Nightmare (1)-Entering

After explaining the issue of the coffin, Yu Xing accepted Xu Shu's two thousand points with a perfectly justifiable attitude.

Although the reward points will be halved in the final settlement, even a thousand points is still a very tempting number.

This is more than he did when he first completed one of the simulations.

Soon, the long table session came to an end, and the live chat was filled with reluctant comments. In fact, they could still watch and speak throughout the next stage, but they wouldn't be able to get feedback from the participants anymore.

The long table session is over. Please proceed to the conference room door and enter the second phase of the simulation one by one.

After a twenty-minute break, Yu Xing and the other two filled their stomachs with various snacks provided by the system in the conference room, earning a lot of free points. After saying goodbye to the comments, they followed the prompts and headed to the conference room door, completely satisfied.

The conference room door was a very ordinary metal door, and it didn't feel very sturdy to the touch. As soon as Yu Xing reached the door, he heard the system begin making arrangements.

Please, diviner, open the door.

Zhao Ruru cleared her throat, adopted a nonchalant demeanor, and reached out her slender hand to grasp the doorknob.

From Yu Xing's perspective, she easily opened the door, only to find a hazy white scene outside, where nothing could be seen clearly.

As Zhao Ruru stepped into the fog, the metal door seemed to have a mind of its own, closing gently behind it.

Please open the door.

The second was Yu Xing. Yu Xing turned around and smiled at Zhao Yijiu, who was waiting behind him. "Since we're entering one by one, we'll probably be separated again. No matter what happens, let's try to reunite first."

Zhao Yijiu nodded slightly. "I know."

"Then I'll be going now." Yu Xing turned around with relief and pushed open the half-closed door.

A warm breeze suddenly blew in.

This time, unlike when I was observing Zhao Ruru, no white fog appeared. Instead, a cacophony of sounds flooded my ears, and everything before me was bright and clear, as if I had stepped from a closed virtual space into The Truman Show.

People dressed in simple clothes sat in small cubicles, with desks, computers, and piles of documents in sight. The sound of keyboards rang out constantly, and the bright incandescent lights on the ceiling reflected off the smooth tiles.

This is a large office with excellent natural light, and it is easy to spot.

A woman in a pencil skirt was bending over to fill her water bottle at the water dispenser by the wall, while a reprimanding voice drifted from a private office in the distance...

Yu Xing was taken aback for a moment because this modern scene was so different from the previous one. The things he saw were too normal, like a real world without absurdity.

He even wondered if there was a bug that had redirected him to another live stream.

The next moment, a force suddenly came from behind him, and he staggered to steady himself, becoming one with everything he saw.

The feeling of being under a down jacket was gone, but the warm air from the air conditioner kept blowing, so I wasn't cold at all.

Yu Xing looked down and realized she was wearing a well-fitting white shirt, dark blue jeans, and black sneakers.

He had a pair of wired in-ear headphones hanging around his neck, the earpieces not inside his ears, just loosely draped over his shoulders, the ends of the wires extending into the left back pocket of his jeans, with a section of his phone sticking out and connected to the headphones.

He turned around, and unsurprisingly, behind him was a clean white wall with safety notices posted on it. He looked like an office worker who had impulsively come to check the safety notices and was about to leave after reading them.

His presence was quite noticeable; passersby would glance at him, perhaps wondering why he was standing by the wall as punishment.

He took the opportunity to sized up the group of people. They were mostly between twenty and forty years old, mostly men, and the majority wore glasses. What was heartbreaking was that... they all showed signs of balding.

Hiss...

At this moment, Yu Xing felt that this place was more real.

"Such a big leap..." he muttered to himself, his eyes sparkling with excitement born of surprise.

He had assumed that after the "funeral," the next event should be the "wedding," since that was the prompt, and there was no reason for it to be wrong.

But as it turned out, the second phase of the deduction did indeed unfold in a "modern" setting. Yu Xing was very happy to think that the plot had not proceeded in the usual way.

That's what makes it interesting!

Not wanting to appear too odd, he took a few steps toward the water dispenser, taking advantage of his surroundings.

In my mind, the prompts from the deduction system came at just the right time.

This stage of the simulation is a role-playing mode.

You will play the role of a concept artist; your specific identity has been transferred to your Persona Mask.

Main Quest: Protect Zhou Xue and keep her alive for three days.

The flow of time changes during this phase; the ratio of the flow rates between the Absurd World and the real world changes from 1:1 to 12:1.

There are ways to complete the Main Quest ahead of schedule.

There are Side Quest in this stage; please discover them yourself.

There were small gifts left by special guests during this phase.

Role-playing is mandatory at this stage. If any abnormality is detected by the NP, the "World Will" will take measures to eliminate the individual, and the system will not provide protection.

This phase introduces a black box setting, granting each participant the right to "black box time." Once activated, conversations between the participant and anyone within a two-meter radius will be muted by the system and cannot be captured by the live stream. This lasts for three minutes.

A series of prompts made Yu Xing start to consider the matter, but she showed no surprise on her face and didn't even pause in her steps.

Little did he know that once this message was displayed on the live stream screen, his viewers were already in an uproar.

The "black box time," also known as the "absolutely confidential time," is a concept commonly used by various live broadcast programs.

Once the show grants the privilege of "black box" time, the participants will have a period of time free from the unobstructed view of the audience, allowing them to discuss many things that are inconvenient to be known.

This comment hit the nail on the head.

It wasn't just Yu Xing 'Group One; when other groups entered the second stage, they also faced additional unknowns.

Yu Xing had already anticipated all the key points of the audience's discussion. He raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was some kind of latent persecution complex acting up, but as soon as he saw the words "special guest" and combined them with the open, unannounced time, he had a premonition.

