Next to the employee break room in the supermarket, after confirming that no one was around, Gao Yi and Xiaohong stopped.
It was only then that Gao Yi had time to carefully observe her.
Her semi-long black hair was clipped back with a hairpin into a refreshing fringe, and the gas station uniform was covered by a black apron. Her legs were slightly bowed and trembled uncontrollably.
It's worth mentioning that her lower apron was very short, fully exposing her matching colored stockings, and she was surprisingly wearing a pair of bright red high heels, which were a stark contrast to her demeanor.
At this moment, Xiaohong was bowing her head, her hands clasped together, her two thumbs repeatedly rubbing against each other.
"If you don't want to chat with that Yamada, you can totally refuse."
Seeing her like this, Gao Yi sighed and couldn't help but advise her.
Honestly, compared to his own life, these strangers in the game instances were truly insignificant.
But with her standing so pitifully in front of him, Gao Yi still couldn't simply walk away and ignore her.
This was also the reason he became a reporter—and similarly, the reason everyone would want to trick him.
"I understand... Actually, Manager Yamada didn't do anything bad..."
Xiaohong's head drooped even lower, and her voice became softer and softer.
No, can't be led astray.
Gao Yi rubbed his hair, bringing the conversation back on track:
"I want to know more. Can you tell me what you were doing before the fog appeared, and what happened to the owner of the bloodstain at the entrance that you mentioned earlier?"
"Uh, before the fog came out... I don't remember much. I think I was trying to buy something?"
Xiaohong frowned, seemingly trying desperately to recall, but came up with nothing. Her hands just rubbed more intensely, clearly very nervous.
"It's okay. Then tell me what happened with the bloodstain at the entrance."
Not needing to recall seemed to make Xiaohong breathe a sigh of relief, but the current topic clearly made her somewhat afraid again:
"A black shadow... and then tentacles! Strange tentacles suddenly reached out from within the fog, grabbed a man tightly, and dragged him out!"
....................
After bidding farewell to Xiaohong, Gao Yi used the excuse of needing to use the restroom and pushed open the door to the employee break room.
To be honest, perhaps due to extreme panic and fear, Xiaohong's description was intermittent and vague.
After asking for a long time, he didn't get much effective information.
Helpless, he could only give up on further questioning.
But one thing was very strange.
According to Mr. Fujimoto, the first victim, the man, died from "some kind of wolf-like beast."
And according to the old woman, it was "the Mountain God's giant hand."
Gao Yi hadn't paid much attention to the discrepancies in what the previous two said, only thinking the old woman was exaggerating.
But now, there was already a third different account.
Something was wrong.
"Illusion?" "Mental attack?"
Gao Yi wrote his conjectures in his notebook and flipped through it again, sighing once more.
In these two hours, he hadn't obtained any accurate information about the monsters and the fog, only a large number of vague conjectures.
There was no way around it; it was truly difficult to gather information in the supermarket, which was shrouded in dense fog.
Listening closely, Manager Yamada outside the door was talking to Xiaohong again, and he could vaguely hear a child's snoring.
Gently tapping his sore neck twice, Gao Yi pulled himself together and began searching the employee break room.
The entire employee break room wasn't large; the only source of light was a flickering incandescent bulb.
A worn-out brown second-hand sofa, paired with a wooden coffee table almost as old as Gao Yi, formed a small rest corner.
Several uncleaned paper cups with tea leaves remaining were stacked on the coffee table.
Underneath them were various product promotion posters, many of which were held under the name of the "Huirong" chain supermarket.
However, it was evident that this chain store, built in a remote area, had not carried out the various "buy two get one free" and lottery activities required by the parent company.
It's also not hard to understand; although this place belonged to a chain supermarket, it was in fact completely independently operated, merely operating under that brand.
Otherwise, it wouldn't have allowed such unprofessional arrangement and display on its shelves.
Stepping onto the coffee table, the small window, reaching up to the ceiling, was tightly closed, and outside was still a vast expanse of white fog.
Observing closely, he could vaguely see some black shadows moving within it, though he didn't know what they were.
But compared to when the game first started, these black shadows were clearly much more agitated.
