My ‘Healing’ Game
Chapter 491: Is This Your Kitten?! (Seeking Monthly Passes at 4000)

Chapter 491: Chapter 491: Is This Your Kitten?! (Seeking Monthly Passes at 4000)

Compared to Tie Nan, Yantang felt he was more suited to this place. In the real world, he was a person who excelled in all respects, but due to his personality and some events from his childhood, he had very few friends.

As he aged, he grew increasingly reclusive; never had he held anyone in esteem.

On the surface, he didn’t look down on anyone, but he always felt that he didn’t fit in with his surroundings. He didn’t belong to that circle, nor did he want to feign stupidity to muddle through, much less lower his head to "fit in".

Intelligent, knowledgeable, possessing keen insight ability, and extraordinary perceptive powers, but his character was also solitary and indifferent, always speaking pointedly without considering others’ feelings.

Before coming into contact with "Perfect Life", he had always been alone; he never thought he would make friends in the future.

Everything changed last night when he entered this city shrouded in darkness due to an accident. He felt every cell in his body trembling, unsure if it was from fear or excitement.

Interacting warmly with teammates and striving tirelessly to survive, Yantang felt his desiccated heartlake being filled. He now had teammates and a direction.

Turning his gaze away from Tie Nan, Yantang looked at Han Fei who wore a mask.

That person seemed to embody the secrets of the entire world; his very existence appeared to be a miracle.

Yantang had never submitted to anyone, but when he looked at Han Fei, his eyes involuntarily held a hint of awe; he always felt that if he angered Han Fei, the latter could easily kill both his in-game and real-life self.

In predicting bad outcomes, Yantang had never been wrong, so he became the most compliant person in the team.

"Did you find anything?" After helping Tie Nan up, Yantang walked with him toward Han Fei, looking at the fragmented corpse on the ground.

"There’s a black line at the corpse’s heart. Cutting it causes the corpse to shatter," Han Fei said, lifting the black line with the Rebirth Saber; it was covered in strange text.

This rope is known as Life Rope, a unique feature of the Plastic Surgery Hospital Area. Most regrets and small-scaled grudges are bound by Life Rope, turning into puppets of large-scaled grudges and hatred.

"It’s good that the enemy dares to make a move against us. The more it moves, the bigger the blunder it makes," Han Fei said, sheathing his saber and looking over the hall filled with freezers: "Fridges, iceboxes, and variously shaped ’ice sculptures’—does he really think of this place as his own icy world?"

The works of art on display were the bodies inside the freezers. They were frozen, preserved at the very moment of death.

Life after life had passed, becoming the hotel owner’s collection, also used to host art exhibitions.

"I always thought art exhibitions were very highbrow. I never expected my first art exhibition to be like this," Tie Nan said, cautiously opening the freezer beside him; each time he opened it, it was like a lottery draw, far more thrilling than buying a lottery ticket.

"What kind of art exhibition is this? It’s nothing more than a bunch of madmen’s self-gratification, mistaking brutality for beauty and smug about it. It’s sickness!" Han Fei said, kicking over the refrigerator in front of him. A corpse holding a room card fell to the floor; the blackening blood in its body was slowly gathering at the heart, seemingly ready to use the body’s dark energy to nourish a Life Rope.

"Life Rope can control ghosts and monsters, but it seems the Life Rope itself is made from ghosts and monsters. All obsessions are twisted together, spun into a rope that can’t be escaped," Han Fei said, carefully observing the entire process of the Life Rope’s appearance before severing it with a single stroke.

As the Life Rope was severed, the frozen corpse, still in a kneeling position, pitched forward. Before his body crumbled, he seemed to give Han Fei a relieved smile.

All the black text on the Life Rope dissolved, leaving only a tiny beam of light that merged into the blade of the Rebirth Saber.

"Huh?"

Han Fei had discovered something very strange. As soon as the Rebirth Saber cut through a segment of the Life Rope, it seemed to draw something from it, like the last remnants of beauty and humanity in the deceased’s grudge.

"It seems not all ghosts and monsters can create a Life Rope. It must be those with a powerful grudge and a heart that hasn’t completely decayed, retaining a tiny bit of humanity."

For the ghosts of the Deep World, humanity is both a restraint and the most precious thing in the depths of their souls.

To survive, many ghosts and monsters completely abandoned their humanity, but a small number still persisted.

