That icy sensation once again slid from Yan Wei’s neck to his cheek.
The rain, carried by the cold wind, kept blowing in. Yet, Yan Wei felt a chilling coldness enveloping his entire body, different from the cold wind. It lingered by his side, as if he were standing in front of an ice-cold morgue cabinet. Ahead, there was clearly nothing, and the carriage with its doors wide open stood quietly before them.
The others began to show different reactions.
Like Xu Miaomiao and Yan Wei, they all sensed the invisible fear to varying degrees.
Yan Wei raised his hand slightly, his fingers twitching, but ultimately, he lowered it. His body data and perception skills couldn’t be used directly, so it was better not to act rashly.
The icy sensation moved from where his chin met his cheek, creeping upward along with the dropping temperature, eventually stopping by the corner of his eye.
Yan Wei felt a damp stickiness.
Yan Mingguang looked at him and, in the next moment, frowned and took out a tissue. Lin Qing also turned grim, saying, “Yan Wei, your face.”
Yan Wei raised an eyebrow but didn’t take out a mirror. He seemed utterly indifferent to the state of his face, simply raising his hand to touch the spot where he had felt the sensation. His fingers also felt the stickiness. He brought it to his eyes and saw—it was bright red blood.
A petty trick.
But Yan Wei’s cleanliness obsession kicked in instantly. His previously slightly smiling face froze. He couldn’t wait for Yan Mingguang to help him wipe it off; he snatched the tissue and vigorously scrubbed his cheek several times. Still unsatisfied, he took out a wet wipe and cleaned it several more times.
Yan Wei’s delay lasted a while, and the other players had already cautiously entered the carriage. They had initially paid some attention to Yan Wei, the “new face,” but seeing him like this, their curiosity waned.
For someone like Zhao Jingchen, who had witnessed Yan Wei’s performance on the 49th floor, though he had an idea of who Yan Wei was, he didn’t pay much attention either.
In their eyes, no matter how skilled or promising, he was still just a 49th-floor player, likely to be a burden on the 89th floor. Paying attention to him was less worthwhile than focusing on Yan Mingguang, who had recently been making waves in the tower, or Lin Qing, who had extensive experience on the 89th floor and was known for her ruthlessness.
At this level, no one wasted words. Each had their own calculations, quickly sizing up the situation before entering.
By the time Yan Wei finished wiping his face, only Ding Xiao and Xu Miaomiao remained.
Ding Xiao hadn’t moved.
Xu Miaomiao, who had been brought up by Ding Xiao, naturally didn’t move either. Seeing Ding Xiao staring at Yan Wei and the others, she thought it was because of her earlier greeting to Yan Wei and whispered, “Sister Ding, you haven’t been keeping up with the tower’s developments, so you might not have seen them. Yan Wei is the Blackbird player who partnered with me over half a year ago. The Morning Star couldn’t get anyone in this time, thanks to them.”
Yan Wei and the others, as if they hadn’t heard Xu Miaomiao’s words, followed the others into the carriage.
Ding Xiao’s eyes shifted, her lips curving into a smile. Her peach-blossom-like eyes exuded a warmth that starkly contrasted with the eerie atmosphere of the instance.
She simply said, “Let’s go in.”
A strong wind blew across the platform, rustling loudly, causing another section of the railing outside the platform to collapse.
Amid the thunderous roars and the heavy rain, Ding Xiao and Xu Miaomiao also stepped into the carriage. The moment Xu Miaomiao entered, the carriage door slammed shut with a loud “clang,” isolating the world inside the train from the outside.
The platform was empty. The train let out a long whistle, and the wheels beneath each carriage began to roll slowly, grinding against the rust-covered tracks. Rainwater slid down the blood-stained metal, as if blood was flowing along the train.
This carriage seemed to be a dining car. A narrow aisle ran down the middle, with rectangular tables and benches on either side. There were six tables in total, and at the end of the carriage was a counter with some utensils and kitchenware, seemingly a place to order and prepare simple meals.
When they boarded from the platform, although it was cloudy outside, it was clearly still daytime. But inside the carriage, the only light came from dim, yellow bulbs hanging from the ceiling, providing barely any illumination.
The train started moving too quickly. Yan Wei and the others had just entered the carriage and barely taken in their surroundings when they were jolted by the sudden acceleration.
