Not only were some of the climbing holds an illusion, but from the sunken holes, a ghost hand could even shoot out to grab you.
This was discovered by Zhao Guogu. Her hand merely brushed past the edge of a sunken hole as she intended to grab the climbing hold above it, when suddenly a ghost hand shot out, startling her greatly!
It was hard to imagine—if her hand had gone inside and suddenly a ghost hand shot out to grab her. In that instant, the challenger might break down completely. And if there was no safety rope… the challenge would very likely fail.
Even Mu Anqi couldn't help but sigh in admiration that Zhao Guogu truly lived up to being a "European Emperor."[1]
"This challenge doesn't have a time limit, right? If we go slower and steadier, it should be fine, right?" Mu Anqi said as she held onto a climbing hold. Because she had never given up physical training, Mu Anqi didn't feel very tired. It was just that whether it was the possibly empty climbing holds or the ghost hands that could shoot out from the sunken footholds, both were sudden and frightening. Once you got caught, it could really kill your mindset.
"My intuition tells me we'd better finish the challenge quickly." Zhao Guogu was climbing while gasping for breath. She had just accidentally grabbed a fake foothold, but fortunately there was a real one right next to it, so in her panic she still managed to steady herself. This sudden mishap made Zhao Guogu a bit disheartened: shouldn't the incarnation of luck automatically avoid all risks? Could it be that after spending too much time with the African[1] rich lady, her luck had declined?
Of course, Zhao Guogu didn't dare share this sadness with Mu Anqi—she was afraid Mu Anqi might pull out a gun on the spot and blow her head off.
Mu Anqi climbed upward unhurriedly. Her movements weren't fast; she was aiming for stability above all else. Whenever her hands or feet were about to step on a sunken spot for leverage, she would always spit out a blessing into the hole to test it before grabbing or stepping on it. As for the protruding climbing holds, Mu Anqi took each move step by step; even if one turned out to be empty, she never panicked and would steadily grab another spot.
Until… when Si Suying had climbed to about 22 meters and Mu Anqi and the others were struggling at around 15 meters, the ghost in charge of the challenge below suddenly shouted loudly, "New challengers have joined!"
Mu Anqi looked down to see as many as six ghosts lined up in a row. They didn't use safety ropes, but their movements were extremely agile and fast, climbing upward like spiders.
Although Zhao Guogu had long suspected this might happen, seeing those ghosts completely abandon any human-like behavior and climbing at an inhuman speed still made her feel a wave of despair. She glanced at the nimble white cat not far from the finish line, then at Mu Anqi struggling alongside her, and said, "Boss!"
"…Climb steadily upward, don't worry about it." Mu Anqi was a little helpless. She grabbed a climbing hold to stabilize herself, then took out her candy cane and enlarged it. She hooked the curved end over her shoulder, tied a rope around the shorter end to secure it, then tried firing two bell-shaped hard candies downward, making sure she wouldn't accidentally hit herself. After confirming it was safe, Mu Anqi began climbing again—only now she was splitting her attention between climbing and controlling the candy cane to spray hot, spicy syrup downward.
The moment Mu Anqi opened fire, one unlucky ghost happened to be climbing directly below her, unaware of the danger, and got a head and face full of syrup. Screaming, it fell straight down. The other ghosts immediately adjusted their positions to avoid being directly beneath Mu Anqi.
"You climb up first—climb faster, I'll cover the rear," Mu Anqi told Zhao Guogu when she saw how effective it was.
"My hands are so sore, I'm losing my strength…" Zhao Guogu wailed, but knowing how much effort Mu Anqi was putting in, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and climb upward. Zhao Guogu felt that once this climbing challenge was over, her hands definitely wouldn't feel like her own anymore.
"???, In the amusement park, you don't even go to the training grounds for physical training?" Mu Anqi asked in puzzlement. "At the very least, you could follow the virtual instructor's methods at home and practice."
"???" Zhao Guogu was shocked. "There are actually people who spend points to train their physical fitness with a virtual instructor?!"
Stimulated, Zhao Guogu's arms no longer felt sore. Gritting her teeth, she quickly climbed upward, overtaking Mu Anqi.
Mu Anqi, however, was in no rush, climbing at a leisurely pace. Behind her, the syrup cannon continued spraying, and as for the ghosts on either side—whenever they came within three meters of her, a sincere "May fortune smile upon you" would send the fastest of them leaping away like a frog and falling to the ground.
The remaining four surviving ghosts, who had been climbing rapidly, froze in place. They silently looked at each other, exchanged glances, and then, in perfect unison, began accelerating!
Attack this player together—eliminate the one who refuses to play by the rules first!—
Constantly keeping an eye below, Mu Anqi naturally noticed the ghosts' movements. Unhurriedly, she steadied herself again on a climbing hold, wedging her foot firmly into a sunken spot. Then, with a thought, she sent out four red envelopes worth ten guansi each, hitting every ghost with perfect accuracy. While they were hesitating over whether to agree to "stop for one minute" for such a small bribe, Mu Anqi had already spoken her blessing, saying it to each ghost fairly and equally.
Thus, they no longer needed to wrestle with the question of "With ten guansi, we only have to stop for one minute—after that, we can easily catch up and deal with her." What left Mu Anqi utterly speechless was that one of the ghosts had to perform a dance as its required action; even as it was falling, it was forced to keep dancing, and at the very moment it hit the ground with a miserable crash, it still stubbornly finished the dance.
Mm, because of the distance, Mu Anqi couldn't properly enjoy the details of the performance, but the ghosts' dedication to their work… was truly admirable!
Mu Anqi silently nodded toward the ghosts on the ground to show her respect, then restrained her smile and continued climbing steadily upward.
A stirring piece of music rang out—clearly, Si Suying had safely reached the finish line.
