Recap
“I’m going to the bathroom too,” Xia Jing raised his eyes, a smile playing on his lips, “Why… want to come together?”
Peach Blossom Eyes pondered for a second and followed him out of bed.
The bear-like man stared at him sharply.
Peach Blossom Eyes curled his lips and said lazily, “Don’t be shy, if you want to go to the bathroom together, just come down and line up, no need to ask for permission with your eyes.”
The bear-like man almost choked!
Who the hell was in the mood to go to the bathroom after entering an instance, who the hell was shy about going to the bathroom, and who the hell asked for your permission!
Speaking of which, everyone’s first priority after entering the instance was to go to the bathroom, what kind of operation was this?!
In the end, the bear-like man was the fourth to use the bathroom. It turned out that his bodily functions couldn’t be stopped; he had indeed drunk a bit too much water before entering the instance…
Xia Jing and Peach Blossom Eyes only went to the bathroom to wash their faces.
Staring at his wet face in the mirror, Xia Jing recalled the grogginess he felt when he woke up, lost in thought.
The four of them came out quickly, one after another.
“There are already quite a few students outside,” Glasses said, peering nervously through the small transparent window on the dormitory door and observing the outside. He continued, quite familiarly, “Comrades, what do you think, what should we do next?”
Peach Blossom Eyes directly opened the door, and Glasses let out a startled cry.
—But the student NPCs in the corridor just gave him a strange look and walked by as if nothing had happened.
Besides the student NPCs, there were also four students standing in the corridor at the door of another dormitory diagonally opposite, room 417.
Those four “students” were two girls, a young man, and an… old lady.
One of the girls had a ponytail and was quite tall.
The other girl had her hair draped over her shoulders and had big eyes, a very sweet appearance.
The two girls were supporting each other, clinging closely together. Each held a dagger in their hands, nervously facing the passing student NPCs.
The eyes of those student NPCs became even more strange and wary, as if they were ready to call the police at any moment.
The old lady had gray hair and seemed to have poor eyesight. She was trying hard to make out the scene, with a confused expression on her face.
She was also wearing that incongruous spring school uniform.
As for the remaining young man… he let out a cry and rushed towards Peach Blossom Eyes from Xia Jing’s side for a bear hug, wailing, “Yang-ge*, so you were in another dorm! I was so scared when I woke up and didn’t see you, I thought the sky was falling!”
*(more closer term of address for a male figure that the person looks up to, directly translates to brother Yang. How to pronounce: https://forvo.com/word/%E5%93%A5/ )
Peach Blossom Eyes, who was called “Yang-ge”, caught him with a dark expression.
Glasses exclaimed in surprise, “Why are there mixed genders in this dormitory?”
A boy living with three other females, was that even allowed?!
Speaking of this, the young man coughed lightly and said shyly, “I also think it’s a bit inappropriate, it’s really embarrassing, haha!”
Peach Blossom Eyes glanced at him sideways, obviously not believing his nonsense. After pushing him away in disgust, he said calmly to the two girls holding daggers, “Put away the daggers first. I don’t know if you’ve entered two-star instances before, but instances from two-star onwards are different from one-star instances. It’s not the style of monster escape right from the start.”
The two girls were taken aback, and Ponytail said nervously, “Ah, we are indeed entering a two-star instance for the first time…”
They were newcomers who had been sucked into Smiley City not long ago. They didn’t have the points to buy a holographic mini-screen, nor did they have any channels to obtain information. They only knew that the rule for clearing all instances in Smiley City was only one thing—slay monsters.
The one-star instances they had experienced before were all, without exception, monsters appearing right in their faces from the start, and players escaping.
So they had gripped their weapons before leaving the dormitory, for fear that the octopus monster on the cover of this instance would directly jump out at them as soon as they opened the door.
Glasses was a little embarrassed.
Although it wasn’t his first time in a two-star instance, he had habitually made the same mistake as the two girls just now, not daring to leave the dormitory.
However, in reality, instances from two-star onwards were completely different from one-star instances.
He explained, “One-star is the basic instance. The monsters in it are very conspicuous. Basically, at the beginning of the game, monsters will appear in your field of vision. You won’t not know what the monsters look like. As long as you can kill the monsters, you can pass the instance.”
Glasses pushed up his glasses and sighed, “But in instances from two-star onwards, the first thing players need to do to win is… to make sure what the monsters really are.”
The two girls were stunned and exclaimed, “What do you mean? Will the monsters in instances after two-star disguise themselves? Disguise themselves as… humans?”
