Upon hearing Xu Dengming’s words, Guo Jiajia’s gaze remained unchanged, but her body subtly shifted, as if responding.
The light in the room began to darken further as Xu Dengming’s voice faded as the third cycle of the test had officially begun.
Before her consciousness faded, a faint, needle-like voice echoed in Xu Dengming’s mind—
“Save my family.”
“Save Guo Jiajia….”
The morning sunlight streamed through the window into the room.
On a slightly worn children’s bed, a “little kid” dressed in a sackcloth outfit habitually rolled over and sat up.
Xu Dengming, who had successfully logged in, glanced at the clock.
This time, her login moment was 6:50, noticeably earlier than the previous cycle.
She had gained more exploration time.
As long as Xu Dengming didn’t make any major movements, the children’s room would remain quiet, so quiet that she could hear the faint sounds of activity outside the woman and man had already gotten up and were preparing for the day.
Based on previous experience, Guo Jiajia’s parents would still take some time before leaving the house.
Knowing the impending crisis, Xu Dengming could have gone out to communicate with them, pooling everyone’s wisdom to solve the current problem.
However, she simply sat on the edge of the bed, frowning in thought, with no intention of seeking help from the “parents.”
At 6:55, having roughly sorted out her thoughts, Xu Dengming jumped off the bed.
She climbed onto the chair by the desk and began rummaging through the shelves for the items she needed.
Children’s stationery generally didn’t possess much lethality.
Xu Dengming only found scissors, a paper cutter, and a spool of sewing thread on the shelves.
She placed both stationery items and the sewing thread into her pocket, then followed the same routine as the previous cycle by placing an unknown life-saving pill under her tongue.
She also briefly checked the diary and the changes in the books on the shelves.
After completing all preparations, the time reached 7:30.
The woman and man, following the pattern of the first cycle, left the house one after another, leaving the game arena to the restless tester.
Xu Dengming, with a pocket full of tools, leisurely stepped out of the children’s room and began her free activities.
Xu Dengming first walked to the corner of the living room but ignored the elderly person there.
Instead, she reached out and took the water bottle beside them, then headed to the kitchen to search through the cabinets for miscellaneous items.
After the Great Catastrophe, the infrastructure in many human settlements was unstable, and power outages were common.
Xu Dengming found what she needed-candles and a lighter.
[You have obtained Candles ×4.]
[You have obtained a Lighter ×1.]
In the children’s room, no matter what Xu Dengming found, there were no prompts.
But once she left the room, the long-awaited system notifications appeared.
This was a hint, telling her that she had indeed found valuable items.
Next, Xu Dengming entered the master bedroom.
Like the children’s room, the master bedroom had a lock, but unlike the children’s room, the lock on the master bedroom door was intact.
As she passed by, she casually pulled the key from the lock.
[You have obtained the Master Bedroom Key ×1.]
With the necessary items in hand, Xu Dengming methodically began her preparations.
She placed the half-full water bottle on the edge of the bay window.
The kettle was placed with one-third of its base in direct contact with the bay window, while the remaining two-thirds hung in mid-air.
To ensure the kettle wouldn’t immediately lose balance and shatter on the floor, Xu Dengming tied it to the curtain with sewing thread.
Next, Xu Dengming lit a candle beside the sewing thread.
When the candle burned down a little further, the sewing thread would be ignited and break, completely releasing the kettle on the other end, allowing it to fall to the ground.
After setting up the master bedroom, Xu Dengming returned to the kitchen, quietly picked up the spare kettle the woman had used in the first loop, filled it with water, and then opened the refrigerator, pulling out three unidentified objects resembling cured meat.
[You have obtained [Unidentified Object]×3]
Xu Dengming: “……”
She thought the system prompt was quite unique, leaving no room for players to gain any extra knowledge.
The pockets on her cloth bag were already stuffed with various items.
Fully prepared, Xu Dengming hid in the bathroom, carefully closing the door behind her.
She leaned against the door, hugging her knees, silently waiting for the event to unfold.
Time passed minute by minute.
Xu Dengming pressed her hand against her chest.
The heartbeat of this body was faint and slow, but she began to feel a sense of unease emanating from deep within her heart.
-She wasn’t entirely sure her guess was correct.
She was merely experimenting, extracting lessons from the previous two failures.
If this attempt ultimately failed, Xu Dengming only hoped that “The Unhatched Flame” wouldn’t resort to any impulsive actions that would leave both the testers and the game developers deeply regretful.
Of course, there was no clock in the bathroom.
Xu Dengming silently counted her heartbeats to keep track of time.
“Bang!”
It seemed like only a moment had passed before a loud shattering sound came from the master bedroom.
The kettle had shattered.
Xu Dengming patted her clothes and stood up from the floor.
She didn’t leave the bathroom immediately but first preemptively swallowed the pill in her mouth, then pressed her eye to the crack in the door.
