Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 420: The Game of Catching Ghosts

Chapter 420: Chapter 420: The Game of Catching Ghosts

"Does anyone mind if I take some photos?" While on the move, Wu Xiaonan took out her camera and asked for everyone’s opinion.

"What’s there to photograph?" He Chunsheng said with displeasure, "What do you want to do with our photos?"

Wu Xiaonan explained with a smile, "Just collecting some material. Usually, after the copy begins, we can’t contact the outside world, so the only options are to take photos and record videos. If you all don’t like it, I won’t take any."

"I don’t mind." Ge Pan said amiably, "It’s all for making a living. I used to be a director without much fame. When filming, I also had to beg people around, and it wasn’t a good feeling."

"Thank you," Wu Xiaonan playfully winked at him, then took a picture of him.

Aside from a few people, the others were still quite guarded against Wu Xiaonan and did not agree to have their photos taken. She was tactful enough to take just a few pictures before turning to take shots of the scenery.

The path made by former players through the woods, following the road through the forest, took over two hours, but they reached the ground building of the Deep Blue Laboratory as marked on the map without any mishaps.

The ground building was a huge pavilion adjacent to a waterfall cliff, covering more than one hundred thousand square meters. The exterior of the building used all solar energy-gathering materials, so even though the laboratory had been abandoned for so long, the electrical facilities inside the building still operated normally.

The pavilion’s main hall had a layout plan of the laboratory. According to the plan, the pavilion had three entrances. Taking the entrance that Xu Huo and others used as a reference, one of the other entrances was across the waterfall, and one required passing through a forest with many poisonous insects. The main body of the Deep Blue Laboratory was buried underground.

By taking the pavilion’s elevator down a hundred meters, you would reach the laboratory, which was even larger than the pavilion, and the layout plan also showed areas that were still being expanded.

The players wandered around the pavilion but didn’t find any game prompts.

"The task board should be inside the lab," Ge Pan said, "Let’s go down first."

The group turned towards the elevator.

"It seems the technology here has developed quite well; everything still works even after such a long time," Chu Yuan looked around curiously. "My hometown is pretty backward by comparison, without any development of intelligent robots."

"The level of technology here isn’t that great either," Wu Xiaonan said. "Didn’t you see at the coast yesterday? The automation isn’t high. The Deep Blue Laboratory must have investments from other game zones."

"The pavilion is so clean, probably because the cleaning robots are still running."

"True, we haven’t seen any human or small animal corpses," Gan Qing said.

The twelve people entered the elevator and pressed the start button, beginning to slowly descend.

"Ding!" When they reached the first underground level, the elevator doors slowly opened, and a musty smell rushed from the darkness. The players waited three seconds before cautiously stepping out.

"Look for the light switch," Miao Yu said while holding her cellphone. As soon as she finished speaking, the lights in the corridor on that floor gradually came on, revealing walls and rooms all sealed in metal to everyone’s sight.

The laboratory was relatively tidy; some rooms had disarranged but not overturned chairs and cabinets. Apart from some damage marks left by fights, there were no stains or rotting things – the moldy smell came from books and some living supplies in the rooms.

Besides, the laboratory had been cleaned out thoroughly. The instruments and cabinets where samples were stored didn’t leave behind any glass containers, and most of the experimental materials had been moved out, with only some seemingly unimportant papers piled up in corners.

"There’s nothing here," Miao Yu said with a touch of disappointment. "I thought we might find some potions or something."

"How many times do you think this copy has been played? If there were any potions, would it still be your turn to pick them up?" He Chunsheng scoffed.

Miao Yu gave him a look but said nothing.

"Show some manly generosity," Chu Yuan quipped from the side.

Peace Chunsheng, who was quick-tempered, was close to exploding when Xu Huo interrupted them, "Has anyone seen the task board?"

"Not yet, let’s keep going, there are two paths ahead," Zhu Rumin stepped forward, looking left and right before fixing his gaze to the right, "This way is sealed off."

As the group approached, they saw that the metal cladding on both sides of the corridor had been forcibly peeled away and twisted into the center of the passage, and it was sealed with thick patterned metal bars—at least thirty centimeters thick at a glance.

"There are words," Wan Yunrong pointed at the metal bars and read, "Do not open at all costs... What does it mean? Are they telling us not to go this way?"

Upon her mention, the others began to notice that what they had thought were simple patterns on these metal bars were actually densely packed words, written by many people, judging from the variety of handwriting. The twisted script alone betrayed how terrified the writers had been.

A chill went down everyone’s spine, and Wan Yunrong took a step back, saying, "There aren’t really ghosts, are there?"

"Isn’t ghost-catching your expertise?" Chu Yuan eyed her.

"My skills are half-baked; I’d rather buy a talisman. I’m not up for real ghost-catching," Wan Yunrong said, rubbing her arms, "Let’s not stand here anymore, let’s move on."

Yet Miao Yu seemed eager to try, "What if we take it apart to see?"

"Don’t," Ge Pan hastily advised, "There must be a reason for this being sealed. What if it affects the completion of the replica?"

"In horror movies, the nosy ones usually die first," Gan Qing noted, "Let’s heed the wisdom of the filmmakers and not touch what is clearly marked as forbidden."

Better safe than sorry, the players all shared this mentality and unanimously decided not to mess with the metal wall. Soon after, they found the task board in a room down the other corridor.

Scrawled on the task board was the method of playing the "Ghost Catch" game.

"First, on the first night, draw lots to decide who the ghost is. If the ghost isn’t killed, the number of ghosts will double and increase randomly the next day until everyone becomes a ghost, unless all the existing ghosts are killed on one of the days."

"Second, being in an unsealed area increases the probability of being attacked by a ghost by 20%."

"Third, ghosts can only appear after the lights are out at night."

"Fourth, a ghost who kills a person can reclaim human status, and when a ghost reclaims human status by killing another ghost, they are exempt from being randomly chosen as a ghost once."

"Fifth, the game is won by maintaining human status at the end."

In simple terms, the players had to draw lots before the lights were out to decide on a "ghost." If the "ghost" wasn’t killed, the number of "ghosts" would increase. This meant that even if a "ghost" killed a person and regained their "human" status, there might be two ghosts the following night.

Moreover, if the "ghosts" aren’t completely killed off, their number would continue to increase.

And ghosts were able to kill each other, with even greater benefits than killing a human.

"This is asking us to turn on each other," someone concluded.