SWBG - Chapter 30

Frostbite had already appeared on Chen Zai’s body. His limbs were almost completely numb. He could no longer afford to keep a low profile to avoid attracting the monsters’ attention. Instead, he pulled a kitchen knife out of his card slot and lunged at Huo Wen. Raising his hand, he swung with force, cleanly chopping off her right hand—the one gripping the corner of the feather quilt.

“Thud.”

The severed hand fell to the ground, producing a strange sound.

Chen Zai froze for a moment. His kitchen knife was merely a one-star trash-tier item, with almost no additional attributes at all. Yet when it struck Huo Wen, it severed her arm with astonishing ease, as though the blade had not cut through a living person’s limb, but through a frozen, brittle icicle.

The feather quilt fell silent.

Huo Wen stiffened. She stared fixedly at the severed limb on the ground, her eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets, as if she could not comprehend the scene before her. When she finally understood what had happened, she opened her mouth and let out an utterly terrifying scream.

Chen Zai watched in horror as a black substance materialized out of thin air beneath Huo Wen’s feet, then crawled up from her shoes onto her trousers, spreading continuously.

The room was filled with an extremely pungent stench.

Huo Wen tried to flee, but the black substance adhered to her firmly, pinning her in place and preventing her from escaping.

[Snowfall Feather Quilt

This is the fluffiest feather quilt of all! It is filled with high-quality duck down—warm and soft.

Mrs. Huo Le is an extremely strict housewife when it comes to household chores. You must vigorously shake her quilt until the ground is covered with accumulated snow.

“For those parasites who are always thinking about slacking off, a huge pot of foul-smelling asphalt smeared all over their bodies is the best reward!”

Item Grade: ★★★★★★★

Note: Until Mrs. Huo Le is willing to forgive your laziness, no matter how many sets of clothes you change into, this asphalt will remain with you.]

The [Snowfall Feather Quilt] was a seven-star item. At this level, the side effects produced by items were extremely likely to be fatal. Huo Wen had always been unwilling to use it for fear of encountering an accident—but she never imagined that Chen Zai would suddenly rush out and sever her arm!

“There are other people in this room! To your right—don’t just grab me… Aaaaaah—!”

Chen Zai did not dare to turn around. He heard Huo Wen’s miserable, despairing wails behind him, as though an invisible ghostly hand were silently opening, intent on dragging others into the hell of death along with her.

When someone was captured by the indigenous creatures, the survivors in the same corridor would gain a brief window to catch their breath.

All three monsters gathered around Huo Wen. Chen Zai and Ding Fa struggled out of the room and into the corridor. The frostbite on their limbs had yet to heal, and they broke out in another cold sweat.

Huo Wen’s screams gradually weakened, while the sounds of tearing flesh and chewing meat rang out instead.

Ding Fa’s eyes were wide open, filled with terror. His cheeks bore scars left by frostbite. Lowering his voice, he said to his companion,

 “Brother Chen, what do we do now? We haven’t found any clues—we can’t go deeper into the corridor at all!”

Before his words had even finished falling, both of their phones received new messages.

[From: Happy Board Game

Formal Participant [Huo Wen] has died. Please continue striving in the game, other survivors.]

Huo Wen was dead.

Chen Zai was gripped by extreme panic. He had no idea when the monsters, temporarily distracted by Huo Wen, would leave the room.

“Should we go back to the first room and hide for a while?”

Ding Fa squinted toward the depths of the corridor and shook his head slightly.

“That’s not a long-term solution.”

Chen Zai knew it clearly as well. Whether it was the corridor or the first room, neither was safe. Once the monsters came out of the second room, they would still have nowhere to run.

After pondering for a moment, Ding Fa lowered his head and said,

“I have an idea.”

Chen Zai urged him,

“Stop beating around the bush—say it.”

Lowering his voice, Ding Fa gestured ahead.

“Brother Chen, look—there are no lights deeper in the corridor, so we can’t go there right now, correct?”

Chen Zai followed his gaze and frowned.

“Isn’t that obvious nonsense? Since when can the rules of [Happy Board Game] be broken?”

Behind his companion’s back, Ding Fa’s lips silently curled into a strange smile.

—In [Happy Board Game], not all rules were unbreakable. For example, killing another formal participant without permission would cause a player to fail the game, deduct survival time, or even trigger a punishment instance.

And this was his final chance at survival.

At this moment, Ding Fa hoped—no, longed—to be eliminated from the instance by [Happy Board Game].

Chen Zai stared into the depths of the corridor for a while and truly saw nothing. Just as he turned his head back, he saw Ding Fa—the same person who had been calling him “Brother Chen” nonstop—his face twisted as he swung a knife and, without hesitation, slit his throat.

“Heh… heh…”

Blood surged from Chen Zai’s neck in gushes. Ding Fa’s hand had been trembling slightly, but once he struck his target, he instead calmed down. To prevent Chen Zai from launching a final counterattack, he kicked him hard to the ground.

Ding Fa straddled Chen Zai’s body, raised the boning knife materialized from a card, and stabbed down forcefully—once, twice, three times…

By the time Ding Fa finally stopped his mechanical motions, Chen Zai had long since stopped breathing. The corpse, soaked in bright red blood, lay with its mouth wide open, the corners slightly upturned, as if frozen in a stiff smile.

