Global Collapse.

Chapter 948 Catching a Gull in a Jar!

"Dear Doctor, I will be dead by the time you read this letter..."

The fat man suddenly thought of this sentence. It was indeed captivating as the opening of a will, but with no pen or paper at the moment, this suspenseful masterpiece could only be drafted in his mind.

"Boom, boom—"

Stiff footsteps echoed in the room.

At this moment, the fat man realized that the footsteps were coming straight towards him, without stopping or turning, and went straight to his bedside before stopping.

The stench of the corpse reached its peak at this moment.

It was standing right next to the bed.

He was less than half a step away from the fat man.

Through the blanket, you can see a blurry figure by the bedside. If you lift the blanket, the person underneath will be exposed to the ghost.

In fact, the current situation is no different from being exposed.

The fat man's enormous body huddled under a thin blanket, looking like a tumor growing on the bed, and he was still shivering.

If you can't see a ghost, you must be truly blind.

The fat man had already started rummaging through his inventory, trembling, trying to find something useful.

Despite feeling that he had been exposed, he tried to minimize his movements to achieve a self-deceptive effect.

A lantern was taken out of the inventory.

[Eternal Light]

[Function: It always emits a ghostly blue light, illuminating a radius of twenty meters. Ghosts cannot see the light from this lamp, but invisible ghosts will become visible immediately upon entering the illuminated area.]

Blue light filled the space inside the blanket, and the fat man quickly stuffed it back in.

This is useless. If you take it out, the ghost will only be unable to see the light, not the ghost itself.

The fat man thought for a moment, then took out another card from his inventory.

The card is about the size of a playing card, and one side depicts a person dressed as a clown.

【Joker】

[Function: Between 20:00 PM and 3:00 AM the next day, the holder of this identity card will have their presence greatly reduced and can freely roam in the night.]

Lowering one's presence doesn't mean reducing it to zero. Although it's pitch black outside, the fat man can't be sure what time the instance is. It could be before 8 PM or after 3 AM. The Joker can't work outside of a specific time.

I can only pray that it's between 8 PM and 3 AM.

The fat man held the Joker card in both hands, closed his eyes, and prayed.

I can't see me, I can't see me, I can't see me...

As the fat man was muttering to himself, he suddenly felt something was wrong, as if someone was watching him from somewhere.

He turned his head to look, puzzled.

I turned my head and was met with half a face!

A head had somehow crept halfway under the covers and was staring at him menacingly.

Instantly, the fat man felt all his blood freeze, and his mind went completely blank.

He froze for a few seconds, and just as he finally came to his senses and was about to move his body to escape, the half-head that had crawled in suddenly moved.

It was pulled out from under the covers in a flash.

Immediately afterwards, footsteps sounded outside again; it was the sound of people leaving.

What's going on? The fat man was stunned.

He had already imagined the scene of his brains flying out and blood flowing freely, but unexpectedly, the ghost turned around and left.

The incident happened so suddenly that the fat man even wondered if he was dreaming, until the dormitory door was slammed shut, and the sound of the door slamming shut brought him back to his senses.

He touched his head, then his arms and legs; they were all there.

Could it be that the Joker saved his life? The fat man's mind wandered, and he carefully put the Joker into his inner pocket. It seemed that he would have to rely on it to prolong his life from now on.

Although he had escaped a disaster, the fat man couldn't immediately get up, play music, dance, and celebrate. He still listened carefully to the sounds outside until the footsteps in the corridor faded into the distance and finally disappeared completely before he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Although the ghost has left, there is always a possibility that it may return.

If the ghost suddenly turns around and attacks again, who knows if the ghost card can still fool us next time.

It would be best to meet up with Doctor Chu and the others first. Fatty figured they were probably in the dungeon too, but since group chat wasn't available, there was no way to communicate with them. He'd have to find them on foot in the dungeon.

I wonder how big this instance is. Judging from the name, it sounds like a school, which does match the dormitory building.

Schools usually have school map signs to showcase the campus scenery, similar to information boards at tourist attractions. These are often placed in green areas, making it much easier to find people by finding the map.

The fat guy hadn't forgotten that there was someone else in the dorm, right above him in the bunk above him.

Judging from his actions just now, it seems that this person is quite familiar with the dungeon.

The situation was so critical just now that he didn't have time to exchange pleasantries with the other party.

Now that it was finally safe, the fat man spoke up and asked the person above him in a low voice, "Hey buddy, are you new to this instance? You seem pretty familiar with it."

Normally, players in the same instance enter at the same time. However, after experiencing the previous claw machine instance, Fatty felt that this rule was no longer valid, so it's possible that the person in the upper bunk entered the instance earlier than him.

As he spoke, the fat man tried to open the player panel of the person in the upper bunk.

The distance was sufficient, but because of the bed board obstacle in the middle, the fat man was unable to directly open the opposite panel.

He fumbled around for a few seconds, but when he realized he couldn't open it, he gave up and waited for a response from his superiors. But after waiting for quite a while, he still hadn't heard anything from them.

what happened?

He was puzzled. It couldn't be that his voice was too soft and the people above couldn't hear him, so the fat man raised his voice slightly and repeated it.

There has been no response yet.

An eerie silence fell over the dormitory, as if he had been the only person there all along.

He sensed something was wrong. Just then, light shone through a gap in the curtains, illuminating the room. It sounded like a car with its lights on had driven by, or perhaps someone with a flashlight had passed by underneath.

The shadows of the window and the table were projected onto the wall, and the shadow of the person on the bed was also imprinted on the wall.

The fat man looked up and saw his own shadow, a large, indisputable shape. A quick glance upwards revealed the shadow of the person on the upper bunk; the dark mound on the upper bunk proved that someone was indeed up there, and he wasn't alone.

