Chapter 26

Chapter 26: Let’s Talk.

Judging from the scene, Chen Chu clearly would not survive this game.

In this round, Tired Tired had no usable skill, Chen Chu had lost his items and game coins, and on top of that, his skill was too ordinary. So it was not surprising that he would end up like this.

But Ning Rong actually did not care about the fate of Tired Tired’s group.

She only wanted to gather more information related to the hotel owner.

She took a look. The cooldown time of Everyone Wants to Be Friends With Me was a full eighteen hours.

What a pity.

A skill had been wasted.

With five minutes left before nine at night, Ning Rong stood up and said, “Let’s go out.”

Zhou Yujing naturally listened to everything she said, and the Wen Huai siblings had no objections either.

During the day, the hotel had undergone renovations. Though no one knew what the NPCs had done to the rooms, it was highly likely to be unfavorable to players.

Therefore, continuing to stay inside the room was not a wise move.

After meeting up with Shen Xuan and the others, Ning Rong made the next task clear.

“I’m preparing to find the hotel owner. This owner should be the key to breaking the deadlock.”

Shen Xuan’s eyes widened slightly in disbelief. “The hotel owner?”

Ning Rong was concise. “Yes. She hid herself.”

Cold sweat was practically about to pour from Shen Xuan.

Earlier, he had activated his skill and chatted with the front desk for a full three minutes. He had thought they were having a great conversation, but in the end, the front desk had not even told him about the hotel owner.

Sure enough, the pleasant conversation had all been fake.

It was only his one-sided assumption.

Fortunately, he had followed the Wen Sheng siblings and latched onto a thick thigh!

The moment nine o’clock arrived, the atmosphere of the entire hotel completely changed.

The originally orange-yellow lighting turned into a ghastly green glow, and the previously quiet environment instantly became noisy and chaotic.

The doors that had previously been tightly shut were all opened, and one by one, guests with faces whiter than wallpaper walked out from the rooms.

Shen Xuan could not help cursing. “We’ve stayed here this long without meeting a single guest. I thought there were no other guests besides us. Turns out they were waiting for us here.”

The more than thirty employee NPCs on the first floor had only been used to mislead players.

The real main event should be these guest NPCs coming out of the rooms.

They were densely packed and would soon occupy the entire hallway.

All of these NPCs faced toward Ning Rong and the others, their expressions vacant, their movements sluggish as they walked toward them.

If Ning Rong’s room, 1801, had not been located at the very edge, the two sides would already have collided.

Xiao Ze immediately activated his skill, Clue Analysis.

A few seconds later, he shouted loudly, “We can’t let them touch us! And they have no obvious weakness!”

After shouting those two sentences, his face turned pale and he hid behind Shen Xuan.

Shen Xuan, whose skill was Affinity: …

Hiding behind me is useless!

Hide behind big sister boss instead!

Although Ning Rong did not have trypophobia, looking at so many similar numb faces was not a pleasant experience either.

“Zhou Yujing.”

“I’m here.”

The instant Ning Rong called Zhou Yujing’s name, he activated his skill Shadow Clone.

Four shadows charged out at the same time and slashed toward the NPCs.

Four pitch-black, agile, highly destructive shadows moved simultaneously, their actions clean and decisive.

The scene was comparable to a sci-fi blockbuster—cool and flashy.

[Big sister boss’s man really does have some skills.]

[Last time I watched his stream was half a month ago. Back then he could only split into two shadows. Didn’t expect him to already have four now.]

[Things on this side are still stable enough. The other side is in trouble though.]

After Ning Rong and the others left, Juan Juan's group did not move positions. They stayed in the first-floor lobby the whole time.

At nine o’clock sharp, the employee NPCs all started moving. Besides that, guest NPCs from the second and third floors were also continuously coming downstairs.

Teacher Dan immediately activated the skill Time Stop. Using those two seconds, they hid in a relatively safe place.

Unfortunately, the distance they could gain in two seconds was still too short, and there were too many NPCs. While each of them fled for their lives, some distance opened between them, and their formation completely fell apart.

Juan Juan’s face looked ugly as she stepped back twice. She tried to keep her voice steady as she said, “I have an item that can cause a large-scale explosion, but because the item is extremely powerful, I need a defensive item to block the damage.”

Gu Yu and the others all nodded to show they understood. Only Chen Chu said with a bleak expression, “I don’t have any items.”

Hearing that, Juan Juan looked at him apologetically. “Sorry, I don’t have any extra defensive items either.” She didn’t have spare ones, so it was even less likely the others did. Any item that could block damage was expensive. Having even one on you was already considered good.

Chen Chu had always stayed close to Juan Juan. Even while fleeing, he was no exception. Hearing that, he grabbed her wrist and said urgently, “Juan Juan, you can’t ignore me. I provoked her for your sake! If not for that, I wouldn’t have lost my items!”

Juan Juan was somewhat frightened by how ferocious Chen Chu looked right now.

Originally, Chen Chu would not have been this panicked. In his view, even if something happened to him, Juan Juan could still revive him with her Rollback skill.

But...

That randomly matched player had said she was lying.

