Game Begins

In the distance stood a bus station, empty inside.

There were no buses, and no uniformed staff in sight.

The sky was gloomy, and rain was still falling. A small group of people had gathered on the broad platform.

There were four or five of them, probably travelers.

The station's dilapidated state was obvious, from the platform's exposed red bricks to the old, poorly maintained canopy.

As a result, the few travelers had no choice but to huddle in one corner of the platform to shelter from the rain.

At that moment, they were all looking in the same direction.

About thirty meters away, a man stood in the rain, holding an umbrella.

He hadn't moved at all. He'd been standing like that for a full ten minutes.

Just as the travelers were murmuring among themselves, the man suddenly moved and headed toward the platform.

Closer and closer.

He was indeed a man, with a well-proportioned build and decent looks. He wore a work jacket several sizes too large for him, and below that—

Below that, he wore plaid pajama pants and a pair of cartoon character slippers.

The slippers were soaked through, making a squelching sound with every step.

Putting away his umbrella, Jiang Cheng—who had arrived here in a hurry, still in his sleep—looked up at the people in front of him.

Rainwater ran down the umbrella fabric, gathered into a stream, and dripped onto the platform.

A petite, pure-looking girl asked cautiously, "Are you a newcomer?"

"Don't ask stupid questions." A burly man with a full beard glanced at the girl. His gaze lingered on Jiang Cheng's slippers for a second before settling on his face.

The man looked at Jiang Cheng as if sizing up prey. After a long moment, he said, "What an interesting newcomer. You're remarkably calm for someone who just showed up here."

There were five people in total.

Jiang Cheng didn't see anyone else near the platform.

Besides the girl and the bearded man who had already spoken, there was a woman around thirty-five with thin lips.

She had a mole beside her lip and an unremarkable appearance.

There was also a somewhat lecherous, bald middle-aged man in his fifties.

And a young man with neatly combed hair, dressed like an office clerk.

Unlike the others, the young man looked as if he'd just been crying. Faint tear tracks remained at the corners of his eyes, and he stood with an oddly hunched posture.

Jiang Cheng scanned the faces in front of him one by one, then fixed his gaze on the bearded man. "Where is this?"

"We call it the Nightmare World, because every visitor comes here from a dream," the man replied.

Jiang Cheng nodded. That matched his own experience. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Depending on the setting we find ourselves in, we have to uncover clues and complete the mission. Then we do our best to stay alive along the way." He gazed into the rain. "The Nightmare World is just what the first people to encounter this place decided to call it.

"Don't ask where this place is or what it is. We can't answer you, because we don't know either.

"You only need to know that in the Nightmare World, you might find a village, a high-rise building, or even a forest, a snowy wasteland, or a wilderness.

"Any setting that has existed in our world could appear here."

"Any setting from our world could appear here?" Jiang Cheng asked.

"Yes."

"Then how is this place different from our world?"

It was a very apt question, but also a rather tricky one.

"But in our world, two identical versions of ourselves would never appear at the same time." The man's voice was muffled.

His words sounded awkward, but they weren't difficult to understand—not for Jiang Cheng, at least. He frowned. "Are you saying that someone has encountered himself in the Nightmare World?"

"Yeah."

The man might have been afraid to talk about it, or perhaps he thought there was no point telling a newcomer who might not even make it through this mission.

Either way, he ended the subject.

"Can we return to the real world once the mission is over?"

"Yeah." The man nodded, his gaze turning back to the rain.

The rain seemed to be getting heavier. A gray gloom hung over the whole world, and it was gradually growing dark.

"Newcomer," the woman with a mole on her lip said, looking at him. "If you die in this world, you'll be erased from the real world. Aren't you afraid?"

"More accurately, you'd go missing," Jiang Cheng corrected her.

The woman's eyes widened slightly. She looked Jiang Cheng up and down with interest, as if trying to find something unusual about him.

"If you survive this, I hope you won't mind becoming friends," she said.

Jiang Cheng ignored her and turned to the bearded man instead.

The man stood at the edge of the rain, his gaze wandering around the area. He looked a little anxious.

"You're waiting for someone," Jiang Cheng said to him. "Someone hasn't arrived yet."

The man turned around, surprised. "How did you know?"

"Mm. I also know that the person you're waiting for is a fat guy, and he's agile."

The man's expression went beyond mere surprise. "You're right. Someone hasn't arrived yet, which is why the mission still hasn't started. But I want to know how you figured it out. Especially how you knew he was a fat guy—and agile, too. How'd you get all those details?"

Jiang Cheng didn't answer. Instead, he walked over to the man, faced a spot outside the station, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called out, "Hey! It's safe here! Come out, we're waiting for you!"

The instant he finished speaking, someone sprang up from the rain several dozen meters away, then dashed toward the platform as everyone watched in astonishment.

His two sausage-like legs moved nimbly, avoiding puddle after puddle. With one final leap, he landed squarely on the platform.

At that moment, one thought flashed through everyone's minds: Holy crap! He really is an agile fatty!

As soon as the fatty arrived, he stared intently at Jiang Cheng's work jacket. He was wearing only a khaki shirt, already soaked through, and was shivering violently from the cold.

"Could I—"

"No!"

Jiang Cheng cut off the Agile Fatty's hopeful question without hesitation, then wrapped his jacket more tightly around himself.

"What's... going on here?" asked the Bald man, who hadn't spoken until now. He looked completely baffled.

"We met on the way. I came ahead to scout for him. In exchange, he promised me a jacket and an umbrella," Jiang Cheng said frankly.

The shivering fatty looked so miserable that no one wanted to bother with him. Only the girl took pity on him and lent him a scarf to wrap around his neck.