Of course, Qin Shang's pleased expression did not last long. It was soon replaced by solemnity.
Because Heart-to-Heart Sister's identity this round was also a passenger!
That mission had revealed almost no clues.
After all, Conductor Jack attacked players indiscriminately. Qin Shang had just reached that conclusion himself. God Slayer—or the accomplice—might not necessarily be familiar with the rules governing Conductor Jack's attacks on players.
Therefore, the accomplice among the team could very well have died at Conductor Jack's hands!
He immediately opened the skills panel.
Skills: Inheritance, Decipher (Teacher, usage countdown 09:27), Healing (Doctor, usage countdown 09:27)
A usage countdown of nine hours and twenty-seven minutes...
The first inheritance was his own Trickster class skill, which had no time limit.
As for the latter two, they came from Teacher and Doctor respectively.
Counting from when they entered this round until now, there were only a little over nine hours left?
At the end of the previous round, Divine Road had indicated that fifteen hours had passed since the first round began.
The total exploration time for the Death Train instance was thirty-six hours.
So, after using fifteen hours to finish the first round, only nine hours remained for the second round?
That was wrong. He had only spent fifteen hours clearing the previous round.
The Death Train's exploration time was thirty-six hours. He had only just entered the second round, so how could there be only nine hours left?
Qin Shang's expression stiffened. He immediately realized where the missing twelve hours had gone.
Damn it, Divine Road had actually counted the time it had teleported him back to reality for a break?
Fuck!
Qin Shang cursed inwardly. As his thoughts shifted in the blink of an eye, the eerie figure that had just killed Heart-to-Heart Sister in the distance also turned its ghastly pale gaze toward the two of them in the corridor.
Qin Shang's heart gave a thump. He instinctively lowered his head, not daring to meet that thing's eyes.
This was fucking creepy.
At the same time, a layer of fine sweat appeared on his palm as a bold conjecture surfaced.
Conductor Jack seemed able to see them.
Fortunately, he seemed to have figured out the rules governing the eerie figure's attacks on players.
The next moment, the hulking eerie figure in a dress and high heels saw that neither of them had moved. After hesitating for a moment, it did not linger and instead slowly approached Heart-to-Heart Sister's fallen body, its heavy footsteps echoing.
Then, something Qin Shang had never expected happened.
"Creak..."
Conductor Jack, dressed in red, approached the corpse and bit into it.
Qin Shang's eyes widened at the sight. The two of them were less than a meter apart in the corridor.
He watched helplessly as the Cross-dressing Enthusiast grabbed an arm and shoved it into his mouth.
With an easy twist, he tore off Heart-to-Heart Sister's left arm.
Another spray of blood erupted, along with bodily fluids and a great mass of miscellaneous flesh and tissue fragments.
Grandpa Niu beside him was completely petrified. His cheeks bulged, and it looked as if he was about to retch.
Qin Shang forcibly suppressed the churning stomach acid and hurriedly held Little Loli down. To keep the girl from seeing the bloody, disgusting scene, he even slipped an arm beneath her elbow, lifted her up, turned her around, and pressed her face against his chest.
He held her head down firmly.
At a time like this, forget the fragrance of a young girl or the scent of shampoo...
Qin Shang certainly did not think he could enjoy holding a soft, fragrant little girl in such an environment.
Besides, as her husband, he still possessed some masculine virtue and kept a certain distance from the girl's landing strip.
He merely held her head down while his thoughts raced like electricity.
They could not speak, and they could not move. Those were the rules for surviving in Carriage Three.
At that thought, and remembering those rules, Qin Shang suddenly felt that the hidden hint he had inherited from Heart-to-Heart Sister was not so useful after all.
It could practically be considered useless.
In this train carriage, Conductor Jack would notice them as soon as they made a sound.
So...
In other words, he had no chance of triggering that hidden condition at all.
Bodily fluids and blood spread across the floor, while the constant crunching and chewing echoed in his ears.
Although Qin Shang tried his best to keep his eyes shut, he could not stop the image from appearing in his mind: Conductor Jack gnawing at the corpse as if it were some rare delicacy.
