"What's he doing?"
"I don't know."
Fan Dade and Fan Cong didn't dare disturb
In truth, Chen Ge didn't have time to talk to the brothers either. He was fully focused on controlling Xiao Bu as she fled for her life through the pitch-black streets.
The person who made this game was an absolute psychopath. The darkness was riddled with countless hidden dangers.
An arm suddenly reaching out of a window, a killer lurking around the corner, a female ghost in pursuit from behind, and a laughing stray dog darting out from god-knew-where — if it were only these things, Chen Ge wouldn't have been too nervous. What truly worried him was something else entirely.
After roughly half a minute of sprinting through the dark streets, Chen Ge saw something rising behind Xiao Bu. It looked like her own shadow.
"What ran into her shadow? Or can the town at night awaken the shadows of the living?" Chen Ge was in a state of extreme tension. He didn't dare lose focus, but memories of that night at the eastern suburb waterworks flashed unbidden through his mind. All the ghosts in the eastern suburb seemed connected to that shadow.
On screen, Xiao Bu's shadow stood up, leaned against her shoulder, and whispered something. Xiao Bu's speed began to slow.
"Fan Cong, how far is the inn?" Chen Ge asked without turning his head, words tumbling out rapid-fire.
"It's right up ahead — the only building with its lights on at the end of the street!"
"Staying open in the dead of night — this inn isn't ordinary." Chen Ge could already see the dilapidated building in the distance. He maneuvered Xiao Bu left and right to dodge, the frantic clatter of mouse and keyboard echoing through Fan Cong's room.
At the fifty-seventh second after leaving the apartment stairwell, Chen Ge guided Xiao Bu into the inn. The headless ghost in red stopped outside the inn, not following her in.
"The ghost won't come in?"
The moment he saw the ghost stop chasing, Chen Ge immediately halted Xiao Bu as well. He stood her right at the entrance, shimmying left and right, frantically baiting the ghost.
"Boss Chen, what are you doing? Taunting her?" Fan Cong couldn't watch any longer.
"If I don't get her inside the inn, you think you can handle the innkeeper? Xiao Bu's just a defenseless child — how is she supposed to fight those psychotic killers?"
Xiao Bu darted back and forth at the doorway. The ghost in red seemed ready to pounce, but the head dangling from her hand wore an expression of deep conflict, as though engaged in an intense internal struggle.
"A red-robed ghost and still so timid and cautious. The quality of ghosts in the eastern suburb really is subpar." After messing around for a while, the red-robed ghost seemed to have finally been irritated enough by Chen Ge and started to move toward the inn.
But before she could enter, a fat man carrying a hunting rifle suddenly burst out of a neighboring room and slammed the inn's front door shut.
At the same time, a line of text popped up at the bottom of the screen — a thudding knock echoed on the inn's wooden door, though when the guest outside would be allowed in was anyone's guess.
Chen Ge clicked the dialogue box with his mouse, and a second line appeared. This one came with the fat man's portrait, indicating he was speaking — Strange guests would come calling every night, and they were extremely dangerous. Father's hunting rifle only had one bullet left, and he needed to be careful.