Recap
Song Yang paused.
He had been in Smiley City for ninety days, and had entered a total of fourteen instances. This frequency wasn’t high, it was just barely meeting the once-every-seven-days requirement.
But he had entered instances fourteen times after all.
Yet he had never encountered the Safe House.
All he knew about this mysterious house came from fragmented information on the forum.
Song Yang clicked into today’s post and casually scanned it.
Seeing the three words “rock music”, his eyes focused, and he subconsciously recalled the demonic sound released by the broadcasting room during the lunch break on the first day in the “Don’t Think About It!” instance…
Time in the Safe House was very chaotic.
When it was drifting in an instance, it would follow the instance’s time.
When it was parked by Xia Jing in the corner of the game hall, its pace would be synchronized with the game hall.
And besides that, the Safe House would sometimes drift into a dark chaos.
Xia Jing didn’t know what that place was.
He only knew that sometimes, when he came to the window, there was only nothingness and darkness outside.
There was nothing in the darkness.
Xia Jing leaned against the window, his gaze cast into the distance, and the darkness looked back at him silently just like him.
One second in this void might be an hour, a day, or two days in the game hall.
…
On this day, when the Safe House left the darkness, Xia Jing noticed that the game hall time displayed on the holographic mini-screen had already reached three days later.
The forum was heatedly discussing the four-star instance that five anonymous big shots entered today.
The five people had already been in the instance for two hours. It was unknown how long it would take to get the results, and everyone was excited and nervous.
Would the big shots clear the instance or be completely wiped out?
If they cleared it, how many of them would be left?
Xia Jing’s heart stirred.
…But it wasn’t Monday yet, he couldn’t even go to the game hall’s login room to check out the four-star instance himself.
Xia Jing browsed the forum for a while, then gave up listlessly.
He got up from the sofa, a little irritable, and a little itchy.
Xia Jing rarely had this kind of emotional state, and this state usually appeared when he repeatedly realized that he was always confined in the Safe House.
As if sensing Xia Jing’s emotions, Tuanzi stood up, nuzzled him, and looked up at him with soothing and gentle eyes.
Xia Jing paused, let out a soft breath, rubbed it, and whispered, “I’m fine.”
After speaking, he glanced out the window and found that the Safe House had unconsciously drifted to a familiar instance.
Xia Jing’s thoughts raced.
Entering an instance directly from the Safe House wouldn’t allow him to get points through the system, but it didn’t prevent him from harvesting monsters… and getting some hands-on experience by the way.
Soon, Xia Jing made a decision in his heart.
He pocketed the spatial bag, opened the door, and walked out.
The moment the door behind him closed, the words “Closed” appeared on the snow-white wall again.
Xia Jing turned around, looked at the depths of the maze-like winding corridor, and walked forward step by step.
…
One-star instance “Love Your Face”, the main monster was the Faceless Woman. In order to have their own facial features, they would try their best to devour the faces of players.
As soon as a group of new players entered the instance, they were surrounded by Faceless Women, scared out of their wits, and fled frantically.
The instance was full of screams and earth-shaking running.
Xia Jing was already quite familiar with this instance. After wandering around the maze for a while, he found his destination—a mysterious room abruptly embedded in the middle of the corridor.
He raised his leg and was about to kick the door open when a group of players suddenly appeared from the corner at the end of the corridor on the right, their faces flushed, shouting at him as if they didn’t want their throats anymore!
Behind them, four or five Faceless Women in white were chasing them.
The Faceless Women only had a mouth on their entire faces, their long tongues sticking out and waving. They called out to the players eerily, “Don’t run… don’t run… ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
The Faceless Women suddenly screamed in unison!
The shrill screams scared the players out of their wits. Several people sat down on the ground, and a few fainted. The remaining few who were still relatively calm were also pale.
“What’s wrong?!”
“What, what happened?!”
When they found that the Faceless Women behind them had actually turned around and ran away, they suddenly realized something and abruptly turned to look at the young man who was in the posture of raising his leg to kick the door.
The young man had a face like a steamed bun, small inverted triangle eyes, a flat nose, and thick lips. He was quite ugly, but his posture was quite handsome.
The young man blinked and looked at them.
And they blinked and looked at the young man.
At this moment—
If only one of these players still had their sanity…
If only one of them still remembered that there were twelve players in this game at first, and this young man wasn’t any of them…
If only…
Unfortunately, there were no “if onlys”.
These players’ minds were blank after the exhausting escape.
When they realized that the Faceless Women were afraid of this young man, they were like they had seen a savior, and ran towards the young man with tears in their eyes…
“L-little brother, may I ask…”
Xia Jing turned his head and kicked open the door in front of him mercilessly with a “bang”.
More than a dozen Faceless Women crowded inside froze.
The tearful players outside froze in their tracks.
Only Xia Jing raised his eyebrows and exclaimed, “It seems that there will be a good harvest today?”
The Faceless Women seemed very shocked that it was Xia Jing who appeared at the door, not the players.
Their mouths were all wide open. If they had eyes, their expressions would definitely be “dumbfounded”.
But at the same time, this wasn’t the first time they had encountered such a situation.
