"We've combed through the seventh and eighth floors and still haven't found the missing face." At this point, Fatty was panting heavily as he climbed the ladder from Room 701 to 801. After receiving their task, they had imdiately started searching for the missing face on the two floors, but their efforts were fruitless.
The trio thought they might have overlooked sothing and began to search again, more carefully this ti.
However, after the second round of searching, they still failed to find even a trace of the face.
"We've searched thoroughly this ti," Fatty said, panting as he spoke to Keke above him while climbing the ladder to the eighth floor. "We've even searched the bodies in every room, stopping just short of stripping them. While searching them, I was terrified they might suddenly jump up and bite !"
Keke extended her hand, struggling to pull the thoroughly exhausted Fatty up. "We really did search thoroughly this ti. We left no potential hiding places unchecked... but where on earth could the face be hidden?"
Having climbed up, Fatty patted his clothes. "If you ask , could it have been bricked into a wall? We've searched every room, and I can't imagine where else anything could be hidden on these two floors."
"Let's look again," 007 called from below. Seeing Fatty climb up, she also started ascending the ladder. "If we don't complete this task, the instance probably won't give us a second one. So far, only two corpse locations are unlocked in the building. The number of unlocked bodies is far from enough."
Fatty, positioned by the opening, easily pulled 007 up—much more easily than when Keke had pulled him.
"This ti, let's search more thoroughly in Room 708, where the task was assigned. The instance might be exploiting our psychological blind spots by hiding the face right in this room—the face might even be on the Dismbered Ghost." 007 glanced at the ti.
Four hours and nine minutes remained. Nearly twenty minutes had passed since they received the task to find the face, yet they were still empty-handed.
Fatty, seeing the countdown showing just over four hours left, grew anxious. "Let's go to Room 708 first. We should thoroughly search the body there, especially any place sothing could be hidden, and see if we find anything."
The trio wasted no ti and imdiately began descending the ladder again; the Dismbered Ghost's room was on the floor below.
Fatty grumbled as he laboriously climbed down, "HMPH. I knew I shouldn't have climbed back up earlier..."
There were no hallways in this building. Once they climbed down, they had to navigate through a series of rooms toward Room 708, inevitably encountering corpses in various grueso states.
The more Fatty observed the grotesque corpses, the more frightened he beca, and he found himself missing Gu Mian imnsely.
If only Doctor were here, Fatty muttered. I wonder which floor he's on now.
Just as the three of them reached Room 705, the large screen in the room suddenly changed, displaying several lines of text.
Fatty's first thought was that perhaps the instance had issued them another task. But as he read the text, he realized that wasn't the case.
The players on the lower floors had completed another task.
[The hospitable corpse gentleman in Room 608 issued a challenge to the players on the fifth and sixth floors. The challenge was successfully completed. Mr. 608 was thoroughly impressed by an ingenious, suprely intelligent, and physically formidable player on that floor. He will now unlock three corpse locations for all players in the building.]
Fatty silently mulled over the adjectives used to describe the player on the lower floor.
"'Ingenious, suprely intelligent, and physically formidable'..." Keke, standing beside him, couldn't help but read the words aloud, her expression one of sheer fascination.
In just a short while, the players on the fifth and sixth floors had completed two tasks. Moreover, the task completion ssage was filled with such a string of flattering adjectives for the player below.
"Such colorful adjectives, and such a fast completion rate... Could the player on the lower floor be Doctor?" Fatty couldn't help but speculate as he looked at the string of idioms.
"It's possible." 007 spoke up after a few seconds of silence. "Only Gu Mian would be described by the instance as 'physically formidable.'"
As they spoke, the text on the screen gradually faded, and the previous table reappeared.
Three more cartoon figures had appeared on the grid this ti:
The charred figure from Room 201.
The swollen, damp figure from Room 803.
The headless figure from Room 106.
Fatty said, "Miss Keke's prediction was right. The players downstairs completed the task and imdiately unlocked three corpse locations. It really seems the further we progress, the more squares each task unlocks..."
While he was speaking, the large screen flashed again, and more lines of text appeared.
[Players on the third and fourth floors have successfully completed the mory challenge issued by the corpse gentleman in Room 303. Mr. 303 will now unlock four corpse locations for all players in the building.]
The players on the third and fourth floors had also completed a challenge? And this ti, they unlocked four corpse locations! However, this task completion summary lacked the flamboyant adjectives from before.
Fatty watched as these two lines of text gradually disappeared, replaced by the table. Four more corpse locations were now revealed:
The overstuffed figure in Room 707, the headless figure in Room 305, the drowned figure in Room 307, and the burned figure in Room 508.
Of the sixty-four rooms, nine were now unlocked.
"I wonder who the player on the third and fourth floors is," Keke said, looking at the four newly revealed corpses on the grid. "They completed a mory challenge..."
"Could it be Brother Chu?" Fatty guessed, based purely on the nature of the task. "I always got the feeling Brother Chu would be the type to receive such a task; after all, he seems quite intelligent."
But it wasn't necessarily him, Fatty thought. He knew the three n who had been tied up in the first-floor storeroom had also entered this instance. Their leader, a middle-aged man with fraless glasses, seed just as cunning and crafty as Brother Chu and also like the type who would receive such a task.
He wondered if the player on the third and fourth floors was the cunning Brother Chu or the crafty Renle Mountain.
Co to think of it, he seed to have an odd stereotype about people who wore glasses.
"The newly unlocked corpse location on our floor is right next to Room 708, where the Dismbered Ghost is," 007 observed, looking at the large-bellied figure unlocked in square 707. "We almost unlocked the Dismbered Ghost itself."
"If the Dismbered Ghost's location were unlocked, our options would expand considerably," Fatty began to voice a dubious idea. "We could drag that corpse around to signal the people below. If they see us constantly carrying the Dismbered Ghost, they might figure out that we need this type of corpse."
The instance unlocked corpse locations for them, and if a corpse moved, the table would reflect it.
"That's one idea, but it's hard to say if the people downstairs would understand our intentions..." Keke was skeptical of Fatty's dubious plan. She suspected that after entering so many instances with Gu Mian, Fatty's ntal state was starting to resemble Gu Mian's, becoming increasingly reckless and unconventional. Besides, the Dismbered Ghost's location on their floor hadn't been unlocked yet, so they couldn't use this thod now anyway.
Just then, the three of them noticed a sudden change in the corpse locations shown on the grid.
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