Chapter 7: The Encounter

Until a cold hand lifted his chin.
“What a pretty face; no wonder he thought you were his wife as soon as he saw you.”
After saying this, the man sat on the edge of the bed, carefully admiring Song Jinshi’s sleeping face.
“Such a fool, not even aware of the danger lurking, sleeping so soundly.”
Despite his words, the man’s gaze toward Song Jinshi was full of possessiveness.
Uncertain of how much time had passed, Song Jinshi finally awoke slowly.
When he woke up, he realized that the courtyard was completely empty.
“Could they still not have returned?”
“Wait, no, I feel like I sensed them coming back while I was asleep.”
Song Jinshi didn’t really want to look for them; after all, this was a horror game, and if he encountered danger, he would stand no chance of survival.
But the rumbling of his stomach told him he needed to find them, or he would be left hungry.
“Little assistant, can you help me locate where they are?”
Song Jinshi walked along a dimly lit path with barely any light.
The houses on either side had turned off their lights and were resting.
“Sure, host.”
“Locating Shen Yuanxing—”
“—Location failed, Shen Yuanxing cannot be found.”
“Cannot locate, host.”
At that moment, Song Jinshi regretted coming out; now, not only was he hungry, but he was also scared.
The surroundings were too dark, and Song Jinshi felt like something might jump out from the shadows.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock—”
The sound of water droplets hitting the ground came from afar.
The sound should have been faint, but it felt alarmingly clear in his ears.
“Host, run!”
The little assistant urged him anxiously.
Song Jinshi was terrified and used all his strength to run.
However, his body could barely support such intense activity.
After just a hundred meters, he felt a sharp pain and the metallic taste of rust.
Tears streamed down his face like beads on a broken string.
“Little assistant, I can’t run anymore.”
“Host, do not stop, run!”
Song Jinshi was already directionally challenged, and now being chased by a monster, he had completely lost his sense of direction.
Until he passed through a narrow gap, a strong force pulled him inside.
A sticky, damp sensation crawled up from his lower leg.
It climbed to his waist, to his chest, to his mouth.
Song Jinshi was entangled by something invisible in a highly erotic manner.
He felt like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered, the unknown monster that had ensnared him fell silent after catching him.
An intense sense of fear washed over him.
As time passed, he felt numb in that position.
The monster finally moved.
Invisible tendrils began to dissipate.
A shadow gradually appeared before him.
“Do you want to live?”
Song Jinshi was so scared that he couldn’t speak, and his body was stiff; he could only nod slowly to indicate his answer.
“Kiss me.”
Song Jinshi froze.
Why would the monster make such a demand?
He truly wanted to live, but kissing an unknown monster was simply unacceptable.
Especially since he still felt what seemed like tentacles nearby.
Song Jinshi had conjured up an image of a creature entirely composed of tentacles.
His face went pale as he wanted to refuse the monster before him, but he was also afraid that the monster would fly into a rage and kill him.
As he stared in despair at the dark void, desperately wanting to see the monster’s form despite his overwhelming fear,
a mocking chuckle echoed in his ear.
Then, a chilling sensation landed on his lips.
It was not the slimy, wet feeling he had imagined.
Aside from being somewhat cold, it wasn’t as disgusting as he had feared.
But that didn’t mean he would obediently accept an aggressive kiss from a creature.
At the moment their lips met, Song Jinshi was momentarily stunned but quickly reacted, wanting to struggle.
However, fear of the monster left him only able to move slightly.
Yet the monster easily overpowered him, swallowing all his tears.
In a daze.
The previously quiet space suddenly became noisy.
The pitch-black surroundings abruptly lit up.
It felt as if he had entered another world in an instant.
With the world brightening, the monster that had been kissing him vanished.
Released from constraint, Song Jinshi weakly collapsed to the ground.
Unsure how long it took, he eventually climbed back up, feeling as if everything had been a dream.
“Shishi, where have you been?”
“I’ve been looking for you after the meeting.”
Song Jinshi shook his head, unwilling to answer Shen Yuanxing’s question.
The sensation of being entwined by tentacles lingered on him.
“Host, we just received a notification; we have a task now.”
“We need to strategize against the big boss of this dungeon, raising his favorability and corruption levels to maximum.”
It was at this moment that Song Jinshi snapped out of his daze.
“Strategize against the boss?”
“But this is a horror dungeon, right?”
“Yes, host, but we are players from the romance strategy section, so our task still involves courting NPCs.”
“But—”
The system seemed to sense Song Jinshi’s worries and hastily added,
“Don’t worry, host; although we are currently in a horror dungeon, the criteria for courting targets will likely be similar to those in romance dungeons.”