Chapter 1241: A Relaxing and Leisurely Chat
The place where the elevator doors opened was inside an abandoned old building.
The roof had collapsed halfway, and the pillars that had fallen from the second floor had shattered into a pile of rubble on the ground. Wires and vines intertwined and hung in mid-air. The daylight spilled through the holes, making the dust particles shine, like a crooked beam of light trying to support this collapsing ruin.
The former security guard was the first to jump out, his footsteps leaping over the broken bricks and stones blocking the elevator doors. He stopped on a small open space and looked around. Hearing that the three behind him had also exited the elevator, he quickly stepped aside and turned back to smile at them. His face wrinkled in layers due to his uncontrollable excitement. "I saw it, the door is on the right."
As the NPC had said, this abandoned building sat on a small hill outside Bear City, offering a panoramic view of the city, which had been repeatedly devoured by lava. All the players who had left the Lava game had to follow the door behind the old building and walk up the hill to reach a highway. Technically, beyond that highway, it should no longer be the world of Lava However, as for whether the vast expanse of green hills beyond that was another doomsday or how many doomsdays existed on this planet, no one seemed to know for sure.
The four of them silently walked along the hillside to reach the highway. Bohemia pulled her clothes down from her head to her body while mumbling under the fabric, "I suddenly had an idea."
"What is it?"
"Foreign posthumans all ended up in a specific doomsday because they had visas, right?" Bohemia pulled down her clothes, and her voice became clearer. Her arms emerged from the sleeves like snakes as she quickly got dressed. "We ended up in whatever world we walked into because we don't have visas. So, what if we don't continue? What if we just camp on this highway?"
Lin Sanjiu was contemplating this idea when Puppeteer suddenly said, "That's possible."
"Possible?" She turned to look at him. "Do you still need to recover from your injuries?"
Puppeteer met her gaze calmly and cracked a gentle smile on one side of his face. It was like a night flower blossoming in the dim moonlight. "No, it's you who needs to."
"But I don't have any injuries..." Before she could finish her sentence, Bohemia stomped on the back of her heel hard enough to almost peel off a layer of skin.
Lin Sanjiu hadn't even comprehended it yet when Puppeteer chuckled and said, "You'll have some soon, don't worry."
Alright, they decided to set up camp here.
Coincidentally, if they camped on the highway near the exit of Lava, Lin Sanjiu could take some time to think about how to inquire about Dr. Hu's whereabouts and complete her final mission.
Camping on the highway near the exit of Lava wasn't a good idea, so the group discussed and decided to walk a certain distance along the highway and wait until Bear City was out of sight. It wasn't much of a plan, more like taking things one step at a time. After discussing, Lin Sanjiu's eyes fell on the former security guard.
"You must have somewhere to go, right?" She didn't want to let him know which direction they would be heading. "We saved your life and got you out, so it's time to part ways."
For someone who wasn't in the right state of mind, she understood that gratitude for saving one's life wouldn't make much of a splash.
The former security guard withdrew his gaze from the towering green mountains on the other side of the highway.
"Of course, of course," he said, pausing for a few seconds as if digesting her words, then nodded repeatedly. "I'm deeply grateful. I can't express it enough. I'll be on my way now, and I wish you all a safe journey!"
He was surprisingly cheerful.
Seeing that he actually turned and walked away, Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment, signaled the others to stay put, and took a few steps to catch up with the former security guard. She walked beside him and smiled. "I'll see you off. After all, we've had some interaction. We never had the chance to chat properly."
The former security guard looked at her and blinked. "Sure, you're welcome."
Although this man was hard to read, Lin Sanjiu knew he was definitely not a fool. He was exceptionally perceptive, as if he always knew when to do what to maximize his chances of survival. Lin Sanjiu first chatted with him about their experiences in the hospital, and as he gradually opened up, she cautiously asked, "By the way, what's your opinion of Gardenia?"
"Too naive," the former security guard said without hesitation.
"Too naive? Wasn't she cleverly outsmarted?" Lin Sanjiu asked.
"Of course not. I'm very sensitive to people," he said, chuckling softly. "Not just people, but anything related to people, I'm very sensitive to it. Some people survive through strength, some through intelligence, and me... I survive through people."
Then how did he end up being fooled by that man and woman?
Lin Sanjiu was about to ask this question but suddenly swallowed it back. To be precise, he was turned into a guard by an NPC, and the NPC couldn't really be considered a human. When the man and woman claimed to be his teammates, he did seem to trust them to some extent, but who knows what he truly believed, apart from himself?
"Even though she never talked to me much..." The former security guard didn't seem to mind her momentary distraction and continued. "I mean, isn't it the most common story? She ended up like that because of a man, right? A cliché story."
