Hell App

-19th Floor.

The four surviving players stood by the hall, staring at the iron door in front of them with indescribable expressions on their faces.

When they first came here, there were 11 people, but now, less than half of the dead were left.

What was even worse was that they were about to enter the same room as Liu Xiyu.

Liu Xiyu hardly knew what the players thought of her. She just fixed her gaze at the iron door at the center of the wall, feeling somewhat excited but also somewhat afraid.

In her previous dreams, the furthest she’s been was on the -17th floor.

It was also her first time coming to the -19th floor.

In her dream, the floors in the cellars kept jumping, and she was also confused by this. She didn’t have a backbone and only knew how to follow the stream of people as they moved.

But, she also had the same feeling that if she didn’t enter, she would still have the same nightmare after two days.

That she would also walk through the desolate park alone, getting a ticket from the ticket master and entering the dreadful cellar.

After that, she would once again come across a new set of faceless monsters, exchanging a few simple words with them and trying to break through the barrier with them. Once nearly all of the faceless were dead, she would once again reach this place and suddenly be awakened the next second, repeating everything as before until she completed the game.

“… I don’t want to repeat this dream again!”

Liu Xiyu has never been injured by these malicious ghosts before to the extent that they had never pulled out even a single strand of her hair.

However, she witnessed the many deaths of these faceless monsters and always felt strange. Even if those monsters didn’t have faces, she still grew to fear them just as much as she feared the ghosts, but they were still people from another world. She would also feel uncomfortable watching them be tortured by the ghosts.

“If I don’t go now… I’d still go back to this place next time…”

Liu Xiyu gave herself a pep talk in whispers, trying to psych herself up.

This time, she didn’t wait for the black mist to trail behind them and also didn’t wait for the other players to enter. For the first time, she summoned her courage to take the lead and pushed the door open.

“Creak——”

The heavy iron door opened.

What appeared beyond the door was a clean Mahogany table, and apart from the black and white picture arranged on top of the tables, nothing else was there.

Bloodstains, broken limbs, sharp screeches… Every bloody and terrible item was nowhere to be found inside the room. Yet, the players’ expressions didn’t loosen up.

Because this was a picture of the deceased(1).

1. In Chinese culture, a picture of the recently deceased would usually be in black and white and would have flowers and black ribbons on it.

When the last player had entered, the iron door closed by itself.

Compared to the previous games, this room’s atmosphere made everyone feel an immense amount of pressure. There was nothing there, which meant that it would be difficult to find some clues.

Liu Xiyu stood there and just blankly stared at the photo, her entire being stood motionless as if she were startled by something.

Bai Yan was still unclear of their current situation, so he didn’t want to touch the suspicious photo rashly. But, Tom, on the other hand, this surviving player walked towards it and tried to touch the picture——

“Don’t touch it!”

Liu Xiyu abruptly yelled, “Don’t touch my mom’s photo!”

Tom’s hand was frozen midair, then he quickly recoiled back to the door, not daring to make another reckless move.

Through Liu Xiyu’s words, every player was able to decipher this place’s story. The posthumous photo of Liu Xiyu’s mother… was at the end, so this room must have been her real home.

Deep down, everyone was trying to figure out how useful Liu Xiyu would be in this game. However, Liu Xiyu paid no mind to them. At this moment, she wasn’t thinking of clearing the game.

Right now, all of her energy was centralized on the photo.

Liu Xiyu knew what posthumous photos were. She’s seen these black and white pictures on TV. Only if the person was dead were their photos to be decorated like this.

But, her mom wasn’t dead, she was only missing. This was also merely a dream, so this couldn’t be true!

Liu Xiyu’s heart shook in its entirety and couldn’t accept the image in front of her eyes.

Her mother was smiling prettily in the picture and was as gentle as the real one.

She didn’t know why, but she knew that it was fake. But, seeing her mother’s picture, Liu Xiyu’s nose first turned sour as her tears began to flow involuntarily.

She still had a lot left to say to her mom, but she suddenly went missing, and no matter how hard her dad searched, they couldn’t find her.

Even in her dreams, she still couldn’t find her mom. It was only this picture where she saw her again…

Inside her dream, Liu Xiyu’s emotions rapidly transformed into something else.

No other danger seemed to be in this room, and her heart had also learned to stop being terrified of ghosts long ago, so she reached out her hand to the photo, intending to take it away.

Even if it were a dream, she still didn’t want her mom’s photo to be left in this place. She wanted to bring this picture with her, much like how every day, before she went to sleep, she would place her mom’s picture under her pillow.

Liu Xiyu grabbed the picture frame, and the moment she touched it, she seemed to have heard a voice——

That voice sounded awfully familiar, she’s heard it countless times while growing up. It was her mom’s voice, there’s no doubt about it!

“Wish…”

“… My wish is… I wish that my daughter would never be killed by ghosts!”

The voice was fleeting, merely echoing through Liu Xiyu’s ears, as though it had never emerged in the first place, fading into nothingness without a trace.

