Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 209

Chapter 209

As they walked deeper inside, the sound of water dripping from the ceiling of the Mine Tunnel echoed through the air.

*Drip-*

It was exceptionally clear.

Gu Huaiwei asked, “What is it?”

“Before we entered the Instance, Xiling You asked me about the Oasis Sanatorium.” Bai Yuzhen licked her dry lower lip. “She asked me if there was anything in the Sanatorium that didn’t belong to this world.”

Gu Huaiwei’s voice remained calm. “How did you answer?”

Bai Yuzhen spoke truthfully. “I mentioned the flower held by the gentleman beside you, and the jars in the lobby where the Worms are kept.

She got very excited when she heard that. I don’t know if I said the wrong thing… but, Shopkeeper Gu, I want you to know that I’m on your side! I don’t think she has good intentions, so you must be careful.”

Gu Huaiwei suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Bai Yuzhen’s heart tightened instantly.

Gu Huaiwei simply turned back and smiled. “Thanks for the warning. When we get back to the shop, I’ll give you some souvenirs.”

“Ah… oh.” Bai Yuzhen breathed a sigh of relief.

For a moment there, she thought Gu Huaiwei was going to suddenly turn on her, revealing some hidden, true face.

Bai Yuzhen led the way. The Mine Tunnel was dark and long. As they passed several forks in the path, footsteps could be heard coming from the other openings.

“Is that you guys? Bai Yuzhen… someone over here is hurt… *clack clack clack*… can you come over and help us?”

“Come this way… *clack clack clack*… we found the right path.”

“What happened just now was my fault, let’s not split up after all… *clack clack clack*… it’s safer when people stay together.”

The voices of Fang Zhao and the others drifted out from those pitch-black openings.

The sounds seemed both distant and near.

Bai Yuzhen nervously placed her hand on Gu Huaiwei’s arm and whispered a warning, “Shopkeeper Gu, ignore those voices. They’re all fake.”

“They’re Anomaly decoys, right?” Gu Huaiwei looked toward one of the incorrect tunnels. “Stay here. I’m going to take a look.”

Bai Yuzhen was stunned. “You know there’s danger in there, so why go over?”

“I entered this Instance to find customers.” Gu Huaiwei gently patted the back of her hand, signaling her to let go of her sleeve. “You can just wait for me here. If you’re really scared, I’ll leave He Xueyi behind to protect you.”

Bai Yuzhen looked at the pure white youth beside Gu Huaiwei. His skin was so fair it was almost translucent, and he possessed a sense of holiness that made one’s heart tremble.

When she looked at him, he gave a faint smile, like melting early snow.

“Well, okay then…” Bai Yuzhen looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed. She had never seen a boy with such a clean aura.

Just as Gu Huaiwei was about to step into the wrong tunnel, He Xueyi pulled her back.

“Wait, Shop Manager Miss.” He Xueyi turned her wrist over, his thumb brushing over the black scales left by Lin She. His golden eyes held unreadable emotions. “The mark I left on you last time has faded. It needs to be reapplied.”

“My wrist isn’t a piece of scrap paper for you to keep scribbling on.” Gu Huaiwei held out her other hand to him. “Use this one instead.”

He Xueyi placed a red circular mark on her other wrist.

“Back then, when Lin She covered my mark, did Shop Manager Miss say the same thing to him?”

“Do you mind?”

Lin She was a petty guy.

If He Xueyi was the same, Gu Huaiwei was going to have a headache.

He Xueyi met her gaze for a moment. Seeing that she didn’t flinch, he chuckled and let the topic go. “Ha, Shop Manager Miss, be careful out there.”

“Take care of her. I’ll be right back.”

Gu Huaiwei turned on her phone’s flashlight and stepped into the pitch-black Mine Tunnel.

A red bloodline connected Gu Huaiwei and He Xueyi.

The further she went, the heavier the moisture became.

