Chapter 136: You Only Have Ten Minutes

This had to be the sister's room. Pink wallpaper lined the walls, and the place was spotlessly clean.

At first glance, it looked completely ordinary, but the longer I stayed, the stranger it felt—as if something were staring dead at me.

Every move I made was under its watch. She could see me, but I couldn't see her.

Stepping further inside, the first thing I noticed was a desk. On it sat a cartoon clock, open study materials, and neatly written class notes.

"I didn't expect the sister to be such an excellent student." Pulling open the drawer, I found a thick stack of award certificates haphazardly stuffed inside.

"Guo Jingjing?" I reached in to pull the certificates out, but my hand brushed against something strange underneath. It was hard to describe, yet extremely familiar to me.

"Isn't this the best-selling product in my shop?" Spiral vibration, adjustable intensity levels, and a market price around fifty yuan.

Holding the toy while looking at the thick stack of certificates, I was dumbfounded by the sheer contrast.

"A good girl in the eyes of outsiders, yet hiding a secret side." I pulled all the certificates out and eventually found the toy's packaging at the very back of the drawer. A message was written clearly on the bottom of the box: "Do you like the birthday gift your brother gave you?"

"This family's dynamic is terrifying." Having finished searching the desk, I looked elsewhere. A comfortable single bed sat against the wall, right next to the window.

Stepping closer, I noticed the neat pink bedsheets still held the scent of shampoo. The quilt and pillows were perfectly clean, but there were two pairs of slippers by the bed—one men's and one women's.

"Why are there two pairs of slippers? Does this mean the ghosts of both the brother and the sister are in this room?" I took a lap around the room, but the feeling of being watched lingered. "Under the bed? Or in the closet?"

Mustering my courage, I checked both spots. Everything was normal. I didn't find anything horrifying.

"I can't let my guard down." Sitting on the bed, I pulled back the curtains. Just as I expected, the window was sealed off by solid metal, the two iron plates secured together with a combination lock.

"I have to crack the passcode to get out of here, but I don't have a single clue," I muttered to myself. Sitting on the bed with my back to the door, my gaze absentmindedly swept across my phone screen. Someone with a very strange ID was spamming the livestream chat.

Guo Jingjing: "Don't keep your back to the door."

Guo Jingjing: "What are you looking for?"

Guo Jingjing: "You aren't looking for me, are you?"

Guo Jingjing: "Why won't you turn around?"

I frowned. "Why does this ID look so familiar?"

Closing the curtains, I turned my head, ready to get out of bed.

Smack! Startled out of my wits, the Large-Screen Phone slipped from my palm and hit the floor.

My body twisted awkwardly. My eyes darted wildly in their sockets, and my pupils shrank to pinpricks from the sheer shock.

It was the face of a drowning victim. The skin was pale and swollen from soaking, bloating the face to twice its normal size.

Calling her human was a stretch; "monster" was a far more fitting description.

When fear pushes past a person's absolute limit, they lose control of their emotions. The most direct response is exactly what I did—screaming at the top of my lungs, "Fuck!"

I swung my fist straight at that horrifying woman's face, but the punch hit nothing but air.

The woman's swollen face hovered about five centimeters from my eyes, staying perfectly at that distance.

"This twisted Dream Realm," I cursed under my breath, clutching my chest to steady my breathing.

Mental preparation could reduce fear by ninety percent. But in the Dream Realm, there were zero warning signs; these foul things always appeared out of thin air.

"I have to escape the Dream Realm. If I get trapped in here, the consequences will be unimaginable!" I stood up from the bed, but the bloated woman's face remained hovering right in front of me. Her bruised, purple lips slowly parted. She had no teeth, revealing only a pitch-black, gaping maw.

'Is she trying to say something to me?' I ignored her. My only thought was getting out of this room as quickly as possible. I scooped the Underworld Live Show Phone off the floor. The stream hadn't disconnected. Glancing at the chat, a single message drifted across the screen in glaringly bold text.

Guo Jingjing: "You only have ten minutes."

