Chapter 4
The room with the curtains drawn was very dark, with only the dim white light from the screen illuminating a small area.
The man's face was pale in the light, his tall figure slumped in the back of the chair, staring blankly at the scene in the video.
The camera was shaking, the crowd was screaming, and the man stood up precariously. Bright red blood flowed down from the crisscross cuts on his left arm. He frowned slightly, as if in pain, and covered his arm with his hand. His forehead hair was wet with cold sweat and became a little messy.
In a moment, he tightened his jaw, raised his eyes suddenly and looked towards the camera.
The background except him seemed infinitely blurred. In this chaotic world, he was the only one who was isolated.
The man raised his hand and gently stroked the eyebrows of the person in the video. He was so focused that he didn't notice the sound of the door opening behind him.
Until the video content was repeated for the tenth time, a hand suddenly reached out from the darkness behind and slammed the slim notebook shut.
With a soft sound, the man finally emerged from the void and called out the person's name in a deep voice, his tone full of warning: "Observer."
The observer ignored his anger, strode to the window, and pulled open the tightly closed curtains, allowing the dark area to be illuminated by sunlight.
"There's a limit to madness," the observer said, crossing his arms and frowning. "Openly cutting off the hand of Chairman Gu's son for him is a bit too much."
The sunlight fell on the brow of the man behind the desk, casting a small shadow. He had very superior eyebrows and eyes, the color of which was the color of frosty jade like glass. Stimulated by the sudden strong light, he squinted his eyes slightly, turned his head away, and his tied long hair fell in front of him.
His hair color is very special, with white hair like feathers intertwined among the black hair. The white hair is hidden under the black hair, long and soft, flowing lightly, with the fluffy feeling that only bird feathers have.
The transition between black and white is natural. By the waist, there is basically only pure white left, which is eye-catching but not too abrupt.
He had a very special appearance, and in the past he usually gave people the impression of being ruthless and indifferent, but now that impression was greatly reduced because of the faint melancholy and determination revealed in his glassy eyes.
Seeing his deathly look, the observer was filled with dismay. He let out a sharp breath and leaned sideways on the table. "Before, you secretly went to look for him in the game, and the higher-ups turned a blind eye. You said you couldn't have been so secretive all along, but at least you couldn't have been so blatant. You had to openly run into someone's house and chop off their hands. Now look what you're doing. How are you going to let the bureau end this?"
The man behind the desk remained silent for a long time before he slowly spoke: "But I can't stand it."
"He was injured and bleeding a lot."
"There were so many people around, but no one came to help him."
"Someone bullied him, and I just chopped off one of that person's hands. I didn't even kill him. I was very restrained."
"Alright, alright!" The Observer called out helplessly, "Then who killed a player with just one move? Does he need your help?"
The observer's tone gradually became serious: "It's easy to change the country, but it's hard to change one's nature. He has such a cruel heart before he even awakens. If he really awakens..."
Halfway through the conversation, the observer realized that the person in front of him was not listening seriously at all, and even took out a panda keychain to play with it. The observer was completely speechless.
To be honest, if this person didn't have special abilities, he would have been wiped out on the spot by the Heresy Detection Bureau just based on the extent of his love-brain problem.
The observer sighed deeply, gave up on trying to persuade him, and turned to business: "There's a meeting in twenty minutes, remember to attend."
Hearing this, Feng Jihan finally reacted and calmly put away the keychain. He asked, "Have you found out the reason for the second restart?"
The observer frowned slightly. "No, Administrator 01 went through the logs for that day several times and only found a 'path bug' in the code."
Feng Jihan pondered for a moment: "Why call a meeting suddenly? Is there a new clue about the 'key'?"
“I don’t know.”
Feng Jihan nodded: "I understand."
Observer: "Also, the director asked me to inform you that we will be doing a loss of control index assessment tonight."
Feng Jihan fumbled with the keychain in his palm with his fingertips, without commenting.
After leaving Feng Jihan's office, the observer met several colleagues.
My colleague pointed at the closed door, winked, and asked, "How is it? Does it look normal?"
The Observer rolled his eyes. "Same old story. My wife's PTSD is acting up again."
This sentence caused a sigh.
It had only been a few years since the incident, and among the inspectors who were still alive, everyone knew about Feng Jihan's affairs.
The observer also recalled some things from the past, sighed, and waved his hand: "Let's all go to the meeting room."
The group walked towards the meeting room in a mighty procession, and before they knew it, they were talking about the topic of "Nightmare World".
"Still no progress on the clue to the 'key'?"
"Those who can enter are ordinary players without any special abilities. We, the advanced players, are stuck outside the game and can't enter. How can we make any progress?"
"No wonder they're having such a hasty meeting. With 'Nightmare World' about to officially launch, how could the bureau not be anxious?"