Mu Anqi still maintained her own pace, keeping an eye out in case the ghosts below attempted a "second challenge." However, by the time she also reached the top, the ghosts below had made no further moves.
Rock climbing challenges were truly exhausting.
Mu Anqi thought this as she rubbed her sore arms. She and Zhao Guogu collapsed together at the 30-meter finish point for quite a while before taking the lift back down to the ground to find the ghost in charge and collect their tokens.
Zhao Guogu and Si Suying each received one rock climbing challenge token. As for Mu Anqi, not only did she receive one token for the rock climbing challenge, but among the six ghosts she had knocked down, two were carnivorous types. Even though those two hadn't played many attractions, combined they still provided Mu Anqi with a total of three tokens!
Mu Anqi's token count instantly shot up to seven!
However, when receiving these extra tokens, Mu Anqi picked out one roller coaster project token to keep for herself, then gave the remaining two to Zhao Guogu and Si Suying, one each.
"This is your spoils of war." Si Suying looked at the token in front of her and shook her head in refusal. During their time traveling together, she had realized that Zhao Guogu and Mu Anqi were a team. It was normal for Mu Anqi to share with Zhao Guogu, but giving one to her…
"Just hold on to it for now—this way, all of us will have the ability to eliminate both the carnivorous and herbivorous groups!" Seeing Si Suying's embarrassment, Mu Anqi directly shoved the token into her hand. "It's not like I'm giving it for free—once you earn some back, of course you'll return it to me. Not going to hide it from you, my goal this round is to aim for S-rank; I'm not leaving unless I get twenty or thirty tokens."
Hearing this, Si Suying finally accepted it.
Zhao Guogu, on the other hand, wasn't so polite. She counted her five tokens and looked at Mu Anqi. "Nine tokens to clear the stage—then how many do you need to get S-rank?"
"No matter how many, I'm not worried," Mu Anqi said. "I have guansi, so I can buy food and water. And in this amusement park, the only thing that's never in short supply is ghosts—eliminating ghosts to get tokens couldn't be easier."
Mu Anqi thought that this amusement park instance was practically tailor-made for her! Especially since in some special attractions, eliminating didn't mean having to kill the ghost—eliminating them within the game project still counted!
"What project should we go to next?" Zhao Guogu asked. Now that they all had the right to eliminate other identity cards. "Bumper cars?"
"Mm, let's go to the bumper cars then." Mu Anqi thought about it—go-karts still relied on luck, and if she got unlucky and ended up in front of a ghost's car without having a shield, wouldn't that be awful? She couldn't always rely on Zhao Guogu to cover her from behind.
"Happy Bumper Cars…" When Mu Anqi and the others arrived at the bumper car attraction, they looked at the orange-red sign with a sun graphic beside it and felt speechless.
Seriously, do you really have no sense of whether this is "happy" or not? But considering that this was a ghost's happy amusement park, Mu Anqi let it go.
However, soon enough, it was her turn to be "happy."
The bumper car project was also one person per car. Under normal circumstances, it was just an ordinary amusement facility where you bumped into each other for fun.
Mu Anqi had never played bumper cars when visiting amusement parks before, but she imagined it wouldn't be too dangerous. She never expected that her first time playing would be in an amusement park inside the escape world.
As expected, this experience was probably not going to be pleasant.
Looking at the exaggerated spike at the front of the bumper car, and then at the saw blades on both sides, Mu Anqi could pretty much tell that this bumper car was the legendary "one hit and you die" kind. She noticed a red button next to the steering wheel, pressed it out of curiosity, and found that it wasn't a horn—it was the attack button that made the front spike thrust forward.
"Before the game starts, attention all the guests!~ Our bumper cars are made with a special top-grade material, so please pay attention to safety while having fun~" the ghost in charge of the bumper cars loudly reminded them before the start. "Our bumper cars will explode after being hit five times!"
Was that even human language?
A bumper car that explodes after just five hits? How was that reasonable?! And why wasn't it called an "Exploding Car" if it had such a bad temper?!
Mu Anqi was completely speechless.
Before the game began, she signaled to Zhao Guogu and Si Suying. The three bumper cars carefully drove without colliding, stopping together in a corner at the edge of the arena.
Footnotes–
1.The origins of "欧皇" (European Emperor) and "非酋" (African Chieftain) can be traced back to around 2005–2006, when World of Warcraft was extremely popular in China. At that time, Chinese internet users began saying they had "手黑" (literally "black hands") when they obtained poor-quality gear in the game. Since the color black in Chinese often carries negative connotations, "手黑" came to mean having terrible luck when performing an action with one's hands. However, since "手黑" was too closely tied to manual actions, it didn't cover situations where bad luck wasn't directly related to hands—such as being repeatedly targeted by monsters in a dungeon. Thus, people started saying they had "脸黑" ("black face"), where "face" in Chinese implicitly represents a person's overall fortune, making "脸黑" a more general term for bad luck.
Around 2014, many Chinese players flocked to gacha-style anime games like Kantai Collection (舰队Collection). When they drew low-tier cards, they jokingly called themselves "非洲人" ("Africans")—solely because African skin is dark, not due to any association with poverty. Conversely, since good luck was called "脸白" ("white face"), and Europeans have lighter skin, those with great luck were dubbed "欧洲人" ("Europeans"). Over time, Chinese internet culture shortened the three-character terms "欧洲人" and "非洲人" into the two-character abbreviations "欧皇" ("European Emperor") and "非酋" ("African Chieftain"), which respectively represent the absolute extremes of good and bad luck.
The roots of these terms lie purely in the traditional Chinese symbolism of black (bad) and white (good), rather than any racial discrimination. The terms were never intended to carry racial implications but simply evolved from gaming slang to describe luck in a humorous, exaggerated way.