The woman lying beside the elevator had a horrific abdominal wound. It looked as though something had exploded inside her belly. Although it seemed to have been bandaged with cloth, that had done little good. That she was still alive was less a miracle than a testament to her strength as a veteran player.
"He should have died long ago." Even grievously injured, the young woman spoke with bitter resentment as she looked at Lan Xingchen.
As for the other two male players, their earlier performance suggested that their abilities fell short of the stronger players'. Judging by how they had stayed glued to the woman's side, they were probably her followers.
That meant that, of the seven players present, anyone capable of fighting a creature like the Butcher Ghost was probably already exhausted or badly injured. Although the woman had regained consciousness, her abdominal wound made even standing extremely difficult. Su Bai looked steady on his feet, but aside from a few fallback options involving mille crêpe cakes, his strength was completely spent. If another ghost appeared, he might need to find a door.
As for Lan Xingchen...
Su Bai straightened up, leaning on his long-handled umbrella, and looked at Lan Xingchen standing opposite him. In all his memories of the past ten years, he had rarely seen a human survive such severe injuries. Before they had wrested away the Butcher Ghost's Butcher's Knife, Lan Xingchen had already been covered in deep cuts. After that, the Butcher Ghost had kicked him flying more times than anyone could count. Now even his blue-black hair seemed almost entirely stained the color of blood.
All this time, Lan Xingchen seemed to have been sustained by one final breath. Even with his body reduced to a shredded rag, he had remained standing. When Su Bai launched his attack, Lan Xingchen had even miraculously found the strength to restrain the Butcher Ghost.
But when Lan Xingchen turned and saw the female player who had spoken, even that final breath seemed to drain away. He staggered back several steps, reached the Qiu sisters, then braced himself against the wall and sank to the floor, unable to hold himself up any longer.
"So it was you." Lan Xingchen seemed to know the female player. All his attention had been on the Butcher Ghost earlier, so he had failed to notice her.
"Do you regret coming to Building 1 to save us?"
The moment the woman finished speaking, the two men beside her began protesting.
"Sister Yao, I secretly used the flashlight to signal for help when I first recovered my memories, but these people didn't lift a finger when we dealt with that ghost afterward!"
"Exactly! And they brought two more ghosts here. It was far too dangerous!"
"..."
As the two men took turns complaining, Su Bai and the others learned what the three players had been through. Before their memories returned, one of the male players and Sister Yao had been husband and wife in their fabricated identities, while the other man had been their neighbor across the hall and a close friend. Perhaps because they had sensed little danger, the three of them had recovered their memories far more slowly than the others.
But once the man whose fabricated identity was Sister Yao's husband recovered his memories, he realized that their seemingly peaceful life had already gone horribly wrong!
Because... Sister Yao's fabricated identity was not merely a "wife," but also a "mother" at full term, about to give birth.
The evil ghost beside them had been inside Sister Yao's belly all along.
Generally speaking, the greater the difference between a player's real life and their false memories, the easier it was for a player entering Happiness Residential Complex to regain their memories. Yet even after both male players remembered, Sister Yao remained immersed in the joy of impending motherhood.
To avoid provoking the ghost inside Sister Yao's belly... perhaps a Ghost Infant, and to keep it from recovering its memories and attacking her, the two male players had secretly signaled for help with a flashlight. They hoped to find an experienced veteran player who could help Sister Yao, but instead discovered a whole crowd of ghosts basking in the moonlight downstairs.
Later, when the labor pains began, the female player they called "Sister Yao" actually recovered her memories. To save herself, as well as the two players who had stayed by her side, she cut open her own strange belly and killed the Ghost Infant lying inside before its memories could return.
Fortunately, carrying a Ghost Infant inside her was ultimately different from a real pregnancy. Even though Sister Yao had recklessly sliced open her own belly, all she had needed to do was kill and remove something that did not belong there. It was nowhere near as complicated as a cesarean section. Perhaps the Ghost Infant had even instinctively avoided harming its mother. Though killing it left Sister Yao grievously injured and unconscious, she had survived in the end.
So although the two male players had indeed sent a distress signal, and Lan Xingchen had come to Building 1 after receiving it, Sister Yao had already dealt with the Ghost Infant tormenting them by risking her life.
For some reason, they also seemed to dislike Lan Xingchen. Sister Yao in particular looked at him with something close to hatred.
"Lan Xingchen, you really should have died long ago. What you did should have gotten you killed! But what truly disgusts me is how you keep saying, over and over again, that you're atoning, living like some monster that's neither human nor ghost. You're always calling yourself a sinner, saying you'd gladly die to save others and atone for your sins! But I know you're a liar through and through. You're absolutely terrified of dying!"
Fighting through the pain, Sister Yao shouted at Lan Xingchen, "I also know why you're afraid to die! You're afraid you'll meet those two in the world after death. You're afraid to face the two idiots your selfishness drove into a hopeless situation, who still saved your life in the end!"
"But you're worrying for nothing. You're going to hell when you die!"
"They were both so young. They were still just students. One was a do-gooder I didn't like but couldn't find any fault with. The other could be harsh when she spoke, sometimes threw her little spoiled-princess tantrums, and played the violin so badly it tortured your ears... but they shouldn't have died. At least not in that game!"
"What exactly happened?" Qiu Man had listened in bewilderment. But perhaps because she genuinely wanted to know what had happened to her ex-boyfriend, who had been missing for three years, she turned to Sister Yao after realizing she would never get the answer from Lan Xingchen.
"Sorry to interrupt." Leaning on his long-handled umbrella, Su Bai walked into the space between Lan Xingchen and Sister Yao. Some of what the two had said earlier, along with the players' total score changing to 80 just now, had led him to a few astonishing guesses.
Although... if Su Bai's guess was correct, all of this might be far too coincidental, far too accidental, far too unbelievable. But Sister Yao was clearly driven more by anger than reason at that moment. Getting her to explain everything briefly and clearly would be difficult, so Su Bai could not help asking-
"Those two people, the ones Mr. Lan wants to atone to... were their names Ning Yan and Fang Xiujie?"
Before you continue