The old ghost man was scared away by some unknown thing, and the 24th floor returned to silence.
Mu Shan pressed her ear against the elevator door and confirmed that the elevator car had gone downstairs. She immediately turned around and rushed into the sunroom at full speed, making sure the window facing the skyscraper remained closed, with the blinds drawn tightly shut.
The eerie thing did not take the elevator and did not come from the outside of the building either. That meant…
In her state of extreme tension, Mu Shan suddenly noticed that the zombie worker had fallen silent.
It still held the posture of an open-mouthed alert, but it made no sound.
It was as if someone had hit the mute button on the entire floor.
She was about to hide in the basement when her vision suddenly went black, and she nearly toppled to the ground.
【Life Protection Shield -1
8/10】
The opponent had not even appeared yet and had already taken a bit of her life value. Mu Shan wanted to crawl into the basement, but with her hands supporting her on the ground, she could not even manage to crawl.
Her head spun and her vision blurred, her limbs felt as heavy as if filled with lead, and bouts of blackness assaulted her eyes. Having lost her sight, her hearing became exceptionally sharp.
Mu Shan heard humming, and at the same time, something poked around in the elevator shaft, producing a crisp “tap tap tap” knocking sound that did not stop.
There was clearly only one elevator, and it had already gone downstairs with the old ghost man, yet the sound descended from above, effortlessly approaching the 24th floor.
Mu Shan lay motionless in the sunroom, not daring to make a sound. She prayed that the basic defensive facilities outside, the high voltage grid, and the defensive formation could block this
hideous
monster.
But the Main God System did not heed prayers. The female voice’s humming grew closer and louder.
“La la la~ la la la~”
“Where are you? I’ve come to find you…”
“Darling, come out already.”
The voice was clearly crisp and sweet, yet it felt sticky and damp in the ears, extremely uncomfortable. But the dizzying mental pressure slowly receded.
Mu Shan struggled to crawl to the door and peered out through the peephole.
A white silk ribbon suddenly squeezed in through the gap in the elevator door.
Then one, two, more and more silk ribbons appeared, forcibly prying apart the heavy steel door from the center.
The soft, beautiful white silk ribbons began to crisscross in the air of the 24th floor, dancing as they gradually wove a sturdy net outside the elevator door.
The scene resembled a spider spewing silk.
The elevator door, forcibly pried open from the inside, was pitch black. Mu Shan held her breath and stared at the patch of constantly “dancing” silk ribbons that rippled like water.
The “tap tap tap” knocking stopped at the 25th floor. Mu Shan heard no movement from the players upstairs.
Then, the sweet female voice seemed to ring right above her head.
“Darling, where are you?”
As the words fell, all the white silk ribbons began to shake wildly, purposefully flying toward her and the flower gardener’s safe house, constantly slamming into the door seams and ceiling.
Mu Shan saw the white silk ribbons get zapped black by the high voltage grid, only for the next one to immediately take its place.
The familiar system prompt appeared before her eyes.
【Remaining Instance Survival Time: 00:03 (Locked)】
After seeing the familiar locked time, Mu Shan noticed that the defensive formation buried in the sunroom was also steadily declining.
It started by dropping a point every five or six seconds. As the “tap tap tap” sound drew near and something climbed to the elevator opening, the defensive formation suddenly dropped three or four points.
【Formation Energy -1
-1
-1
…】
Mu Shan saw a woman’s head emerge from the pitch-black elevator compartment. Her face was pretty, with bright red lipstick, like an aerial yoga performer clinging to the silk ribbons on the ceiling as she entered.
As her entire body came in and was illuminated by the dim light in the sunroom, Mu Shan finally saw the woman’s appearance clearly. She had only a human head, with long messy hair draped on both sides.
Below her neck was connected a massive spider body, with a bulging abdomen, eight eyes arrayed on either side, and narrow, sharp limbs that formed the basis for her free climbing in the elevator shaft.
【Player Encounters BOSS-Level Ghost Monster – Black Widow】
Mu Shan shuddered all over, then slowly lowered her head, praying that the spider woman was not looking for her.
The sharp limbs stepped silently onto the silk ribbons. The female voice was sweetly alluring, as if calling to a lover: “Come out already, I’ve come to find you…”
Mu Shan heard the “bang bang” sounds of white silk ribbons slamming into the flower gardener’s safe house nearby, but she heard no screams from him.
The zombie worker outside the door had already been completely wrapped into a mummy by the silk ribbons.
She clutched several cards in her hand. Now, she had only two choices: either release the environment card to scare the spider woman away with storms and the magma pool, or summon the giant insect monsters for a bug-versus-bug clash.
But labeled as a 【BOSS monster】 by the system, Mu Shan did not believe her two ordinary bug monsters and one king bug larva could match the spider woman.
She also pulled out the “Blood Holy Mother” summoning scroll array and gripped it tightly in her hand.
The spider woman outside the door seemed to have grown impatient with the wait. Her calling voice grew shriller: “Darling, where are you? Why won’t you respond to me? I’ve been looking for you all along…”
Compared to Mu Shan’s heavily defended safe house, the flower gardener’s shack was flimsy and fragile. After the silk ribbon attacks, its door was already on the verge of collapse.
