The moment the female voice fell silent, Old Man Huang’s voice rose from downstairs in perfect synchronization.
“Wait here for a moment. I forgot—you still have some merchandise to collect!”
Jin Rongxu turned his head and glanced at the sky outside through the small window at the end of the corridor.
“This completely contradicts what the broadcast said,” he remarked indifferently. The question that followed sounded more like he was talking to himself.
“So which one is actually telling the truth?”
Zhu Zeyu lowered his eyes.
If he had to make the judgment, then of course neither of them was right—and both of them were right.
No matter what they did, no matter whose instructions they followed, the final result would probably lead to death all the same—to becoming [Walking Corpses], to becoming puppets of “Mother.”
The facts from before had already proven that the female broadcast was fake. It had been helping “Mother” accomplish certain goals all along, functioning primarily as her strongest support.
But without someone with enough experience and understanding of the female voice, like Zhu Yan, as well as the hint from [Everyone Has Their Own Fate], it would actually be difficult for an ordinary player viewing things from another perspective to notice anything wrong with the broadcast.
After all, the timbre was the same, the tone was the same. The only slight differences were its manner of speaking and that faint electrical static, so subtle it was almost an illusion.
And Jin Rongxu’s [Mind Reading] was simply too useful—so useful that he trusted unconditionally everything it told him…
Who could have imagined that the female broadcast was actually a form of amusement for the horror creature, a way to toy with the players?
“Captain, what do you think?”
Ma Dong glanced at the staircase they had used to come up. Their fresh, messy footprints marked the thick layer of dust on the steps.
The staircase disappeared into the dim light below, while a strange, icy atmosphere spread throughout the entire space.
He was clearly on guard.
Beneath his black combat uniform, his muscles were taut, bulging with tension. He was ready to strike at any moment.
Jin Rongxu, on the other hand, was completely relaxed.
“Some of what that old man said is true. There’s also something the broadcast never mentioned.”
Just now, he had heard the old man’s thoughts in their entirety.
When the old man said aloud, “The door has to stay open,” what he was actually thinking was, You’re all dead.
When he said he was going to get them their merchandise, what he was thinking was, I absolutely have to put that thing outside the door.
Aside from that, there was nothing unusual. Everything else was normal.
Jin Rongxu was genuinely delighted.
With [Mind Reading] at his disposal, the difficulty of the instance had been reduced considerably.
“When the merchandise arrives, we need to keep that thing close to us,” Jin Rongxu went on to explain. “At night, when we sleep, lock the doors and windows tightly. Follow the broadcast’s instructions and pretend that we’re already asleep.”
“That’s the right thing to do!”
Ma Dong nodded, still shaken. “Captain, we signed that yellow paper. We should be safe, right?”
“Zhu Zeyu signed it too,” the military doctor interjected before Jin Rongxu could answer. “Zhu Zeyu was fine in the end, so we’ll be fine too. Don’t worry.”
Jin Rongxu gave the military doctor a highly satisfied look.
He pointed to one of the larger rooms. “Ma Dong, the military doctor, and Zhu Zeyu—you three take this room.”
“Pot Lid, you go to that small room over there.”
Pot Lid glanced at Jin Rongxu, looking both surprised and flattered. “Captain, are you planning to share a room with me? I—I…”
“Go in.” Jin Rongxu impatiently cut him off. “The four of us will share one room, and you’ll have one to yourself. Any problems?”
Pot Lid’s expression changed.
Seizing the opportunity, Zhu Zeyu spoke first. “Captain, why not let Brother Pot Lid share a room with you?”
He had figured it out.
Jin Rongxu had arranged things this way purely because he was afraid of dying.
Ma Dong was the defense, the military doctor handled healing, and Jin Rongxu himself provided offense.
Zhu Zeyu was too precious to lose, so he had to stay under Jin Rongxu’s watch as well.
As for the least important person, Pot Lid could simply be tossed aside. It wouldn’t matter if something happened to him.
Jin Rongxu’s face darkened, and he was just about to curse when Zhu Zeyu cut him off again.
“Captain, you don’t need to worry about me. You’ve already seen it yourself—I can’t die no matter what happens.”
“If Brother Pot Lid is scared, let him share a room with you.”
He really couldn’t share a room with Jin Rongxu.
That would expose him!
Seeing that Jin Rongxu was about to speak, Zhu Zeyu hurriedly turned around and gave the trembling Pot Lid a meaningful look.
This was probably the first time in Pot Lid’s life that he had ever felt so grateful to Zhu Zeyu.
He immediately scrambled over on all fours, threw himself at Jin Rongxu’s leg, and began wailing loudly.
“Captain!”
“I—I’ll stay with you! Zhu Zeyu won’t be in danger, and I—I can monitor the conditions inside and outside the room at all times to ensure your safety…”
What a performance!
Zhu Zeyu watched with delight. Even Zhu Yan, standing on the other side, wore a faint smile.
“Captain,” Pot Lid’s tears nearly became real, “believe me, I really am useful! I absolutely won’t hold you back… Besides, Zhu Zeyu can’t possibly die!”
How should one put it?
Pot Lid was certainly a despicable person, but at this moment, his shamelessness happened to be useful.
Zhu Zeyu smoothly took a step back and slipped into the room.
“Captain, your safety is more important. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’ll just stay in the room as you instructed. If Brother Pot Lid notices anything wrong, he’ll definitely find a way to tell you.”
Zhu Zeyu put on an obsequious smile, shamelessly infuriating.
“You have to trust in his abilities!”
…
Elsewhere.
Zhu Yan rose from his seat and gave Li Daochang, sitting across the table, a slight nod.
“Now that we’ve finished discussing things, there’s nothing else to say.”
He perfectly imitated Jin Rongxu’s proud expression and let out a disdainful sneer.
“You’d better show me that you’re sincere about the ten thousand Bone Coins.”
“I don’t care what kind of ghost I have to marry. What I care about is how many clues I can obtain and whether I can make it out of the instance.”
“No problem with that, old man?”
Li Daochang had only just come downstairs. He was carrying several colorful nonwoven bags printed with the names of various banks and supermarkets.
Through the fabric, they could see the shapes of jars and containers bulging outward. It seemed the other party had quickly prepared the ash powder.
He handed the items to the [Walking Corpse]. Through his murky eyes, he cast a sinister look toward Zhu Yan.
Heh.
No problem, of course there was no problem.
What an overconfident brat.
By tonight, there wouldn’t be a single living person left beside him.
Then he would put on a grand show, and everything would belong to Li Panlong!
Zhu Yan followed Old Man Huang outside. At a spot where a Level-Two [Walking Corpse] could see him but Li Daochang and the other players could not, he removed his cloak, revealing Jin Rongxu’s face in front of the [Walking Corpse].
“I won’t come in through the front door,” he said in greeting. “It’ll save me the trouble of being seen by my companions.”
After the [Walking Corpse] stiffly nodded, Zhu Yan quickly dispersed into mist and melted into the surrounding gloom.
“What kind of ability is that?”
The [Walking Corpse] muttered under its breath.
“How come my Panlong doesn’t have one?”
…
Inside the room.
Zhu Zeyu drank the witch’s potion, intending to use the last remnants of his willpower to force himself to hold on a little longer.
Just now, he had ignored Jin Rongxu’s ugly expression, shut the door, and locked it securely. He also checked the time.
It wasn’t even ten in the morning. Ten hours of sleep would put him at a little after seven in the evening.
If the Walking Corpse had been any slower, he really would have had to turn that urn of ashes away at the door!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
