Chapter 195: The Last World
With a “bang”.
The door closed again.
Ge Xiu’s mind was muddled due to suffocation, his fair profile was stained with a layer of blush, his expression was blank, his chest was still heaving disorderly, with a dazed and docile look that shouldn’t have appeared on him.
Taking this opportunity, the man leaned forward and stole a kiss on the youth’s pale lips.
He brushed past lightly, like a superficial touch.
By the time Ge Xiu came back to his senses, the other had already retreated in time.
The man stood by the bed, pretending to be looking at the simple clock on the table, then stretched out his hand to open the door and asked without changing expression: “It’s getting late, shall we go?”
Ge Xiu:” …”
He got up from the bed with a gloomy face, stretched out his hand to straighten the collar of his messy shirt and walked out of the room with mixed emotions.
When passing by him, he slammed a knee.
“Hngh!” The man let out a muffled groan, arched his back slightly, a twinge of pain flashed across his face.
Ge Xiu gritted his teeth: “…There is no next time.”
After speaking, he took a deep breath, turned around and walked into the corridor without looking back.
Watching the young man’s receding figure, the man straightened up slowly and he put down his hands, with a faint smile on his lips, there was deep darkness in his eyes.
He gave a low laugh and then walked unhurriedly to keep up.
downstairs.
The previously brilliantly lit hall had become dim, the already gone bright light was like a fleeting phantom, disappearing completely in just half an hour. There was no sound in the dead silent room, alike to mausoleum where all living figures have already disappeared, leaving only countless furniture standing in the vague shadows, vaguely overlapping with each other, making it seem like a monster lurking in the dark.
Only the lights of a few flashlights flickered under the stairs, illuminating the small area.
The players quietly gathered at the entrance of the hall, deliberately lowering their voices and discussed the current situation of this instance in a low voice.
Someone keenly saw Ge Xiu walking down the stairs:
“He’s here.”
“The last one is here too?” Another experienced person turned his head and looked in the direction of the stairs. He watched Ge Xiu who was walking down, frowned slightly and asked in an unfriendly tone of voice: “Why are you here only now? Forgot the thirty minutes agreement? We’ve been waiting here for more than ten minutes.”
Before Ge Xiu could speak, he felt a cold hand rest on his shoulders.
He looked sideways slightly and saw the man followed him at some point. He was standing behind him, with one arm on Ge Xiu’s shoulder, he said gently with a slight smile: “I’m sorry, it’s because of me, I had a little trouble and required help, thanks to the kindness of this unknown gentleman, I solved my urgent need.”
Ge Xiu: …? ? ?
The player who had witnessed everything before stared at the two people in front of him, his eyes switched between the two and he looked at the man lying without changing his face in front of him with a complicated expression— as if he didn’t even need to think about it, because this was what actually happened.
It wasn’t until he finished speaking that the young man standing in front of him calmly stomped on his foot with great strength, so that the man’s brows twitched involuntarily.
Player: “…”
Why were these two people showing their affection so blatantly inside an instance?
The player tried to initiated a conversation with Ge Xiu before said nothing, just stared at the two people in front of him, his eyes fell on the hand on Ge Xiu’s shoulder for a while and then moved to corner of his slightly swollen and reddish lips, his expression was a bit subtle for a while.
At this moment, he felt an abrupt chill behind his back.
He raised his head reflexively only to see a pair of stern and cold pitch-black eyes looking at him from the side. The man’s sickly pale complexion looked unsettling in the dark, one could not help but feel subconscious palpitations. The smile on his lips had not yet faded, but the feeling in his eyes was chilling and gloomy, like some kind of predatory beast.
The eerie feeling of being targeted made the player’s scalp tingle instantly, his back felt cold, as if he was being targeted by a boss in an instance.
He looked away in panic.
When he finally came back to his senses, he cautiously glanced in the direction of the man again, but the man had already withdrawn his eyes, as if the menacing gaze just now was not directed at him.
While that player was in doubt, the other players saw that everyone had arrived, so they started talking about business.
There were three veterans who had experienced role-playing instances before, so they spread the rules of such instance to other players.
The higher the difficulty of the dungeon, the greater the variety. The role-playing instance was one of the most open types. The background, characters and even taboos of each role-playing instances were completely different, but there was also a certain similarity.
Generally speaking, there would be many NPCs in such a dungeon, and these NPCs may or may not be bosses, but no matter which possibility, they definitely were not friendly to players.
The instance was divided into two sections, one when the NPCs became active and when they were dormant.
During NPC active time, all players must follow their own role settings and couldn’t perform behaviors that exceed their own character identities—if such behaviors occured three times, the NPC would recognize his identity as a fake and from that time on, such person would become the target of all NPCs in the dungeon, until their unfortunate death.
When the NPCs became dormant, players could free from the role setting and move freely.
