DSMC Chapter 22.1

The surroundings were pitch black. Yan Jiyun’s eyes had night vision, but here he could barely make out the ground. In front of him, three passageways branched off.

Wen Nanxing must have stepped on something. He’d fallen through and hadn’t made a sound since. Nobody knew whether he was alive or dead.

Zhou Ying and Cheng Li, afraid the people who entered Room 8 after them might discover them, kept completely silent. Only when they faintly heard Wen Nanxing calling out a warning of “There’s a trap!”, did they start whispering to each other.

Hearing that he was fine, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Their effort to save him hadn’t been wasted.

Zhou Ying and Cheng Li each turned on a flashlight prop. Yan Jiyun thought to himself that he had just saved a good amount of points.

In a low voice, Zhou Ying craned her head left and right and asked, “Wen Nanxing, where are you?”

They waited a few seconds without a reply, but since they could still hear his warnings, that meant falling through hadn’t been fatal.

Cheng Li examined the wall. “Where’s the trap?” She shone her flashlight up and down, but found no switches.

Zhou Ying ran her hand over the coarse surface of the wall. “Then it must be some kind of high-tech mechanism hidden inside the wall. If we don’t look carefully, there’s no way we’ll find it.”

Yan Jiyun padded the wall with his paw pads. The wall was thick. If a certain spot was used frequently, it would become smoother than the rest, the surface slightly different. He wondered whether Zhou Ying and Cheng Li would notice.

He needed to find a way to tell them. But before he could, noises came from the door they had just closed.

Zhou Ying decided quickly. “Forget the trap. We can only rush forward. Someone’s coming.”

Cheng Li asked, clinging to a sliver of hope, “Could it be another player coming?”

Zhou Ying shook her head. “Unlikely. A player wouldn’t open a door so smoothly, and with such loud noise.”

Cheng Li didn’t press further. Zhou Ying was more resourceful, with far more instance experience and life experience than she had.

The two charged forward. Just as Zhou Ying took her first step, she remembered the black cat still behind them, only to see it dart past both her and Cheng Li.

“Kitty, don’t run! There are traps!”

Of course Yan Jiyun was going to run, and he had to run fast. As long as he was faster, the traps couldn’t catch him. He intended to test the waters himself, which, in a way, also meant taking the risk in place of the two girls.

But he didn’t run in a straight line. Instead, he zigzagged in a Z-shape, bounding and springing off the walls, muscles straining, doing his best not to touch the floor of the passage at all.

After sprinting more than ten meters, Yan Jiyun reached the corner ahead safely. He’d made it!

Zhou Ying and Cheng Li were almost stunned into silence at his acrobatic display.

But strangely enough, the little black cat hadn’t triggered any traps.

So what exactly had Wen Nanxing stepped on?

Perhaps the difference lay in weight — human versus cat. And the black cat had skimmed along the walls in leaps and bounds, his body light as a feather. One could even say he was treading on air.

“I hate that I’m not a cat,” Cheng Li sighed, overwhelmed with envy.

They couldn’t possibly leap left to right, then right to left, then kick off a wall like that. Such acrobatics were far beyond them.

Their bitter laughter echoed in the dark. Even with the kitten showing the way, they simply couldn’t do it.

The door behind them was about to open. They had no time to hesitate.

Zhou Ying dashed forward first, Cheng Li close on her heels. Two hearts burning with fearless courage.

And then, Yan Jiyun watched as the pair, one after the other, plummeted through sudden trapdoors beneath their feet.

“Ahhh—help!”

“This stupid—game—ahhh—”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

The dark passage was left with only faint echoes of Zhou Ying and Cheng Li’s cries and one lone black cat.

Being alone in the darkness… was truly frightening.

Just then, the door they had entered swung open. Yan Jiyun didn’t have the luxury to ponder whether being left behind was a blessing or curse. He darted into the corner, poking out half his head to watch the intruder’s every move.

A cat’s field of vision was wider than a human’s. With only a slight tilt of his head, he could see the scene ahead. Unfortunately, his temporary companions had fallen who knew where. Hopefully, they were safe.

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“Mimi is so cute when it poked its head to observe!” 

“That run just now was both fierce and graceful. I’m in love with this cat streamer.”

“Hi, I’m new here. How many instances has this cat cleared? Is it smart? Has it ever been injured? Is it a battle-worn cat?”

“Don’t ask such silly missionions. Just looking at him makes my heart melt. I don’t care if it’s smart or not. But yes, the kitten really is clever.”

“Tch, what a pity. The NPC who came in didn’t even notice those glowing green eyes in the corner. Blind as a bat! Why can’t they just catch the black cat already? This horror game is becoming un-scary. Totally against the game’s purpose.”

Yan Jiyun saw the NPC press something on the door. A small hidden button popped out. The man pushed it, and from beneath the trapdoor came the sound of gears clicking.

So the switch had been on the very door they’d entered through all along. A classic case of hiding in plain sight.

This confirmed the man was an insider. As the traps shut off, the dim corridor lights flicked on. At this point, Yan Jiyun had nowhere left to hide, so he turned and bolted forward, reaching another fork.

Now that the traps were disabled, he didn’t have to worry about falling through like the others.

Behind him, the NPC quickened his pace, as if pressed for time. Yan Jiyun stayed hidden in the shadows, keeping his eyes on the man while maintaining a safe distance.

At the fork, the man chose the left-hand path. Yan Jiyun quietly followed.

