Chapter 98: The Human Skin Drum (2)

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Tang Mu had no intention of taking that photo, so the moment the tour guide pressed the shutter, she took advantage of her loosened shoelace to crouch down, letting the people in front of her block her figure.

The photo shoot was over.

Whether it was Tang Mu's imagination or not, the tour guide looked at her with a slightly sinister gaze.

“All done, the photos are finished. We won’t disturb everyone from exploring Luomen Village any longer,” the guide said, handing one of the 52 tourists a photo that had just popped out of the camera. Then, he grabbed his bag and returned to the tour bus.

“Goodbye.”

The driver hit the accelerator, and with a whoosh, the bus departed gracefully from sight.

“Damn it.” The passenger holding the photo spat on the ground furiously after glancing at the image. “The people in this photo all have inexplicably bloated stomachs. I don’t know if it’s due to lighting or the camera.”

“What’s going on?” Others took the photo from him and indeed noticed the strange bellies. Even the thinnest young men, who certainly weren’t potbellied, appeared to be pushing out their stomachs in the picture, giving off a very eerie impression.

But when they looked away from the photo and back at their own bodies, they would pat their stomachs reassuringly and then touch their chests, comforting themselves that what appeared in the photo was nothing but a false illusion.

“It must be the camera or the lighting,” others chimed in with hopeful denial. “Let’s not waste more time on the photo. Come on, let’s enter the village. Maybe there’s a clue for passing the level inside.”

“Players?”

“Of course,” one said. “Everyone who comes here is a player, right? The PCs should all be in the village.”

“Not necessarily,” another replied. “When I played the Monastery dungeon before, the PCs mingled among the players and slaughtered us until we were crying for mercy. So be careful. Maybe some of those tourists are that kind of person…”

“Hey, what are you guys talking about?” A plump man with a hiking backpack playfully slapped one of them hard enough to nearly knock the wind out of him. “Talking about the photo problem? Huh, how can this photo be fake? I clearly don’t have the body shown here... It must be the camera. I even skipped dinner last night to play the game and lost a bit of weight this morning!”

“Oof... can you be gentler? That really hurt!”

“Haha, sorry, sorry. I’m always like this, it’s a habit!”

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Tang Mu didn’t bother looking at the photo.

Seeing her head into the village, Qiao Yuan couldn’t help but warn, “Be careful. It’s best not to go alone in an A-level dungeon.”

“What could happen in broad daylight?” Tang Mu’s arrogant tone made the others uncomfortable, especially An Xiaoying.

An Xiaoying quietly exchanged a glance with Ge Wenqian.

Ge Wenqian had no choice but to be dragged aside to act as An Xiaoying’s mouthpiece. “That’s not necessarily true. Anything can happen in the game. Some people shouldn’t think they can do whatever they want just because their mental strength is SS level. There are plenty of cases of people meeting disaster in the gutters. Even if some have special abilities, can those who die young really be called genius warriors? They’re just fools trying to stop a moving chariot with their arms.”

Hearing Ge Wenqian, Tang Mu wasn’t interested in arguing further. She knew well enough that Ge Wenqian was just a barking dog under An Xiaoying’s control.

“Some people, instead of being human, choose to be dogs.”

Tang Mu’s lips curled into a faint, disdainful smile. “Clearly capable of standing at the top of the food chain, yet they insist on being lowly creatures. It’s truly strange.”

“You!” Ge Wenqian, humiliated, flushed red and white.

Seeing Ge Wenqian so useless, An Xiaoying angrily shoved her aside and stepped forward. “Tang Mu! Even inside the game, how dare you be so arrogant? Believe me, I—”

Before she could finish, a yellow talisman covered with vermillion inscriptions was slapped over her mouth.

She was forcibly silenced.

But the talisman was not Tang Mu’s.

It belonged to Qiao Yuan.

“Focus on the dungeon seriously and earn your items. Stop wasting time and energy where you shouldn’t,” Qiao Yuan said coldly, watching An Xiaoying and Ge Wenqian. “If I catch you slacking off again, don’t blame me for kicking you out of the guild.”

An Xiaoying was furious but unable to say a word.

Only Ge Wenqian meekly stammered, “Understood. We won’t do it again.”

Feigning weakness, Ge Wenqian ignored An Xiaoying’s angry glare and put on a humble expression of submission to the vice president of the Guild of A Yu.

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But what she was truly thinking inside, who could say?

There was nothing strange at the village entrance. Everyone carried their own packs and entered in order.

The village’s houses were particularly old and simple wooden structures. Probably due to the damp environment, the ground floors were used to keep penned chickens, ducks, fish, geese, and pigs. The second floors were where the people lived.

However, what struck them as odd was that when villagers went up the mountain to harvest herbs or down to the river to wash clothes, they were fully armored, wrapped up tightly from head to toe.

“Hey, villagers!” a tourist from the bus shouted at one of the villagers. “There are so many of us. We want to stay overnight. Where should we go? Don’t you have to find a place for us to stay temporarily?”

The companions thought this man was overly bold, daring to boss around the PCs. Was he not afraid of being eaten alive?

“Lower your voice. If you anger the PCs, we’ll be the ones suffering.”

“Bah, I’m not scared. What’s there to fear?” The man told them to relax. “I have a resurrection item. It’s A-level, from the marketplace, worth tens of millions! Priceless! I even bound it to myself to prevent others from killing and looting me. It’s a perfect self-defense weapon—can’t let it go to waste!”

“Resurrection item?” Another’s eyes gleamed with envy. “How’d you get it? Tell your brothers!”

“Ha, it was just luck at the end of some wild dungeon runs when everyone else accidentally died. I got the leftover. It’s all about luck and fate, brother. Right?”

The one called brother grinned obsequiously. “Then I’m counting on you for this dungeon!”

“No problem.”

As for the villager they stopped—

He was a man, but wrapped from head to toe, only a pair of lifeless eyes staring coldly at the group of outsiders.