It’s been a while since she’s last heard her mom’s voice, and so, Liu Xiyu’s tears fell like rainwater.

Her tears continuously fell one by one, landing on top of the photo and flowing down her mom’s photo.

She didn’t understand what these words meant, but after hearing her voice, the only emotion she could feel was being wronged. If her mother was in her dream, why didn’t she meet with her? Didn’t she know how much Liu Xiyu missed her…

Liu Xiyu hugged the picture and drooped her head, emitting quiet sobs. Bai Yan and the others didn’t hear the voice and could only hear Liu Xiyu’s cries, unconsciously becoming somewhat puzzled.

Before anyone could analyze what was between Liu Xiyu’s crying and the posthumous picture, the scene in front of their eyes abruptly transformed into something else.

After their dizziness had passed, they bizarrely appeared in front of the ticket booth. Tom disappeared out of sight, while Liu Xiyu was still hugging the picture and crying in front of them.

Right at the next second, the sky began to fall, shattering into small pieces.

Bai Yan hurriedly lowered his head and saw that the app had already illuminated the return button, signifying that Liu Xiyu was about to wake up.

Liu Xiyu was about to regain consciousness, which meant that the dream world was going to be destroyed. Although the last game was unexpectedly easy, it was a pleasant surprise for the surviving three as they pressed the return button one after another.

After the three left, this world was abruptly torn apart. Liu Xiyu groggily kneaded her eyes and turned to the side, getting up from her bed into a sitting position.

“Mom…”

Liu Xiyu wiped away her tears because when she was sleeping, she had actually cried.

She lifted her hand to open the lights, and the warm lighting made her feel a bit better.

She took out the picture under her pillow, this was a family picture of the three of them.

Dad, mom, as well as her.

In the picture, she was standing in between her mom and dad, smiling in complete bliss.

During the day, dad was busy with work, and outside of that time, he was asking for help to look for her mom. During the evening, he was also busy sorting out matters about mom.

Every night, she only felt a sense of safety when resting her head against the family picture.

Liu Xiyu gazed at the picture, thinking back to the time when her mom was still there and how happy the three of them were. At that time, her dad wasn’t as haggard as he was now.

Ever since mom went missing, not only her, but dad also aged a lot during a short amount of time, even starting to grow white hair on his head.

While looking at the picture, Liu Xiyu gradually became despondent.

She stared at the picture of her mom in a daze. Her mom was so beautiful. She was wearing a pretty dress while holding her hand. Her mom’s eyes were filled with love as she looked at her. But as if she felt her mood, her mom in the picture suddenly turned her eyes and looked straight at her…

Looked straight at her…

Liu Xiyu felt extraordinarily touched, but she was only excited for a moment. Then, she suddenly came to realize, how could the eyes of a person in a picture move?

She nervously bit her lip and looked at her mom in the photo. Her mom fixed her gaze right onto her while a strange laugh echoed in her head.

What was even stranger was that inside the photo, her mom’s face was deathly pale, and her eyes became extremely threatening. Liu Xiyu moved her eyes. The person in the picture seemed to come to life, and when she shot a glance at it, her mom’s eyes would meet her gaze.

Her mom was always paying attention to her…

The woman’s eyes in the picture kept on moving. When Liu Xiyu quickly shifted her gaze onto the picture and didn’t move, the woman in the photo’s eyes also didn’t move.

Yet, when she fixed her gaze on Liu Xiyu, her strange smile became bigger and bigger as her head gradually stretched forward from the picture. Perhaps it wouldn’t take much time before she would come out of the photo…

Liu Xiyu saw this scene, causing her hands to fiercely shudder, but she still didn’t throw the photo away.

She remembered her dream, remembered the posthumous photo in her dream.

She felt a cold shiver running down her spine and suddenly turned her head around, only to discover that the bottle of tiny human heads, the teacher with an upside-down face… and all the other monsters came out of her dream, one after another. They all surrounded her bed, and her bed was completely blocked.

Liu Xiyu became aware of something, and terror flashed through her eyes. Her hand pinched the photo as she withdrew to her bed. However, when they saw her recoiling, the ghosts from the dream all gathered together, getting closer and closer to her.

Eternal fear engulfed Liu Xiyu’s heart. She wanted to scream, wanted to call for help, wanted to eat people… Slowly, she looked at her smirking mother, and suddenly, she wasn’t that afraid anymore.

Gradually, her mouth pulled up to the same smirk as the woman in the picture.

She lowered her forehead and extended her neck into the picture. In a blink of an eye, she disappeared from the room without a trace, and the ghosts had also disappeared with her. The room turned eerily silent, and not a single person’s shadow was in sight.

With no one holding it, the picture drifted in the wind and landed on the mattress, quietly laying at the center of the bed, motionlessly.

In the photo, the young girl’s and her mother’s complexions were pale white, and their faces contained the same smirk.

They miserably turned their heads to look at the man standing at the leftmost side, staring at him, staring at him until the middle of the night, a sound of a key unlocking a door could be heard.

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T/N: Aw man, I thought that when her mom made the wish, this story would have a happy ending :((