Unfortunately, their persistence did not earn them any reward, but instead, they became targets for more terrifying ghosts and monsters, which used the restraints of their humanity to turn them into Life Ropes.

After killing the Butterfly, the Rebirth Saber became an E-Class artifact, and Han Fei had always worried about how to continue enhancing the saber. The appearance of the Life Rope gave him a glimmer of hope.

The saber had saved Han Fei several times. Not to mention far-off instances, inside the Shrine Memory World, when he fell into a deep well, it was the humanity within the Rebirth Saber that reached out together and dragged him out.

The Rebirth Saber could be said to be Han Fei’s most important artifact at the moment, and strengthening the Rebirth Saber was like strengthening himself.

A flicker of light passed through his eyes, having forgotten that he had originally come here to save people. Holding the Rebirth Saber, he walked alongside Xu Qin at the very front of the team, pushing his passive talent for Hide-and-Seek to its limit.

Twirling the hilt of the saber, Han Fei started to whistle something that, upon close listening, resembled a children’s rhyme.

Seek and seek and seek a friend, find a good friend, give a bow, shake a hand...

Tie Nan looked at the corpses Han Fei had slashed to pieces on the ground, then at Han Fei, who appeared to be in an extremely good mood. With his whistling and knife-wielding demeanor, he didn’t seem like a player trapped in ghost hitting the wall, but more like a psychopathic killer searching for survivors hiding in the freezer.

Feeling slightly bewildered for a moment, Tie Nan quietly nudged Yantang, "Don’t you think... he’s like the owner of the hotel?"

"I don’t think he’s like the owner of the hotel, but I sure would like to become like him," Yantang replied, following closely.

"Is it just my imagination? Are my thoughts starting to deviate from those of normal people?" mired in self-doubt, Tie Nan looked at the water-seeping coolers on either side and quickened his pace.

Upon learning that severing the Life Ropes could enhance the Rebirth Saber, Han Fei was thrilled. He moved through stacks of fridges and coolers, and every time he opened a door, he was sure to find something.

If the Deep World had police, the hotel owner would undoubtedly call them by now, as this lunatic had created countless corpse sculptures in his home. But on this night, an even bigger lunatic had rushed in, a man who neither saved people nor stole things. Instead, he specifically looked for the body sculptures, intent on shattering them all.

As Life Ropes were cut one after another, Han Fei was in no hurry to leave. He seemed to be enjoying the ghost hitting the wall, even showing a look of satisfaction in his eyes.

It’s not just the enemy who fears Han Fei; now his teammates are also panicking.

Which normal player would be so delighted to search for corpses? In gaming, treasure hunts are common, but who ever heard of someone so eager to find dead bodies?

Han Fei didn’t seem to be carrying out a mission, but simply taking pleasure in the task, purely as a personal hobby.

One by one, the Life Ropes were severed, and no corpses could escape Han Fei’s eyes.

They effortlessly arrived at the center of the art exhibition, surrounded by towering ice chests, with various cables crisscrossing the ground. The dimly lit art hall seemed to be welcoming the incoming visitors.

"Did my husband ever see these? Had he already seen these things at that time?" Aunt Li stood amid the haphazard stack of ice chests, unable to believe it.

"Your husband was the doctor in the second painting, and there certainly weren’t so many ice chests in the hotel when he died," Han Fei consoled Aunt Li, "All these accumulated over time, without rules in the Hidden Map, so you ended up seeing the uncontrollable sins."

After speaking, he looked again at the mountain-like pile of ice chests before him, a cold smile appearing on the face beneath his mask.

"I don’t know how he managed to create this maze, but as long as I keep severing the Life Ropes, the power the hotel owner can control will become weaker and weaker until he can’t help but show himself and take action against me."

At the center of the art exhibition was a small stage not intended for showcasing talents. On the stage, there was a surgical table surrounded by all kinds of tools, where the hotel owner seemed to have stitched and pieced together the corpses into his desired form.

"Creating the works he wants from among such a pile of ice chests, this guy had indeed reached a state of madness."

As Han Fei ascended the stage, he lifted the white sheet from the surgical table to reveal a man covered in knife wounds.

The moment Han Fei saw this man, his eyes narrowed slightly; he had seen a photo of the man on the wall in the first-floor lobby.

This knife-wounded man was the first owner of the hotel, the boss who had built the Wenhua Art Hotel.

