Free Web NovelChapter 163: Chapter 163: I Want to Try It Too!
Hearing his voice, looking toward Jiang Che’s urgent, earnest gaze.
Xiong Jie opened his mouth, but only let out a heavy sigh. "It really is a bit difficult."
"Why not make it a dead end? Wouldn’t that make the dungeon harder?" He looked at Jiang Che, bewildered.
That route just now—he didn’t think his slow speed was to blame.
He’d tried speeding up, wanting to shake off the spirit bodies chasing him, but it was useless.
As soon as he shook them off at one corner, they’d cut him off at the next intersection, coming through another shortcut.
He still needed to gather those blood-colored crystals, but the more he gathered, the more spirit bodies would try to surround him.
It wasn’t a matter of speed at all. He had to know the dungeon map inside and out to have any hope of clearing it.
"Because I don’t want to completely cut off everyone’s way out!" Jiang Che gazed at the blood-colored crystals.
These things represented not only him, but everyone in the asylum, the friends who used to play together in the yard.
The chasing spirit bodies were just like the hospital staff.
As soon as a patient tried to escape, they’d chase relentlessly.
Jiang Che never thought about sealing off those passages—he didn’t want to.
After he learned the asylum was a giant organ bank, he more than anyone wished someone could have broken everyone out together.
Back then, he only knew that wherever he went, a nurse would find him—time for a meal, a checkup, a blood draw...
At every moment, as long as the hospital needed them, they’d be found.
"All we need is to get out." Jiang Che spoke earnestly. "We just need to leave here."
Since Dungeon 9 ended, Jiang Che had never seen the shadows of those childhood friends again; he knew they were all left behind in Dungeon 9 forever.
He didn’t see it as a punishment of death. On the contrary, he saw it as a release.
There was only some regret—the "outside world" everyone glimpsed, right up to their deaths, was a world haunted by evil spirits.
He grinned. Seeing the Evil Spirit Realm at the end wasn’t so bad—even if only at the very last, at least they all made it out of that asylum that had trapped them for decades.
Xiong Jie was briefly stunned. He felt like he understood a little, but also like he understood nothing at all.
Tuantuan nestled in Ding Ning’s arms, while Ding Ning’s weakened Spiritual Power slowly recovered.
She hugged Tuantuan, feeling how she had poured every ounce of warmth and Spiritual Power into her before; her arms unconsciously tightened.
In front of the two was a projection screen—Jiang Che as seen from Xiong Jie’s perspective.
"Mama, I want to try." Tuantuan’s fingers gripped Ding Ning’s clothes tightly. "I want to take those blood-colored crystals out of there."
She could see the yearning in Jiang Che’s eyes as he spoke.
The longing to leave, and the regret that his friends hadn’t been able to escape with him.
"I want to try it, too." Ding Ning looked at the endlessly repeating asylum corridors.
This massive asylum looked more like a puzzle made of countless smaller asylums.
She closed her eyes, mapping out the blood-colored crystals’ locations in her mind.
Tuantuan looked at the map as well, thinking about how to take all those crystals out.
Xiong Jie sighed. "At least make the spirit bodies surrounding me a bit stronger. Just one or two really can’t kill me."
"My rank isn’t high, just a little above third-tier, and these spirit bodies—I can tell. On average, they’re only mid-second tier. What if a really strong human or evil spirit shows up in a later dungeon? This place will be their ATM." Xiong Jie kept raising suggestions, knowing the main structure couldn’t be changed now, but some tweaks were still possible.
"But there’s so many of them." Jiang Che shook his head. "And after a certain point, when too many gather together, the spirit bodies will fuse, getting fewer but much stronger."
"If they really can take those blood-colored crystals out, then let them have their reward."
"They’ve earned it." Jiang Che looked outside. He was the dungeon’s master now—he could come and go as he pleased, and the dungeon couldn’t hurt him. But he wanted more than that.
"I want to try." Xiong Jie suddenly felt a voice in his heart, one that belonged to the master.
"Don’t worry, you won’t get hurt." Ding Ning soothed Xiong Jie. She chose to descend, but only passed down a tiny sliver of her consciousness.
First, because her Spiritual Power couldn’t support more. Second, because she wanted to try, as if she were just an ordinary person, to take all those blood-colored crystals out.
"Hua, disguise me—don’t let him recognize me." Ding Ning instructed Hua on the outside.
"Good grief, you’re still doing this instead of resting!" Hua’s true body encircled and protected the castle where Ding Ning stayed.
Her consciousness could see inside the castle, so naturally she’d seen the scene where Xiong Jie failed his dungeon attempt.
"I really, really want to try. It’s just a projection—it won’t affect anything." Ding Ning pleaded softly to Hua.
"You said you want to save who he used to be, so why not just tell him you want to try?" Hua couldn’t understand why Ding Ning insisted on hiding her participation in Jiang Che’s dungeon challenge.
"Because I’m afraid he’ll show me favoritism." Ding Ning grinned. If Jiang Che knew she was coming, he’d definitely tweak the dungeon behind the scenes for her.
Jiang Che isn’t the kind to put his family through what he suffered himself if he can help it.
"Just this once!" Hua gave a helpless sigh, pulled a leaf to cover her face, blocking her view.
Descending with full power and sending a projection were two completely different energy drains.
"Out of sight, out of mind." Hua murmured lightly, and the leaf vanished along with one of Ding Ning’s projections.
Suddenly, Jiang Che sensed there was a new presence in the dungeon.
He didn’t know where she’d come from—a woman in tight-fitting black leather stood there, figure alluring, headless.
She stood in front of a blood-colored crystal, as if intending to start the game here with him.
Jiang Che was a bit confused—he felt no hint of familiarity from this woman.
Her clothes, her figure—everything about her felt completely foreign.
"Someone’s here." Jiang Che raised a hand, and a massive projection screen appeared in the archive room.
This was the dungeon map. They looked down from above, God’s-eye view of the labyrinth.
In one corner stood a glowing red dot—the "someone" Jiang Che had just mentioned.
The labyrinth was strewn with little glowing green dots, scattered in every corner of the map.
"This person doesn’t have a file in the archives, right? If she dies, does she die for real?" Zhou Ang questioned in confusion.
"No." Jiang Che frowned, sensing through the archive materials.
There was only Xiong Jie’s information recorded.
Once something is written down, it’s there forever.
As long as you die within Jiang Che’s dungeon, you can be endlessly revived in the archive room.
Xiong Jie looked at the unfamiliar little red dot. Only he knew—that red dot was the master.
