[Black & White: There are many hidden rules in the Survival Apartment. What I’m listing in this post are only the hidden rules I currently know. If any players discover new hidden rules, feel free to mention them in the comments below. I’ll update the post as soon as possible.]
[Black & White: Enough nonsense. Let’s go in chronological order.]
[Black & White: I’m sure everyone remembers the scene when we first entered the Survival Apartment, right? If you happened to be out on the street or somewhere crowded at the time, then you definitely noticed one thing. Regardless of age or gender, everyone received a phone call.]
[Black & White: After answering the call, people entered the Survival Apartment and became players. Every player also received a 50-square-meter single apartment from the system. But has anyone thought about one thing? What about the elderly and children?]
[Black & White: Adults can take care of themselves. Even if they enter an instance, they’ll still try to clear it somehow. But what about elderly people with limited mobility, or children under fourteen? They don’t have the ability to survive on their own, much less clear apocalyptic instances.]
[Black & White: Curious about this, I proactively messaged other players and also gathered all kinds of information from the regional forum. One player with family members told me that after entering the Survival Apartment, the system sent him a “prompt,” asking whether he was willing to live together with his “*** immediate family members.”]
[Black & White: This is the first hidden rule of the Survival Apartment.]
[Black & White: Elderly people over 65 and children under 14 can choose to live together with their immediate family members. After choosing cohabitation, the original 50-square-meter single apartment expands according to the number of residents. For example, a family of three would have an apartment size of 150 square meters.]
[Black & White: Here’s an important point to emphasize. Immediate family members will only live together with immediate family members. In other words, if you’re already married in real life but don’t have children, and your family only consists of elderly parents, then the only prompt you’ll receive is “Would you like to live together with your *** immediate family members?” You will not receive a prompt asking whether you want to live together with your husband or wife.]
[Black & White: Some people are probably wondering. What happens if you refuse cohabitation?]
[Black & White: There’s an example of this too. One player’s parents had five children, and he was the third child. Logically, all of the siblings should have received the system prompt, but there were only two parents, so how would that work? In the end, both parents ended up living with him. The system’s explanation was “because he clicked agree.”]
[Black & White: From this, we can conclude that the system doesn’t send the prompt to all five children simultaneously. Instead, it sends the prompt sequentially according to the age order of the immediate family members. Since the eldest brother and second brother both refused to live with their parents, when it reached him, he chose to accept, so the parents ended up living with him.]
[Black & White: The same applies to children under 14. The system sends prompts to the child’s parents according to age order, not according to whether the mother or father comes first.]
[Black & White: If both parents refuse cohabitation, then the child will still be treated as a normal player and receive their own single apartment. As for whether they can survive future instances, the system won’t care.]
“So that’s how it is…”
Seeing this, Jiang Qi finally understood.
She was currently twenty-two years old, and both of her parents were still only in their fifties, far from sixty-five.
As for whether she wanted to live with them, deep down, Jiang Qi didn’t.
Her parents had divorced before she even started university, and both now had new families and new children of their own. Jiang Qi figured they probably wouldn’t want to live with her either.
Honestly, this arrangement was pretty good. Better for everyone to keep a respectful distance from each other.
The post clearly hadn’t been written all at once, because players had already started asking questions in the comments below this section.
[Do players living together also have to enter instances together?]
[Probably not, right? Otherwise even babies in swaddling clothes would have to enter instances.]
[Uh… I really hope not… Otherwise that’d be awful…]
[Old people over 65 probably can’t even run.]
[But if they don’t participate in instances, how are they supposed to survive the survival-of-the-fittest system? This is the apocalypse. The apocalypse naturally eliminates the old, weak, sick, and disabled.]
[The person above is right. The Survival Apartment isn’t a charity. Why would it let players survive the apocalypse safely without doing anything?]
[…]
The player with the ID Black & White returned ten minutes later to continue updating the post.
[Black & White: Unfortunately, I have to tell everyone that cohabitation is just cohabitation. Personal points still belong to the individual, and every player must enter instances, whether they want to or not.]
[Black & White: However, cohabiting players are different from ordinary players in one aspect. Their landing location upon entering an instance is the same. I suppose this is the Survival Apartment system’s final bit of mercy?]
[Thank goodness. At least babies in swaddling clothes won’t have to clear instances by themselves.]
[Speaking of babies, I have another question. Do baby players also receive points for clearing instances? If a family of three all successfully clears an instance, do they receive 1,000 points or 3,000 points?]
[Black & White: It’s 3,000 points. As mentioned earlier, personal points belong to the individual, even if the player is an infant with an undeveloped mind.]
[Black & White: Now let’s talk about the second hidden rule.]
[Black & White: Players who fail to clear an instance will not die, but the system will deduct 1,000 points. I believe everyone already knows this hidden rule, because players who failed their instances are already crying and screaming in the regional forum.]
The instance Jiang Qi had cleared was City. She was quite curious what kind of apocalyptic instances Coastline and Island were, so after bookmarking Black & White’s post titled Hidden Rules of the Survival Apartment System, she returned to the regional forum homepage to see what useful information other players might provide.
During this time, she also cooked herself a bowl of instant noodles (don’t ask why it was instant noodles. It was because they were cheap).
[Regional Forum]
[AAAAAAAHHHHHH! DO NOT choose the Island Instance! DO NOT choose the Island Instance! Damn it! The island is basically a snake-infested disaster! The whole island is covered in snakes! There are too many to count! I was poisoned to death by venomous snakes less than two hours after entering the instance!]
[Shit!]
