The performance of the NPCs in the game did not surprise Bai Yi. Just by the impure aura emanating from their souls, Bai Yi did not believe they could love each other unconditionally.
He chose to submit the task and end this instance.
The system, which had been playing dead most of the time, appeared again.
Lines of twisted, blurry text flickered before Bai Yi’s eyes.
[Successfully cleared the Nightmare Fragment [Lamb’s Counterattack]]
[Instance Level: ☆]
[Clearance Evaluation: S]
[Points Earned: 5]
[Unlocked Achievements: [Killed Eleven People in Half a Day] [Master of the Melon Field in Qingnan High School] (Explanation omitted)]
[Opened Hidden Instance: [Demon’s Game]]
[Instance Level: ★★]
Clearance Evaluation: S]
[Points Earned: 20]
[Unlocked Achievements: [Heart of the Demon]]
[Explanation: You completed the basic task with a completion degree of 300%, and on this basis, you elevated the task several levels. The weak and powerless lamb was twisted into a man-eating demon by your outstanding performance.]
[Want to play a game?]
[Explanation: You toyed with everyone in a way that could be described as ruthless, becoming everyone’s nightmare.]
[Seven Mysterious Legends of the Campus]
[Explanation: Because of your existence, Qingnan High School became the prototype of a horror novel. Seven mysterious legends were born here and will be permanently circulated in the Nightmare Fragment instances. The ghosts who died tragically curse day and night with resentment, but they don’t even know who the real culprit is.]
[Start special reward extraction.]
[You received a special drop: Nightmare Crystal (White) ×10.]
[You received a special growth card [???]]
[Explanation: Since this card has not yet reached its peak, it can continue to grow, and the current star-level characteristics are unknown.]
[Do you choose to keep this Nightmare Fragment instance and cultivate this special growth card in the instance? The system will open a new hang-up mode for players to accelerate time within the instance.]
Bai Yi, who was originally lacking in interest, brightened up. “Idle mode? It seems that you, the system, have finally learned to keep up with the times!”
He decisively chose to keep the instance.
Regarding the inability to idle, Bai Yi had never stopped complaining. In every interval of the game, his two opposing principles technique output was enough to make anyone want to kill him on the spot.
Fortunately, the system was not a person.
For general mobile games or PC games, he only needed to sit in front of the screen controlling the NPCs. Perhaps five minutes had passed in reality, but five days had already passed in the game time. During this time, he could idle and daydream.
But the nightmare game was not so friendly in this regard.
Although there was a huge difference in the speed of time between reality and the nightmare, every minute and second in the nightmare was truly experienced by Bai Yi himself, which meant that he could only carry out tasks that were relatively short in duration.
If a certain instance required three years to clear, he would really have to spend three years in the nightmare instance as a character.
–This kind of patience, he had always lacked.
Under Bai Yi’s expectant gaze, the system hesitated for a moment.
[Idle mode is about to start.]
[Under idle mode, time accelerates within the Nightmare Fragment instance. The game character will continue to grow according to the traits assigned by the player, and the system will deduce his fate line for a period of time in the future until he reasonably reaches the peak.]
[The main traits currently assigned by the player to the game character [Xu Dong] are: [Cunning] [Cold] [Insight] [Manipulation] [Control Desire] [Disguise]]
[Combining the worldview within the Nightmare Fragment instance, the system will deduce the character’s fate line accordingly.]
[Do you want to start idle mode?]
Bai Yi chose without hesitation: “Of course.”
The next moment, he only felt his soul lightly floating up into the sky, looking down at everything below from a bird’s eye view.
First was Qingnan High School, then the nearby streets and communities, and finally an aerial view of an entire city appeared in Bai Yi’s line of sight, with a large blank area on the edge of the city.
The whole world was like a jigsaw puzzle that had been shattered and reassembled, undergoing dizzying changes. Under the acceleration of time, all things were like the scenery flying by outside the car window, leaving only a blurry impression on his retina.
Feeling bored, Bai Yi temporarily exited the game.
He surfaced from the deep sea adorned with large pieces of star fragments, and the first thing he saw was the gradually sinking night outside the window.
The blackness, like ink, dyed his pupils.
Gurgle…
Because he had been immersed in the final week of the game and missed dinner, his stomach protested.
Bai Yi reached out and touched his shriveled stomach, lying on the bed not wanting to move.
