Those eyes were profound.
It was as if a switch had been flipped; his entire face came to life in an instant. The sharp lines and delicate features combined to form a visage that, even marred by blood, could not hide its nobility.
Xia Bai locked eyes with him for a second before the body slowly closed its eyes again.
Even though they were open for only a second or two, the moment he opened his eyes, Xia Bai and the others around him saw it, proving he was still alive, not a corpse.
He would not belong to him.
Xia Bai resignedly accepted this sad reality.
If he were truly a corpse, even if someone from the Game Management Bureau came to claim him, he could have resisted. If all else failed, he would invoke Hua Haoming, who dared to confront even the deputy director of the Research Institute, a figure of significant influence within the Game Management Bureau.
But he was alive.
“Um…” The man in the middle spoke again, saying, “Student, we need to take him away. What’s your name? We’ll contact you later and properly thank you.”
Xia Bai bowed his head and pushed the body slightly, not moving it, but his attitude was clear.
The man in the middle immediately, along with a healer player, carried the body into the infirmary.
Xia Bai zipped up his protective suit and continued to silently clean up the bodies.
The bodies had been mostly cleared, revealing no signs of living players left, so the atmosphere loosened slightly, and the pace slowed. Conversations began to fill the lobby, with people exchanging words of comfort and astonishment.
Zhong Zicang saw Xia Bai persistently focused on cleaning, not speaking to anyone, head always bowed.
This was the only freshman volunteer, freshly graduated from a high school that focused solely on academics. He had never dissected a corpse before. Worried about him, Zhong Zicang approached, intending to offer some comfort, only to see him drag the last intact body into a section and sit down.
He touched the hand of the body, not showing any signs of psychological trauma; instead, his usually dull eyes ignited with a peculiar spark, filled with both grievance and determination.
“One day, I’ll have a corpse of my own,” he muttered with conviction.
Zhong Zicang: “…”
He must’ve had some psychological problems after all.
By the time they had completely cleared the scene, it was past four in the morning.
They met a woman with wavy long hair in the cafeteria who personally brought them clean clothes—a patient’s uniform from the orthopedic hospital.
She wore a practical and movement-friendly gray suit, not a traditional beauty with almond-shaped eyes and a melon seed-shaped face, but her high cheekbones and single eyelids gave her a unique charm that was captivating.
She briefly introduced herself, and they learned that this woman was the head of the Logistics Department of the Game Management Bureau, named Wei Zhengyu.
“You kids have worked hard. This time, the large map greatly benefited from your assistance. Don’t worry about the rest; just find a ward to wash up and sleep. There’s no need to set an alarm for tomorrow; get some well-deserved rest.”
Zhong Zicang began, “Director Wei…”
He was promptly interrupted by Wei Zhengyu raising her hand, “I know what you’re thinking, what you want to do.”
“So far, only three large game maps have appeared, not enough for us to deduce a clear pattern. However, analyzing the previous large map, we discovered that after a large game map is cleared, the number of other smaller game maps in the vicinity decreases.”
Zhong Zicang’s eyes widened in surprise, “Director Wei, are you saying the rate of game occurrences in Quanguang City will slow down?”
“There’s a possibility,” Wei Zhengyu stated. “Whether it will happen still needs to be verified.”
The volunteers breathed a sigh of relief. They had only cleaned up a game scene without actually entering a game, but that was enough to understand how terrifying the games were. They were like a blight upon the world, and the volunteers truly wished that they would disappear sooner.
After reassuring the volunteers, Wei Zhengyu added, “A decrease in frequency doesn’t mean they won’t occur. Plus, there are nearly a hundred games in Quanguang City yet to be cleared. So, go get some good sleep now, rest up, because we’ll need to continue our efforts.”
Without further ado, the volunteers took their patient uniforms and went to find places to wash up and sleep.
Xia Bai’s group found two adjacent wards with restrooms. Wang Wei and Zhang Runyue took one, while Xia Bai and Zhong Zicang took the other.
