Chapter Thirty-Six: Another Heartbeat Warning—The Terrifying Unknown of the Western Forest

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……

Sun Qian and the others had crossed the bridge and were already close to the Western Forest.

Wang Jian wore a vacant expression as he hugged a golden girlfriend with his left arm and a silver girlfriend with his right.

Gold in his left hand, silver in his right—he was even more conspicuous than Bai Wan, who carried a portrait of his entire family on his back.

“The Western Forest should be just ahead, right?” Sun Qian said, gazing toward what appeared to be an utterly ordinary forest.

Yet after they had taken only a few steps, everyone stopped in astonishment.

Boom, boom, boom!

Everyone’s expression changed. Their hearts were pounding violently.

This was… a Heartbeat Warning?

“Impossible… Why is there a Heartbeat Warning? Isn’t entering the Western Forest part of the main storyline?” Wang Jian was already close to breaking down while carrying the two golden and silver girlfriends. Now that he sensed the warning, he could no longer control his emotions.

A Heartbeat Warning proved that there was an anomaly in the forest they could not possibly resist.

Only when an anomaly far beyond the difficulty of the scenario appeared would a Heartbeat Warning be triggered.

But… this made no sense.

In theory, if they simply followed the main storyline, they should not encounter a Heartbeat Warning at all.

“The Heartbeat Warning is fairly weak. Most likely, there’s something terrifying in this forest, but we don’t need to come into contact with it. After all, we only need to retrieve Fantasyland,” Xu Bing analyzed calmly.

“That should be it. According to the game’s instructions, the painting we stole was buried beneath a stone tablet somewhere in the Western Forest. We don’t need to go deep inside, so we may not encounter that terrifying anomaly,” Sun Qian said with a nod, agreeing with Xu Bing.

Even so, everyone still looked uneasy.

Theory was one thing; reality was another.

Knowing that an extremely vicious anomaly lurked in the Western Forest and still having to enter it in search of a painting placed immense pressure on them.

The scenario titled “The Letter” truly lived up to its status as an unsolvable-level scenario.

There were actually two places with Heartbeat Warnings. It was absurd.

Xu Bing had always been confident in herself, but after entering the scenario, she had gradually begun to lose that confidence.

Could she really survive?

“When I asked the villagers earlier, they told me that the people in the village had marked the trees on both sides of the path through the Western Forest. We have to follow the markers, or we’ll get lost,” Su Yue Ning said.

While exploring the village earlier, she had encountered the old man she had met the first time, and from him she had obtained this crucial piece of information.

“All right. Let’s get into the forest quickly. It’s getting late.” Sun Qian glanced at Wang Jian, hesitated, then said, “Little brother… carrying those two girlfriends is really inconvenient. How are you going to escape if we encounter an anomaly? Why not leave them outside the forest?”

Wang Jian looked dejected. Earlier, he had chosen the girlfriend who had been soaked and left to rot, intending to bury her properly if he ever returned to reality. He had never expected the River God to ignore the usual rules and simply toss him two girlfriends—one gold and one silver—before leaving.

Seeing Wang Jian’s expression, Sun Qian could not help trying to console him.

“Little brother, you’re still young. Don’t hang yourself from a single tree. A heartless woman like that is better off dead. Listen to your big brother—when we get back, sell these two girlfriends to a scrap dealer and recoup some money. Then you can start over.”

Gold prices had been rising sharply lately. He might even be able to sell them for a good price.

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Whether Wang Jian had come to terms with it or not, he placed his two girlfriends beside the forest.

Then everyone entered the Western Forest together.

Bai Wan carefully observed the trees beside the forest path. Red cords had been tied around them, presumably the trail markers Su Yue Ning had mentioned—the ones placed there by the villagers.

Aside from that, the dense forest before them seemed no different from any ordinary forest.

No… there was still a difference.

The forest ahead was far too quiet. The only sound was the wind stirring the leaves.

