Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 51: For Fuck's Sake, Shut Up
Looking at the brightly lit corridor, Sun Yixie let out a long sigh of relief.
Surely there shouldn't be any danger in such a well-lit place, right?
Compared with the darkness of the previous areas, a brightly lit scene was certainly much more comforting.
Thinking this, Sun Yixie guided the protagonist forward.
Just as the protagonist was about to squeeze through a narrow gap, a low voice suddenly came through his headphones:
"Little pig!"
The game camera shook violently.
Just like before, Sun Yixie, sitting in his chair, and the protagonist in the game both let out panicked screams almost simultaneously.
And, once again, Sun Yixie instinctively covered his face.
Peering through the gaps between his fingers, Sun Yixie saw a huge, blood-covered, terrifyingly muscular man standing behind the protagonist on the screen.
The man then grabbed the protagonist and violently threw him from the second floor.
The protagonist crashed down from the second floor to the first. The screen reflected the impact, gradually coming back into focus from darkness.
At that moment, an NPC who looked somewhat like a priest walked up to him.
He began speaking incomprehensible words.
"Who are you?"
"I understand now. Merciful God, you have sent an angel to find me, to protect your life… Child, you have been summoned."
Completely unable to understand what this conversation meant, the protagonist struggled to his feet a moment later.
A new objective appeared:
Escape the psychiatric hospital. Enter the security room and open the main gate.
"For fuck's sake! Why the hell do they have to pull that kind of surprise attack?!"
Looking at the new objective, then at the camera he was carrying with only one battery left, Sun Yixie suddenly felt very uneasy.
There was absolutely no sense of security.
What if he ran into that fat monster again?
What was he supposed to do then?
Fortunately, the encounter just now had only startled him.
And Sun Yixie actually felt that running into that fat monster might not be quite as bad as it seemed.
Unlike the grotesque faces of traditional ghosts, the fat monster still looked somewhat human. He was just particularly hideous and ferocious.
"What the hell are these people doing?"
"Could they all turn into monsters later?"
He finally saw other people in the main hall.
The only problem was that all of them were sitting there with blank expressions.
Sun Yixie carefully guided the protagonist closer, but neither these people nor the psychiatric patients sitting in wheelchairs paid him any attention.
It was as though they couldn't see him at all.
He searched through every corner and eventually found several batteries.
"This kind of… this kind of horror game is really just about creating a scary atmosphere. There's actually nothing here!"
Sun Yixie tried to reassure himself and relieve some of his psychological pressure with his own commentary.
However, just as he passed the psychiatric patient sitting in the wheelchair, the music in his headphones suddenly became intense and terrifying.
At the same time, the protagonist let out another enormous scream.
The psychiatric patient in the wheelchair suddenly lunged at him, and the entire computer screen was filled with the patient's hideous face.
In the real world, Sun Yixie was so frightened that he literally threw his mouse across the room.
"For fuck's sake! For fuck's sake!"
Slumped in his chair, Sun Yixie covered his face with both hands and muttered his favorite catchphrase under his breath.
Just then, he suddenly heard a creaking sound.
The door to the room slowly opened.
"For fuck's sake! Who?! WHO?!"
Like a startled bird, Sun Yixie's entire body jolted as he turned toward the door.
"Who? It's me! Brother Sun, what the hell are you doing? Why is the air conditioner in here set so low? Eh— what's wrong with you?"
Standing in the doorway was a middle-aged man who was broad and heavyset, with a fleshy face, a somewhat short neck, and a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
He stared in bewilderment at Sun Yixie, whose face had gone deathly pale and who was still wearing a down jacket despite the freezing room.
"Brother Huang! You're finally back!"
Seeing the familiar face, Sun Yixie let out a long breath of relief.
Huang Donglai glanced at the secondary monitor showing the livestream, then at the main screen displaying the game, and immediately understood what had happened.
"Brother Sun, you're playing a horror game? Judging by the way you look, it must have scared the hell out of you!"
Huang Donglai smacked his lips.
"Don't talk about it, Brother Huang. It's good enough that you're back."
As if he had finally found backup, Sun Yixie relaxed and took a moment to recover. He picked up the mouse he had thrown away and adjusted the camera.
"Guys, we just had a little accident. Let's keep going, okay?"
After saying that, he put his headphones back on.
With his good friend sitting beside him, Sun Yixie suddenly felt something called confidence beginning to grow inside him.
The view returned to the game.
At this point, he was completely empty-handed. Other than a battered camera, he had nothing.
Sun Yixie suddenly found himself missing all those horror games he'd played before where you could shoot zombies.
At least give him a weapon!
If he had something to defend himself with, he wouldn't be nearly this nervous.
"Finally, I found it."
With the knowledge that he wasn't alone in the real world, Sun Yixie felt his courage returning.
He stumbled and dodged his way past the psychiatric patients along the route and safely reached the security room.
After entering the security room, a cutscene was triggered.
Sun Yixie glanced at the screen beside him, then pulled his hat back onto his head.
"Why are you wearing a hat, Brother Sun?" Huang Donglai asked curiously from beside him.
"The chat said there was a high-intensity scare coming up," Sun Yixie replied after glancing at the livestream comments.
"Oh, come on. How many jump scares can a horror game possibly have? And it's so bright in here. What are you even scared of?"
The moment he finished speaking, the image of the priest from earlier suddenly appeared in the lower-right corner of the security monitor.
The priest glanced at the camera, then immediately pulled the power switch.
The entire screen instantly went pitch-black.
The power had been cut!
"For fuck's sake!"
The sudden blackout startled Sun Yixie.
"Come on, Brother Sun, don't freak out. The monster hasn't even shown up yet. What are you scared of?" Huang Donglai continued.
At the same time, violent banging suddenly came from the security-room door.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each impact against the door felt as though it were pounding directly against Sun Yixie's heart.
"For fuck's sake! Huang Donglai, shut up!"
Sun Yixie shouted in a slightly trembling voice.
Then he noticed the barrage of comments on the livestream, and at the same time spotted a prompt that had appeared in the game.
"The locker! Right! Right! I can hide in the locker!"
As he spoke, he hurried over to the locker and frantically pressed the interaction key.
Bang!
The moment he climbed inside, the door was smashed open.
That terrifying fat monster from earlier burst into the room.
It looked around, searching the room.
The protagonist was hiding inside the locker. All Sun Yixie could hear was the protagonist's rapid heartbeat.
Through the narrow gap in the locker door, illuminated by the faint light, Sun Yixie could see the monster's horrifying face.
He instinctively leaned backward and closed his eyes.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes…
"Brother Sun, Brother Sun, why are you still hiding in the locker? The monster's gone. It shouldn't come back."
Huang Donglai looked at the livestream comments, then at Sun Yixie, who was still sitting motionless inside the locker like a turtle, and asked curiously.
"For fuck's sake, shut up! I have my own plan!"
Sun Yixie took a deep breath and climbed out of the locker.
"Come on, Brother Sun, don't get so worked up. I'm telling you, horror games follow a rhythm. When they give you a scary sequence like this, the next part is usually much easier."
Huang Donglai tried to reassure him.
"Don't lie to me, Brother Huang."
Sun Yixie remained skeptical.
"Come on, why would I lie to you? Trust me! The stuff coming up definitely won't be that scary!"
Huang Donglai gave him an expression that practically said Trust me.