The bear-like man sneered, “Not only ‘disguised as humans’, they may also not be disguised at all, just that it’s difficult for us to find them, just like chameleons blending into the environment. It’s also possible that they will only appear at a certain time, and it’s even possible that the form of the monsters is something we can’t imagine at all.”
The two girls opened their mouths but didn’t speak.
The game hadn’t officially started yet, and they already felt the difficulty.
“So be careful, if you kill an NPC by mistake, or accidentally damage the instance environment, you will be locked up in the system’s little black room,” Glasses reminded.
The little black room was a punishment measure in Smiley City’s instance games. Players would be locked up inside for a period of time and unable to participate in the game.
It sounded like a good thing, but the timing of the little black room releasing players was often very dangerous. Many players died the moment they stepped out of the little black room.
The old lady moved to the side, seemingly wanting to say something but hesitating.
The bear-like man glanced at her and frowned. Before he could speak, he heard a hoarse voice beside him.
“There are nine players in this instance, and one player has not yet appeared.”
This reminder made everyone remember this matter.
At this moment, Peach Blossom Eyes carefully sized up Xia Jing again.
The young man stood in the corner, in the shadows where the light didn’t reach, his presence should have been reduced to the minimum, but Peach Blossom Eyes didn’t truly ignore him.
He glanced at the back of Xia Jing’s neck, and this glance also attracted Xia Jing’s gaze.
The two looked at each other for a second, and Peach Blossom Eyes was the first to look away.
Hearing Xia Jing’s words, Glasses immediately jumped up, “That’s right, my brother entered the instance with me, and he hasn’t appeared yet. Since everyone is a student, then he must be too. Why hasn’t he come out yet? Is he on another floor?”
Speaking of this, the Ponytail girl pointed to the front and said, “Eh, look, there are so many people gathered at the door of that dormitory, what are they looking at?”
Everyone looked forward.
At the door of dormitory 411*, seventeen or eighteen student NPCs were gathered there. Some covered their mouths, some looked terrified, and they were whispering amongst themselves.
*(4 is homophone for death)
A bad feeling suddenly emerged in everyone’s hearts.
One player was still missing.
If everyone’s identity was a student, then he must be alone in another dormitory.
Glasses’ heart tightened, and he took the lead and rushed over!
Xia Jing followed at the end of the group. Before leaving, he looked back at the dormitory they had just come out of.
414, 417, the malice of the instance was practically overflowing.
Xia Jing put his hands in his trouser pockets, walked through the whispering students, and slowly entered dormitory 411.
It was still a four-person dormitory.
On the upper bunk on the left by the window, one could vaguely see the figure of a person lying quietly.
Glasses had already climbed up to the upper bunk using the ladder. He stared blankly at the person lying on the bed, his face devoid of expression.
Xia Jing stopped.
Peach Blossom Eyes calmly walked over, climbed the ladder, and halfway up, he could already see the face of the person on the upper bunk clearly.
After a few seconds, he retreated.
The young man asked nervously, “Yang-ge… what’s wrong, what’s the situation?”
Peach Blossom Eyes: “He’s dead.”
The two girls gasped.
The big-eyed girl said in disbelief, “Dead?! How could a player die at the beginning of the game? It’s only been a few minutes since we woke up? And aren’t the monsters in two-star instances different from one-star instances? Shouldn’t we find the monster first?”
Peach Blossom Eyes said calmly, “The fact that we need to find the monster first doesn’t conflict with the monster killing someone at the beginning of the game.”
The old lady muttered in a daze, “Oh dear, oh dear, how, how come someone died…?”
The bear-like man was also frightened by the death of this first player at the start.
He suddenly reacted, turned around, grabbed a student NPC by the collar, and roared ferociously, “What the hell happened? How did he die, what did you all see?! Who left this dormitory just now?”
The person must have been killed by the monster, and there was no guarantee that the monster, after killing the person, hadn’t disguised itself as a human again and mixed into the crowd.
The NPC grabbed by the bear-like man by the collar was so scared that he couldn’t speak clearly, “I, I, I don’t know anything! The three of us in our dormitory saw that he hadn’t woken up before we went out, so we went to call him, but who knew—besides us, there was no one else! His death has nothing to do with us, you, you, you let go!”
Xia Jing stepped inside and climbed up the ladder, just like Peach Blossom Eyes had done.
