Chapter 38 The Infinite Boss Invites You to "Eat the Melon" 38. Currently...

When Pei Yanzhi sensed the sudden fluctuation in the game rules, he realized something was wrong. He immediately surged with spatial power, trying to pull Lu Yu back, but he was a step too late.

He disappeared silently behind Lu Yu, his shouts at the exit completely silenced, leaving no trace.

After a brief but familiar period of weightlessness, Pei Yanzhi found himself surrounded by a rocky beach.

"This place..."

Pei Yanzhi looked around, his brow furrowing slightly. He felt that this seemingly unremarkable island looked somewhat familiar.

"I'm being matched into a dungeon at this time. Ji Chengchuan really is your favorite son."

He looked at the floating light screen in front of him, smiled sneer, and without much hesitation, took a step towards the island.

He didn't intend to linger here; he just wanted to complete the exploration as quickly as possible, trigger the story mission, and then leave.

This obvious diversionary tactic was within his and Lu Yu's expectations, but when it actually happened, he still couldn't help but worry about Lu Yu's safety.

But he also knew that once you entered the instance, you couldn't leave until you cleared it. Even if he left spatial coordinates next to Lu Yu and could open a spatial passage, he couldn't break the instance's scene restrictions. These were the rules of the game, rules that even Smile Games itself had to abide by.

“Lu Yu’s abilities have recovered a lot, and Xiao Qian and the others are all here too.”

Pei Yanzhi tried to calm himself down.

Where is this?

"Have you entered the dungeon yet?"

"A B-rank dungeon, with no story introduction yet. It seems like it's the kind that needs to be explored before it can be unlocked..."

A few chattering voices came from not far away, clearly from other players who had also been matched in. They seemed to know each other and were not wary of one another.

Pei Yanzhi ignored him and expanded his spatial power, covering the entire island.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

Using the power of space, he saw a huge cliff shaped like a rift valley on the other side of the island, with thick, scarlet magma churning inside.

Pei Yanzhi understood where his sense of familiarity came from.

This was indeed a replica he had visited before, but after three years, it had changed, transforming from barren land into lush, vibrant greenery.

"Let's take a look at the beach first, and then go into the woods..."

"Wait a minute, isn't there someone over there?"

Pei Yanzhi did not conceal his presence, and the four players over there quickly discovered his presence.

"He doesn't look like a local; he's probably a player. Looks like our team isn't the only one in this dungeon... Should we go over and say hello? This guy has a real boss vibe..."

"A big shot aura? He seems like a big shot, doesn't he? He looks a lot like the World Lord who's at the top of the leaderboard. I saw him when I went to the plaza to join the fun last time!"

"The Realm Lord?! Isn't he supposed to be ruthless? Let's hurry up and leave, he shouldn't have noticed us yet!"

"If he really is a Realm Lord, then he must have spatial power. Do you think he discovered us? But Realm Lords are only ruthless towards their enemies; I've never heard of him killing any innocent people..."

Pei Yanzhi originally didn't intend to pay attention to these four players, but after overhearing this, he found it interesting, so he raised his finger and used his spatial power to send a wisp of breeze.

His indifferent voice carried on the wind: "This place is suspected to be one of the islands of fallen gods, the site of the final battle between the gods and the god-slayers. If you're not afraid of death, follow me, and we'll clear it in half an hour."

A gentle breeze whispered in the players' ears.

The four of them were stunned.

"Godfall Ruins? I've heard of that dungeon. It's a large-scale dungeon, divided into an outer and central area. Because the overall pollution is low, the level isn't high, but the danger is quite high. It's said to be comparable to an S-rank dungeon!"

"Should we...?"

"But that's the Realm Lord, I'm scared..."

After sending that gentle breeze away, Pei Yanzhi paid no more attention to them. He had done more than enough; whether they followed or not was entirely their own choice. He had no time to waste.

