Game Room No. 2

Thinking of the rules they had discovered, the group decided the gambling house, whose rules they already knew, had to be safer than the other, unknown places. So they returned to Gambling House · Spring with the people they had rescued.

"Then let's hurry up! The countdown's already started!" a middle-aged man they had rescued urged.

Sheng Qingqiao smiled. "Don't rush, uncle. If we overlook something up there, getting back down might not be so easy."

The middle-aged man frowned deeply. "I know you're not afraid of those weird creatures, but we're different! My teammates were all killed by them. I'm the only one left. If we keep wasting time, can you guarantee my safety?"

"What's the rush? You think that celebration will be easy to attend?" Tao Yuan had never had much patience for idiots. She rolled her eyes elegantly. "We already said the gambling house doesn't welcome paupers. We're trying to figure out how to get what passes for money here!"

An Ying said coldly, "If you want to go up, go by yourself."

"Now, now, calm down." An old man hurriedly pulled the middle-aged man aside and smiled at Tao Yuan. "We'll definitely listen to you, my lords. I, Old Man Xun, have no objections."

"Right, right, I don't have any objections either. If he wants to go now, let him go by himself," another woman in the group hurriedly chimed in, afraid of being left behind.

Seeing them smile appeasingly, Qin Rang smiled back, his foxlike eyes curving. "Don't worry. We don't want to die either. The first stage of the battle royale has stopped, so there won't be any weird creatures roaming freely. As long as we don't trigger this building's rules, we'll be safe here."

With that, he turned to his teammates. "But we don't know how many floors this gambling house has, so we still need to make a decision quickly."

Tao Yuan nodded and said directly, "I have two guesses about the gambling house's money. One is the chips, which are everywhere here. The other is the playing cards dropped by the weird creatures we killed."

"How many playing cards do we have?"

"Six," An Ying said.

Six meant they had killed six weird creatures. Much of the energy in many of their supernatural items had already been used up, and the intense fighting over such a short time had taken a toll on them too.

Sheng Qingqiao said, "Six is as many as all the weird creatures in some supernatural instances, but here it doesn't even seem to be a fraction of the total. How many weird creatures chased us during just two hours of the battle royale?"

Thinking of the bodies in the streets, he sighed. "Even we had such a hard time dealing with them. I wonder how everyone else is doing."

Listening to them, Old Man Xun could not help letting out a long sigh. "You may not know this, my lords, but half an hour after the battle royale began, a second batch of players was already sent in."

They truly hadn't known about this, and their expressions grew a little grave.

Open instances reopened to admit more players once more than half the players had been killed or injured. They had considered that it might reopen, but never imagined it would happen so quickly!

Aside from a few unlucky souls, most of those who could enter were battle-hardened squads. Yet around sixty people had died in just half an hour. It was alarming.

"One of my companions came in when it reopened. He died too." Fear tinged Old Man Xun's voice, and his cloudy eyes were full of weariness. "The weird creatures in this instance are too strong. I suspect a third batch may already have been sent in."

A third batch. More than a hundred players had entered with them, and they had waited a while after entering, which meant the instance's player limit should be between 110 and 150. Even using 110 as the figure, if a third batch had already been sent in, it meant that by the end of the first round of the battle royale, in just two hours, 110 players or more had died.

Sheng Qingqiao rubbed his temples. He suddenly had a dangerous premonition, as though... someone among them was also about to die in this instance.

[Registration for the first round of gambling has begun. Countdown: 9:05]

With roughly ten minutes remaining, the group finally reached the top floor of Gambling House · Spring.

On their way, they had encountered other survivors on the lower floors, and more than a dozen people came to the top floor together. Fortunately, it wasn't time for the battle royale now. As long as they obediently followed the rules, the weird creatures wouldn't attack them unprovoked.

The moment they stepped onto the top floor, soft music suddenly sounded in their ears.

The melody was exceptionally gentle. It seemed to sweep away all their exhaustion, leaving them refreshed.

[Congratulations on discovering the game rooms, lucky humans. Now, choose the room you wish to enter.]

Red lettering appeared before them once more. The top floor was decorated much like the others, the only difference being that there were only four rooms here, each door marked with a Chinese numeral: one, two, three, or four.

Clearly, they were supposed to choose one and enter. No one could say for sure what would be inside.

"Let's choose a room and go in together," someone said, looking eagerly at the Calamity Crossing Squad, hoping to continue relying on them.

None of them objected. Qin Rang smiled and turned to Sheng Qingqiao. "You're the luckiest among us. You choose."

Sheng Qingqiao scratched his head, his short brown hair falling behind his ear. His gaze swept over the rooms, and every one of them felt extremely dangerous to him.

He quickly looked away from the four rooms and shook his head at Qin Rang. "Every door is dangerous."

Qin Rang and the others had seen Sheng Qingqiao's almost miraculous intuition save their lives many times, and they trusted his words completely.

The others looked more uneasy and fearful as well. Sheng Qingqiao's words made them feel even more oppressed.

"I'll do it," An Ying said, breaking the deadlock when he saw that everyone had fallen into thought. He didn't like thinking things over too much. They had to choose one to enter eventually.

The crowd made way for the white-haired young man, watching him intently.

An Ying chose door number two, the closest to him. He gripped the cold metal handle and turned it gently.

[You have selected Game Room No. 2 · High or Low]

[Remaining capacity for Game Room No. 2 on the top floor of Gambling House · Spring: 3]

An Ying's icy expression froze, but he no longer had a chance to speak. The door before him opened automatically and instantly sucked him into the game room.

[Searching for a ticket... No ticket detected. 100 chips have been automatically deducted to purchase a ticket]

[Have fun!]

Cheerful music came from the room first, and the warm aroma of food made him relax instinctively.

Opening his eyes, An Ying saw an extravagantly luxurious hall.

Unlike the antique-style architecture outside, the décor here was opulent, with a distinctly Western aristocratic air from the previous century.

A red velvet carpet lay beneath his feet, and the air was filled with the sweet aroma of pastries and the mellow fragrance of red wine. Masked "people" came and went around him, wearing matching, revealing red-and-black uniforms. They were probably the NPC servers here.