This time, Lin Sanjiu was genuinely surprised.
She almost wanted to pat herself down to check if she had been bugged. Otherwise, how could he guess that Gardenia's experiences indeed involved a man? Gardenia had never mentioned anything related to a man until the very end.
1
"She... did ask me for a favor before she died, something related to a man," she said reluctantly. "But I... didn't know the nature of their relationship."
"I knew it!" the former security guard exclaimed, clapping his hands and laughing. "I don't have any evidence. I just had a feeling. She wasn't resorting to such extreme measures just for herself. Most people try to get out of the hospital to have a better chance at surviving, but as soon as she realized she couldn't leave the hospital, she immediately wanted to die. It shows that her goal wasn't just that life. She wanted to leave the hospital because there was something or someone she wanted outside."
Lin Sanjiu could only stare at him, not knowing what else to say.
"What she wanted was not freedom or anything like that," the former security guard continued. He had been cautious and reserved around the group, rarely speaking so openly before, but perhaps it was different now because the only person with him currently was Lin Sanjiu.
"You might not understand this, but as a woman who had been adored by many men her whole life, she naturally has a different attitude when facing other men... even if I didn't see her at her most beautiful, I could still sense it from her demeanor. Her former beauty must have been stunning."
"So, what does that mean?"
"It's a bit hard to explain. What I mean is, for someone like her who has internalized her own beauty, beauty is definitely more important than her life or freedom. Because her beauty has become a part of her... do you understand what I mean? This involves her 'existence'," he said, frowning as he struggled to put his vague feelings into logical words.
"What a person pursues is closely related to who they are as a person, don't you agree? So, I think what she was pursuing should have had some connection to her beauty... but this thing was even more important than her life or her beauty, let alone a passerby like you."
"So, that's why you thought of... love?" Lin Sanjiu hadn't thought about this word for a very long time.
"She looks like the kind of woman who is a bit foolish," said the former security guard, unable to help but laugh, as if he found the matter quite amusing. "Without her beauty to conceal it, that foolish charm is irresistible. Hey, do you think she wanted to die because she didn't want that man to see her become an ordinary NPC, or because even if they met, she wouldn't recognize who he was, essentially saying goodbye forever...?"
Lin Sanjiu didn't want to continue this conversation.
She pretended to be drawn to something in the distance, looking down at Bear City not far below the highway for a moment without responding to the former security guard's words. After a short silence, he suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, you probably don't want to think too deeply about this! I've made you uncomfortable."
Just from their brief interaction with Gardenia and the few words mentioned afterward, the former security guard had already grasped the core of Gardenia's character... but what about her? What about Bohemia? What about Puppeteer?
Lin Sanjiu swallowed hard, changing the subject. "Why do you think the part about the elevator was missing in the walkthroughs you saw?"
"Well, it's not about feeling, I just guessed," the former security guard said, touching his collar to reveal a pendant that formed a square shape underneath his clothes. "The walkthroughs they showed me were definitely incomplete. It's a shame. You can meet people who love to bully others anywhere. They intentionally cut out the part about the elevator, probably because of my nickname."
"Your nickname?"
"Do you remember when the red-faced man said that everyone in the Gamers Club creates a nickname for themselves?" he asked, playing with the pendant slowly and speaking with a tinge of nostalgia. "I didn't choose my nickname myself. They started calling me 'Elevator Man,' and it stuck."
For some reason, Lin Sanjiu's hair stood on end. This man's combat abilities were not as strong as hers, and she had Puppeteer and Bohemia behind her. The road was peaceful and serene, with only the scent of the mountains and forests drifting between them. Yet, she felt like she had just glanced into an abyss, and her limbs felt a bit weak.
"They called me that because I liked to always look at this," the former security guard said slowly, taking out the pendant. "It's a memento I got from the game."
The last time Lin Sanjiu saw this transparent cube, she remembered that the pendant displayed an image of an elevator interior, with several men and women searching all over the elevator doors, probably looking for a way out.
This time, all the people inside the pendant were gone, leaving only the last woman and several partially eaten corpses on the ground. Human feces were piled up in the corner, and even the partially devoured bodies were soaked in urine.
"Does it keep... synchronizing with the situation in that game?" Lin Sanjiu only now realized the significance of this seemingly unimportant detail. When they first heard the word "memento," no one had stopped to wonder why anyone would want such a memento.
Who would want to see something like this?
"Yes," said the former security guard, holding the pendant in his palm without lifting his head, completely engrossed in it, as if it were playing the most interesting TV show. The flesh on his cheeks slowly swelled as he laughed.