Giving Interstellar Players a Horror Ghost Game Shock - Chapter 56
“Huh?” Ji Yu was the first to express disbelief.
“There are clearly… one, two, three…”
“Eight dolls.” Ye Yuxi’s calm voice broke in. She looked at Liu Yuling, her tone and demeanor exuding a steady authority that was hard to ignore.
“Sister Yu, what we see is a red circuit breaker with a peeling paint job, partially covered. There are eight dolls surrounding it on the outside, and we have no idea what’s inside. What exactly did you see?”
While the other two remained confused, Ye Yuxi quickly pieced things together.
This was because it was part of the side quest she had designed. She’d just forgotten about it amid all the recent additions.
It seemed Liu Xuejie had pretty good luck, stumbling into the hidden storyline of this house.
Yes, Residential Battle Royale might appear to be a simple exploration and survival game, but Ye Yuxi had hidden narrative threads within every house. Whether players could unlock them depended on their skill.
That said, the fact that a renowned streamer team only uncovered a hint of the plot at this point suggested her difficulty settings might need tweaking before the game’s release.
Lost in thought, she decided she’d lower the threshold a bit.
Anyway, once marked by the ghost hiding in this mansion, the player’s stamina and sanity points would gradually decline. After a drop of about 10 sanity points, the first hallucination would trigger.
Usually, the hallucination would involve a scene of the malicious ghost hunting the player, designed to scare them senseless and further erode their sanity points. But there was a 5% chance that players would briefly share the ghost’s perspective, gaining crucial clues.
Still, uncovering a hidden plotline had its drawbacks.
Once a clue was triggered, whether the player figured it out or not, the ghost would actively seek them out soon after…
Unaware that Ye Yuxi was the mastermind behind the game, Ji Yu and Wang Yuze stared at her in astonishment. This quiet, unassuming Miss Y suddenly seemed like someone entirely new.
In this eerie, chilling setting, she still had the composure to count dolls? Could she be some hidden expert?
Liu Yuling didn’t answer. Her eyes remained dazed, and her expression absent.
She felt as though she was in an incredibly strange state. Her eyes burned with heat, yet her limbs were icy cold, as if her bl00d flow had been forcibly interrupted.
This contrast made the heat in her eyes increasingly unbearable.
Her brain felt aflame, blocking out the sensations of coldness.
In this state, she began to see things she wouldn’t normally perceive.
The circuit breaker, decayed and peeling in her teammates’ eyes, morphed into a display cabinet with double glass doors in her vision. The wooden frame was inlaid with bl00d-red gemstones that emitted a nauseating glow.
The cabinet had a large glass front, behind which was a small girl curled up inside.
The girl had honey-colored short curls, with her fluffy hair cheekily flipping up near her ears, making her round face appear even cuter.
Her body was thin and small, with only a little flesh on her cheeks.
Judging from her appearance, Liu Yuling estimated she wasn’t even two years old, possibly just over one. Wait—at that age, she should still be considered an infant, right? How could she be locked in here?
Liu Yuling bit her lip, her heart racing with concern.
Caught up in her thoughts, she completely ignored the thermometer in her hand, whose temperature readings were plummeting.
The others, however, noticed the sharp drop in temperature. Their expressions changed as they tensely scanned their surroundings.
Wang Yuze immediately switched his flashlight to ultraviolet mode, one hand shining the beam in all directions while the other clenched into a fist, ready to take a swing at a ghost if needed.
Ye Yuxi sighed in amazement at his resolve. Truly, a hot-blooded military cadet—scared time and again but still undeterred.
That rebellious streak was what she liked about these people. If everyone trembled like Ji Yu, she wouldn’t find this nearly as entertaining.
As Ye Yuxi waited eagerly for what would happen next, with Ji Yu trembling and Wang Yuze on high alert, a sudden scream pierced the air:
“Ah—!”
Wang Yuze nearly threw his flashlight in reflex. Realizing what had happened, he was exasperated.
