Players, Please Board the Train

Zheng Liang had a momentary surge of fury, but quickly suppressed his emotions and wisely shut his mouth.

Xu Huo didn’t look at him again, instead gazing into the distance and settling his eyes on Dai Wenqian nearby, watching the numbers above his head jump from ”5” to ”7,” then to ”8,” before dropping back to ”6.” This repeated twice before finally stabilizing at ”5.”

”Eat something.” Kang Hong brought over half a bag of compressed biscuits and half a bottle of water. ”It’s already the third day.”

”Has everyone else run out of food?” Xu Huo took them.

”The man-eating flowers came so suddenly, who had time to grab supplies.” Kang Hong said: ”But fortunately the dungeon ends tomorrow.”

Xu Huo glanced at the man-eating flowers blocking the outer wall. ”When the man-eating flowers retreat, we can go back to the seventh floor to look for food.”

Kang Hong quickly waved his hands. ”I’d rather go hungry than face those man-eating flowers again.”

”I want to go check.” Jiang Yihua walked over. ”If you’re going down, call me.”

Xu Huo saw Da Zhi slumped weakly against the wall, then handed the food and water to her instead. ”Your capsules aren’t working?”

”He already took them.” Jiang Yihua only took the biscuits. ”Thank you.”Nearby, Gu Yu saw Xu Huo give his food to someone else, then took the chocolate from her own pocket and gave it to him.

Xu Huo broke off a piece and tossed it into his mouth, then found a spot to catch up on sleep.

By 6 PM, he finally stood up again.

The windows were still blocked by man-eating flowers outside. The foggy weather combined with the limited light sources being occupied made the thirteenth floor dimly lit. People in the building, weakened by hunger and fatigue, were all drowsy.

Detecting a faint, almost imperceptible fragrance in the air, he patted Jiang Yihua and the others awake.

”What’s wrong?” Gu Yu instantly became alert, cautiously observing their surroundings.

”Nothing, you were sleeping too deeply.” Xu Huo said.

Hearing the noise, Zheng Liang and the others opened their eyes. Dai Wenqian frowned. ”The mutated plants on the thirteenth floor are a bit strange.”

”Just has a sedative effect.” Wei Bin said, taking a deep breath as the pain made it difficult for him to rest. ”Not too harmful to humans.”

Kang Hong rubbed his face. ”It’s getting dark. If we keep sleeping like this, we won’t even know when we get poisoned to death.”

”Let’s just wake everyone up.” Jiang Yihua said.

The group woke those nearby, who then woke others.

”Why haven’t these man-eating flowers shrunk back?” Zheng Liang walked near the windows and said: ”That thing sticks its tongue out but doesn’t retract it?”

Xu Huo picked up a piece of glass and poked at the man-eating flower vines. Zheng Liang rushed over to stop him, but Xu Huo simply blocked him with one hand while continuing to prod the vines with the glass shard. The vines outside showed no reaction.

”They’ve calmed down.” Dai Wenqian said from several meters away: ”In this state, the seventh floor should be fine, as long as we don’t deliberately provoke the vines.”

”You guys really have nerves of steel.” Zheng Liang gritted his teeth. ”What if you wake the man-eating flowers and they spray poisonous powder?”

”Don’t worry, nothing happened before, so the chance of them spraying poisonous powder now is very small.” Xu Huo said calmly before turning and walking toward the elevator.

Dai Wenqian followed a step behind.

”You’re really going?” Zheng Liang followed both of them. ”There’s no need to take this risk at a time like this. Even if we can’t stay on the thirteenth floor after 10 PM, we can hide in the elevator shaft.”

However, the two ignored him and directly opened the elevator door. Below was completely calm.

Xu Huo first descended using a vine rope, tentatively opened the seventh floor elevator door, and peered through the gap. The man-eating flowers weren’t crammed throughout the entire seventh floor as he had expected. Large numbers of flowers connected by vines drooped in the middle of the building, seemingly already fallen asleep.

He entered first, followed by Dai Wenqian, Jiang Yihua, and Gu Yu in sequence.

Jiang Yihua came looking for food. Although the bottled water had all been crushed, the broken biscuits and snacks were still edible. After quickly gathering them, she noticed the overturned cart nearby and turned back to Xu Huo: ”Most of the flowers you took out have died.”

Most had been crushed, and several pots had been corroded away.

Xu Huo walked over, dug out the small purple flower buried in the soil from the mud. While the other flowers had mostly broken, only this one remained relatively intact buried in the dirt.

After cleaning off the flower and gathering a handful of soil, he found a plastic bag and planted the flower in it.

Watching his actions, Jiang Yihua couldn’t help saying: ”This flower is really strange, its roots are actually red.”

Xu Huo looked up at her. ”Take the food upstairs first, and bring the flower with you.”

Jiang Yihua nodded and left with the items.

Xu Huo walked toward Gu Yu.

She and Dai Wenqian were examining the vines. Different from the vines seen outside the thirteenth floor, the vines on the seventh floor had swollen pus-filled sacs the size of human heads.

”Doesn’t look like they’re digesting corpses.” Dai Wenqian crouched low and pulled out a knife, but before he could touch the vine, the white pus sac suddenly split open, and something sprayed out from inside!

Dai Wenqian immediately swung his knife but cut only air, while his other hand quickly shielded his face. As excruciating pain shot through his palm, he grabbed the thing and threw it away. Only when it fell to the ground did they see it was a gray flesh worm, as thick as an adult’s forearm and palm-length, continuously writhing.

Xu Huo sliced it in half. Instead of dying after being cut, the two halves of the worm quickly crawled in different directions.

Gu Yu was startled and swung the metal table leg in her hand, smashing the worm crawling toward her into pulp. However, looking up, she saw the two men beside her watching expressionlessly as the other half of the worm crawled toward the elevator.

”Where is it going?” Dai Wenqian saw the worm wiggling the tentacles on its head, seemingly trying to determine direction.

”You don’t actually think a worm has thoughts, do you?” Gu Yu looked at him in shock, but then noticed the pus sacs on the vines starting to squirm one after another. She quickly said: ”Let’s go!”

The three quickly left the seventh floor, but upon reaching the thirteenth floor, Xu Huo stopped Gu Yu from hastily closing the door and looked down into the elevator shaft.

They hadn’t closed the seventh floor door when they came up. Large numbers of worms crawled out from inside, moving downward along the elevator shaft. All the way to the bottom of the shaft, the worms burrowed beneath the dead man-eating flowers and gradually disappeared.

”There’s a passage under the elevator shaft.” Xu Huo and Dai Wenqian said almost simultaneously.

The two exchanged glances. Xu Huo controlled his piano wire to intercept one of the worms below, while Dai Wenqian returned to the floor level, climbed onto the glass room, and began dismantling the ventilation fan.

Dai Wenqian pulled out a small fan unit from inside, looking left and right before saying: ”Independent wiring, there should be a main interface inside.”

”Just that the wire length isn’t enough.” Dai Wenqian added: ”We need to pull a few wires down from the office floors.”

Xu Huo brought up the worm, covered it with a flower pot, and casually said: ”As long as it can conduct electricity when connected.”