Hold Your Breath

"Lucky Ghost Favored, your courage is astonishing. This Nightmare-level mission is both a test and a reward!"

"The name of the following game is Breath Holding. It can transcend life and death, allowing you to see those who have passed away."

"Mission requirements: Enter the bathroom alone at 3:30 AM, lock the door, turn off the lights, light a candle nearby, then lie in the bathtub and hold your breath."

"From 3:30 AM to 3:44 AM is when the night is at its deepest, and also the intersection of yin and yang in a single day. What you need to do is hold your breath at 3:44 AM, sink to the bottom of the tub, and silently recite the name of the person you wish to see most."

"When time reaches the gap between night and dawn, you will be able to see him on the edge of life and death."

"Successfully seeing the person you miss completes the mission. If you do not see them, the mission will automatically succeed after holding your breath for sixty seconds."

After reading the mission information on the Black Phone, Chen Ge felt extremely conflicted.

Compared to the first Nightmare-level mission, this one felt much simpler. Closing one's eyes for thirty minutes in a terrifying environment required strong mental fortitude and exceptional courage, but holding one's breath for sixty seconds was something the vast majority of people could do.

Yet, it was precisely because most people could do it that he felt uneasy. This was, after all, a Nightmare-level mission; it must hide some unknown risk.

"The location is the same as the last Nightmare mission—both take place in a bathroom. The difference is that this time I must lie in the bathtub and hold my breath for sixty seconds." He carefully thought through the entire mission process. Including preparation time, it was only a matter of ten minutes or so. What kind of terrifying thing could happen in such a short time?

Chen Ge was somewhat tempted, not just because the mission looked relatively simple, but because of the line in the mission description—it could transcend life and death to see the deceased one missed.

The more critical the situation, the calmer Chen Ge became. He sat on a chair, pondering a certain possibility.

His parents had disappeared at an abandoned hospital in the suburbs, leaving behind the Black Phone and the ragdoll. He had activated the Black Phone just as he was preparing to give up on the House of Horrors.

Later, during his first Nightmare-level mission, the ragdoll became the key item to stop the Mirror Monster from emerging. What was worth deep consideration was that both the ragdoll and the Black Phone were his parents' relics. Could these two things have been left behind by them on purpose?

If everything was indeed arranged by them, then this second Nightmare-level mission was worth pondering.

"Is it possible they want to see me through this method and then reveal more information?" Of course, this was just Chen Ge's speculation. In fact, regardless of whether the Nightmare-level mission was set up by his parents or not, Chen Ge would still do it.

Transcending life and death to see the person he longed for was, for Chen Ge, a chance to confirm whether his parents still existed in this world.

If he couldn't see them, it meant his parents were merely missing and still alive.

If he did see them, it would prove Chen Ge's first hypothesis: his parents left the Black Phone because they truly had something to tell him. Perhaps the phone hid their true final words.

"It seems I have no choice." Chen Ge glanced at his watch. It was 2:55 AM, thirty-five minutes until the mission started. "I wasted too much time smashing the mirror on the third floor; this is going to be tricky."

The mission required lying in a bathtub, but the only room in the entire Haunted House with a bathtub was in the Midnight Escape scenario.

The end of the staff passage connected to a room with a bathtub. When he had scared He Shan and the others earlier, Chen Ge had used that route to enter and exit the scenario.

"With thirty-five minutes left, it's definitely too late to go out and find a hotel with a bathtub. I'll just have to face the monster in the mirror head-on." Since he had made his choice, Chen Ge didn't hesitate. He stuffed all four ragdolls onto his person, ran out of the Haunted House, snuck into the park's staff canteen in the middle of the night, and grabbed two kitchen knives.

"Even though these knives haven't slaughtered pigs or sheep, I've seen the chef use them to kill chickens and fish, so they should count as having taken life." He brought the knives to his nose and sniffed; there was no aura of slaughter, only a heavy scent of green peppers that made him want to tear up.

Returning to the Haunted House, Chen Ge carried an iron bucket, intending to go to the bathroom to fetch water, but suddenly remembered the content on the phone: "The mission is called Breath Holding. Although it says to lie in the bathtub, it doesn't explicitly require pouring water into it. I should just need to hold my breath."

The main entrance to the Midnight Escape scenario was locked, so Chen Ge entered through the staff passage. Following the mission requirements on the Black Phone, he stood alone in the bathroom.

The mirror in this room had long been smashed by Chen Ge. At this moment, shards covered the floor, crunching under his feet with every step.

"I made quite a lot of noise earlier; the monster in the mirror should already know I'm here. But it doesn't matter; I only need to survive that one minute of breath-holding to be safe."

In Chen Ge's view, although this mission was eerie, it wasn't too dangerous.

He locked the bathroom door from the inside, placed the ragdoll his parents had left him behind the door, and then placed the four ragdolls containing the lingering obsessions of the victims around the bathtub.

"Everyone, it's up to you now. No matter what, you must buy me one minute!"

Just like last time, he turned on his phone's camera and set it at an appropriate angle to record. However, because the room was too dark, the screen was almost pitch black, barely showing a human silhouette.

With three minutes remaining, Chen Ge took everything out of his pockets and placed them on the vanity. Following the Black Phone's requirements, he lit a candle around the bathtub.

The flickering candlelight became the only source of light in the room, reflecting off the mirror shards on the floor. Every shard revealed a silhouette of Chen Ge.

He took off his shirt and walked to the side of the bathtub.

The bathtub was clearly shallow, but because the light was so dim, he couldn't see the bottom at a glance.

He reached his hand into the tub. Even though there was no water, a chill crept up Chen Ge's body from his fingertips. He couldn't help but shiver. "This mission really is eerie."

After checking the time one last time, Chen Ge sat into the bathtub, clutching the two kitchen knives.

As he entered, his body felt a trace of coldness, as if something had spilled out and was flowing over the mirror shards.

"So cold..."

Chen Ge felt the heat in his body draining away rapidly, and even his heartbeat slowed down significantly.

Water droplets dripped from the edge of the vanity, tick-tock, tick-tock. Other than that, there was no other sound in the room.

"One minute. As long as I endure this one minute, I can get the reward and verify the conjecture in my heart!"

Chen Ge continuously adjusted his breathing, waiting for the arrival of 3:44 AM.