4:19 in the afternoon.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and his thin fingers unconsciously tightened its grip on the straps of his backpack.
It only contained a few useful necessities, such as flashlights, lighters, nutrition bars, and etc. Only these were allowed to be brought into the game. Weapons or communication tools and the like, even if they were brought, would be forced to remain behind in the real world because it would destroy the balance of the game.
He glanced at his wristwatch, and the hands on it moved forward bit by bit. The moment it pointed at 12, Mo Yi sensed that it had become dark before his eyes. When he raised his head again, the darkness around him had already turned into nothingness.
The familiar mechanical female voice sounded by his ear, “Welcome Player Mo Yi for your return to the game, points are being settled …”
Mo Yi narrowed his eyes and analyzed the scene around him.
The deep and shallow depth of darkness seemed to flow slowly like an entity, and the dark abyss concealed a sensation of surging danger. Merely gazing at it gave off an absolutely unsettling feeling.
A careful look revealed that there were countless strange and tiny symbols converging in the darkness, surprisingly … kind of like data?
Mo Yi was taken aback, and was about to take a closer look, but retreated when he heard the female voice ring out again: “Successful settlement! Congratulations to Player Mo Yi for perfectly completing the A – level hidden mission, “Sweet Revenge”. Rewarding 5000 points and the in-game store is now open.”
When the voice fell, Mo Yi only felt as if the sky and earth were spinning, and the scene before him changed in an instant.
Within the depths of an azure-coloured space were countless floating icons right before his eyes, but only the first few rows were visible. The rest were a pale grey colour, and the names underneath were also hidden, only marked: “???”
The contents that could be exchanged for within the points store were random each time, and the ability to purchase useful things required luck.
Prior to entering the game, Jiang Yuanrou had excessively warned him again and again: There were quite a few goods here that merely looked useful, but actually had all sorts of extremely odd and strange restricting conditions, which was basically equivalent to commercial fraud.
For example, she once bought a flashlight with the slogan “Charge once, use forever,” but after purchasing it, she found out that it must be charged by the solar energy in the game. However, 99% of the escape game copies couldn’t have sunlight at all!
Mo Yi still remembered Jiang Yuanrou’s heartbroken expression when she talked about it.
As his gaze swept over the goods in front of him, he roughly calculated in his mind what he could purchase, and how he could maximize the use of his points and purchase more cost-effective things.
Just as Mo Yi was about to turn back a page, the action paused before stopping.
In the bottom corner, there was a good that was particularly eye-catching.
Novice Gift Package.
There was no product review or product description. There was only a section of pale grey, and it only required 10 points.
Mo Yi was dumbfounded: Jiang Yuanrou had never mentioned this good.
He looked at his 5000 balance and chose to purchase it.
— It didn’t require a lot of points anyway, might as well try it.
The moment he clicked to confirm the purchase, the mechanical female voice sounded in his ear, “The purchase of special goods this time will use up the player’s chance to spend. Your purchase has been completed. Thank you for your patronage! I wish you a happy game!”
Wait a minute, couldn’t purchase anything else after purchasing this? Was there such an operation?
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.
However, before Mo Yi could react, he only felt it go black before his eyes. The female voice seemed to be released into infinity, heavily pounding in his eardrums, “Game transmitting …”
Dfobgf tf ibra mbcrmlbercfrr, atf ijra atbeuta lc tlr wlcv kjr:
— Xb ab sbeg ecmif’r mtfjalcu ujwf!
Zb Tl bqfcfv tlr fsfr.
Fcvfg tlr ybvs kjr j nfgs tjgv yfv ybjgv, jcv la kjrc’a nfgs oija. Llr yjmx, ktlmt kjr qgfrrfv jujlcra la, tega j iba. Ktf cjggbk jcv rwjii yfv obgmfv tlr ifur ab megi eq, jcv tlr ktbif ybvs jkxkjgvis rtgjcx bc atf yfv.
Mo Yi frowned and got up.
It was ice-cold, and it carried the smell of dust, pouring into his nasal cavity, along with the musty odour of old wood, slightly mixing in with the gloomy and cold air.
The room in front of him was not fully open. He couldn’t make out the colour of the torn and peeling wallpaper, falling down, and exposing the filthy blue-grey wall underneath. The wooden beam supporting the uppermost part of the room on one side was old and dilapidated.
Above his head was a very old-fashioned ceiling lamp, relentlessly emitting light. The dim yellow light was weak and faint, illuminating the crooked Cross hanging on the opposite wall, looking sinister and strange.
There were six small beds neatly arranged in the room, each of which was the same size as the bed under him.
These beds seemed to be specially made for children. They were so narrow and small that it was almost difficult for an adult to straighten out their legs in them.
