Alice's Hell (32) - Never Saying "I Don't Dare to Gamble" Again

The dark alleyway gave Zeng Lai an uneasy feeling; indeed, his intuition was sometimes better off not being so accurate.

He had just sent the message and hadn't run more than a few steps when a figure suddenly darted out from the shadows of the alley. As he realized what was happening and prepared to turn around, a white silk handkerchief was already extended from behind and covered his mouth and nose with a very practiced gesture!

There was a strange fragrance on the handkerchief. He had taken a deep breath because he was caught off guard by the sudden covering, and immediately felt something was wrong.

The person behind him didn't say a word. After covering his face with a silk handkerchief smeared with sleeping pills, they used their bodies to restrain him and prevent him from struggling. This was indeed too unexpected. Zeng Lai didn't seize the best opportunity to break free and could only make "woof woof" sounds as he struggled.

A wave of dizziness rushed to his head, his heart stopped for a moment, and a jumbled thought flashed through his mind: I'm doomed!

It turned out that the drug wasn't just effective on children and women; it worked on him too, a hot-blooded sixteen or seventeen-year-old, and its effects were rapid and immediate.

Feeling weak all over and her consciousness fading, Zeng Lai quickly fell into a coma, filled with regret and a hint of panic.

He never expected that when he woke up again, he would see such a scene that shattered his understanding of the world.

In the gray room, completely covered by curtains, a distorted humming could be heard.

In a way, Zeng Lai was awakened by this hoarse humming voice, which sounded as if she had swallowed shards of glass.

The old air conditioner roared under its strain, the warm air blowing up the thick dust in the room and cruelly exposing the musty smell, scattering it into the air.

Zeng Lai felt himself sitting on the hard, cold ground. Besides the musty smell, there was also a sticky, pungent smell of blood that had been evaporating everywhere. He didn't dare open his eyes or move. He quietly moved his fingers and found that his limbs were bound by something. He tried to discern the source of the humming and could tell that the person was very close to him.

Where am I...?

Damn it, did we really run into a kidnapper?

Zeng Lai's mind was in a mess. Lately, many people had been spreading rumors about missing students, but the students involved weren't from their school, and the sources of the information were uncertain, so Zeng Lai didn't take it seriously at all.

Five or six minutes passed, and the person making the noise still hadn't stopped.

Zeng Lai thought he couldn't just sit and wait to die, so he quietly and cautiously opened his eyes a crack.

However, the scene before him was far beyond his expectations and exceeded the limits of what an ordinary high school student like him could handle.

The thick, pungent smell of blood, like a layer of paint, coated his nose, making him feel nauseous and aware of his predicament.

There were corpses all around, more than one, each scattered haphazardly throughout the room. It would probably take the forensic doctor some effort to piece them all together.

Judging from the cloth covering the corpses, these bodies were all girls in the corner, and there was also a piece of cloth resembling a long skirt.

His face was pale, his eyes filled with panic and fear, and his uncontrollable trembling caught the attention of another person in the room.

On the wooden rocking chair, the man in construction worker's clothes stopped his meaningless, off-key tune. The boy's expression seemed to please him, bringing a smile to his face, which was filled with vicissitudes, exhaustion, distress, and madness.

He got off the rocking chair and walked step by step to Zeng Lai, who was lying on the ground with her limbs bound. Zeng Lai was trembling and dared not look up at him.

What's going on here!?

Zeng Lai, who had initially thought it was just a kidnapping case, roared inwardly. He woke up to find himself next to a murderer?!

Holy crap, is this some kind of dream?!

"An unexpected find. Too bad it's a man." The man in construction worker's clothes looked like any construction worker who had just finished work. He was in his forties and had a fairly decent face. At least if you didn't look at his expression, it would be hard for anyone to associate him with the deranged killer who murdered a room full of people.

He reached out and pinched Zeng Lai's chin, forcing him to look up. He then looked Zeng Lai up and down, the rough calluses on his fingertips rubbing against the boy's skin until it stung. Zeng Lai didn't understand the man's intention in suddenly saying this.

The next second, Zeng Lai suddenly recalled the scene before he lost consciousness.

Yes, he was chasing after that female student he didn't know. In other words, the person in front of you originally only had the female student as his target.

No, none of that matters. What matters is, where is the junior? Is she still alive? And how is he going to escape?

Zeng Lai had no idea how long she had been unconscious. The room was very old, somewhat like a house from many years ago. There were no more houses like this in the city center, only a few places in the suburbs still had such a scene.

At least, it shouldn't be too far from the school...

Zeng Lai kept thinking; he had never realized before that his thinking speed could be so extreme.

I left my location with my deskmate; he probably called the police already...

