Chapter 63: Severe Injury

It seemed the red-robed female ghost could only do that much. After leaving the line of blood characters, she vanished.

The moment the female ghost disappeared, the restriction binding the room dissolved as well, and the others rushed inside.

"Senior Brother! Wulei! Are you both all right?!"

Li Lianxin asked anxiously, while Yu Guang and Bako stepped forward to check if the two were injured.

Xia Wulei waved a hand. "We're fine. Let's head back first."

By the time they finished dealing with all this, it was almost evening once again. Cheng Cheng had used the ingredients Xia Wulei left behind to cook a meal, and when they returned, Cheng Cheng was currently serving food to the little boy.

Xia Wulei and Cui Chengzhi exchanged glances.

Taking advantage of the little boy eating by himself, Xia Wulei pulled Cheng Cheng aside, and the six of them squeezed into a room to discuss the situation.

"Could the person the boss wants be this little boy?" Yu Guang guessed.

"No way, is the female ghost going to eat her own younger brother?" Li Lianxin asked in astonishment.

"But the human traffickers are all dead, and revenge has been taken. If not the younger brother, then who else could it be?"

This question lingered in everyone's minds.

Xia Wulei simply walked out to the living room and took the initiative. "Little buddy, what's your name?"

The little boy was only four or five years old, still at an innocent and ignorant age. Seeing that Xia Wulei and the others did not seem to harbor any malicious intent, he finally spoke up in a soft, halting voice.

"My name is Shao Hua."

"My home is right next door. When are those two bad uncle and auntie going to leave? I want to go home."

At this point, Shao Hua's mouth turned down.

"I miss my mom, dad, and older sister."

Everyone fell silent.

Li Lianxin couldn't bear it, yet she didn't want to lie to the child either, so she could only say, "Big Sister will take you home to take a look, but..."

Shao Hua looked a bit dazed. He simply didn't understand why his family members hadn't come to pick him up after so long.

Even though they were in the very same building.

A complete family was now left with nothing but a shattered shell.

Ghosts grew even more ferocious at night, and even Cui Chengzhi could not guarantee that Shao Hua wouldn't fall victim to his sister's lethal hands once he stepped into Room 502.

Currently, only the rooms belonging to Li Lianxin and Yu Guang had empty beds. Fearing that Shao Hua might suddenly transform into a ghost, they decided to have Cui Chengzhi keep an eye on him, while Bako would share a room with Yu Guang.

Uncertain of what perils the night might bring, everyone finished washing up and retreated to their rooms early, awaiting the trials of the night to arrive.

Xia Wulei also returned to her personal space and took out the small yellow flower given to her by the red-robed female ghost.

The spiritual vine happily twirled around the little yellow flower, wrapping the blossom up and carefully placing it upon its flexible vine stem.

Xia Wulei watched in amazement as the previously drooping little yellow flower actually began to sway in the breeze, gradually growing roots and stems that intertwined with the spiritual vine.

Before long, the spiritual vine was cheerfully spinning around with the small yellow flower perched atop it.

A-Shui also clicked his tongue in wonder. "What kind of ability is this?"

Xia Wulei wore the tender, loving gaze of an old mother. "Our vine has grown up. It knows how to dress itself up now."

A-Shui and the system: ......?

The System: [That is the spiritual vine's devouring skill!]

Hearing the system's words, Xia Wulei hurriedly opened the interface to check the status of the spiritual vine.

Sure enough, after the spiritual vine merged with the little yellow flower, a new skill had been added.

[Aura Perception: The spiritual vine can perceive dangerous auras and issue warnings.]

Damn it, what a great treasure!

Wasn't this a living, breathing detector?

Although Xia Wulei's system could also automatically perceive the energy indices of ghosts and objects, that was a passive ability, and she had no way to constantly roam about instance worlds searching for treasures.

Now that the spiritual vine possessed this capability, she could release it to automatically search on her behalf.