He tried to persuade his stomach. “Be quiet, you can do it, be strong for a while…”
Gurgle gurgle…
The response from his stomach was very disrespectful to him.
“……”
Bai Yi rolled around on the bed, from left to right, and finally got up reluctantly. “Alright, alright, I really can’t handle you. Even though I’m not hungry yet, who made you hungry?”
The wall clock was already pointing to 7:30 in the evening, and Bai Yi slowly walked towards the kitchen to start washing the vegetables.
Fortunately, before he started the final week, he had already bought all the vegetables for dinner, otherwise, at this point in time, he might not be able to buy any fresh ingredients.
The kitchen knife seemed to have a life of its own, almost dancing out afterimages on the chopping board.
This knife skill was enough to make any onlooker doubtless that the person with such knife skill must be a rare great chef–before they tasted the food he cooked.
Today, the sparrows outside the window were smart and stayed away from Bai Yi’s kitchen early. The heavy clouds gathered.
The sky was gloomy all day. When Bai Yi was immersed in the final week of the game, he just missed the brief glow of the sunset, and then the sky returned to its dark tone.
When he went downstairs to throw out the trash, many residents were walking outside. Seeing Bai Yi, they all greeted him.
For this young man who had moved to the old city area for more than half a year, everyone considered themselves to be quite familiar with him.
Although he hardly went out unless it was necessary to buy vegetables, and seemed a bit reclusive and strange, hard to approach; but once they communicated with him, everyone couldn’t help but like his quiet and easy-going, good at listening personality.
He was friendly to everyone, could take a joke, and never got angry about anything. The older people liked such a “good boy”.
So, everyone was keen to chat with this young man who was good at listening, and they were also willing to share gossip with him who rarely went out, so that he would not be left behind because of the lagging news.
Just as he went downstairs, someone started a conversation with him.
“It’s been more than half a month since I last saw you, Bai Yi, you look even whiter, I’m really envious.”
The girl who was speaking was tall and wore casual summer clothes. Her hair was tied into a ponytail and peeked out from under a baseball cap. The ends of her hair curled up on her shoulders, giving off a different kind of vitality.
This was a resident living downstairs from Bai Yi, named Xia Jiajia. A warm and straightforward college student who spent most of her time living in school, allowing Bai Yi to enjoy the quiet.
Just for this reason, Bai Yi was very satisfied with her.
Xia Jiajia was still looking at the young man in front of her, praising him with a sound of admiration that only girls could understand.
This time, she had a rare vacation to come home, and also happened to bump into Bai Yi going out. She immediately enthusiastically cut the fresh watermelon in front of her into several slices and handed one to Bai Yi.
“Here, have a slice of watermelon. It’s just bought, big and sweet.”
“En, it’s really sweet~” Bai Yi thanked her, took a bite of the watermelon she handed him, and then made a fair evaluation.
“You must have heard about Teacher Gu’s incident, right? I didn’t expect such a big thing to happen in the old city area while I was at school for more than half a month…um, this watermelon is delicious, eat more.”
Xia Jiajia gossiped while eating watermelon. Looking at the face in front of her that exceeded the standard of beauty, the watermelon in her hand tasted even sweeter.
After all, who isn’t a beauty dog?
She casually handed Bai Yi another slice of watermelon.
Bai Yi touched his stomach, chose to refuse, and naturally took over her topic. “Looking at your reaction, is the car accident not over yet?”
“You guessed it!” Xia Jiajia gave a thumbs up, “I just got some fresh gossip. It seems that not long after Tian Yin went to the police station to testify, the Gu family made a fuss again. Just ten minutes ago, Mrs. Gu had a heart attack and was sent to the hospital, and it seems that Mr. Gu is not in a good condition either.”
She shook her head in confusion. “What does Teacher Gu’s incident have to do with Tian Yin? I really didn’t expect that Mrs. Gu and the others are such people! Do they really think that Tian Yin killed Teacher Gu? I didn’t see them being so superstitious before!”
Because of this reason, she, who should have sympathized with Teacher Gu’s car accident, felt that she couldn’t sympathize.
Bai Yi was playing the role of a “melon-eating crowd” on the side.
He knew that even if he didn’t speak, Xia Jiajia would be very interested in continuing.
