Global Collapse-Chapter 554 - 522: Max Level Priest Gu Bongbong_1

Gu Mian also heard the strange sounds coming from the car. "What’s wrong with you all?"

Cang Yue nonchalantly shifted her gaze away from the car window. "Nothing."

As she spoke, her eyes kept sweeping over her own body. If Gu Mian’s player panel hadn’t been accessible, she would have almost suspected Gu Mian himself was a ghost in disguise.

In the dead of night, why did passengers leap from the car to flee? Why did the taxi driver die horrifically in the street? Is this a distortion of human nature or a collapse of morality...

This refrain began to play automatically in Cang Yue’s mind. She felt like she might be going crazy.

After seeing the thing by the roadside—which appeared to be the former driver—the car quieted down significantly. Even Xia Jianren, who had been sobbing earlier, clamped his mouth shut. His face, however, seemed even more ghastly than before.

Zhao Shuang, who was a bit slow on the uptake, hadn’t seen the driver’s corpse on the road. She sat in a daze between Keke and Cang Yue, unable to understand why the dead would return harboring such malice towards them.

Wang Chuan’s mental state wasn’t much better than the others. He seemed to want to muster the courage to ask Gu Mian why the driver had died so horrifically on the street, but his courage failed him every time his gaze fell upon Gu Mian.

The van drove on alone down the silent road, stopping before an office building not long after.

Gu Mian stepped on the brake and looked at the adjacent building. "We’re here."

After the recent events, it was now eleven o’clock. The towering office building stood starkly in the night, empty and deathly still, its main entrance locked. There wasn’t a living soul inside.

Gu Mian opened the car door and stepped out. The others, each preoccupied with their own thoughts, also disembarked. The six of them gathered, looking up at the towering office building. An occasional cold wind gusted past, making their hearts tremble.

"I hope we can find some clues here," Cang Yue said, standing by the car, maintaining a careful distance from Gu Mian—not too far, yet not too close.

Zhao Shuang didn’t quite understand why they had to come to the company. She looked quizzically at the people beside her, but no one offered an explanation.

Before anyone could answer, she finally voiced her confusion, "Why did we have to come here?"

Wang Chuan replied, "Don’t you want to know what exactly happened on October 1st?"

Zhao Shuang hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "I want to remember too."

For the players, Zhao Shuang’s lost memories were critically linked to the path to survival in this instance. Thus, everyone wanted her to quickly recall what had happened that day.

Zhao Shuang herself also desperately hoped to remember the events of that day.

Taking a step forward, Cang Yue said, "Going to the place where you usually work might stimulate your memory."

If they could just confirm that Zhao Shuang was responsible for the deaths of those dozens of people, they could figure out the path to survival in this instance. As this thought crossed her mind, Cang Yue touched her pocket.

"Although coming to a place like this in the dead of night is indeed unsettling," Wang Chuan said, also taking a few steps forward, "it’s better than doing nothing and just waiting to die."

As he spoke, he strode to the front of the office building. The main entrance was locked, but as employees, they had keys.

Cang Yue deftly fished a set of keys from Zhao Shuang’s pocket. She remembered Zhao Shuang had brought her keys and identification card when she left the employee dormitory.

Xia Jianren didn’t dare to get too close to Gu Mian, so he jogged over to the main entrance of the office building to watch Wang Chuan and Cang Yue try the keys.

Seeing the others gathered at the office building’s entrance, Keke took a couple of steps to Gu Mian’s side. "Why did you come and meet up with us?"

This was the first opportunity the two of them had to speak privately since entering the instance.

Keke was always puzzled about why Gu Mian would join the other players, especially when his name was still on the bounty list and he was someone many players dreamt of killing.

Gu Mian, guitar on his back, watched the group fiddling with the keys at the door. "I think I might need to experience the plot."

Keke didn’t understand. "What?"

"I need to understand the instance’s content," Gu Mian said, turning his head to look at the scrape on Keke’s face as he began to search his pockets. "Because I’ve discovered that some instances are interconnected; in other words, some instances might exist within the same world..."

