carefully for a while but heard nothing more.

Just as she was about to lie back down, out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of a backpack left by Ji Chenling.

The bag was stuffed with many items, none of which she had fully examined.

Well, since she was bored, why not take a look?

Without hesitation, Lu Xi unzipped the bag and dumped everything onto the bed.

There were compressed biscuits, bottled water, instant noodles, a flashlight, a lighter, and a jumble of miscellaneous things.

And... a note.

Lu Xi let out a small “huh” and picked up the paper, unfolding it.

It was densely covered in writing.

Her eyes widened, bright and round.

“This must be a little essay...”

“Dear beautiful sister, if you’re reading this note, it means I have disappeared. I was among the first batch of players to enter the game world. My former teammates are all dead, and I myself am cursed.”

There was writing on the back, too.

Lu Xi flipped it over.

“I’ll tell you a secret: even if you manage to clear all the levels, you still can’t get out. This is a complete scam. The king of the death world is utterly insane and spares no one. If you still consider me a friend, could you come save me? I’m under the well.”

At the bottom, in small letters: “Forget it, don’t trouble yourself. It’s okay if you don’t come.”

Next to it was a pitiful little doodle.

After reading the note, Lu Xi crumpled it up and threw it into the corner, mumbling, “What nonsense? Go trick someone else!”

A man’s words are full of lies.

Whether Ji Chenling was human or ghost still remained to be seen.

Lu Xi repacked the items into the backpack and curled back under the covers.

She decided it was best to just give up.

All those dungeon quests could go to hell.

Strangely enough, although she had already slept once, a wave of drowsiness suddenly swept over her.

When she awoke again, it was already dusk.

The setting sun dipped low, and the temperature gradually dropped.

The once lively and warm village began to show signs of eerie stillness.

Chickens, ducks, cats, and dogs that had wandered around seemingly vanished in an instant.

The villagers disappeared as well.

Apart from the players, no other creatures remained in the village.

Everyone knew that when the villagers reappeared, it would mean their time to die had come.

Lu Xi stared at the ceiling, lost in thought.

That afternoon, she had a dream.

She saw Ji Chenling.

He was tied to a glowing red pillar, shirtless, his flesh sizzling and emitting the smell of burning.

The young man looked at her pitifully.

“Sister, no one likes me. Only you consider me a friend, only you don’t see me as a burden.”

Lu Xi’s eyes gleamed as she drooled, hurriedly reaching out to feel his abs twice before turning and leaving.

She didn’t notice the man’s stiff expression behind her, his lips twitching.

The scene shifted.

Ji Chenling was riding a bicycle, and she sat behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist.

She knew it was a dream, so she indulged herself, groping freely.

“Stop touching,” the young man said, black lines streaming from his forehead, gritting his teeth. “Are you some kind of old pervert?”

On the mountain path, the moon hung high, flanked by wheat fields.

From afar, she saw a scarecrow swaying in the wind, its form slowly soaked with red liquid.

“Sister, remember to close your eyes. Don’t look back,” Ji Chenling said.

Curious, Lu Xi asked, “What happens if I look?”

“The vengeful spirits will come to claim your life.”

Before he could finish, it was too late.

Lu Xi just happened to turn her head—and now the figure was closer, more vivid.

She saw the scarecrow’s head had somehow turned into Ji Chenling’s, shouting something at her.

She couldn’t hear the voice but clearly read the lips:

“Run!”

She spun around suddenly.

The figure she held was not Ji Chenling but a white-robed, long-haired female ghost.

Her blood-red eyes were terrifyingly large, as if gouged out by a knife, one eyeball dangling from her face, swaying in the wind.

The ghost’s neck stretched longer and longer, slender and snake-like.

With a plop, the eyeball fell onto Lu Xi’s collar.

Lu Xi was jolted awake.

This was definitely Ji Chenling’s deliberate revenge for her groping him.