The elevator was moving when suddenly, the lights overhead went out.
A piercing scream rang out as countless pale hands covered in corpse spots pried open the elevator doors from the outside!
“Help! Help!” people inside the elevator screamed in terror. The loudest screamer turned out to be Zhang Fang.
He wasn’t afraid of people, but he was terrified of instances.
Because the things inside the instances were not human…
Under the influence of countless corpse hands, the elevator doors burst open with a loud crash, and blinding light poured in from the outside.
Amidst the dazzling white light, a line of blood-red text slowly appeared: “God is watching from the depths, waiting for you to become a sacrifice.”
The blood-red text vanished, and Shao Lan felt as though he had briefly lost consciousness.
It felt as if some violent force had instantly yanked his soul out of his body, only to violently shove it back in.
He opened his eyes and gasped for breath.
Before him was a winding mountain road, with dense trees flashing past in the rearview mirror.
He was sitting in a moving car, in the passenger seat.
In the driver’s seat was a very pretty young woman.
Her long black hair was styled in large curls, she wore a black knitted dress, and her face was striking and glamorous. The two hands gripping the steering wheel were fair and slender, with four fingernails painted a bewitching dark red, while the other six were bare.
Seeing Shao Lan open his eyes, the woman turned her head with a smile and said, “You’re awake, husband.”
…
Shao Lan was slightly stunned.
His gaze swept around the interior of the car and landed on a Polaroid photo stuck to the dashboard.
It was a photo of him and the woman in front of him, kissing in front of the Disney castle fireworks, with the woman wearing a pink LinaBell headband.
This photo was definitely photoshopped.
Shao Lan was certain he had no relationship with the woman in front of him—at least, he could be sure he had never been to Disney.
“Your name is Shao Lan, right?” the woman said. “My name is Xu Jiawei. If you can’t remember my full name, you can call me Jiajia. Are you a newcomer?”
Shao Lan confirmed: “Are you a player too?”
Xu Jiawei chuckled: “Of course. Did you expect to run into an NPC as pretty as me?”
Faced with a beauty of Xu Jiawei’s caliber, most men would easily drop their guard, but Shao Lan remained vigilant: “Then how do you know my name?”
Xu Jiawei pointed to the glove compartment, which contained two phones: “I arrived about two minutes earlier than you and read through the messages in advance.”
Shao Lan didn’t rush to check the phone, instead examining his own body in surprise.
The nails that had previously been embedded in his body, as well as the slash wounds inflicted by Zhang Fang, had completely vanished.
“What’s wrong?” Xu Jiawei asked.
“I had some injuries before coming in,” Shao Lan said. “For some reason, they’ve all healed.”
Xu Jiawei let out a sudden chuckle: “It seems you really are a newcomer. Let big sis give you a quick briefing—”
“In the building, as long as you aren’t dead, no matter how severe your injuries are, they will automatically heal once you enter an instance. Similarly, inside an instance, as long as you don’t die on the spot, your injuries will heal when you return to the building.”
“In short, the elevator is a place that can instantly heal everything. As long as you step into the elevator, your body gets automatically refreshed.”
“This is also considered a perk of entering an instance. After all, with the mortality rate in every instance being so high and only a five-hundred-yuan base reward, there has to be some other incentive to keep people willing to participate.”
“Hey, there’s a service area ahead. Let’s go. I’ll take you to experience another perk of running dungeons.”
Xu Jiawei parked the car, picked up her phone and a delicate women’s handbag. Shao Lan also found a men’s shoulder bag on the back seat, presumably his own.
Shao Lan had already guessed what this perk was—
In dungeons, they often assumed certain identities. For instance, this time, after checking his phone, Shao Lan discovered that he and Xu Jiawei were a young couple working in a big city, and Xu Jiawei had invited him along to visit her hometown.
As long as this identity had money, they could use it to buy whatever food and drink they wanted—enjoying all the luxuries they couldn’t bear to splurge on back in the city.
At the service area, Xu Jiawei ordered one of every flavor at the milk tea shop, picked the most expensive imported snacks, bought plenty of face masks, essential oils, skincare products, and makeup, and even went to a clothing store to swipe her card for two mink coats.
“It doesn’t matter anyway. Credit cards in dungeons never have to be paid back,” Xu Jiawei said with a smile, stroking the soft fur of the coat.
The credit card repayment date was next month. By then, they would either have left this dungeon, or… they would already be dead.
Since this money was definitely not to be wasted, Shao Lan also started shopping.
