Chapter 96: Night Rain

Chapter 96: Chapter 96: Night Rain

Shi Zhile sneezed.

She had a feeling someone was cursing her name.

Lan Lan, walking beside her, saw her sneezing nonstop and looked at her with concern.

"Sister Zhile, do you have a cold? This damn weather changes every day. Yesterday it was over twenty degrees, and today the high is only twelve.

You should build an extra fire or two when you sleep tonight. We don’t have any medicine, and with monsters and ghosts watching our every move, they’ll seize the opportunity to attack if you get a high fever.

You have to be careful!"

Shi Zhile glanced at the sky. ’Was the temperature change really that obvious?’

She was wearing two layers of temperature-regulating clothing, so unless it was extremely cold or hot, she usually didn’t feel any significant temperature changes.

Still, the sea breeze this morning did feel cooler than yesterday’s.

She knew from the start that the temperature would fluctuate, so it didn’t matter whether it went up or down.

She put the dry branches into her backpack. "The temperature probably drops a lot at night. I’ll be fine after I go back and drink some hot water."

"How is just drinking hot water enough? Listen to me, build a few extra fires tonight."

Shi Zhile glanced at her and hummed softly in agreement.

Back in the courtyard, Shi Zhile immediately noticed a change in the new rules written on the giant rock.

The last line of the new rules now read: Current number of people: 3.

Two players had died in a single morning.

If Shi Zhile wasn’t mistaken, one of them had to be Xiao Yi. As for whether the other was Wang Gang or Li Haohao, it made no difference to her.

After two straight days of eating fish, Shi Zhile had beef for lunch.

In the afternoon, she closed the door and continued building a smaller room inside her wooden house.

The layout of the wooden house, excluding the roof, was now a large square with a smaller one inside—like a box within a box.

Night fell quietly. Over the course of the afternoon, Wang Gang had dismantled two of the wooden houses outside the courtyard and moved into Li Ran’s.

When the courtyard was first established, Shi Zhile had intended to turn it into a large, communal wooden house, but she completely abandoned the idea when people grew restless and went their separate ways.

Now, she was actually glad the communal house was never completed. If it had been built according to her original plan, the four of them would have undoubtedly fought to the death inside it.

While there was still killing, it was at least confined to the shadows for now.

As soon as it passed eight o’clock, the temperature dropped instantly. Huge raindrops began to fall on the roof, making the reed leaves rustle loudly.

Soon, Lan Lan sent a video call asking for help.

On the other end of the video, a fire flickered as a disheveled Lan Lan held a wooden plank over her head, trying to dodge the rain.

"Sister Zhile, my house is leaking! What do I do?"

Shi Zhile said, "Thatching the roof with reeds can block some of the rain."

The reeds on the roof of a wooden house were obvious. While they could block some rain, it would still leak through the gaps.

The reason her own house didn’t leak was that she had laid a waterproof plastic sheet beneath the reeds.

Lan Lan’s face was mournful. "But it’s the middle of the night. Even if I had reeds, I can’t go out and thatch the roof now."

She looked at Shi Zhile and continued pitifully, "Sister Zhile~ Can I come stay with you? Please? I promise I’ll be good and listen to whatever you say."

Shi Zhile refused decisively, showing her the inside of her small cabin on the video call.

"The space is too small; it can’t fit two people. Besides, it’s after eight o’clock. We don’t know when the monsters will show up. For your own safety, you’ll have to find a way to tough it out.

The rain on this island usually doesn’t last long. Just make sure your fire doesn’t go out."

Lan Lan said, "Okay... In that case, could you lend me your axe? I want to nail another layer of planks on the inside."

Shi Zhile frowned, her voice tinged with exasperation. "Just stay put. Are you afraid the monsters *won’t* be able to find you? Tomorrow is the sixth day. The monsters’ activity will only increase.

Even though the ghost is a role played by a player, it’s a fact that players turn into monsters after they die.

Have you forgotten what Hu Yaqin said? She’s blind, and she locates people by sound. So don’t make any noise at night, or you’ll risk her targeting you."

Lan Lan nodded, a flicker of disappointment flashing in her eyes.

"I understand, Sister Zhile. I’ll be good and won’t make any noise."

Shi Zhile was the first to hang up.

She left the small room inside her wooden house, went around to the shielded area behind it, and started a fire. Then she pulled on a military greatcoat and sat down on the ground.

’Who will die tonight?’

’Lan Lan’s persona has always been that of a sweet girl who was a bit of a loudmouth with some minor cleverness, but not much. If I hadn’t seen her rationally analyze a problem before, I might have been fooled too.

Her disguise is very successful, at least enough to fool Wang Gang. So if I’m not mistaken, Wang Gang’s target will be Lan Lan.

After her, it would be Luo Jiuyin and me.

Luo Jiuyin’s target today will probably shift to Lan Lan as well.

With Xiao Yi and the others all dead, Wang Gang is the only suspect left alive. To frame him effectively, she’ll definitely deal with Lan Lan first, then pin Lan Lan’s death on Wang Gang.

If I get into a fight with Wang Gang, no matter who dies, she—Luo Jiuyin—will be the ultimate winner.’

However, what made Shi Zhile curious was how Luo Jiuyin, as the ghost, would manage to kill Lan Lan on a rainy night.

The rain fell harder and harder, drowning out all other sounds.

Shi Zhile leaned against the wall, wrapped her military greatcoat tightly around herself, and drifted off to sleep.

Just before falling asleep, she suddenly remembered she hadn’t used her Wish Drifting Bottle for the day, so she took it out.

"Today’s wish: upgrade my wooden house to Level Four."

Inside the bottle, a golden wish card floated in mid-air. Just as Shi Zhile was thinking the wish hadn’t worked, the wish card vanished instantly.

Immediately, the wooden house underwent a dramatic transformation. The biggest change was the appearance of a wooden bed, followed by the expansion of the house’s interior space.

The bed’s placement was cleverly concealed, appearing in the exact visual blind spot Shi Zhile had intentionally left behind the small inner room.

She walked into the small inner room and found that it was the same as before.

"It seems the upgrade to Level Four just adds an object. No wonder the house didn’t level up even after I added so much wood."

As soon as she finished speaking, a system notification sound chimed.

[Wooden House Upgrade Successful. Current House Level: Level Four. The wooden house has been upgraded to its maximum Level. It can withstand all attacks from monsters, ghosts, and players.

Note: If all three attack together, the wooden house can only hold for fifteen minutes.]

"Level Four is already the maximum Level? I was planning to use tomorrow’s wish to upgrade the house again, but it looks like that’s not possible now."

"For now, I can confirm Luo Jiuyin is the ghost. If Li Haohao hadn’t died, there would have been a high chance he was the monster. But now that Li Haohao is dead and Wang Gang is still alive, it makes me question who the monster really is."

"If Wang Gang is the monster, Luo Jiuyin is the ghost, and Lan Lan is a player... If those three team up, I’ll be in serious danger."

"Lan Lan asking to borrow the axe... she must have guessed she’d be in danger tonight. She knows someone is targeting her, so she wanted my axe to shift the killer’s focus. She was telling her potential attacker that I’m now defenseless."