Zhao Jingchen stumbled, nearly falling onto one of the tables.
He quickly steadied himself and took a few steps back, distancing himself from the table—everyone had seen, when the lightning flashed, a dirty thing with half its neck broken sitting at that table.
Yan Wei, on the other hand, was steadied by Yan Mingguang, silently observing everything.
A dozen people standing in one carriage made it feel very crowded. Coupled with the dim lighting and their body data reverting to that of ordinary people, it was hard to make out most faces at a glance.
Very dim.
Very quiet.
Or rather, although the sound of the train moving was right beside them, and the voices of the dozen people came and went, the surroundings felt eerily silent and hollow. The string of bulbs hanging from the ceiling swayed, making everyone’s hearts shudder.
Yan Wei’s sense of foreboding grew heavier.
Death Pressure was a relatively rare type of special instance. In such instances, the body index and perception skills that players prided themselves on in the tower world were of no use. The form of the ghosts or monsters in the instance was uncertain, but they posed an absolute danger to the players—the players had little to no ability to resist.
In such instances, players were just ordinary people with skills and items, and it was the ghosts or monsters that were restricted—they needed certain conditions to kill.
As for what those conditions were?
They had no idea.
All other Death Pressure instances were the same. At the start of the instance, without any hints, players had no way of knowing when death would come.
The quickest way to get clues was through the start of the death harvest. As long as someone died, it meant information was coming. So all the high-level players present, including Yan Wei, made no unnecessary moves. No one wanted to be the one to pave the way.
Before long, from the connected carriage ahead, a man in a white chef’s uniform seemed to be pushing a small cart slowly toward them.
Everyone fell silent, watching.
As he approached, under the dim light, everyone finally got a clear look at this person—if he was indeed a person.
He was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man, wearing a pristine white chef’s uniform and a neatly placed chef’s hat. His face bore the wrinkles of age, but his features were plain, with no hint of anything related to those dirty things. So ordinary that if they had seen him anywhere else, no one would have given him a second glance.
The man stopped inside the carriage and, without a word, began taking things out of the cart. “Passengers, please come and get your dinner. You can eat it here in the dining car or take it back to your sleeping car. The meal boxes include utensils, and if you need extra, you can get them from the counter. These are the door cards for your sleeping cars. There are no numbers; any empty cabin is available.”
Yan Wei followed the man’s movements and saw that on the table nearest to him were sixteen meal boxes, each packed in a plastic bag, ready to be carried away. The door cards the man mentioned were placed inside each plastic bag, presumably meant to be taken along with the food.
After setting everything down, the man said, “I live in the next carriage. If you have any problems, feel free to come find me.”
Though he said that, no one responded—they were all veterans who had been through countless instances and knew better than to foolishly try to interrogate a suspicious NPC at the start of an instance.
The man seemed genuinely just a crew member in charge of these trivial matters. After arranging everything, he turned and pushed the cart back toward the carriage he had come from.
The dim yellow light swayed, stretching the middle-aged man’s shadow longer and longer until he disappeared into the carriage ahead.
Outside the train, the rain continued to pour, its sound mingling with the mechanical noise of the train’s movement.
Yan Wei counted the meal boxes again—still sixteen.
Back on the platform, before boarding, he had counted the number of people getting on—also sixteen. Now, although it was hard to see everyone’s faces clearly in the carriage, there were still sixteen people, matching the number of meal boxes.
Instances often played the trick of having ghosts or monsters blend in with the players, so everyone was particularly sensitive to the number of people. At the moment, it seemed there was no issue with the numbers.
In the silence, Ding Xiao was the first to step forward, casually picking up two meal boxes. She handed one to Xu Miaomiao and said, “I just looked at the signs in the carriages. The front and back of the dining car are passenger carriages. As long as you have a door card, you should be able to choose any cabin. These randomly distributed meal boxes are entirely a matter of luck. I’ll take Miaomiao and get settled first. Everyone, feel free to do as you please.”
High-level players were fewer in number and didn’t cause the chaos seen on lower floors. Unless there was a necessity or existing enmity, high-level players were at least polite at the start.
