Chapter 22 The Battle Royale That Ended Before It Began

"It's not like that! He's lying!" Su Mo shook his head frantically, "That ghost doesn't leave any trace when it kills!"

"You're not an employee of Unicorn Game Studio, so how do you know his last name is Ma? Why do you also call him Manager Ma?" Xia Yang turned to look at Su Mo.

"The ghost told me! That ghost knows Manager Ma! It's the one who died of sudden overwork! I really didn't do anything!" Su Mo was on the verge of tears; he just wanted to live his life diligently, but fate kept pushing him toward some strange direction.

"It might be better to restrain them both," Gao Ming looked around, habitually searching for something like a rope.

"Believe me! He is the ghost, and this delivery guy stayed in the elevator with the body, he even tried to kill me!" Manager Ma, hearing Gao Ming say to tie him up, seemed afraid of losing his freedom, and shouted loudly as he ran toward the safety passage, "You'll all be killed by him! The ghost is on him!"

After slamming open the security door, Manager Ma ran down toward the floor where Unicorn Game Studio was located.

"Who do you think is the good guy? Who's the bad guy?" Xia Yang didn't chase after him, but turned back to Gao Ming.

"You keep an eye on the delivery guy, I'll go explain the situation to everyone," Gao Ming ran back along the corridor to Night Lamp Game Studio, where the employees had not taken the text message on their phones seriously.

"Has Wei Dayou not returned yet?" Gao Ming looked around the room; a few more seats were empty, and only an intern, Wang Yaoyao, sat honestly in the office. "Why did Li Jie and Zhang Wang also run out?"

"Seems they went to the bathroom."

"Stay in the office. When they return, tell them not to go out again!" Gao Ming took out his phone to call his colleagues, but couldn't get through to any of them, "There are four floors to the game arena, not counting the staff from Night Lamp Studio, there are also employees from other studios here, and we have to gather everyone together within an hour!"

At this point, Gao Ming didn't know how many people were still working overtime on these four floors; although the game had given players an hour's buffer time, the difficulty was still quite high.

Unable to contact his colleagues, Gao Ming ran to the storeroom, where Xuan Wen in love games was a ghostly serial killer specializing in psychological crimes, with eyes that could penetrate into people's hearts and intelligence and emotional intelligence far above the average person.

With her help, Gao Ming could be greatly assisted.

Pushing open the door to the storeroom, Gao Ming saw a very special scene.

Perhaps because Xuan Wen didn't belong to this game, those shadows were frantically repelling her, trying to drag her into the dark depths.

At that moment, Xuan Wen's body was entangled by shadows, the black veins that had surfaced on her skin sank back into her body, and she exuded an air that made people keep their distance.

"If I hadn't received those ten thousand people's emotions, I might not have been able to play the game with you again." Her eyes filled with bloodshot veins, Xuan Wen seemed to have endured the most painful phase and started to get used to the various voices and extreme emotions in her mind.

"You woke up just in time; a new game has been triggered." Helping Xuan Wen to her feet, Gao Ming's palm felt uncomfortable, for her skin had no warmth to it and felt like that of a corpse, "How come you seem a little different from your usual self after entering the game?"

"Don't you like it?" Shadows still converged around Xuan Wen, "Didn't you say that milk tea tastes better at room temperature, without ice?"

"I was talking about milk tea."

Gao Ming tried to pull Xuan Wen from the shadows, but as soon as his hand reached out, those shadows, like sharks smelling blood, bit toward Gao Ming!

In the nick of time, the chain containing Zhao Xi's memories and Tenacity quietly appeared, allowing Gao Ming to avoid the shadows' attack.

"Wearing someone else's bracelet, and even being connected by blood." Xuan Wen tilted her head, staring at Gao Ming's arm, her thoughts unknown.

After leaving the suicide game, Gao Ming carried Zhao Xi's pain and memories. The chain itself wasn't a weapon, but more of a restraint.

"So the blood vessels formed from Zhao Xi's memories can also be used like this?"

Combining their efforts, it took Gao Ming and Xuan Wen a long time to disperse the shadows that covered her, restoring her temporary freedom.

"Why do these things keep targeting you?"

"I've deviated from the destiny trajectory designed for me by that world, these shadows are correcting the error. Last time, it must have been for this reason that I didn't enter Zhao Xi's game," Xuan Wen seemed to understand something, "I want to become like you, but it seems that the Shadow World won't allow it; it wants to drag this whole city into the shadows."

"Let's not talk about that for now." Gao Ming took out his phone, "Did you get this text message?"