The special guest who left the gift might be someone he knows.

The black box is simply a way for the other party to say things that others cannot hear.

Could it be Lingren?

Or perhaps one of the Lingren' subordinates?

If someone can pass on useful information to him during the black box period, then the person must know something about him and be someone with a deep relationship with the Lingren.

Was this a warning, or did they intend to eliminate him before he became uncontrollable?

He won't die, but if the other party kills him in a way that makes it seem like he has absolutely no chance of survival, then in the eyes of so many viewers in the live stream, he will be a dead man who can never be seen again.

Once he reappears, he will be studied by various forces. His ability to resurrect infinitely will be enough to expose the sinister side of the originally friendly forces.

This is simply the best way to limit his growth rate.

Yu Xing's premonitions are usually correct, especially when it comes to Lingren.

Thinking of these potentially unfavorable possibilities for him, he lowered his head slightly, his black bangs obscuring the expression between his brows and eyes.

However, an uncontrollable smile slowly crept onto the corners of his mouth.

Has it finally arrived...?

Really...

That's awesome!

He never believed that he would be the one to lose in a duel with the Lingren.

Come on, even though the timing is unexpected, just go for it.

After all this time, he's finally managed to catch the Lingren's weakness, which is something that makes him even happier than the fun of deduction.

Suppressing the smile on his lips, Yu Xing continued his deductions with a pleasant mood.

His identity information was already within the Persona Mask, and he immersed himself in it, gaining an understanding of the background of this stage.

First of all, the setting here is indeed "modern," but it is clearly on a different developmental path from the real world. The Yugi in this world do not exist in the real world.

The reason for using Yugi as an example is that the character Yu Xing plays is a member of the art team at Yugi company called "Fengdu".

His name here is "Fang Xing," which is somewhat coincidental. In the last Rookie Tournament, he used the name Fang Xiaoyu, which also has the surname Fang.

He is in charge of the concept art for a horror Yugi called "Nightmare," and he oversees the entire art team for the project; in other words, he is the lead artist for this Yugi.

Fang Xing needed to draw character portraits and posters for several main characters and major monsters in the nightmare. As for the less important ones, as usual, they had already been outsourced to other companies.

Zhou Xue is the Yugi world architect for this Yugi project and also serves as the main storyline writer.

That's about all the background information. In the section on identity information, more emphasis is placed on the limitations imposed on the character Fang Xing.

Twenty-five years old, a graduate of a prestigious university, with top-notch professional skills in the industry, but with an eccentric and difficult personality, a fiery temper, and the courage to provoke anyone. Relying on his genius-like abilities, he doesn't even listen to his department manager.

Fang Xing is very serious when he works, but when he has free time, he always seems to be immersed in his own world, and no one can understand what he is thinking.

His greatest skill and favorite thing to do is draw horror-related illustrations, so since joining the company, the projects he has been responsible for have basically all been horror Yugi.

Yu Xing blinked, feeling that the casting of this role was both coincidental and demanding.

The system has already stated that this role-playing is mandatory; you must perfectly fit the character and not let the other players notice.

Fang Xing has a unique personality; he's not someone who can just casually slip through the cracks. His abilities and status mean that he's not someone who can hide in this company.

Not to mention the hard requirement of high-quality original artwork.

However, Fang Xing's skill in drawing unexpectedly aligns with Yu Xing's own abilities. Therefore, Yu Xing suspects that each group's deducers are playing different roles that suit them best when they enter the second stage.

Otherwise, if someone else were to play the role of "Fang Xing," who was originally the lead artist, they would likely be noticed by others at the company for their lack of technical skills.

He had quickly processed all the identity information and learned his workstation from it. He put one earphone on his right ear, randomly pressed play, and a ghostly, eerie child's voice came out.

Wow, their musical tastes and painting styles are so similar?!

Yu Xing had no interest in appreciating this kind of music. He took out his phone from his back pocket, changed the instrumental track in the music app that was already running in the background, and then walked to his workstation with his phone in hand.

"Hello, Brother Fang!"

The girl sitting next to me looked like she had just graduated. She was wearing a plaid shirt and had her name tag pinned to her chest.

Yu Xing glanced at them with a cold look.

The little girl's name is Guan Xin.

He grunted in agreement, sat down in his seat, and casually put on the other earphone as well.

Hmm... the rule against listening to music during work hours is utter nonsense to him.

Guan Xin was already used to Fang Xing's personality, so she didn't say anything and silently turned her head to improve her drawing.

Yu Guangzhong saw Fang Xing take a stack of white papers out of the drawer.

She prefers to work on a graphics tablet, but Fang Xing prefers to draw by hand, then scan and upload the drawing. In terms of hand drawing alone, no one in the company can compare to him.

That's quite admirable.

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Yu Xing wasn't unaware of Guan Xin's attention. Calmly, she reviewed some of the character's previous design drafts and then used one hand to check the information on her phone.

There aren't many apps, but they're all the essential kind. Besides that, there are various drawing apps for mobile phones.

There are only a dozen or so people in my contacts, all with clear notes, but the last call record is from two months ago.

It's clear that Fang Xing doesn't frequently use other means of communication besides social media platforms like WeChat and QQ.

"Brother Fang, Sister Zhou asked me to tell you that... she has a new idea regarding the design of the Ghost Bride in Chapter Three. If it's convenient for you... she'd like to discuss the design of the Ghost Bride with you around noon."

Suddenly, Yu Xing had barely sat down, not even having warmed the chair, when a slightly nervous voice reached his ears.

Sister Zhou? Is that Zhou Xue?

In the supernatural space constructed by the ghost groom, Zhou Xue is a manifestation of Liu Xue.

Now, "Zhou Xue" really exists and has become a victim of the second phase of the mission; she could die at any moment.