Before entering the instance, the players would experience a vacuum period. People floated in the infinite darkness filled with waves of substance, as if they were placed in a biological chamber filled with sticky nutrient solution. In this process, the player didn’t have any autonomy at all and could only passively receive the instance information.

This time, what rang in Nan Zhou’s ears wasn’t the mechanical introduction like before the Xiao Ming’s Daily Life instance started. It was pure sound without any pictures. The sound of high-speed running was intertwined with the gasps of fear.

“Gasp.. gasp..”

There was the sound of wild running and breathing with no rhythm. It made one feel the burning pain of the throat and the fishy taste of blood rising from the lungs. The man kept running only to suddenly stumble, falling to the ground.

The moment that the man’s body hit the ground hard, Nan Zhou heard a small sound.

“Sha—”

He couldn’t say what this sound was. Was it the sound of clothes rubbing against the ground after a fall? Was it some type of electromagnetic interference? It was too short so there was no way to judge. Still, it could be judged that the man making the sound was running for his life.

It was to avoid death, to avoid a terrible thing. It was because when he fell, Nan Zhou heard the clear sound of breaking teeth. Even so, the person in the recording didn’t even have time to react to it. He stood up and continued running for his life.

He fled into the stairwell in a hurry. It was obvious because the footsteps produced a greater echo than before. After going down two floors, he wanted to take the elevator. It was due to the sound of a button being pressed and the anxious back and forth pacing.

Ding.

The elevator arrived. There was the sound of a button being pressed to select the floor, followed by the mechanical operation sound of the steel box slowly closing. Nan Zhou wondered why the man was putting himself in a steel cage where he couldn’t escape, only to hear the fine sound of someone walking on tiptoes.

The man had used the elevator to mislead the pursuer. He called the elevator and pressed a floor number, but he didn’t enter. If the thing chasing him came to this floor and saw the moving elevator, it was estimated to chase after the elevator directly. The man could escape.

The fine sound of the person walking on tiptoes left the elevator. He arrived in front of a room on this floor and quietly opened the door. It was very quiet. Therefore, the normal and slight friction sound of the door opening seemed to scratch at a person’s nerves. It was extra sharp.

Squeak.

This was the sound of a cabinet closing. The man finally hid himself in a safe place. After hiding, the man finally started talking. It was a young male voice that was chaotic and low.

“Save me, save save save save me..”

“We shouldn’t have gone there. That place doesn’t exist so we can’t exist—”

“Hu Li is dead. He is dead. I remember. How can you not remember—”

He murmured to himself without any logic. He seemed half crazy and like he was going to collapse. Was he talking to anyone or was he crazily muttering to himself?

Suddenly, everything quieted down. Even the nervous gasps were choked up in his throat. It was because the door he closed with so much care was opened from the outside without warning.

“Sha—”

“Sha—”

“Sha—”

It was like the sound of a creature crawling on the ground.

Shasha..

The sound rang from far to near and came all the way to the cabinet.

Rjc Itbe tfjgv atf rtjxlcu bo atf qfgrbc’r ifur lc atf mjylcfa. Llr rtjxlcu ifur mbeivc’a tfiq tlaalcu atf ybaabw bo atf mjylcfa jcv tf rtevvfgfv klat ofjg. Ktfgf kjr cb qblca lc tlvlcu. Pa kjr bnfg.

Squeak.

Ktf vbbg bqfcfv. Rfza, atfgf kjr j ibcu rlifcmf. Ktfgf kfgf cb rmgfjwr, cb tbkir, cb vfrqfgjaf rtbear bg atf ktlwqfgr yfobgf vfjat. Cii rbecv kjr vgjkc jkjs jcv rlwqif rlifcmf gfwjlcfv. Pa kjr jr lo atf atgliilcu qegrela tjv pera yffc j vgfjw.

Nan Zhou listened carefully in an attempt to get some residual information from this dead silence. Suddenly, a male voice rang in his ears. Just now, this voice was whispering madly and quietly. Now he was standing next to Nan Zhou in this boundless darkness, attached to Nan Zhou’s ear and talking to him. The sound wasn’t loud or small but it was creepy enough.

“—I’m going.”

“Nan Zhou, when are you coming?”

[The game will officially begin in 30 seconds.]

[The game time is 120 hours.]

[Don’t go crazy and survive until the game time is over.]

Was this a time limited survival game? Before Nan Zhou had the chance to think carefully, a loud rustling sound surged. It was like the muffled noise caused by electromagnetic interference. It was also like a group of rats swarming from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

His feet were back on solid ground. As the surrounding environment gradually lit up, Nan Zhou heard screams and the referee’s whistle in his eardrums. Then he smelled the rubber of a basketball and the faint smell of sweat. With his eyes closed, Nan Zhou could see the light red blood vessel traces on his eyelids that were reflected by the sun. After ensuring that his eyes wouldn’t be burned by the sudden light, he slowly opened them.