His stomach acid churned violently, and the sickening sensation stabbed at his nerves.
"I finally understand why the two corpses in Carriage Two disappeared during the first round. Maybe, at some point, when Grandpa Niu and I returned to Carriage One to explore, the train happened to enter a tunnel."
"That triggered Jack's personality again, causing him to come to Carriage Two and start eating people. Either because he smelled the blood, or perhaps..."
Qin Shang was thinking when he was suddenly interrupted by a violent commotion.
Two figures swayed in the darkness.
The Security Officer and the Elder Priest appeared in the distance. They had probably been hiding in the partition of one of the sleeping compartments.
But after hearing no footsteps from outside for so long,
and after hearing Heart-to-Heart Sister's furious cursing just before she died, they had summoned their courage and decided to continue exploring Carriage Three.
There was no denying it—those two were quite bold!
The instant two heads poked out, the eerie figure in red—Conductor Jack—noticed them.
The next moment, a cold wind howled. He suddenly released the human upper arm in his hand and raised his head to look forward.
Although Qin Shang could not see the thing's expression from his angle, it was obvious that his bloodthirsty, violent side had once again taken control of his body.
The most direct indication was...
The Red Skirt Phantom snatched up the Hunting Rifle from the floor.
His vicious nature was fully exposed!
The Security Officer and the Elder Priest were both horrified by the sight and hurriedly retreated into the sleeping compartment.
However, Qin Shang's vision blurred. His eyes could not keep up with the thing's speed, and he could not see its movements at all.
The red-skirted figure moved far faster than any human. A dense series of booming footsteps followed one after another.
They even sounded somewhat like ear-piercing sonic booms.
Clearly, he had charged into that sleeping compartment.
Immediately afterward, Qin Shang could still hear gunshots.
Qin Shang's expression stiffened, and despair surged in his heart.
If Little Loli was not the Team Leader, then one of those two had to be.
In other words, if those two died, that meant...
The exploration of this instance had failed!
Qin Shang's face twisted uncontrollably for a moment.
I have the most clues in my hands. I had a chance of surviving.
If I die in the second round like this, that would be way too unfair!
But just then, Qin Shang suddenly remembered the side quest Little Loli had mentioned.
Prioritize finding... Miss Mary!?
Mary was Jack. Didn't that mean the eerie existence currently slaughtering everyone was Mary?
"Wait, I think I've realized something incredible. Mary and Jack are the same person, but her side quest tells us to find Miss Mary."
"So, if we come to Carriage Three and see that person slaughtering everyone, doesn't that mean we've found Miss Mary...?"
Qin Shang looked at the Little Loli in his arms. The girl had buried her head deep like a quail, her delicate body trembling violently.
They say the pinker the slippers, the more vicious the killer.
What was the matter with your little pink one?
Qin Shang unhappily tapped her on the head and whispered,
"Do you have a notification sound?"
Grandpa Niu's side quest was to find Mary.
Then, after seeing this ghostly thing, shouldn't her side quest have been completed?
"No, I don't..."
However, upon hearing that, the "Grandpa Niu cosplaying as a maid and seducing Zhuangzhuang's mom" in front of Qin Shang only shook her head blankly, looking somewhat at a loss.
The gunshots continued to erupt from the other side, giving the two of them a brief opportunity to speak.
Their voices were completely drowned out by the dense gunfire.
Qin Shang furrowed his brows slightly, wearing a puzzled expression.
That was strange. Seeing Miss Mary should have been equivalent to completing Grandpa Niu's side quest.
But what did the statement that the key to clearing the instance was hidden on Mary mean?
Could it be that he was supposed to run over and communicate with that ghostly thing?
That thing did not look like a creature capable of communication!
Qin Shang recalled the side quest that Little Loli, "Grandpa Niu cosplaying as a maid and seducing Zhuangzhuang's mom," had mentioned during the first round of exploration.
There had been no electronic notification in Grandpa Niu's ears. Did that mean they had not actually seen Miss Mary?
Gasp!
Could it be... the ghost thing wasn't Mary?
Before you continue