Hell’s Handbook

Su Jin didn’t know what to say to Zhang Yang, since he clearly just did only what he liked and wasn’t affected at all. As long as Zhang Yang was able to help, he could do whatever he wanted!

The group stayed inside the bedroom to recharge, and when some light shone in through the windows, they knew it was daybreak. Su Jin opened his eyes slightly and glanced at Zhang Yang. Zhang Yang nodded back.

“Alright, everyone. Whether we survive or not depends on what we do today.” Su Jin took a deep breath, carried Yu Wenkuo on his shoulder, then started walking up to the third story. Even though Su Jin was no longer the sort who would sacrifice himself to save someone else who was hopeless, carrying one extra immobile person required barely any effort from him and he was happy to do it.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, Su Jin took the key out, rotated it in his hands, then stuck it into the door leading to the third floor. After turning it, Su Jin heard a loud click, which meant that the door was now open.

It was common for someone to get killed by opening a door in horror movies, and it was the same for such Challenges. Opening this door was going to be very dangerous, so Su Jin channeled his psychokinesis to his eyes. If something happened after the door opened, he could use it to protect himself as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for him, the limits on his Spirit Power were too strict, so after he had used it a few times over the last two days, he was left with less than 100 points and had to be more careful with the balance.

He pushed the door open hard, then took several steps back. The door slammed shut and opened again twice from the force, but nothing strange happened.

Su Jin licked his dry lips. The door was wide open, but he couldn’t see what was inside at all. In front of them lay absolute darkness, as though the third story was covered in black smog.

“Mr. Xu, please get us some bedsheets,” Su Jin said to Xu Ge.

Xu Ge blinked and wanted to refuse to go, but he didn’t dare to say anything in the end and went downstairs to get a few bedsheets for Su Jin.

Su Jin tied the bedsheets into a rope, then tied it to each person. It was impossible to see inside the third story, so to make sure that nobody got lost and attacked by the spirits, this was the best thing he could come up with.

Zhang Yang burst out laughing. “Aren’t you afraid we’d all get attacked at once?”

“Compared to that, I’m more afraid that one lost soul will devour us all,” said Su Jin as he shook his head. He was certain that evil spirits would appear today, so it was safer to move as a group rather than let the spirits kill them one by one.

Su Jin took the frontmost position, then walked cautiously past the door. The moment he walked in, he froze, which worried everyone. Had Su Jin already been attacked?

“Come in, everyone.” They felt a yank on the bedsheet around them, followed by Su Jin’s voice, and they all breathed a sigh of relief.

After entering the third story, they were equally stunned. The third story wasn’t completely pitch black at all. The darkness was just to prevent the owners from seeing what was really inside when they stood outside the door. Once they got in, they found themselves in a massive space. A gigantic maze stood before their eyes.

“A maze?” Su Jin tapped his nose. The aim of this Challenge was to stay alive for three days, so what was the point of constructing a maze? Stalling the owners didn’t make sense, since the owners were the ones hoping to stall for time to get through the Challenge.

“Could it be…” A possibility struck Su Jin. If that was the case, then this maze was a huge threat to them. With that thought in mind, he turned to look at Zhang Yang, who was deep in thought. When he sensed Su Jin staring at him, he drew a circle in the air.

“Are we thinking about the same thing?” Su Jin nodded at Zhang Yang. It seemed like the same thought had hit Zhang Yang. The Challenge required the owners to survive three days here, but what was the Challenge’s definition of one day? Was it based on when it turned dark and bright outside the house?

The mirror from the second floor had turned out to be a different dimension that had sucked Ning Ran in, which meant that the house could control space. In that case, did this maze represent time? To put it simply, did it mean that for as long as they could not make it through the maze, the third day would never end?

The circle that Zhang Yang had drawn in midair represented the sun and moon. He had thought of the same thing, and figured that this maze could delay the ending of the third day.

“Does anyone have experience getting through mazes?” Su Jin asked the group. He and Zhang Yang were strategists, but as the saying went, three not-so-bright ones can outsmart a bright one. Hearing from others wasn’t a bad idea.

But Xu Ge, Qian Yingying, and Ning Ran in the mirror all shook their heads. Su Jin had no choice but to look back at Zhang Yang. Zhang Yang did not claim to not know anything and replied, “I’ve been caught in mazes before, but those were simple ones, so even if you didn’t have any good way of solving them, you’d eventually walk out of them. This maze isn’t going to be so easy, so I have two ideas on how to get through it.”

