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300 If you Weep, You\'ll Die

The messages were spine-tingling. Han Fei had no idea which of the paper notes the dead body got but his death should be related to one of them.

“In the Ziggurat, you’ll only die if you do things which are written on the notes?” Zhuang Ren was already out of touch with the modern gaming world. He took things literally.

“That should be the case.” Han Fei’s eyes were locked on the butterfly. The butterfly circled Han Fei’s character several times, before it flew deeper into the room.

“Should we follow him? Maybe the butterfly is our guide for this map?”

“It is definitely not the guide, you’ll only die horribly if you follow it.” Just as Han Fei said that, the room where the character was in changed. After the butterfly flew out, the door closed on its own and this bloody message appeared behind the door—The death curse you’ve chosen is, if you move, you’ll die!

Han Fei didn’t really make any choice, all he did was to interact with the body and looked at the messages on the paper notes. No matter how good of a player he was, he’d have to stop playing if he ran into this curse. After a long hesitation, Han Fei tried to move the character forward. The moment he did, the character dissolved into a bloody pool and died horribly. The game returned to the starting page and the term Ziggurat reappeared on the screen.

“If we need to clear the Ziggurat, we need to choose a curse that is not so easily triggered.” Han Fei stared at the screen. He looked like he was playing the game but actually he was thinking about the cryptic world. Looking at the time, Han Fei believed he could manage to enter the ‘Ziggurat’ at least one more time. He stood up to work his kinks out from his body. Then he picked up the controller and said, “Zhuang Ren, do you know how to order take-outs? Just grab something easy to eat and we’ll continue with the game.” It felt like Han Fei was the owner and Zhuang Ren was the guest, but the latter complied without complaint. For Zhuang Ren, Han Fei was like his savior so of course, he would do everything within his power to satisfy him.

Each careless death meant that one had to start over from the start. The complicated missions exhausted hours, when Han Fei reached the 9th map again, it was already 8 pm. He wanted to find out how exactly did one choose the death curse. Controlling the character carefully down the corridor, there were 12 rooms on the first floor and Han Fei took the first room on the left in his previous attempt. “Does the choice of room equal the choice of the death curse?” Han Fei was very cautious. But perhaps because he was dragging it out too long, footsteps came from deep down the corridor. Something was approaching. Several seconds later, the deliveryman who first appeared in the 2nd map made his return. His head was smashed in, flesh mutations grew on the ends of his fingers. With a giant delivery bag on his bag, he crawled towards Han Fei.

“You should find a room to hide in!” Zhuang Ren gasped. In a normal horror game, when the monsters appeared, the player only needed to find a place to hide until they went away. Shaking his head, Han Fei controlled the character towards the stairs. After the deliveryman disappeared from sight, he turned down a different direction. Without any fighting ability, just using geographical advantage, Han Fei managed to hide from the deliveryman’s pursuit again and again. “There’s not many things I know but the game of hide-and-seek is something I do know.” Using the stairs on both sides of the Ziggurat, Han Fei successfully shook the deliveryman off. But before he could sigh in relief, the character suddenly melted into gruesome goo and died on the spot.

“Why did you die again? You weren’t attacked by any monsters and you didn’t trigger the curse, so how did you die?” Zhuang Ren was confused. This game couldn’t be understood normally.

“I believe it’s because since you didn’t pick a death curse for too long, the Ziggurat arranged one for you.” Han Fei narrowed his eyes because he was reminded of something. Due to his intervention of Butterfly’s plan, he was cursed by Ziggurat and he would die in some kind of manner within a month. The Death Curse was similar to the curses inside this Ziggurat game. Then if he entered the Ziggurat, and chose another death curse, which curse would trigger first?

Then again, if he pondered this from another perspective, did that mean that he wouldn’t need to pick one when he entered the Ziggurat because he was already cursed? Ziggurat was not a normal game and Han Fei’s way of thinking was not normal either.

After the 2nd failure, Han Fei glanced at the time, he believed he could start a 3rd attempt. He was getting more familiar with the first 8 maps, and used less time to complete them. Soon Han Fei entered the Ziggurat for the 3rd time.

“Do you mind slowing down…” Zhuang Ren wanted to mimic Han Fei, to memorize Han Fei’s controls but he soon gave up. Sometimes he couldn’t even understand certain decisions that Han Fei made. Other times, even if he understood it, his hands wouldn’t keep up with the controls. At this point, Zhuang Ren gained even more respect for Han Fei, because if he needed to clear this Ziggurat alone, he probably wouldn’t finish it in his life. If he wanted to see his family again, he needed to rely on Han Fei.

Zhuang Ren, who was seen as mad by most, became a butler for Han Fei. Without Han Fei even requesting them, Zhuang Ren did things to make things more comfortable for Han Fei.

The previous 2 deaths provided a lot of information for Han Fei. For this third time, Han Fei tried to trigger yet another curse. After avoiding the 1st room, Han Fei examined each room door to see if he could get any clues. Unfortunately, he got nothing, only by entering the rooms that he’d know what was inside.

Calculating the time, Han Fei only entered the 3rd room on the first floor when he knew the deliveryman was coming. “There’s no butterfly and dead body in this room.” Instead the old room had red scratches everywhere. The room was decorated as a bridal suite but all the red was sourced from blood. The wedding decoration did not look celebratory but eerie.

“A bridal room?” Han Fei’s eyes narrowed. He walked through the living room and pushed open the bedroom door. On the top of the red nuptial bed hung a gigantic black and white portrait of the deceased couple. The groom looked normal and the bride was in a Chinese wedding gown and wore a red veil. Beside the portrait, someone had scratched out in blood—If you weep, you’ll die!