“Pursue your dreams, dare to be the wave!”

“Play wonderfully, play for victory, play for the future!”

First, he saw two bright red banners with slogans, followed by two teams in a stalemate on the field as well as a scoreboard showing a score of 70:71 between the architecture department and mathematics department. The large-screen clock showed there were 23 seconds left. He was watching a basketball match.

Li Yinhang and Jiang Fang had entered the instance with him but they weren’t by his side. Nan Zhou wasn’t in a hurry to find them. He sat there and turned over his wrist to confirm the butterfly tattoo. Then he looked down at the shape of his ankle bones and raised a hand to touch his ears.

Okay, his face was still his face. His clothes had changed. He changed into a white shirt with a crimson sweater jacket and a casual tie. This was a typical academic style. He was surrounded by loud voices and there didn’t seem to be anything that would make people go crazy.

Nan Zhou was consolidating information while the basketball match was decided. The team in orange clothes scored a goal. The 70 on the scoreboard changed to 72 and the 4 seconds on the countdown changed to 0. The overall situation was decided and the score was reversed.

A wave of cheers was set off in the grandstand where Nan Zhou was located. Based on the reaction of the surrounding audience, Nan Zhou quickly made a judgment. He was from the architecture department and the opposite side was the mathematics department.

The architecture department was probably behind the mathematics department from the beginning and only succeeded when there were a few seconds left in the match. Naturally, they were swept away by decadence and joy.

A short student came up to Nan Zhou and grabbed Nan Zhou’s shoulder, jumping and shouted heartily. “Awesome! The seniors are awesome!”

Nan Zhou was shaken by him and didn’t resist. He might be using his own face but it was clear that the NPCs in the instance had been modified to treat him as someone they knew before. Nan Zhou had just figured this out when Nan Zhou saw this schoolmate make a fist, the fist turned inward and pointed toward him.

The boy looked at Senior Nan Zhou expectantly. Apparently he wanted to exchange some punches with Nan Zhou to properly vent his frustration. Nan Zhou was a bit surprised. Then he reached out and adjusted the boy’s direction and fist posture.

The younger brother, “?”

Nan Zhou nodded and said with his eyes, ‘This way, the person hit will be in more pain.’

After patiently educating his junior, Nan Zhou stood up in order to find his teammates. Then without warning, a faint sound entered his ears.

“Sha..”

Nan Zhou stopped and looked back. He didn’t see anything and he rubbed his ears. He didn’t know if it was his illusion but the rustling sound seemed to come from the depths of his ear canal.

***

The transmission was indeed random. After listening to the strange recording, Jiang Fang appeared in an elevator going down. Next to him were two foreign students speaking Russian. Jiang Fang listened to their conversation while opening the bag in his hand with the words ‘International Student Department of Jinjing University’s School of Management’ on it.

He quickly looked at the textbooks one by one. Then he raised his head and confirmed using the slightly reflective elevator wall that his face hadn’t changed.

He was walking out of the apartment for international students and thinking about where to look for Nan Zhou when there was a temporary interruption to the public speaker next to the apartment building that had originally been playing Schubert’s piano music. The content was:

“Dear students, Nan Zhou from the architecture department is lost. Anyone who knows Nan Zhou from the architecture department, please go to the broadcast room to pick him up.”

***

Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang arrived at the broadcast room one after another. Nan Zhou sat on the wooden bench in the broadcasting room alone, his back straight as he held the lock from the receipts box of the last instance. However, the lock that had been firmly closed had actually opened.

Jiang Fang knocked on the glass. Nan Zhou raised his head at the sound and stood up. He poked his head out of the broadcasting room and announced, “My thieving level is 1.”

Nan Zhou was successfully claimed by his teammates and exchanged information with them. The audio content they heard was similar. A person was being pursued. He tried to use the elevator to lead the pursuer away while hiding in the cabinet of a room, only to be found. The only difference was that the man’s last whisper was different.

The basic sentence pattern was; XX, when are you coming?

After hearing this sentence, Li Yinhang’s san value had immediately dropped by 2 points and it hadn’t recovered yet. She could only listen to Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang, the two bigshots who seemed to have no fear.

Jiang Fang said, “That person called out our names, showing that he knows us.”

Nan Zhou hummed in agreement. “We can check this first. According to the setting, we went somewhere together and provoked something.”

It was probably something that made a rustling sound.