Xuan Wen checked her phone, her inbox was empty, the game's players did not include her.

"You're not a living player, could it be that you're assigned the role of the ghost?" Gao Ming's worst fear was—what if Xuan Wen was the murderer, and Xuan Wen had lost control.

"Why do you have such a big prejudice against a character you've created yourself?" Xuan Wen moved closer, "You always speculate about me from the worst perspective; do I represent your dark side? Are the things you want to do but are too afraid to do, left for me to carry out? That's why there's a ghostly serial killer specializing in psychological crimes, right?"

"I asked you a question, how many did you ask me in return?" Gao Ming opened the door to the storeroom, "If it's not you, then hurry up and find the real ghost. We have only one hour."

To help Xuan Wen out of the bind, Gao Ming had spent too much time, "Monsters in the game seem to have been endowed with certain abilities by that unknown world. For example, Zhao Xi, who survived a fall from a building, can be immune to physical damage. What is your ability?"

"It's an ability related to the human heart. I can see and hear..." Xuan Wen was halfway through when she incredulously looked down and then slowly lay on the ground.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone is screaming." Xuan Wen's smile suddenly became strange, "It seems that sometimes... humans are no different from ghosts."

Realizing something bad had happened, Gao Ming immediately ran towards the Night Lamp office, where only the intern Wang Yaoyao was still inside.

"Where are the others?"

"I don't know."

Taking Xuan Wen with him, Gao Ming went to the elevator entrance, where Su Mo was curled up alone in a corner, pale-faced.

"Why are you here alone?" Gao Ming grabbed Su Mo's clothes, "Did someone come by just now?"

"There was someone screaming in the corridor, the guy watching over me went downstairs to look for people." Su Mo no longer thought Gao Ming was a pervert, he grabbed Gao Ming's arms, "Bro, I'm really not a ghost! But I really encountered a ghost today! That ghost wants to kill us, it's completely twisted mentally!"

"Stay here." Gao Ming and Xuan Wen pushed open the safety door, and a strong smell of blood hit them in the face.

An hour had not yet passed, and the ghost had not awakened, but someone had already been killed!

Heart racing, Gao Ming pushed open the door to the twelfth floor, and the corridor was silent as the grave.

Then they came to the eleventh floor, where bloodstains and various marks of struggle appeared on the ground.

"Someone is taking the opportunity to hunt other employees!"

The ghost's game had turned into a human's game; the blood and terror exceeded even that of the ghost's awakening.

There wasn't a living soul around, only blood.

Pushing open the safety door to the tenth floor, blood splattered all over the walls. Gao Ming followed the bloody shoeprints on the ground all the way to the prop room near Unicorn Game Studio.

"The center of the bloodstains is right here."

Gao Ming grabbed the door handle of the prop room, and just as he was about to open the door, the shadow enveloping this floor began to slowly dissipate!

The bloodstains and foul stench also dissipated with the shadow, as if they were all being devoured by another world.

"Is the game over? Did someone kill the person possessed by the ghost?" Gao Ming looked at his phone, only thirty-six minutes had passed since the game started, and he hadn't even done much.

"It's so cruel and insane!" Xuan Wen reached into the shadows, "Obviously, someone, in order to escape the game, is ready to kill everyone but themselves. They killed the employees one by one until they killed the poor soul possessed by the ghost."

Gao Ming remained silent. He had always been on guard against the tricks in the game, but the cruelty displayed by humans was even more terrifying.

"First, we can be certain of four things. The murderer must have been through other games, so right after receiving the message and seeing the familiar shadows, they started their move; second, the murderer is among the survivors; third, the murderer seems to possess a bit of the monster's power, otherwise, they couldn't have killed so many people in such a short time," said Xuan Wen, as she approached Gao Ming, "Fourth, the murderer isn't me, we were together when the killings happened."

"I know it's not you." Gao Ming pushed the door to the prop room open forcefully. Dolls and mannequins fell all over the floor, but the bloodstains and corpses were disappearing along with the shadows.

He searched the room, and in the end, found only a black and white memorial photograph. It was a group photo of the first work team of Unicorn Game Studio, who were highly competent and the most competitive within Unicorn.

"There are seven people in the photo... seven living people."

Gao Ming's hand holding the photo was unsteady, Xuan Wen grabbed his wrist, "Are you feeling a sense of guilt? What does this have to do with you, anyway? You are just another victim, even if you atone with your death, other horrors will emerge."

"If I died, would the games I designed disappear?"

"No." Xuan Wen shook her head, "They would all go out of control, and this city would lose its only savior."

"You're pretty good at comforting people."