The middle-aged woman's voice sounded rather impatient. "I told you, I don't know! That old man is completely out of his mind, collecting trash all day. Who'd want to pay attention to him? If you ask me, you should stop investigating too. This apartment hasn't been safe lately. Watch out, or you'll end up getting burned."
The coldness in Old Man Li's eyes deepened. He hadn't expected that right after dealing with one, another would come poking around. It seemed he was already being watched. He could no longer afford to hold back.
Quickening his pace, he carried the trash bag into the entrance of the underground passage. He walked down the steps and soon reached the spot where Wang Qiang and Su Xiao had encountered the insect swarm. Old Man Li threw the trash bag onto the ground and sliced it open with a utility knife. Instantly, the smell of fresh blood filled the air.
Before long, countless black bugs the size of fingernails surged out from the depths of the passage. Avoiding Old Man Li due to the unique scent on him, they swarmed densely over the trash bag and began to feast on the corpse inside.
Old Man Li pulled a small, dark glass bottle from his pocket and walked further inside. Before him appeared a bug with a soft abdomen, more than two or three times larger than the other black bugs.
Surrounding this bug were several others, slightly smaller than it but still much larger than the average ones, standing guard. They did not join the frenzy for fresh flesh outside; guarding their queen, their mother, was their sole duty.
Old Man Li unscrewed the cap and poured the red liquid onto the ground. The moment the potion touched the floor, it emitted a pungent odor. The insect queen, who had been focused on laying eggs, instantly grew agitated. As if provoked, she let out a sharp, high-pitched buzz.
Immediately after, all the bugs in the underground passage went into a frenzy. The buzzing of their wings grew louder and louder. Even the bugs feasting on Zhao Lei abandoned their food, spreading into every corner of the apartment building like a black tide.
Meanwhile, not long after Bai Ci and Lin Wenyu had sent off the investigators, Lin Wenyu had been angrily looking for Su Xiao. He had searched from the fourth floor down to the second when a shrill, blood-curdling scream suddenly echoed from the first-floor lobby. The sound of a rushing tide seemed to roar right next to their ears.
Looking closely, they saw countless tiny, dark-greenish bugs surging up the stairs from the first floor to the second. Like a tidal wave, they swept through the entire corridor, squeezing through the gaps under doors into the residents' homes.
"Are those the bugs from the underground passage?" Lin Wenyu's face paled. Instinctively trying to protect Bai Ci, who was still practically a rookie, he pulled her back a few steps. "How are there so many?"
"Don't go to the elevator," Bai Ci said, immediately pulling Lin Wenyu to run upward. Although the elevator could form an enclosed space, the old elevator doors opened and closed too slowly. That delay would be more than enough for the bugs to swarm them, leaving them with nowhere to run. "There's an electrical shaft on the fourth floor."
Because the apartment was close to the sea and highly humid, the owner had impulsively decided to place the electrical shaft on the fourth floor when drawing up the design plans.
The corridor was in utter chaos. Residents fled in panic, but many were too slow. Caught by the insect swarm, they were instantly swallowed by the black wave. Their shrill screams quickly died down, leaving behind only the pungent stench of blood.
A few brave residents grabbed nearby objects to fight back, but they were no match for the swarm and collapsed into pools of blood in the blink of an eye.
"I need to change my clothes..." Lin Wenyu said. While pulling Bai Ci up the stairs, his free hand swiped through the air in front of him as if quickly scrolling through an invisible screen. "Not this set... not this one either... Okay, this one will have to do..."
Climbing all the way from the second floor to the fourth was partly due to an adrenaline rush, but mostly because Lin Wenyu was practically dragging and carrying her up. Thanks largely to him, the two of them managed to slip into the shaft just before the bugs could completely overrun them.
Once the heavy door slammed shut, the roaring sound of the tide outside was muffled.
Scaling two floors in just a few seconds, with Lin Wenyu dragging her for eighty to ninety percent of the way, Bai Ci had scraped a large patch of skin off her leg on the stairs. Her heart was still pounding wildly, and the pain only caught up with her now.
Bai Ci fumbled around to turn on the light. Looking beside her, she saw the short-haired Lin Wenyu—now wearing a sports bra and yoga pants—sitting directly on the floor. He was gasping for air, his face and lips pale, drenched in cold sweat.
"Are you okay?" Bai Ci asked with concern. Since he hadn't abandoned her in such a crisis, she now trusted his character.
Lin Wenyu waved his hand. "I'm fine... This is just the side effect of the outfit's skill."
"Are you... a guy?" Under the highly form-fitting sports bra and yoga pants, Lin Wenyu's bone structure and muscle distribution became far more apparent. Only now could Bai Ci truly confirm it.
Unlike the delicate, soft skeletal lines of a female, his shoulders were broad and his hips narrow. His shoulder line was sharp and prominent, his collarbones flat and wide, and his chest broad. The muscle lines on his arms and thighs were firm and clean, exuding a strength unique to men.
Of course, the most important detail was that the area between his legs was rather prominent.
"Wait, wait! I can explain! I'm not a pervert, it's a class issue!" Lin Wenyu's face flushed bright red. He crossed his arms over his chest and explained at breakneck speed, "The skills only work when I'm wearing women's clothes. I'm really not a pervert, you have to believe me!"
Only after he had nearly finished speaking did his hands slowly slide down to cover his crotch.
"Yeah, I believe you," Bai Ci said, nodding.
But, of course, there was a well-known fact: a player's awakened class was triggered by their actions within instances.
After resting in the shaft for a while, the color finally returned to Lin Wenyu's pale face. He hastily swapped his outfit for a loose grey tracksuit paired with white sneakers. This set didn't look so obviously like women's clothing.
"I don't have any other useful outfit effects left. Bai Ci, has your class hatched yet?" Receiving a shake of her head in response, Lin Wenyu let out a long sigh. "Looks like we're going to be trapped to death here. Our final evaluation probably won't look good either. What a mess... Why did this happen so suddenly?"
Bai Ci sighed as well and sat down on the floor without minding the dirt. What else could they do? This instance would likely end this way. She felt a bit unwilling to accept it, but looking back at everything since entering the instance, she realized that with her current abilities, this was the best she could do.
She was lacking in too many areas—both in physical strength and in trump cards.
"No, not necessarily." Bai Ci caressed the ring on her middle finger. Its temperature was close to body heat, which she hadn't noticed at first. It was only when she unconsciously clasped her hands together and felt a warmth instead of the usual cold metal that she realized.
The ring was heating up. This meant it had been activated—because of those bugs.
Bai Ci recalled the description of the ring's effect: "Can ward off low-tier spiritual entity attacks; the ring will produce a burning sensation when triggered." Because the bugs clearly seemed to have physical bodies, she hadn't associated them with spiritual entities. But now, it seemed...
"Hmm?" Lin Wenyu was utterly confused.
"I want to try something," Bai Ci said. She placed a hand on the door handle but didn't open it rashly. She wasn't the only one in this space; there was another person here.
"Since you want to try, let's just go for it. You want to open the door, right?" Although Lin Wenyu didn't know what she was testing, he placed his hand on the door handle as well. "We're dead if we stay trapped here anyway. Even if we gamble and lose, we'll still be dead. There probably won't be much of a difference in our evaluation."
Rate on N.U.
