Rules

As soon as he got close to the middle-aged man, Ye Chuan smelled a pungent odor of alcohol. The man had his eyes closed, but his face was flushed red, giving him the appearance of being completely drunk.

"A drunkard..." Ye Chuan stood before the man, assessing his condition again, but the impression remained that of just an ordinary middle-aged man.

"Oi." Ye Chuan nudged the middle-aged man.

There was no reaction. He was sleeping like the dead, even snoring right in Ye Chuan's face before letting out some unintelligible mumbling.

Ye Chuan was getting a bit impatient. Just as he was planning to administer a "physical sobering technique," he suddenly felt the back of his head sink into something soft and pillowy, followed by a voice from behind.

"You can't do that, little brother. Don't disturb other people's sleep. They'll get angry if you wake them up."

Qiu Ya was standing behind Ye Chuan. She simply scooped him up and carried him back to their original seats.

"I am not a child," Ye Chuan said, turning his head to look at Qiu Ya.

Hearing Ye Chuan say this, Qiu Ya smiled and stroked his cheek. "Mhmm, you're a little grown-up now."

Ye Chuan suddenly had the urge to spank her.

Did this woman have absolutely no clue about their current situation?

Just as the two were chatting, the middle-aged man, who had been sound asleep, finally seemed to react. He opened his eyes groggily.

"Ugh? My head hurts!!"

After yelping, he propped himself up and looked around. "That's weird, why am I on a train... Hiss... I knew I shouldn't have drunk so much..."

He spoke drunkenly, soon spotting Qiu Ya and Ye Chuan. "Hey kid, what station is this?"

"I don't know."

Hearing Ye Chuan's answer, the middle-aged man looked at Qiu Ya beside him. She also shook her head. "It seems we might have missed our stop, but I'm not sure either. My phone has no signal."

"No signal... Ah, this is so annoying. I'm not going to be late, am I?" The middle-aged man took out his phone to check, then muttered in frustration, "So annoying."

He stood up unsteadily and walked toward the adjacent carriage, though it wasn't clear what he intended to do.

"Little brother, let's just get off at the next station," Qiu Ya said to Ye Chuan after seeing the middle-aged man leave.

Ye Chuan didn't speak; he just quietly observed.

He still hadn't quite figured out the rules of this dungeon. In the past, dungeon worlds always had rules, but this one didn't. There wasn't even a note.

Just as Ye Chuan was thinking, the train drove into a tunnel again. The carriage was once more shrouded in darkness, and the windows on both sides were pitch black, revealing absolutely nothing.

Inside the quiet carriage, there was only the sound of the moving train.

"It's so dark," Qiu Ya remarked, and then said no more.

When the surroundings brightened up again, Ye Chuan looked toward a specific spot—

This time, there were two extra people on the seats!

A man and a woman who looked like a couple, in their twenties, were currently in a comatose state, eyes closed and motionless.

When Qiu Ya saw the couple, she looked a bit surprised. "Heavens, I actually didn't see that there were people there just now... Do I need to get glasses?"

Ye Chuan felt a bit speechless at the girl's slow reaction. No matter how you looked at it, they had clearly just popped out of nowhere, right?

And you actually think it's because you're nearsighted?

Ye Chuan didn't go over; instead, he watched the man and woman from a distance. He was now a bit curious if the sudden appearance of people was related to passing through the tunnel.

Do people appear every time they pass through a tunnel?

What was the point of that?

Where were the monsters?

Just as Ye Chuan was feeling a bit baffled, the couple in the distance began to react. They first opened their eyes groggily, then looked at each other.

"Huh?"

"Why are we on a train?"

"Fuck?" The man in the couple seemed to have a bad temper. He stood up abruptly, looking incredulous. "What is going on?! Why am I on a train?!"

"Don't get agitated." The woman beside him pulled on her partner's hand. "Sit down first."

The man frowned, finally noticing the presence of Ye Chuan and Qiu Ya. "Hey, what station is this?"

Faced with the man's rude tone, Ye Chuan crossed his arms and ignored him.

Qiu Ya, however, replied, "I don't know either. I just fell asleep and ended up here."

Ye Chuan and Qiu Ya's responses clearly didn't satisfy the man. Cursing under his breath, he stood up intending to ask someone else, only to make the strange discovery that there were pitifully few people in this carriage.

"It's strange, why are there so few people? And why did we appear here?" the woman said, puzzled.

"Fuck, were we sleepwalking?" The man scratched his hair, looking impatient.

"I don't know."

"How come you don't know anything?! Did you feed me sleeping pills?"

"How could I possibly do something like that?"

The two immediately started arguing. Seeing this from a short distance away, Qiu Ya seemed a bit afraid of people fighting and pulled on Ye Chuan, signaling him not to go over and ask for trouble.

Ye Chuan kept observing, but aside from the fact that these people had popped out of nowhere, there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy.

"Can't you just spawn some monsters?" Ye Chuan sighed. He couldn't shake the feeling that this dungeon was even more troublesome than "The Aphasic."

It would be so much better to just spawn monsters and farm Essence.

Ye Chuan still preferred the Ghost Valley from before, where he could just farm Essence to his heart's content.

Just as he was thinking that, a scream suddenly came from the adjacent carriage. "Ahhh!!!!!!!!!"

The shrill scream instantly silenced the carriage. The man and woman who had been arguing also turned to look strangely toward the next carriage.

"What's going on?!" The man was startled by the sound. "Fuck? What the hell are they doing next door?"

"I-I don't know."

The man composed himself and immediately walked quickly toward the adjacent carriage. "What's all that screaming about?"

He reached the carriage door. Just as he was about to slide it open, he saw the situation on the other side through the glass window—

The adjacent carriage was still empty, except for a middle-aged man lying there motionless.

"What is that, the drunkard?" the man said disdainfully, but in the next second, his expression froze.

The middle-aged man's body suddenly twitched, and then his limbs twisted in a grotesque manner. He was facing upwards, yet his limbs were planted on the ground, making him look like some sort of reptile.

*Crack, crack, crack.* His limbs began to move, and he scuttled out of the man's sight with incredible speed.

"W-what the hell was that?!" The man shuddered in terror, stumbling backward a few steps before falling to the floor.