As if struck by lightning, I whipped my head around to stare at the clock on the desk. At some point, the time had silently shifted to 1:50 AM.

"In the study, the hanged father couldn't actively approach me. In the brother's bedroom, the vengeful spirit could come closer and even direct its malice at me, but it seemed bound by a rule that kept it from coming within ten centimeters of my body."

"Now that I'm in the sister's bedroom, this monster is only five centimeters away. As time passes, the restrictions on the ghosts are fading, and my situation is becoming increasingly dangerous."

"The clock represents the flow of time, and right now, it's 1:50 AM. In the little boy's diary, the major turning point of his life started at 2:00 AM on a certain night. He witnessed the secret between his older brother and sister with his own eyes, only to be discovered by them at exactly 2:00 AM. After that, the relentless bullying began."

"That has to be it. Once 2:00 AM hits, something absolutely horrifying is going to happen in this house!"

I had seen my fair share of foul things since I began livestreaming, but this was the first time I had ever encountered a situation like this.

Cold sweat drenched my forehead. I couldn't tell if this was the Dream Realm or reality. Logic required a solid framework to exist, but in a place where I couldn't even distinguish a dream from an illusion, how could I rely on logic? How was I supposed to deduce anything?

"The passcode! I have ten minutes left; I have to find the passcode!"

The most pressing matter was following the game's rules to escape. Why this family had fallen into such a wretched state was a secondary concern.

Stepping out of the sister's bedroom, the last place left to check was the bathroom.

The bathroom in this old house was located on the other side of the living room. Just as I crossed the room and prepared to go inside, another spine-chilling sight caught my eye.

The front door leading out of the living room was wide open!

The pitch-black corridor stretched into the unknown. It was terrifyingly gloomy, devoid of a single sliver of light or warmth.

I tightened my grip on my phone. Every step I took felt agonizingly heavy.

'Why is the door open? Who opened it? Did the woman who died a gruesome death out in the hallway already crawl inside? Is she right behind me right now?!'

My mind raced uncontrollably as a chill crept up my spine. The sheer tension caused the blood vessels on my face to slowly bulge.

"I can't explain this at all. Why would this damn door just fly open?" The path leading outside lay right in front of me, presenting a terrifying yet incredibly tempting choice.

This house was full of ghosts. If I bolted out the door and left the apartment behind, I might actually make it out alive.

It was a tempting option, practically the sweet whisperings of a devil.

"Calm down!" I slapped myself hard across the face, not holding back in the slightest. "Whoever orchestrated this went to great lengths to set this trap. There is absolutely no way it's this simple to break."

Staring into the pitch-black corridor, I realized it was highly likely a path straight into the abyss. The moment I set foot in there, I would probably plummet into an infinite loop of Nightmares.

The warning Daoist master Wan had given me before I used the Paulownia Mulberry Talisman surfaced in my mind. This was a livestream with a mere one percent chance of survival; I had to be cautious.

"I still have ten minutes. Don't panic. Keep looking for clues." Taking one last look at the open front door and the pitch-black hallway leading into the unknown, I didn't hesitate any further and quickly slipped into the bathroom.

The floor and walls were lined with tiles, and a mountain of clothes waiting to be washed was piled up next to the washing machine. As soon as I walked in, the metallic stench of blood hit my nose, followed by the sound of running water.

"Whose ghost is hiding in the bathroom?" I rummaged through the pile of dirty laundry. Initially, I didn't notice anything odd, but as I dug deeper, bloodstains began to appear on the fabric. Massive patches of dark, coagulated blood that could never be washed out mottled the garments. "The clothing styles are completely different. There are suits, tracksuits, dresses, and school uniforms. These pieces belong to entirely different people. The only thing they have in common is that every single one has been punctured by a sharp knife."

I focused all my attention on sifting through the pile, and soon enough, I made another discovery. One piece of clothing was completely soaked in blood, yet I couldn't find a single tear or knife slit on the fabric.

"Why is this piece of clothing the exception? Could this be what the killer was wearing?"