The “City of Wishes,” which had remained constant for years, suddenly changed, immediately becoming the focal point of all discussion.
Many remarked that “Wish City” had truly become “Resentment City,” with the grievances of those unlucky souls who had been betrayed by teammates floating even in the sky.
One wondered how they were doing in the resurrection dungeons…
Actually, if they were having a decent time, they might not even consider coming back. After all, the last batch of guys who crawled out of the resurrection dungeons were short on housing, and competition was quite fierce right now…
Aside from those concerned with the quality of living, there were, of course, plenty of people just there for the show.
They even started betting on the sidelines, wagering on what kind of nonsense “Resentment City” would pull next.
This chaotic atmosphere continued until the broadcast sounded.
With five crisp, resonant chimes—dong, dong, dong, dong, dong—everyone stopped what they were doing, whether they were spectating, placing bets, dueling, or fighting over property rights, and looked up at the sky in unison.
Inside his room, Li Xin sank into his sofa and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sky.
[Ding-dong. The rule reset is now beginning. This resolution is mandated directly by “The Rules” and does not require consultation with the top ten players on the leaderboard. The content of the reset is as follows:
1. Penalty Dungeon Exemption adjustment: The original limit of 5,000 points for unlimited exemptions is adjusted to a maximum of two exemptions via point exchange. The difficulty of the penalty dungeons remains unchanged.
2. Increase in ways to obtain wishes for players who successfully escape penalty dungeons: The original method of triggering hidden tasks in the villa remains unchanged. A new “Duel Mode” is added, with specific rules as follows:
Duel Mode is initiated by players who have completed a penalty task. It is divided into 24-hour dungeon mode and Arena mode. The designated player has the right to refuse but must name a substitute (the selected player cannot refuse) and pay 10% of their existing points.
3. Effective immediately, a new “Confrontation Mode” dungeon is added, with details as follows:
In Confrontation Mode, one or two players are randomly assigned to the NPC faction. They must ensure their identity is not discovered and complete the dungeon tasks. If an NPC disguise fails, they will enter “Battle Royale Mode.” If they survive until the end of the dungeon time, the game is judged a success, but there will be no clear reward.
There will be no extra notification for entering a Confrontation Mode dungeon; the rule announcement will appear identical to the normal mode.
The player faction must identify the dungeon mode and complete the content. The player who first identifies the NPC’s identity or the player who kills the NPC will receive extra rewards.
In this mode, point settlement at the end of the dungeon will be adjusted according to the situation of each specific dungeon.
This update and reset concludes here. Thank you for listening.]
The system voice crackled and disappeared completely, leaving a crowd of stunned players behind.
Everyone: …Holy crap!!?
The place erupted. Everyone was discussing the Confrontation Mode.
This update completely tore apart the facade of peace among players. It meant that they would inevitably experience mutual slaughter within the dungeons. For the opposing side, it went without saying—whether it was the NPC or player faction, all that mattered was finding the other party and killing them.
The worse part was actually the internal strife, especially within the player faction.
The announcement mentioned extra rewards—the first to identify the NPC and the first to kill them would both be rewarded. Once a dungeon was confirmed as “Confrontation Mode,” any player with a bit of strength would consider hogging the reward for themselves, which would inevitably lead to conflict and disagreement.
Under these circumstances, every person beside you in a dungeon was a competitor.
It wasn’t just ordinary players who were overwhelmed by this announcement.
It was also that group of top ten leaderboard players who despised one another.
“Hmph, round table meeting.”
A black shadow landed lightly atop a high tower, long jet-black hair cascading down as she reached out to catch a black crow flying toward her.
“Just a trivial matter… Not going.”
She waved her hand dismissively, driving the crow away. Lying perilously on the edge of the dome, she pressed the back of her hand against her scarlet lips and sneered: “Boring… though it seems this is the first time the rules have bypassed him to issue an order directly. No wonder he’s foaming at the mouth with rage.”
Thinking of that hypocritical, gentle mask likely being torn apart by distorted fury at this moment, she looked up at the sky in a good mood and narrowed her eyes: “Hmph, it’s finally going to get chaotic.”
This chaos didn’t actually last long.
After all, they were a bunch of people constantly living on the edge of life and death. Looking back at “Resentment City,” how many hadn’t walked through a resurrection dungeon at least once?
If they could avoid that hellish place, all the better; but even if they went, if they could crawl out once, they could crawl out a second time.
As for those who spent all day complaining, they had already set up home half-dead in the resurrection dungeons; they didn’t need to worry about a dungeon update.
In short, those left behind were very good at the self-comfort of living in the moment.
After confirming that “Resentment City” had indeed pulled off something big, everyone quickly dispersed—eating, drinking, collecting points, and as for fighting… they’d leave that for later.
After all, they had to study the new rules first.
When Li Xin confirmed he couldn’t handle this villa alone and decided to go out for a stroll, the streets had returned to normal.
Before leaving, Li Xin took a look at his neighbor; that house remained tightly covered by curtains.
There was only one main one-way street in the City of Wishes, and no matter which direction you took, you would end up at the bulletin board.
When Li Xin arrived, there were still some people near the bulletin board.
However, they had already moved past the stage of studying the rules and were now considering how to spend their points most efficiently to pull a bottle of beer from the exchange machine.
With a clank, several people looked expectantly at the bottom of the turntable. When they saw what it was, they were dumbfounded.