Glasses’ tears fell, and he murmured, “Impossible, how could he die at the beginning of the game? Obviously nothing happened, it’s impossible for the monster to kill someone without making any sound… And this is only a two-star instance, I haven’t even heard of anyone dying at the beginning of a three-star instance…”
Xia Jing climbed halfway, stopped, and carefully examined the face of the dead person lying on the bed.
This player was about the same age as Glasses, with ordinary features, wearing the same spring school uniform as them.
Perhaps because it was in the game, there was no rigor mortis, no livor mortis… He couldn’t tell. The player’s eyes were closed, as if he was asleep. His skin tone, lip color, everything was normal, even quite rosy.
But—
There was indeed no rise and fall of his chest from breathing.
Xia Jing reached out and touched the cold body temperature, then withdrew his hand.
This player was lying on his back, his face peaceful… not exactly.
Xia Jing’s gaze swept over the tear stains at the corner of the person’s eyes, then he looked at the mobile phone on the person’s right hand, reached out and clicked it, it was turned off.
The next second, hurried footsteps entered the dormitory.
“Make way, don’t gather here, what time is it, hurry up and go to the cafeteria to eat, and go to morning reading after eating!”
Xia Jing turned his head and saw a female NPC who looked like a teacher walk in with four security guards and two medical staff, starting to drive people away.
“We will deal with the matter here, so don’t crowd around,” the female teacher’s stern gaze slowly swept around, and she said coldly to Xia Jing and Glasses, who were still standing on the ladder, “You two come down quickly, don’t touch anything, and don’t delay the emergency treatment!”
Emergency treatment was useless, they didn’t even know how long the person had been dead.
But Xia Jing didn’t say anything and just climbed down the ladder.
Soon, driven by the security guards, they were forced to leave the student dormitory and slowly followed the student NPCs to the cafeteria.
Sitting down in the cafeteria, the group had no appetite to eat at all.
They heard the sirens of ambulances and police cars. Looking back, they could vaguely see the figures of medical staff running out with a stretcher in the distance.
The clock in the cafeteria showed that it was already seven o’clock, which was not early for any high school, so there were very few students left in the cafeteria.
And the eight of them, players, sat on both sides of a long table, looking at each other.
“Do you think the monster was just among us?” Ponytail asked uneasily.
“I don’t know, but the three NPCs who shared a dormitory with that dead brother don’t seem like monsters…” the young man said hesitantly.
Peach Blossom Eyes said, “The difficulty of a two-star instance is not high, but it’s not so low that we can identify the monster’s identity at a glance.”
“Let’s leave the morning incident for later and focus on introducing ourselves now. At least let’s tell each other our names to facilitate communication.”
Glasses sobbed.
The old lady sighed and patted him on the back to comfort him.
“Then you go first, what’s your name?” the bear-like man stared at Peach Blossom Eyes.
Peach Blossom Eyes glanced at him: “My name is Song Yang.”
The bear-like man clenched his fists: “…You really are Song Yang.”
When the young man called Peach Blossom Eyes “Yang-ge” just now, he had sensitively thought of that name.
The man named Song Yang didn’t say anything, seemingly not bothering to hide his identity.
Although Xia Jing browsed the forum, he didn’t do it often.
He hadn’t heard of the name “Song Yang” before, so he looked at Peach Blossom Eyes curiously, just like the other relatively new newcomers.
Peach Blossom Eyes was very good-looking, sitting there like a painting, and his calm demeanor also gave people an inexplicable sense of stability.
The young man was a little dejected by the death at the beginning of the game: “My name is Jia Qing, and this is actually my first time in a two-star instance.”
“No wonder,” the bear-like man snorted, “I was wondering why Song Yang would come to a two-star instance. You two are friends, right? Bringing your brother* to gain experience?”
*(not blood related)
Song Yang still didn’t bother to pay attention to this guy, and Jia Qing muttered sullenly, “…What’s it to you if I bring my brother to gain experience.”
The girl with the ponytail said in a low voice, “My name is Wang Yueran, and her name is Xu Jin. We are also friends.”
The big-eyed girl, Xu Jin, remained silent.
Although the temperature wasn’t low, she was drenched in a chill.
Glasses said hoarsely, “…My name is Liu Yi, I, my brother’s name is Huang Mo, we have both been through two two-star instances before, I didn’t expect… If I had known…”
His eyes reddened again.
“You don’t have the ability to predict the future.” Jia Qing wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know what to say, so he simply closed his mouth in the end.
The bear-like man said coldly, “My name is Jin Nan, and you, fatty, what’s your name?”
At this time, “Fatty” Xia Jing, with a steamed bun-like face, turned his eyes and glanced at him lightly.