"Alas, not only the 'Observers,' but even the 'Astrologers' and 'Prophet' have predicted the worst possible outcome. Under these circumstances, I doubt we can prevent it."
"Hey, old bear, don't say such unlucky words!"
As they approached the conference room, everyone gradually fell silent.
The most popular game nowadays, "Nightmare Game", is ostensibly a holographic horror online game, but in fact only a few people know that it is a huge "haunted domain" existing in another space.
Due to a certain force, the "Nightmare World" was separated from the real world, and the two worlds maintained peace for a long time. Until recently, this force gradually weakened, and the "Nightmare World" began to become active again. Once it completes the internal test and officially launches online, it will bring a huge disaster to the real world.
Humanity cannot afford the consequences of launching the game, and the only thing they can do is prevent the successful internal testing of "Nightmare World".
The Heresy Monitoring Bureau mobilized almost all of its "precognitive" psychics to divine the only clue that could prevent "Nightmare World" from going online.
That is to destroy the "key".
But they had no idea what the "key" was or where it existed.
What's even worse is that the beta version of "Nightmare World" only allows ordinary people to enter, and any player with even the slightest bit of supernatural power will be turned away.
In other words, the Heresy Monitoring Bureau cannot mobilize high-level psychics to enter the game to explore, so it can only place its hopes on ordinary people and ask ordinary players to help find clues.
Most ordinary people have no experience in searching for clues in the strange domain, so the progress of the "key" has been stuck there.
Everyone has a feeling that "Nightmare World" is deliberately restricting the entry of high-level players, and this time when it goes online, "Nightmare World" is bound to go online.
Twenty minutes later, the conference room was full of people.
Feng Jihan also arrived on time and sat in his seat, but he was obviously absent-minded and would open the game forum from time to time to take a look.
With a simple search, Cen Xun's movements were discovered.
10 minutes ago, a player posted a message saying: #Damn! Someone played the hero and saved the damsel in distress and successfully hooked up with the professor! #
There are five attached pictures, all of which are candid photos of Cen Xun. In a few of the pictures, there is a man and a woman following Cen Xun like a tail.
Feng Jihan didn't care whether the photos were blurry or not. He clicked save button one by one, then zoomed in and looked carefully at Cen Xun's mouth, which was raised by one pixel.
Well, judging by this expression, he must be planning to do something bad again.
Feng Jihan looked through the comments below.
[Having witnessed these people's poor acting firsthand, I realized how easily the professor could be fooled.]
"What do you know? The professor is incredibly responsible towards his students! He even offered to treat a student to a meal when he saw them injured. Where else can you find such a good professor?"
The best professor in the world +10086
Seeing this, Feng Jihan sneered slightly. If these players continued to blindly believe in the appearance shown by Cen Xun, they would probably be deceived and lose everything.
Honestly, Professor Cen is a folklore expert. Isn't folklore the study of ghosts and spirits? This kind of setting is unusual in a horror game. I think their approach is correct. They need to start with the NPCs to find more clues.
[Although, as a folklore major, I'd like to point out that it's a stereotype to say that folklore is only about ghosts and spirits. However, if it's in a horror game, it might actually be related to ghosts.]
[Whatever, I'm going to try to improve the professor's favorability! I'll know if it works after I try it!]
[The guy above is really cool, isn't he afraid of being poked in the eye by the professor? ]
"The professor was acting in self-defense, alright? As long as I'm honestly cultivating my favorability, there's no way I could possibly trigger the professor's attack. Aren't these players being treated to a meal by the professor?"
[Hehe, I bet you ten cents that these two players won't survive long.]
"Cough cough! Cough cough cough!"
The person next to him suddenly started coughing wildly. Feng Jihan suddenly came to his senses, withdrew his gaze from the screen, looked up at his colleague beside him, with a questioning look in his eyes.
His colleague motioned him to look at the director.
Feng Jihan looked at the director slowly.
The director knocked on the table and said in a bad tone: "Xiao Feng, can you participate in the operation with your identity in the game?"
Feng Jihan knew what the director was asking, and his frosty, glassy eyes didn't waver at all: "Director, my clone can only move in a specific area and cannot use any special abilities."
"What are your thoughts on how to search for the 'key'?"
Feng Jihan raised his eyelids and scanned the audience. "As you can see, Nightmare World has cycled through August 13th many times. Obviously, something special must have occurred on this day. Only by resolving this special event can Nightmare World be pushed forward to August 14th."
"Perhaps, we won't be able to find any clues about the key until the 14th."
The director's eyes were sharp. "How can you be sure that on the 14th, a key will appear instead of the game going online?"
Feng Jihan smiled, a little sarcastically: "Since the director doesn't believe me, why bother asking me?"
After saying that, he leaned back and closed his eyes to rest, as if he didn't want to pay attention to the content of the meeting anymore.
