This is Horror City, also known as Smiley City by countless players because of its unique logo ":)". It is a special space hidden in the real world.
Many new players are attracted here every day, and countless new dungeon games appear every day, and the dungeons are full of murderous intent.
Safe house, wandering between major copies.
Twenty hours have passed since Zhang Xue and Li Jianqiang entered the safe house.
Xia Jing was sitting on the sofa holding Tuanzi, quietly looking at the scenery outside the window, when he suddenly heard a slight "click" sound of the door opening.
He turned around.
Zhang Xue met his gaze and subconsciously avoided it, seeming a little scared.
The scene of Li Jianqiang's death lingered in Zhang Xue's mind. The young man's attitude at that time, as if he saw an ant being crushed to death, made her feel cold from the bottom of her heart.
Xia Jing didn't care about her attitude, he just smiled and said, "Good morning."
Zhang Xue trembled.
No matter how gentle the voice was, it couldn't give her any comfort at this moment.
She avoided Xia Jing's sight and said in a hoarse voice: "...I, I still have a monster's eye on me, I want to see...if I can use it to buy some props."
The smile on Xia Jing's face widened.
He said briskly, "Please feel free to use the electronic scale at the front desk."
Xia Jing's smile made Zhang Xue bury her head even deeper.
...She collected the monster's eyes when she was picking up the dragon horns.
At that time, she didn't know why the old players picked up these disgusting monster body parts. She just thought that just in case, maybe they would be useful... and the existence of the monster eyes was indeed something she deliberately concealed from Li Jianqiang.
Li Jianqiang is too impulsive and too brainless. The less he knows, the less accidents are likely to happen.
Of course, Zhang Xue had to admit that during the previous sixteen hours, which were neither long nor short, she had thought that with Li Jianqiang's personality, she would be forced to stay with him outside at the strong request of her family, but at this critical moment of life and death... she still had to leave herself a way out.
Zhang Xue bit her lip, took the wet and sticky monster eyes out of her trouser pocket, and carefully placed them on the electronic scale.
Soon, the small screen of the electronic scale displayed "200 energy density 100 grams".
Zhang Xue took back the monster eyes, calmed herself down, and turned to walk towards the small supermarket.
After a while, she came out empty-handed.
Unlike the props obtained in dungeons and game halls, the props "purchased" in the safe house supermarket will be directly displayed on the player's body in the form of small icons. As long as the player thinks about it, the props will appear in the player's hands, and the method of use will automatically appear in the player's mind.
A small sickle symbol appeared on Zhang Xue's wrist.
She nodded to Xia Jing and cautiously approached the door of the safe house.
The scenery outside the safe house changed, and instantly returned to the familiar corridor.
Xia Jing leaned on the sofa, with his elbows on the armrest and his chin supported by his palms, looking at this woman who had just arrived in Smile City not long ago with great interest. She was already skilled in spying on the situation outside with a wary attitude.
After waiting for a full minute, there was no movement outside. Zhang Xue took a deep breath, resolutely took the sickle in her hand, opened the door and walked out.
The next second, the safe house left here and drifted to the next copy.
Xia Jing chuckled, retracted his gaze, and ran his slender fingers along Tuanzi's fur: "It's really interesting, isn't it?"
All kinds of people, all kinds of personalities, strange and ever-changing copies and monsters.
Tuanzi raised its little head comfortably and pressed it against Xia Jing's palm, as if asking him to touch its little head more often.
"Unfortunately, if I want to play a game from start to finish like them, I still have to log in to the dungeon from the game lobby." Xia Jing said to himself.
And he only has one chance a week to independently control the drifting direction of the safe house.
Thinking of this, Xia Jing stood up, walked to the door, raised his hand and gently stroked a crack on the door frame.
The safe house cannot be damaged from the outside, but can be destroyed from the inside.
Li Jianqiang was too big, and when he was forced out of the safe house, he crashed all the way out and directly cracked the door frame.
Xia Jing spread out his five fingers in the air, and with a thought, a dragon horn appeared in his palm.
Just like playing a musical instrument or drawing a silk thread, Xia Jing grabbed with his slender fingers and gathered the monster's energy in the dragon horn in his palm. The dragon horn instantly turned gray and fell and dissipated like powder.
Xia Jing took that ball of energy and gently stroked the crack on the door frame.
