Highway Terror: Misled

When the Red-Skirted Woman first got into the car, everyone was on edge, terrified that she would reveal her true nature and swallow them whole.

Xu Xi was especially tense. He was the only one who retained his memories of being stabbed to death by the eerie old woman.

Fortunately, after getting in, the Red-Skirted Woman sat quietly to one side and did nothing unusual.

[Sitting in the same car as an eerie being? What a thrill.]

[I have to say, these players really are brave.]

[The eerie being hasn't gone on a rampage since getting in. Looks like their choice was fine for now.]

Tan Xingyun glanced quickly in the rearview mirror. He had never imagined that one day he would share an enclosed space with an eerie being.

He exchanged a glance with Xu Xiuman in the passenger seat, then cleared his throat and pretended to be calm as he asked, "Ahem, miss, where are you headed?"

The Red-Skirted Woman replied immediately, "Once you're in the woods, go forward about six hundred meters or so, and there's a fork in the road. Then go right for about two kilometers, and there's a village. That's where I'm going."

"All right, then. Sorry to trouble you, but could you keep an eye on the way for me? The fog's so thick, I'm afraid I'll go the wrong way."

The route the Red-Skirted Woman described sounded simple, but Tan Xingyun did not let his guard down and asked her for help.

"It's no trouble at all. If anyone's causing trouble, it's me troubling you. I really have to thank you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have made it to the wedding banquet. I'm a bridesmaid, you know." The Red-Skirted Woman was quite outgoing and spoke freely. Before long, she could not help complaining about her previous driver. "He agreed to take me all the way, and there was only a little way left, but he absolutely refused to go any farther. He wouldn't do it even when I offered more money. If I hadn't been afraid of getting my new dress dirty, I wouldn't have had to wait here for a ride."

"If you hadn't been willing to give me a lift, I would've had to walk there myself. Even if I made it in time, this dress would've been dirty." The Red-Skirted Woman sounded a little annoyed with herself. "If I'd known, I would've worn my everyday clothes and put this dress in a bag. But it's my first time being a bridesmaid, and I was in a hurry to leave, so it slipped my mind. I thought nothing would happen on the way..."

The woman's nonstop chatter filled the cramped space.

The others all stared ahead without saying anything, but every one of them was listening intently.

Xu Xi felt Li Kang, who was pressed close against him, gradually relax as the woman chatted. He was no longer sitting as stiffly as he had at first.

He had to admit, compared to the old woman from before, the Red-Skirted Woman was lively and seemed much more like a living person. At least, he was having doubts at that moment.

Could she be a human NPC?

The driver she mentioned, who had abandoned her halfway and run off, also sounded like an ordinary human. It was like one of those scenarios where someone happened to pick up an eerie passenger, sensed something was wrong, and promptly fled.

Ever since the arrival of the [God Hunt] game, various countries had conducted investigations.

Even so, it still could not be determined whether some of the humanoid NPCs in the instances were truly living people.

Take the driver the Red-Skirted Woman had mentioned. Many NPCs in different instances were indistinguishable from ordinary humans. If they were placed in the real world, no one would doubt that they were real.

Within an instance, however, that was another matter.

Some countries had also proposed that the setting of the [God Hunt] game was actually a world similar to Blue Star, except that it was filled with all kinds of eerie beings, and the instances players experienced were fragments of it.

At present, this theory had the most supporters.

"Oh!"

Just as Xu Xi's thoughts were wandering further and further afield, he heard the Red-Skirted Woman cry out.

Li Kang was so startled that he even shuddered.

Tan Xingyun also instinctively hit the brakes.

Xu Xiuman immediately looked around, but all she could see was the persistent white fog.

She asked without betraying any emotion, "What's wrong?"

The Red-Skirted Woman rolled down the window and poked her head out for a look. "Mister, you've gone off course!"

Tan Xingyun was startled.

He had not noticed at all that he had veered off.

According to his senses, he was certain he had been driving in a straight line the whole time.

Yet the Red-Skirted Woman said he had gone off course...

Xu Xi also leaned forward to look ahead.

The trees on either side were lush and dense, and the wild ground between them was covered with weeds and fallen leaves. Judging by what they could see, they really were heading straight ahead.

Was the woman in red misleading them, or were their senses being misled?

"Mister, you've veered one meter to the left. Drive a little to the right now."

"Well..." Tan Xingyun hesitated.

Several thick trees stood plainly ahead and to the right. If he followed the Red-Skirted Woman's directions, the car would hit one of them.

Xu Xiuman gave him a discreet look.

Understanding what she meant, Tan Xingyun exhaled and slowly drove forward to the right.

Li Kang wanted to say something to Xu Xi, but the thought of the eerie being sitting right beside him made him promptly shut his mouth.

Xu Xi, meanwhile, watched the car's path closely. When he saw that it was about to hit a tree, he could not help clenching his fists.

What happened next, however, took all four of them by surprise.

The car did not hit the tree.

The trees seemed to move, shifting along with the car as it veered. The distance between them and the car never changed.

Seeing this, everyone's expressions changed slightly.

Their senses really had been misled!

[Good grief, who wouldn't get lost in there?!]

[They thought they were going in a straight line, but the reference points around them were all deceiving them.]

[If the woman in red weren't there to keep warning them, the players would definitely get lost in these woods.]

"That's good. Keep going forward. We'll be at the fork soon."

The Red-Skirted Woman did not seem to care about their reactions. Seeing the car return to the right path, she went on chatting about the little things in her life.

Inside the car, only Xu Xiuman gave an occasional quiet response.

Xu Xi slowly looked away.

It seemed they had made the right decision to let the woman in red into the car. Otherwise, they would have been stuck in a dense forest they could never drive out of.

He just did not know whether there were any other dangers in these woods.

As the four of them waited anxiously, time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Along the way, the Red-Skirted Woman told Tan Xingyun to adjust his course every so often.

Although they were not far from the destination the woman in red had mentioned, Xu Xi still felt that a long time had passed.

Finally—

"We're here, we're here! We're almost out of the woods, and the village is right ahead!"

At the sound of the Red-Skirted Woman's delighted voice, everyone perked up and looked ahead.

The white fog seemed to have lifted by then, and they could already make out the edge of the woods.

Great!

As the car drove out of the dense forest, the atmosphere in the live comments also grew considerably more relaxed.

[Looks like the only danger in these woods is that the players can get lost in them.]

[But the woman in red is still a danger, and no matter how you look at it, there's something wrong with that village.]