So when they reacted, the young man took out a rope from his spatial bag, stretched it out, smiled slightly, and said in the gentlest tone, “Don’t be afraid, it will be over soon.”
—The Faceless Women took a deep breath in horror, and then:
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
The players came back to their senses: “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”
The Faceless Women again: “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”
The players screamed their hearts out: “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!”
Xia Jing took a step forward, walked into the room, and closed the door with a “bang”.
Inside and outside the door, it was like a “chorus”. The young man was hidden in the shadows, his eyes curved into a smile, and he said kindly, “Let’s play a game.”
*
It was half an hour later when Xia Jing returned to the Safe House.
There were a total of twenty-five Faceless Women’s faces in the spatial bag. This trip’s harvest was richer than any previous one. Xia Jing was in a good mood, and a gentle atmosphere filled him again.
He didn’t know at all that not long after he left the instance, a post appeared on the forum. The topic of the post was “A noob replayed the one-star instance ‘Love Your Face’, and a new type of humanoid boss appeared in the instance. Even the Faceless Women were afraid of him. Is this a system bug or has the instance been improved? Tears!”
Xia Jing didn’t know anything. After counting the number of props, he cheerfully put all these faces into the warehouse of the small supermarket, humming while cleaning up.
When he came out again, he heard Tuanzi barking loudly.
Xia Jing paused, walked over, and said calmly, “What’s wrong?”
Tuanzi was created by Xia Jing himself, so it naturally conformed to Xia Jing’s personality and preferences.
This golden retriever was usually well-behaved and quiet. This was almost the first time Xia Jing had heard it bark so loudly.
The golden retriever bared its teeth at the door, its fur slightly bristling, its posture wary. Xia Jing looked out the window, and all he could see was darkness, as if he had returned to that chaotic place again.
However, Xia Jing knew that it wasn’t the chaotic place outside.
They should have drifted to a completely unfamiliar instance again.
Xia Jing pressed the golden retriever’s head, and it immediately stopped barking, only looking worriedly as the young man calmly walked over and opened the door.
As soon as the door opened, a cold and damp breath came to his face.
Xia Jing quickly scanned his surroundings.
They seemed to have arrived at a dilapidated ancient town.
It was dark, the moon hung high in the night sky, and the silver light fell on a few thick and withered ancient trees, outlining the bare branches into ferocious silhouettes.
In the distance, there were shadows of a gray village, and the Safe House was located on an open space.
It might have rained during the day, the ground was wet at the moment, and there were several puddles reflecting the moonlight.
A few dozen meters away, a man was lying on his side with his back to him, motionless.
Tuanzi’s throat made threatening growls. This sound was directed at the unknown darkness, not at the man.
Xia Jing paused, stepped on the wet and sticky mud, and walked over step by step.
After stopping next to the man, he kicked the man’s shoulder, and the man slowly turned over with this force, turning into a supine position.
There was no resistance from beginning to end, like a lifeless object.
The man’s black hair was wet with rain, plastered to his pale forehead.
His beautiful peach blossom eyes were tightly closed, and his thin lips had lost their color.
—Probably because a lot of blood had already flowed out from the shocking wound on his abdomen.
The ground under him was stained with blood.
And his chest had long since stopped breathing.
Xia Jing lowered his eyes.
Tuanzi followed him out of the Safe House, warily staring at the distance while anxiously watching Xia Jing’s back.
“Song Yang,” Xia Jing, wearing the human skin mask, softly recited the name in his rough voice, as if murmuring to himself, “…What a pity.”
He followed Tuanzi’s gaze, looked at the darkness on the right, and fell into thought.
If he guessed correctly, Song Yang was probably one of the five people who entered the four-star instance today.
Four-star instance…
Xia Jing narrowed his eyes.
He actually drifted to this place in this way.
Xia Jing had always wanted to know what kind of monsters there were in four-star instances.
In addition, once a four-star instance was cleared, it would disappear from the instance menu. Could this one-time setting be because there were secrets about this horror world hidden in the depths of this kind of instance?
Various thoughts were swirling in Xia Jing’s mind, and a hint of eagerness appeared in his eyes as he stared at the darkness.
“Woo…” Tuanzi’s whimper brought Xia Jing back to his thoughts.
Xia Jing paused.
—However, without any information about this four-star instance, it was pointless to intervene in this instance game that he didn’t know how far it had progressed, although it was exciting.
Understanding this, Xia Jing’s eyes returned to their usual calmness.
But…
He turned his head, stared at Song Yang, who was already completely cold, thought for a moment, squatted down, and carefully searched the man’s body for… the spatial bag.
Tuanzi was startled, obviously not expecting that at this time, its owner was still in the mood to do this kind of… sneaky thing!
But in Xia Jing’s opinion, the person was already gone, and it was a waste to leave monster props on a dead person. It was better to recycle and reuse them.
He could always do this kind of thing without changing his expression.
Seeing its owner being so shameless, Tuanzi also fell into a strange silence for a few seconds.
But soon it lowered its head and consciously took on the role of a lookout, guarding the darkness for Xia Jing. The owner and pet “worked together” to search for props.
