I'll Go First

It worked? She'd let a spirit possess her?

Meng Chengcheng's face was calm, and even her tone of voice hadn't changed.

Chen Feng had never seen Spirit Communion before, and he was amazed. In his mind, a Medium ought to undergo a complete change in personality, shake her head about, and speak in a strange voice.

Captain Wu told Chen Feng to keep his voice down. "Shh. Don't disturb Chengcheng's Spirit Communion."

A Junior Medium's abilities were limited. Most of the time, she could only invite someone who had recently died to possess her, so Meng Chengcheng chose a visitor who had just lost the game.

The amusement park's rules only forbade the living from revealing the game's contents. No one had expected the dead to be able to talk.

The dead hadn't cleared the game, but their failures might offer clues to how to beat it. At the very least, the team could avoid making the same mistakes.

Meng Chengcheng began recounting the dead man's experience. "He took a gun into the forest. Then balloon monsters started appearing around him."

Captain Wu asked, "The hell? Balloons can turn into monsters?"

Meng Chengcheng explained, "Yes. They look just like balloons, but they're alive and very fast. The strings hanging from them are as sharp as blades. They can even cut through trees."

As she spoke, the three sticks of incense suddenly snapped in midair.

Meng Chengcheng cried out. "He's dead."

Everyone hurried to ask, "How did he die?"

Meng Chengcheng opened her eyes, sweat beading on her forehead. "One balloon monster called out in front of him to draw his attention. Another hid above him among the leaves. When he wasn't looking, it ambushed and killed him."

A diversion?

Captain Wu couldn't help cursing. "Damn it. These monsters know military tactics?"

The Pastor nodded too. "Looks like that's how the people before us were ambushed."

Incredible.

While everyone else marveled at how devious the monsters were, Chen Feng was astonished by the Medium's ability.

She could actually make the dead speak. That ability was incredibly useful for gathering intelligence, and this was only a first-stage Medium. Once she reached the third stage, completed the binding ritual, and could invite God to possess her, wouldn't she be unstoppable?

In a world crawling with monsters, he really ought to stick close to someone this powerful.

Chen Feng felt he was starting to understand Liu Xiaohu.

Speaking of which, as someone trying to win her favor, shouldn't he say something right now?

Chen Feng was about to speak when Lin He flattered her first. "Thank goodness Miss Meng is here. We'd be done for without her."

Meng Chengcheng said shyly, "It's not that serious."

Damn it, those were my lines!

Chen Feng now understood why Liu Xiaohu hated Lin He so much.

Time flew by. Soon it was the five of them's turn, but of the dozens who had played before them, only a pair of twin brothers had cleared the game.

The death rate was nearly ninety percent.

Captain Wu feared for his teammates and volunteered to go first. "I'll try it. If it's too dangerous, we'll switch to another attraction."

But the Pastor, the deputy captain, disagreed. "No, Captain. You're the one holding us together. If anything happens to you, the mission is over. Let me go first."

Captain Wu hesitated. "But you're not very good with a gun."

The Pastor shrugged it off. "Then I'll take my chances. The Lord will protect me."

Seeing that he was determined, Captain Wu relented. "All right. Stay calm and keep your eyes open."

"I know, I know."

The Pastor strode into the forest with the scissors-wielding owner.

Everyone spent the next ten minutes on edge. Fortunately, when time was up, the Pastor appeared at the forest's edge.

Captain Wu couldn't help shouting, "Well done!"

But his joy came to an abrupt halt.

The Pastor's right sleeve was hanging empty.

He had lost his arm.

Chen Feng frowned. The monster had actually severed his arm. Meng Chengcheng had been right: those strings were sharp.

But the Pastor knew about the ambush, so he shouldn't have been caught off guard.

Had his aim been so poor that he'd run out of bullets?

Chen Feng had plenty of questions, but the rules prevented him from asking.

The Pastor told them not to worry. "I've already treated the wound."