Nan Zhou added, “A man called Hu Li died. We can start with Hu Li.”

Jiang Fang mentioned another thing here. “Are you okay?”

Nan Zhou raised his eyebrow. Why ask this question?

“The task time is 120 hours so the risk factor must be relatively high,” Jiang Fang explained. “Even if we don’t die, it might have an impact on our minds.”

Jiang Fang glanced at Nan Zhou. “I’m a bit worried..” about you. The last word was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say it but stopped, unable to speak.

Nan Zhou felt that the question raised by Jiang Fang was indeed worthy of attention. It was definitely too late if they waited until their san value was 0. How could they judge when there was something wrong with a teammate’s mental state?

He thought about it for a brief moment before suggesting, “Let’s agree on a safe word.”

Li Yinhang, “....??” Was this how a safe word should be used?

Nan Zhou noticed Li Yinhang’s complicated expression and nodded knowingly. “Yinhang probably doesn’t know what a safe word means.”

Li Yinhang, “....”

Nan Zhou opened his mouth. “It means..”

Li Yinhang hurriedly prevented him from using this cold voice to say any more strange words. “I know, I know.”

Jiang Fang raised his hand and interjected with a smile. “I don’t know what it means. I want to hear an explanation.”

Li Yinhang, “....” Jiang Fang, are you doing this on purpose?

Nan Zhou honestly gave an explanation. “For example, my safe word is..”

From the corner of his eye, he saw a sign posted in the hallway that said ‘Please don’t make noise’ in English. Nan Zhou continued, “And your safe word is..”

Jiang Fang took the initiative. “Mister.”

Nan Zhou nodded. “My safe word is ‘please’ (English) and your safe word is ‘Mister’. If I find that your spirit is seriously shaking, I will say ‘please’ to you and I want you to answer ‘Mister’ to prove you are sane. This is a safe word.”

Li Yinhang, “....” How was this a fucking safe word? Wasn’t this ‘heavenly king covers the tiger, the pagoda controls the river demon?’ (TL: A classic code phrase. If two members of an organization who don’t know each other meet to carry out a task, one will speak the first line and the other should reply with the second line.)

However, Jiang Fang didn’t correct it and accompanied Nan Zhou to play. “Let’s try it.”

Nan Zhou said, “Please.”

Jiang Fang was full of smiles. “Mister.”

Li Yinhang, “....” Jiang Fang, are you doing this on purpose?

Nan Zhou had no idea about this. He and Jiang Fang successfully connected with their secret signal and he asked her, “Yinhang, do you want to use..”

He abruptly stopped talking. In order to facilitate the conversation, they had walked down an empty stairwell while talking. Nan Zhou sensed something strange. He stopped Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang and placed an index finger against his lips.

The movement from above suddenly disappeared and the people waiting below couldn’t hold back. Three figures left the shadow of the stairs below and strode upstairs.

The man in the lead was a muscular man who was obviously a regular at the gym. The fitness trainer they met in the first instance would probably like him very much. The other two weren’t bad. Their bodies were comparable to the tough guys who charged and broke through enemy lines in the Contra video game.

The man in the lead smiled. “We heard your broadcast. There is actually a student who got lost in the school? This is strange.”

He concluded, “You are also instance players.”

Nan Zhou wasn’t surprised by this result. He dared to use the broadcasting station because he originally planned to gather other players together. Thus, he honestly replied, “Yes, all three of us are players.”

The other side grinned. “That’s good.”

This was an instance with seven people and they should have four teammates. Yet seeing their ill-intentioned expressions, even Li Yinhang became aware that they didn’t encounter the Shunfeng team led by Shen Jie who wanted to seize the right to command at the beginning or the Nanshan team led by Yu Tuisi who wanted to win with stability. Regardless of whether it was Shunfeng or Nanshan, at least they wanted to seek cooperation and pass the instance together.

Meanwhile, the three men with strong builds in front of them had no intention of cooperating at all.

Nan Zhou motionlessly watched the three people pressing forward step by step and wondered, “What do you want to do?”

There wasn’t the addition of the long jacket so Nan Zhou’s mysterious temperament was decreased by 30%. He had an artistic and literary style. His skin was white and transparent. He stood there coldly facing the light from the window in the stairwell and it made this unruly person with bad intentions want to ‘tsk’ him frivolously.

“We don’t want to do anything. We just want to teach newcomers.. you don’t think there is no risk in PVE mode, right?” The man sneered, showing a mouthful of shark-like teeth. He pointed a shiny Swiss knife at Nan Zhou. He mimicked the gesture of raising a person’s chin and made a sexually suggestive gesture. “Hand over any items you have on you.”