Free Web NovelChapter 885: Chapter 849: Emergency Escape Route
Gu Mian suspected that whatever had just knocked on the door might be able to turn invisible, and that right now it was very likely already out of the door.
Although when he opened the door just now he had only opened a small crack, and he’d been blocking that crack himself, so for the ghost to get out it would have had to knock him aside. But the greenhouse’s main door here was very tall, and there was no guarantee the ghost hadn’t crawled out through the gap above his head.
So he wanted to use Keke’s Money Can Make Ghosts Grind to lure out that possibly invisible ghost.
"Got it on me," Keke answered. "You want me to take it out and use it right now?"
"Use it."
Keke nodded, then took a gigantic millstone out of her inventory.
The millstone hit the ground with a heavy thud that made the floor tremble a few times, and several ghost models nearby toppled over from the shock.
The moment Money Can Make Ghosts Grind was taken out, Keke’s Game Coin bar instantly dropped to zero, which made her heart ache a bit. Fortunately, she hadn’t had many Game Coins left before entering this instance anyway.
After Money Can Make Ghosts Push the Mill was taken out, the hall stayed quiet.
"If the ghost is far away, it’ll take a bit of time for it to get here and start pushing the mill," Keke explained. As she spoke, she glanced toward the second floor; if the ghost had really come out, it might have gone upstairs.
After all, Gu Mian was here on the first floor. If the ghost saw him here, it was entirely possible it went up to the second floor to take emergency shelter.
If the ghost really was on the second floor, it would need time to come down from there, and Keke didn’t know if the bit of Game Coin she’d spent would last long enough for the ghost to make it downstairs. freewebnøvel.com
"If it’s an invisible ghost, we still wouldn’t see it even when it gets near the millstone, right?" By this time Fatty had stopped hiding behind the Big and Small Ghost model and had come over to Gu Mian’s side.
He felt that being next to the doctor was still the safest.
"As long as the mill moves, that means the invisible ghost has gotten on to push it," Gu Mian said.
Just as he said this, footsteps came from the staircase on the second floor, as if someone was coming down.
The four of them all turned to look in the direction of the stairs.
Strictly speaking, whoever was coming down from upstairs wasn’t necessarily a ghost. There were still two people on the second floor: one was the rating staff member Gu Mian had tied up and thrown at the warehouse door, and the other was Xie Bi’an.
Xie Bi’an didn’t like staying with them; after entering this instance he had barely said a few words. Right now he was alone in a bedroom on the second floor.
The footsteps on the stairs got closer and closer, and everyone stared unblinkingly that way, waiting for the person upstairs to appear.
Finally, the newcomer appeared in their line of sight.
Because the person was coming down from above, the people in the hall first saw the exposed shoes and the hem of his clothes.
The person coming downstairs was wearing a pair of high black leather boots, which wrapped his ankles tightly. The black hem on both sides of the leather boots swayed with his movements as he descended, part of the hem still trailing on the stair behind him.
It was Xie Bi’an, tightly wrapped-up Xie Ping’an.
So was Xie Ping’an actually a ghost? How had Money Can Make Ghosts Grind ended up summoning him down?
Just then, Xie Bi’an, who was in the middle of coming downstairs, suddenly stopped and turned his head in Gu Mian’s direction, staring straight over here.
Gu Mian felt like he was acting a bit strange.
But then he realized that not only Xie Bi’an, even Fatty and the other two had all turned their heads toward him.
The expressions on their faces were a little odd; they stared wide‑eyed at Gu Mian as if he had turned into a ghost.
I didn’t go push the mill either, so why are you all looking at me like I’m a ghost? As Gu Mian wondered this, he looked toward the millstone.
At this moment, Money Can Make Ghosts Grind had already used up all the Game Coin put into it and vanished.
Just as Gu Mian was puzzling over everyone’s astonished looks, he suddenly felt a rush of heat on his head, as if something icy cold had wrapped around the top of his skull.
Then he heard a gloomy, raspy voice from above his head: "Are we comparing big or small?"
Gu Mian silently turned his head, and a wide swath of human‑flesh‑colored "curtain" entered his field of vision.
This curtain was as thin as paper, squeezed out from the crack of the greenhouse door behind him and draped over his head like a wedding veil; the chill he’d felt on his scalp had been this thing.
This was a ghost—a ghost that had just ripened in the greenhouse.
Gu Mian reached up and lifted the human skin covering his head, then looked up at the ghost in front of him.
This ghost looked like a person who had been flattened; its body area had expanded because of the flattening, while from the side it was just a thin sheet.
