Super Righteous Player-Chapter 140 - 138: The Hourglass Corridor (Third Update!)_1

Chapter 140: Chapter 138: The Hourglass Corridor (Third Update!)_1

—Are you a murderer?

—What a coincidence, you’re a murderer too?

Jiu’er, upon hearing this, even froze for a moment.

Is this... a coincidence?

Or is it inevitable?

In that instant, her mind suddenly flashed with images—

"Herself" clinging to the window and peering inside, only to be chased away by someone.

"Herself" holding a knife, climbing through the window into a house.

The knife dripped with blood, bodies lay on the ground, "herself" holding a bag of heavy silver coins, revealing a triumphant smile.

A smile as fierce as a starving wolf.

—This "herself" was none other than the vagabond "Aimee"!

And the way she clung to the window was exactly the same as the pose she had drawn earlier!

Jiu’er fell silent for a while, then spoke in a low voice, "Actually, I am too..."

Hearing the expected reply from Jiu’er, the middle-aged man and the elder fell silent at once.

The three of them didn’t know what to say for a moment.

They also didn’t know if they could trust each other...

But Jiu’er knew that if she wasn’t honest at this moment, it would only make the two more suspicious of her—perhaps even if it was just to fit in, you’d have to say "me too" even if you hadn’t killed anyone.

Jiu’er looked at them, her mind recalling the image that belonged to the two of them:

In the painting, the old man was not as old as he is now; he crawled on the ground, like a dog, guardedly blocking the entrance to the alley. Behind him was a fat, richly dressed man with a slit throat, bleeding profusely.

The middle-aged man in the painting was red-faced from drinking, his right hand holding a stone, ready to hurl it with all his might!

...Yes.

Something heavy settled in Jiu’er’s heart.

If things were as expected, this would be what they looked like when they killed someone.

Was Amos’s encounter with them really by chance... and not a deliberate ploy to draw them in?

Just then, the three of them suddenly heard a very miserable, cry-like howl:

"—Eeeeyaaaahhhhh!!"

The sound came from afar, quickly approaching. But it stopped abruptly right at the door.

—That was the voice of the young man who had just left!

The three exchanged looks, and Jiu’er and the middle-aged man immediately moved toward the door.

But Jiu’er quickly realized that the old man was not following, so she looked back.

Her first reaction was to see the old man finding the empty wooden rack she had helped up earlier. He grabbed hold of it with his hand and kicked it forcefully twice, breaking it open. Then he fiddled with it, turning it into two long wooden sticks with fragmented handles.

The old man paused slightly upon seeing Jiu’er approach.

He sized up Jiu’er with his squinting, triangular eyes and silently handed her one of the sticks.

He leaned close to Jiu’er, not looking at her, and whispered, "You go ahead... I’ll watch your back."

Jiu’er nodded decisively.

She knew full well that the old man was no easy mark... Letting him be the last one was indeed very unsafe.

But even if she knew this, she couldn’t say it at a time like this.

Because after learning that the three of them were murderers, the trust between them was already teetering on the brink of collapse.

And Jiu’er’s mission was... to ensure that at least one person survived until dark.

The difference from the wandering children was...

Her mission did not include the rule "survive."

In other words, as long as she could keep the flame alive. As long as one person could escape... it would be her victory.

—Even if that person wasn’t herself.

"A Murder at Dawn, huh..."

Jiu’er murmured.

She didn’t like playing this game much... because she always tended to feel an inexplicable fear, and then lose her senses.

But she never imagined that when she truly entered the world of horror games, she could maintain her sanity and quickly think and act, even reacting faster than usual...

Is it true that people only reveal their true strength under pressure?

At this moment, Jiu’er heard an unmistakably loud door-opening sound.

The middle-aged man was probably the one with the best physical condition among them.

He tried hard to open the door, pulling and pushing. The wooden door made pitiful dull sounds and several times it was pushed open a crack only to close again. As if it were caught by a fragile latch, or as if someone on the other side was desperately trying to close the door...

Suddenly, the middle-aged man’s motions stilled.

Because all three of them heard very clearly the sounds of eating coming from outside the door.

The person was enjoying the food thoroughly, eating and drinking noisily.

There was even the sound of smacking lips.

Just listening to this noise made Jiu’er’s stomach grow hungrier...

"Who’s there?"

The middle-aged man asked warily.

But the person outside seemed to completely ignore him, continuing to munch and gulp down food voraciously.

Unable to bear the pressure of fear any longer, the middle-aged man couldn’t help but push the door open.

But just as he pushed the door...

The sounds outside abruptly disappeared.