Mo Yi sat on the edge of the bed and stretched his legs, while subconsciously sizing up the surrounding environment.
The room was not very big, it could even be said to be a little cramped. There was only a narrow and small window on the wall, but it had already been nailed securely with boards. The figures all around were old fashioned and stiff, making the entire room appear isolated and stifling, and it was almost difficult to breathe in the air.
He looked out the window through the irregular gaps and crevices between the boards, and once again, there was a large area of dense unchangeable darkness.
Even though it was not the first time seeing it, it still gave people an intense sense of oppression.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and moved his gaze away.
Prior to studying the surroundings, there was one single thing he had always really cared about – what the hell was that so called Novice Gift Package?
Mo Yi lowered his head, searching about his body.
Even as cool-headed and calm as he was, he couldn’t help but grit his teeth:
This gift package wasted his entire shopping opportunity. It’d better have something good in it!
Finally, at the bottom of his backpack, Mo Yi saw it.
It was a palm-sized box, grey and inconspicuous, with four small words written in square font on it: “Novice Gift Package.”
Mo Yi pursed his lips, and he opened it. At the bottom of the box lay a silver ribbon.
The ribbon flowed with a faint brilliance. It seemed that it was not an ordinary product.
Mo Yi was taken aback, stretched out his hand and picked it up. The soft ribbon obediently wrapped around his fingertips, icy and cold like flowing water. The box was instantly empty.
He stared at the ribbon in his hand for a few seconds, then looked at the empty box.
No … no instructions?
Then what was this for?
He turned the box upside down in disbelief, and the empty box was still empty.
Mo Yi was silent. “…” Why did he have an illusion of being pitted?
He took a deep breath, suppressed the inexplicable irritability in his heart, and then with the last glimmer of hope, he wrapped the ribbon around his wrist.
He wondered when he would be able to find out its use?
Mo Yi packed up his backpack again, hung it on his shoulders, and stood up.
For this times copy, Jiang Yuanrou had originally wanted to follow him, but her props had already been used up a few weeks ago, and the points store was too random. It had been a long time since this prop had appeared in her store.
Therefore, she asked a senior person named Song Qi to join him in this copy this time – in Jiang Yuanrou’s words, Song Qi was, “Older, tall, and handsome, and also very powerful, but he doesn’t talk very much.”
Originally, they had come to an agreement that he would tell him a secret signal in advance before the two entered the copy, but he waited a whole day and didn’t receive any news from her, and the phone call couldn’t get through. It seemed that the matter may have fallen through.
Mo Yi narrowed his eyes: That may not be such a bad thing. From the start, he didn’t really want to form a team with other people due to the danger of having his identity exposed. On top of that, he wanted to explore many parts of the game on his own but having teammates would get in the way.
Now, it was time for him to join the other players.
Mo Yi walked out. Suddenly, he felt something soft with his foot – he lowered his head and saw a brown teddy bear laying beside his feet.
It looked very old, and the yellow stuffing was exposed through the holes in the teddy bear. Nevertheless, it was very clean and there was no trace of dust.
And in this room, every corner was covered with thick dust, as if no one had been here for many years.
The clean teddy bear looked out of place with its surroundings.
The dust on the ground on one side was intact, and there was no trace of people passing by.
Mo Yi bent down and looked at it carefully.
The brown hair on the teddy bear was sparse, and the four limbs were barely hanging onto the body. One eye was missing, and the only remaining black eye was cloudy, stitched crookedly on its face.
Mo Yi’s eyes flashed with contemplation, but before he could do anything, he heard a familiar bickering noise coming from outside.
And it seemed to be more intense than in the last copy —
He was taken aback, no longer cared about the teddy bear, and hurried out.
Mo Yi opened the door, and in front of him was a long dim corridor, and the sounds of quarrelling became louder and louder.
Instead of observing the surroundings in front of him, he followed the sound and walked quickly to one end of the corridor.
As soon as Mo Yi arrived in the lobby, he saw a woman in a short skirt yelling at the crowd. Her sharp voice was raised, painfully scratching people’s eardrums, “— I don’t care who sent you here, I have no time to play with you! I’m leaving now, see who dares to stop me?”
As she spoke, she walked out angrily, stretched out her hand, and opened the door.
Then, the woman fell silent in an instant, and stared out the door dumbfounded.
It was emptiness and darkness in the true sense, as if the entire building was deeply submerged in the darkness that had turned into an entity. The cold pressure drew near, and it seemed like it was the boundless manifestation of malice and danger.
It brought silent terror and horror to people.
The woman froze stiffly in place, and several other people who had run out also froze, staring foolishly at the supernatural scene before them.
