Chapter 1 Something Happened

The scene immediately reminded everyone of what had happened in the Fu'an Inn. The difference was that this time, not everyone had died. Only Gao Yanqing was dead.

Jiang Cheng took a deep breath. A faint, musty smell drifted in the air, the scent of lake water. He had smelled the same scent in his dreams last night.

At this moment, Gao Yanqing's face was peaceful, as if he were still asleep, his hands folded on his chest. The whole scene was permeated with an unspeakable strangeness.

Faced with such a bizarre scene, everyone slowly calmed down. Death was common in missions. For the remaining survivors, the most important thing was to find clues to avoid suffering the same fate.

Unsurprisingly, someone mentioned the dream from last night. Li Bai hesitated for a moment, then turned to the others, the first to speak, "Everyone, last night I had a dream. In the dream, we were all on a ship, floating on a strange body of water. Water kept pouring into the ship. We tried everything to escape, and finally... at the moment the ship completely sank, the world turned upside down, and then I woke up."

"Me too. That dream was so real... so real it didn't feel like a dream at all."

The fatty stared at Gao Yanqing's corpse. The latter's remaining upper body evoked terrifying memories from last night. At least in the dream, the Gao Yanqing he saw was still alive and kicking. He wondered what he had experienced after they separated.

"Me too," Zhang Qizheng nodded.

Zhu Jie leaned against Tang Qisheng, a morbid pallor on her face. "We had the same dream. It seems that last night's dream... was not just a dream."

"In a sense, that dream was our real experience last night. If you die in the dream, you'll end up like him." Jiang Cheng looked at Gao Yanqing, or rather, at the several *meiren xiang* (fragrant orchid) plants on his bed. "The people at the Fu'an Inn also entered that kind of dream, so they all died, died in that lake, Chun Shen Lake."

"The General's previous guess was wrong. It wasn't that the water from Chun Shen Lake fell from the sky and flooded the Fu'an Inn, but that the entire Fu'an Inn was thrown into Chun Shen Lake."

After a brief exchange, everyone was convinced that the dream last night was the key to everything. The information in everyone's memories matched up.

Suddenly, Zhang Qizheng turned to look at Lu Qin and Shao Tong, his tone somewhat accusatory. "Where were you last night? In the dream?"

As soon as he said this, the atmosphere became strange. Jiang Cheng and the others, as well as Tang Qisheng and Zhu Jie, all looked at Lu Qin and Shao Tong. After all, no one had seen them in the dream. They were absent from beginning to end.

Jiang Cheng had a bold guess: perhaps these two hadn't entered the dream at all. If that was the case, then the most likely explanation was that they had a way to avoid sleeping.

This was acceptable, considering that they were already in a Nightmare Assault world of this level. It was also possible that brilliant individuals would appear among the teammates. After all, last time, a ghost named Bai Yu had been brought into the mission.

But if that wasn't the case, then the situation was more complicated. Jiang Cheng was most worried that these two were related to last night's dream, or even that the dream world was dominated by them. This possibility was very low, but if it were true, the consequences would be fatal.

The fatty held his breath, waiting for an answer from Lu Qin or Shao Tong. Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

Lu Qin adjusted her glasses, but Shao Tong interrupted before she could speak. Shao Tong tilted his head, grinned, and revealed a strange smile. "We were always by your side."

This sentence sent chills down the fatty's spine. How could they have been by their side? And how could they not have seen them if they were? There were so many of them...

Unless... unless Shao Tong and the others were ghosts!

But before the fatty could think further, Lu Qin glared fiercely at Shao Tong, then explained, "Don't misunderstand, everyone. Shao Tong's statement is inaccurate. Last night, we also entered the same dream as everyone else, on a sinking ship. After waking up from that dream, we happened to discover that the water there seemed terrifying, but it wouldn't drown people. So we judged that the path to survival was underwater, and we stayed submerged the whole time, never coming out."

"So you saw us, but you didn't say hello," Yao Shunyu said, confirming.

Lu Qin nodded, her voice earnest. "That's right. We weren't far from you, but because the situation was strange, we couldn't determine whether you were people or those things in disguise, so we could only wait and see."

