The sky had grown quite dark by the time Bai Mu parked the car in front of a house. Outside the window lay a white wooden fence and a green lawn. It was a classic Western family home, complete with a yard and an attic. The sight reminded Bai Mu of Dave's backyard; there was hardly any difference between the two.
"Well, is this the place?" Great Northern Wilderness asked.
Outside the house stood a green tin mailbox. Bai Mu pulled out Witch's key, compared it against the information on the mailbox, and nodded. "This is it."
Great Northern Wilderness and Nancheng Port exchanged a glance. "If you want to do your Side Quest, go right ahead, brother," Great Northern Wilderness said. "We'll wait for you in the car."
The two brothers clearly had no intention of getting involved. After all, they wouldn't receive any rewards for completing the quest. The house looked rather eerie, and there was no telling what might be lurking inside. Their primary objective was to survive and clear the Script, so naturally, they had no desire to take unnecessary risks.
"Alright," Bai Mu agreed. "I'll go inside and have a look around. If it's clear, we can spend the night here."
With that said, Bai Mu opened the car door and stepped out onto the concrete pavement.
Great Northern Wilderness gave a thumbs-up. "Brother Bai really has guts. If I had to enter a haunted house like that all by myself, I'd definitely hesitate, but he isn't scared in the slightest."
Nancheng Port nodded, silently watching Bai Mu's retreating figure.
"Since Brother Bai is gone, I'll wait in the driver's seat," Great Northern Wilderness said, moving from the back to the front. "That way, if any emergencies pop up, we'll be ready to react."
What he really meant was that if Bai Mu stirred up trouble or vanished without a trace, he would drive off immediately.
Bai Mu held no resentment toward Great Northern Wilderness for this pragmatic approach. It was perfectly normal; they were merely strangers brought together by chance, acting as temporary teammates for the sake of mutual benefit.
Great Northern Wilderness had been consistent in his words and actions from the very beginning. His and Nancheng Port's stance was clear: as long as a task contributed to completing the Main Quest, they would lend a hand. Anything else was none of their business.
This upfront and honest attitude was infinitely better than offering empty words of concern while ultimately providing no real help. Clear boundaries were a good thing.
Bai Mu had never expected anyone to help him anyway. He was used to doing everything alone, and he figured this new Side Quest wouldn't pose much of a challenge.
If anything, the most difficult part of the quest was simply reaching the house.
After all, it wasn't on the direct path to the farm. To get here, Players had to meticulously plan their own route and manage their time. He had driven non-stop without hitting any major obstacles or running into a zombie horde, yet he had only just managed to find the place before nightfall.
And that was only because they hadn't wasted much time searching for gasoline. For any other team, safely reaching this residence would have been a monumental challenge.
Bai Mu's intuition told him the house wouldn't be too dangerous. And even if a Mutant was lying in wait inside, he had plenty of guns and ammunition on hand.
He had more or less figured out the difficulty level of the Journey of Death Script. Compared to the environment of his hometown, the danger here was significantly lower. Operating alone in a place like this was nothing more than an everyday routine for him.
He walked straight toward the front door, firmly gripping his Fire Axe. Sitting in the passenger seat, Yan Yu hesitated for a few seconds before unbuckling her seatbelt.
"I'll go with you," Yan Yu said, stepping out of the car. She pulled a scalpel from the pocket of her nurse's uniform. "It's about to get dark, and there's no way we can drive anywhere else tonight. It's best if we secure a sturdy house to rest in."
"This place looks pretty good to me. The doors and windows are intact, it has an iron fence, and there aren't any Zombies wandering around."
"Besides, we built up some solid teamwork this afternoon. We can look out for each other."
Yan Yu's reasoning was perfectly sound. However, her willingness to explore the house with Bai Mu went beyond the reasons she gave aloud; she still felt a pang of guilt for abandoning him at the children's amusement park earlier.
Furthermore, she considered Bai Mu to be an asset worth investing in.
Within their four-person squad, Great Northern Wilderness and Nancheng Port were blood brothers. They were a duo-queue with an inseparable bond, whereas Bai Mu and Yan Yu had queued up solo.
If push came to shove, the brothers would absolutely prioritize each other. Yan Yu couldn't rely on them, so she wanted to build a mutually beneficial partnership with Bai Mu.
As the saying went, helping others was helping oneself. Teamwork was an indispensable factor in humanity's rise to the top of the food chain.
Bai Mu didn't refuse. He simply nodded. "I'll take the lead this time. Good thing I have my axe."
"Alright," Yan Yu agreed.
"Let's stick to hand signals like we did in the mall," Bai Mu suggested.
"Works for me," Yan Yu replied. "I'll keep my flashlight off for now. While there's still a bit of daylight left, let's hurry up and sweep the place."
The two walked in single file up the cobblestone path and arrived at the front door.
Bai Mu's gaze swept across the front yard. There was a children's swing set and several flowerbeds, though the plants had grown wild and unkempt due to a lack of maintenance.
A rubber ball lay abandoned next to the swing. It was completely flat, having lost its air a long time ago.
The doors and windows of the house were tightly shut, seemingly locked on purpose by the owners before they left.
All signs pointed to this being an abandoned property.
Bai Mu pulled out the key and slid it into the lock.
Click. The deadbolt turned. Bai Mu gently pushed the door open, and a wave of dusty air wafted out to greet him.
He gave it a careful sniff. The air inside the house was surprisingly clean, completely devoid of the foul stench of rotting corpses.
[Side Quest "Futile Waiting" has been updated.]
[Task Objective Updated: Search the residence.]
Bai Mu stepped lightly as he crossed the threshold into the house.
The first thing that caught his eye was a dining table covered with a red-checkered tablecloth. A vase sat in the center of the table, though the flowers inside had long since withered.
To his right was a shoe rack holding a pair of women's shoes and a pair of tiny girl's shoes. There were no men's shoes to be found.
Bai Mu picked up the shoes to inspect them. The sizes for each type of shoe were uniform, suggesting that only two people had lived in this house.
The interior decor was incredibly cozy. The walls were decorated with little bear stickers and cartoon wallpaper. Behind the dining table stood a refrigerator, its door completely covered in cute magnets.
Bai Mu motioned with his hand, and the two pressed forward, their footsteps lightly creaking against the wooden floorboards.
The two-story house wasn't actually that large. It didn't take long for the duo to sweep both the first and second floors. Everything was neat and tidy. They found no Zombies, no survivors, and certainly no corpses.
Bai Mu felt as if he and Yan Yu were a pair of cat burglars breaking into a private home. Everything inside was entirely mundane—so profoundly ordinary that it almost felt alien.
He found a master bedroom and a guest bedroom on the second floor. In the master bedroom, he discovered a photograph of a brown-haired woman and a young girl. They looked like mother and daughter.
In the picture, the mother was crouched down with a bright smile, flashing a peace sign alongside her daughter in front of a water fountain. Clipped to the daughter's hair was that familiar rabbit hairpin. This young girl had to be Witch before she mutated.
Judging by its dimensions, the photograph had clearly been cropped. Resting on the girl's left shoulder, Bai Mu spotted a man's hand. But that was all that remained of him—the rest of his body had been deliberately cut out of the frame.