She had thought Lin Kuan would charge out with his knife for a desperate fight to the death, but unexpectedly, from the gap in his shaking door, colorful flowers bloomed.
Roses, peonies, lotuses, vying in splendor.
And when the white silk ribbons touched these flowers, they surprisingly did not continue destroying the safe house. Instead, like flexible tentacles, they wrapped up the flowers and presented them before the Black Widow.
The spider woman let out a crisp “giggle giggle” laugh. Her sharp spider legs crushed all the flowers: “He would never send me flowers. I see now, you are definitely not him.”
With that, all the white silk ribbons that had been besieging the flower gardener’s house suddenly turned direction, swarming entirely toward Mu Shan’s safe house and instantly wrapping her wire mesh into a cage.
Mu Shan was greatly alarmed. It could happen like this?!
【Formation Energy -1
-1
…】
Reality left no room for further hesitation.
Before the defensive formation’s power was exhausted, Mu Shan gritted her teeth and directly pushed open the sunroom entry door, stepping out.
The white silk ribbons that had been madly slamming the wire mesh all shuddered and withdrew a portion, revealing a gap.
The spider woman hung upside down in midair, her long hair draping over her face. She leaned in close to look at Mu Shan. On her pale face, only the ashen powder and those red lips held any color: “You are not him.”
Yet their survival countdown did not lift.
Mu Shan was drenched in sweat. She saw the spider woman’s massive body restlessly prowling around, her agitation mounting.
“Where are you? I’m looking for you.”
“Darling, where are you…”
The flower gardener remained utterly still, like he was dead, and produced no more flowers.
At this life-or-death moment, Mu Shan recalled the ghost child on the 23rd floor.
The biggest difference between spirit-type monsters and brainless giant insect monsters was that spirit-types were humanoid, and some could even be reasoned with.
She forced a smile.
“Sister, who are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you.”
The spider woman abruptly lowered her body, bringing her face—several times larger than a human’s—right up to Mu Shan: “You? You want to help me?”
Because of the extreme proximity, separated only by a layer of wire mesh, Mu Shan clearly saw the spider woman’s face, and her mind suffered a tremendous shock.
The other’s skin was cracked like a lime wall, deathly pale without color. Blackened veins spread from forehead to chin, the bright red lips still bore undried blood droplets, and unnamed bits of flesh were stuck between her teeth.
As the spider woman spoke, all eight eyes on her abdomen swiveled over, staring fixedly at her.
Mu Shan pinched the flesh of her own thumb web hard to maintain the smile on her face.
“Though I am weak, as a fellow woman, I too wish to lend sister a hand.”
She did not arrogantly change the address to “beautiful sister.” Some ghosts had eccentric tempers—what if the Black Widow hated others mentioning her appearance?
“Fellow woman” was the only entry point Mu Shan could think of.
Fortunately, the system did not deliberately make trouble.
The spider woman burst into silvery bell-like laughter: “Giggle giggle.”
All the silk ribbons wrapped around Mu Shan’s safe house receded like the tide. She said with a smile: “Very well, I’ll tell you.”
【Ordinary Player 537099, you have triggered the [Skyscraper] side quest
Quest 2: Find the Black Widow’s Husband (0/1)
Quest Success: Receive Rewards
Quest Failure: Player will suffer the Black Widow’s Wrath】
The spider woman sat on the web she had woven, lost in sweet memories.
Her husband in her mouth was tall and handsome, with no distinctive features, and even his job was utterly ordinary—just an office worker.
“We’ve been married eight years. I’ve always wanted a child, but…”
“He never blamed me. I know he loves me.”
“But I can’t find him. I can’t find him.”
At this point, the spider woman’s recounting came to an end.
Mu Shan’s heart sank: Damn, zero information.
After a moment’s hesitation, she spoke again: “Sister, what is your husband’s name?”
Spider Woman: “His name is Xiao Bai.”
From the situation in the Skyscraper instance, Mu Shan guessed this husband was most likely a ghost too.
After saying this, the spider woman lost interest in chatting more. Her massive spider body deftly stepped along the silk web outward, vanishing into the elevator shaft.
The white silk ribbons flowed like spider silk, snaking away bit by bit from the 24th floor.
Mu Shan stepped out of the sunroom and saw the system’s plot prompt appear in her vision.
【Wedding vows to white hair, divorce wounds each the deepest.
Every glance back at the past reveals the error in the love ledger.
Frequent partings breed knots, only claiming innocence back then.
Poor couples a hundred woes, one change and apart they fly.】
She looked down and keenly spotted something shiny.
She picked it up and saw it was an old ring.
【Obtained Black Widow’s Token: A Wedding Ring】
It was ordinary white gold, but the diamond on it had fallen out, leaving only an empty setting.
Mu Shan carefully stowed the quest item in her backpack and let out a long sigh.
She had no leads on the 18th floor recruitment for Quest 1, and no idea where to start looking for the dead ghost of Quest 2…