Sure enough, after criticizing Mrs. Gu and the others a few times, Xia Jiajia brought the topic to Bai Yi. “If I remember correctly, your initial target for renting a house should be next to the Gu family, right? That room is almost the best environment in the old city area. If I wasn’t short of money, I would have chosen there. Weren’t you very satisfied at the time? Why did you back out later?”
“——Because I originally thought there were only two old people there, but every weekend the biggest source of garbage pollution would appear.”
Xia Jiajia was stunned, even her accent came out. “Ah? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know? Teacher Gu has body odor, and every weekend when he passes by my house, I get smoked.”
Bai Yi said in a serious tone.
It was such an absurd thing, but his tone and demeanor were so serious that Xia Jiajia really believed his nonsense. She immediately gasped, showing an incredulous expression, her eyes full of disgust.
“No way? He, he’s really that…”
…Suddenly, she didn’t want to eat the watermelon in her hand anymore.
“Of course…I’m joking! You didn’t really believe me, did you?”
Bai Yi, however, retracted his words, a smile appearing on his face, with a lively spirit of a child who had successfully played a prank.
Xia Jiajia was startled, quickly eating the watermelon to calm herself down, and couldn’t help but complain, “You said it so seriously, who wouldn’t believe it? But, I don’t really like Teacher Gu either, I always feel that his temperament is a bit gloomy…”
As the two were talking, there was a sudden chill above their heads.
One drop, two drops, three drops, the raindrops fell.
Bai Yi stretched out his hand to catch the raindrops. “It’s raining.”
“Ah, it’s raining!”
Xia Jiajia exclaimed, hastily packing up her things.
Bai Yi, who had come back to his senses, helped her move the tables, chairs, and benches that she had placed outside into the house.
Then, he declined Xia Jiajia’s enthusiastic invitation and turned to leave.
The illusory card flickered at his fingertips.
Looking at the slender figure of the young man in the rain curtain, Xia Jiajia inexplicably felt a strange feeling rise up, and couldn’t help but shake her head.
“Why do I always have a premonition that something big is about to happen? Is it because this scene is so beautiful, just like the prelude to a blockbuster movie where the curtain is about to be lifted?”
The performance of the NPCs in the game did not surprise Bai Yi. Just by the impure aura emanating from their souls, Bai Yi did not believe they could love each other unconditionally.
He chose to submit the task and end this instance.
The system, which had been playing dead most of the time, appeared again.
Lines of twisted, blurry text flickered before Bai Yi’s eyes.
[Successfully cleared the Nightmare Fragment [Lamb’s Counterattack]]
[Instance Level: ☆]
[Clearance Evaluation: S]
[Points Earned: 5]
[Unlocked Achievements: [Killed Eleven People in Half a Day] [Master of the Melon Field in Qingnan High School] (Explanation omitted)]
[Opened Hidden Instance: [Demon’s Game]]
[Instance Level: ★★]
Clearance Evaluation: S]
[Points Earned: 20]
[Unlocked Achievements: [Heart of the Demon]]
[Explanation: You completed the basic task with a completion degree of 300%, and on this basis, you elevated the task several levels. The weak and powerless lamb was twisted into a man-eating demon by your outstanding performance.]
[Want to play a game?]
[Explanation: You toyed with everyone in a way that could be described as ruthless, becoming everyone’s nightmare.]
[Seven Mysterious Legends of the Campus]
[Explanation: Because of your existence, Qingnan High School became the prototype of a horror novel. Seven mysterious legends were born here and will be permanently circulated in the Nightmare Fragment instances. The ghosts who died tragically curse day and night with resentment, but they don’t even know who the real culprit is.]
[Start special reward extraction.]
[You received a special drop: Nightmare Crystal (White) ×10.]
[You received a special growth card [???]]
[Explanation: Since this card has not yet reached its peak, it can continue to grow, and the current star-level characteristics are unknown.]
[Do you choose to keep this Nightmare Fragment instance and cultivate this special growth card in the instance? The system will open a new hang-up mode for players to accelerate time within the instance.]
Bai Yi, who was originally lacking in interest, brightened up. “Idle mode? It seems that you, the system, have finally learned to keep up with the times!”
He decisively chose to keep the instance.
Regarding the inability to idle, Bai Yi had never stopped complaining. In every interval of the game, his two opposing principles technique output was enough to make anyone want to kill him on the spot.