“Two ideas?” asked Su Jin.

“The first one is a very basic method, the rule of lefts. Every time you run into a fork, pick the left side. That way, you’d eventually go through every fork and you’d eventually find the exit,” said Zhang Yang. “It’s a simple method, but if we’re facing a super large maze, we’d need a lot of time. If time does not move while we’re in the maze, we’re giving the spirits a lot of chances to kill us.

“The second idea is quick and simple, but that depends on whether the Challenge would allow us to do this,” Zhang Yang went on. “We are supposed to get through this maze, but we aren’t given any rules, so we can solve this with a bit of violence. If we can shatter every wall in our way, we’d definitely find our way out.”

Su Jin agreed with Zhang Yang’s ideas. He had also thought of these two ideas. Unless you were able to gain a vantage point and look down at the maze from above it, you pretty much only had these two options. The space in the third story was immense, and the walls of the maze were at least five or six meters in height. Looking down from above wasn’t an option.

Su Jin walked to one wall of the maze, then punched it hard. But while there was a flicker of green light, the wall remained completely unscathed.

“Looks like doing that isn’t possible.” Su Jin shook his head. That punch of his was definitely strong enough to even break through a steel wall, so this wall was definitely protected in a special way such that it could not be destroyed with sheer brute force.

“We’ll have to explore it properly then,” said Zhang Yang with a sigh. He sounded disappointed, but Su Jin could sense that he was secretly excited, like an elementary school kid going on an excursion.

Since they could see well here, Su Jin untied the bedsheets around everyone. But they did not throw the bedsheets away and kept one piece tied around their waist. There were limits on how many pieces of equipment they could retrieve from their Handbooks, so even a simple rope like this might come in handy.

Su Jin continued to carry Yu Wenkuo on his shoulder as they entered the maze. In most cases, there were two types of mazes. One was just a confusing set of walls, and you just had to find your way out. The other type was the sort that had traps along the way. This maze was more likely to be the second sort.

Just as they had expected, they hadn’t gone too far before running into a wall that suddenly spewed flames. Thankfully, Su Jin had reacted fast enough and his retreat had pushed everyone back as well.

“That was close!” Su Jin could feel how hot those flames were. Besides himself and Zhang Yang, anyone else would have been burned to a crisp.

“I’ll walk in front.” Zhang Yang volunteered to lead the way because his body was built different, but that still surprised the rest of the group.

But Zhang Yang walked on confidently, and it turned out that he was a better leader in this maze than Su Jin because he had some other gear in his body that could detect the traps in the wall early.

After a long time of walking, Xu Ge and Qian Yingying both looked rather exhausted. Su Jin and Zhang Yang, on the other hand, had grim looks on their faces. After they exchanged glances, they started drawing on the floor and they soon drew out a map of the maze. They checked against each other’s drawings and they were identical.

“Looking at this, we’ve only covered about a quarter of the maze,” said Zhang Yang with a frown. Su Jin nodded in agreement. This maze was probably circular in shape, and their map was currently in the shape of a quadrant.

“We’ve only covered a quadrant and we’ve already run into so many traps even though we’ve just started. It’ll get worse once we get close to the exit, I’m sure.” Su Jin started getting worried. The traps had been progressively getting more and more aggressive in nature, so the traps near the exit were probably going to really endanger their lives.

“Mr. Su… that… Qian Yingying’s gone!” Xu Ge suddenly raised his voice.

Su Jin and Zhang Yang turned to look, and found that Qian Yingying had indeed disappeared. They were both puzzled, since they had just seen her seconds ago. Where did she go?

“Let’s not get all worried now. Maybe she had to pee?” said Su Jin. He called out loudly, “Miss Qian, can you hear me? Holler if you hear me!”

But no matter how loudly Su Jin shouted, he didn’t get any response. Zhang Yang chuckled and said, “That’s quite enough. As long as she’s not an idiot, she wouldn’t just leave the group on her own. If she’s gone, it means… the spirits are probably on the move.”

“What do we do now? Do we look for her?” asked Xu Ge frantically.

Su Jin frowned, then said in a resolute voice, “Come along, we’ll continue searching for the exit.”

“Wait, what?” Xu Ge was surprised. He thought Su Jin would try to save her.

“This is not the time to save another person. If the evil spirits came intending to kill her, then she’ll probably be dead by the time we find her. The important thing now is to get through this maze,” explained Su Jin without hesitation.