The thought that they had been monitored the entire time by Lu Qin and Shao Tong, who were hidden underwater, made everyone feel uncomfortable, but they couldn't say much. After all, it was just that these two were more observant. If it had been them, they would have made the same choice.

Unexpectedly, Tang Qisheng suddenly launched an attack. "Miss Lu Qin, you said that the two of you were submerged the whole time, but Zhu Jie and I also dove underwater for a long time. Why didn't we see you?"

"Heh heh, how could we let you two see us? If you had seen us, I might have followed in that unlucky guy's footsteps!" Shao Tong raised his eyebrows and looked exaggeratedly at Gao Yanqing's bed, where the half corpse was still lying, emitting a strange smell.

Hearing this, Zhu Jie's face changed slightly, but she quickly recovered and stepped forward, speaking sternly to Shao Tong. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, nothing. Don't get excited, heh heh heh... I'm just saying. Why are you so excited? It's like I've caught you by the tail." Shao Tong narrowed his eyes, his expression becoming more exaggerated, as if provoking the other party was a fun thing to do.

But with Shao Tong doing this, everyone's attention was indeed focused on Zhu Jie and Tang Qisheng. In the end, Zhang Qizheng stood up and smoothed things over. "Mr. Tang, Miss Zhu, we had a clear division of labor at the time. Mr. Jiang Cheng and I left to search upstairs, while Gao Yanqing stayed behind with you."

"Anyone can die in this kind of world. It can only be blamed on his bad luck. No one else is to blame. But now we want to know how he died. This concerns whether we all have a chance to survive when we encounter this kind of situation next time."

Tang Qisheng smiled and nodded, putting his arm around Zhu Jie and pulling her back to his side. "Sorry, Zhu Jie was too emotional. We also know that Mr. Shao Tong didn't mean any harm, but there was a problem with his expression."

"We are also responsible for Gao Yanqing's death. We noticed the danger, but before we could notify him, he sank into the water."

Tang Qisheng sighed and briefly told everyone about what happened last night, of course, after deleting and modifying it, especially covering up the part where Zhu Jie pretended to be a ghost to scare Gao Yanqing.

Tang Qisheng spoke very slowly, smiling and looking at Shao Tong and Lu Qin while he spoke. He judged that the situation was complicated at the time, and the water was murky. Even if Lu Qin and Shao Tong were nearby, they couldn't have seen clearly. The result was as he expected. Lu Qin and Shao Tong didn't speak again the whole time, but just listened to him.

But what Tang Qisheng resented was that Shao Tong, who was obviously mentally unstable, was staring at him all the time, staring at him without blinking. This skin-peeling, bone-digging gaze made him feel uncomfortable all over, and his thoughts were also affected. But this also made Tang Qisheng clear about one thing, this Shao Tong looked crazy, but there was something strange about him.

Moreover, he seemed to have some subtle relationship with the Night Watchman, Lu Qin. Tang Qisheng couldn't say why. He just noticed a clue. This Shao Tong was indifferent to everyone, but he was different to Lu Qin. After Lu Qin spoke, he actually chose to shut up and listen quietly.

And Lu Qin seemed to be intentionally protecting him in front of everyone.

Soon, Tang Qisheng explained the whole story clearly. "Everyone, is there anything I haven't explained clearly?" Tang Qisheng's tone was very natural.

Hearing this, Jiang Cheng walked over, bent down, and carefully looked at the corpse on the bed. The corpse was broken in half at the waist. The huge wound at the fracture was not smooth, and the surrounding flesh was splayed out. Jiang Cheng's first feeling was that it had been torn open by brute force.

At the same time, a little above the fracture was covered with traces of tearing, as well as sharp claw marks. Judging from the arrangement of the marks, they were scratched by human hands, not just one person, one pair of hands, but many, many hands. A picture emerged in his mind: Gao Yanqing was grabbed by countless hands underwater. He struggled desperately, stalemated for a moment, and finally, with a "shred—" sound, the huge force directly tore him apart, and the bright red blood instantly dyed the lake water red.

"Huh?"

Jiang Cheng glanced over and suddenly noticed something peeking out from under Gao Yanqing's palm.

