10
I gave the visitation cards Rachel and Jack had collected by killing their companions to the schoolgirl and fitness coach.
I kindly told them there was still time now, they could go visit the ghosts on floors 20-30.
“If the ghosts target you, just say you’re friends of Nina from the 30th floor. She sent you up to get cards.”
I believe after my heartfelt talks with the ghosts, they should give me some face, right?
23:48 Mon, 18 Aug
<
The schoolgirl and fitness coach were extremely grateful, bowing to me repeatedly.
I hurriedly avoided them, the three of us dancing around like we were doing the tango.
I went down alone to collect the visitation cards I needed.
Going further down became even easier.
I progressed almost unimpeded, gathering all the cards in a few minutes.
But I didn’t hear any game prompt in my ear.
I knew I was still missing the most crucial card.
The 30th floor card, the 30th floor story.
But I’m not an idiot.
After these days together, I already knew their stories.
They were indeed once four completely unrelated strangers.
Sissy was a little girl who kindly helped an adult man hold an umbrella after school on a rainy day, but ended up being hurt and killed.
Grandpa George was a “dirty old man” falsely accused on the bus. In the end, despite the earlier misunderstanding, he still helped the girl subdue the real bad guy out of concern for
her safety, but was stabbed in the stomach, his intestines spilling out.
Grandma Rose was in an apartment fire. Her son knew how to use fire extinguishers and firefighting equipment, but because there was no water in the fire hydrant, he had to watch helplessly as his mother was burned alive.
The Headless Big Boss was the son of members of a large evil cult. He had excellent grades, graduated from a top university, and finally escaped his original family. But his parents were brainwashed and heard that eating their own son’s brain marrow could grant immortality. So they caught their son off guard, and the couple used a dull knife to chop off their son’s head, truly cracking open his skull to extract the marrow.
23:48 Mon, 18 Aug
<
And my reunion with them here to form a strange and awkward family may not be a
coincidence.
Actually, the day before my car accident, I had just gotten paid and was skipping happily
past a cemetery.
Somehow, I suddenly had the idea to buy four bouquets from a nearby flower shop and randomly place them on four adjacent graves for the deceased.
I remember the names on those four tombstones were:
Sissy Qin.
George Liu.
Rose Li.
Wu Ming.
So he really was nameless.