In the filthy hospital corridor, fresh blood filled the air with an unpleasant metallic stench. The lighting grew even dimmer—some of the blood had splattered directly onto the energy-saving lamps overhead.

Ding Fa’s phone vibrated violently, less like an old brick phone and more like a power drill running at full throttle.

[From: Happy Board Game

Formal Participant [Chen Zai] has died. Please continue striving in the game, other survivors.]

The news of Chen Zai’s death was broadcast to all players in the instance, but the second message was visible only to Ding Fa himself.

[From: Happy Board Game

Due to Formal Participant 08211-88 killing Formal Participant 08211-67 without permission, seriously violating the game rules, the following punishments will be imposed:

Remaining free activity time reduced by 24 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds

 (When a participant’s free activity time reaches zero, they will be forcibly entered into a game instance. When it becomes negative, the participant will be erased.) ]

[Escape the Abandoned Hospital] — Clearance Failed.

Ding Fa clutched his phone tightly, held his breath, and read the message word by word.

The punishment imposed by [Happy Board Game] was better than the worst-case scenario he had anticipated. He still had about three days of free activity time remaining. Even after deducting twenty-four hours, it had not crossed the danger threshold. As for the second punishment, he had long been prepared for it.

As long as a punishment instance was not triggered, everything could still be managed.

“Bzzz…”

Just as Ding Fa was comforting himself, his phone vibrated again.

[From: Happy Board Game

Due to Formal Participant 08211-88 being within a special instance, they will be unable to leave the game until it is cleared.

Congratulations—you can now enjoy this interesting world for even longer :).]

“!”

Ding Fa’s eyes turned bloodshot as he stared at the notification in disbelief. He waited and waited, yet his surroundings did not change at all. He was now the only living human left here. The entire corridor was as silent as a tomb passage.

No—something was wrong!

Ding Fa suddenly realized: if the participant side was quiet because everyone else was already dead, then logically, why was there no sound at all from the NPC side, who should have no reason to restrain themselves?

Stiffly lowering his head as he grasped the abnormality, Ding Fa saw that on the blood-soaked floor, three tall shadows and one slender shadow were overlapping.

“Aaaaaah—!”

Human screams of utter misery echoed through the corridors of the abandoned hospital.

[From: Happy Board Game

Formal Participant [Ding Fa] has died. Please continue striving in the game, other survivors.]

Xia Xiaoyun saw this and frowned slightly.

Shang Min’e looked somewhat incredulous.

“It’s only the second round, and the people on the first floor were wiped out just like that?”

Xia Xiaoyun thought for a moment.

“Maybe they discovered a critical clue and triggered a riot among the NPCs.”

Gao Buyi suddenly laughed and said lazily,

“I think it’s because the survivors on the first floor turned on each other. Players who haven’t experienced it can hardly imagine just how many moral boundaries humans are capable of breaking when faced with the threat of death.”

Xia Xiaoyun fell silent for a moment, realizing that what Gao Buyi said was more likely the truth.

Shang Min’e shoved his hands into his pockets, sounding a bit impatient.

“The lounge has already been checked, and time is almost up. Shall we continue onward?”

Xia Xiaoyun was just about to agree when she received a text message from Gu Jingsheng—

[Player Y to Player X:

Not all indigenous creatures are blind! Be extremely careful outside the door!]

Xiao Luo’s arm was firmly gripped by a monster. Although these indigenous creatures still retained human appearances, whether in physique or strength, they were far beyond what ordinary formal participants could contend with. Among all the people Gu Jingsheng had seen, perhaps only He Suowen and Shang Min’e could fight them head-on.

“Brother Fang!”

Xiao Luo’s face flushed red. His other hand braced hard against the doorframe, veins bulging. He urgently called out to his companion, but did not dare raise his voice too much—there was only one NPC lying in wait outside the door. If he shouted and attracted the monsters inside the room, he would surely be dead.

[From: Happy Board Game

 It is now the participants’ [Third Round]. Please hurry.]

Fang Qiju had still been weighing what to do, but after receiving the message, his expression hardened decisively.

“Use an item!”

Xiao Luo was reluctant, but there was no better option at the moment. Perhaps Player Y and Player W, who were traveling with them, would help, but—

“…”

Xiao Luo had never placed much hope in Gu Jingsheng stepping in to help him, but he also hadn’t expected her to act as though she wanted to stay a hundred thousand miles away from him, practically plastering herself against the side wall.

Brother Fang frowned.

“What are you doing?”

The large ward had two doors—one facing the corridor directly, and one connected to the small ward. After [Happy Board Game] announced the start of the third round, the sounds of NPCs entering the second room could be heard.

Gu Jingsheng was now standing guard in front of the small ward’s door.

Hearing Fang Qiju’s question, Gu Jingsheng chuckled softly and said at an unhurried pace, “The deeper you go into the corridor, the more dangerous it becomes. I want to try and see if I can stall the NPCs here.”

She did not lower her voice at all as she spoke.

Before Fang Qiju could figure out what she was planning, he saw the side door open slightly. Gu Jingsheng then took out a palm-sized glass bottle and poured the black sludge inside into the adjacent room.

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