'Congratulations, your judgment is correct.'
'Temptation dragged him from the hopeful heaven into the dark hell.'
Xu Xi just glanced at it casually, not even pausing his steps.
Floor 5.
The man who had been kneeling at the supermarket entrance, along with that contract and that bundle of paper money, had completely vanished. The bloodstains on the ground also seemed as if they had never existed.
Huh?
Xu Xi walked to the spot where the man had been kneeling earlier and looked up. He saw that the sign above the supermarket had changed from the original 'Huarong Supermarket' to 'Juxing Supermarket'.
Did the supermarket change owners?
He recalled the initial hint, "Some interesting things happened here," and vaguely guessed that the successive abnormal phenomena seemed to be gradually revealing some unknown past events of this street?
Just as he was lost in thought, the sign above suddenly loosened.
[Ahhhhhh get out of the way!!]
[It's gonna hit it's gonna hit it's gonna... uh]
Before the live stream comments could continue their fuss, the young man on the screen calmly took a step back the moment the sign was about to fall.
The heavy and huge sign just grazed past his body as it fell, kicking up a cloud of dust the instant it hit the ground.
Seeing the young man completely unharmed, the live stream comments' suddenly tense hearts quietly relaxed.
[Does Xu Xi the master have to be so extreme? Grabbing the paper money earlier was also like that, a feint move, scared me to death]
[Maybe this is just the master's mischievous sense of humor?]
At this moment, Xu Xi lowered his head to stare at the sign by his feet, feeling somewhat helpless.
The killing moves of this instance felt strangely familiar to him, making him recall the first instance—similarly absurd, similarly attacking when least expected, similarly dying if you weren't careful.
Bad news: Ran into another unreasonable instance.
Good news: He counters it.
If it were the reasoning-type instances like the last one and the one before that, he would need to expend more brainpower gathering clues.
However, this instance was different. Only needing to constantly judge the left and right intersections precisely amplified the advantage of his reload ability.
Although dangers might come without warning midway, he could avoid them as long as he died once. To him, it wasn't a big deal at all, and it even saved a lot of time.
Xu Xi suddenly realized that this so-called high-difficulty instance... actually seemed simpler for him?
Of course, the premise was that the rules wouldn't change.
This time's slogan he did understand.
'Congratulations, your judgment is correct.'
'The situation he couldn't change was like a massive mountain, crushing him until he couldn't breathe.'
The "he" in this sentence clearly referred to the man who mortgaged the supermarket and then knelt kowtowing at its entrance.
Floor 6.
Everything normal, no abnormalities.
Floor 7.
"Wuwuwu——"
As soon as Xu Xi entered the street, he heard faint, broken sobs.
The sobbing wantonly echoed on the silent late-night street, sharp and high-pitched, as if carrying endless despair and pain, piercing straight into his eardrums.
To be honest, it was a bit creepy.
What was even creepier was a woman in a dress standing all alone by the roadside, tightly covering her face with both hands, weeping softly and mournfully.
The originally somewhat normal street instantly turned eerie and terrifying.
Xu Xi hesitated for a moment, didn't choose to approach and test her, but directly walked around her.
Nothing to test, it's an anomaly!
Xu Xi kept an eye on her as he walked, afraid she might suddenly look up at him.
Fortunately, by the time he turned into the alley, she had only maintained her weeping posture, not moving an inch.
'Congratulations, your judgment is correct.'
'Her world was torn into countless fragments, each piece stabbing her soul.'
Xu Xi stopped walking.
He suddenly had a guess.
Could this man and woman be that pair of embracing figures by the window on the second floor of Sunny Day Department Store on Floor 1?
A couple or a married couple?
Felt more like a married couple.
The husband had to mortgage his family's supermarket because he owed some debt, so the wife fell into despair and broke down?
As for what kind of debt... Xu Xi immediately thought of loans or gambling, possibly both.
Since it had reached the point of needing to mortgage the business, that proved the money the husband owed was a huge, gaping hole.
He originally hadn't figured out what the metal clinking sound on Floor 3 was, but when he thought in this direction, he suddenly felt that sound was very similar to chips made of some material.
Xu Xi didn't know if his guess was correct, but he always felt it wasn't that simple.
Would the cycle end so easily?
He didn't believe it.
Arriving at Floor 8.
As soon as Xu Xi exited the alley, a round paper coin with a square hole drifted towards his face.
He tilted his head slightly to avoid it, looked up, and saw paper money fluttering down from above, making the street appear much more desolate and bleak.
A faint, indistinct sound of opera singing broke this deathly silence.
The sound was initially faint and elusive, as if drifting from an extremely distant place. Gradually, it became clearer and clearer.
The singing was melodious and graceful, the opera voice seeming to carry sorrow and resentment within it. The unfamiliar tune sent chills down Xu Xi's spine.
As the opera singing rose and fell, the surrounding temperature also dropped. A wave of coldness washed over him, rapidly spreading throughout his body.
Strangely, no matter how attentively Xu Xi listened, he couldn't make out what was being sung.
Damn, don't do this.
He'd rather have another pitch-black humanoid figure appear behind him than face this kind of invisible, intangible existence.
Xu Xi hesitated for a moment, then resignedly walked forward.
It's fine, at worst, he just dies in a not-so-dignified way.
Thinking this, he relaxed a bit again.
Walking in the middle of the street, surrounded by paper money drifting down everywhere, his ears filled with the eerie opera singing that pierced his eardrums.
Just as he passed the supermarket that had changed its name, a female corpse suddenly dropped down from the sign.
Her face showed a terrifying bluish-gray hue, eyes wide open, bloodshot eyeballs bulging, almost falling out of their sockets. Lips were dark purple and cracked, slightly parted. A rope was tightly wound around her neck, deeply embedded into her flesh, leaving purplish-black bruise marks.
The female corpse hung stiffly in the air, that familiar dress swaying slightly with each swing of the body.
She just stared fixedly at the young man before her, simultaneously seeming to pierce through space and the screen. That gaze, as if containing boundless resentment and unwillingness, left countless netizens outside with blank minds.
[Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh]
[Stop 'ah'-ing, it's disturbing my eyes (shivering and pulling the blanket tight)]
[F*ck why is there no blurring function, I'm kneeling and begging with my blood for one to be added]
[Where are my live stream comment troops! Protect the emperor, protect the emperor!!!]
[Back off! Back off! Back off!]
[Sis, do you know how much damage you've done to my young, fragile heart? I'll forgive you if you just pull back up again]
[Don't worry, these few floors are just purely trying to scare you]
[So? Person earlier, you mean there are heavier hitters later?]
[Of course]
[To be honest, the moment she looked at me, I almost thought I was going to see my great-grandma]
[Master Xu Xi is so calm, his expression hasn't even changed]
[Although the scene is a bit terrifying, but somehow, seeing Master Xu Xi gives me a strange sense of security]
[+1]