They’d just finished a simple breakfast when he woke up. Seeing her holding a bowl, still half-asleep, he immediately stepped over and snatched it away. “Go sit down.”
She looked at her empty hands. “I’m not disabled.”
After a quick breakfast, they tidied up and went out, each carrying a small backpack.
As they headed downstairs, the smell of food drifted from several floors, stir-fried greens, chili oil, stewed soup, rich and vivid, seeping thickly into their noses.
“They’re eating this well first thing in the morning?” he muttered. Thinking about how he’d been constantly on edge in the instance, sleeping and eating badly, while these people enjoyed full meals, he felt something was off. “If our guess is right, these people don’t know that long-haired monster at all.”
She only gave him a light glance. “Then just ask and find out.”
The long-haired monster had originally been the landlord. So how exactly had they erased every trace of a landlord’s existence from this building?
She was quite curious about that.
They didn’t disturb the people practicing tai chi in the open space, nor the noisy children watched closely by their parents. The only viable target seemed to be the two old men playing chess under the big tree.
He leaned in until they were almost touching and whispered, “Do you know how to play chess?”
“Not really,” she replied.
Not really, she only knew the basics. She’d never had time to study it deeply, and even that much came from a part-time job requirement, otherwise she’d never have learned at all.
“Watch me.”
He patted her shoulder confidently and strode over to the two old men. He crouched beside the one about to lose, pointed at a square, and said eagerly, “Grandpa, move here! Move here and open up a new path!”
“Hey!”
The old man in the tank top slammed a piece down hard on the table. Even the fan in his other hand stopped as the flesh of his face trembled with anger. “You brat, don’t you know you’re supposed to stay silent while watching a game?”
“Start over! This one doesn’t count! If this kid hadn’t butted in, I would’ve won!” he said, angrily resetting the pieces, still muttering. “You think you can beat me? Impossible in this lifetime! Even if you bring help, it won’t work! My chess skills were born with me!”
The other old man said nothing: “……”
He’d probably heard this speech countless times.
“I’m not playing this round,” the old man said, standing up and pulling the boy over to take his seat. He snatched the fan from the furious tank-top old man, who glared at him, and just laughed. “Today I’m going to watch you lose. My grandson’s always going on about some ‘setting a flag’ [1] gaming/internet slang: jinxing yourself by saying something cocky aloud, so the opposite comes true jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691972_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691972_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); thing, whatever that means, it definitely never works. I’m staying right here to watch, hahaha…”
The old man laughed heartily and patted Xiao Xingzhi’s shoulder in a familiar way. “Kid, play properly, all right?”
Feeling the weight of that hand, Xiao Xingzhi glanced over at Zhang Xiangyi, who was already chatting with another girl not far off. His eyes widened slightly, so… she was just going to ignore him?
“Grandpa, don’t worry. I’ve trained in chess since I was a kid. My great-grandfather is a chess master, and I grew up learning from him.” To prove he really had skill, and for his own survival, Xiao Xingzhi turned fully serious.
What he said wasn’t wrong. He really was decent at chess. The only question was how good the opponent was. If the old man played at his great-grandfather’s level, he might really have to go back for more training…
Zhang Xiangyi had originally wanted to follow and watch. Even if she couldn’t help, she could keep an eye on the surroundings. But just then, aside from her and Xiao Xingzhi, she finally spotted another young woman in the complex. How could she not go and ask?
Besides, she wasn’t far from Xiao Xingzhi, if anything happened, they could still look out for each other.
“Hi?” Zhang Xiangyi made her approach with the maximum effort her social anxiety allowed.
Most of her part-time jobs had been repetitive, like serving in a restaurant, just doing her job without much customer interaction, with limited scripts. Milk tea shops were the same: take orders, call numbers…
The girl wasn’t a top-tier beauty, but she was very pleasant-looking. When she saw Zhang Xiangyi greet her, she froze for a moment, then brightened. “Hi! Do you rent here too?”
Once the conversation started, Zhang Xiangyi’s usual awkwardness eased a bit. “Yeah. I just wanted to ask, do you know a nearby place to buy cheap, good vegetables? My boyfriend and I just moved here, and we’re not great at picking. We can only go to supermarkets, but the prices there…”
She gave a slightly embarrassed smile. With her pale, delicate face, it instantly drew the girl’s sympathy.
“Ah… I actually don’t know either,” the girl said regretfully, then added quickly, “I just moved in today too. I’m a senior doing an internship and found a job nearby, I start tomorrow. I was planning to buy groceries today, but I don’t even know where the market or supermarket is…”
The corner of Zhang Xiangyi’s mouth twitched. So she was even more clueless than her.
The girl didn’t mind at all and chattered on. “My name is Yuan Sheng. What about you? If you’re free, we could shop or hang out together. Oh right, I live in 3-3. Where do you live?”
3-3?
Zhang Xiangyi immediately caught the key point. She remembered that Su Xian, the fat man who died right after entering, was connected to 3-2.
Under normal instance progression, no new players should enter mid-way. This girl in front of her had to be an NPC. So whether players or NPCs, were they all the same inside this apartment?
All just “stored resources”?
“You… don’t want to say?” the girl asked, puzzled. Seeing Zhang Xiangyi stay silent, she waved a hand. “It’s personal, I get it. You don’t have to tell me. But you can come visit me at 3-3 if you want!”