“Midnight Diner” was supposed to be a restaurant, Yan Jiyun thought, yet it was full of hidden doors and switches. They must be guarding an important secret. In an ordinary restaurant, at most the boss and his team would guard their recipes. Nothing like this.

He thought of Wen Nanxing’s mention of the “Overnight Riches” ball. Clearly it was something tampered with, but what exactly had they added?

The man walked on, unaware that a black cat shadowed him. He pushed open a door ahead. It wasn’t fully closed, so Yan Jiyun waited until his footsteps receded before peeking inside.

This was somewhere entirely different.

Not a test kitchen. Inside were rows of transparent rooms, each containing a person — men, women, young, old. Their faces bore expressions ranging from blissful to weeping to sorrowful, as though each were in the grip of some private dream.

Yan Jiyun even recognized three of the customers he had seen earlier today. They’re the first ones served the so-called special set meals. To his shock, they were here as well!

Could this be the “VIP Zone” Wen Nanxing had mentioned?

The man entered an employee changing room. From outside the glass, Yan Jiyun stared at the eerie-smiling customers. Their arms and legs were bound, as though to prevent them from thrashing about in their dreams. At their temples were metallic patches, each displaying streams of data. Several computers lined the room, their screens filled with pulsing graphs incomprehensible to the untrained eye.

Yan Jiyun didn’t understand it either.

Hiding behind a large planter with a money tree, he waited for the man to exit the changing room. Then, quietly, he slipped in after him.

Luckily, Wen Nanxing had escaped. Otherwise he too would have ended up here. Whether these people had any chance of leaving was another matter entirely.

Just as Yan Jiyun wriggled beneath a wheeled medical bed, a notification chimed in his ear.

[Player Yan Jiyun has triggered Main Mission (1): Rescue the Test Subjects. Reward upon completion: 2000 points.]

Yan Jiyun: ……

The main mission points were quite high, but the difficulty of completion wasn’t low either!

Just what kind of high-risk profit-making business was this restaurant running, that it even needed test subjects?

Still, this main mission did link up with what Wen Nanxing had previously asked the NPC customers about.

Every week, Midnight Diner would invite fifty guests to experience their delicious dishes. All of these guests came voluntarily. They only thought that by eating, they could enjoy a sweet dream. But in truth, they were nothing more than lab rats dragged in by Midnight Diner.

How were they supposed to rescue these people?

They probably wouldn’t wake up on their own for now.

That man from before started checking the records on the computers next to each test subject.

He scribbled things down swiftly, and before long, a woman in high heels click-clacked her way inside. She exchanged a few words with the man about today’s data, then they leaned in close, and before long, the two of them pulled the curtain shut between two hospital beds and started kissing.

Yan Jiyun: “…”

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“Is this something a cat can even watch?”

“Meowmeow is an adult, right? These inappropriate-for-minors scenes should be fine to watch.”

“Is the kitten male or female? Has it been neutered yet?”

“Good missionion, can’t tell if the kitty’s male or female. It has a proportionate build, graceful posture, sometimes dashing and handsome, sometimes pretty… ah, I’m running out of adjectives!”

“You’re overthinking. Kitty Baby doesn’t even understand human love. Don’t force filthy human behaviors onto our baby! He’s still young, he shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“I just want to dive into the instance right now and cover the kitten’s eyes and ears.”

“I’m giving a 500 coin donation to buy the kitten a blindfold. These NPC things aren’t for him to see! Who arranged such indecent plotlines? I’m lodging a complaint with the game!”

“I’m giving a 1000 coin donation for earplugs! Count me in for the complaint too. How can you let our baby see this stuff?”

“Honestly, I hope there’s more of these kinds of scenes.I like it, hehehe.”

In truth, he didn’t need the viewers’ help. Yan Jiyun himself didn’t much care to hear the smacking sounds of NPCs kissing.

As he glanced around, he noticed a row of machines behind the equipment. Taking advantage of the fact the two were still passionately making out, he quietly slipped to the instrument farthest from them. He pawed at the cables experimentally and found the plugs came loose quite easily. One by one, from left to right, he unplugged them. The machines shut down, but no sounds or alarms went off.

One after another, as he pulled out several plugs, the machines displaying bouncing data froze and went dark.

The two NPCs noticed nothing until nearly half the devices had gone dark. Then they finally stepped out from behind the curtain. The moment Yan Jiyun heard them move, he darted to the spot they had just been standing in, safely hidden behind another curtain.

Woman: “Oh my god! Why are all the monitors black?”

Man: “I don’t know! Did something go wrong?”

The two began to panic. They frantically searched for the cause and eventually discovered the plugs had all been pulled out.

The man was furious: “Who the hell did this? When you came in earlier, did you see anyone else?”

The woman shook her head. “No! It was just you and me. Otherwise, how would I dare get so close with you? If the supervisor found out, I’d be fired instantly.”

Man: “Let’s just plug them back in and pretend this never happened.”

Woman: “Alright.”

After this round of chaos, the two managed to restore the data to its original state. There wasn’t much loss, and they both breathed a sigh of relief.

Yan Jiyun felt like his efforts had been wasted. Not a single person had woken up.

Crouched behind the curtain, he kept pondering how to free them.

Then he suddenly remembered — Wen Nanxing had been woken up by water. Could these people also be woken by water?

But how could he get water here?

Looking up at the ceiling, he had an idea.

If a fire or heavy smoke occurred, the sprinklers in the ceiling would automatically activate!

But how could he make the lab catch fire?