There was a sense of confrontation between the two of them, and the atmosphere in the conference room became stagnant. Everyone looked at each other intently, not daring to interrupt.
A meeting ended in a tense atmosphere.
After everyone left the conference room, the top leaders of the Heresy Monitoring Bureau held another small online meeting.
"Does that plan require Feng Jihan to join?"
"No, with his relationship with her like that, there's no guarantee he won't secretly let her go."
"Feng Jihan's condition has been unstable. What if he finds out about this plan?"
"Don't worry, we've found the right person and we guarantee that he won't arouse Feng Jihan's suspicion."
"That man is always a huge hidden danger. Regardless of whether the 'key' is related to him or not, he must be killed."
Cen Xun was not aware of the hidden crisis yet, he was happily eavesdropping on the two players' thoughts.
"The game management is so stingy. They only tell players that there's a 'key' and don't give any more clues. Where should I even start asking?"
"It's over. I didn't pay attention to the folklore class. I wanted to ask some folklore questions to get closer, but I can't even do it. Ahhh, my brain is broken. What should I ask? Mouth, I order you to speak! If you don't speak, the atmosphere will be awkward!"
Cen Xun sipped his tea for a moment before the male player finally spoke awkwardly, "Um, Professor Cen, I'd like to ask, have you encountered any supernatural events at school?"
The female player nodded repeatedly.
Cen Xun calmly asked, "Why are you asking this all of a sudden? Did you encounter anything strange at school?"
"A little bit," the male player racked his brains to come up with an excuse, causing his speech to slow down. "That night, when my girlfriend and I were sleeping in our respective dormitories, we had the same dream. We dreamed that someone asked us to find our keys."
"key?"
Cen Xun smiled slightly and, as someone who had experienced this, gently advised, "You are all still young. Don't believe in these supernatural things. What you think about during the day, you dream about at night. I guess something happened during the day related to the key, so you both dreamed about it at night."
"No!" the male player eagerly defended himself, "We've had the same dream for several nights. How could such a coincidence happen in the world? There must be something wrong!"
The female player agreed repeatedly: "Yes, Professor, you teach folklore, so you must know some folklore about keys, right?"
There was a hint of urgency in her tone. Upon hearing that, Cen Xun's smile faded slightly, and he "inadvertently" revealed a hint of melancholy as if he was troubled.
He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, and the two players saw him, their eyes practically lighting up.
Is it coming! The important clue given by the legendary NPC!
Unexpectedly, Cen Xun opened his mouth halfway and forced himself to swallow the words that were on the tip of his tongue. He looked embarrassed, as if he had something to hide: "Oh, forget it."
Damn! You can’t keep me in such a suspenseful mood!!
The two players almost vomited blood!
The female player tentatively asked, "Professor, is there something wrong at school?"
Male player: "Professor, just tell us! We can help you solve it together!"
But no matter how they asked, Cen Xun regained his composure, waited for the dishes to be served, and urged them to eat, as if he had forgotten the previous topic.
The two players were so anxious that they wanted to get to the bottom of it but couldn't find the right opportunity.
The meal was tasteless, and when it was time to pay the bill, the two players rushed to pay before Cen Xun in order to show off.
Cen Xun was at a loss for words: "They all said it was my husband's property, why are you doing this?"
Seeing that his attitude had softened, the male player schemingly continued the previous topic: "Professor, we also want to ask you to help us solve the key problem. My girlfriend and I have been unable to sleep for several nights because of this."
Cen Xun seemed somewhat moved, but then he shook his head gently and sighed, "I can only tell you that this matter is very complicated, and I can't let irrelevant people get involved."
After saying that, Cen Xun turned to the two players and said with infinite tenderness, "You just need to know that I am your teacher. I will do my best to protect you."
After hearing this, the two players were moved to tears.
At this moment, Cen Xun undoubtedly exuded a sacred light in their eyes!
Got it! Professor Cen is a support NPC! He's a good guy who helps players!
Got it! Professor Cen didn't give me the key information because I didn't build up enough favorability!
The two players who knew everything watched Cen Xun leave, and then excitedly posted on the forum to show off.
#The first player in the entire network to discover the "key" clue has been born! #
As soon as this post was released, it instantly attracted questions from countless players.
1l: [? ? ?]
2l: [What do you mean? We're all newbies, what gives you the right? ? ]
3l: [Hand over the clues quickly and I will spare your life! ]
4l (OP): [Hey, I just won’t tell you]
5l: It seems that the decoding has been done. The OP didn’t mention it anymore. I’ll try it too!
Cen Xun was walking on the road in a good mood.
Of course, he had no clues about the so-called "key".
But that doesn't stop him from secretly forging some.
He uses fake clues to get players to do things for him for free, and then uses the players' hands to find the real "key". Ah, what a perfect evil plan.
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