The Spread of the Strange

"Special items, you mean?"

Yu Jing's gaze lingered on the seven items laid out on the square table. Every single one of them sent chills down the spine in this eerie environment.

The first item: a clump of black hair bound with a rubber band. The roots were clearly visible, as though it had been ripped straight from someone's scalp.

The second item: a rather old music box, its surface splattered with dried blood. No one knew what lay inside.

The third item: a potted carnivorous plant. Its only unusual feature was that its thick roots were not the usual green, but a dark purplish shade.

The fourth item: a glass container filled with numerous plump eyeballs. Compared to the other items, its horror was far more direct.

The fifth item: a bloodstained hand axe, with a bloody handprint left on its handle from someone who had once gripped it.

The sixth item: an oval mirror with cracks across its surface, yet still intact as a whole. It looked slightly more normal than the rest.

The seventh item: a golden ring set with a huge blood-crystal-colored gem, giving off the scent of blood.

The seven special items were displayed before them, and nearly every one of them made people feel deeply uncomfortable.

At the same time, there were three other matters in this test notice that concerned everyone.

First, the actual test ahead involved something called a "Dangerous Object." The name alone made it clear that there might be danger during the test, resulting in injuries or even worse consequences.

Second, the so-called "Interactive Area" mentioned in the notice. With the rule that only one person could receive the reward, there was simply no possibility of cooperation. After all, everyone who had come here was likely here for the money.

Third, seven items had been presented based on the seven people who began the test, but only six people were inside the decaying wooden cabin. The fat man among the testers had not entered this room. No one knew whether he had failed to escape the escape room and been eliminated, or whether there was another reason.

However, the fat man's absence secretly delighted quite a few people. At least there was one less competitor.

According to the rules, they would choose in the order they had arrived at the decaying cabin. Yu Xiaoxiao had been the first to arrive.

No one dared violate the rules laid down by the institute personnel. Otherwise, the 3.5 million reward might go up in smoke because of a violation.

Yu Xiaoxiao seemed to have made up her mind long ago. Without the slightest hesitation, she grabbed the purple carnivorous plant from the center of the table.

"Is it my turn?"

Yu Jing stared at the remaining six items on the table. For an instant, he seemed to see something in the cracked oval mirror, and an inexplicable urge rose within him to take the shattered mirror.

The next moment, a small pebble from nowhere struck the back of Yu Jing's head, instantly snapping him awake.

"Don't choose that..." A faint voice was transmitted directly into Yu Jing's mind.

The voice was delicate and cold. Judging by it, it had come from Yu Xiaoxiao beside him. The mirror's strange allure had also left Yu Jing feeling incredulous.

After glancing at Yu Xiaoxiao, Yu Jing finally chose the bloody hand axe.

In Yu Jing's view, it was the only offensive weapon. If the "Dangerous Object" the researcher had mentioned was a living creature, then at least the axe could serve as a weapon for self-defense.

When Yu Jing chose the hand axe, the Suit Man beside him showed a subtle change in expression. He seemed to have wanted that special item as well, and shot Yu Jing a glare.

Next came the white-collar man's turn. Among the five remaining items, something similar to what had happened when Yu Jing made his choice occurred. The man's gaze rested briefly on the cracked mirror, but he seemed to rely on his willpower to quickly look away and choose the most unsettling item—the glass container filled with eyeballs.

The fourth person was the sexy Jiang Tian. Looking at the four remaining items, every one of them made her shudder.

Jiang Tian would never choose that clump of eerie black hair. Of the remaining items, no one knew what was hidden inside the bloodstained music box, while the oval mirror also made her uneasy. In the end, she took the golden ring with the blood crystal, which looked slightly better than the others.

The fifth person, a middle-aged woman, glared viciously at everyone, believing that they had taken all the good choices and left her with nothing but the worst ones.

"What should I take? The hair? That's unlucky. This music box seems a little more normal..."

Just as the middle-aged woman was about to take the music box, a glint suddenly flashed past her pupils from the mirror's surface.

At once, the woman shifted her gaze to the mirror. She seemed to see something important inside it, causing her eyes to redden. She immediately snatched the mirror into her hands, afraid someone else would take it from her.

The middle-aged woman's series of actions was witnessed by everyone else, leaving them with an unsettling sense of dread.

It was finally the turn of the sturdy old man in his sixties. He was actually an ordinary worker from a construction site in the C-class County Town. Though advanced in years, he worked harder than many young people. He went wherever the construction sites paid more, all to support his family.

The old man did not hesitate for long. Disliking items stained with blood, he chose the clump of black hair and casually stuffed the rubber-band-bound hair into his pocket.

With that, the six testers who had arrived here had finished choosing their items, and the broadcast sounded.

"Everyone has done well. There are still 3 minutes and 29 seconds until the end of the break. You may now enter the test areas corresponding to the special items in your hands. Please enter the correct area before the break ends, otherwise you will all be erased. The official test will last four hours. Please keep track of the time."

When the broadcast announcement ended, seven doors opened in the heptagonal decaying cabin, with corresponding symbols appearing on their upper parts.

Yu Jing easily found the wooden door that belonged to him, marked with a glowing red axe. Yu Xiaoxiao likewise walked to the door bearing the glowing green plant symbol that corresponded to her item.

However, just as Yu Xiaoxiao was about to enter her test area, a man's hand grabbed her from behind.

"You strike me as strange. From the beginning, you haven't interacted with us. Your body is clearly so frail, yet you were the first to escape the escape room and arrive here. When choosing from these eerie special items in front of us, you didn't even blink once... I think you might know something about the rules here, right?"

"Exchange the potted plant in your hands for my item!" The one holding Yu Xiaoxiao was the white-collar man. Thinking that there was something suspicious about her, he acted accordingly, and an uneasy atmosphere spread through the group of six...