Zhong Zicang let Xia Bai wash up first, and Xia Bai took the longest shower of his life, nearly two hours.
Zhong Zicang understood; he took almost three hours.
By the time Xia Bai finished his shower, dawn was breaking.
The sound of water trickling in the restroom, Xia Bai, in his clean patient uniform, turned over in bed and saw a message from Lin Xiang, who wanted to come to Quanguang with him.
Xia Bai didn’t mention the recent cleaning, simply replying that he had already arrived in Quanguang.
After replying to Lin Xiang’s message, Xia Bai saw a bit of darkness in the crevice of his phone, thinking he was just tired and dizzy. Rubbing his eyes, he still saw it.
Looking closely, it seemed like hair, the hair of little Xuemu.
Xia Bai opened the game app and saw Xuemu indeed had her eyes open, her hair spread out.
Not knowing how to comfort her and aware that she disliked being watched, he fed her some blood and then closed the app.
Tonight, many might find sleep elusive, but once Xia Bai turned off his phone, lulled by the sound of running water in the bathroom, he quickly fell asleep.
After his bath, Zhong Zicang, brimming with emotions he wished to express, hoped to have a heart-to-heart with his junior about the night’s events. However, upon emerging, he found his junior sleeping peacefully like an angel.
“…”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Hours passed, and the hospital grew crowded with people whose affiliations Xia Bai couldn’t quite discern, but not all seemed to be players or from the Game Management Bureau.
In the lobby, many boxes of meals, drinks, and fruits were laid out, with several people in patient attire going to grab food.
“Are you going to eat as well?”
Someone appeared silently beside Xia Bai, their voice soft and slightly husky, inherently magnetic, causing an involuntary twitch in the listener’s ear.
Turning, Xia Bai’s first impression of the person was their paleness.
Xia Bai, not fond of wandering outdoors or basking in the sun, had skin so fair it was envied by all the girls in his class. Accustomed to his own complexion, he still found this person remarkably pale.
Then, he noticed the person’s beauty—long lashes veiling peach-blossom eyes, like a half-open, invitingly pristine world, and lips a rare shade of light pink, stunningly beautiful, unlike any girl Xia Bai had ever seen.
This was Yang Mei, the boy he had seen the previous night at the hospital entrance.
Xia Bai’s voice softened unconsciously, “I’m not eating here; I’m going out.”
“Big bro, you look very nice,” Yang Mei remarked, surprised.
Xia Bai replied, “I’m 19.”
Yang Mei paused, sizing him up, “What’s 19?”
Xia Bai, momentarily puzzled, responded, “My age, 19.”
Yang Mei called him “big bro”, and he replied that he was 19. Wasn’t it obvious that Xia Bai was hinting that he might not be older than Yang Mei? Xia Bai wondered if his logic was flawed. What else could “19” signify if not his age?
Suddenly, Yang Mei hugged his arm, nuzzling against it, “Little bro, you’re so cute!”
Xia Bai was stunned.
Yang Mei, slightly shorter, rested his head on Xia Bai’s shoulder, looking up at him, “Little bro, my name is Yang Mei. What’s yours?”
Xia Bai answered, “Xia Bai.”
“Xia Bai, I want to eat out too. I’m tired of boxed meals.”
Xia Bai suggested, “Then let’s go out to eat.”
Yang Mei lamented, “But I can’t find any places.”
Xia Bai responded, “You can look it up on the map on your phone, I only learned to use it not too long ago myself.”
“But I always end up going the wrong way when I use the map,” Yang Mei frowned, “I got lost in Quanguang last time and was brought back by a police officer.”
“…”
Yang Mei’s finger grazed Xia Bai’s hand, and he blinked, “Little bro Xia Bai, could you please take me out to eat?”
Xia Bai carefully pulled Yang Mei to one side to avoid him walking into a wall, “No.”
“…”
Under different circumstances, Xia Bai might have been willing to take him out, but not during his days in Quanguang City.
