Thinking Forest Mansion (9)

Tang Cha said, "Is he possessed?"

The player's hands were covered in blood. Only then did they notice that he had torn away not just his fingers, but a large chunk of flesh from the back of his hand as well.

Gu Rui rushed forward and yanked the player's hand out of his mouth, but the man seemed fixated on it. He kept struggling desperately, refusing to stop until he could get it back between his teeth.

"Knock him out!" Gu Rui shouted.

He needn't have said anything. Ji Xun had already moved the moment Gu Rui sprang into action.

The nearly crazed player finally stopped gnawing on his fingers and slumped limply onto the bed.

Gu Rui looked closer. The object that had struck him was a gemstone.

"You could've just knocked him out with your hand. What a waste."

With both hands in his pockets, Ji Xun said flatly, "Dirty."

The bed was a mess. Who knew where the man had gotten so much saliva? The sheet beneath him was almost soaked through.

Gu Rui stared stiffly at the unidentified mixture of clear fluid and red blood on his hand, then secretly wiped it on a slightly cleaner patch of sheet.

While they were knocking out the finger-eating player, Lu Jiancheng and Tang Cha had worked together to knock out the man singing opera by the window.

"He nearly strangled himself with a bedsheet just now." Tang Cha was still shaken. It was his first time seeing someone so desperately bent on killing himself, as though possessed.

Gu Rui said, "Oh, shit. The others!"

They hurried to check on everyone else. Sure enough, another room on the second floor was playing host to suicide attempts by inhuman means.

Strangely, their eyes were half-open. They seemed awake, yet their behavior was bizarre.

"Holy crap, is this how I spent the last two nights too?" Gu Rui shuddered at the thought.

Lu Jiancheng patted his shoulder. "Looks like it. Your good fortune is still to come."

They had just reached the third floor when a furtive figure suddenly appeared around the corner.

Ji Xun raised a hand, signaling for the others to stay quiet. Then he abruptly drew his saber and hurled it toward the figure. The man stiffened and raised his hands to identify himself. "It's me, Deng Tianyu."

The blade was less than ten centimeters from his neck. A little closer, and it would have sent him out of the game early.

Tang Cha let out a relieved breath and asked, "What are you doing out here? Wait, why aren't you asleep?"

Deng Tianyu patted his chest, looking relieved. "I wasn't feeling well tonight, so I skipped dinner. Then, just as I was about to go to sleep, I heard the noises you mentioned."

Gu Rui snapped, "So the Cook really is behind this!"

Deng Tianyu's gaze flickered. "It really was the Cook's food that made us lose consciousness at night?"

"Yes-"

Gu Rui was about to explain when Fang Rui seemingly "inadvertently" cut him off. "Let's check on the others first."

A trace of displeasure flashed in Deng Tianyu's eyes. Then he put on a worried expression. "Yes, they're making so much noise. Who knows what's happened?"

There had originally been five guest rooms on the third floor. Apart from Gu Rui's room and the one belonging to the now-dead Brother Dong and his two companions, only three rooms were still occupied.

"My companion was talking nonsense too, but I knocked him out," Deng Tianyu explained.

Avoiding the traps on the floor, they headed for the guest room with the loudest commotion.

Fortunately, they arrived in time. The two players inside had nearly been tortured to death.

And the culprit was their third teammate, who shared the room with them.

Gu Rui untied the player bound to a chair, then peeled the wet tissues off his face.

The player, who had nearly suffocated, gasped for breath and actually regained his senses. "What happened to me?"

Meanwhile, Tang Cha and Lu Jiancheng worked together to rescue the player dangling outside the window. Then Tang Cha looked at the "abuser" sprawled on the floor, thoroughly knocked out, and explained, "Say, is this teammate of yours a murderer? You two nearly died just now."

The man barely managed to take in the situation before flying into a rage. "He tried to kill me!"

Tang Cha clicked his tongue twice. "Didn't I just say that?"

"He actually tried to kill me!"

Tang Cha said, "Ji Xun, I don't think his head's quite clear yet. How about giving him another whack?"

Ji Xun glanced at him, then asked, "What did you see just now?"

The man had yet to recover from the terror of nearly being killed, and his gaze shifted evasively. "Just... some strange scenes. I can't really remember."

Liar.

Gu Rui raised his hand and knocked him out again.

"If I don't knock him out, what if he kills that guy later?" Gu Rui explained.

The last guest room housed two players. As soon as they opened the door, they saw two overlapping figures on the bed.

Tang Cha slapped a hand over Fang Rui's eyes. "Can't watch. I just can't watch. What's the world coming to?"

Ji Xun frowned, looking puzzled.

Lu Jiancheng coughed lightly into his fist. "There... shouldn't be much of a problem here. Let's go. We shouldn't disturb them."

Gu Rui's face flushed slightly, but to make sure they were safe, he still felt his way to the bedside with his eyes shut and knocked them both out.

Tang Cha disapproved. "Ruining a romance is like murdering someone's whole family, you know."

Gu Rui: ...

Only after they left the room did Ji Xun finally react. "What were they doing?"

Tang Cha looked as astonished as if he had seen an alien. "You don't know?"

"Know what?" Ji Xun looked utterly lost.

During all his years in the Black Pine Forest, he had learned many human emotions from the escapees.

Familial love, for instance, and friendship.

But never romantic love.

Even the friendship between some escapees was largely tainted by self-interest and might vanish the very next moment, but Ji Xun had still earnestly committed that emotion to memory.

So when he met Tang Cha and the others, he had readily assigned them the role of "friends."

But he had never encountered romantic love.

Really, Ji Xun wasn't the only one who didn't understand. Tang Cha didn't either. After all, he was just a kid who had croaked right after reaching adulthood.

Deng Tianyu chose that moment to speak with a smile. "Those two are a couple. It's no secret at the Headquarters Base."

Still, he hadn't expected them to be so impatient that they would get it on inside a scenario.

"A couple..." Ji Xun rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

The events of the night had been so bizarre that every player looked grim when they gathered in the living room that morning.

Especially the young couple who had been caught in bed the night before.

The player who had nearly killed his two roommates looked utterly unconcerned, while his two teammates sat as far away from him as possible.

"I'm sure everyone already knows what happened last night," Deng Tianyu began.

One player raised his heavily bandaged hand. "Can someone explain what happened to my hand?"

Tang Cha rolled his eyes. "Why don't you check whether your teeth hurt?"

The player ran his tongue over his faintly aching back teeth. Coupled with the lingering taste of blood filling his mouth, it made his expression turn even uglier.

"The rest of us were there last night, and we can confirm that something happened to everyone during the night."

After speaking, Deng Tianyu turned to Gu Rui with a smile. "As for the reason, I think Gu Rui can explain that for us."