Yinquan Town (1)
At 5:30 p.m., Liang Qing and the other two appeared in a cafe near a statue in the city center. They chose a table on the second floor by the window. Shi Xiaofeng, dressed like an IT guy, wearing a plaid shirt and a black backpack, went to the front desk and ordered three drinks.
Liang Qing pretended to be pregnant, tucking the sling carrying Liang Baobao under her loose skirt. Next to her was Nie Yun, who looked about sixty years old and had a loving face, supporting her.
The seagull sculpture not far away is a landmark building in Wu City, and it is also the place where the system requires players to gather and wait before teleporting.
The fiery clouds reflected on the glass. It was the bustling time of night, with the lights just coming on. The "family of three" was chatting leisurely.
Liang Qing leaned against Shi Xiaofeng, seemingly whispering something softly, but in fact he was observing every move of passersby within a kilometer around the street corner.
"The man in the white shirt must be a player." She said softly while biting the straw on the juice cup.
Nie Yun glanced at it and blinked: "Yes."
The difference between the player and the NPC is actually not easy to see, but the man in the shirt is too conspicuous. There are still some blood stains on his shirt that have not been wiped clean. He stands under the sculpture looking around, his face full of nervousness and panic.
"Boom boom boom!" Loud rock music came from the street corner, and a dozen hippies rode motorcycles and held large flags, parading through the city.
They attracted quite a few glances from passersby, and wherever the motorcycle group went, many people made way for them. The man in the shirt glanced at them from a distance, but ignored them. He sat under the seagull sculpture, occasionally checking his watch.
The convoy gradually receded, and the downtown area briefly returned to its peaceful state. At that moment, a black motorcycle at the rear of the convoy suddenly turned around, darted out, and drove straight back toward the man in the shirt.
The man in the shirt was so lost in thought that he didn't notice. By the time he did, it was too late. A man and a woman were riding the motorcycle. The woman in the back seat raised a stick and slammed it hard into the man's head. The man in the shirt immediately bled profusely, and without a sound, he fell heavily to the ground.
The woman jumped out of the car and quickly unlocked the phone with his fingerprint, then threw the phone back a few minutes later.
"It's just over 200, poor guy, let's go!" She shook her head at the man driving the motorcycle, jumped on the car, and the two left.
Strangely, while all this was happening, the NPCs around the man in the shirt all stood there, watching the attack unfold with blank eyes. No one made a sound or tried to stop it.
Only after the roar of the motorcycle faded away and the man in the shirt stopped twitching violently did the NPCs continue to move along the trajectory they had set with expressionless faces.
Just like the frozen water melted instantly.
Shi Xiaofeng and Nie Yun stared with their eyes wide open.
"Mom, try this cake." Liang Qing pushed the plate over, interrupting their thoughts.
"Ahem...it's so damn dark." Shi Xiaofeng sighed with his head down.
"Now I know why the boss asked us to freeze our points," Nie Yun said fearfully, "but we won't use the points in this round. How will 500 per person be enough?"
"No rush." Liang Qing drank the juice in one gulp and smiled at the two of them.
The three of them timed themselves perfectly, appearing beneath the statue at the last possible moment. Prior to that, several rounds of looting and slaughter had occurred among the surviving players in this instance, and before entering a new survival game, the players' points and status had been reshuffled.
The six people who managed to make it to the next round were still in shock and breathless when they saw a pregnant woman rushing towards them, followed by a spirited old man in his sixties and an IT guy with thick hair.
But before they could think about it, all nine of them disappeared in the sudden white light.
————
The white light disappeared and endless darkness surrounded them.
Liang Qing was the first to wake up. After adjusting to the light, she immediately patted Shi Xiaofeng's shoulder.
Shi Xiaofeng shuddered as he woke up, so Liang Qing firmly grasped his steering wheel. After Shi Xiaofeng calmed down, Liang Qing returned the steering wheel to him.
"What a hell of a place!" Shi Xiaofeng wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth and stared at the dark path stretching out in front of him.
In the passenger seat beside him, Nie Yun rubbed his eyes and woke up. "Have we reached the new dungeon? Why do I feel like I slept for more than ten hours?"
"The system sent us abroad." Liang Qing leaned over from behind and pointed to the huge billboard beside the road - [Welcome to Yinquan Town].
The billboard is written in English and looks weathered, at least fifty or sixty years old.
Liang Qing glanced to the side. They were driving an antique Volkswagen, and surprisingly, a brand-new, modern infant safety seat was installed in the back seat of such an old car. The seat tightly embraced the little cub, who slept soundly under the hazy moonlight. His long eyelashes cast a shadow, and his little face was rosy and adorable.
"Who of you bought the car seat?"
Shi Xiaofeng and Nie Yun looked back and shook their heads. Liang Qing didn't ask any more questions.
The car's electronic display screen flashed with the words 10:47.
Without navigation or maps, and apart from the billboard that just flashed by and the small road with no street lights in front of them, the three of them had no idea what was waiting for them ahead.
Liang Qing and Nie Yun each held a gun and stared at both sides of the road. Shi Xiaofeng turned on all the headlights, and an uneasy silence spread in the car.