Before them was not the hall. Or rather, it wasn’t the hall as they knew it...

Instead, it was a very long, long corridor that was pure red. Small paintings hung on both sides, with wall sconces in between.

Jiu’er was about to walk forward when she was stopped by the old man.

She looked down to see a pool of thick blood at the doorway. Blood dripped steadily on the floor of the corridor as well.

Jiu’er mustered her courage, squatting down to touch it...

She noticed that the blood was even still warm.

"I, I’m not going out!"

The middle-aged man, who had seemed so brave before, suddenly became scared and started screaming as he backed away, "If you all want to go... go ahead!"

Jiu’er and the old man tried to persuade him for a while, but it was fruitless.

The middle-aged man had made up his mind and was unwilling to leave.

The two of them exchanged a look and still decided to go out and take a look.

They locked the middle-aged man in the room, and each holding a wooden stick, left the room.

"...Look at the paintings."

The old man squinted his triangular eyes and whispered to Jiu’er.

Jiu’er looked up carefully.

She discovered that a great number of frames were hanging on both sides of the corridor, each depicting the same person.

—It was the young man who had just left this place.

Each painting was subtly different.

It was as if they were spaced a few seconds apart. You could see him running forward rapidly.

The paintings on both sides were like cameras set on a timer, capturing his every move and etching them into the canvases...

And the bloodstains lay intermittently on the floor between each painting.

Jiu’er and the old man cautiously proceeded side by side. One clinging to the left side and the other to the right, both tacitly avoiding the bloodstains in the middle.

But as they walked far out, nothing happened.

Only the paintings on both sides became more and more terrifying...

Bloodstains seeped around the edges of the paintings, streaming downwards.

The further they walked, the more bloodstains there were... and the young man in the paintings gradually turned into running flesh and then into a skeleton.

The two of them walked to the end with trepidation.

—Only to suddenly discover that the door at the end was fake.

It was a fake door painted on the wall, extremely realistic!

This endpoint was actually just the midpoint of a T-shaped corridor!

Looking from the fake door to both sides, they could see two different corridors... two half-open doors.

Just as they were quietly discussing which way to go, a scream suddenly came from behind them.

It was the voice of that middle-aged man!

But Jiu’er turned around and got quite a fright.

She saw that the paintings on both sides had somehow turned into portraits of "Aimee" and the old homeless man, smiling as they looked toward the two of them!

The paintings closest to them were a bloody mess. Jiu’er could vaguely see that the portraits in the distance seemed relatively normal...

The next moment, lights at the far end of the long corridor began to extinguish in pairs.

At first, it was slow, then from afar to near, it sped up.

In the blink of an eye, they found themselves engulfed in darkness—

Before Jiu’er could scream out, the lights suddenly came back on.

The end of the corridor had once again turned into the T-shaped corridor’s fake door...

It was as if they had just left the room and hadn’t gone anywhere at all.

It was like...

An upturned hourglass.

Jiu’er looked to both sides and found that they were indeed back at the starting point—there were no passageways on either side, and it wasn’t a wall painted with a door behind them... but a real door with a doorknob and a crack.

It was as if they had instantly shifted back to the door of the very painting studio from which the scream of the middle-aged man had come...

But now, the door behind them was firmly closed.

The old man tried hard to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if someone on the other side was desperately pulling at the door.

Suddenly, Jiu’er heard the sound of liquid flowing.

Bloodred liquid began spilling out from under the door.

Like drool...

At first, very little, but then the blood roared and surged out from around the door crack in large amounts, as if it were going to engulf everything—

"—Eek aah aah aah aah aah!!"

The old homeless man screamed out in fright and ran toward the fake door at the end of the corridor without looking back.

Because he knew—

Even though it was a fake door... there should still be passages to the sides of the T-shape!

Perhaps there was a way to escape from there!

Jiu’er also initially wanted to run with him.

But she suddenly saw a barrage of text:

"—How similar is this to what happened to that young man?"

...Wait, could all of this be an illusion?

Jiu’er’s heart stirred.

So she didn’t start running forward...

Instead, ignoring the sea of blood that had risen to her waist, she reached out and carefully felt around both sides of the wall.

Although she touched something, she suddenly calmed down and was no longer afraid.

Because it wasn’t the feel of a wall.

It was the texture of paper.

And it was hollow.

This could very well be an illusion projected out—

"You son of a bitch sure know how to play!"

Jiu’er could no longer contain herself, and she screamed out in anger, venting her fear and rage.

—Without hesitation, she raised her stick and jabbed it hard against the wall!