Steamed sea bass, stir-fried yellow beef, crab roe shrimp and tofu, stir-fried water spinach with garlic, and winter melon and barley braised pork ribs. Four dishes and one soup—first, they needed a hearty meal.
Next door was a pastry shop: pineapple buns with butter, hawthorn char siu pastries, salted egg yolk shumai, pan-fried radish cakes, and crispy shrimp tofu skin rolls. He ordered one of each and had the clerk pack them into takeout boxes.
The duration of this dungeon was still unknown, so stocking up on long-lasting snacks was also essential. Protein jerky, Orleans chicken breast, Sichuan-style spicy beef jerky, spicy small fish, and salt-baked quail eggs—Shao Lan first loaded up on these protein-rich meat snacks, followed by high-carbohydrate options like compressed biscuits, chocolate, nougat, bread, and cake.
Finally, he grabbed several large bags of mixed nuts; they were filling and provided essential fats.
Meanwhile, Xu Jiawei buying the mink coats served as a reminder—while a mink coat wasn’t strictly necessary, a few heavy, thick garments were definitely required.
There were several men’s clothing stores in the service area. Shao Lan bought a complete set of softshell jackets, two sweaters, a down jacket, plus a scarf, hat, and gloves.
The trunk and back seats were already stuffed to the brim with their bags. After a moment of thought, Shao Lan went to buy one last, critically important item:
Weapons.
In the service area, the options that could pass as weapons were quite limited.
Shao Lan headed to the kitchenware section and, sure enough, found Xu Jiawei there as well.
Knowing they were thinking along the same lines, they tacitly avoided each other and headed to different shelves.
The smallest fruit and baby food knives were lightweight, compact, and sharp at the tip—ideal for use as daggers.
The largest bone-chopping cleavers had the advantage of being massive and razor-sharp, but the drawback was that they weren’t easy to carry.
Shao Lan selected a few ranging from large to small, and after spotting multi-functional folding knives on another shelf, quickly grabbed a few of those as well.
The sedan was packed so tightly by the two of them that not even a sliver of space remained.
“Let’s go. We need to reach our destination before five o’clock this afternoon.” Shao Lan glanced at the map; a red circle was drawn around the destination, labeled “Xu Family Village.”
Clearly, that was the “hometown” the dungeon had assigned to Xu Jiawei.
The car sped along the mountain road, this time driven by Shao Lan, and the pace was noticeably faster.
“Honey, I never expected you to be so handsome and such a good driver,” Xu Jiawei said with a faint smile.
Shao Lan gave her a calm look: “Your survival skills in dungeons must be top-notch.”
“Oh? Why do you say that all of a sudden?”
“Most people are scared out of their wits when they enter a dungeon. You’re the only one who still has the mood to flirt.”
“Honey, that’s not fair of you,” Xu Jiawei said, giving him a playful, coy shove.
“What is the point of living? Isn’t it just to be happy? Even if the world ends tomorrow, it shouldn’t stop me from flirting with handsome guys.”
Shao Lan smiled faintly and shook his head helplessly.
With just a few minutes left until five o’clock, the sun was gradually sinking toward the mountains, and their car arrived at the destination just before dark.
Crossing over the mountains, what came into view was an endless expanse of the sea, with a row of white houses built along the shore. A wooden sign ahead read “Xu Family Village.”
Three cars pulled up at the entrance of the village just behind theirs, and people stepped out—three men and three women.
Shao Lan quickly spotted the figures of Xu Nan and Zhang Fang among them.
He understood now. In each of these four cars was a pair of “lovers,” making a total of four men and four women—all the players for this dungeon.
Shao Lan steadied his mind, pondering his next move.
Back in the tower, anything not forbidden by law was permitted, which was why Xu Nan and Zhang Fang had dared to rob them so unscrupulously.
But this was a dungeon; all the rules were unknown, and no one knew what consequences random killing might bring.
Therefore, at least for now, Xu Nan and Zhang Fang wouldn’t make a move against him.
With that thought, Shao Lan pushed open the car door, ready to get out.
However, the very next instant, his hand abruptly froze.
Reflected in the rearview mirror was an extremely bizarre human face.
It was a little girl.
She had a massive head and a frail, skinny body, looking just like a bean sprout. Two braided pigtails were tied on either side of her head, her hair a withered, sallow yellow.
The little girl’s facial features were quite pretty, with a delicate, upturned nose and a cherry-like mouth.
Except that where her eyes should have been… were two huge, black holes.