In a flash, the cracks disappeared without a trace.
And that's how a dragon horn is wasted.
Tuanzi clung to Xia Jing's feet like a follower. Xia Jing leaned his elbow against his chin and muttered, "One dragon horn was used to make that bowl of noodles, and the other was used to repair the crack. Now all that's left is the newly acquired eye and the other four parts of the body..."
Inventory is running out.
Xia Jing's eyes turned and he smiled at Tuanzi.
"But luckily, today is Monday in the game hall."
That is, the days when he can control the safe house.
He can go out and gather supplies—
By the way, let's play some games.
*
Smiley City Game Hall, Monday.
The game hall is like a huge square, and the entire space is oval in shape.
At the very front center was an oversized holographic screen. Like the college entrance exam countdown calendar hanging in a senior high school classroom, the top of the holographic screen displayed—
:) It has been running for 235 days, with 3232 players online, 13 copies updated today, and 981 historical copies.
The last three digits change continuously in real time.
Below this line of text, the holographic screen is divided into two sides: the left side is the system bulletin board, and the right side is the player bulletin board.
At this moment, few players were lingering in front of the holographic screen.
In the days when player rankings were not updated, most players had no interest in this holographic screen.
Some of them gathered in the official supermarket in the right corner of the game hall and collected supplies using points.
Those who had space bags put their weapons into them, while those who didn't had space bags simply carried them in their hands.
Some players were scattered in front of the public login rooms that were lined up around the game hall, doing the final psychological preparation before logging into the dungeon.
All players who are forcibly sucked into the Smiley City must enter the dungeon once a week, otherwise when the deadline is up, the Smiley City will randomly suck the players into any dungeon.
It may be a relatively simple one-star or two-star copy.
Naturally, there may also be three-star or even four-star copies that ordinary players cannot afford.
For the sake of their own lives, most players will not go against the rules of the game in Smiley City.
Diagonally opposite the official supermarket in the game hall, there is a winding narrow corridor.
This narrow corridor is like a bug left by an unqualified designer. Many players have curiously entered the corridor to explore, and finally came to the conclusion that: this is a corridor with nothing in it, and at the end there is a wall.
Maybe one day Smiley City will realize its mistake and fill up this meaningless corridor.
And at this moment, in this unknown corner, the wall at the end of the corridor quietly turned into a door.
Inside the door.
Xia Jing was making final preparations before departure.
As the owner of the safe house, he naturally doesn't have to pay anything to obtain props.
But Xia Jing never wastes the monster props he has collected with great difficulty - these are good things that can be used to exchange for high-energy-density monster bodies.
He simply took down a human skin mask of the monster faceless woman from the shelf. A small human face mark appeared on the back of the neck near the right ear.
The Faceless Woman's human skin mask needs to be activated.
Xia Jing took a piece of paper and quickly drew a rather sloppy face on it.
Tuanzi frowned when he saw it.
Xia Jing remained unmoved. He summoned the human skin mask with a normal look on his face and fed it the paper with the human face drawn on it.
The mask chewed the paper with a "crunching sound". After swallowing it, the face that had no facial features except the mouth gradually began to show specific facial features.
Xia Jing put the human skin mask back into the small mark on the back of his neck, and then his mind changed -
The originally handsome face turned into an ordinary face.
He looked to be in his early twenties, with a large face like a dough ball, small inverted triangle eyelids, a collapsed nose, and thick, dry and rough lips. His facial features looked like they had been modified through some weird filters, and they did not look like those of a normal human.
And the soft, fine black hair was turned into a hedgehog flat head that Xia Jing had randomly drawn.
Tuanzi lay on the ground, unable to bear the sight, and covered his face with his paws - to correct, this was not "ordinary" at all.
If Tuanzi hadn't been afraid that Xia Jing would waste the monster's body parts to treat it, he would have wanted to perform a dog paw trick on the spot and dig his own eyes out.
Xia Jing laughed out loud, and his clear and pleasant voice became hoarse and rough.
"You can't blame me for this voice. It's the faceless woman's skin that automatically recognized these facial features and created this voice."
Xia Jing put the machete, rope, pliers and dagger into the space bag, and then put the small space bag that looked like a sachet into his trouser pocket.
These were the things he had purchased in the game lobby using the points he had earned from completing copies.