Surrounded by spatial power, Pei Yanzhi traversed the dense forest as if walking on flat ground, heading straight for the lava cliff.

Along the way, many strange and eerie creatures were disturbed and launched attacks, but they were all shredded into mush by the power of space in the blink of an eye. Halfway there, he noticed the movement behind him, turned his head and looked, and saw four disheveled figures chasing after him in the distance.

If his investigation is correct, the key to clearing the dungeon lies beneath the cliff.

This is different from three years ago. Most instances and the entire planet are constantly evolving and changing; there are no resets or stagnations—this is common knowledge that all players understand.

Upon reaching the precipice, Pei Yanzhi jumped straight down, and the endless lava flowed backwards in an instant before solidifying.

Amidst the unmoving, scorching red sky, Pei Yanzhi suddenly remembered something, raised his hand to lock onto the current area, and then directly activated an exploration point.

[Beep beep!]

[Exploration hint: Fragments of an awakened deity exist in the current area!]

Pei Yanzhi paused, then abruptly stopped in his tracks.

...

In the forest of stone statues, the red rain had stopped sometime earlier, and a small white bird landed on a treetop, cautiously and curiously turning its eyes to look at the open space.

In the open space, Lu Yu leaned against a tree stump, casually raising his finger to wipe the side of his face, scraping off a bit of blood.

“A very potent toxin,” he examined his fingertips, “but it’s not quite enough to kill me.”

Around him lay five heads and nine corpses, blood pooling in shallow puddles that soaked patches of woodland, making the stench even stronger.

In the distance, faint noises could be heard, as if some ferocious beast had been attracted by the smell of blood, but was too intimidated by the invisible terror of the place to make any move.

"Is that all the methods you have?"

Lu Yu looked at the two captured prisoners in front of him.

Along with that sentence, he originally wanted to lick off the blood from his fingertips to create a sinister and ruthless effect, but then he thought about how he had been traversing the rainforest for two hours and had engaged in a passionate battle that lasted more than ten minutes, so his fingers probably weren't very clean. Therefore, he paused for a moment and chose to give up.

His occasional bouts of mysophobia alone mean he's not cut out to be some kind of perverted, lewd person. Of course, if that bit of blood were on Pei Yanzhi, especially on his… then his own mysophobia could be a bit more flexible; after all, one has to be flexible in some things.

Lu Yu, as usual, drifted off into thought.

To the two survivors, this meant that the tyrannical, cold-blooded, capricious, and manipulative Boss, who loved to toy with players, was reliving the terrifying scene of bloodshed with a look of pure pleasure.

That's perverted, absolutely perverted.

The two gritted their teeth, wanting to fight back and try to escape with all their might, but the memory of the Boss's unpredictable appearances and the sudden intrusion of Xiao Qian and the others midway through the battle made their resolve falter. The Boss alone had wiped them out, and he was followed by reinforcements and bodyguards from the elite squad—who could possibly defeat them?

"Tell me, why did you come to kill me?"

Lu Yu quickly snapped out of his thoughts, unscrewed a bottle of mineral water, and asked while drinking, "The Boss battle is far from starting, so it's not right for you to be in such a hurry to ask me to take action, is it?"

"Could something interesting have happened that I don't know about?"

Both survivors wore expressions of resignation to their fate and remained silent.

Xiaoqian, standing to the side, kicked him upon seeing this: "Our captain's husband is asking you a question, are you mute?"

Lu Yu: "..."

How exactly does Yan Zhi train his team members? Something seems off about this style.

Xiao Wan and Wang Kun quietly wiped their faces in embarrassment.

It seems like Xiaoqian has wanted to play the role of a gangster's lackey for quite some time now.

The two survivors remained silent.

"Oh dear, you won't listen to reason, so you'll have to suffer the consequences, huh? Watch me..." Xiao Qian rolled up her sleeves, ready to beat someone up.