"What is that..." Shi Xiaofeng narrowed his eyes and stared at the front.
About five hundred meters ahead, two men stumbled along. They were tall, their clothes ragged, and the holes in their clothes were covered in wounds, which seemed to be stained with blood.
The car came closer and closer, until the light shone directly on them, and the person next to the road just turned around.
He only has the whites of his eyes.
Nie Yun was closest to the man. She watched him leaning towards the car with his hunched body. She gasped in fear and almost let the gun go off accidentally.
"Calm down. He has very poor mobility." Liang Qing patted Nie Yun's hand as Shi Xiaofeng stepped on the accelerator and sped away.
She saw it clearly: the man had lost an arm, looked half-human, half-ghost, and extremely skinny.
After driving for another ten minutes, the three finally arrived at a dilapidated town. Everything around them was bathed in the thick darkness. Dilapidated houses were everywhere, their darkened windows and wide-open doors creaking uncomfortably in the wind. Time seemed to have stood still here, and no trace of life or living remained.
When they were almost at the edge of the town, a thick layer of black fog rose in front of them. Shi Xiaofeng didn't dare to pass through it rashly and slowed down the car.
"In front..." Nie Yun pointed. A dim light filled the dim light of a dilapidated tavern. A faint voice could be heard.
"Do you want to go and take a look?" The two turned around and looked at Liang Qing.
"Go." Liang Qing took the baby out of the safety seat and handed it to Nie Yun. "I'm going to scout the road. You guys turn off the lights and the engine and park on the side of the road. Don't open the door without my signal."
"I'll accompany you..." Shi Xiaofeng went to push the door, but Liang Qing held his shoulders.
"You protect Nie Yun and Bao Bao."
Liang Qing put on his coat and vanished like a gust of wind. Shi Xiaofeng and Nie Yun stared at the direction of the tavern, each clutching their weapons.
Time stretched endlessly, and the kid woke up midway. He blinked, trying to see who was holding him. But the night was dark, so he simply leaned in and sniffed Nie Yun...
Sure enough, Liang Baobao found out that the person holding him was not Liang Qing, and he pouted and was about to cry.
"Pacifier, pacifier, his pacifier!" Nie Yun quickly pushed Shi Xiaofeng to find the pacifier.
So Liang Qing knocked on the window and came back.
The first thing she did when she got into the car was to quickly pull out the pacifier: "Don't give it to him when he's crying, remember." Liang Qing briefly explained the function of the pacifier, and the two were terrified after hearing it.
Holding Liang Qing's neck, the little boy immediately stopped crying and panted, as if accusing Liang Qing of abandoning him. Liang Qing patiently patted his back.
"The tavern owner is a black woman named Anna. She can accommodate tourists overnight for a thousand dollars a night, and she also accepts points, one point for one dollar. A few players didn't have enough points, but were afraid to leave, so they decided to stay in the lobby for the night, and Anna agreed."
Liang Qing finished speaking in one breath, lowered his head and typed a string of words into the memo on his phone -
"It's dark as a dungeon
It's wet like night dew
There are dangers everywhere.
It's so lonely there
There is no sound of rain
It’s dark there.”
"This..." She held up her phone to show them.
"Is it a poem?" Shi Xiaofeng asked.
"It's just a few lines from a song that's played over and over in the pub. I wrote them down. Maybe they're clues."
The electronic alarm clock flashed a few times, and the black and white 12:00 jumped in front of the three people's eyes. It was already midnight.
Suddenly, a sweet system voice sounded in the air——
"Welcome everyone to the Survival Game! The Silver Springs dungeon is currently 1/5 complete! 100 players were assembled on the first night, and 100 players remain!! Silver Springs was once a charming and wealthy paradise, but five years ago a disaster left it a deserted ghost town, shrouded in an unknown black fog! Players must solve the mystery of the town's fall and successfully escape! Note: This dungeon is open 24 hours a day! Enjoy your journey!"
The system's announcements were played entirely in English, but when they were translated into the players' native language, they all listened attentively, with Shi Xiaofeng also imitating Liang Qing's writing and drawing.
"The attack time is 24 hours...so it starts now." Nie Yun glanced around. Their car was also hidden in the darkness, but the surrounding darkness still felt like a monster with a gaping mouth.
The black fog obscured the moonlight and starlight in the town, turning the dark night into a bottomless pit.
"How about we open up the safe house and wait and see on the first night?" Shi Xiaofeng suggested.
Liang Baobao was at the point of climax when he was woken up by the system sound and was already twisting and turning restlessly.
"Wait a little longer." Liang Qing stared in the direction of the tavern.
Within a minute, several people appeared from nowhere and walked towards the tavern, making incoherent sounds and stumbling like they were drunk.
The three people in the car held their breath and didn't make a sound. They knew very well that those people were not normal humans - one of them had his head folded over his shoulders at an incredible angle, and his legs were bent inwards as if broken.
But he still kept walking.
They were drawn in by the sounds and lights of the tavern. Three or four "weirdos" staggered in. A moment later, screams and gunshots rang out from the tavern.
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