“Sister Yu, the ghost hasn’t even shown up yet! Why are you screaming?”
His complaint faltered as he took in Liu Yuling’s condition and froze in alarm.
“You… what’s wrong with you?”
Liu Yuling clutched her head, enduring wave after wave of sharp pain. Her brows furrowed deeply, but she refused to give up thinking.
Something’s wrong. Something’s definitely wrong… I must have missed a clue! She felt as if she had caught a fleeting thread of inspiration.
“I… I’ve figured it out!” Liu Yuling’s eyes widened. A strand of hair stuck to her forehead, damp with sweat, but her expression was brimming with excitement.
“The owner of the villa came home from work one day and found a doll lying in the cradle, but the daughter who was originally there was gone…”
“Doesn’t that remind you of something?!”
Wang Yuze frowned.
He usually didn’t like to overthink, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t follow the train of thought.
“You’re saying the doll replaced the daughter’s identity?”
“Exactly!” Liu Yuling’s eyes gleamed as the pieces of the puzzle finally came together.
“When I made all that noise in the living room earlier for the livestream, I must have angered the doll, who’s considered the little owner of this house! After it targeted me, I heard noises from the entrance—it was trying to drive me out…”
As she spoke, the basement temperature dropped further, plummeting to around -10°C.
Everyone could feel it: an intensely chilling presence was closing in on them.
At the same time, the system notification chimed in again.
Ding Dong~ Congratulations to Player Jade Willow for leading the ‘Streamers Invicible’ team in triggering the hidden storyline: The Missing Daughter.
The mischievous doll has hidden the homeowner’s little girl, leaving her parents deeply worried~ Players, please work hard to reunite this poor family with their child!
If you can help the homeowners reunite with their daughter, they might even reward you with a much higher bounty~
This was the public announcement, but Liu Yuling also received a private one:
Congratulations to Player Jade Willow for achieving the title: Sister Carrying the Doll. Be careful, though—the doll is very petty, hehe~
The playful tone at the end made Liu Yuling shiver, snapping her back to her senses and out of the bizarre state she had been in.
As her overheated brain cooled, she suddenly realized her entire body was covered in goosebumps.
“W-What’s going on? It’s so cold—does this mean the ghost is coming?!”
Ji Yu, however, was completely fixated on the mention of a higher bounty, growing increasingly frantic.
“Forget the ghost! If it comes, I’ll just slap a talisman on it! The priority right now is figuring out where this family’s daughter is hidden by the doll. Could she really be inside this breaker box?”
Liu Yuling glanced at it. At this moment, her vision had returned to normal.
“No, that was just an illusion. Through the doll’s perspective, I saw the child. This should just be a breaker box…” But none of them were in the mood to inspect it further.
Wang Yuze, while remaining vigilant, joined the discussion.
“If the doll and the baby swapped identities, wouldn’t their locations have also switched? The doll appeared in the baby’s cradle, so the baby should…”
“No, the task description said the doll was placed on the bed by the homeowner before they left. If we follow that logic, the baby should have been on the bed, but we didn’t find her there!”
Ye Yuxi, who had been listening to their circular reasoning, finally lost her patience.
“Isn’t it possible that the doll wasn’t usually kept on the bed?”
Liu Yuling froze.
Her mind replayed the scene she had witnessed earlier.
“I understand now…” Liu Yuling was just about to speak when—
Creak—
The half-closed breaker box door suddenly swung open, and the doll hanging on the handle fell to the ground. However, everyone’s attention was drawn to what was inside, leaving the fallen doll completely ignored.
The breaker box was stuffed with a tangle of complicated wires, packed tightly together. Amid the gaps between the wires was a doll with honey-colored long hair!
Its tiny hand rested on the main switch of the breaker. Despite being discovered, it showed no fear. The fixed smile on its face seemed to widen, like a mischievous child caught in the act.
Slowly, it began to turn its head, as if wanting to face the players directly.
But then—
Thud.
Something rolled down.
The doll’s head had fallen off, rolling twice on the ground before finally facing the players directly.