Indeed...

This old woman was the hidden pawn buried in the mission. She's an NPC, and restricted by the rules, she can only strike when alone with another player.

"I see..." Leaning against the wall, Chen Ran smiled weakly.

Jiang Cheng ignored him. Compared to Chen Ran's life or death, he was obviously more concerned with how to survive, and... it seemed too quiet outside.

He wondered if that fatty had gotten into some trouble again.

"Wait... wait, cough cough..." Chen Ran's voice suddenly came. Jiang Cheng frowned and turned around. Could it be... he still had something to say?

Even knowing that staying here was a waste of time, Jiang Cheng still stopped. He stared at this troublesome man, seemingly waiting for his next words.

"Brother Hao," Chen Ran grinned, "are you... just going to leave like that?"

"Aren't you worried that this thing won't have much effect on me, and after I recover, I'll stab this old woman to death?" He raised his head with great difficulty, his eyes still holding that annoying arrogance.

It was as if... their positions were reversed, and he had forced Jiang Cheng into a desperate situation.

Jiang Cheng stared at him. After a moment, "So..."

"I suggest you not be soft-hearted and be decisive and thorough," he coughed a few more times, his face flushed, and his breathing was obviously having problems. The strange thing smeared on the dagger seemed to have other effects.

"You'd better take my dagger, and then chop off my arm, and preferably... preferably even cut off my legs," after a few seconds, Chen Ran gasped and chuckled, "If possible, destroy my eyes and cut off my tongue too."

"Turn me... turn me completely into a useless person who can't see, can't fight, and can't escape," he suggested, "That's the safest way."

"Do you have some kind of feud with this body?"

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes. Chen Ran's dangerousness in his heart greatly increased. There was no shortage of madmen in nightmares, and the repression and madness here were the paradise of madmen.

But he had never seen anyone as crazy as Chen Ran.

He didn't expect that this man was not only ruthless to others but even more ruthless to himself. Two gazes met, and Jiang Cheng didn't see any fear in his eyes.

He was very open to the upcoming result.

In nightmares, whether it's good people, bad people, madmen, or anyone with any title, it doesn't have much to do with life and death. What really determines whether everyone can survive is an extremely wise and calm mind.

Of course, there's also some... luck.

That's equally important.

"I'm just reminding you what the result will be if you, and that fat brother outside, fall into my hands," Chen Ran replied, his weak voice beginning to become persuasive, "The knife is in your hands, and you have a feast like me to enjoy, don't you really... want to try it?"

Chen Ran struggled to raise his head, the madness in his eyes almost condensing into substance, "Opportunities aren't always available, trust me," he said with a light smile, "while it's still in your hands."

Jiang Cheng stepped forward. The arc of the dagger flashed before his eyes, and hot blood splashed on the wall. The next second, Chen Ran's world fell into darkness.

"Goodbye."

Jiang Cheng, who had searched and taken two daggers from under Chen Ran's windbreaker, slowly stood up and turned to leave.

The old woman's eyes became more and more eager. She greedily licked the blood on Chen Ran's face with her snake-like slender tongue. He got his wish and had his eyes gouged out, but the smile at the corner of his mouth became more and more exaggerated.

In the instant Jiang Cheng slipped out the door, "Goodbye," Chen Ran said finally.

Jiang Cheng left the room and found the fatty outside the stone door. At this moment, the fatty seemed frightened, shrinking into the corner of the wall, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.

He tightly covered his mouth, as if afraid that something would hear his voice and come looking for him.

Seeing the fatty like this, Jiang Cheng didn't go over immediately, but after observing for a while, he slowly walked over, "Fatty," he lowered his voice.

Hearing the doctor's voice, the fatty was first stunned, then seemed to have found a savior, "Doctor," he trembled, "you don't know, not long after you went in, there was a sound from below, click-clack, like something walking on the steps, coming up!"

Following the direction the fatty was pointing, the stairs were pitch black. He didn't know what was above.

Moreover, he didn't know whether what the fatty said was actually happening or a hallucination caused by Chen Ran's actions.

He personally preferred the latter.

Now that the mission was nearing its end, if there was really something lurking in the dark, the fatty would probably be dead by now.

"Don't think about it," Jiang Cheng patted the fatty on the shoulder, "It should be a hallucination, otherwise, with your fat, those things wouldn't be able to resist."

The fatty sensibly chose to believe the doctor's words. He swallowed and forcibly pulled his gaze away from the dark stairs. He had been staring there for a full ten minutes.

He didn't dare to breathe loudly.

"Doctor," the fatty finally came back to his senses and saw the wound on Jiang Cheng's body. Not only on his body, but also on his face, there was a cut on one side, still bleeding from time to time, "You're injured!"

"Won't die," Jiang Cheng interrupted the fatty, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and said, "Chen Ran has been taken care of by me. We'll go in and see the result later."

Hearing this, a brilliant light suddenly bloomed on the fatty's face. He said excitedly, "Doctor, did you succeed in a sneak attack?"

Jiang Cheng choked and immediately glared his eyes in dissatisfaction, "It's obviously because he couldn't beat me, what does it have to do with a sneak attack? To tell you the truth, I even let him use one hand and one leg."

The fatty didn't care about these details, because it wasn't a day or two since the doctor had been running his mouth. His throat rolled up and down a few times, and he lowered his voice and said, "Doctor, do you mean that the old woman... will do that to him later?"

"Mhm."

"And then," the fatty asked, "what do we do?"

Jiang Cheng seized the time to popularize his understanding of this copy to the fatty. The fatty's hair stood on end. He swallowed hard and looked at the former weakly, "Doctor, I can understand that the old woman is an NPC, but... but is it too much to say that she's part of the curse?"

"And..." The fatty looked at him suspiciously, "You said that white dress... the white-skirted woman that appeared on the stone plate..."

"Priestess," Jiang Cheng added.

"Right, right, that white-skirted priestess is also the old woman, what does that mean?" The fatty looked at him, blinked, "I saw that white-skirted priestess very clearly, she's so good-looking, and she's big there, she doesn't look like the old woman at all!"

After communicating with Chen Ran for so long, suddenly switching back to the fatty, Jiang Cheng was a little unaccustomed for a while, "It has nothing to do with appearance," Jiang Cheng shook his head, his tone suddenly becoming serious, "You can understand it as... a kind of inheritance."