As the team's medic, the Pastor could heal the injured through Prayer, stopping bleeding and closing simple wounds. But a severe injury like a severed limb was beyond him.

When they thought about how he might have to live with one arm from now on, no one knew what to say.

Faced with their silence,

the Pastor took it in stride. "It's fine. It's just an arm. At least I'm alive."

"Though playing cards with one hand from now on might be a little inconvenient."

Captain Wu sighed. "You're taking it well. But the organization has plenty of people with unusual abilities. Someone must know how to regrow a limb."

As they talked, the owner emerged from the forest, waved his scissors, and urged the next visitor forward.

Captain Wu went second.

When he returned, his face was ashen, and a horrifying long gash ran across his chest. The Pastor's Prayer soon stopped the bleeding.

Even Captain Wu had been injured.

At first, Chen Feng had thought the Pastor had gotten hurt because his aim was poor and he'd run out of bullets to deal with the monsters. But Captain Wu was an excellent shot, and he'd still been injured. Something didn't add up.

Were there more than ten monsters?

But the captain also had a Demon-Slaying Gun called Holy Judgment, and a hundred bullets. Surely he hadn't used them all?

If the forest held more than a hundred monsters, those twins and the Pastor could never have made it out alive.

Or had the captain been conserving ammunition?

While Chen Feng pondered, Lin He, the third to play, emerged from the forest.

Unlike the first two, Lin He had neither lost an arm nor suffered a wound. But the Bagua Mirror on his chest had cracked in two.

Liu Xiaohu paid close attention to his chief rival in love, so Chen Feng knew the mirror was a ritual artifact Lin He had received from his Taoist temple. It could block one attack from an evil spirit.

The broken mirror proved Lin He had been hit too.

That didn't make sense.

The others might have run out of bullets and been left helpless, but Lin He had the Coin Sword.

At first, Chen Feng thought there might have been so many monsters that Lin He had exhausted his Magic Power. On second thought, if that were true, Lin He couldn't have survived after the mirror—able to block only one attack—broke.

So Lin He must have reacted after the mirror broke and killed the monster that attacked him.

Which meant it had been an ambush.

Perhaps one balloon monster had a special ability, such as invisibility or teleportation, and had caught all three of them off guard.

No. If that were the case, ordinary people would almost certainly die. How had the twins cleared the game without a scratch?

As Chen Feng racked his brain,

the team's mood sank to its lowest point.

One had lost an arm, another was wounded, and a third had lost his treasured ritual artifact.

After the fishing game, they'd all been full of bold talk. Now they looked like frostbitten eggplants, each quieter than the last.

Captain Wu took a drag on his cigarette. Then, as though he'd made up his mind, he called to the two who remained. "Xiao Hu, Chengcheng, neither of you is playing this game."

"Captain!"

Meng Chengcheng looked at Captain Wu. She knew he was trying to protect them. An Exorcist, a Pastor, and a Taoist had all nearly died in there. For a Medium like her with no means of attack, and an ordinary person like Xiao Hu, the danger could be fatal.

But she couldn't accept it.

From what they knew, the survivor had exchanged the ten Game Coins he'd earned for a souvenir. But he hadn't said whether they could combine coins earned by different people to make the exchange.

If they couldn't, then under the rule against playing the same game twice, she would lose her chance to complete the mission right now.

She couldn't accept that.

Meng Chengcheng pressed her lips together and looked at the captain. "I have to go."

Captain Wu understood how Meng Chengcheng felt, but her ability to gather information by using Spirit Communion to speak with the dead was too valuable. He couldn't risk losing her here.

"Chengcheng, if you still recognize me as your captain, obey my order."

"But I—"

"You need to know your limits. Xiao Hu understands that."

As he spoke, Captain Wu suddenly sensed something was wrong.

Something seemed to be missing.

Captain Wu looked around, puzzled. "Where's Xiao Hu?"

Lin He pointed toward the forest with a gloating smile. "He's already gone in."

"What?!"