An Unusual Life Beginning with Evil Spirits-Chapter 112 : The Donkey Is Gone

Volume 3: High School Arc - Mirror Game
Going back to the city meant certain death.
Staying on the road would become equally dangerous once the heavy rain fell and formed small puddles.
So the only choice now... was to turn back.
I turned the electric bike around and gave Lu Haochen, who still looked clueless about the danger, a look.
He was slightly stunned, then helplessly smiled and got on the bike.
What the hell is that helpless look for!
What kind of weird expression was that?
I had to admit, ever since I found out this guy was a Taoist and basically useless in the game, I had been pretty disappointed in him.
Maybe I expected too much?
At least when we had just entered the factory, I honestly had hoped he could solve this game.
But the result was a huge letdown.
Not only could he not solve the event, he even became a burden I had to drag along.
“Hold on tight. If you fall off, I’m not turning back to find you.”
“……”
Lu Haochen blinked innocently, then lowered his head and steadied his butt.
I got on the electric bike.
It was the kind of small vehicle that sat low to the ground.
If someone was around 150 cm tall, it might have been fine.
But now that I stood around 170 cm, sitting on this thing was extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, this type of vehicle usually didn’t come with rearview mirrors or anything.
It didn’t even have a dashboard, just a few LED lights showing how much battery was left.
The return trip would take nearly half an hour.
Judging by the weather, we might end up driving in the rain.
But I couldn’t worry about that now.
Lu Haochen was right.
With an instinctive sense of rejection toward the factory, even though we all had doubts about that lost hour, most people wouldn’t choose to go back and investigate Factory Building No. 7.
But Lu Haochen was different.
Because he hadn’t been warned earlier, he didn’t know about the danger of Factory Building No. 7.
So he was able to immediately think of going back to check it out.
Whether a veteran or a newbie, anyone who played this game knew how dangerous the Interdimensional Space was.
But Lu Haochen had never played even once.
Naturally, he didn’t understand how terrifying the Interdimensional Space was.
Nor would he feel any rejection toward the factory.
That was his advantage.
And this... was probably something the game had deliberately designed.
As I rode the tiny electric bike, I tried to gather all the clues I could remember about this game.
First was the story Zhao Wengang mentioned.
Did it have some connection to this APP game?
Second was the issue of reflections.
I had repeatedly seen my reflection making facial expressions completely different from my own.
Was this a hint?
Or something I noticed in advance because of my unique nature?
Again, it was the reflection issue.
From the behavior of the reflection I saw, and the wounds on my body...
(I subconsciously touched my neck at that thought)
Combined with the death process of the Tragedy House’s resident, it was clear that this time, the strange force targeted the neck.
The sequence was: see the reflection — body freezes — reflection slits throat — heavy bleeding and death.
Compared to previous games, I found this one wasn’t as scary in terms of immediate fear.
But the puzzles were much more complicated.
And it was precisely this kind of situation — seemingly not dangerous — that was actually more dangerous than outright horror.
Because there were no visible rules at all.
Stay for one hour.
Survive for three days.
What exactly happened during that lost hour?
One detail after another resurfaced in my mind, and I noticed a suspicious point.
We... weren’t transported outside the factory by spatial transfer.
While inside the factory, my left hand was always raised, with my right hand placed above it, ready to press the World Watch at any time.
But after leaving the factory, I raised my hand and looked at the World Watch once.
That was enough to show we had left the factory on our own.
If it had been ‘time pause’ plus ‘spatial transfer’, then after leaving the factory, we should have still maintained our original posture.
But my movements had clearly changed.
That meant... it wasn’t that time had suddenly been reduced, nor was it that space had suddenly shifted.
It was... that our memory had been erased.
And the reason for the erasure... was because something had happened inside the factory?
Or maybe we had discovered some critical clue that allowed us to exit this mission early?
The game required us to stay inside for an hour, which meant something must have happened during that hour.
And that event should be the key to escaping this game.
The APP’s mission could disrupt time and space.
Therefore, it wasn’t impossible that the APP had predicted the players’ actions even before the game started.
Any temporal argument didn’t hold up within the APP.
Only by viewing the APP from this angle could one survive.
I frowned.
The wind around me grew stronger.
The dark clouds above started to move quickly, signaling that the heavy rain was about to fall.
At this point, the little electric bike felt far too flimsy to withstand the oncoming gusts.
Even though I held the handlebars tightly, the vehicle still swayed side to side under the force of the wind.
“Hey hey hey, can’t you drive a little steadier? Are you planning to throw me off and then use what you just said as an excuse to get rid of me?”
“Shut up!!”
I turned back and glared fiercely at Lu Haochen.
But that glance caused the electric bike to lose balance.
Before I could look forward again, I suddenly felt the vehicle sink, then bounce hard.
Instinctively, I turned back to hold the handlebars.
But a strong gust of wind came head-on.
The wheel had hit a small pit in the road, then bounced up violently.
Then came another gust of wind.
Combined with how light the electric bike already was, it flipped over instantly.
Lu Haochen reacted quickly and stood up with his legs straight.
As for me, I leapt off the bike, grabbed the handlebars, and tried to pull it back.
But even though I was 170cm tall, I only weighed about 110 pounds.
A gust of wind made it hard to keep my balance.
My whole body was blown forward by the wind.
And the bike flew out along with me.
Just when my body was about to be blown away, a hand suddenly reached out from behind and grabbed my shoulder.
It forcefully pulled me down from midair.
My feet touched the ground again.
I hadn’t been blown away...
But the bike slipped out of my hand.
With a loud ‘clang’, it crashed heavily onto the ground.
The lightweight little electric bike, mostly made of plastic casing, immediately shattered into pieces.
Parts scattered everywhere.
Then the battery inside somehow came loose.
With a sizzling sound, black smoke shot into the sky.
Then came a burst of crackling sounds.
The bike instantly caught fire.
“It’s over...”