He took out a stack of adhesive bandages, tore one open, and thoughtfully stuck it on Keke’s face. "For example, the world where this current instance is located might also contain other instances."

"For instance, Sweet Manor?" Keke retorted.

Gu Mian tore open another adhesive bandage and stuck it on her face, perfectly aligned with the previous one. "Your mind certainly works fast."

However, Sweet Manor might not be an instance. That name was a station Gu Mian had heard mentioned in the ’Bizarre Great Train Escape’ instance.

"If I’m not mistaken," Keke continued, "the incredibly stingy Host Green from the ’Crazy Guessing Words’ game Xia Jianren mentioned—that’s the little green dwarf who was with you before, right?"

Little green dwarf? Gu Mian’s hand paused. If Mr. Green heard Keke describe him like that, he’d surely scratch her face raw on the spot.

Keke, not particularly concerned about her face, went on, "And that so-called ugly and terrifying employee, that was Xiao Hong?"

Keke had stayed at Liu Ruyan’s motel for some time, so of course, she saw those two every day. Although she hadn’t asked many questions, she had her own speculations about their identities.

After hearing Xia Jianren’s words, she became even more certain. She just hadn’t expected Gu Mian to actually keep a ghost by his side all day long.

What was even more preposterous was that an NPC from an instance could enter the real world.

Gu Mian continued, "Only by understanding the content of every instance can we gather more clues and perhaps even touch upon the truth of this global game..."

Why was this game initiated? Where did the instances originate? And what was the reason for his own luck, so potent it could startle heaven and earth and make ghosts weep?

Keke stared at the group in front of the door. "It’s all well and good, but for someone like me, even if I realize something’s wrong with this game, I don’t have the energy to investigate. Just surviving is hard enough."

Gu Mian hadn’t initially wanted to delve too deeply into instances either. After all, aside from destroying Earth, he’d never really had any other ambitions. But he always had a nagging feeling that Chu Changge and the others were hiding something.

These individuals, originally from the worlds within the instances, had been tasked with protecting Gu Mian, yet they themselves didn’t know why.

They had secrets, and if asked, they wouldn’t reveal them. Gu Mian felt that if he allowed this situation to persist, a major disaster would erupt sooner or later.

By this time, Cang Yue had successfully opened the office building’s door. As she turned to call the others over, she saw Keke’s face neatly plastered with three adhesive bandages, covering a good portion of it.

Meanwhile, Gu Mian was stuffing the remaining "tools of the crime" into his pocket.

Seeing this, a twinge of pain shot through Cang Yue’s foot, reminding her that she had just sprained her ankle.

"The door’s open, let’s go in." Wang Chuan also turned back to look at the two.

Gu Mian nodded and started walking forward. Xia Jianren squatted by the doorway, peering inside, but it was pitch-black, and he couldn’t make out a thing.

The light switch was easy to find, but when they flipped it, the overhead lights remained off. The security guard had probably shut off the main power when leaving.

They didn’t know where the electrical panel was, so they had to rely on flashlights for illumination.

The ground floor was a spacious lobby with four elevators, two on each side. However, all the elevators were without power, forcing the group to take the stairs.

The company offices were on the thirteenth floor. As Xia Jianren climbed, he panted, "This pitch-black corridor, these cramped stairs... this is prime haunting territory!"

Clearly, they were all terrified that a ghost would suddenly materialize and kill them. The group huddled together, inching slowly up the stairs. They didn’t even dare to raise their flashlights too high, terrified of being discovered by something.

Gu Mian silently watched from the rear as the group ahead of him shuffled along like a caterpillar. He wasn’t selflessly bringing up the rear to protect them; rather, he was afraid that if he walked at the front, someone might suddenly stab him in the back. He hadn’t expected them to move even slower than snails.

By the time the main group had shuffled to the third floor, he couldn’t stand it any longer. "You guys take your time. I’m going ahead to check things out."

Before anyone could react, he raised his flashlight and sprinted up the stairs, vanishing from sight in an instant.

The people behind were dumbstruck, staring in the direction where he had disappeared.

It had been unnerving enough when Gu Mian was with them; now that he was gone, it was even more terrifying.