Fortunately, the system was not a person.
For general mobile games or PC games, he only needed to sit in front of the screen controlling the NPCs. Perhaps five minutes had passed in reality, but five days had already passed in the game time. During this time, he could idle and daydream.
But the nightmare game was not so friendly in this regard.
Although there was a huge difference in the speed of time between reality and the nightmare, every minute and second in the nightmare was truly experienced by Bai Yi himself, which meant that he could only carry out tasks that were relatively short in duration.
If a certain instance required three years to clear, he would really have to spend three years in the nightmare instance as a character.
–This kind of patience, he had always lacked.
Under Bai Yi’s expectant gaze, the system hesitated for a moment.
[Idle mode is about to start.]
[Under idle mode, time accelerates within the Nightmare Fragment instance. The game character will continue to grow according to the traits assigned by the player, and the system will deduce his fate line for a period of time in the future until he reasonably reaches the peak.]
[The main traits currently assigned by the player to the game character [Xu Dong] are: [Cunning] [Cold] [Insight] [Manipulation] [Control Desire] [Disguise]]
[Combining the worldview within the Nightmare Fragment instance, the system will deduce the character’s fate line accordingly.]
[Do you want to start idle mode?]
Bai Yi chose without hesitation: “Of course.”
The next moment, he only felt his soul lightly floating up into the sky, looking down at everything below from a bird’s eye view.
First was Qingnan High School, then the nearby streets and communities, and finally an aerial view of an entire city appeared in Bai Yi’s line of sight, with a large blank area on the edge of the city.
The whole world was like a jigsaw puzzle that had been shattered and reassembled, undergoing dizzying changes. Under the acceleration of time, all things were like the scenery flying by outside the car window, leaving only a blurry impression on his retina.
Feeling bored, Bai Yi temporarily exited the game.
He surfaced from the deep sea adorned with large pieces of star fragments, and the first thing he saw was the gradually sinking night outside the window.
The blackness, like ink, dyed his pupils.
Gurgle…
Because he had been immersed in the final week of the game and missed dinner, his stomach protested.
Bai Yi reached out and touched his shriveled stomach, lying on the bed not wanting to move.
He tried to persuade his stomach. “Be quiet, you can do it, be strong for a while…”
Gurgle gurgle…
The response from his stomach was very disrespectful to him.
“……”
Bai Yi rolled around on the bed, from left to right, and finally got up reluctantly. “Alright, alright, I really can’t handle you. Even though I’m not hungry yet, who made you hungry?”
The wall clock was already pointing to 7:30 in the evening, and Bai Yi slowly walked towards the kitchen to start washing the vegetables.
Fortunately, before he started the final week, he had already bought all the vegetables for dinner, otherwise, at this point in time, he might not be able to buy any fresh ingredients.
The kitchen knife seemed to have a life of its own, almost dancing out afterimages on the chopping board.
This knife skill was enough to make any onlooker doubtless that the person with such knife skill must be a rare great chef–before they tasted the food he cooked.
Today, the sparrows outside the window were smart and stayed away from Bai Yi’s kitchen early. The heavy clouds gathered.
The sky was gloomy all day. When Bai Yi was immersed in the final week of the game, he just missed the brief glow of the sunset, and then the sky returned to its dark tone.
When he went downstairs to throw out the trash, many residents were walking outside. Seeing Bai Yi, they all greeted him.
For this young man who had moved to the old city area for more than half a year, everyone considered themselves to be quite familiar with him.
Although he hardly went out unless it was necessary to buy vegetables, and seemed a bit reclusive and strange, hard to approach; but once they communicated with him, everyone couldn’t help but like his quiet and easy-going, good at listening personality.
He was friendly to everyone, could take a joke, and never got angry about anything. The older people liked such a “good boy”.
So, everyone was keen to chat with this young man who was good at listening, and they were also willing to share gossip with him who rarely went out, so that he would not be left behind because of the lagging news.
Just as he went downstairs, someone started a conversation with him.
“It’s been more than half a month since I last saw you, Bai Yi, you look even whiter, I’m really envious.”
The girl who was speaking was tall and wore casual summer clothes. Her hair was tied into a ponytail and peeked out from under a baseball cap. The ends of her hair curled up on her shoulders, giving off a different kind of vitality.
