Chapter 90: CH 89

Chapter 89 – Without a Key 1

The ward round incident made Xu RenDong unable to lift his head in front of the doctor. He couldn’t help being annoyed with himself. How could he give into Lian Qiao’s nonsense at that time and actually climb into his hospital bed to hug him to sleep.

Fortunately, Lian Qiao’s low-grade fever subsided the next day and he had been recovering well since then. On the fifth day after the operation, he was able to get out of bed but he was not able to use his crutches well and walked very slowly. The orthopedic surgeon explained some precautions and let him go home to recuperate on his own. The two of them were discharged from the hospital and quickly packed up to go home.

In the end, Lian Qiao was young and the injury was on his leg, so the impact on daily life was not too big. A few days after returning home, he went back to the computer to continue his live broadcasts. The audience in the live broadcast room knew that he had a car accident and sent their condolences one after another. Of course condolences are rewards. Lian Qiao’s accident can be considered a blessing in disguise. During the live broadcast post-injury, his popularity actually climbed to the top of the platform and it was even more lively than before he was injured.

Xu RenDong took a long vacation from the office. On the one hand, it was to take care of Lian Qiao and, on the other hand, he had long had such an intention. They have only a rough idea of ​​when the elevator will appear but they don’t know the exact time. It’s not good to ask for leave all the time so he simply applied to work from home completely. Anyway, the internet network is so convenient nowadays and so his work is completely unaffected.

In this way, his working hours have become very free. He usually watched Lian Qiao play games when he was free and even started learning how to cook. It’s a pity that he doesn’t have any talent in this area. Lian Qiao would compliment him on his ‘delicious food’ at first but, after a few days of persistence, he finally surrendered.

Calm days pass like flowing water. Finally, it’s time to enter the instance again.

Lian Qiao was standing in front of the elevator on crutches. Xu RenDong put on the backpack and said to him, “Let’s go.”

After this period of practice, Lian Qiao’s walking speed was much faster than when he was just discharged from the hospital. But in the end he still needed to hold onto the crutches and his movements were still greatly restricted. He felt very uneasy about this and was scared that he would drag Xu RenDong down. Xu RenDong used his usual trick of pretending to be a domineering boss and telling Lian Qiao he only needed to lie down to win as long as Xu RenDong was there.

There was a low running sound in the elevator. Soon, six big characters appeared in front of the two of them: LOCK WITHOUT A KEY.

Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao frowned at the same time. A lock that doesn’t require a key, what does that mean? A fingerprint lock? A pupil lock?

The two checked the information for a while and all they could find were those modern technologies. No matter how they looked at it, it didn’t feel right.

Lian Qiao suddenly had a flash of inspiration and found something in his backpack: “Brother RenDong, do you think it has something to do with this?”

It was the hidden prop that the rabbit in the “Russian Dolls” instance had given them. 

A brass key with “Lian Qiao” written on it.

Xu RenDong thought for a while and then shook his head: “It’s hard to say. After all, it’s a ‘lock without a key’ and so the key point should be the ‘lock’ and not the key.”

Lian Qiao sighed and put the key away carefully, mumbling: “Oh, I wonder when this key can be used…”

With doubts, the two walked out of the elevator.

What came into view was a huge ring-shaped building resembling a Fujian Tulou. {The ‘tulou’ is a special type of ancient dwelling from Fujian province of China associated with Hakka people, it is made of earth/brick and is very large and circular in shape with many levels with people living inside. People still live there today although most are also tourist destinations. My mum is from Fujian (although not Hakka) and so we went to visit some last time we were there, they were so cool! I’ll insert a picture at the end).

The tulou was decorated with colorful lights, with red lanterns and red ribbons hanging everywhere and the whole tulou was shrouded in a festive red. Strangely, this tulou is particularly tall. Xu RenDong sized it up with a glance and saw there were about nine floors.

In reality, it is impossible for a Fujian Tulou to be built so high, because it will affect the lighting on the ground floor. At this time, it was night and a full moon hung in the sky.  It was clear and cold, and rows of red lanterns hung on the tulou, which made it even more monstrous looking.

All around it was an endless white mist and there was nowhere to go except the tulou. Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao looked at each other and walked to the entrance of the tulou side by side.