Sighing slightly, Gao Yi casually summoned the light screen.
【I: Survive in the "Huirong" Supermarket for twelve hours (Countdown 9:54:23)】
There was no clock or similar item inside the entire supermarket; the only way to check the time was through a few customers' mobile phones—and Gao Yi didn't have one.
Ultimately, he could only infer the passage of time through the task countdown.
He personally could estimate time by feel, but in this bizarre "game," it was best not to trust his intuition too much.
Getting down from the coffee table, he turned to the other side.
Three iron lockers, commonly seen in Western teenage films, stood there, their doors covered with stubborn adhesive residue from things that had been stuck on and then torn off.
Slowly opening the cabinet doors, which were a bit stuck due to dents, Gao Yi inspected them one by one.
The entire "Huirong" Supermarket had a total of three employees—or rather, two remaining.
One female employee seemed to have resigned; her locker was mostly empty, leaving only things like duty rosters and cargo manifests.
It's worth mentioning that there was also a letter placed inside the locker.
Upon opening it, the letter's content was an accusation against another employee in the supermarket.
That employee, named Masugi Sho, had sexually harassed her at work, often intentionally or unintentionally making physical contact with her, and her stockings had gone missing from her locker.
Perhaps this letter was left for the manager, but considering Yamada's character, one could only say that the upper beam was not straight, and the lower beam was crooked.
The locker on the other side belonged to that Masugi.
Upon opening it, a foul stench immediately wafted out.
Various papers and flyers inside the locker were casually crumpled, a shirt wrapped around rotten and spoiled pizza and loose pills, and the oversized work uniform was covered in stains.
"Unkempt," "tall," "extremely poor hygiene," Gao Yi could easily make a basic profile.
Underneath the pizza, which had been there for who knows how long, Gao Yi also found an employee ID card with the photo blacked out, perhaps Masugi was not confident about his appearance.
From a small hole in the innermost part, blocked by flyers, Gao Yi also found two pairs of black stockings.
It seemed that what the resigned female employee said was true.
Finally, what remained was Manager Yamada's locker.
Unexpectedly, the chubby manager's locker was quite tidy.
Two sets of uniforms were neatly hung on the clothes rod, and various registration documents and receiving materials in the drawer were very organized.
From the carefully chosen positions of various miscellaneous items, Gao Yi could even detect a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive disorder.
"I didn't realize it... That Yamada looks so perverted, yet he's actually quite clean?"
Lamenting that one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, Gao Yi searched carefully but found absolutely no information worth mentioning.
Aside from reconfirming that this supermarket was located near a highway next to a small town, and that delivery trucks came every three days, he gained nothing.
Many of the specific data and contents of the documents were also covered by various stains, perhaps the doing of this bizarre game.
Closing the locker door and returning all items as much as possible to their original positions, he only took a fruit knife from Manager Yamada's locker and tucked it into his waistband.
Gao Yi sat on the sofa, hands clasped behind his head, lost in thought.
The situation was worse than he had imagined.
The search had yielded no effective information, and his hopes for weapons and equipment had all been dashed.
Was he really going to wait in this supermarket for twelve hours, praying for Lady Luck's mercy?
With a slight thought, Gao Yi opened the 【Tag System】.
The task before him still existed.
【Special Task: Explore everything that happened in the "Huirong" Supermarket and ascertain the truth of the disaster (09:43:34)】
No, with this task present, he must have a way to ascertain the truth of the disaster.
The question was, where was the breakthrough point?
He still had three drawing chances, should he use them now?
Gao Yi was already accustomed to his nightmarish bad luck and had no expectations for any draws. Remembering it now was already a last resort.
Just as he was about to spin the wheel and make a draw, a commotion came from outside the door; it seemed something else had happened in the supermarket.
After a series of hurried footsteps, Xiaohong pushed the door open, panting:
"That... ha, ha, sir, outside the supermarket..."
"Don't rush, speak slowly. What happened outside the supermarket?"
Gao Yi stood up, put his notebook away again, and said calmly.
"Outside the supermarket, those three who left earlier have returned!"
........................................