At this moment, he couldn't help but feel fortunate that although his deskmate, like him, didn't like listening to lectures and preferred playing Yugi, he was very loyal and a reliable person in general.

The construction worker glanced at him a few times, then sat back down in the wooden rocking chair with little interest, seemingly having no intention of dismembering him immediately. This made Zeng Lai break out in a cold sweat while simultaneously letting out a huge sigh of relief.

The man didn't know he had called the police, so he was stalling for as long as possible, hoping the police would arrive and save him!

Lost in thought, he continued to survey his surroundings.

He was in a living room, with a door symbolizing freedom on one side. Next to the living room were the kitchen, the toilet, and a room that appeared to be a bedroom, with its door closed.

The place was small and old, and it was clear that the men in the construction uniforms didn't live a very good standard of living.

There are about three bodies pieced together. For now, Zeng Lai hasn't seen what the junior was wearing at the time.

I hope my junior isn't among these people.

Wait... it seems there are more than just female corpses.

In front of the bedroom door, there was a relatively intact male corpse. Zeng Lai hadn't seen it because he was lying down, but now that he saw the man hadn't done anything to him, he mustered up his courage and sat up, only then did he see this scene.

The construction worker, rocking in his creaking chair, said, "I didn't intend to kill him; he wanted to save someone."

Zeng Lai knew the man was talking to him, but he didn't know, and didn't want to know, what the words meant.

Rescue people? Whom should we rescue?

They killed people they weren't planning to kill?

"Ha..." The man yawned, a mix of exhaustion and excitement washing over him. He pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and muttered, "How come it's eleven o'clock again... I'd better get something to eat."

Without even looking at Zeng Lai's reaction, he swayed and staggered into the kitchen.

His figure disappeared into the living room, Zeng Lai let out another sigh.

Delaying...

Just then, there were a few noises coming from the bedroom door.

Zeng Lai was startled and stared wide-eyed in that direction.

A girl's suppressed voice came from inside the room. "Is anyone home?"

Even though the voice was muffled, Zeng Lai still recognized it; after all, the owner of the voice had just confessed his feelings to him sincerely.

It's that junior girl whose name I can't recall!

The sounds of stir-frying came from the kitchen, temporarily drowning out their hushed conversation. Zeng Lai asked, "How are you?"

The person inside paused, seemingly surprised that someone would actually respond, and not with the assassin's aged voice. She became visibly agitated. "You were captured too?"

"Yes," Zeng Lai told herself, trying to stay calm.

"He left, didn't he? I heard him go to the kitchen."

"Yes."

Zeng Lai doesn't know what else to do besides answering as many questions as possible.

The junior student, whether she recognized Zeng Lai's voice or not, immediately said, "Please help me! Open the door while he's not around, he locked it from the outside!"

Having found an "opportunity," the girl's voice trembled violently as she weakly urged the people outside.

Zeng Lai also wanted to save people, but if he could, he wouldn't have sacrificed himself for nothing. "I don't have the key, and I'm tied up."

The junior student fell silent.

A few seconds later, her voice trailed off, as if in despair. "Do you know? He stabbed me several times, my hands and legs are broken. If I don't leave quickly, he'll definitely kill me."

I don't want to die.

Zeng Lai's breathing stopped; he realized that he had been unconscious for longer than he had imagined.

While he was unconscious, the female student on the other side of the door had already experienced things he couldn't even imagine.

He gritted his teeth and searched for the key with his eyes.

Two minutes later, Zeng Lai gave up. There was really no other way; even if he found the bedroom key, he didn't have the front door key.

Moreover, in his current state, it would be difficult for him to even stand up, and if he made any further moves, the probability of him being discovered by the construction site workers would be 100%.

There was also a male corpse at the bedroom door...

Zeng Lai dared not gamble.

The flames on the yellow talisman continued to burn, bringing waves of warmth.

What happened afterward is somewhat vague, perhaps because his brain was consciously avoiding the experience and deliberately forgetting the details.

Zeng Lai only remembered that later that night, the man in the construction uniform finished eating, but instead of sharing any of it with the hungry Zeng Lai, he opened the bedroom door.

He looked inside and saw that there was no corpse in the bedroom, only a girl whose tendons in her hands and feet were severed.

The girl was disheveled and her eyes were filled with fear.

The man in the construction worker's clothes did not commit any crimes of insult or abuse. Instead, he took a hammer and broke several bones in the girl's body, and even shattered her skull. The door remained open throughout the entire process, and the underage Zeng Lai witnessed it all.

The junior student screamed in pain, calling for help, blood splattering everywhere, her voice piercingly mournful, just like now, behind the door of the Rose Tunnel, that [crying figure].

He did try to stop it.