The air grew increasingly cold, and a draft whistled out from invisible crevices.

In the darkness, Gu Huaiwei finally found the source of those voices.

At the deepest part of the Mine Tunnel, the moss on the walls glowed with an unnatural green light. Amidst the faint sound of cracking coming from deep within the rocks, several humanoid creatures were embedded within the fissures of the stone.
The voices were coming from the mouths of these people.

Yellowed Miner Recruitment Notices were scattered across the ground.

Some of the people embedded in the rocks were Trial-takers who had lost their way; they had been swallowed by the Instance and become part of the Mine Tunnel.

Their limbs had already petrified.

Only their mouths could still open and close, mimicking the voices of fellow Trial-takers to lure others inside.

Gu Huaiwei stood on her tiptoes and placed a finger beneath their noses.

A few of them were not completely petrified and were actually still breathing.

Gu Huaiwei walked up to a man whose body was only one-third swallowed by the rock.

She waved her hand in front of him.

“Sir, hello? Are you still conscious? Can you hear me?”

The man’s lower body had turned into gray stone, while his upper chest heaved violently. His eyes were already blind, leaving only his largely uncontrollable mouth to make sounds.

“Come in… k-k-k… let’s go together…”

The man on the rock wall was delirious, his brain functioning without control, unable to respond to Gu Huaiwei.

It seemed he had no consciousness left.

“Forget it. I’ll treat him like a dead horse and see if I can make him run.”

After a moment of thought, Gu Huaiwei grabbed the man’s exposed upper body and yanked outward with force. Blood splattered instantly as the upper and lower halves of his body were torn apart.

The skin on his back that had been pressed against the rock wall was ripped away. Gu Huaiwei saw blood vessels from his body connecting to the rock, as if he were living in symbiosis with it.

The man let out a wretched wail.

“AAAAAGH!”

With only half a body left, the man crawled on the ground. The rock wall seemed to be alive, pulling the man back along the blood vessels that hadn’t been severed.

“Bear with it. It won’t hurt for long.”

Gu Huaiwei injected him with a tube of Inhibitor. The blood vessels withered rapidly, releasing their hold on the man.

The man woke up amidst the agonizing pain. He first saw Gu Huaiwei’s face and was momentarily dazed, unable to look away.

Then, he realized he had lost his legs, and his body began to shake uncontrollably.

“My… my legs! Aaaaagh!” the man screamed deafeningly. “Where… where is this?”

“This is the Mine Instance. You took a wrong turn and were nearly swallowed by the rock walls in the mine. I’m the one who scraped you off the wall.” Gu Huaiwei pointed at the others who had been almost entirely consumed. “If I had come any later, you would have been beyond saving, just like them.”

“I remember now… I entered the Instance, but I got separated from my teammates…” The man lowered his head as his memories began to return. “I was supposed to go to the Great Canteen to deliver food, but I heard my teammates’ voices and wanted to regroup with them first, and then… and then…”

He couldn’t go on.

Because after that, he had been stuck to the rock wall in the Mine Tunnel, trapped there with no one to answer his cries for help.

He had felt something burrowing into his body from his back.

Eroding him bit by bit.

He had been heavily contaminated until his sanity finally vanished.

“Who are you?” the man forced himself to calm down.

Gu Huaiwei chose a convenient explanation: “Just consider me a fellow Trial-taker.”

“You weren’t in our batch. If you’re a new Trial-taker, it means our batch failed.” The man couldn’t accept the reality before him. “Failure means never being able to leave, eventually becoming part of the Instance… No… I don’t want to die here!”

He tried to crawl toward the cave entrance.

Gu Huaiwei blocked his path and looked down at him.

Her black hair fell over her shoulders, and her glasses shimmered slightly.

“Do you want me to help you leave this wrong Mine Tunnel?”

“Yes…” The man was once again entranced.

Gu Huaiwei smiled and held up five fingers. “How much Lifespan do you have left?”