34: Chapter 34: The Mystery of the Old House (Part 8)

"Su Ye, are you sick in the head?" Wu Yan's face turned livid.

"Lunchtime, no loud noises allowed." The food-serving NPC was elusive, suddenly appearing behind Wu Yan.

As soon as Wu Yan turned her head, she met a pair of hollow eyes, let out an "Ah," and fainted from fright.

Su Ye curled the corners of her mouth. What a coward.

In the end, the group parted on bad terms.

The players continued to wander around the mansion, searching for clues.

Hu Tao looked around, unsure of what he was thinking, then gritted his teeth and followed behind Su Ye. After walking for a while, seeing that she had no reaction and didn't object, he continued.

The journey was awkward. Hu Tao wanted to find a topic but didn't know what to talk about. Seeing the flower pot she was holding in her arms, he asked dryly, "Su Ye, is… is that a flower?"

Su Ye glanced at him sideways and said with a straight face, "No, it's grass."

"Huh?" Slow to react, Hu Tao finally realized, and his face turned red.

The Ancient Mansion was huge. Hu Tao realized that after walking for so long, he hadn't encountered a single NPC.

"That shouldn't be right. Such a big mansion should have many people taking care of it, right?"

Hu Tao looked around, but there was nothing. It was abnormally quiet, without even a breath of wind; it was more like the calm before a storm.

Su Ye suddenly stopped, turned her head, and grinned, "What, do you want more NPCs so you can have a harder time escaping death?"

She didn't pay any more attention to this person whose brain wasn't working very well and just kept walking forward. After many twists and turns, she finally saw another courtyard. It wasn't until she saw two people standing at the entrance of the courtyard that Su Ye stopped.

"Isn't that…"

Hu Tao pointed, and just as he was about to speak, Su Ye pulled him aside and stared at him as if he were an idiot.

Hu Tao instantly went quiet; he had been foolish.

Standing at the courtyard entrance were none other than Angelica and Desolate Wind.

Hu Tao looked at Su Ye from the side and saw that there was no surprise on her face. Could it be that she knew there was something going on between the two of them?

They were some distance away, so he could only see the two of them acting intimately, but he couldn't hear what they were talking about.

"When did these two get together?"

Hu Tao looked shocked. He never expected that NPCs could also be so good at playing around.

"Want to know?"

Hearing Su Ye's words, Hu Tao nodded frantically. So, he was also someone who loved gossip.

In an abandoned hut within the courtyard, the door was tightly shut. Inside, Hu Tao stood nervously by the door, peering out through the window. Then, he turned his head to look at the two people tied up inside and wanted to cry.

He never imagined that the way she suggested to "find out" was to tie up the young master of the house right in the mansion!

"Mmph, mmph, mmph…"

Desolate Wind woke up and felt a throbbing pain in his neck.

Su Ye saw that he had woken up and pulled the rag off his mouth.

Hu Tao, who was nearby, looked at the rag and found it somewhat familiar. He tilted his head and asked in a low voice, "Where did this rag come from?"

Su Ye threw the rag aside. "Oh, I swiped it from the dining room."

"…"

"Hee hee~ You're awake. You were sleeping quite soundly, weren't you?"

"It's you!"

"Su Ye, what is the meaning of this?"

"Giggle~ What do I want to do~" She didn't actually want to do anything.

"I just want to be a good person."

She wanted to save a misguided young girl; how could she let her be deceived for nothing?

Angelica woke up in a daze nearby. She hadn't been tied up, just knocked unconscious. She wasn't left untied out of pity because she was a girl, but simply because there were no spare ropes left.

Just as she woke up, in her hazy state, she heard her mentioning Wu Yan.

"What do you want to do!" Angelica looked at Su Ye with vigilant eyes.

Su Ye shrugged. "Reasonably speaking, it's clearly you guys who are up to something, right?"

"What are we up to?" Angelica suddenly gave a weird smile. The ropes on Desolate Wind had been untied at some point. Both of them stood up, and Angelica, with a look of disdain, vanished into the darkness of the corner.

