The Daytime Street Rules

Mei Long caught Wang Xiaoxiao and watched the woman warily.

When the woman received no response, she said knowingly, "Oh, you're newly captured goods? There's even one with white hair and pink eyes. Rare merchandise. No wonder they were willing to let you out before you'd been properly broken in."

"Seems like they caught quite a few people recently. Is it time to restock again?"

That one remark revealed a lot.

None of them dared speak rashly. They didn't know if the woman was deliberately trying to lure them into talking.

Fortunately, the woman didn't mind their silence. She went on to herself, "Now that you're here, behave yourselves and do as you're told. I don't mind telling you that everyone here has been through this. There's no escaping. The whole city outside is full of their people. Even if you get out, they'll catch you and bring you back..."

An Ying, the "rare merchandise" the woman had mentioned, lowered his eyes and quietly moved closer to the stall behind him. Beneath a piece of merchandise, he found an inconspicuous sheet of A4 paper.

[Street rules (daytime)

1. Don't let people discover what makes you different.

2. Do your best to play your part and fit in here. If you accidentally go OOC, immediately crouch down with your hands over your head. Security will save you.

3. The customer is God, and God must not be defied, but customers do not appear during the day.

4. Security will protect everyone in the casino and kill all outsiders.

5. Weights cannot move, and weights do not have mouths! If you see a weight moving, discard it at once and immediately call security to deal with it.

6. The street hates flames and anything related to flames.

7. Children are not welcome on the street. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter one, do not turn your back on him. Gently pick him up, take him to the security office, and wait for his parents to collect him.]

There were seven rules in total, and every one was different from its nighttime counterpart. The rules also made it clear that one role was important, whether by day or night.

Security.

They hadn't walked the streets at night, so they didn't know where security was. Whether security was good or bad, they would have to make finding it a priority later.

For now, the street rules appeared to have nothing to do with the rules in the gambling house.

The gambling house at night was a straightforward escape-and-kill instance, with few rules and an emphasis on evading pursuit by the uncanny. Outside the gambling house during the day, however, it was more like a role-playing, rules-based instance, with an emphasis on rules.

An Ying passed the rules around for the others to read, then stepped forward to talk to the woman, who had been carrying on a one-sided conversation. "Ma'am, could you tell us what's going on here? We only just arrived. Why are you the only one around?"

The woman was delighted that An Ying had spoken to her. "Because you're too early. Nobody's opened their stalls yet. I got here early."

"You... sell things here too? Who buys them?"

The woman gave a little laugh. "Kid, you still don't know where this is, do you?"

The group shook their heads, looking bewildered.

"This is the biggest underground casino in Y City!" the woman said. "Some people here were tricked into coming, some were forced, and some came of their own accord for the money. But once you're in, don't even think about getting out."

"Good-looking youngsters like you can go into Heaven and earn quite a bit in a single night. The money comes fast in those gambling establishments, and it's respectable work. People like us can only set up stalls outside and make a little money through hard work."

Once the woman started talking, she went on and on without getting to the point. After the others had all finished reading the rules, An Ying said goodbye to her.

"Looks like the daytime instance and the nighttime instance are different. They have two sets of rules," Mei Long said. "It looks safe for now, but there's no telling how long that will last. I'll head off first and see if the rest of my teammates are still alive."

Wang Xiaoxiao nodded too. "Then I'll go first as well and find some other people to team up with."

"All right," An Ying said.

They parted ways and went their separate ways through the crowd.

An Ying found an inconspicuous trash can and used it as cover while he took a small round disk from his pocket and activated it with energy.

The disk immediately glowed faintly red. An Ying roughly determined the direction, and his nearest teammate was actually only—13 meters away?

He abruptly looked up and met the eyes of the young man standing in front of him.

He wore a clean, tidy white shirt and black trousers, his short hair falling neatly beside his ears. When he smiled, his round eyes curved slightly. "We meet again, Mr. An Ying. Could you give my rabbit back to me?"

An Ying tilted his head and looked past Bai Yang, seeing the pink-haired girl standing behind him.

"Still alive," Tao Yuan said with a smile, waving at him. The hem of her clothes was slightly torn, but she looked to be in decent condition.

The corners of An Ying's mouth rose slightly. He solemnly handed the battered rabbit to Bai Yang and said, "Thank you."

The rabbit counted as a separate life. With it, he had been able to carry four 2s while already possessing a little joker of his own. He had hidden the extra cards in the rabbit's belly, exploiting a loophole in the rules.

Bai Yang took back his rabbit, and Tao Yuan asked him, "What about the colleague who was with you?"

"You mean Moonlit Night? He finished his task and already went back," Bai Yang said, fiddling with the rabbit.

"The instance isn't over yet. How did he leave?" Tao Yuan asked in disbelief.

"He has the ability to break through boundaries." Bai Yang glanced at her. "But he can't take anyone with him, so we still have to clear the instance to get out."

He and Flower Language had both entered when the instance normally pulled people in, and Moonlit Night couldn't take them with him when he left.

"He just left like that?"

"It's daytime now, and there are lots of rules. Maybe he doesn't like being bound by them?" Bai Yang said offhandedly.

Tao Yuan was very puzzled. After her instance ended, she had heard about Game Room No. 2 from some people. Combined with what Bai Yang had told her, she understood that Bai Yang and Moonlit Night had actually helped them.

Although their original intention had only been to complete a task assigned by someone, who exactly was the person behind them, and why was he helping them? What did he want?

And now, it looked more like they were unilaterally giving them a handout, which made her very uneasy. Mutual exploitation would actually have been more reassuring. She had stopped having daydreams about some kind person silently protecting them without leaving a name when she was ten.

"We're going to find our teammates. Mr. Bai Yang, would you like to come with us?" Tao Yuan invited him.

"Sure." Bai Yang waved the battered rabbit doll and turned down the corners of his mouth. "Do you know where I can find some fabric and cotton?"

Outside the instance, in the weapon shop:

[Recyclable items detected: 52 playing-card uncanny objects. Estimated recycling price: 30,000]

"Thirty thousand!" Lin Nieran had been fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan and teasing 007, but he immediately sat up straight when he heard the recycling price for the playing cards.

[Recycle?]

"007, does your system take kickbacks too?"

007: [We get a fixed salary. We never take kickbacks.]

Lin Nieran was skeptical. "Didn't you say the recycling price for a B-rank uncanny was between 10,000 and 50,000? How many B-rank uncanny objects do I have here, and that's all they're worth?"

007's data eyes turned into little dots. [Host, don't twist the terms. The entire deck only counts as one B-rank uncanny.]

"But the recycling price is still far too low."

[That's because this deck is missing the most important cards: the big and little jokers.]