Wei Zhengyu said they could rest today, and Xia Bai wanted to take this opportunity to look for games outside.
At the hospital entrance, Xia Bai pulled away those pale hands and went off alone to find a place to eat.
After walking a few steps, he looked back to see Yang Mei still standing there, looking up at him. Xia Bai immediately turned his head back around and took another street.
A minute later, he peeked back and saw Yang Mei finally turning to go back to the hospital. However, he bumped into someone and fell down the steps, sitting dazed on the ground, tears about to fall.
Xia Bai: “…”
Shouldn’t the game instances on a large map be more challenging?
How could a player who cleared a large map game be such a klutz?
With some doubts, Xia Bai found a restaurant that seemed aged and full of stories, ordering a bowl of white rice and a dish of hot and sour shredded potatoes. While eating breakfast and waiting for games, he browsed the game app’s player exchange center for answers.
As expected, the player exchange center was bustling today, with the homepage filled with discussions about the orthopedic hospital game instance.
Each post had two markers on the right: the number of replies and the current number of participants in the discussion. Xia Bai clicked on the one with the most people.
1L: Do you guys know the orthopedic hospital instance might be a large map? Look at this photo of a mountain of corpses and that sea of blood [Photo].
2L: Wow, another large map?! Cleared in one go?
3L: Seems like it was cleared, there are survivors. There are a few Game Management Bureau people in the photo surrounding someone.
4L: Wow, shit. Who’s that badass? I remember for the other two large maps, one took six waves of people to clear, and the other is still uncleared and sealed.
The following comments were all about who had cleared the game. As the most popular thread on the homepage, of course, there was an outcome.
268L: Reliable sources say it was Yang Mei from the assault team.
269L: Really? Did he clear a large map all by himself? Weren’t there any other big shots with him?
270L: Why can’t one person do it? You must have some misconceptions about Yang Mei. Clearly, you’ve never been in a raid with him.
271L: Hahaha, clearing a large map solo sounds terrifyingly incredible, but don’t forget he’s the Ghost Charmer. This must have been a map rife with ghosts and monsters, right up his alley.
272L: Amazing, amazing! Worthy of being my master! Setting a new record!
273L: Be more confident with your words! Yang Mei is the most badass player!
The clumsy yet beautiful boy, a member of the assault team, was actually the top player on the leaderboard known as [Ghost Charmer].
Xia Bai was taken aback, not expecting to encounter such a figure on his first day in Quanguang City. He hadn’t expected the top player to be like this either.
What skills did the identity of [Ghost Charmer] represent?
Xia Bai knew that being a charmer meant being liked by many. Ghost Charmer, then, meant being liked by many ghosts? A soul skill to increase affection from ghosts? Or a soul skill to charm ghosts?
After finishing the thread, his bowl of rice and dish of shredded potatoes were gone, but no game had started.
Xia Bai had no choice but to leave the restaurant. He wandered around a mall, climbed over a fence to explore a school that was on break, and visited two parks, all without encountering a game.
With eighty games a week, more than ten a day spread across the city, the odds of running into one were indeed slim, especially since Wei Zhengyu mentioned the frequency of games descending might decrease.
Xia Bai didn’t give up and kept trying to run into games.
After experiencing a large map game, cleaning up smaller map games became much easier. They gradually became more proficient amidst their busy schedules, and Xia Bai found more and more time to search for games.
Fortune favors the bold, and just when Xia Bai had almost toured half of Quanguang, he finally stumbled into a game.
On his fourth day in Quanguang City, after cleaning up two game scenes, Xia Bai again slipped away from Yang Mei during their group of volunteers’ rotation break.
By the time he finished his meal, it was already dark. Xia Bai thought it over and decided to go to a movie theater. In the past few days, he had visited several restaurants, supermarkets, schools, and hospitals but had yet to go to a movie theater.
