Having learned her lesson from before, Lu Xiao was smarter this time.
She specifically used her peripheral vision to measure the distance, then silently shuffled over in small steps to pick the corner farthest from Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting—making sure that even if the two suddenly lashed out, they couldn’t reach her—and only then carefully lit the candle.
The instant the flame touched the wick, a cold, yin chill spread rapidly across the sunlit balcony.
Because it was daytime now, the balcony had plenty of sunlight, so the phantom images produced after lighting the candle weren’t as clear as they’d been in the dim room earlier.
But in that hazy, distorted light and shadow, everyone still clearly saw a bone-chilling scene.
In midair, a blurred figure was plunging straight downward in an extremely twisted posture—head down, feet up.
Thump—!
Though no sound could be heard, from the blood bursting open and the twisted bones the instant the phantom smashed into the ground, everyone’s minds automatically filled in the dull impact of the fall.
The falling figure was none other than the male player who’d just fallen from the fourth floor and triggered the system death announcement!
After landing, the phantom didn’t disappear—like a rewound tape, it returned upstairs and repeated the falling process again.
Over and over.
Each time it fell, the male player’s face turned to face the five people on the balcony.
Those eyeballs, bulging from extreme terror and unwillingness, stared dead at every person on the balcony.
The look was full of venomous resentment and despair, as if silently demanding: Why was it me who died?
Why aren’t you down here with me yet?
The surrounding temperature seemed to plummet to freezing in an instant.
Zhu Xiang went deathly pale with fright, clutching Du Yunhao’s arm, her breathing stopping entirely.
Du Yunhao swallowed too, instinctively stepping back half a pace, every muscle in his body taut.
Just as this horror atmosphere was rendered to its peak, every heart clenched tight by those undying, unclosed eyes—
A gust of wind suddenly swept past Lu Xiao.
Lu Xiao only felt her vision blur, and her hand was suddenly empty.
Her hand, still holding the candle up, maintained its stiff posture, but the candle in her palm had vanished.
Whoosh—
Yu Huaiting moved swift as lightning. The instant he snatched the candle, he blew it out in one breath.
That bone-chilling phantom of the falling man instantly dissolved in the sunlight, as if it had never appeared.
Immediately after, Yu Huaiting quickly stuffed the half-length candle backward.
Standing behind him, Fu Songcheng didn’t even lift an eyelid. He reached out with utter naturalness and precisely caught the candle, then backhanded a grab and, at the speed of light, stowed the candle into his own system backpack.
The entire process flowed like water, the coordination seamless.
From robbery to disposal of the loot—in under two seconds.
Lu Xiao was completely stunned.
She maintained her cupped-hand gesture, eyes wide as copper bells, looking in disbelief at these two well-dressed, formidable men before her.
What did they just do?!
They’d just openly, in broad daylight, robbed her!
So expertly!
So shamelessly!
Lu Xiao’s lips trembled for a long while, and all her countless words finally turned into a furious inner roar: You two are big shots! Don’t you have your own items?!
After a brief dead silence, the Source Star livestream’s bullet comments instantly erupted.
[I can’t hahahahahaha help, I was scared to death just now, now I’m laughing to death.]
[One second ago I was covering my eyes in fright from that falling ghost, the next second I sprayed a mouthful of water laughing at these two bandits’ moves!]
[Lu Xiao robbed for the 2nd time! What kind of earthly suffering is this hahahaha!]
[Lu Xiao: I’m really at a loss for words, I swear I will never display any item in this instance again!]
[Can you not keep fleecing Lu Xiao alone? The girl’s having a hard enough time (even though I can’t stop laughing).]
Du Yunhao had been so absorbed by the phantom that he hadn’t clearly seen the “dirty transaction” between Yu Huaiting and Fu Songcheng behind the scenes.
Seeing the candle extinguished and the phantom vanish, he finally let out a long breath of turbid air, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and spoke with lingering fear: “It wasn’t like that just now.”
“What was it?”
Fu Songcheng ignored Lu Xiao’s murderous, aggrieved glare and asked calmly, as if he weren’t the one who’d just robbed her.
“Just now in my room, before I left, what I saw wasn’t this male player falling.”
Du Yunhao looked outside the balcony with a complicated expression. “What I saw was a woman in red. She was also falling from above like this, over and over in a loop.”
Hearing this, Zhu Xiang patted her good friend’s back with heartache, soothing his taut emotions.
At these words, Fu Songcheng’s eyes flickered slightly, and he sank into thought.
The red-clothed female ghost falling—now replaced by the player who’d just died falling.
This meant that some kind of “rewind” mechanism in this room or this building was being overwritten by the most recent death.
That red-clothed female ghost must also have experienced the process of dying by falling.
While everyone exchanged clues, Fu Songcheng had actually been devoting part of his attention to the [Peeping Mirror] item all along, keeping constant watch on the movements of the player called Fang Yu in room 101.
Ever since the male player on the fourth floor screamed and fell to his death, Fang Yu seemed to have been massively triggered.
In the Peeping Mirror’s image, he was like a frightened bird—nervously hiding the thing he’d been clutching to his chest into the space under the bed, then curling up in the bed corner trembling, muttering something ceaselessly.
Fu Songcheng withdrew his thoughts, raised his head to sweep the group, and calmly analyzed the situation: “Right now, Fang Yu in room 101, and the player in room 401 who hasn’t shown up at all—those are the ones we haven’t made contact with.”
He paused and began compiling the current information methodically: “We just compared notes. Apart from Lu Xiao in 102, Du Yunhao in 202, and the male player who just died in 402, all of us, in our respective rooms, initially heard footsteps.”
“Since we’re on the second floor now, why don’t we go straight down to 101 on the first floor and find Fang Yu. While we’re at it, we can check out the first-floor garden—maybe looking up from below will reveal something different.”
“Mm-hm.” Yu Huaiting joined the analysis like a studious model student. “The 401 player still hasn’t met us. Either they’re trapped by some special circumstance, or they simply don’t want to act with us.”
This wasn’t a faction confrontation instance—players only needed to survive long enough. Normally, huddling together for warmth and sharing resources was the wisest option.
Yet Fang Yu’s and the 401 player’s behavior clearly defied common sense.
Fu Songcheng nodded approvingly.
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