Gu Mian recognized it.
It wasn’t a Rare Ghost type; there was an introduction plaque for it in the first‑floor hall.
"Big and Small Ghost, doctor, that’s the Big and Small Ghost," Fatty said, having a deep impression of this ghost, because earlier he’d been hiding behind this ghost’s model.
As he shouted, he jogged over to the Big and Small Ghost’s introduction plaque and started reading the contents, reading aloud as he went.
[Big and Small Ghost]
[Introduction: A ghost that can freely increase or decrease its area. When its area is maximized, it compresses itself into a thin sheet of human skin; when its area is minimized, its body shrinks to the size of a ten‑year‑old child]
[After maturing, it will play a size comparison game with the Cultivator. The Cultivator chooses whether to compare big or small. If they choose big, the Cultivator must increase their body area until it is larger than the ghost’s. If they choose small, the Cultivator must reduce their body area until it is smaller than the ghost’s. If the Cultivator wins the big/small game, the Big and Small Ghost will voluntarily go on display; if the Cultivator loses, the Big and Small Ghost will begin attacking]
Under normal circumstances, ordinary people had no way to control their body area increasing or decreasing.
But under special circumstances, they could.
thought of something and said, "Skinning can increase a person’s body area."
Probably because he’d personally experienced having the skin on his arm peeled off, 007 was particularly sensitive to this point.
You could count the peeled‑off skin as one layer and the flesh under the skin as another. If you peeled all the Skin off a person once, their body area would be doubled. If after peeling everything once their body area still wasn’t larger than the Big and Small Ghost’s, then you could peel another layer of flesh underneath.
Layer after layer, if you kept peeling, the area would eventually be bigger than the Big and Small Ghost’s.
Reducing area was even simpler; you just had to remove the limbs from the body. If chopping off the limbs wasn’t enough, you could keep cutting upward from below, section by section, until your body area was smaller than the Big and Small Ghost’s.
Whether it was comparing big or small, the Cultivator was doomed to suffer, and even if they managed to win, they probably wouldn’t live much longer.
If the Big and Small Ghost was the last ghost before a full score, it wouldn’t be so bad. Even though the instance’s death‑prevention mechanism had been disabled, the injury‑prevention mechanism still existed; as long as they got out of the instance alive in time, no matter how severe the injuries, they would heal.
If the Big and Small Ghost was the first ghost cultivated by the Cultivator, then their prospects were truly hopeless. And they couldn’t just drag it out indefinitely without choosing big or small.
Fatty kept reading.
[If the Cultivator fails to choose big or small within ten minutes, the Big and Small Ghost will choose big or small itself]
[Low cultivation difficulty, only requires timely watering]
[High danger level; even if the Cultivator wins the game, they usually pay a terrible price]
[Exhibition rating: 101 points. Lose and you die; win and you may still die. Exhibition difficulty is extremely high, therefore the rating is extremely high as well]
"This is bad, doctor," Fatty yelled as he read the intro for the Big and Small Ghost, "you’ve got to make a choice within ten minutes, or the initiative goes to the ghost."
"How long has it been now?" As he spoke, Fatty pulled the electronic timer out of his pocket and muttered, "When did it start counting from again?"
"It should be almost ten minutes already," Keke said beside him.
The Big and Small Ghost was clearly getting a bit impatient. It had already pulled its entire body out from the door crack, half of it draped over Gu Mian’s shoulders.
Although it had been flattened, the Big and Small Ghost’s face was still there. That face had been spread out as wide as a basin, and its eyes were as big as apples. When its head moved, almost the upper half of its body moved along with it.
Right now it was slowly bending down, lowering its body to look at its Cultivator, its voice tinged with impatience: "Choose big or... uh..."
When those apple‑sized eyes saw Gu Mian’s face, it clearly froze, and its slowly moving body suddenly stopped.
After several seconds, its basin‑sized face abruptly lunged down close to Gu Mian’s, as if trying to confirm whether it had seen correctly.
The scene was a bit comical.
Just moments ago, this huge, creepy sheet of human skin had been writhing slowly like some indescribable thing, exuding an eerie aura. Now its posture was bent like a boiled shrimp, its whole face almost pressed up against Gu Mian’s.
Once it was completely sure who the person in front of it was, the Big and Small Ghost suddenly straightened up.
It stood ramrod straight—so straight it was practically a roadside utility pole. The utility pole’s eyes were blank, and it was unclear if it was contemplating its future.
"This picture is like it went from a horror manga straight to a kids’ channel doodle," Fatty commented.