Jin Nan paused.
…Then he subconsciously touched his arm, feeling a chill for some reason.
“Calling him fatty is a bit much, he’s quite thin,” Jia Qing muttered softly.
Xia Jing curled his lips, unconcerned, and said slowly, “My name is Xia Jing.”
Song Yang was sitting next to Xia Jing.
His gaze swept lightly over the back of Xia Jing’s neck again.
The slender neck, near the right ear, a small human face icon was clearly visible.
This was the mark of someone who had been to the Safe House.
And at this moment, was this young man’s human skin mask prop in use?
Song Yang thoughtfully scanned Xia Jing’s large face, small inverted triangle eyes, flat nose, and thick lips.
As if noticing his gaze, Xia Jing turned his eyes and gave a playful smile.
Song Yang: “…”
He felt a bit choked up.
Looking at this person’s smile up close, it was quite lethal.
Song Yang felt that this person was definitely smiling at him on purpose.
Jin Nan shifted his gaze, finally landing on the old lady.
His tone also became sarcastic, “Old lady, are you sure you’re in the right place?”
His rude tone made the others frown.
To be honest, in a dangerous instance, no one wanted their companion to be a frail old person.
However, everyone was forced into this terrifying world. Entering high-star instances was also to gain higher points, to get rid of this terrifying world sooner.
There was no need for sarcasm.
Wang Yueran looked at Jin Nan warily, let go of her sister, and held the old lady’s arm.
—More importantly, although Smiley City didn’t allow players to kill each other, there was a headcount point rule.
When a player died in an instance, his points would be evenly distributed among the surviving players.
Therefore, some players would use the rules to harm other players in the instance and seize their points.
And vulnerable groups like the old lady were often the primary targets of these ruthless players.
Wang Yueran whispered, “Grandma, it’s okay, two-star instances seem to require more brains, unlike one-star instances where you need to run and fight. This is actually a good thing.”
She wanted to comfort the old lady, but the old lady said, “…Child, what is this place?”
Everyone paused.
The old lady said tremblingly, “I, I just went out to buy groceries and was hit by an electric car. Why didn’t I go to the hospital, but came to school instead? And how come someone died? Such a good child, how come he died…”
Everyone showed expressions of disbelief.
Song Yang confirmed, “Grandma, is this your first time in this place?”
The old lady nodded blankly, “When I woke up, I saw many small pictures, and a voice asked me to choose one. But those pictures all looked terrifying, and I didn’t know how to choose, so I just randomly chose this one. What is this place? Can we, can we call the police?”
With the old lady’s last hesitant words, Jin Nan laughed speechlessly and leaned back in his chair.
—The old lady was actually a complete newbie!
Wang Yueran and the others were also stunned.
Complete newbies, when first absorbed into the terrifying world, would receive an explanation of Smiley City’s system rules in their consciousness.
They had no way out, but which instance to enter was something they could choose from the very beginning.
But the old lady, perhaps because she didn’t hear clearly, or perhaps because she didn’t understand, actually chose a two-star instance right off the bat…
Jin Nan dropped a sentence, “You can take care of the burden if you want, I won’t care anyway!”
After saying that, he stood up and prepared to leave the cafeteria.
Everyone reacted and frowned even more.
“What burden, how rude!” Wang Yueran whispered, “Grandma, don’t listen to him, we will protect you!”
Everyone present had elderly people in their families. Even if the old lady was a complete newbie, some rules could be taught. They couldn’t stand hearing Jin Nan’s words.
“By the way, where is he going?” Jia Qing asked foolishly.
“It’s already 7:30, no matter which school it is, class is about to start,” Xia Jing said softly.
Coincidentally, a student not far away ran out hurriedly with a bun in his mouth and shouted at them, “Why aren’t you leaving yet? The first class is Chinese. If you’re late, Teacher Zhang will scold you!”
The NPC gave them information.
Song Yang stood up and motioned for Jia Qing to help the old lady up, “Let’s go to the classroom.”
*
This was a high school, no doubt.
The school wasn’t big, and it only took a few minutes to run from the cafeteria to the teaching building.
Following behind the NPCs, the group arrived at Class 22 of the second grade.
There were about fifty people in a class. At this time, all the other students were sitting properly in their seats, reading aloud. There were exactly nine empty seats.
No, for them now, “nine” was no longer “exactly”.
Liu Yi remembered his brother and wiped his eyes.
Nine seats, three pairs of desks for two people, two pairs arranged in the middle of the classroom, and one pair in the first row.
