"Welcome, players, to the game."
A mechanical voice without the slightest fluctuation echoed through the void, cold and devoid of any warmth.
Just hearing that voice was enough to make one’s scalp crawl, as if countless icy tentacles were crawling up along the spine, ready to drag a person straight into hell in the next second.
This voice was the nightmare of all humanity.
For players, hearing it was like being branded with the mark of death. The fear of death would cling to them like maggots on bone, impossible to shake off.
One year ago, a bizarre Infinite Horror Game descended without warning and began broadcasting live across the entire world.
There had been no advance notice and no explanation.
Just as no one knew why the Infinite Horror Game had appeared, no one could find the source of this strange broadcast, nor could it be blocked by any means.
Even without internet or electricity, it could still be watched.
At first everyone believed it was merely a prank by some top tier hacker. But the broadcast announced to the entire world in the cruelest and bloodiest manner possible—
This was not a hacker’s prank, nor some virtual online game.
It was a game played with one’s life.
Clear the dungeon, and live.
Fail the dungeon, and die.
And even this so called “living” was merely a brief return to the real world to catch one’s breath.
Once someone became a player, they could never completely escape the shadow of the game.
Because the next game could begin at any moment, like the Sword of Damocles hanging above one’s head, leaving no day of true peace.
......
He… had become a player?
Wen Ruyu was currently inside a cheap rental room, sitting at a computer desk. The instant he heard the game announcement, his eyes widened in a daze as he looked around like a startled bird.
When he realized the surroundings were completely unfamiliar, his body suddenly seemed to lose all strength and he collapsed backward against the chair behind him.
If the chair had not been a gaming chair, he might have fallen straight onto the floor.
It was not fear.
It was the relief of surviving after escaping something that had terrified him.
He had finally gotten away from those people.
As long as he was free of them, even if death awaited him, he would gladly accept it.
Wen Ruyu weakly raised an arm and covered his eyes. His slender body relaxed completely. Even his delicate brows softened slightly. The next moment he could not help but laugh softly, his body trembling faintly as he did.
He had finally… escaped those people…
[Ding!]
"Congratulations, player. You have become a Special Player."
The voice sounded directly inside Wen Ruyu’s mind.
He froze.
"A Special Player?"
The game had descended for an entire year already, yet no one had ever heard of something called a Special Player.
But the system did not answer Wen Ruyu’s confusion. It was like a machine that could only broadcast announcements, without any emotion or fluctuation.
"Assigning the player a dedicated system."
Before Wen Ruyu could react, another voice rang out the next moment.
It sounded like a customer service agent from an online shopping platform, full of artificial enthusiasm.
"Dear customer hello, I am your dedicated system 099. Very happy… to meet you."
The voice paused slightly at the words “very happy,” as though the pause had been abrupt, yet also as if the speaker had deliberately stretched the sound, making it impossible to tell what it meant.
Wen Ruyu asked quietly, "What does Special Player mean?"
System 099 seemed to answer everything it was asked. The moment Wen Ruyu finished speaking, it enthusiastically began explaining.
"Dear customer, it’s like this. Because some dungeons are extremely difficult and their Clear Rate has remained zero until now, in order to adjust the dungeon Clear Rate and increase the survival rate of players, Special Players are introduced to lower the dungeon difficulty."
Wen Ruyu: "…?"
Increase the survival rate of players?
Lower dungeon difficulty?
Who?
Him?
That was truly giving him far too much credit.
Even in the real world, merely surviving had already exhausted all of his strength. Let alone inside a dungeon filled with danger everywhere.
If he did not die on the first day, that alone would count as extraordinary luck.
"I’m not that capable."
"Dear customer, there’s no need to worry. We will send you to a time before the dungeon forms, when the Dungeon Boss and the NPCs are still human. As long as the resentment of the Dungeon Boss is not too strong at the moment of death, and the dungeon rating decreases, your mission will be considered complete."
After saying that, the system added,
"Even if the dungeon rating does not change, as long as you break the dungeon’s zero Clear Rate, it will still count as completing the mission."
Wen Ruyu lowered his eyes.
"Even if I die in the dungeon?"
"Of course."
099 answered firmly.
"As long as you complete your mission, even if you die in the dungeon, after the dungeon ends you will still be judged as having cleared it."
Perhaps time was running short, or perhaps for some other reason. After saying this, 099 did not give Wen Ruyu another chance to ask questions and instead offered a friendly reminder.
"Dear customer, please prepare yourself mentally. In three seconds I will transmit the dungeon information and the original host’s memories to you."
Wen Ruyu did not say anything else.
Nor did he have time to.
A violent pain suddenly erupted in his brain.
The pain seemed to act directly upon the soul itself.
Impossible to suppress.
Impossible to endure.
Wen Ruyu gripped the armrests of the chair tightly. His delicate face turned a little paler, and a thin sheen of sweat appeared on his fair forehead. His entire body seemed to release a faint, clinging fragrance.
Like a flower blooming at the edge of decay, his entire being became breathtakingly beautiful.
The young man was far too beautiful.
Beautiful enough to seize all of a person’s attention and leave them unable to see anything else.
Beautiful to the point of carrying a faintly erotic allure, capable of instantly stirring desire deep within someone’s heart, making them want to claim him entirely for themselves.
Unfortunately, no one was there to admire this scene.
Wen Ruyu himself could not see his own state. When the pain finally subsided, he discovered that an additional memory had appeared in his mind.
Calling it a memory was not entirely accurate.