Xia Jing finished preparing, squinted his eyes and smiled, and hooked Tuanzi's chin with a beautiful thin finger that didn't match his face at all, and said: "Okay, you have to look after the house well here."
Tuanzi cried out "Woo", swung his tail in disgust, turned his head away, and glared at her with a resentful look, indicating that he was hurt by this face.
Xia Jing laughed, stood up, and said in a good mood: "I'm going out——"
"I'll be back soon."
Leaving behind one last brilliant smile and these words that could not convince Gouzi at all, the young man opened the door and walked out.
…
The young man who emerged from the narrow corridor did not attract anyone's attention.
Although the young man was 1.8 meters tall and had a model-like figure, his face really couldn't attract any attention.
It's been seven days... no, more than seven days.
Most of the time, the time in the safe house follows the dungeon, and one day in the dungeon may only correspond to one hour in the game lobby.
So, Xia Jing has been stuck in the safe house for more than seven days.
Finally arriving at the game hall again, he took a deep breath, and the dark pupils in his small eyes emitted tiny rays of light.
Humming softly, Xia Jing squinted his eyes and smiled, then walked straight towards the login room.
There are currently more than one hundred public login rooms in the game lobby, which will automatically increase or decrease according to the number of online players.
Many scattered players stood in front of the empty login room, hesitating to enter.
Among these login rooms, there are many rooms with green lights on, indicating that there are people in them.
Suddenly, the doors of several rooms were opened from the inside, and the people who came out were either covered in blood, or pale and sweaty, while others were relatively calm and expressionless.
Seeing these people, the expressions of those players who had not logged in kept changing.
Some didn't want to hesitate any longer, so they clenched their fists, opened the login room with a "bang" and walked in.
Some people had a mental breakdown, squatted down with their heads in their hands, and kept chanting "Amitabha".
In stark contrast to these people, Xia Jing barely stopped in front of the login room, which had a red light indicating no one was there. He opened the door and walked in.
His fleeting silhouette attracted a lot of meaningful attention.
After the small door closed, the only exhibit in the login room, a machine that looked like an ATM, lit up its screen.
The screen displayed various copies in small boxes, sixteen copies per page, for a total of sixty-two pages.
Instances are arranged in order of difficulty from lowest to highest.
When Xia Jing saw the copy, it was like a thirsty desert traveler drinking water, and his whole face was radiant.
After standing still, he clicked directly to the last page with great interest, and then raised his eyebrows.
——Not too unexpected.
There is still no four-star copy today.
At the end of page sixty-two, the last copy is still a three-star copy.
Xia Jing pondered and flipped forward. In most of the three-star copies, the upper right corner of the small frame showed "0", which meant that no player had logged into this copy at that time.
Two points will be automatically deducted after the player enters the login room, but entering the login room does not mean that the copy game can be started.
Each copy has a number of requirements.
Once a player selects a currently empty copy, and waits for three hours without the copy's number of people being met, the copy will automatically spit out the player.
Those two points were wasted.
Many new players do not have many points, and they waste all their points in the login room before they have fully understood the rules, thus losing the opportunity to choose the copy independently.
Once the seven-day limit is up, Smiley City will automatically suck them into any copy, and their life or death will be determined by fate.
Xia Jing would not do anything like entering an unmanned copy, as that would be a pure waste of time.
He thought about it and summoned the small holographic screen of the player that he had bought with points.
A small holographic screen appeared in front of him. Xia Jing entered the forum and saw densely packed posts.
"I gritted my teeth and bought the holographic small screen. Now I only have ten points left. Is there any big guy willing to guide a newbie to earn points? QAQ"
"Is anyone interested in discussing the four-star dungeons they've opened before? [1][2][3][4]"
"That stupid one-eyed dragon from the "Humans Die" dungeon at 4pm yesterday, if you have the guts to steal my items, come to the game hall and challenge me in a one-on-one duel! [1][2]"
"What exactly is that mysterious safe house? Can any experts explain it to the newbies?"
"Newbie, please tell me, has anyone successfully earned 10,000 points and left here?"
"Is there a small crowd today? Why hasn't anyone entered the three-star dungeon yet?"
Xia Jing quickly browsed through the posts and clicked on the last one.
The post was posted at 9:00 am. It is already 12:00 noon and still no one has responded to the poster. Let's enter the three-star copy together.
Xia Jing and the OP alone are far from enough to have enough players for a three-star copy.