Thick, dark mist merged with the darkness, and then slowly, like a living creature, reached out with tentacles towards the door and pushed its way inside—
Mo Yi’s heart at once fiercely contracted, and the experience from the last copy immediately leapt into his mind!
His hairs stood up, and the words of warning he was about to shout out unconsciously got stuck in his throat.
In the next second, a man abruptly took a large stride forwards and dashed past, pushed the woman away, and ferociously closed the door!
“Bang.” The loud noise broke the deep silence in the room, and dust fell from the door that had long been dilapidated, finally shutting out the endless darkness and horrifying thick mist outside the door.
Wisps of mist continued to slowly dissipate from the gap under the door.
The woman who was making a fuss just now was pale. It seemed that she now realized that this was not a mere joke, and she sat on the ground, cutting a sorry figure, and looked at the man who had rushed out with a disheartened face.
After the man closed the door and gave her a cold glance, he no longer looked at the woman who was sitting paralyzed on the ground.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and couldn’t help clenching his stiff fingers. Only then did he realize that his palm was wet with cold sweat.
What a close call … They now almost played GG before the game officially started.
At this moment, the familiar sweet-sounding voice of the girl rang out: “Hello, welcome everyone for coming to the large-scale live escape game – STAY ALIVE. Your only task is to survive for 72 hours in the orphanage.
The following are prompts for you:
Good children, good children, don’t break rules.
Good children, good children, can play games.
I wish you a happy game.”
As soon as the female voice fell, they immediately caught sight of a fluorescent blue countdown appearing out of thin air in the darkness outside the window.
71：59：59
There was a strange silence in the air.
Mo Yi pursed his lips and looked thoughtfully out the window:
… Three days?
Our ML is arriving next chapter~ So excited~
Thanks for the chapter~
So our ML will be introduced in the next chapter~ And I bet that this Song Yi guy is our ML!!!
Thanks for the chapter<3
ML is the mist, I think! Also, the mist is blocking Song Yi from meeting MC… cough it’s too soon for you to eat vinegar, little ML
Cough….I think my face will received a slap from the ML soon~ TT__TT gotta run · ─=≡Σ((( つ＞＜)つ
Ml ml ml!!! ≧ω≦
I thought Mist-gege was a one time offer but he’s back (≧▽≦)(≧▽≦)/
my bet on the box is that its function is to create things that you wish for and that fit inside the box
thank you for the chapter!
Thanks for the chapter! -^^)❤
The contents that could be exchanged for within the points store were random each time, and the ability to purchase useful things required luck. Sounds like gamble.
Thank you for the chapter!
Thanks for the update
Our ML deleted the text so he could come in and pretend to be his partner~
Thanks for the chapter! 💕
Too excited to think of a good comment, so i’ll just wait for the next chapter.
Thanks for the chapter!
thanks for the chapter! <3
Thanks for the translation.
It seems Mo Yi’s hacker days are coming back…What is the escape game really? Since the people brought back to reality suffer no harm, time also starts off when they left (everything is the same), and what remains behind is trauma…I’m guessing it’s their consiousness being sent into the game?
oooh good thoughts, I hadn’t connected the string of code in the space to his hacking. I’m wondering about the emotions he felt towards the end of the last scenario where he said they felt foreign since his is a standoffish type but oddly felt like they belonged.
Off the too of my head, I’d actually believe that the silver ribbon is like a territory marking of the fog man (couse fog tends to be that color and I’m also influenced by the red string of marriage, also bc using ribbons on wrists has also been a marriage tradition in europe (if I remember correctly)).
So the ML cut off their planning, I wonder what he said to make Jiang Yuanrou not bring it up again? Unless he just confirmed that he got it and our ML will try to stop them from recognizing each other from within the instance. This “novice package” ribbon sure does seem tailored to Mo Yi, too, I wonder if it’ll work like the mist being a little more on his side
Thank you for translating! <3
If i am there,i can imagine myself saying “after i fucking get out here i will kill myself painless so that i can die in peace”
lol
Same, only for the game to stop you then probably throw you into the next horror instance faster than intended! 😞
Hmmm so before going to the next chapter and reading the comments, imma make a prediction.
The Jiang girl sent a message about the dude who will help the MC, but the mist ML intercepted the message and probably said “I don’t need him” or something so that Song dude wouldn’t go and mist ML could disguise himself as the Song dude and be partnered with MC.
Also, mist ML is a stalking freak 😂 popping up behind MC after he takes a bath and reading his phone messages without permission.
Lol the mist is a jealous lover😂
Yikes, an Orphanage is just as bad as an Asylum! Children in horror themes are terrifying especially when they giggle or sing😨
Ahh! ML is so mysterious!