Xin Meng held the phone up to his eyes, staring blankly at the black screen.
He pressed the HOME button with his thumb, the screen lit up, and ten digits were neatly arranged, the dial button a bright green.
Putting down the phone, Xin Meng slowly lowered his head, looking at the wall beside him, where his palm had once pressed against, now transformed into a round, neat hole.
Like a dark round eye, it quietly met his gaze.
Xin Meng rubbed his eyes, turned around, and squatted down, skeptically reaching out to touch the hole, naturally passing through it without encountering any obstruction.
He stood there dumbfounded for a moment, suddenly seeming to awaken from a dream. He didn’t continue to look at the wall but instead pressed the phone to light it up again, dialing the number from memory, his fingertip resting on that patch of green, and he made the call.
“Beep—beep—beep!”
The call connected!
Xin Meng couldn’t help but straighten his back, just about to speak when he heard the other party speak first.
“Where are you?”
Xin Meng was taken aback, “I’m… in the unfinished building next to the commercial street…”
“Hmm. What happened?” You Yi’s calm voice came through the receiver.
He wasn’t here, nor did he ask who was on this end of the call, yet it felt as if he already knew everything.
“Shentu… Shentu Kou killed Olivia!” Xin Meng came back to his senses and briefly recounted what had happened, “He colluded with the NPC to lure you into a trap. How are you now?”
“Resolved.” You Yi replied succinctly. “Wait for me to find you.”
“No need,” Xin Meng shook his head, “I… seem to know what to do now.”
After hanging up the phone, Xin Meng’s gaze fell back on the wall.
With two parts hesitation, three parts curiosity, and five parts an indescribable intuition, he gently pressed the palm of his right hand against the right side of the hole, then let his five fingers fall in sequence.
This time, every change in the wall could no longer escape Xin Meng’s eyes.
The originally cold and hard wall seemed to melt into mud and sand, slowly flowing down along his palm. This mud and sand appeared to have life, moving flexibly, serpentine, as flashes of data flowed through, advanced computational symbols from a computer.
The illusion formed by data finally returned to its true essence, no longer having a hard texture or distinct temperature, like a wisp of blue smoke, or gentle waves, flowing obediently at Xin Meng’s fingertips, entwining.
It felt as if he could touch it, yet it seemed merely an illusion.
Xin Meng grasped them in his hand.
That string of data began to re-coalesce, revealing another form, and finally, a knife identical to the one in Shentu Kou’s hand appeared in Xin Meng’s palm.
A second black hole was left on the wall, forming a pair of eyes.
Xin Meng pursed his lips, gripping the knife’s handle tightly, and the knife transformed back into a stream of data, like dough kneaded by machinery, blue light slicing through, reassembling into a chainsaw.
The chainsaw was not just for show; it felt incredibly realistic, and when he flipped the switch, it emitted a familiar buzzing sound.
Holding the chainsaw, Xin Meng inserted it horizontally below the two eyes, cutting out a straight “mouth.”
He looked at the face on the wall, and that face looked back at him.
With an inexplicable melancholy and grievance.
Xin Meng sighed.
……
Shentu Kou stood at the door, looking up at the only staircase leading down to the first floor, his chin held high. In his imagination, he was now the emperor who could dominate everything, especially the lives of others.
This was his second moment of enjoyment; the first was when he truly dismembered a human body.
Shentu Kou’s life could be described as legendary. On his thirty-second birthday, he was captured by police who broke into his home, revealing all one hundred thirty-seven murder cases he had committed, instantly causing panic throughout society.
From the first case of negligent homicide to the last gruesome dismemberment, it spanned ten years, involved six countries, one hundred fifty victims, and over three hundred families losing their beloved ones…
He had to endure the curses of hundreds of people every second, with tens of thousands wishing he would die immediately, even the police interrogating him couldn’t help but beat him.
But was he afraid? No, he was never afraid.
From the moment he first killed someone, the pain of being bullied as a child instantly transformed into the pleasure of bullying others, quickly becoming an addiction. He reveled in the joy of dominating others’ lives, watching them dismembered under his weapon, and he never grew tired of it.
In the end, he was sentenced to death, but for some reason, he didn’t die; instead, he ended up here.
This was simply the best; he could continue killing!
He anxiously and excitedly waited, longing for that boy to appear before him, obediently allowing him to chop away. He hoped the other party would come to realize: since death was inevitable, what was there to struggle against?
Soon, his wish was half fulfilled.
Xin Meng indeed appeared at the staircase, looking down at him, quietly watching. As he revealed a smile and raised the knife and steel bar, the other party simultaneously raised a massive object in his hand—a chainsaw.
“Vroom!”
Shentu Kou: “…”
Without saying a word, he turned and ran, nearly losing his glasses!
He was a murderer, not an idiot; although he didn’t know where Xin Meng had gotten the weapon, he knew he couldn’t win at this moment. As a wise man who knew the times, he took off running!