“Good grief, what is this?” One person with an afro held the black, bread-like object encased in a transparent box, deeply disappointed. “What is this? A charcoal-burned steamed bun??”
They looked at each other for a moment. Before they could decide whether to throw away this precious, 20-point piece of junk, a leisurely voice drifted from behind them: “No, it’s a ‘Dirty Bread’.”
“What dirty bread?” The afro-haired man picked at his ear and turned around instinctively, meeting Li Xin’s smiling face.
“Holy shit!” Three voices spoke almost in unison.
The man stared at his face for a long time, and when Li Xin looked puzzled, he finally blurted out: “Damn, are you a celebrity?”
Li Xin smiled: …I’ve heard that before.
Recalling Yu Suheng’s eternally frozen face, Li Xin unconsciously touched his earring, then looked at the vending-machine-like device behind them and laughed: “Are you guys playing a slot machine?”
“Yeah, the ‘Resentment City’ version,” the afro muttered, pointing behind him. “And it’s the blind box edition, too.”
Seeing this, Li Xin stepped forward and finally saw the full picture of the machine.
It looked identical to an automatic vending machine, with virtual screens for ordering and payment.
The only difference was that it only offered black boxes of varying prices.
Some boxes were worth one point, others over ten thousand. According to the afro’s description, the value of the items inside didn’t correspond to the point cost.
“Someone once spent 1,000 points to pull out a used shoe insole,” the afro sighed.
Li Xin said casually: “Oh? Could it be some kind of dungeon prop?”
“That guy’s mentality was as good as yours,” the afro glanced at him. “Later, he ended up settling down in a resurrection dungeon clutching that insole.”
Li Xin: “…”
He watched the prize info flowing at the bottom of the screen, his fingertips sliding casually across the screen as if indecisive.
“Resurrection dungeon? I saw the update mentioned penalty dungeons today,” Li Xin asked, seemingly offhand.
“Right. Resurrection was already hard enough, and with this update, I suspect if I accidentally die one day, I won’t even be able to snag a bridge underpass there.” The man next to him with a buzzcut sounded a bit dejected. “Don’t you think ‘Resentment City’ is sick for this?!”
Resentment City. It really did fit the atmosphere of this place.
Li Xin curved his peach-blossom eyes, his fingertips lingering slightly on a certain spot.
“You’ve all experienced a resurrection dungeon?” This time Li Xin didn’t mention penalty dungeons again. He raised an eyebrow: “It’s hard to get out of there—what did you go through at the time?”
“Sigh, the past is too painful to look back on. My task was to find a rat. The main city of the resurrection dungeon is so big, with traps every few steps. If I hadn’t been unable to die there, I really would’ve just killed myself.”
The afro pointed at the bald man beside him with heartbreak: “As for this guy, he had it worse. He fell into a hunter’s trap right at the start and was enslaved for over half a year before he found a chance to kill the hunter. If he had been any later, he wouldn’t have gotten that batch’s amnesty ticket.”
The string of new terms made Li Xin narrow his eyes. He immediately pressed the blind box worth 200 points.
Watching Li Xin spend 200 points without blinking, the afro felt a pang of heartache: “Hey, boss, you have to select the item you want to get! You can’t just spend points like that even if you have them.”
Having just completed a dungeon and being promoted to “boss” due to his lavish spending, Li Xin watched the countdown screen with composure, calmly tapping the beer column at the very last second.
Even though it wasn’t his money, the heartache in the afro’s eyes couldn’t be hidden: “Boss, you spent 200 points on a bottle of beer?”
And that’s not even guaranteed.
He swallowed the second half of the sentence.
“Hm? Isn’t that what you guys wanted to drink?” Li Xin stepped back, watching the segmented blind box screen begin to spin, speaking faintly.
The afro froze. He clearly hadn’t expected someone to spend 200 points on a blind box just because of their casual complaint.
Doing charity work on the fly was unheard of in Resentment City. But looking at the man’s calm profile, the afro could clearly see that he didn’t care about these small points at all.
Could this godforsaken place really nourish a saint?
The afro felt like he had spotted a rare species.
“Ah…” The afro rubbed his nose: “We were just trying our luck, and 200 points for a beer is just too…”
Ding!
As the three-colored patterns aligned, Li Xin looked at the clattering machine.
The distinct sound of metal colliding held their attention firmly. With a pop, a can of beer dropped into the basket.
Afro: “…”
Buzzcut: “…”
Li Xin picked up the expensive 200-point beer and tossed it toward them without a second thought.
The buzzcut was startled and caught it in a hurry, but a split second later, his wrist was tangled by a thin black thread.
Ability!
The afro’s gaze sharpened. He frowned fiercely at Li Xin, who was still standing there with a smile, his tone turning cold: “What is the meaning of this, boss?”
“Don’t be nervous. I just have some small questions that need answering, and this beer is a token of gratitude.” Li Xin tilted his head and smiled, looking somewhat apologetic. “200 points is a bit little to ‘buy’ a memory, but I didn’t expect my luck to be this good.”
The afro realized something, and his expression turned ugly: “Take your beer back. We aren’t agreeing to this.”
“I see.” Li Xin pondered for a moment, as if seriously considering something.
But the moment the afro’s expression softened, preparing to negotiate, the man sighed. His condescending posture made the two of them feel as if they were suffocating, while his tone carried a feigned helplessness:
“But it seems… you don’t have the right to refuse.”