Lu Yu knew that Xiao Qian was not reckless and knew what was important, so he didn't stop her. He just glanced at the two people kneeling in a disheveled state in front of him.

The two were a brother and sister in their twenties or thirties. Their survival was not accidental; it was the result of his careful selection.

The two were kicked several times by Xiaoqian. Although the brother looked disgusted with his sister, he still protected her a couple of times. Xiaoqian's punches and kicks mostly landed on the brother.

"alright."

Feeling that the time was right, Lu Yu slightly raised his hand and used spatial power to stop Xiao Qian.

"If I remember correctly, your names are Lu Dan and Lu Shuang, right? You're players from Ji Chengchuan's guild, and also his lovers."

Lu Yu looked at the brother and sister: "Before you met him, you were a brother and sister with a very good relationship. After you met him, the brother resented the sister for stealing his lover, and the sister resented the brother for sleeping with her boyfriend. The two turned against each other, often quarreled, and almost fought at their own grandfather's funeral?"

"What's it to you?"

The younger sister scoffed, looking as if she had overcome her fear, completely unfazed, and didn't care about anything: "Boss loves gossip too? You'd better gossip to your heart's content now, otherwise, when the vice president comes to kill you in a couple of days, you won't even have the life to gossip! If you dare to kill me, the vice president will devour you and tear you to pieces to avenge me!"

Aside from light novels, Lu Yu hadn't heard similar lines in real life for a long time.

He racked his brains for a while before finally managing to come up with a line that was barely passable: "Are you so sure that Ji Chengchuan will come and kill me personally to avenge you? I think he's a coward. He only dares to send out cannon fodder like you who are of average value to test the waters. He wouldn't dare to do anything more than that."

"Who are you calling cannon fodder? This is the vice president's high regard for us! It's love!" Before the younger sister could retort, the older brother next to her had already started shouting, his neck stiff.

For a moment, Lu Yu thought that these two were truly beyond saving.

But sensing the pollution on them, and based on the information I had previously gathered, I felt that, relatively speaking, they were still salvageable.

"Do you love Ji Chengchuan so much that you're willing to turn against your own family?" Lu Yu asked.

Brother: "Of course! You don't understand the vice president at all. He's a very charismatic person, kind-hearted, and gentle. Even when he gets angry, he can't bear to hurt anyone. He's the light in my life, my only salvation..."

Sister: "As long as I can gain the vice president's favor, I'd give my life for him, let alone any bastard who would dare to steal my sister's man! You have no idea what the vice president means to me; he pulled me out of the abyss..."

"Very good, remember what you said."

Lu Yu turned off the recording button on his phone, and at the same time raised his hands, holding down one of the siblings on each side, and began to conduct an experiment.

The brother and sister were held down. At first, they struggled in fear and confusion, but soon their struggles weakened and their expressions began to change. Their eyes showed a strange bewilderment and daze.

“System,” Lu Yu’s voice echoed in my mind, “From the very beginning when I unlocked Ji Chengchuan’s entry, I’ve been pondering why Ji Chengchuan is the so-called heartthrob. Later, the more I learned, the clearer my guess became. I suspect that the biggest reason why so many players fall in love with Ji Chengchuan, willingly be driven by him, and even die for him, is not ‘love,’ but corruption.”

"Ji Chengchuan has a deeper, unknown connection with Smile Game than we imagine. Therefore, the more deeply a player is corrupted by the game, the more likely they are to be affected mentally, fall in love with Ji Chengchuan, and become devoted to him. Players who are less corrupted are not so easily swayed, and even if they waver briefly, they may recover to normalcy under other external forces."

"Therefore, normally speaking, reducing pollution would have a chance to eliminate some players' infatuation with Ji Chengchuan..."

The "Gossip System" appeared, but instead of unlocking any entries, it projected the following: "[Host's guess is quite reasonable. But Pei Yanzhi is one of the most corrupted players. Why didn't he fall in love with Ji Chengchuan, but instead became his mortal enemy?]"