"Hehe, the Guest is about to arrive. Good luck to you both."

After Angelica finished speaking, she took Desolate Wind and disappeared into the darkness. Hu Tao ran over, but he was a step too late; the two had already vanished.

"How is that possible?"

Hu Tao's eyes widened. He reached out and grabbed at the empty air, but there was nothing.

"Heh heh heh… heh heh…"

Rustle, rustle. Suddenly, there was movement from the floor.

"Ah, what is this thing!"

Hu Tao suddenly felt a pain in the sole of his foot. He looked down and—good heavens, the entire floor was covered in dense tentacles, constantly wriggling, searching for their location.

"This is too disgusting! I have trypophobia!"

Hu Tao shuffled his feet back and forth, even managing to glance at Su Ye during this moment.

He saw that a transparent isolation zone seemed to have formed around her, and those tentacles couldn't get close.

Hu Tao watched with great envy. Look at that skill of hers; she didn't even have to lift a finger.

Then he thought about himself and sighed inwardly, resigned to summoning his skill.

The next instant, a wisp of flame appeared in his hand. His expression became serious, and he moved like a robot, stepping on the tentacles and burning his way through.

"Burn, I'll burn you!"

"Don't run!"

"I can even smell the scent of meat!"

"Sigh, what a pity. I don't even know if it's edible!"

Su Ye just stood to the side, watching Hu Tao single-handedly sweep the field.

She had thought he was a coward, but it turned out he just hadn't unleashed his ultimate move yet.

Sure enough, none of the players here were simple.

Su Ye curled the corners of her mouth. Sigh, being alone is too lonely; I want to form a team~

While Su Ye was letting her imagination run wild, the more the tentacles were burned, the more they ruptured and reconstituted.

Those tentacles seemed to realize they couldn't deal with them and started thinking of other methods.

The tentacles grew more and more, dense and numerous, making one's scalp tingle.

Over there, Hu Tao was holding his breath, killing! Killing! Killing!

He was clearly blinded by the killing.

He didn't even notice that the tentacles around him were getting fewer, slowly extending to the surroundings.

They quietly spread toward the windows and the door. The dense tentacles blocked the light little by little, covering the doors and windows tightly.

Meanwhile, the outer circle kept piling up, seemingly intending to trap them in this room and cut them off from the air.

As Hu Tao burned them, he noticed the tentacles around him were decreasing and felt a moment of joy. When the flame in his hand went out, he finally realized there wasn't a shred of light left in the room.

"Hm? Is it dark already?" He didn't feel that tired; how had he been fighting until nightfall?

Su Ye's mouth twitched. "I hope you look up."

Hu Tao summoned the flame again, and using its light to look up, he felt a chill run through his entire body.

He never expected that these things actually possessed intelligence and knew how to find ways to trap them.

Hu Tao raised the flame upward and discovered that after burning one layer, there were countless more; they were constantly regenerating rapidly.

"Damn it."

Now that not even a sliver of air could get in, they would both sooner or later die from lack of oxygen.

No wonder those two NPCs left without fear; they had counted on them being unable to leave this room.

"What should we do next?"

Hu Tao slumped to the floor. His fire was useless against these tentacles.

The speed of burning couldn't keep up with the speed of their regeneration.

Were they really going to die here today?

Hu Tao was somewhat unwilling.

"Su Ye, why aren't you saying anything?"

Holding the hong ling umbrella in her hand, Su Ye lowered her head and fiddled with the little tender bud in her arms.

"Shh, be quiet."

Su Ye closed her eyes. Her ears were filled with the sound of tentacles moving. Amidst this movement, there was suddenly a faint sound of a heartbeat.

"Found it!"

Su Ye's eyes lit up. She carried the flower and walked toward a corner.

With the hong ling umbrella gripped in her hand, she attacked rapidly. In an instant, a painful howl echoed throughout the room—a sound like a rat's, yet not quite.

The entire mass of tentacles moved rapidly.