As soon as they entered, both of them were stunned.

Why are there so many people!

They saw a large group of people standing on the large circular open space in the middle of the tulou. Xu RenDong hurriedly counted and, as far as he could see, there were at least fifty people. There are still a few shadowy figures on the top of the tulou, probably the daring ones that have already gone up to explore. There were still people coming through the entrance and so the number was still increasing.

As the number of people increased, the expressions on everyone’s faces became more and more ugly. The difficulty of the instance is related to the number of participants. With so many players in this instance, the difficulty is hard to imagine and probably akin to ascending to the sky.

Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao stood outside the crowd. Both of them have outstanding temperaments and appearances so they stood out from the crowd wherever they stood,  attracting everyone’s attention. Under normal circumstances, newcomer girls would often rush over with blushes and beg to work with them. This time, however, no one took the initiative to talk to them.

Maybe it’s because Lian Qiao was on crutches. Everyone’s eyes stayed on his left leg for a moment and there was a brief regret in their eyes, and then they looked away and stopped paying attention to them.

Lian Qiao sighed: “I knew it…”

“Don’t worry about them, just observe the environment first.” Xu RenDong looked around. The location where they are now is the bottom floor of the tulou. According to the information from the encyclopedia, this location is called “Xiatang”.

There is a dark green circular pool in the middle of the lower hall. The pool was so deep that it was impossible to see the bottom. Just standing on the edge of the pool gave people the illusion of being caught by something. Therefore, everyone stood far away from the water pool and stayed together as a group to try to ease the tense atmosphere.

Lian Qiao suddenly stretched out his hand and pointed: “There seems to be someone above.”

Xu RenDong looked up and saw a vague figure on the ninth floor, walking down the stairs one by one. Soon, other people also discovered the figure, stopped whispering, raised their heads and stared at the figure.

As the figure approached, everyone gradually saw that it was an old lady with a plump figure and a red dress. The old lady was wearing a cardigan and cropped pants. Her sleeves and trousers were extremely wide but the wrists and ankles are slender and slender, which is extremely incommensurate with the thick waist. At first glance, she  looked like a scarecrow full of weeds and was extremely weird.

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Everyone watched her helplessly as she walked around and down the stairs. No one dared to speak, as if the old lady would turn into a ghost if they made a noise, and rush up and begin tearing people to pieces.

After a long time, the old lady finally came to the center of the hall. She walked towards the crowd and they all turned away, just like Moses parting the Red Sea.

The atmosphere became solemn for a while.

The old lady looked around and her facial features that seemed to be smiling, but at the same time not, stuck to her face like a paper paste.

“Is everyone here?” she asked.

Everyone looked at each other but no one answered her.

The old lady spoke to herself and answered, “Everyone is here.” Then she clapped her hands. Everyone suddenly heard a rumbling sound behind them. It turned out that the two walls at the entrance of the tulou were slowly moving, like a clumsy python slowly biting its tail. It didn’t take long for the entrance to close. The two walls were tightly closed together, just as if the entrance had never existed.

Everyone’s face sank, knowing that they would not be able to go out any longer. Those with poor mental capacity, seeing this scenario, were so frightened that they cried on the spot.

The old lady didn’t care about everyone’s reaction. She just smiled and said: “Dear guests, since we are gathered here, it is fate. Please come with me and stay in our tulou for a few days!”

She clapped her palms again. All the rooms on the tulou suddenly lit up at the same time, sweeping away the previous gloom. There was a faint sound of music coming from nowhere. At this time, the tulou really seemed to be welcoming a group of distinguished guests and those big red lanterns didn’t look so scary anymore.

However, when the old lady led everyone into their rooms and pushed open the door, everyone was startled again.

The room was also a traditional old-fashioned bedroom. There was a girl standing beside the large carved bed. The girl was only fifteen or sixteen years old. She had a beautiful appearance and an enchanting figure. Her brow and smile were captivating.