This was a resident living downstairs from Bai Yi, named Xia Jiajia. A warm and straightforward college student who spent most of her time living in school, allowing Bai Yi to enjoy the quiet.
Just for this reason, Bai Yi was very satisfied with her.
Xia Jiajia was still looking at the young man in front of her, praising him with a sound of admiration that only girls could understand.
This time, she had a rare vacation to come home, and also happened to bump into Bai Yi going out. She immediately enthusiastically cut the fresh watermelon in front of her into several slices and handed one to Bai Yi.
“Here, have a slice of watermelon. It’s just bought, big and sweet.”
“En, it’s really sweet~” Bai Yi thanked her, took a bite of the watermelon she handed him, and then made a fair evaluation.
“You must have heard about Teacher Gu’s incident, right? I didn’t expect such a big thing to happen in the old city area while I was at school for more than half a month…um, this watermelon is delicious, eat more.”
Xia Jiajia gossiped while eating watermelon. Looking at the face in front of her that exceeded the standard of beauty, the watermelon in her hand tasted even sweeter.
After all, who isn’t a beauty dog?
She casually handed Bai Yi another slice of watermelon.
Bai Yi touched his stomach, chose to refuse, and naturally took over her topic. “Looking at your reaction, is the car accident not over yet?”
“You guessed it!” Xia Jiajia gave a thumbs up, “I just got some fresh gossip. It seems that not long after Tian Yin went to the police station to testify, the Gu family made a fuss again. Just ten minutes ago, Mrs. Gu had a heart attack and was sent to the hospital, and it seems that Mr. Gu is not in a good condition either.”
She shook her head in confusion. “What does Teacher Gu’s incident have to do with Tian Yin? I really didn’t expect that Mrs. Gu and the others are such people! Do they really think that Tian Yin killed Teacher Gu? I didn’t see them being so superstitious before!”
Because of this reason, she, who should have sympathized with Teacher Gu’s car accident, felt that she couldn’t sympathize.
Bai Yi was playing the role of a “melon-eating crowd” on the side.
He knew that even if he didn’t speak, Xia Jiajia would be very interested in continuing.
Sure enough, after criticizing Mrs. Gu and the others a few times, Xia Jiajia brought the topic to Bai Yi. “If I remember correctly, your initial target for renting a house should be next to the Gu family, right? That room is almost the best environment in the old city area. If I wasn’t short of money, I would have chosen there. Weren’t you very satisfied at the time? Why did you back out later?”
“——Because I originally thought there were only two old people there, but every weekend the biggest source of garbage pollution would appear.”
Xia Jiajia was stunned, even her accent came out. “Ah? What do you mean?”
“Don’t you know? Teacher Gu has body odor, and every weekend when he passes by my house, I get smoked.”
Bai Yi said in a serious tone.
It was such an absurd thing, but his tone and demeanor were so serious that Xia Jiajia really believed his nonsense. She immediately gasped, showing an incredulous expression, her eyes full of disgust.
“No way? He, he’s really that…”
…Suddenly, she didn’t want to eat the watermelon in her hand anymore.
“Of course…I’m joking! You didn’t really believe me, did you?”
Bai Yi, however, retracted his words, a smile appearing on his face, with a lively spirit of a child who had successfully played a prank.
Xia Jiajia was startled, quickly eating the watermelon to calm herself down, and couldn’t help but complain, “You said it so seriously, who wouldn’t believe it? But, I don’t really like Teacher Gu either, I always feel that his temperament is a bit gloomy…”
As the two were talking, there was a sudden chill above their heads.
One drop, two drops, three drops, the raindrops fell.
Bai Yi stretched out his hand to catch the raindrops. “It’s raining.”
“Ah, it’s raining!”
Xia Jiajia exclaimed, hastily packing up her things.
Bai Yi, who had come back to his senses, helped her move the tables, chairs, and benches that she had placed outside into the house.
Then, he declined Xia Jiajia’s enthusiastic invitation and turned to leave.
The illusory card flickered at his fingertips.
Looking at the slender figure of the young man in the rain curtain, Xia Jiajia inexplicably felt a strange feeling rise up, and couldn’t help but shake her head.
“Why do I always have a premonition that something big is about to happen? Is it because this scene is so beautiful, just like the prelude to a blockbuster movie where the curtain is about to be lifted?”