Xia Wulei grew excited. "The vine loves eating flowers, right? I'll go pick some for you!"

The system was speechless. [Not just any flower can be devoured, you know... This flower was nourished by Shao Yan's blood, which is why, after Shao Yan transformed into a ghost, she subconsciously expended ghost qi to nurture it, allowing it to never wither and granting it a certain ability.]

So the red-robed female ghost was named Shao Yan.

Xia Wulei's eyes rolled as an idea struck her. "Is just nourishing it with ghost qi enough?"

Her gaze shifted toward A-Shui.

A-Shui was startled. "No way, what are you planning to do?"

Good grief, here stood a living Yama in the flesh.

Xia Wulei waved her hand. "I was just joking."

Equipped with its new ability, the spiritual vine was released by Xia Wulei, and it patrolled in a circle around the entire apartment building.

Xia Wulei closed her eyes, faintly sharing the sensory perceptions of the spiritual vine as the layout map of the entire apartment slowly formed within her mind.

The spiritual vine had no eyes, only the sensation of wind and auras, but those were already enough to serve as its eyes.

"Huh? What is this?"

Xia Wulei opened her eyes, a look of profound understanding dawning within them.

...

Day six of the instance.

The player team suffered a severe blow.

Yu Guang was dragged into a nightmare realm, and when he escaped, his entire body was covered in wounds, with only a single breath left in him.

Fortunately, Cui Chengzhi cast spells and fed him medicine in the nick of time, barely managing to hold onto his life.

When Xia Wulei rushed over, she saw that Yu Guang had lost too much blood, his face as pale as gold paper, lying on the bed with a weak breath.

The mattress beneath him was stained red with blood halfway across.

Fortunately, Yu Guang had already regained consciousness. With half-open eyes, he smiled weakly.

"First time entering, cough, no experience. I listened to you guys and ran to the final door, but unexpectedly a doorway opened up halfway, and a swarm of spider monsters crawled out and bit me..."

Yu Guang had quick reflexes, but he possessed no items within the nightmare realm and was merely an ordinary person. Within a few rounds, his right arm had been bitten by the monster.

He could only endure the pain, grit his teeth, and run into the final door, forcing those spider monsters to stop outside the door in frustration.

Perhaps the greater the pain, the clearer the memory; Yu Guang had forced himself to finish writing the test paper and escaped the nightmare realm with a barely passing score.

Beneath the thin quilt, Yu Guang's torso bulged, but at the location of his right arm, it caved in hollowly.

Seeing Xia Wulei's gaze linger there, Bako couldn't bear it and said, "Brother Yu's right arm... has been almost entirely gnawed away."

Li Lianxin and Cheng Cheng gasped.

"It's fine, as long as his life is saved. The Higher Realm has many spiritual medicines capable of regenerating flesh on bones; once you accumulate enough points, you can exchange for them. Only, that requires quite a lot of points..." Cui Chengzhi hesitated.

After all, under normal circumstances, everyone would rather save their points to accumulate the ten thousand points needed to secure a chance at resurrection as soon as possible.

Yu Guang smiled, his mindset surprisingly optimistic.

Xia Wulei suddenly remembered that her spiritual vine possessed healing abilities right from birth, so she sat down by the bedside and said to Yu Guang.

"My summoned creature has healing abilities, but I'm not sure how effective it is. Are you willing to give it a try?"

Yu Guang nodded. "It can't possibly get any worse than my current situation anyway. I'm willing."

Xia Wulei raised her hand and summoned the spiritual vine.

Li Lianxin was surprised. "Wulei, I remember the summon you produced last time was a ghost, right? Could it be that your summoning system can summon different creatures?"

Explaining it that way wasn't wrong either, so Xia Wulei nodded and communicated with the spiritual vine, instructing it to treat Yu Guang.

She simply failed to notice that Cui Chengzhi's gaze had fallen upon the small yellow flower on the spiritual vine, his eyes narrowing slightly.