"Are you asleep?"

what?
The person in the upper bunk finally spoke, but what he said left the fat man completely baffled, and he thought he was hallucinating.

"Are you asleep?"

The sound that came through again proved that he was not hallucinating.

The tone of this sentence was exactly the same as the previous one, as if it were being repeated by a broken record, and the voice was hoarse and strange, unlike the sounds of a normal person.

The fat man shut his mouth and didn't dare to say anything for a moment.

He began to feel that those above him were not human.

He stared at the shadow of the upper bunk on the wall and realized that something was wrong with the shadow.

The fat man was large, so his shadow on the wall was also large. But now he noticed that the shadow cast by the person on the upper bunk was twice as large as his own.

He had seen people larger than himself before, but someone twice his size was still a rare sight. At the same time, he noticed that the stench of decay that had been lingering in his nostrils hadn't dissipated.

The fat man had always thought the smell belonged to the ghost that had been standing by the bed earlier, but now that the ghost was gone, the smell hadn't diminished at all.

"Are you asleep?"

"Are you asleep?"

"Are you asleep?"

A barrage of sounds erupted from above again, and the bed began to shake slightly.

That thing on top moved! It's trying to come down!
Even if a dog were lying on the lower bunk, it would know to run away immediately.

Without further hesitation, the fat man jumped out of bed and dashed toward the door.

He took two steps to the door, slammed it shut, and ran out. Before leaving, he quickly glanced to both sides to make sure the two ghosts were no longer in the hallway before he felt safe and ran towards the stairs.

He hadn't run more than a few steps when he heard the bedroom door behind him being opened again, followed by heavy footsteps slowly walking out.

The ghost followed him out!

Did the Joker fail to work this time?

The fat man mustered his courage and glanced back, only to see something shocking emerge from the doorway.

It was a huge, bloated thing covered in tumors, so big that it could block half of the corridor, and its top could even touch the ceiling.

Upon closer inspection, those things on its body were not tumors, but rather swollen and rotting human heads.

Besides the human head, there were countless arms and legs connected to the fleshy ball in the middle that could barely be called a "body".

This is practically a giant human-shaped ball!

It's as if many people grew together, forming this indistinguishable human ball with countless heads, arms, and legs.

Nezha only has three heads and six arms, this thing is even more ruthless than Nezha!
The fat man dared not look any longer, fearing that this thing might pull out a magic ring from somewhere and hit him.

He ran up the stairs, closed the fire door behind him as soon as he entered, and quickly bolted it shut, praying it would keep the ghost away. Every little bit of time he could delay was a good thing.

After finishing that, he continued running down the road without stopping.

Before he had even reached the bottom of the stairs, a loud crash came from behind the fire door. Startled, the fat man leaped down the stairs as fast as he could.

Fortunately, he was lucky—the fire door wasn't a shoddy construction, and it withstood several of the ghost's attacks without breaking down.

The fat man seized the opportunity to escape quickly downstairs. Just after he had escaped two floors, the fire door on top finally met its end, shattering into pieces after a final, feeble groan from the ghost's impact.

Then heavy footsteps echoed down the stairs; the ghost had come chasing after them!

Fortunately, the fat guy had already run down to the first floor, and as soon as he came down, he saw the dormitory building entrance facing the stairs.

The fat man rushed forward and tried to push the door open to escape this terrible dormitory building, but as soon as he pushed, he knew he was in trouble. The door was locked and wouldn't budge no matter how hard he tried.

The fat man is strong; given time, he could easily break down the door.

But now the ghost upstairs is chasing after us downstairs, and there's no time left.

If you spend time smashing the door, the time you delay will be enough for a ghost to come down and stick to his face. The door will be the first to die, and he will be the second.

The fat man had no time to hesitate. He decisively abandoned attacking the building entrance and turned to rush into the room closest to him.

Just as he rushed in and locked the door, he heard the sound of a ghost stepping into the corridor.

The fat man listened nervously to the ghost's commotion outside, hoping it wouldn't suddenly decide to come inside for a visit.

Otherwise, you'll be trapped like a turtle in a jar.

It seems the ghost has no intention of catching the turtle.

He heard footsteps outside circling around the stairwell a few times before returning upstairs.

He didn't come...

The ghosts in this instance are strange. One ghost poked its head into the blanket and then turned and left the next second, while another ghost broke through the fire door, chased the ghost to the first floor, and then turned back upstairs.

The ghost had gone up, but the fat man didn't dare to open the door and go out immediately.

He planned to wait a while.

Only then did the fat man take a closer look at the room where he was hiding.

He noticed as soon as he rushed in that this was not an ordinary dormitory.

Unlike the bunk beds I'd seen before, this room only had one bed. The rest of the room contained a desk, a wardrobe, and cleaning tools like a broom and mop in the corner. There was a clock on the wall, but the hands had long since stopped working because of a power outage.

The fat guy used to be a community manager, so he figured this was probably the dormitory manager's room.

There were no other living creatures in the room besides him, so the fat man carefully began to explore the room.

He hoped to find something like a school map, but he knew it was unlikely that such a thing would be in the student affairs office; finding a dormitory map was more probable.

The dormitory building's main gate is still locked. Even if we can't find a map, finding the key is still good. It's better to open the door with the key than to break it down. Who knows if the sound of banging on the door will attract something?

The fat man searched for a while, but instead of finding the map or the key, he pulled out an old manual from under his pillow.

He shone the ever-burning lamp on the cover and read aloud the words: "What... what university student administrator work log?"

Cuckoo appears! Cuckoo shrinks back, Cuckoo appears again, Cuckoo shrinks back again! Come and play the Cuckoo-hitting game!