Accepted

The art student leaned over and took a look.

"Hmm," he said, "the last sentence is just a normal expression of concern and a reminder. She doesn't give mission hints very often, but she often shows care like this..."

Zhu Yan nodded, indicating he understood.

"Peaceful joy is not pleasure." The art student frowned and said, "There are some subtle differences... you'll understand later."

"Okay," Zhu Yan said.

He had already leaned back comfortably against the soft back of the sofa, stuffing a piece of sauce-covered fried chicken into his mouth.

Currently, his [Roleplay] and [Complaint] were both at level five, and [Humiliation] had reached level four.

With a suitable weapon, killing a level 5 thriller creature didn't seem too difficult.

Anyway, for the sake of the [Heart of Constancy], he would do his best to complete it.

"I accept the mission."

After thinking seriously, Zhu Yan returned the note to the art student.

"Yay!"

The art student smiled happily and held out a hand to him.

"Let's formally introduce ourselves. My name here is An Xuyin."

"This is my favorite name!"

Zhu Yan shook his warm hand: "I'm Zhu Yan, as you already know."

An Xuyin said: "Right, right, Zhu Yan (Bamboo Salt)."

He lowered his head and dug out a small metal card and a bare metal chain from his pocket.

"Take it, I promised to give this to you." He stuffed the two items into Zhu Yan's palm. "The card is a three-cubic-meter storage space."

"You can put some clothes or non-urgent items in it, and then stuff it into your ring."

Stuffing another small folded space into the [Storage Silver Ring]?

This was too practical!

"Thank you," Zhu Yan said sincerely.

An Xuyin pointed to the chain again: "This one is sturdy. Don't wear the ring on your hand, tie it around your neck."

This was also very practical!

Zhu Yan took the chain and thanked him again, then An Xuyin pulled him up and walked out.

"Hurry back to Qifeng Alley," he said, fitting the hard-shell mask that looked like "Professor Wang" seamlessly onto his face.

"You know the address on the new property certificate, right? No. 39 Qifeng Alley, the owner there emigrated, so it's temporarily empty."

"The passwords for both the main and small doors are 654326, just stay there for now."

He put on a wig and stepped on stilts, leading Zhu Yan to the end of the closed short corridor.

"Forward," An Xuyin said with perfect pronunciation.

The wall slowly opened again, and Zhu Yan heard the vending machine creaking.

He followed An Xuyin out of the room, feeling like he had had an unreal dream.

An Xuyin grabbed him—the warm touch from his wrist was very real.

"Let's go, hurry up," An Xuyin said, walking briskly down the long corridor.

The tuxedo cat jumped onto Zhu Yan's shoulder and let out a vengeful purr at his back.

Zhu Yan caught up, thinking of a question he had forgotten.

"Why are there no police officers at your main gate? When we came in, there were only security guards."

An Xuyin smiled.

"I don't know either," he said, "but I guess they must be short-handed."

"Besides, Xishan University hasn't started school yet, so there's no need to personally guard it..."

An Xuyin pushed open the glass doors of the teaching building and kicked a chained corpse on the ground.

"Oh, right. It's already late August. In previous years at this time, the counselors would already be at work."

"And there's military training and all sorts of things... I remember one year at this time, some students had already arrived."

An Xuyin's words reminded Zhu Yan.

He was quite something; ever since he got his admission letter, he had been running instances non-stop and hadn't even joined the freshmen group yet.

Zhu Yan didn't dawdle. He took out his phone and the letter, searched for the group number, and added it.

"It's been quiet this year, which is really strange."

This was indeed not quite normal.

Zhu Yan sent the request to join the group and said, "I'll go ask."

He thought again of the mission content given to him by [Carnival Paradise].

One of the mission hints was to join the freshmen group.

Could the anomaly at Xishan University be related to the instance?

An Xuyin said, "You came at a good time. Just because no one is at work, there are only 4 security guards taking turns at the main gate."

"Very easy to fool..."

The two walked to the gate, and the security guard nodded to An Xuyin from a distance.

An Xuyin waved properly at the security guard.

"Alright, I won't see you off," he said to Zhu Yan. "Oh, right, remember to change the house password."

"I've observed that there might be agents bringing people over to view the house."

Zhu Yan thanked him again and smoothly walked out of the gate.

...

Qifeng Alley was only a ten-minute walk from Xishan University.

No. 39 Qifeng Alley was an older small building with a courtyard; only the main gate had been replaced and fitted with a combination lock.

The small building had two floors in total, with only two living rooms and a kitchen downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs.

Probably for the convenience of renting, new bed frames and mattresses had been placed in the bedrooms, and the air conditioners were all new.

He didn't have to sleep on the floor anymore, which Zhu Yan was already very satisfied with.

He followed an online tutorial to change the password, cleaned up, and fell onto the newly made bed to enjoy the air conditioning.

His phone buzzed, and Zhu Yan lit up the screen, finding that his request to join the group had been approved.

Messages from the "Xishan University Freshmen Group" were popping up one after another.

Zhu Yan immediately sat up and read the specific contents.

The group chat had 3,000 people, which had reached the maximum limit set by the app.

"Attention all freshmen:

Due to the recent sudden public health incident in Anwu City, in order to effectively protect the life safety and physical health of all teachers and students, the school has decided after research to adjust the opening arrangements for the first semester of this academic year."

"1. Our school will delay the start of the semester and military training. During the delayed start period, no student is allowed to return to school early."

"The specific time for returning to school will be decided by the official notice of Anwu City."

Official notice.

Zhu Yan knew the severity of the matter. It was probably not just a public health incident related to a plague; the officials also considered the instances that were about to ravage Anwu City.

[Carnival Paradise] could not be made public on a large scale, otherwise it would definitely cause panic.

"2. Our school will fully launch online teaching. The teaching progress and course requirements will remain consistent with the original teaching plan."

"Students are requested to log into the educational administration management system in advance, download Xuexitong and Qingyu Classroom, check the course arrangements and teaching tasks released by the teaching classrooms, and complete the course studies as required."

"During the online teaching period, students must strictly abide by classroom discipline and complete the assessment tasks assigned by the teachers."

"3. Students are requested to pay close attention to the group chat information, and do not believe or spread rumors."

"Hereby notified."

There was nothing wrong with this long piece of information. Zhu Yan scrolled up and saw that the group chat was quite quiet before the message was sent.

However, less than 10 minutes after the message was sent, many people expressed objections.

The culprit was a screenshot sent by a girl.

"Hello teacher, I would like to ask, this course appeared after I joined the class in Qingyu Classroom. Is this normal?"

Zhu Yan clicked on the screenshot.

Under the "My Courses" section, a rather bizarre name appeared—

[Carnival Paradise] Instance: What's the Time, Mr. Wolf.