If there’s a place in Quanguang City where people might still gather at night, potentially drawing the arrival of a game, a movie theater would be the prime choice.
Over 90% of Quanguang City’s movie theaters were closed, and after some searching online, Xia Bai found that the nearest operational theater was Hexie Cinema, a small movie theater about twenty kilometers away from him.
Transportation in Quanguang City wasn’t as convenient as usual, so by the time he would arrive, there would only be one movie showing available—a horror film in Hall 5.
Xia Bai made it just in time to purchase a ticket and enter the theater.
Before heading to Hall 5, Xia Bai took a deliberate look around the cinema.
Hexie Cinema had seven screening halls in total. The movie Xia Bai was there to see started at 9:40 p.m., a time when not many people would typically go to the movies. When he entered, a movie in Hall 4 had just finished, and people were exiting, while two other halls were still showing films. From the posters and timings, one seemed to be a modern comedy, and the other a school romance.
Under the curious gaze of an attendant, Xia Bai walked a lap around the hallway of the screening halls before entering Hall 5.
He was the last one to enter. By the time he got in, the lights in Hall 5 had already been turned off, making it hard to see the other people inside, though the sweet scent of popcorn was unmistakable.
Having gone to the movies with Lin Xiang before, Xia Bai knew that the lights being off meant the film was about to start. However, after finding his seat in the dark and sipping on his red bean milk tea, the screen remained dark.
“What’s going on? It’s already 9:43, and the movie hasn’t started?” a rough male voice came from the front right.
“Is there a malfunction? Should we ask a staff member?” a young female voice suggested from the front left.
“Staff? Staff!” called the rough voice again.
There was no response.
“I’ll go out and call them,” said a figure from the middle front row, standing up. Her voice was gentle, with a hint of weariness.
With someone going to call for help, the rest of the audience remained quiet, waiting.
A light came on at the front as the woman turned on her phone’s flashlight and walked out, guided by its glow.
A man sitting next to her immediately followed, limping alongside her.
The door to Hall 5 wasn’t located next to the first row by the screen but required walking down a narrow corridor beside the seats, which might take some time. However, it was taking too long, and still, no one had returned.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the rough voice called out again. “Where are they?”
“The door won’t open,” came the gentle woman’s voice from the back corridor.
Xia Bai’s hand tightened around his milk tea cup at the all-too-familiar scenario unfolding before him, recalling that he hadn’t closed the door to the screening hall upon entering.
After another sip, placing his milk tea in the cup holder on the armrest, he pulled out his phone. Not turning on the flashlight—since it broke during the Heping Medical College instance—he simply lit up the screen.
Under the dim light, he could make out the backs of the seated people ahead of him, roughly estimating there were about ten or so.
“Why’re you so weak?” the rough voice sounded again as Xia Bai watched a burly man stand and stride toward the door, followed by the sounds of banging and rattling on the door.
“Hey! Is anyone out there? Not showing the movie and locking us in, what kind of prank is this?”
“What’s going on?”
“The door won’t open? Should we check it out?”
Noise filled the screening hall once more.
The familiar scenario played out again: people attempting to open the door, banging on it, to no avail. Calls wouldn’t go through, messages wouldn’t send.
Xia Bai also made a show of trying the door and attempting to make a call, putting on a display of earnest effort before retaking his seat.
During his recent quest for games, he had been contemplating how to utilize his skill to claim bodies, determined not to fail again.
His skill was of the contractual type, seemingly powerful but difficult to develop. It required a person to agree to give him their body upon death for it to be his.
Firstly, for safety, he had to at least avoid being disliked. If he was unpleasant and then asked for someone’s body, he might get beaten up.
If that wasn’t feasible, he’d have to ask someone at the brink of death. Many players who die in the game remain in the game world. He could offer to take their bodies home, similar to the corpse herders of his grandfather’s generation, which might secure their agreement.
After putting on a cooperative facade, Xia Bai settled down comfortably, waiting for someone from the Game Management Bureau to provide explanations.
