Chapter 93: She is a Ghost

Chapter 93: Chapter 93: She is a Ghost

Shi Zhile remained silent.

Ever since the new rules came out, the monster could no longer hide. To muddy the waters further, it would first resort to framing others to confuse the players.

Xiao Yi had deliberately pulled the people most likely to be players into a group to analyze Wang Gang. No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like an attempt to stir up trouble.

’Is he trying to shift everyone’s attention to Wang Gang to lower their suspicion of him?’

Of course, it could also be that Wang Gang had deliberately set this up, making everyone rule him out first. After all, who would use their own face to do bad things?

A name flashed through Shi Zhile’s mind. She shook her head, stopped thinking, and went back to chopping trees.

Lan Lan chopped down another tree and, as usual, left half the wood for Shi Zhile, but this time, she refused it.

A pang of hunger struck. She ate a compressed biscuit and drank some water before her survival value could drop.

The morning passed in a flash. The two of them cleared out all the chests in the woods and also chopped down all the trees at the edge of the forest. The felled trees would reappear the next day.

Back at the wooden houses, Luo Jiuyin was tending a fire.

She had skewered a fish on a branch and was roasting it over the flames. Soon, the air was filled with a savory, charred aroma.

Seeing the two return, she was silent for a moment before speaking. "Hu Yaqin is dead."

Lan Lan was shocked. "Dead? How did she die? Wasn’t she fine this morning?"

Luo Jiuyin said, "They wanted to experiment with what would happen if they went out to sea after eight o’clock, so they tied Hu Yaqin to the raft. Around eight-thirty, the raft sank without any warning.

Later, the waves washed the raft back ashore. Tied up by the ropes, Hu Yaqin was dead as a doornail."

"What about the body?"

"Burned!"

Shi Zhile grunted in acknowledgment and entered her own wooden house.

Inside, she started a small fire, using a thin stone slab as a griddle. She spread fish and sea shrimp evenly across its surface.

The tender white fish meat curled up instantly upon contact with the high heat. The fish oil rendered out, sizzling as the aroma in the air grew even richer.

The fish and shrimp had a natural fishy smell, but after being cooked over high heat, all that remained was a charred fragrance and a lingering savory taste.

The afternoon’s task was to reinforce the wooden house. After eating and drinking her fill, Shi Zhile went outside.

She took out long iron nails and hammered them forcefully into the wooden walls, which were filled with large stones. The nails anchored deep inside, greatly reinforcing the house’s stability.

The hot sun baked the earth, making her throat feel uncomfortably dry and hoarse. This feeling persisted into the night.

Eight o’clock arrived as expected. The sound of waves came from all directions, and everyone went inside their wooden houses.

The sound of footsteps—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP—echoed from outside the yard. The footsteps drew closer, followed by the sound of someone pounding on a door.

The violent pounding made a wooden house creak loudly. The sound was coming from Li Ran’s house.

"Open the door! Open up!"

"Do you think this wooden house can stop me? HAHAHAHA! Die! All of you, die! You will all die with me!"

"Li Ran, open the door! Open the door! You’ll die first, and then I’ll send that bitch Luo Jiuyin down to join you!"

The voice belonged to Hu Yaqin. Shi Zhile peered out through a crack in the wooden wall. In the bright moonlight, she could only see a charred black body ramming violently against the door.

At the same time, another sound started up from outside the yard.

"Xiao Yi! Xiao Yi! Weren’t you going to burn my body? Come out and see! I haven’t turned to ash yet!"

"Open the door! Open the door! Come out and join me!"

Guo Funing’s voice was raspy. The force of the impacts grew stronger, and Shi Zhile, separated only by a stone wall, could hear it all clearly.

The second reanimated corpse had appeared. So far, three players had died. Aside from the first, who was killed by the monster, the other two who turned into monsters had both died at the hands of other players.

’But what was their reason for killing them?’ She couldn’t quite figure it out.

Before Shi Zhile could think any further, Li Ran sent her a video call request. After a moment’s thought, she accepted.

"Sister Zhile, what do I do? Hu Yaqin is after me. My wooden house is only Level One. I can’t repair it as fast as she’s destroying it!"

Shi Zhile said, "Do you have any stones? Use them to block the door. If the stones don’t work, find a way to escape your house and run to the nearest one. Getting into a Level Two Wooden House might save your life."

The nearest wooden house was only three or four steps away—it belonged to Luo Jiuyin.

Seeing the wooden door about to be broken through, Li Ran gritted his teeth, took out a torch, and threw it at the charred corpse.

A scream that could only belong to Hu Yaqin rang out, piercing enough to make one’s eardrums ache.

The next moment, Li Ran burst out of his house and ran toward Shi Zhile’s.

"Quick, open the door for me!" he shouted as he ran.

The charred corpse was in hot pursuit and grabbed the hem of his shirt a second later.

He decisively slipped out of his shirt and glanced toward Shi Zhile’s wooden house with a look of regret.

’The corpse is too close. If Shi Zhile doesn’t let me in, I won’t have time to force my way through.’

’I have to change direction. My only chance is to run for the nearest house, even if it’s only Level One.’

He spun around decisively and, in a few steps, dashed into Luo Jiuyin’s wooden house.

The house was pitch black. At the instant he entered, Shi Zhile was certain she hadn’t seen any sign of Luo Jiuyin.

She had personally seen Luo Jiuyin go into her house after nightfall. ’If she’s not there now, it’s not because she went out—it’s because she is the ghost!’

Before Li Ran could relax, the door opened. Out of the darkness, Luo Jiuyin slowly walked into the wooden house, tilted her head, and smiled at him.

The next second, the video feed went completely dark.

Shi Zhile opened the island’s group chat. The number of members was now 6. Li Ran’s avatar had turned gray, signifying a player’s death.

After Li Ran’s death, the yard fell silent.

However, the noises outside the yard grew louder. Amid the chaos, Shi Zhile could faintly hear Hu Yaqin sinisterly calling Wang Gang’s name.

Shi Zhile glanced at the time. It was 9:13 PM. There were still nearly nine hours until 6:00 AM.

Since she had to wait it out anyway, she simply built four walls out of stone, enclosing herself and her fire. Then she lay down on her military coat, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

In the latter half of the night, the knocking moved to Shi Zhile’s door. Shi Zhile yelled, "Get lost," rolled over, and went back to sleep.

At six in the morning, she opened her door and was greeted by the sight of Li Ran’s upright corpse.

Expressionlessly, Shi Zhile moved it in front of Luo Jiuyin’s door.

The last of the new rules from the monolith appeared: Current number of people remaining on the island: 5.

She knocked on Lan Lan’s door and led her toward the forest.

Nothing happened during the day. It was the same routine of chopping trees and reinforcing their wooden houses, only today’s temperature was noticeably cooler than yesterday’s.

It was unclear what Xiao Yi had promised, but Wang Gang and Li Haohao gave up their right to use the raft. Unfortunately, Xiao Yi’s Spirit Value wasn’t high enough to let him go into the deep sea. In a rushed hour, he only managed to catch one small sea fish with a fishing rod.

As night fell, everyone returned to their wooden houses early. This time, with Wang Gang’s help, Li Haohao had repaired Li Ran’s old house and successfully moved in.

Shi Zhile tossed and turned, mulling things over. Finally, she opened the dungeon progress bar.

[Dungeon Progress: 60%. Dungeon Mission: Survive. Dungeon Duration: Seven days.]

Shi Zhile stared at the words repeatedly and was suddenly reminded of the first dungeon she had entered.

Different missions meant different paths.

’This time, could it be that the rules everyone sees are also different?’