[Mommy! I’m terrified of snakes! Thank goodness I was too cowardly to pick an instance yet! I almost walked straight to my death!]
[Help! When you say too many to count, just how many snakes are there?!]
[Don’t tell me there are really giant snakes like in the movies that can swallow people whole?]
[Yeah… I’d rather die than choose the Island Instance.]
[If Island’s a no-go, then what can we choose? Coastline?]
[Coastline’s impossible too! Coastline is a tsunami! The freaking opening scene is a gigantic tsunami crashing straight at your face! I barely found a house to hide in, and before ten seconds passed, the whole house got smashed apart by the tsunami! Survive my ass! It doesn’t even leave you a chance!]
[Huh? A tsunami? How big?]
[The kind that can completely flood an entire coastal city. Even if you’re lucky enough to survive, afterward you’re basically stuck soaking in water the whole time. I died because my injuries got infected with no medicine to treat them.]
[Good lord… Then wouldn’t someone like me, who can’t even manage basic survival skills, just instantly die upon entering an instance?]
[I protest! The Coastline Instance discriminates against people who can’t swim!]
[Exactly! Do people who can’t swim not deserve to clear instances?!]
[They don’t. Did you forget? Survival of the fittest.]
[The Island Instance has snakes, and I’m scared of snakes. The Coastline Instance has tsunamis, and I can’t swim. So does that mean the only option left is the City Instance?]
[Buddy above, if you choose City, then you’re in for a treat, because City is a zombie instance hahaha! Want to experience the thrill of being chased, tackled, and eaten alive by zombies? Then you absolutely have to choose the City Instance hahaha! (Don’t mind me. I’ve already gone insane)!]
[Uh… Yeah, I can tell your mental state isn’t looking too good…]
[??? What??? City is a zombie instance???]
[I’m out. I’ll take the tsunami instead. At least if you die in a tsunami, you won’t get eaten.]
[Help… I want to cry… All three instances are so hard… Can ordinary people really clear them successfully?]
[Why are you all being so pessimistic? Didn’t everyone draw items from the beginner gift pack?]
[Bro, if those items were really that useful, would the people above be losing their minds like this?]
[…]
While eating instant noodles and reading the regional forum chat, Jiang Qi said with relief, “Thank goodness I didn’t choose Island or Coastline.”
Because she was exactly the type of person who feared snakes and wasn’t good at swimming.
After finishing her noodles, Jiang Qi took a shower and comfortably lay down on the bed before reopening the bookmarked post, Hidden Rules of the Survival Apartment System.
Her luck was pretty good. Right after she entered the post, the original poster, Black & White, updated it again.
[Black & White: Third hidden rule.]
[Black & White: Instance refresh rules.]
[Black & White: I just received information that players who fail their first instance do not get their instances refreshed. If you chose the City instance and failed, then your instance page will only have Island and Coastline remaining. No new instances will appear.]
[Black & White: Special reminder here, in case some players still don’t know. One day inside an instance equals one hour in reality. Since 30 hours haven’t passed yet, I still don’t know whether players who survive for 30 days and clear the instance that way will have their instances refreshed afterward. However, players who cleared early told me that their instance page refreshed, and three brand-new instances appeared, while the two unchosen instances from before disappeared entirely.]
The moment this information was posted, the comments section exploded.
[Oh my god! Players have already cleared instances this quickly?!]
[Even counting generously, it’s only been about five hours since everyone entered the Survival Apartment…]
[The pros can clear an instance in less than five days? Figures I’m just trash… I still haven’t even dared to enter one yet, sob.]
[How did they clear them? Zombies, snake disasters, tsunamis. None of those are easy to deal with, right?!]
[If a player’s beginner gift pack gave them the ability to fly, then clearing the tsunami instance would probably be pretty easy.]
[Bullshit! Even flying wouldn’t make it easy! The abilities you get from beginner gift packs are all super weak! There’s no way you could stay airborne for long without having to land!]
[Sigh, if the system would just give me a Desert Eagle with unlimited ammo, I’d definitely choose the City Instance.]
[Keep dreaming. Do you know how expensive guns with unlimited ammo are in the special shop? 100,000 points! A hundred thousand! Clearing an instance only gives 1,000 points! At this rate, how many years would it take to save up enough points?!]
[Black & White: Fourth hidden rule.]
[Black & White: This is also the last hidden rule I currently know. In the Survival Apartment, players are not allowed to “kill each other.” The abilities players draw and the items they obtain also cannot be used inside the apartment.]
[Black & White: As for whether they can be used outside the apartment, I don’t know, because I don’t dare leave the apartment.]
[Black & White: Also, I’m about to enter an instance too. Wish me luck on clearing it.]
[Good luck clearing the instance, OP!]
[Good luck clearing the instance +1!]
[Thanks for sharing all this information so selflessly, OP. Wishing you a successful clear too!]
[…]
After finishing the thread, Jiang Qi also got ready for bed. Just then, a message notification sounded.
[Ye Ling: Want to enter an instance together? I’m planning to do a Symbiosis Instance.]
[Jiang Qi: ???]
[Jiang Qi: Brother, do you seriously not need sleep? This level of grinding is unhealthy!]
[Ye Ling: …I’m not grinding.]
[Jiang Qi: Then what is it?]
[Ye Ling: I don’t have enough points.]
Oh, so he was short on money. That, she understood. But she needed sleep, otherwise she was going to have a mental breakdown.
[Jiang Qi: I’ll pass. I need to rest. Good luck clearing your new instance.]
[Ye Ling: Okay.]