Hidden Region

Chapter 20: Hidden Region

Splash, splash.

The torrential rain showed no signs of stopping and would likely continue until the event ended.

On a muddy mountain path,

a woman in a red robe, her black hair disheveled, completely ignored the pounding rain as she headed toward an abandoned tiled house.

Upon reaching its entrance...

Whoosh! She gripped a cleaver and entered the house, fully on guard.

Her pupils seemed to possess a degree of night vision, allowing her to see everything inside the pitch-black house.

She carefully searched every corner, ready to chop apart any enemy blocking her path.

After thoroughly checking the house and confirming that there was no danger,

she returned to the main hall and crouched beside Han Dong, whose neck had been slit. Red lips whispered into his ear:

"They've left."

As soon as she finished speaking,

a large mass of mycelium grew from Han Dong's neck, reconnecting his head to his body.

Head-Body Separation Experiment

On the first night after arriving at the event site, Han Dong had secretly conducted this experiment in his room—using a sharp knife he had bought to cut a small, flesh-deep wound into his neck.

The mycelium, or tentacles, rapidly grown by the Faceless One's Head could connect the wound and heal it at an incredible speed.

Of course, such reconnection only worked between the head and body. It could not be done with other body parts.

That was because Han Dong's true main body was merely this Faceless Head, which occupied 100 points of Load Value.

As for Valen Nicholas's weak fleshly body, it was only a temporary vessel.

As long as his head and Cell Cluster were unharmed, Han Dong would not die.

Making use of this trait, along with the information he had gathered and the Side Event he had unexpectedly activated,

Han Dong, who had not stepped outside for the entire third day, had painstakingly laid out an exceptionally complicated scheme.

This scheme required many "gears" to keep it running.

If even one gear were missing, loosened, or failed to turn at the proper moment, the entire plan would go wrong.

Among them, the most important gear was Possessed Chen Li.

Moreover, Han Dong had not expected Chen Li to be even more extraordinary than he had imagined... Her uniqueness made the overall plan even more stable.

Then, the most important part of the plan had just been successfully carried out.

Once Han Dong had completely confirmed that Akaman was the evil spirit, he immediately had Chen Li take action.

Disguised as the evil spirit, Chen Li actively pursued Edward and Monica.

This made Edward believe that the evil spirit had come for him.

Edward, who was thoroughly familiar with the rules of "hiding," would surely kill the blonde woman to buy time... Even if Edward did not do it, Chen Li would handle it herself.

The reason for doing this was to make Monica's time of death coincide exactly with Han Dong's "suicide."

Han Dong had already learned about the "murder restriction" from Akaman. As long as someone in the team died, Akaman would definitely receive the corresponding information.

Therefore, the evil spirit would never harbor any suspicion over Han Dong's suicide.

His head was reattached to his body.

Han Dong let out a long breath and revealed a rare smile.

"We've finally reached this point!

My guess was right. The evil spirit really is restricted... and, more fundamentally, bound by a strict time limit.

However, those restrictions will gradually weaken during the final few hours, and it may even become completely unrestricted.

That's enough... Let's hurry back to the bungalow."

Han Dong slowly rose to his feet while supporting himself against the wall.

He intended to use this period when the evil spirit could not harm anyone to return safely to the bungalow, join up with the event characters, and carry out the final plan.

But Chen Li was standing at the doorway of the current house's bedroom, her arm stretched out as she pointed somewhere.

It seemed that while searching the house earlier to confirm whether the "evil spirit" was present, she had unexpectedly discovered something.

"An underground passage!?"

Moving aside the old wooden bed she was pointing at and lifting the rug beneath it,

Han Dong revealed a dark, bottomless secret passage.

"There are seven and a half hours left before the event ends... Only Edward and I remain as Survivors.

The evil spirit's 'interval between harming people' should not be too short. It should be at least three hours.

Chen Li, let's go down and take a look."

Intuition.

There might be an unexpected gain down there... If there's nothing, we'll still have plenty of time to return to the bungalow immediately.

With time permitting,

Han Dong descended the damp steps, following the beam of his flashlight into the mysteriously discovered cellar.

"Let me go first."

As they descended, Chen Li took the initiative to walk ahead of Han Dong with her cleaver in hand, guarding against any danger in the cellar... It felt as though she were protecting her master.

Moss, rats and insects, and a rotten stench.

When Han Dong stepped down the final stair, the familiar system voice sounded:

'Hidden Snow Region discovered—Corrupt Cellar.'

'Search this area for clues to activate the corresponding event... Time limit: 15 minutes.'

"What an unexpected gain!"

Han Dong's lips curled into an excited smile.

The first Side Event had been activated through a conversation with an event character. This time, he had discovered a Hidden Snow Region. As for what exactly he would gain, he would have to find the clues first.

It took roughly ten minutes to thoroughly explore the cellar.

At the ground near a corner of the wall where the soil had clearly been disturbed, he dug up a notebook.

Written inside in messy Nine Provinces script was an account of how a plague ravaged the area, forcing the local tourist attraction to relocate and turning Wangzigang into a desolate wilderness.

"The scenic area relocated, every farmhouse restaurant was abandoned, and even the villages and rural homes were deserted... So a Plague Incident occurred here?"

Chen Li, standing beside him, said, "My younger brother and I weren't residents of Wangzigang. We only knew that a plague had broken out here, leaving the area uninhabited. We deliberately found an abandoned farmhouse building, pretended to live here, and lured Granny Wang and her husband over."

"Mm..."

Han Dong continued reading the diary.

The later entries recorded the internal events of this family of five—their gradual wait for death after the entire family became infected with the plague. When he finished reading, a family photograph slipped out.

'Hidden Event activated—Plague Family.'

Requirement: Kill Plague Living Bodies ×5

Reward: One Destiny Item (matched to the main body's level).

The instant the system prompt ended... the soil throughout the cellar began to loosen on a large scale. Diseased arms riddled with holes stretched out from the earth and slowly crawled free.

Five Plague Living Bodies crawled out of the ground, perfectly corresponding to the five people in the family photograph.

They had been dead for a long time. Yet, through the power granted by the plague and Destiny Space, they had appeared once more. They no longer belonged to the realm of humans, merely unconscious lifeforms driven by fungi.

"Han Dong... Leave these things to me."

"Mm."

Han Dong's current physical condition was not suited for fighting these plague entities. Whether he would be killed or not was one thing; becoming infected would be troublesome enough.

Of course, Han Dong would not merely stand by and watch.

His backpack contained some "special items" he had purchased in the countryside before the event began.

Two bottles of cheap, low-quality baijiu with an extremely high alcohol content, along with several cheap plastic lighters.