There was such a girl in every room. Although she was very beautiful, she had a demonic aura all over her body. These girls stood in front of the carved bed with low eyebrows and pleasing eyes, waiting for the guests, giving people the illusion that they were in the story of Liaozhai and that if they got too near to her, they would be sucked of yang energy. {Liaozhai is a famous book of collated Chinese supernatural/horror fairy tales by Pu Songling, written in 1740. A lot of the stories revolve around demons, ghosts etc. According to legends, often female ghosts/demons will seduce human men in order to suck yang essence from them, leaving them dead or close to death. For example the movie “Painted Skin” is based on a story from Liaozhai.}

Everyone asked the old lady what this was about and the old lady smiled and said, “Since guests are here, we naturally have to entertain them. These children are here to take care of your daily life and are your servants. If you like them, it’s okay to have them as well. “

When Lian Qiao and Xu RenDong heard this, their faces didn’t look good. What the heck, does this instance even provide sexual services?

The two of them are in love with each other and naturally other people couldn’t enter their eyes. Other people may not be the same. 

This time the team was too large and mixed. Some people have long been attracted by the beauty of those girls and when the old lady said “it’s okay”, a wretched smile appeared on their faces. It’s just that this is a world of terror after all and, even if those people have evil thoughts in their hearts, they don’t dare to do anything. Although the lust in their hearts was heavy, in the end, the need to survive trumps everything else. 

And furthermore, these beautiful girls might look human at the moment but who knows what they will become at night.

Xu RenDong and Lian Qiao were assigned to a certain bedroom in the middle levels. There was also a beautiful young girl in their bedroom and, when she saw them entering the room, greeted them with a smile. The two were tired of seeing the old lady and, after the old lady left, they drove the girl out of the room and let her hang out with the mosquitoes outside the door.

Xu RenDong observed the furnishings in the room. The large carved bed was hung with drapery and, in front of the bed, was a table carved with images of the Eight Immortals  with a set of tea and four benches beside it. The doors and windows were all covered with a layer of paper over the wooden skeleton and appeared like they could be pierced with a light poke. There were also some vases, scrolls and other decorations. On the whole, it gives the impression that you have walked into the costume film studio but you can’t tell exactly what dynasty it was.

The two sat down at the table and lit candles. There was tea on the table and when Lian Qiao touched it, it was still hot. It seems that the owner of this place is indeed ready to welcome them, preparing everything and just waiting for the guests to use it.

“This instance is so strange…” Lian Qiao leaned his cane against the table and pointed to the door with his finger, “Is that girl sent by the old woman to watch over us?”

“It’s possible. But I’m more concerned about the number of people in this instance.” Xu RenDong frowned, “When everyone gathered together, I counted again. Including us, there are eighty-one people.”

“Yes, I also counted eighty-one.”

Having said this, the two were silent in unison.

Previously, all the instances had around 20 people, no more than 30 at most. This time, more than 80 people came at one time and so the difficulty was hard to imagine.

For Xu RenDong, it doesn’t make much difference how difficult the dungeon is. Anyway if he dies, he can start all over again and, after a few more tries, he can finally get out. What he is afraid of most is pig teammates. {Uh, this term has come up before and I realize I haven’t explained it. Basically teammates that create trouble for you and are more a hindrance than help.} Just like President Little Sun from last time, he talked about “Nightmare on Elm Street” as soon as he came in and abruptly increased the difficulty of the instance by several levels. And he is still a young man. In order to avenge Girl D, he deliberately wanted to kill the other three members, resulting in Xu RenDong also being dragged down into the water and suffering a big loss.

Among the eighty-one players this time, there are newbies who can’t figure out the situation, old players who have their own thoughts, and idiots who can’t withstand the beauty of the servant girls. Without even mentioning the difficulty of the instance itself, the complex player composition alone was already overwhelming.

What’s more, Lian Qiao was also lame.

The situation was very serious, Xu RenDong didn’t want Lian Qiao to worry too much, so he said: “Go to rest early. You sleep on the other side.”

Lian Qiao nodded.

***

T/N: I just want to pop in a little warning here. This novel is somewhat more realistic than most danmei/BL novels in that the heroes are quite flawed and very human. I know many people read danmei because it is comforting and feels good to follow a MC and ML that makes very little mistakes or wrong judgments (particularly regarding each other) and have flawless tacit understanding, however it’s not the case here. I’d say this instance is a bit darker than the others so far. Just a little warning for our more idealistic readers who may find it jarring.

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