The other three seats were distributed in the last row of the classroom, one on the left by the corridor, and one on the right by the window.
On the way here, the group had briefly exchanged some information.
They still didn’t know where that octopus monster was hiding.
The simplest guess was that if the octopus monster was disguised as a human, it was most likely either a student or a teacher.
At first, they suspected that the monster was hiding among the students, but after careful consideration, the monster looked like an octopus on the cover, but its actual form might not necessarily be fixed. It needed to enter the dormitory like a human to kill.
In Smiley City’s instance games, one had to think outside the box.
The monster could also be fluid, so no matter who it disguised itself as, it or they could kill the player silently.
Thinking calmly, there was even another possibility.
—That player named Huang Mo wasn’t directly killed by the monster, but simply triggered a death mechanism related to the monster.
Therefore, they didn’t need to look at the entire instance from the limited perspective of the morning incident.
With so little information, it was better to guess based on intuition.
Having read many supernatural novels, Wang Yueran, Xu Jin, and Jia Qing all agreed that in a school instance, the monster might be the teacher.
Therefore, for now, in this class… whoever was closest to the podium might be closest to the monster.
And there were two seats right under the podium.
“Each desk has a student’s name on it,” Song Yang quickly scanned, “It seems we don’t need to assign seats ourselves.”
Jin Nan’s face darkened. He glanced around and found that his seat was the empty one in the last row. He breathed a sigh of relief, walked over quickly and sat down, gloating at the others.
Song Yang and Jia Qing’s seats were together, in the middle row facing the podium.
Wang Yueran and Xu Jin, the pair of sisters, also sat together, just in front and to the right of Song Yang and Jia Qing.
Liu Yi sat alone in the empty seat by the corridor.
And the two seats in the first row facing the podium had the names “Xia Jing” and “Jiang Chunhua” written on them.
Xia Jing raised his eyebrows.
Everyone’s gazes, all kinds of them, focused on Xia Jing and the old lady.
Apparently, they had become the two people closest to danger among the eight.
At the same time, they were also the two people with the best chance to kill the monster.
But a thin young man and an old man were really…
Wang Yueran opened her mouth, “Grandma…”
Song Yang thought for a moment and tried to walk towards the first row.
Beside him, a student wearing thick glasses immediately looked up and reminded coldly, “Class is about to start, go back to your seat, otherwise, if Teacher Zhang finds out, you will be responsible for the consequences.”
Song Yang stopped in his tracks.
“It seems the instance doesn’t allow players to switch seats at will, let’s sit in our own seats,” Glasses Liu Yi reminded in a low voice, “And we can’t be sure that there will be danger during class.”
The consequence of breaking the instance rules was most likely being locked in the little black room. It wouldn’t change the situation and would only lead to non-combat attrition, which was meaningless.
Wang Yueran watched from the side, a little anxious.
She took out a dagger from her spatial bag and stuffed it into the old lady’s hand, “Grandma, I have extra weapons, you take this first. If anything happens, we will all help you!”
Jia Qing also hurriedly contributed the extra weapons he and Song Yang had in their spatial bags.
The old lady was old, but at this point, she understood what she needed to understand.
Although it was bizarre, she was long past the age of fearing death.
She only accepted Wang Yueran’s kindness and said, “I can’t use too many, thank you, but take them back, ah, be good.”
Xia Jing withdrew his gaze from Song Yang.
He smiled imperceptibly and said to the old lady, “Grandma, shall we go and sit down?”
The old lady nodded, replied “Eh”, and with a hunched back, walked to her seat in the first row and sat down under everyone’s complicated gazes.
When Xia Jing sat down next to her, she even comforted him, “Child, if you can’t defeat the monster, don’t mind me, just run. You are still young, I am old, it doesn’t matter if I die—”
“Grandma.” Xia Jing interrupted her.
Although his voice was rough and hoarse, his slow tone could still give people a gentle feeling.
It was also like a clear spring, inexplicably calming and reassuring.
Xia Jing smiled, “The most important thing in the game is to think about how to play, not how to die.”
At the door of the classroom, rapid footsteps sounded “Deng, deng, deng”.
The female teacher who had driven them away from the dormitory in the morning walked quickly into the classroom, her stern gaze sweeping coldly over everyone in the classroom.
And his purpose in entering this instance game—
Xia Jing looked at the female teacher, twirling his pen gently, a faint smile always lingering on his lips.
—Besides playing, it was to catch monsters and bring them back.
Dismember them and make the most of everything.
___
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