11. Besieged

This is not a game where you can respawn at a checkpoint after dying.
When you die, you are truly dead.
Ji Chao only has one life, and he is counting on clearing this instance to earn enough money to go back and save his wife.
"You only have one life; I can't handle this kind of torture," Ji Chao said, looking at them with a wry, helpless expression as he tried to persuade them.
The group slumped on the ground. Chi You leaned against the wall, catching her breath, and reached up to touch her hair. Her once-beautiful locks had been scorched into a hideous mess, and the clothes on her back were burned and tattered. She looked utterly wretched.
Li Youchu looked at the two of them with nothing but disdain in her eyes. Why didn't these two just die at the hands of those monsters earlier? They were novices who lacked equipment and didn't even understand the rules of the instance, yet they had the audacity to provoke the Primordial Broodmother. As for the other one, he clearly didn't value his own life at all, constantly pulling out that beat-up phone to snap pictures! It was infuriating to watch.
"Promise me, don't provoke An He again," Ji Chao said, turning his gaze to Chi You, pleading with tears and snot streaming down his face. He had stayed in this instance for so long without incident precisely because they were careful not to act recklessly. Yet, in just a few short days since these two arrived, they had provoked every dangerous entity in the place.
"I didn't provoke her," Chi You argued in her own defense. "She's the one who keeps chasing me; I can't help it."
Heh...
Who was it that put abortion pills in her drinking water?
Who was it that treated her child’s head like a golf ball in front of her?
Ji Chao collapsed where he stood, his face a mask of despair.
Chi You took out her phone to check the instance task list and found that Task 2 had actually been completed. She raised her eyes, sweeping her gaze across the group. She could still hear the crying of infants, but none of them were affected. This meant that none of the five of them were carrying monsters in their bellies, and the infants on the ceiling of the Broodmother's room had been dealt with. Since those monsters could no longer be born, Task 2 was complete.
Only Task 1 remained: find the crying infant before childbirth. But that infant was inside An He’s womb.
So, how was Task 1 to be completed?
Chi You let her mind wander. Find it before childbirth, childbirth...
What would happen if she stuffed abortion pills into An He’s mouth once more?
It was a pity she hadn't grabbed any abortion pills earlier.

Tsk.
What a nuisance.
After resting for a while, they stood up because the flames had already spread from the seventh floor to the sixth. If the task wasn't finished yet, would it remain incomplete even after the whole building burned down? The two veterans of the instance were beginning to feel anxious.
Chi You called Jiang Pan back to her room. Upon entering, they found that the body of the deceased participant was gone. The room had returned to a pristine state, as if nothing had ever happened. Chi You rummaged through the medical kit on the coffee table and, sure enough, found a new box of abortion pills inside.
After pocketing the pills, she went into the kitchen and took a cleaver as a defensive tool. Seeing the shotgun in Jiang Pan’s hand, her eyes were filled with envy. This shotgun didn't look like the ones she usually saw; it remained silver in color and was engraved with beautiful patterns. It certainly suited Jiang Pan’s aesthetic, so it was no wonder he had chosen it.
"Where did you get that?"
"A reward from a novice instance," Jiang Pan said, stroking the shotgun with a look of affection.
"You got two rewards in your novice instance?" Chi You frowned; he had so many rewards.
But Jiang Pan’s next words made even Chi You feel jealous. "Because I blew up the instance task. That instance had a hidden mission, and the explosion wiped it all out. So the app rewarded me with two big gift packages."
Tsk, there’s no competing with someone with that kind of luck.
After taking the abortion pills, they stepped out of the room and immediately sensed a change in the environment. It was cold and damp. The lights in the hallway began to flicker, and the entire floor became deathly quiet.
Just then, a nursery rhyme began to play.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are..."
The voice of the person singing became incredibly eerie, chilling to the bone. At the end of the hallway, a group of women appeared, wearing long white dresses with their hair draped over their shoulders. They stared at the two of them with hollow eyes. As the lights flickered, the women at the end of the hall began to move slowly toward them.
If anyone else had seen such a terrifying scene, they would have screamed and hidden. But not these two; they stood back-to-back, watching the women approach. Not only that, but they even had the leisure to chat.
"Are you afraid?" Jiang Pan asked.
"I'm not afraid," Chi You replied.
"Why aren't you afraid?" Jiang Pan continued.
Chi You was puzzled. "Why should I be?" This sort of thing wasn't enough to scare her.
The sound of the nursery rhyme ebbed and flowed, making them both feel dizzy. Their eyelids grew heavy, almost impossible to lift. Chi You shook her head, but her eyelids felt heavier by the second. Just as she was about to fall into a deep sleep, a thunderous gunshot startled her awake. Jiang Pan, standing back-to-back with her, had fired his pistol at the ceiling.
The gunshot shattered the nursery rhyme and brought Chi You back to her senses. When she opened her eyes, the women were already standing right in front of her. Their pale faces, hollow eye sockets, long hair, and white dresses made them indistinguishable from ghosts. Standing there, staring fixedly at them, they were quite terrifying.
Heh...
In the next second, were they going to raise their sharp claws and attack?
No sooner had the thought crossed Chi You’s mind than the women moved, indeed raising their long, black fingernails to strike.
"Here they come!" Jiang Pan warned, his shotgun firing as well.
Chi You looked at the cold weapon in her own hand and thought, *No, after this instance is over, I’m getting a firearm.*
Chi You charged forward with the cleaver, fighting the ghost women with the determination of someone ready to die. The cleaver had been honed to a razor's edge, and with one swing, bright red blood splattered everywhere. Chi You was drenched, but she didn't care in the least. She pulled the blade out, dodged an attack, and began another round of strikes.
Chi You didn't know how to fight, but to survive, she could learn. However, fighting multiple opponents meant she was the one getting injured in the end. Looking at the wounds on her body, she felt incredibly restless. After this instance, she was going to a boxing gym. She needed to build up her stamina—she had to kill these monsters.
Her stamina was nearly exhausted, but there were still many ghost women left. The two of them were unable to finish them off.
An He’s silhouette appeared in the hallway. She was wearing a maternity dress, her belly bulging. She caressed her stomach with a look of maternal love, radiating a glow of motherhood. Under the lights, she looked so benevolent.