“No, I was just thinking about something.” Zhang Xiangyi shook her head lightly. Looking at the bright-eyed girl, her mood turned a little heavy. “My name is Zhang Xiangyi. I live in 4-4. Since you just moved in, don’t sleep too deeply at night. A girl living alone should be careful, better lock your bedroom door with a security chain or something, or add extra protection.”
“Don’t worry, I know all that. I even ordered door blockers, security chains, alarms, and such online. My mom was worried too, so I did a lot of research. Thanks for the reminder, though.”
The girl wore a white shirt and a pink plaid skirt, her long hair loosely draped behind her with slightly curled ends. Her eyes sparkled like sunlight, lively and full of energy.
Zhang Xiangyi felt a trace of envy toward that kind of disposition.
“It’s nothing. I didn’t really do anything.” That was what she said outwardly, but inwardly she was already weighing whether tonight could end the instance, or whether they should just take over the whole apartment.
“By the way, have you seen the landlord?” Zhang Xiangyi glanced around before continuing in a lower voice. “My boyfriend said something in the kitchen is broken and we want it replaced, but we haven’t seen the landlord.”
“The landlord?” Yuan Sheng frowned and shook her head slowly. “I’ve never met them. I’ve only ever dealt with them online. After signing the contract, I moved in directly. The keys were even left at the door.”
“The landlord just said to transfer the rent when it’s due. They didn’t even take a deposit. To be honest, the best landlord ever!”
Looking at the girl, whose eyes practically screamed “I’m very easy to scam,” Zhang Xiangyi blinked a few times. In the end she said nothing, only exchanged contact info and asked for the landlord’s details before heading back to Xiao Xingzhi.
By then Xiao Xingzhi had also won his match and finally breathed a sigh of relief. Under the one old man’s complaining and the other’s delighted laughter, he was pulled aside.
Noticing the two of them acting suspiciously sneaky, Zhang Xiangyi stopped at a distance and waited.
Xiao Xingzhi glanced at her, confirmed there was no danger, then looked at the old man, who was still wary of others.
“So, Grandpa, what is it?”
“Come help me play chess tomorrow. I’ll pay you 500 per game!” The old man held up a hand seriously. “But you have to beat that old guy.”
Xiao Xingzhi: “……”
He’d thought it was something important. That was it?
“Sure, but Grandpa, can I ask you something?”
He put on a troubled face, brows knit tight, opening his mouth several times without finishing.
“Spit it out!” The old man raised a hand as if to hit him, then stopped mid-air as if remembering something. “If you don’t ask, how am I supposed to answer?”
“Well… it’s about my girlfriend…” Xiao Xingzhi said, sneaking a glance at Zhang Xiangyi in the distance. His ears went red. “I forgot to hang up the laundry while gaming. I said I’d do it later, but she got mad, we argued, she even hit me, and then she locked me out of the bedroom. When she slammed the door, she broke it… so I wanted to ask the landlord how much it’d cost to fix. You know, we’re both students, not exactly rich.”
“Also, she’s pretty sensitive. I usually have to coax her a long time before she sleeps, and she often has nightmares. This time she said she saw someone jump off a building, but I was sleeping in the living room, I couldn’t have seen it, right? I told her there was nothing, but she insisted there was, then said I didn’t believe her, and we started arguing again…”
This time the old man couldn’t hold back. He slapped Xiao Xingzhi hard on the shoulder.
“You useless brat! Such a pretty girlfriend and you still argue with her? What if she runs off with someone else?”
“Runs off…? That wouldn’t happen, right?”
Xiao Xingzhi stared at the old man’s expression and went stiff all over. Don’t tell him his “wife” really had run off with someone else? No way. No way. It couldn’t be that much of a coincidence, right? That would basically be handing his neck over on a plate.
Just as he kept frantically trying to signal Zhang Xiangyi with his eyes, the old man suddenly said, “Why don’t you just message the landlord directly? He usually isn’t around, I haven’t seen him in a long time either. As for your girlfriend’s nightmares, just comfort her, coax her a bit. What’s there to argue about?”
“I did message him, but he didn’t reply. That’s why I came to ask if you knew where he is. Otherwise I wouldn’t dare do anything. My girlfriend already gives me a cold face every time she sees that door, let alone after a nightmare and a bad night’s sleep…”
Xiao Xingzhi complained bitterly to the old man, venting all his frustrations. “You have no idea what kind of life I live at home. I do everything, I even pay for everything. And even then, forget the bed, I can’t even get into the bedroom.”
“You deserve it!”
Zhang Xiangyi had been listening a while. She’d barely even criticized him, only mentioned it in passing, and here he was, going off like this.
He really was good at improvising.
She stepped forward and pinched his ear, flushed red as if blood had rushed into it. The pain made him bend over instantly.
“I was wrong, I was wrong, babe, I really was wrong, I didn’t mean it—”
“I heard everything myself. So you’re unwilling, huh? Fine. Then let’s break up!”
“Don’t! Babe, I was wrong, I really was, I didn’t mean it at all—”
With his ear still pinched, Xiao Xingzhi could only stumble along as she dragged him off, shouting desperately, “Grandpa! Grandpa, help! Grandpa!”
References[+]