It was more like watching a novel as an outsider. Only a rough impression remained in his mind.
He began to examine the situation of this dungeon.
This dungeon was a modern supernatural dungeon.
The Dungeon Boss had once been an ordinary university student. His family background was ordinary, his social relationships ordinary, everything about him utterly ordinary.
The only thing that was not ordinary was probably his appearance.
The Dungeon Boss was named Yang Ruiqing.
From childhood he had been exceptionally good looking. After growing up he became strikingly handsome.
During military training at the start of university, his appearance alone made him seem as though he existed on a completely different layer from everyone else. Less than three days after the semester began, he was directly voted the campus heartthrob.
At first some people were unconvinced.
But after seeing him in person, the voices of protest disappeared.
He really was that handsome.
Yet it was precisely this extraordinary appearance that became the cause of his death.
During a club activity, Yang Ruiqing added the contact information of a fellow club member.
That moment became the beginning of his path toward death.
The classmate’s intentions for adding him were not pure.
The person wanted to steal his photographs and use them to carry out livestream romance scams online.
And that person did not scam only one victim.
The total amount of money involved reached a scale that ordinary people could hardly imagine.
But those who often walk by the river will eventually get their shoes wet.
No matter how careful the thief was in stealing photos and selecting victims, juggling multiple victims eventually came to light.
The victims who had been deceived did not know that the scammer had stolen the photos.
After discovering they had been cheated, they all traced the photographs back to Yang Ruiqing’s university.
Yang Ruiqing had never done any of those things.
Naturally he denied everything when confronted.
But in the eyes of the victims, that was nothing more than refusing to admit guilt.
The people who had been deceived became even more furious.
One of them became so emotionally unstable that he directly pulled out a knife and stabbed Yang Ruiqing to death.
Yang Ruiqing did not even know what had happened.
He died innocently and unjustly.
The overwhelming resentment he carried turned him into the Dungeon Boss.
And Wen Ruyu’s identity in this dungeon…
was the person who had stolen the photographs and committed the livestream romance scam.
The original host and Yang Ruiqing belonged to the same club.
The original host had been born into a poor family, but since childhood he had always been an outstanding student. He had been the pride of his family. Teachers and classmates had all treated him kindly.
This gradually formed his proud and arrogant personality.
But everything changed after he entered university.
Only after entering university did he realize how vast the gap between himself and others truly was.
That was not something family affection could make up for.
It was the difference between social classes.
His monthly living allowance totaled only one thousand yuan, money his family scraped together by living frugally.
Yet a single piece of clothing casually worn by his roommates cost several months of his living expenses.
That was money his family could never possibly afford.
His birth had already decided everything.
Even the academic achievements he had once been proud of were no longer remarkable.
After all, every student admitted to this university had been an outstanding student.
Every one of them was a prodigy.
Someone like him was as common as grains of sand.
The original host became increasingly inferior and withdrawn.
His personality grew darker and darker.
Everything finally exploded after one of his roommates casually gave him a mobile phone.
The roommate’s intention had been simple.
Seeing that the original host’s phone was too old and slow even when scanning a code, the roommate kindly gave him an unused phone.
But in the original host’s eyes, the roommate was showing off and mocking him.
He believed the roommate was looking down on him.
The two had a huge argument.
When the other two roommates tried to break up the fight, the original host lashed out at everyone indiscriminately.
In the end the entire dormitory relationship collapsed.
After that incident, the original host moved out of the dormitory.
He did not have much money.
He could only afford to rent a room smaller than ten square meters.
That only worsened his feelings of inferiority, making him hate his poor family even more.
The original host looked at the cheap rental room, then at his slow loading phone.
After remaining silent for an entire night, he gritted his teeth and borrowed money from a loan shark.
At first he only wanted to buy a phone and slowly repay the debt through part time work.
But human greed had no limits.
Once a crack opened, it could never be closed again.
The borrowed money had come far too easily.
After buying the phone, the original host felt his clothes no longer matched it.
So he borrowed more money to buy new clothes.
First the phone.
Then the clothes.
Then the computer.
The original host continued borrowing before the previous loan was repaid.
With interest compounding, the original few thousand yuan quickly turned into more than a million.
Only when the loan sharks began demanding repayment did he finally panic.
Loan sharks were not charities.
At first he tried to delay them with excuses.
But after failing to recover their money for a long time, they threatened to break one of his legs if he did not repay the debt.
This time he was truly afraid.
But the money had long since been spent.
Naturally he had nothing left to repay them.
At that moment, campus heartthrob Yang Ruiqing entered his field of vision.
After seeing Yang Ruiqing’s photograph on the school forum, the original host came up with what he believed was a brilliant idea.
He would steal Yang Ruiqing’s photographs and use them for online romance scams.
If the truth were ever exposed, the photographs belonged to Yang Ruiqing anyway.
It would have nothing to do with him personally.
The original host immediately acted on the idea.
Under the pretense of participating in a club activity, he added Yang Ruiqing’s contact information and began his livestream romance scam using stolen photos.
And in doing so, he planted the seed of Yang Ruiqing’s death.
The time when Wen Ruyu entered the dungeon was already late.
The original host had long since begun using Yang Ruiqing’s photographs for online scams.
At this moment, the chat record in front of Wen Ruyu’s eyes belonged to one of the people he had deceived.
Number 3: "Have you had enough money lately?"
Number 3: "Transfer 5000 yuan."
Number 3: "Why aren’t you replying to me?"