Xu Miaomiao followed behind Ding Xiao, whispering, “Sister Ding, should we team up with Blackbird? You and Lin Qing from Blackbird are on good terms, right? I think Zhao Jingchen seems to have ill intentions. Lin Qing brought two ‘newbies’ who are on their first 89th-floor instance and might be overburdened. I’ve dealt with Yan Wei before; if we can do him a favor this time, it won’t be a loss.”
“Not yet,” Ding Xiao smiled and shook her head, her steps not faltering. “We might still need to rely on them.”
After Ding Xiao led Xu Miaomiao away, the others also stepped forward to pick up meal boxes and find their cabins. Yan Wei and the others did the same.
Only Zhao Jingchen, as Yan Wei picked up a meal box and turned, curled his lips and softly said, “Your face is quite beautiful, even more so than the faces of the girls I’ve used. If you die, make sure to protect that face.”
Yan Wei paused, turning to look at Zhao Jingchen. He couldn’t see the upper half of Zhao Jingchen’s face, but a quick glance at the lower half gave him a sense of familiarity.
Maybe he’d seen him in the instance records? Zhao Jingchen hadn’t been around when he first entered the tower.
Yan Mingguang seemed to have heard their exchange. He turned and gave Zhao Jingchen a cold look before taking Yan Wei’s hand and leading him away.
Zhao Jingchen, caught off guard by the look, instinctively stiffened. Lin Qing, following closely, also said coldly, “Watch your mouth, or I’ll make sure your death is as dirty as your words.”
Zhao Jingchen gritted his teeth, “You really dote on him, but I particularly enjoy destroying such pampered newcomers.”
Lin Qing seemed too lazy to bother with him, already walking with Yan Mingguang and Yan Wei toward the rear carriages.
The train continued to move through the wilderness. Outside the windows, the rain was heavy, mixed with cold fog, creating a watery veil that obscured the view. But there wasn’t much to see outside—just a desolate expanse of rocks and wild grass.
Yan Mingguang and Yan Wei passed through several carriages already chosen by players and arrived at an empty passenger carriage. They slid open the door and entered. These carriages were sleeper cars, with two bunk beds opposite each other, totaling four beds per compartment. In the middle by the window was a small table, empty.
From the setup, it was no different from an ordinary train sleeper car.
“Checked them all,” Lin Qing said as she followed them in. “Each carriage has three rooms like this. The restrooms are shared, one per carriage. The sleeper setups are all the same. They’re all searching, but there’s no difference. Personally, I think searching won’t reveal anything different.”
So it was a matter of luck in choosing a cabin.
“Then let’s stay here,” Yan Wei said. “Since we need to wait for the danger to appear, being too picky might backfire. Let’s just choose beds randomly. Before midnight, if anything unusual happens, switch with me. If I don’t die today, I’ll take on any danger.”
Yan Mingguang said, “Be careful of injuries.”
“Don’t worry.”
Though players wouldn’t be foolish enough to clash right at the start, they were still wary of each other. After the three of them entered, Lin Qing closed the door and immediately locked it.
Night was falling.
Their meal boxes, still wrapped in plastic bags, were placed on the small table. Yan Wei stood by the table, looking out the window through the streaming water droplets. At the intersection of day and night, there was only a faint light outside, and the wild grass and rocks were no longer visible. The light inside the carriage was already brighter than outside, and the window reflected Yan Wei’s own face.
The slanting flow of water on the window slid down with the wind, passing over the reflection of Yan Wei’s face.
“Boom—”
Yan Wei stared for a while, barely able to make out the endless train body, unable to see the front or rear of the train. Without the aid of perception skills, it was impossible to see clearly outside. He gave up, planning to look again in the daylight tomorrow.
Just as Yan Wei was about to turn away, his gaze, withdrawing from the window, suddenly froze on the glass.
On the water-streaked glass, where his reflection was, a blurry white face slowly emerged. The face was deathly pale, with decayed corpse spots on the cheeks. The eyes were wide open, completely black with no whites.
The entirely black eyes stared unblinkingly at Yan Wei, the bloodless lips twitching slightly, then slowly stretching into a smile.
Before Yan Wei could react, a chill ran down his waist.
He looked down.
A pale, blood-stained hand reached out from behind him, gripping his waist. Below, in the shadows cast by the bunk beds, another equally pale hand slowly extended from the left rear, about to grab Yan Wei’s ankle.
He spun around—there was nothing there.
