Pulling Aggro

Suddenly, the words beneath the Bodhisattva Statue flashed through the mind of Zhou You.

"The living belong to the day, the dead belong to the night."

Connecting this to how the security captain had so firmly stated that he was already dead...

Could it be...

Zhou You raised his arm and pinched himself.

There was pain, and the tactile sensation of flesh and blood as well.

It was just that compared to an ordinary person, his body temperature felt somewhat icy.

So...

Zhou You shook his head, casting those slight feelings of unease to the back of his mind, and then checked the security room once more.

First point: as expected, there were a few more newspapers, but this time there were only two pieces of information.

"The city's richest man... condition worsening... won't last a week..."

"Qinghe District... Sanhuamiao Temple... imminent demolition..."

It still emphasized the richest man's critical illness; judging by the news, he was on his deathbed and about to kick the bucket. As for the other, Sanhuamiao Temple, he had never heard of it, and it wasn't marked on the patrol map either.

"It should be a key location, possibly related to future exploration."

Zhou You silently noted this issue, then looked at the second point.

--Someone had touched the patrol log.

The thin notebook seemed to have been flipped through. The daytime patrol on the first page was still normal, but on the second page, a blank space had appeared on the patrol schedule.

Only the name of Zhou You had been erased.

"Everything was normal yesterday, yet my identity has vanished today. So, who exactly erased my name..."

Zhou You picked up a pen, just about to fill in his name, but after a moment of thought, he put the pen back down.

"No, whoever erased it, the fact that my name isn't there now should be a good thing. If someone breaks into the security room later, at least my information won't be exposed. It's just that..."

But just as Zhou You was contemplating the situation, the bell suddenly rang.

Damn, it's time for patrol!

Zhou You instinctively grabbed his flashlight and prepared to rush out, but he immediately felt a sense of dissonance.

--Wait, the time is wrong!

Although he hadn't looked at the clock earlier, based on his internal sense of time, only about twenty minutes at most had passed since he entered the security room--but the scenery outside was already beginning to mutate, and the speed was far faster than last time!

Surging blood welled up from the floorboards, one bloody handprint after another began to cover the pristine white walls, and the television, which wasn't even plugged in, crackled with static. The distorted figure inside had taken on substance, nearly crawling out of the screen entirely!

Zhou You didn't even have time to glance at the clock before he had to bolt from the room.

The door to the security room slammed shut with a "clang," blocking all the mutations behind it.

But Zhou You immediately realized that the situation outside... didn't seem too good either.

The night streets were no longer calm. The faces he had seen before were all crowded at the entrance of the stairwell, and the rustling sounds had turned into a wave of sinister laughter. Lights had flickered on in the residential building--but they weren't the usual white or pale yellow; they were all a deep red like blood plasma. Occasionally, he could see figures standing at the windows, but those distorted silhouettes were clearly no longer human, but some kind of deeper, more profound monster.

The bell on his wrist was ringing almost frantically. Combining this with yesterday's scene, Zhou You's mind took a turn, and he immediately reached a conclusion.

--This script is mutating every day, and the situation is getting worse!

Damn it, you bastard system, you didn't even mention something so critical!

In the midst of the chaos, Zhou You gave the system the middle finger, then picked up the small knife he hadn't even had time to warm up and sliced his hand hard!

Blood gushed out instantly, but before it could hit the ground, it was already drained away by the blade. The item's passive effect activated immediately, and Zhou You felt his pace quicken by a few notches. Finally, before those ghost faces could break through the stairwell, he arrived in front of Shan Huai Hutong.

--Fortunately, no mutations had occurred here yet, but Zhou You's expression didn't relax in the slightest. After panting for a moment and confirming that the game had auto-saved, he stood up and began to organize his thoughts.

"First, the order of the mutations."

"The first day, everywhere was safe and sound. The second day, mutations appeared in the security room. The third day, the security room's mutation happened early, and mutations also appeared at Yuan Shun Intersection. If it follows this order, then tomorrow it will be this alley, and the day after it will be the intersection and the subsequent Chang Song Slope."

"So."

"This script never intended for me to clear the level by following the rules. In fact, if I hadn't directly broken through the side quests of the stall owner and the alley game yesterday, I would likely have been driven into a dead end here by now."

After sorting through the sequence of events, Zhou You spat hard on the ground.

"Damn, I should say it's worthy of being a medium-low erosion level; the difficulty is a straight upward trajectory compared to Building No. 4. If it's already at this level, how perverted must a high erosion level be?"

Even so, no impatience appeared on Zhou You's face. Contrary to his complaining tone, his expression was quite calm, and he had already begun to reorganize his plan.

"It looks like the entire schedule needs to be scrapped and redone. Originally, I wanted to dig a hole and see if I could scam all of that old woman's assets, but given the current situation, that's impossible. So..."

"How about I just take a gamble?"

Zhou You glanced toward the distant three-way intersection, took a deep breath of the icy air, and then walked directly toward a path he had already chosen.

The streetlights swayed. He didn't know if it was an illusion, but the light felt much dimmer than the previous few days. The path that was barely walkable had become increasingly blurred. Occasionally, a shadow would flash within his field of vision, but before he could identify it carefully, it would vanish into thin air, making it impossible to tell if it was a ghost or just a trick of the eyes.

Zhou You's Sanity Value was also slowly dropping in this environment. It was now close to falling below the 70 mark, and likely due to this, the lesion in his brain that hadn't flared up in a long time began to send waves of piercing pain.

Regardless of what situation arose, Zhou You's expression remained as heavy and calm as ever—in fact, as mentioned earlier, he might be a slacker who goofed off most of the time, but the moment the situation changed, or even when he was pushed into a desperate corner, his mind became increasingly clear.

The five-minute journey passed in a flash, and Zhou You soon spotted his target for this time.

--The female ghost in white standing at the fork in the road.

But this time, he didn't run over to tap her on the shoulder; instead, he first unfastened the bell from his wrist, walked straight behind her, then used a small knife to cut his own arm, reapplied an acceleration buff, and finally...

He suddenly raised his large foot and kicked the female ghost's back with all his might!

That slender figure immediately sprawled onto the ground, and at the same time, Zhou You turned around and took off running!