He tried to persuade her, yelled at her, and distracted her. He even tried to break free of the ropes, but all his efforts failed. When the police arrived, the girl's pupils were dilated, she was lying on the ground, and she was barely breathing.

The construction worker was about to dismember the body when police rushed in and pinned him to the side.

It was so close.

The junior student was clearly beyond saving; she was so close. If the police had arrived sooner, she might not have had her skull shattered by the killer.

He was rescued.

The last thing the junior student looked at before she died was when she was surrounded by the police, and she looked at him through a gap in the crowd.

Those eyes, filled with pain, no longer held any admiration for him, only hatred.

It's like saying, "Okay, you survived."

But what about me? I'm dead.

You can't even help me, not because you can't, but because you don't dare.

The kind of trash I like.

Since then, this incident has been a shadow over Zeng Lai. He never dared to show any gentleness towards girls again, because subconsciously, he always felt that if girls didn't get close to him, they wouldn't encounter these things.

If he accepts the confession.

No, if he didn't act in a way that made the female students like him.

If he had been braver then, and had tried to find another way while the murderer was in the kitchen...

Even though none of these things were really his fault, and even though he knew it in his heart.

But he still couldn't let it go for a very long time.

Zeng Lai will never again say the words "I dare not gamble".

If he could do it all over again, he would gamble—gamble that he could find the key, gamble that he could hold out with his junior until rescue arrived.

You can gamble on anything, especially your life.

As his thoughts returned to their source, Zeng Lai let out a soft, bitter laugh.

It's amazing how the mental disorientation caused by [Corpse Control Gamble] allowed him to recall such distant events so clearly, as if they were right before his eyes.

I was young then, and truly powerless.

After becoming a predictor, he had actually come to terms with things. The negative emotions such as regret had gradually dissipated as he had made a friend in Ren Yi, who accompanied him in his work and helped him with planning.

The only thing that remains is the Persona Mask "gambler," which deviates somewhat from its real-world meaning.

Looking back on that incident now, it only evokes a sense of regret.

I heard that the construction worker's daughter was bullied by some girls and committed suicide. So, after a period of depression, the man developed mental problems and began a killing spree.

The victims were all innocent.

"Cough cough cough..." Zeng Lai suddenly coughed, and the people crying behind him heard his voice and started banging on the door again.

"Help me... Open the door! Open the door! I don't want to die!!!"

In a daze, Zeng Lai realized that there weren't many yellow talismans left.

In a series of replays of memories, almost half an hour had passed.

Time is running out.

Zeng Lai pursed her lips and looked through the remaining offerings.

He wore five offerings, but not all of them, in order to leave room for future opportunities to obtain more. Some of the offerings that he thought he wouldn't need for the time being were stored in the system.

The five items I'm currently wearing are: a [Fate's Gamble] in the form of dice, a [Corpse Control Gamble] in the form of yellow talismans, a ring that can dispel curses from ghosts, a pair of scissors with a rather peculiar function, and a necklace that increases stealth and speed.

To break out of this current predicament, there's nothing that can be directly used.

While I hesitated, half an hour passed.

The yellow talisman went out with a "poof," turning into a handful of ash that scattered in the air.

The woman who was crying out suddenly became agitated, now harboring twice the hatred. The door trembled violently, making Zeng Lai realize that even if he didn't open it, the door wouldn't last much longer.

"Today is just like that day, so unlucky... If only the rescue had come sooner..." Zeng Lai murmured, taking out the dice, closing his eyes, and spinning them again.

This is his biggest hope now; if he can roll a good number, maybe everything will turn around.

However, just as he threw the dice and they spun on the muddy ground, Zeng Lai suddenly felt a strange palpitation.

He felt a gaze upon him, and what chilled him to the bone was that this gaze had actually been there all along; he just suddenly became aware of it for some reason.

Before he could even think he had attracted some kind of ghost, a crisp cracking sound suddenly rang out around him, and air rushed towards him. His mind cleared instantly, and he felt as if all the restraints on his body had been completely released.

The dice stopped rolling.

On the side facing up, the red dot clearly shows a "6"!

The next moment, a small circular array flashed by in the shattered air, like a miniature version of the [Abyssal Blood Array], from which came a hysterical voice.

But it wasn't the friendly and submissive tone that Ye usually used; instead, it was a tone that seemed utterly weak, yet filled with deep resentment, as if he had no choice but to say something, "Thank goodness I can tell you, that door, if you open it, you can live."

With that one sentence, the circular formation swiftly transformed into blood, seeping into the soil, and vanished without a trace.

Zeng Lai was stunned for a moment, still reeling from the sudden turn of events. Only the dice lay silently on the ground.

Six o'clock, the ultimate in luck.

And then luck appeared.