Because Gao Yanqing had put his palms together and placed them securely on his chest, the thing underneath was covered by his palms, and coupled with the angle, it was not noticed at first.

Moving Gao Yanqing's hand away, Jiang Cheng was surprised to find that the thing underneath was actually a fragment of armor. The fragment was composed of several pieces of armor, connected to each other with thread, but from the workmanship, it was still quite fine.

"What is this?" The fatty leaned over, his eyes wide. "Is it armor?"

Zhang Qizheng also stepped forward at this moment, staring at the fragment, a strange emotion flashing in his eyes. "It seems to be a fragment of armor from this era, but how did this thing end up in Gao Yanqing's hands?"

Zhu Jie lowered her voice and asked, "Could it be that last night, after Gao Yanqing encountered those things, he tore it off them while struggling?"

This guess was recognized by everyone, and Tang Qisheng immediately threw out another picture. Last night, after Jiang Cheng, Zhang Qizheng, and the others left, a large number of shadows appeared behind those doors. The shadows were of different heights, weights, and shapes, pounding on the doors, crying and shouting fiercely, calling for help. Judging from the voices, there were men, women, old, and young. The terrifying scene was like a living hell, even now, Zhu Jie and Tang Qisheng were still terrified.

Thinking of those doors, everyone temporarily put aside Gao Yanqing's matter. Jiang Cheng naturally put away the armor fragment. After all, he was the first to discover it, and no one raised any objections.

After going downstairs, everyone immediately went to the front hall. Li Bai pursed his lips and stared at an unremarkable wall. Several landscape paintings were hanging on the wall. "As expected, the doors from last night were all fake!"

Since the doors were fake, then the things that appeared behind the doors were naturally ghosts. If they had been tricked into opening the doors at the time, then every single one of them might have died on the spot.

Before they could continue to investigate, suddenly, a burst of rapid footsteps rang out, the sound of heavy boots hitting the ground, and at the same time, there was the sound of friction between armors.

A moment later, the door was pushed open, and the scene that met their eyes shocked everyone. A dozen armored soldiers wearing simple body armor and holding shields were blocking the door, and behind the heavy protection stood a general wearing a suit of armor.

The whole scene gave people the feeling of being faced with a formidable enemy.

The moment he saw Jiang Cheng and the others, a familiar voice suddenly rang out, "Distinguished masters, are you... are you alright?"

The voice was naturally from the general, the same general who led them to investigate the Fu'an Inn yesterday and arranged for them to stay here. Judging from the voice alone, he didn't expect them to survive.

Zhang Qizheng smiled instead of getting angry. "General, what are you talking about? We stayed here according to the general's arrangements. Could something evil have happened?"

Hearing this, the armored general was stunned for a moment, then laughed sheepishly. "What are you saying, distinguished master? But news came from Chun Shen Lake that a mutilated corpse was found. According to the description, it looked a bit like one of the masters, so I made a special trip to come and take a look."

After speaking, he didn't wait for a reply. His eyes wandered over Jiang Cheng and the others, then he suddenly asked, "Distinguished masters, why are there only 9 people left? Yesterday, when I came to pick up the masters, I remember there were 10 people."

"The 10th person is dead. The corpse is still upstairs. Does the general want to take a look?" Yao Shunyu also didn't like the general, so the words he spoke were also indifferent.

"May I ask, is the one upstairs a mutilated corpse?" The general asked cautiously.

"That's right, only half a body is left." The fatty didn't shy away from it, reached out his hand, and gestured at his waist. "From here on, the lower half of the body is gone. Oh, right, there's water all over the bed."

Jiang Cheng and the others clearly noticed that when he heard the word "water," the general's pupils moved violently, and his breathing became rapid. "It's the lake water from Chun Shen Lake again, right? This time, there's only lake water on the bed?"

Jiang Cheng nodded in agreement, but his answer was more detailed. "That's how it looks for now. We just came down and haven't checked the other places in the courtyard yet."

"There's no need to trouble the distinguished masters. We can do it for you." The general waved his hand, and a dozen soldiers dispersed, a few people in a team, and began to search in all directions.

After the shield formation dispersed, everyone saw that behind the general, there was also a team of people, all dressed in white mourning clothes.