Xia Jing searched along Song Yang’s chest, but couldn’t find Song Yang’s spatial bag for a long time. Just as he was about to frown, he felt a small cloth bag pressed against Song Yang’s lower back.
Xia Jing chuckled and took the cloth bag.
The next second, a hand suddenly reached out and grabbed his wrist before Xia Jing could react.
Xia Jing’s smile disappeared, and he turned his head expressionlessly to look at the dead man’s face.
The dead man had come back to life.
The dead man was opening his attractive peach blossom eyes and asked with a half-smile, “What are you doing—”
“—Xia Jing?”
Xia Jing: “…………”
Song Yang had been in this instance for two whole days, and three of the other four people who entered the instance with him had already fallen.
After he was separated from the remaining person, Song Yang had no idea whether that person was alive or dead.
He acted alone, narrowly escaping death several times, and finally figured out the identity of the monster in this instance. However, at that time, he was also on the verge of death due to his injuries.
It was really unexpected for Song Yang to use the “fake death recovery” prop that he had traded with other players before entering the instance just in case.
This prop would put him in a fake death state for an hour. As long as he could wake up safely, all his injuries would heal, and his physical strength would recover to 100%. It was a very magical healing prop.
Fortunately, although the monster in this instance was powerful, it was a killing machine without any intelligence, only instinct. Even if Song Yang couldn’t hold on and really died halfway through the fake death, the monster, upon encountering the “dead” him, should only treat him as a pile of garbage and step over him.
The only thing Song Yang didn’t expect was that when he woke up, he would actually encounter someone completely unexpected.
At this moment, he could feel his heart gradually awakening, gradually beating stronger.
The blood flow accelerated, washing over every blood vessel in his body.
Perhaps because of the powerful effect of this healing prop, Song Yang was a little excited.
He smiled, his eyes flashing with a startling light, “You’re still wearing this human skin mask, has it not fallen off, or have you changed to a new one?”
Xia Jing stared at him expressionlessly.
“Three days have passed outside, you couldn’t have not gone back home once… so you changed to a new one?” Song Yang had already gotten the answer. He curled his lips and said, “Is it because your drawing skills are too bad, so you can only draw the same face?”
Xia Jing narrowed his eyes.
Song Yang held his wrist tightly.
The man pulled him closer forcefully, raised his head, and said in a low voice, “Xia Jing, who are you?”
“—And why are you here?”
He stared straight at Xia Jing’s eyes, as if trying to capture every slight change in Xia Jing’s expression and perceive all his thoughts.
Their faces were so close that they could almost feel each other’s breath.
Xia Jing…
Xia Jing raised his hand seriously and clenched it into a fist.
The moment Song Yang’s smile froze and he nimbly dodged backwards, Xia Jing swung his fist mercilessly!
—Song Yang was knocked unconscious again and fell to the ground.
Xia Jing picked up the spatial bag, stood up, relaxed his shoulders and neck, and even exhaled calmly.
Tuanzi was already stunned by its owner’s series of actions!
It swallowed, glanced at Song Yang’s face stealthily, confirmed that the man had fainted and not completely died, and a sheepish expression appeared on its dog face.
After beating the person up, Xia Jing pulled the corners of his lips, originally wanting to turn around and leave neatly.
But somehow, halfway through turning around, he stopped again.
His eyelids lowered slightly.
A few seconds later, Xia Jing turned back—
And lifted Song Yang’s chin with his toes.
The man had lost consciousness again and could only let Xia Jing play with him. A touch of fragile beauty also appeared on his handsome and resolute face.
Xia Jing tilted his head, his eyes slowly sweeping over Song Yang’s beautifully shaped eyes, high nose bridge, and pale lips…
His eyes were filled with interest.
After a long while, Xia Jing licked his lips and chuckled softly.
He had to admit that this guy did attract him a little.
It would be a pity if he died here.
Xia Jing raised his chin, considered for a moment, and gave Tuanzi a look.
His thoughts were transmitted to the golden retriever’s mind. Tuanzi perked up its ears, rushed into the Safe House, and came back in a moment with a syringe and a small shield.
Xia Jing squatted down again, simply and roughly stuck the needle into Song Yang’s chest, and pushed the “Three-Minute Awakening Potion” into Song Yang’s body.
Then he threw the shield onto the man. The small shield immediately turned invisible, and the man was quickly hidden into the surrounding colors. At first glance, he couldn’t be found at all.
After doing all this, Xia Jing took out the Nightmare prop from Song Yang’s spatial bag, and then threw the small cloth bag back onto Song Yang.
The young man chuckled and said, “See you again if we have the chance.”
“Song Yang.”
*
Feng Shi and Jia Qing waited in Song Yang’s personal space for nearly three hours.
During these three hours, the two of them didn’t say a word, and the atmosphere was filled with anxiety and tension.
Three hours later, the red light of the private login room turned on, and the door opened.
Jia Qing and Feng Shi stood up abruptly.
“Song Yang!”
“Yang-ge!”
Song Yang was covered in shocking bloodstains, but his face was still okay, not too ugly.
But his expression was very subtle.
___
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Update: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
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