But, was there anyone from the Game Management Bureau in this game? And if not, what then?
There should be. According to Zhong Zicang, about half of the Game Management Bureau’s personnel were concentrated in Quanguang City. But did they have the time and inclination to watch a movie?
While Xia Bai pondered this, a phone suddenly flew into the front row, wedging itself between two seats. It happened so swiftly that Xia Bai couldn’t see from which direction it had been thrown.
As he was about to search for the source, a familiar voice suddenly echoed.
“The initial anomaly appeared in Qili Village…”
Xia Bai’s grip on his milk tea tightened as the scene unfolded, eerily familiar to what he had experienced before. Despite looking around, he couldn’t identify who had thrown the phone.
The others in the screening hall were equally perplexed, staring at the phone in confusion, their bewilderment turning into fright as the video played on, especially when the faces of the terrified schoolchildren filled the screen.
A scream echoed through the hall.
The audience, initially confused, became engrossed in the video, finding it more thrilling than any horror movie they had come to see. They watched the stories of Qili Village, a haunted house in an amusement park, and then heard about Quanguang City, which hit closer to home, through the skepticism of the video’s viewers and the man’s explanations.
Eventually, the man on the phone said, “Stop trying to open the door. We are now in the game too, currently in a game lock state.”
“What the heck?”
“Is this some kind of prank?”
“Is this for real? What he’s saying makes sense, though.”
“It must be a fake video. What game? We’re from Quanguang, aren’t we? The government said it’s just pollution!”
Xia Bai stood up, attempting to take a proactive stance, “I think what he’s saying is true. We’ve really been pulled into a strange game.”
“Bullshit! Are you behind this?” the burly man glared at him with raised eyebrows.
Xia Bai: “…No.”
He quickly sat down again.
As they attempted to revisit the phone to figure out who was playing tricks, the phone mysteriously vanished without a trace.
“Who took it?”
“It seemed like… no one went over there.”
“Did someone crawl over and pick it up?” The man who made this suggestion immediately lifted his feet, seemingly afraid someone in the dark beneath the seats might grab his leg.
Panic inevitably began to spread throughout the dim screening hall.
Just then, the previously silent screen flickered, and a soft yet emotionless voice echoed throughout the cinema, [Game loading complete. Normal map, Hexie Cinema, is now online.]
This sudden announcement startled many, who looked around for the source of the voice.
[You happened to come to this cinema to watch a movie when Hexie Cinema map went online, which must be a special fate. Welcome, players, to Hexie Cinema. The movie being screened tonight is “Island Escape.”]
“Island Escape” was clearly not the movie they had purchased tickets for; the title alone suggested it was a clichéd, low-budget film likely made for quick profits.
But no one complained or cursed at that moment; they had pinpointed the source of the voice—it was inside their heads.
This eerie voice made them start to realize that what the man in the phone video had said might be true—they might have been drawn into a bizarre game.
[The movie lasts 180 minutes. Please unravel the logic of the story within the movie. Enjoy your screening.]
After this public announcement, Xia Bai heard another voice.
[Welcome, Corpse Collector Xia Bai. I hope you enjoy the movie screening.]
The author has something to say:
A new map has opened. It won’t be very long, about ten chapters. I wish you all a happy viewing!
Xia Bai needs some con-man skill to trick other players to be his corpse😂
I can totally relate to Xia Bai’s “just act normal” self pep talk. 😂 Thanks for the chapter!!
Hahaha poor baby Bai 😂 I hope he gets a corpse or two to boost his confidence this instance
Want to read moreee 🫠
I replied wrongly again. Sorry
😂it’s okay! I would also realllllllyyyyy like another chapter or 100😉
Hopefully, he’ll get at least one
Xia Bai is here to revive the corpse herder tradition and start a new era of his!!! GO XIA BAI GO!!! THIS SISTER WILL CHEER YOU ON ✾(≧∇≦✾)
Ooh, a short arc!