Her identity had no problem, so the only issue could be with her ability.

But what problem could there be with her ability?

Her skill really was Rollback. He had personally experienced it in the previous game.

Unless...

She lied about the cooldown time.

The worst-case scenario was that in this game, she had no Rollback available at all!

What he could guess, the others naturally could guess too. But at a time like this, no one dared ask.

What was the point of asking? Whether Rollback existed or not, they still had to give everything they had each time. If they relied on Rollback too much, the result would only be stagnation or regression. And once a player developed dependency inside the game, death would not be far away.

Teacher Dan, exhausted, stepped between the two of them and soothed the situation. “My defensive item can protect two people at once. Stay close to me.”

Like a drowning man grabbing driftwood, Chen Chu hurriedly said, “Okay!”

But in the end, he was still one step too late.

Just as he was about to run toward Teacher Dan, the head chef NPC quietly approached from behind, and the ladle in his hand touched Chen Chu’s shoulder.

At that instant, two death conditions stacked onto him.

The next second, an electronic mechanical voice rang out in every player’s mind—

[Player Chen Chu has died.]

—

[You can’t be touched by NPCs...]

[Earlier, staying in the cheap room gave Chen Chu one mark. Now he got another one. Good—two marks stacked, direct game over.]

[Goodbye forever, Juan Juan’s simp.]

Hearing the death announcement for Chen Chu, Juan Juan was not sad, nor upset. Instead, she felt relieved.

At the end of the day, the terrifying and twisted Chen Chu just now had truly frightened her. In her eyes, Chen Chu had already become an unstable factor.

As she ran toward Teacher Dan, she looked back at Chen Chu one last time.

At this moment, his face was full of terror, eyes wide open, blood overflowing from his five facial openings, his whole body frozen stiff.

Chen Chu... was truly dead.

Seeing more and more NPCs surrounding them, Juan Juan did not hesitate and directly threw the explosive item in her hand.

—

When the sound of the explosion came from downstairs, Ning Rong was in the middle of activating the skill Using Money to Smash People.

Time returned to half a minute earlier.

Zhou Yujing’s Shadow Clone held back the vast majority of the guest NPCs, while Xiao Mu’s skill Auto Pathfinding led them to the second floor.

Xiao Mu’s skill Auto Pathfinding could find the safest route for them. That route pointed to the second floor. Their whole group took the elevator straight there. Fortunately, after nine o’clock, the elevator was still usable.

Compared with the eighteenth floor, the second floor was indeed much safer. Only two or three guest NPCs were wandering around the entire floor.

Zhou Yujing’s skill only had ten seconds left. To avoid more NPCs coming later, Ning Rong activated Using Money to Smash People.

Since Your things are very good, now they are mine could be activated remotely, then theoretically Using Money to Smash People could also be activated remotely. This skill had an equally wide range of uses.

In reality, some people jokingly say, “If you’ve got the ability, hit me with money.”

The same logic applied in the game.

Inside the game, Using Money to Smash People could help Ning Rong achieve what she wanted as quickly as possible.

It was still uncertain whether remote activation would succeed, so she could only try first.

Anyway... she had the right to make mistakes.

Although she had the capital to make mistakes, it was still better not to. To avoid failing the activation, Ning Rong directly took out more than sixty game coins.

“Hotel boss, I know you’re on this floor. I think, in certain aspects, our interests are aligned. Come out, and let’s have a proper talk.”

Everyone who saw the amount of game coins in her hand: ...

Seeing that thick stack of coins, Wen Huai—who only had a little over one hundred coins on her entire body—even forgot fear and terror. Her whole being sank into the personal charm of Rich Lady Sister.

Shen Xuan and the others were so shocked they could not even close their mouths.

“So... so rich.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen this many game coins in the game.”

Wen Huai muttered, “Sister, you’re really dazzling, really charming.”

“You shine brighter than daylight.”

Zhou Yujing: ...

Question: my girlfriend is richer than I ever imagined, and it seems like our families are not a good match. What should I do?!

[I’ve seen flattering people before, but this is the first time I’ve seen someone this good at it.]

[I’m dying laughing. Wen Huai, you really know how to shower people with compliments. Give us more.]

[Aside from Lu Wen, that little fangirl-boy, looks like Big Sister Boss is about to capture another little fangirl.]

[Sure enough, whether inside the game or outside it, rich people always stand out among ordinary people.]

[Damn rich people! I’m watching a horror game livestream and still got mentally broken by this!]

[Even though I’m poor in real life, following Little Newcomer’s stream feels amazing.]

The moment Ning Rong finished speaking, the fifty-plus game coins in her hand ignited without wind. In the end, only three coins remained.

At the same time, the door to one of the second-floor guest rooms was suddenly opened from inside.

The next second, a young woman walked out of the room.

She wore a women’s suit jacket, cropped suit pants below, and ten-centimeter heels on her feet. Her entire presence was imposing.

She looked at Ning Rong and asked, “You were the one looking for me? What did you want to talk about?”

Audience: !!!

[Good, good, good! She really managed to lure out the hotel’s final boss!]