But this period of time was often at night. Although activities at night were extremely dangerous, they might provide players with clues to ensure the safety of their characters during the day. After all, the progress of the plot was out of control and no one could know for sure what actions would NPCs make the next day, whether they would ask any questions or directly kill the character they were playing as according to the plot.
And the plot often affected the whole instance, so this instance required combined teamwork of all players, so communication and meeting between the players became very important this time.
Role-playing instances often had a short script to act and the instance would end naturally after the plot was finished.
The player who was explaining the rules of the game turned his head to look at Ge Xiu, and continued to say: “…judging from the clues provided by the hostess just now, the plot of this instance should be her daughter’s wedding. If we can last until the wedding is over, this instance should be over.”
“Now,” another experienced player interjected, “Everyone say the identities you have drawn, so that tomorrow’s plot can go smoothly.”
The players nodded one after another.
Starting from the left, everyone began to report their drawn identities one by one:
“Horse caretaker.”
“Gardener.”
“Chef.”
When Ge Xiu’s turn came, he shrugged his shoulders and said casually, “The hostess’ daughter.”
When they first entered the dungeon, everyone heard what the hostess said and saw her attitude towards Ge Xiu, so no one questioned this, but they looked at the person standing next to him, waiting for him to reveal his identity.
Ge Xiu also looked over with great interest.
He originally thought that the other party would remain invisible in this dungeon like last time, but he didn’t expect that the other party would show up so generously this time, even following him into the player group.
Ge Xiu was quite interested in what the other party wanted to play this time.
The man’s face didn’t show any waves, as he said calmly,
“The hostess’ son-in-law.”
Ge Xiu: “…”
Players: “…???”
…This instance still can be played like this? ?
There was a brief stagnation in the air, the experienced players looked at each other in blank dismay.
Although there was no precedent for a player and a player to become a pair before… However, there seemed to be no rule in the game that prohibited this from happening?
After being dumbfounded for a moment, everyone quickly came back to their senses. After all, the time was pressing and more than half of them hadn’t been introduced yet.
After the players looked away from them, Ge Xiu tugged at the man behind him, leaned closer and whispered to him:
“…What exactly do you want?”
The man said with an innocent face, “Nothing ah.”
“……Heh.” Ge Xiu gave him a blank look.
I believe you ghost.
·
Soon, everyone had introduced themselves. Except for some players who have not figured out the meaning of their cards yet, the others were mostly familiar with each other’s roles in this dungeon.
The veteran player who had explained the rules just now— having introduced himself as Du Yan—said: “According to common sense, everyone should be able to find information and items related to their identity in their rooms, so I suggest for you to go back to your rooms first, especially the players who are guests.”
He pointed to the top hat on the card in his hand: “After all, there are quite a few guests this time and everyone’s identities are different.”
Then, Du Yan continued: “By the way, I hope everyone can form a team to search…”
He sighed: “This time the instance is closely related to the plot, plot and survival closely linked. One butterfly will set off a chain reaction. Although it will take longer to form a team, a death of any person will be a great loss to us.”
Du Yan paused, and added: “And more importantly, there must be an eyewitness, so that even if someone dies, the other will see what danger is in the dark, helping to solve the mystery of this instance.”
In the mouths of experienced players, death was said so lightly, as if it was commonplace.
There were a few newcomers who have not yet adapted to the cruelty of this game, after listening to what he said, their faces suddenly turned pale.
“By the way,” another senior player seemed to suddenly think of something, and continued: “Although in the role-playing instance, we can only do activities at night, we must not search too late, end the activity by midnight at the latest ——Although we’re not very clear about the rules in this instance right now, it is a common rule in the game to not be active in the early morning, I think it is better to be cautious.”
Other players nodded in agreement.
Ge Xiu glanced at the grandfather clock standing in the darkness beside the stairs.
The time displayed above was half past nine.
For the players, there was two and a half hours of activity time left.
Everyone quickly selected their teammates and with flashlights in their hands, they walked towards every corner of this huge villa.
——And Ge Xiu and the ghost sticking behind him naturally formed a team.
The two walked up the stairs together.
Ge Xiu asked in the meantime,
“Are you so sure that my identity’s NPC fiancé won’t show up tomorrow?”
The man lowered his eyes, a pair of dark eyes hidden under thick and long eyelashes, a faint and unpredictable smile hung on his lips, his eyes were dark and unfathomable: “Will not.”
Ge Xiu was slightly taken aback, then narrowed his eyes, and asked:
“What did you do?”
The man smiled, but the almost paranoid determination in his eyes was almost shocking: “No NPC will have this identity.”
His eyes fell on the staircase in front of him, the voice was deep and gentle, like the lover’s whisper:
“At least I won’t allow it.”
“…” Ge Xiu stopped walking.
He turned his head and gave the other party a fixed look, then took back his gaze, and continued to walk up:
“Whatever you want.”
After walking a few steps, Ge Xiu added lightly:
“Remember to do it cleanly.”
The smile on his lips deepened: “Okay.”
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NPC: ? ? ?
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