Xia Jing was not disappointed. For him, playing low-star dungeons was still fun, and he could still collect "supplies" - monsters.
He simply turned off the holographic screen, raised his hand, and selected the "Today's New" column on the machine. A total of 13 copies appeared in front of Xia Jing.
Among them, there are 10 one-star copies and 3 two-star copies.
In the two-star dungeons, two more are full and the game is in progress.
The only remaining two-star copy has "8/9" displayed in the upper right corner.
The dungeon requires nine players, and eight players are already logged in.
Xia Jing stared, scanning the name and cover of this copy.
Don't think about it!
In the middle of the cover is a twisted black mass with several tentacles extending from it, somewhat like an octopus. On the monster's face are a pair of crescent-shaped smiling eyes and a pale, eerie mouth.
If you stare at it for a long time, you can seem to see a distorted human face from the front of this monster.
Xia Jing narrowed his eyes.
The face seemed to appear automatically on the cover, or it seemed like an illusion caused by staring at it for too long, making it impossible to tell.
Xia Jing quickly shifted his focus.
In the background behind the monster, there are various daily life scenes scattered around, including a large office space, a crowded supermarket, a wide road, a warm home, a school classroom, and so on...
It's hard to find any pattern at first.
The information is very fragmented.
Um.
That's it.
Hopefully, it'll be interesting.
Thinking of this, Xia Jing smiled and tapped the cover of the copy, and his eyes fell into darkness.
…
…
After an unknown amount of time, Xia Jing was awakened by a melodious music.
Along with the music, there was also a gentle female voice, calling out softly.
"Dear students, get up, dear students, get up..."
"After washing up, please go to the cafeteria to eat. After breakfast, please go to the classroom as soon as possible to start morning reading..."
There were creaking sounds next to my ears, which were the noises made when the simple wooden bed board was pressed.
Xia Jing felt a little dizzy. The moment he propped up his upper body, he noticed that he was wearing a thin spring school uniform with a white background and blue edges.
The lower body is a pair of loose matching trousers, which are stuffy under the quilt. Just waking up for a minute makes people feel stuffy.
...It's understandable that a two-star copy is simple, but it's a bit too shabby that they don't even provide a set of pajamas.
Xia Jing was silent for a second, then lifted the quilt and looked around silently.
One dormitory, four beds.
There is a desk under the bed and everyone sleeps on the upper bunk.
The three people besides him——
One of them was a young man who also looked to be in his early twenties, wearing a pair of glasses, thin, and of ordinary appearance. He was rubbing his eyes in a daze and looking around the dormitory in confusion.
One of them was a muscular, dark-skinned man who looked like a bear and had a fierce look on his face. He was looking at the other three people warily.
Another person was sleeping on the bed opposite Xia Jing, rubbing his forehead with his hand.
He looked very tall, perhaps nearly 1.9 meters, with broad shoulders, a handsome face, a cold white complexion, and a pair of peach blossom eyes that were a little listless, showing that he was trying hard to get rid of sleepiness. His gaze swept over Xia Jing and the others calmly.
These four people are undoubtedly players.
All four of them, regardless of their age, were wearing green school uniforms.
...is very funny.
The man with glasses was the first to break the silence. He cleared his throat and said, "Ahem..."
Xia Jing, the peach blossom eyes, the bear-like man all turned their eyes to him.
Little Glasses suddenly became the focus and the pressure increased sharply.
He laughed dryly and said, "Well... I just wanted to get out of bed and pee first. I'm really desperate!"
After saying that, he got out of bed timidly.
The other three: "..."
Xia Jing smiled lightly and moved as well.
The bear-like man with peach blossom eyes immediately looked at Xia Jing again.
"I'm going to the bathroom too," Xia Jing raised his eyes, half smiling, "Why... do you want to come with me?"
The girl with peach blossom eyes thought for a second and then got out of bed.
The bear-like man stared at him sharply again.
Her peach blossom eyes curled up her lips and she said lazily, "Don't be shy. If you want to go to the bathroom together, just come down and line up. You don't need to ask for permission with your eyes."
The bear-like man almost choked to death!
Who the hell has the mood to go to the toilet after entering the dungeon, who the hell is shy to go to the toilet, who the hell asked you for permission!
By the way, the first thing everyone does after entering a dungeon is go to the bathroom. What kind of operation is that?!