However, this humiliation ignited a deeper rage within him. He mentally noted Xin Meng’s name, vowing that when he found a better weapon or a more suitable opportunity, he would dismember him thoroughly, saving the head for last, making him experience the taste of being dismembered alive!
Shentu Kou’s nostrils flared as he gasped for breath, his wide eyes bloodshot, unwillingly disappearing outside the building.
Xin Meng couldn’t catch up to him, nor did he intend to chase. He had no desire to kill; if he could scare someone away without using the chainsaw to chop them into pieces, that was simply perfect.
By the time he leisurely walked to the door with the turned-off chainsaw, You Yi had also arrived.
The man glanced at the weapon in his hand, showing no reaction, even unusually not asking about his safety, instead saying, “The NPCs are all alive.”
Of course, even Xin Meng himself didn’t feel anything was wrong. He was holding a chainsaw; if the other party were still fussing over his well-being, it would either be insincere flattery or hypocritical sentimentality. You Yi was definitely not that kind of person.
However, You Yi not only didn’t ask about the chainsaw but also didn’t inquire where the phone came from, which made Xin Meng feel a bit stifled, as if he had a lot to say but was forcefully held back. As for what he wanted to express, he couldn’t clarify, so he could only nod sullenly and remained silent.
“Regarding the mission, I have some leads.” Seeing him in low spirits, You Yi’s gaze shifted, bringing up another matter.
This piqued Xin Meng’s interest a bit: “Oh? What’s going on?”
“I caught the NPC who was kidnapping people. Your mirror ghost appeared and identified him as a murderer. One day, he followed her, killed her, and disfigured and dismembered her body, burying it in the yard at 99 Happiness Street, which is the place you saw.” You Yi said, “The mirror ghost suggested not to kill him but to throw him in prison for at least three hundred years.”
“Three hundred years?” Xin Meng was taken aback.
“This world has no death penalty, only life imprisonment with no upper limit.” You Yi explained.
Xin Meng nodded, indicating he understood, “Rather than letting him die immediately in ignorance, it’s indeed better to exhaust his lifetime in atonement and repentance. Where are they now?”
“They’re all at 99 Happiness Street. The mirror ghost is watching over the NPC, and the college students reported to the police, waiting for them to come and arrest him, and they stayed there too.”
“Now that solves the mission problem. So the mirror ghost wanted me to kill that person for revenge… Then by extension, is it the same situation for the other teammates’ mirror ghosts?” Xin Meng asked.
“There’s a high possibility.” You Yi continued, “There are more female players, perhaps that’s a hint, focusing on reasoning.”
“Or,” Xin Meng proposed an analysis from another angle, “it’s precisely because there are more females in this team that they were placed in this instance to maintain a balance of difficulty?”
Looking at Xin Meng, who was slightly bowed in deep thought, You Yi’s gaze grew increasingly profound.
Perhaps Xin Meng himself hadn’t realized that since when, his perspective and stance on issues had undergone a fundamental change.
Initially, he thought as a player and a team member, focusing on how to clear the game, what items to obtain, and what conditions to fulfill. Gradually, it transformed into analysis, analyzing the game’s intentions, the game’s objectives, seeking loopholes and opportunities, to this point, it could still be considered for the sake of clearing the game, just with a broader vision and more comprehensive thoughts.
But now, his thinking was no longer that of a player, nor even an NPC or GM’s perspective. When faced with problems, the first thing he thought of was the balance of the game, the maintenance of the game, and the distribution of players.
Like a long conference table, he originally sat at one end as a novice. With each meeting, he had to change seats, moving forward one chair at a time, until finally, he reached the other end of the table—where he was meant to sit.
The role had already shifted, and everything would no longer be the same.
……
When the two returned to 99 Happiness Street, the police had already taken the murderer away. Two female college students had somehow found two broken wooden stools and were sitting in the yard, cracking sunflower seeds.
Seeing them return, they waved and cheerfully said, “Want to come eat some?”
Xin Meng: “…”
Who was it that screamed in fright before? This is too carefree!
Xiao Jia said, “The mirror ghost disappeared! She even asked me to thank you!”
Fei Fei scratched her head, complaining, “I had it the worst, almost got strangled. It was simply an undeserved disaster.”
You Yi hadn’t accepted the mission, and she hadn’t been coerced by the mirror ghost. From this perspective, it indeed counted as being implicated.
Xin Meng wanted to know where these NPCs would go after completing their tasks, so he asked, “Where are you going now?”
Xiao Jia answered as a matter of course, “Of course, we’re going back to school! We still have classes to attend! Today we have a class with the old fossil, and he always takes attendance.”
Xin Meng nodded and let them go.
Only the two of them were left in the yard. Xin Meng and You Yi exchanged glances, deciding to look for other players besides Shentu Kou.
But just as one foot stepped out of the yard, Xin Meng’s heart stirred, suddenly having an ominous premonition.