She needed to confirm the situation outside first.
In many horror-themed works, there’s always that dreadful scene where “someone peeks through the door crack/keyhole and ends up staring directly into an eye.”
Fortunately, Xu Dengming didn’t encounter such a situation.
What she saw through the crack was still the empty living room.
A gust of wind blew by, making Xu Dengming’s hair stand on end-she noticed the wind had already pushed open the half-closed door of the master bedroom.
Xu Dengming timed her exit from the bathroom perfectly.
She moved swiftly and quietly to the master bedroom, using her left hand to close the door as silently as possible, while her right hand pulled out the master bedroom key and decisively locked the door.
Though the strength of this body wasn’t great, her hands were surprisingly steady.
After completing everything, Xu Dengming took two steps back.
Even though her heartbeat remained faint, she felt a layer of cold sweat had formed on her forehead from the tension.
Strenuous activity could easily trigger her condition, so Xu Dengming swallowed another pill, then walked to the kitchen counter on the south side, crouched down, and reached out to pull open the cabinet door beneath it.
-For her, opening the cabinet door was the most crucial and important attempt in the entire game.
The subsequent situation could almost determine Xu Dengming’s life or death in the game.
Xu Dengming acted this way because she clearly remembered that in the first playthrough, the woman’s blood had only spread to the edge of the kitchen counter before being blocked and stopped from flowing further.
However, the kitchen counter’s coverage was limited, and there was an unobstructed gap between it and the northern wall.
Why hadn’t the woman’s blood flowed into the living room after reaching this gap?
This suspicion led Xu Dengming to combine it with some information she had gathered from the children’s room, making her suspect that there might be an empty space beneath the southern kitchen counter.
The woman’s blood wasn’t blocked; it had flowed underneath the counter.
Xu Dengming moved quickly but cautiously.
As she pulled open the cabinet door, her body completely held its breath.
Behind the door was a pitch-black void.
Xu Dengming leaned in, gently tapping the floor with her hand.
The sound echoed from beneath the floor-it was indeed hollow.
“Thud! Thud! Thud!”
Both the living room and the master bedroom windows remained closed, yet the wind inside the room grew fierce, slamming against the door repeatedly.
Xu Dengming crawled into the cabinet, feeling around on the dark floor until she finally found something resembling a handle.
She pulled the handle, and with the dim light from outside, Xu Dengming saw a simple staircase leading underground.
Having come this far, Xu Dengming didn’t hesitate.
She first extended her legs into the hole, stepped onto the stairs, and then began descending, holding onto the railing.
Perhaps sensing her movement, a faint light flickered on beside the stairs.
With this minimal illumination, Xu Dengming noticed a red crayon drawing on the wall.
The drawing depicted a happy stick figure driving a car, joyfully flying into the clouds.
Xu Dengming had finally returned to the room she had seen at the very beginning of the game.
This room had no windows on the walls, was slightly damp, and judging by the furniture style, at least one child lived here.
However, this room differed from the one Xu Dengming had seen before the basement area was noticeably larger, filled with stacks of books and numerous experimental tools whose purposes Xu Dengming couldn’t discern.
Xu Dengming’s gaze wandered over the books, finally settling on the “Word Dictionary” tucked inside the cabinet, a faint smile appearing on her face.
-It was the dictionary.
Of course, there should be a dictionary here.
What had initially made Xu Dengming suspect the existence of an underground area in the house was the annotations the child had made in various books.
The annotations were mostly explanations of obscure words, with some notes appearing newer than others.
To do this, Guo Jiajia must have had a frequently used dictionary, yet Xu Dengming hadn’t found such a book in the room.
The diary also didn’t mention the “father” ever tearing up a dictionary.
Xu Dengming had considered whether the dictionary had been destroyed before Guo Jiajia started recording her daily life, but the man’s emotional instability was a gradual process.
When he first began tearing up Guo Jiajia’s belongings, he would still find similar books to compensate.
The man completely gave up on compensatory actions on July 30th, by which time it had already been over half a year since Guo Jiajia obtained the diary.
After leaving the children’s room, Xu Dengming explored the entire house again.
She also didn’t find the dictionary in the master bedroom or the guest kitchen and bathroom areas.
As for the storage room, the thick layer of dust on the floor ruled out the possibility that Guo Jiajia had placed frequently used items there.
Guo Jiajia’s residence was located on the first floor.
Considering her family was full of secrets, having a basement wasn’t an entirely unreasonable design.
If the floor had been higher, Xu Dengming might have had to search upwards to rule out the possibility of a hidden compartment in the ceiling.
In addition to her own bedroom, the child’s activity area also included part of the basement.
Guo Jiajia needed to take medication long-term and might have had to frequently go to the basement level to conduct certain experiments, so she had placed some frequently used reference books there.