All the small animals had vanished. It was said that animals possessed an innate sensitivity and could detect danger more easily than humans. Now it seemed that was indeed true.

The group proceeded cautiously through the Western Forest, which was known as the Ghost Burial Forest.

Without realizing it, everyone tightened their grip on the life-saving items in their pockets. They had obtained each of those through hard work in previous scenarios.

Although Wang Jian had not managed to retrieve his girlfriend’s corpse, Luo Ya had fallen into the river before she could use the skull. The skull had been left behind on the bridge, so he still had one final trump card for saving his life. That counted as a blessing amid misfortune.

The sky gradually darkened, forcing them to quicken their pace. They had to return to Lin Yuan’s wooden cabin before ten o’clock at night. Otherwise, no one knew what might happen.

Suddenly, as they walked, something began moving ahead.

Everyone stared warily into the distance.

No one from the village dared come to this haunted forest.

So… what was that thing ahead?

Sun Qian and the others held their breath and moved forward slowly.

After a while, they saw what lay ahead, and their expressions tightened.

A man dressed in tattered clothes was chopping down trees in the middle of the forest.

Most horrifying of all, his body was incomplete. Part of one thigh had been reduced to bare bone.

Bai Wan and the others simultaneously thought of the old woman Sun Qian had mentioned earlier.

Her husband had gone into the mountains to gather firewood a year ago. After entering the Western Forest, he had never come back down.

The man before them was most likely the old woman’s husband… and he had already been dead for a year.

Had he been chopping wood here the entire time?

How sinister.

Sun Qian and the others did not dare breathe too loudly as they carefully circled around the corpse that was chopping wood.

Bai Wan, however, watched the chopping man with a flicker of interest in his eyes.

At that moment, Su Yue Ning seized Bai Wan’s hand. Her warning gaze seemed to say: No dancing.

Bai Wan reluctantly circled around with the others.

All right, all right. I’ll listen to you. No dancing!

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In this way, everyone successfully passed the Tree-Chopping Ghost.

Perhaps the anomaly had not noticed them. Or perhaps they had not triggered its killing rule. Whatever the case, they had narrowly escaped disaster.

Yet no one felt happy. They could only feel their bodies growing colder and colder.

They had encountered a ghost right at the beginning.

After so many years, surely only one person had not died here…

Just how many ghosts were there in this forest?

“Everyone, be careful. Make absolutely sure you follow the trail markers. Do not stray toward any tree without a marker, or you may never find your way back,” Sun Qian warned, forcing down his fear.

Everyone nodded, their eyes fixed on the trees wrapped with red cords. They dared not make the slightest mistake.

After walking for a while longer, everyone’s expression brightened. Up ahead, they saw a massive stone tablet.

“That must be where the painting was buried,” Xu Bing said. Even her usually cold expression revealed a flicker of delight.

Fortunately, the burial site was not far away. Otherwise, the psychological pressure of remaining in such a terrifying forest would have been unbearable even if no anomaly appeared.

Sun Qian and the others hurried over and took the shovels they had prepared from their backpacks.

Shovels like these were common in rural areas, so they had been easy enough to obtain.

They began digging into a patch of relatively fresh soil. Lin Yuan’s belongings should have been buried beneath it.

After a while, their shovels struck metal, and everyone’s expression brightened.

They had found it!

Sun Qian was the first to act. He opened the metal chest buried below.

Inside were numerous valuables and pieces of jewelry, along with a great many paintings.

One by one, they examined the paintings, searching for an unfinished work called Fantasyland.

Soon, everyone’s faces turned pale.

“How is that possible? Fantasyland isn’t here…” Su Yue Ning stared in shock.

Every painting inside was a completed work, and each bore a title. Not a single one was called Fantasyland.

“Wait… Could the female ghost be testing us? Maybe there was never any such thing as Fantasyland,” Sun Qian said, his face filled with terror.

If they were being tested, did that mean they had already been exposed?

The female ghost already knew they were not Lin Yuan…

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