Welcome to the Game Field

"Someone's outside?"

Zhang Peng was filled with uncertainty.

Out of caution, he did not open the door immediately. Instead, he carefully crept over to the window and peeked through it at the person knocking.

Outside the wooden cabin, a gaunt figure stood at the door like a stake. Its face could not be seen, and its skin was covered in large patches of ulcerated flesh, as though it had been burned. Its arms moved like an old, rusted machine as it kept knocking.

"Thud..."

"Thud, thud..."

Zhang Peng sucked in a cold breath.

He could not connect the person before him with a Haunted House employee.

More importantly...

Hadn't the Trio told him beforehand that there were only three NPC monsters in the Haunted House: Little Bear, Bald Strong, and the Red-Clothed Female Ghost?

Little Bear was enormous, Bald Strong was short with a misshapen head, and the Red-Clothed Female Ghost went without saying. She was nothing more than a floating special-effects ghostly silhouette. Even if she were played by a real person, she would definitely be wearing a red qipao.

But the figure before him belonged to none of those categories.

Instead, it looked like... the male owner of Fuan Apartments whom he had burned to death.

Just as Zhang Peng swallowed hard, his heart pounding wildly, he suddenly sensed a watchful gaze. It was not coming from anywhere else—it was from the courtyard.

There were two more gaunt figures in the courtyard, one tall and one short. Their skin was likewise covered in large patches of ulceration, as though they had been burned, and their faces could not be seen.

Two more had appeared?

Zhang Peng was so frightened that he hurriedly backed away from the window.

This was a little beyond what he had imagined.

How could new monsters appear inside the Haunted House?

The Trio did not know Zhang Peng, so they had no reason to deceive him. That meant these three things were not employees or special-effects NPCs originally part of the Haunted House.

If they had not come with the Haunted House, then they could only be...

"No, impossible. How could there be ghosts in this world?"

"If there really were ghosts, why didn't they come for my life years ago? Why show up now? What a joke!"

"Hallucinations. It's all hallucinations."

Zhang Peng muttered as though hypnotizing himself, but the sweat constantly pouring from his body betrayed him. He was utterly terrified.

If he had run into the Haunted House owner, or even the police, he would not have been afraid in the slightest. But he had encountered this kind of supernatural force. Even a vicious criminal like Zhang Peng found it hard not to be scared.

"Thud..."

"Thud, thud..."

The knocking still echoed through the little wooden cabin.

Zhang Peng inched toward the bedroom. There was another window there, the one Little Bear climbed through every time he sneaked into Bald Strong's home to steal food on TV.

He wanted to escape through it.

The window was above the kang bed.

Zhang Peng first inspected the area behind the courtyard through the window. Only after seeing no gaunt figures did he relax slightly and prepare to climb out.

But the moment he climbed onto the kang bed—

The quilt on the bed was curled into a lump.

Zhang Peng froze.

It seemed as though... something was hiding beneath that quilt?

He did not dare think any further. He looked away, stepped over the quilt, and was just about to flee through the window.

His upper body slipped outside.

His lower body wriggled outward bit by bit.

"Hm?"

Suddenly, a chill ran through him.

It felt as though a hand had grabbed Zhang Peng's ankle. His expression changed drastically, and he frantically squeezed himself through the window.

No matter what had grabbed his foot—

He did not want to face it.

He only wanted to get out of this damned place as quickly as possible.

"The window... is shrinking?"

"It hurts... it hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts!"

Zhang Peng discovered in terror—

The cabin window was actually shrinking.

At first, he thought it was an illusion. But when he tried to crawl out, he found that his lower body had become completely stuck.

Not only was he stuck, he was being compressed at an extremely rapid pace, as though a whale had bitten down on his abdomen and intended to swallow him whole.

The house could eat people?

Who would believe that if they heard it?

"Wait... wait... don't!!"

Zhang Peng could no longer control himself and screamed.

He could not see what was happening in the bedroom.

But he heard the door creak open.

Something entered the bedroom, grabbed his legs, and dragged him hard into the room.

There were many hands—far, far too many. They possessed strength no human should have, gripping his feet tightly.

The window continued shrinking, crushing his abdomen.

His blood was beginning to stop circulating. If this continued, Zhang Peng would be cut in half at the waist.

As his consciousness blurred—

Zhang Peng vaguely saw a strange man appear amid a flock of Crows. The Crows seemed to be his guardian spirits, yet also an omen of his arrival. He looked down at Zhang Peng with mocking contempt.

"Welcome to the Game Field."

That was the only sentence left in his memory.

Zhang Peng's internal organs were twisted apart.

He died on the spot.

Zhang Peng opened his eyes.

He had been born inside a Tree Hole.

The Tree Hole was silent, utterly still. Holding his head, Zhang Peng could not remember no matter how hard he tried what he had done before entering this place.

He had lost his memories.

But when he touched the dagger he carried at his waist, Zhang Peng seemed to vaguely recall something.

It seemed he had come here to kill someone.

Who was he going to kill?

No... his head hurt too much... he could not remember at all.

"Fuck, what kind of damned place is this?"

"How did I get in here..."

Holding his head with one hand and gripping the dagger with the other, drawing what little security he could from it, Zhang Peng felt along the pitted tree roots and found words carved into them with a knife.

He leaned closer to look.

"I am Zhang Peng. By the time you see these words, I am already dead."

"I am the future you. You are trapped in this place. This is a Haunted House, but it is also a terrifying prison. You must escape, or the ghosts will kill you."

"Run!! Run!!"

"Quick!!"

Zhang Peng looked utterly bewildered.

The owner of these words was his future self? But if he really was dead, how could he have carved these words to warn his present self?

"Caw!"

Suddenly, a strange Crow cry rang out from the forest.

Zhang Peng followed the sound out of the Tree Hole, only to see a pine tree crash down in the forest. Amid the roar of a chainsaw and the howl of some bear-like creature, someone was fighting in the middle of the woods.

The Crows in the forest were all startled and scattered in every direction.

Before Zhang Peng could react—

The fleeing Crows gathered into a red shadow.

The shadow gradually became clear. A woman with wildly disproportionate features appeared before him. Her neck was three or four times longer than an ordinary person's, and her eyes were utterly black, without a trace of white.

What the fuck was this monster?!

Zhang Peng instinctively tried to run.

But the woman moved faster. The Crows swiftly swarmed Zhang Peng, frantically pecking at his skin.

Their beaks were like sharp knives.

Every peck tore away a bloody chunk of flesh.

"Ah!!!"

Zhang Peng screamed hysterically.

The woman came before him and tilted her head slightly, like a bird examining its prey. Then she pressed her broken hands against Zhang Peng's neck.

"Crack!"

A crisp snap rang out.