Let's give space a touch of Chinese horror!

Chapter 81 Despair Spreads

In addition to delivering food to Xu Zhang and his companions at mealtimes, these NPCs would also invite them to their homes for meals whenever they encountered them.

This left Xu Zhang and his group, who were eager to find clues and see if they could leave the game by completing the level, feeling extremely frustrated.

Because several people, while searching for clues, were "unable to refuse" the NPC's hospitality and were dragged into the NPC's home as guests, and then... never returned.

Xu Zhang guessed that those people's fate... would probably be the same as Xiao Dou's.

So, after that, let alone exploring the map to find clues and clear the game as soon as possible, they didn't even dare to leave their rooms afterward in order to avoid being dragged into the houses of "enthusiastic" NPCs and forced to be guests.

But despite this, their numbers are dwindling one by one.

When only four people remained, one of the game streamers couldn't take it anymore and urged everyone to run away together.

Forget about clues or whether they've cleared the level or not. Judging by this situation, the remaining few of them are going to die here sooner or later.

The suggestion was unanimously approved by the others, and they decided to sneak away at night when it was dark and the NPCs were asleep.

Then, Xu Zhang finally understood the "malicious intention" behind why the woman in red had placed so many miscellaneous items in the already cramped passageway—

In the pitch-black corridor, the piles of clutter were practically natural obstacles!

Not only did it prevent them from escaping, but the clutter also made noises when touched, acting like a natural alarm. Therefore, it took them quite a while just to get downstairs so as not to alert the NPCs inside.

After overcoming numerous difficulties to reach the first floor, before they could even touch the door, the dogs in the security room started barking incessantly.

The sudden barking of dogs shattered the slumber of the night. The group, without bothering to shut the dogs up, rushed toward the iron gate.

Good news: This time the iron gate was not locked as Xu Zhang had dreamed.

They easily pushed open the iron gate and felt the free air rushing towards them from outside the tenement building.

Bad news: Before they could even show the joyful smiles of having escaped, they saw a large, dark group of people guarding the door.

—Aunt Wang, along with the other NPCs in the tenement building, blocked all their possible escape routes.

Xu Zhang and his group immediately stopped in their tracks.

Only the game blogger who initially suggested escaping was unwilling to give up. Taking advantage of the gap in the encirclement when Aunt Wang ordered the other NPCs to capture them and the encirclement was breached, he rushed out without hesitation.

Xu Zhang didn't know what happened after that. He only knew that when they were locked in an empty room by Aunt Wang, an NPC carried a blood-soaked corpse past the door.

"Ah, that..."

Seemingly because their gazes were too obvious, Aunt Wang turned her head to look, and even made a mocking "tsk tsk" sound, "Alas, what a pity, it's been bitten by a dog like this, it's unusable..."

"You guys are really something..."

The body was carried away, leaving only a pool of foul-smelling blood at the door. Aunt Wang withdrew her gaze and looked at the three remaining people who were terrified and huddled in the corner like quails: "We treated you so well, and you not only took our kindness for granted, but you even tried to run away without paying the rent."

"Then we have no choice but to lock you up until you pay back the money..."

After saying that, Aunt Wang left the room and locked the door.

At first, Xu Zhang and his two companions weren't panicked because they had brought a lot of "equipment" into the game. They planned to secretly modify the program to open the lock on the door; however, they finally started to panic when they discovered that all the "small equipment" they had brought in was broken or had simply disappeared.

They tried everything they could to leave the room—through nailed-up windows, through narrow vents, or even desperately trying to break down the door—but all their attempts failed.

Just when Xu Zhang and his companions were in complete despair, they heard the sound of a ball bouncing coming from the doorway of the house—