Picking up the Rebirth Saber, killing intent began to surface in Han Fei’s eyes, when Xu Qin suddenly stepped in front of him.

At the same time, the man on the surgical table opened his eyes, a multitude of Grudges burrowing into his body through the wounds!

Tremendous Dark Energy surged all around, and the surgical table was instantly crushed.

Screams rose as the man on the table slowly stood up; black Life Ropes extended from his wounds, tensing across his body, turning him into a puppet on strings.

As his skin was torn, Grudges merged and clashed within his body, and the man bellowed in agony, constantly shouting, "Kill me, please kill me!"

Desperately yelling, the man charged at Han Fei and Xu Qin with astonishing speed, oozing Black Blood with a foul stench from his body.

Xu Qin pushed Han Fei aside and slashed the man’s arm with a Dinner Knife, allowing the Curse to burrow into the man’s skin. He screamed in pain, seemingly unable to control his own body.

With each new wound, another Life Rope emerged, seemingly speeding the man up even more.

Xu Qin clashed with the puppet-like man, as crying also began to echo in the exhibition hall, with eerie silhouettes slowly emerging from the pitch-black shadows.

Gripping the Rebirth Saber tightly, Han Fei’s mind raced.

"The mall’s Owner was placed on the operating table, which was originally his place for dissecting prey, and now he himself has become the prey. It seems he must have suffered a backlash, tormented wildly by those he had once killed. From this, it appears that the current owner of the hotel is one of the victims."

Han Fei carefully recalled all the art paintings on the hotel walls and then thought of the woman’s voice on the guest room phone.

"Whether it’s room service or the cleaning staff, their voices are all the same, it’s the same woman speaking," he muttered.

The hotel’s first owner was but a puppet on strings; to crack the ghostly maze or even aspire to become the new manager of the hotel, one had to eliminate the true mastermind behind the scenes.

Han Fei even suspected that there was only one ghost in the entire hotel and that all the other monsters were its playthings.

"Boss, your partner is so strong..."

While Han Fei pondered his strategy, Tie Nan and Yantang were already flabbergasted.

Xu Qin, wielding a dinner knife, clashed head-on with the hotel boss, her blood-red figure stepping on countless curses, exuding both extreme beauty and extreme danger.

They had thought Han Fei was their mainstay, but it turned out the real freeloader was that flamboyantly dressed red woman; it was actually his family who was key to Han Fei traversing the Hidden Map with such dominance.

"The hotel owner is distracted; now is a good opportunity to make a move, come over and help," Han Fei called out.

Han Fei eyed the Life Ropes spurting from the man’s wounds, stretching from his body upwards, disappearing into the darkness above his head.

"The real mastermind is controlling the hotel owner through those Life Ropes, the antagonist should be hiding at the other end of them!" Han Fei and several players climbed atop the freezers, seeing the Life Ropes vanishing into the top of the art exhibition, where a black curtain hung.

"The person controlling the hotel boss is behind that black cloth?" Han Fei turned and scanned the stage, Xu Qin had left countless wounds on the man’s body and even severed both his arms, but to no avail.

The black Life Ropes continuously grew from the man’s body, stretching toward the darkness overhead, then maniacally controlling the man’s nearly torn apart body to attack Xu Qin.

"If this continues, Xu Qin might get hurt too," he mused.

Without further hesitation, he gripped the Rebirth Saber tightly, "Tie Nan, you’re the strongest, give me a boost later, I need to slash open that black curtain above."

"Be careful. That curtain is bulging out, there’s definitely something very nasty hidden behind it!" Tie Nan half-crouched on the tallest freezer, ready to assist.

"I should be able to shatter it."

A dazzling light appeared in his hand, Han Fei focused intently on the convergence of the Life Ropes, he stuffed Xu Qin’s small pet into the Ghost Pattern, and enveloped by Dark Energy, suddenly accelerated forward in a sprint.

With a leap, he stepped onto Tie Nan’s shoulders, then powered up the Ghost Pattern with all his might, aiming to chop at the black curtain above!

A deep beastly roar echoed in the art exhibition, the Ghost Patterns on Han Fei’s body began to burn, transforming into a fiendishly ferocious giant ghostly cat face!

Tie Nan, acting as Han Fei’s stepping stone, held his near-fractured shoulder and dumbly stared at the enormous ghost figure behind Han Fei.

"Could this be the ’little kitty’ he was talking about?!"