Night Fog

(The previous chapter was revised, but the result is the same and it doesn't affect the following reading.)

Li Ran found a special item on Wang Gan's body.

It looked like an irregular Rubik's Cube, roughly hexagonal in shape, with patches of mirror embedded across its surface. The mirrors shimmered with colors like the iridescent sheen on the surface of gasoline.

Li Ran's reflection in the mirrors was distorted and fragmented.

As he wondered what it was, a line of text appeared on the Text Panel.

(Mirror of Truth: A mirror that can peer into the real world. It is said that some people have gone mad after using it to glimpse the real world.)

"A mirror that can drive people mad?"

Li Ran furrowed his brows and held the strange mirror in front of his eyes. How had it not been crushed by Demon Shadow Stomp?

"Could equipment and items be immune to damage from external forces?"

He picked up the strange mirror. What Li Ran saw was a fragmented world, like the view through a kaleidoscope.

After watching for a while, Li Ran still couldn't make out anything useful.

"There's nothing strange about it."

"Is this a quest item?"

At the thought, Li Ran remembered one of the rules Grandpa Ge had told him about the residential complex.

The madman on the roof of Building No. 4.

"Someone saw the real world and went mad. The madman on the roof of Building No. 4—it all fits."

"So this thing is actually a quest item."

After mulling it over some more without figuring anything out, Li Ran put it in his Storage Space.

"There's more?"

Li Ran found a pair of glasses on Wang Gan's body.

As expected, equipment wasn't affected at all. He came to the conclusion that it was just like a video game: even if you burned a boss to ashes, it would still drop its loot.

(X-Ray Glasses: Need an explanation?)

"This pervert Wang Gan even had something like this?"

Li Ran wiped the glasses clean, then put them on.

"Holy crap!"

The exterior wall of a house in front of him turned transparent, allowing him to see everything inside without obstruction.

"How amazing."

By focusing his gaze, he could even adjust how far he could see.

"Huh, there's a girl taking a bath."

"Sorry for intruding."

Before he could enjoy the view, Li Ran saw the girl open her enormous mouth and swallow a rat. He nearly threw up.

After that, Li Ran spent a while testing the X-Ray Glasses.

Within a hundred meters, they could see through a maximum of five walls. Any more than that, and things became blurry.

There was another feature that surprised Li Ran: besides seeing through things, the X-Ray Glasses also had thermal imaging, like using a wallhack in an FPS game.

"These are the ultimate peeping tool!"

Li Ran clicked his tongue, the grin on his face growing more and more perverted.

Aside from peeping, Li Ran thought the [X-Ray Glasses] could be put to their fullest use on the battlefield. With X-ray vision and thermal imaging, no enemy could escape detection.

"That's all?"

Li Ran felt around Wang Gan's corpse for a while longer, but didn't find anything else useful.

"This murderer had nothing but perverted stuff on him. He didn't even have a single decent piece of equipment. What a disappointment!"

Li Ran shot the corpse a disdainful glance.

Fortunately, though, he'd received a special piece of equipment as a quest reward.

The reward had been sent to his personal Storage Space.

Li Ran opened his Storage Space and spotted the special equipment right away.

[Gloves: Great Blade Gloves (Fine) (Set 1/4)]

[Requirements: Mysterious Power 700, Strength 200]

[Attributes: Mysterious Power +50, Strength +50, Constitution +50]

[Effect: Passive Skill: Blade Strike: For ten seconds after attacking a target, Critical Hit chance increases by twenty percent.]

[2/4 Set Bonus: Invisible attacks; ranged attack power increases by ten percent!]

[4/4 Set Bonus: Physical attack skill damage increases by ten percent!]

"Wow, it's a set item?"

Li Ran was instantly excited. The loot from searching the body had been disappointing, but the reward turned out to be great.

But his excitement soon faded.

On its own, a set item's attributes were actually about the same as those of a single piece of Fine equipment.

Only collecting two or four pieces would activate the set bonuses.

In other words, Li Ran had to get another piece from the Great Blade Set to activate the two-piece bonus.

He'd have to collect three more pieces to activate the special four-piece bonus.

"Aw, I got my hopes up for nothing." Li Ran sighed.

"Where am I supposed to find that many Wang Gans to kill? And even if I kill this monster, it might not drop a set piece."

At the thought, Li Ran felt a pang of frustration.

Thinking of Wang Gan's transformed form as a Great Blade Demon, and then of the Great Blade Set, he realized the two were obviously connected.

Only a Great Blade Demon like that would drop the set—and even then, it wasn't guaranteed.

"If I make it back to the real world, it'd be great if this instance could reset. I could come back and kill him over and over until I got the whole set."

But whether he could even make it back to the real world alive was still unknown.

Would the instance reset after he left?

If it did, would Su Bingyao still remember him?

No one could give him the answers—not even his Golden Finger.

"Am I getting ahead of myself? It's not good to hope for too much."

Li Ran patted his cheeks, trying to calm down.

He'd actually begun to feel a little attached to the Weird World. Even he was frightened by the thought.

Night had fallen. It was time for Li Ran to head back.

If he didn't hurry, his wife would get angry.

Before going home, he stopped by Happiness Supermarket.

This time, he could take the elevator home without a care.

"Dad, you're back!"

"Look what Dad brought you."

Li Ran took out a brand-new set of paintbrushes and handed them to Li Ziyang.

"Thanks, Dad!"

Li Ziyang happily hugged the paintbrushes and bounced around.

"You spoil him too much. Come eat."

Su Bingyao wore an apron and carried a pot of hot lamb soup to the table. Her hair was pinned up high, with a few strands falling against her stunning profile, making her look dignified and gracious from behind.

"With a lovely wife like you, what more could a man ask for?" Li Ran said dreamily.

Su Bingyao gave Li Ran an affectionate glare. "Flatterer. Did you find it?"

She meant the Marriage Certificate she had hidden.

The Golden Finger hadn't given any specific hints for this quest, and the only clue Li Ran had so far was that the Marriage Certificate wasn't in the house.

Li Ran was frustrated too. It was maddening when the Golden Finger's hints failed him at a critical moment. Usually, its quest alerts were accurate and timely, but whenever it came to marital problems, it either told him to fend for himself or said the question was beyond its scope. What was the point of having a Golden Finger like that?

He hadn't found the Marriage Certificate, but he hadn't come back empty-handed either.

Their son had gotten a present, so how could his lovely wife go without one?

With a flourish, Li Ran produced a big bunch of roses and presented them to Su Bingyao.

Su Bingyao's lips parted slightly, and she looked utterly taken aback.

"Wow, Mom's blushing!" Li Ziyang shouted.

A flush spread across Su Bingyao's cheeks. She held the roses in both hands, smelled them, then shot Li Ran a glance. "You said the company was struggling, but now you're buying roses. Isn't that a waste of money?"

"Besides, I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm past the age of liking flowers."

Although Su Bingyao complained and pretended to dislike them, Li Ran could tell she was genuinely happy deep down.

Su Bingyao set the flowers aside and ladled him a bowl of hot lamb soup. "Go wash your hands first."

"Okay."

Li Ran loved this feeling. It even seemed like a dream.

A wife who wholeheartedly supported and understood him was what so many men dreamed of.

Midnight.

The night fog descended like dark clouds pressing down from above, and the whole residential complex seemed to be swallowed by a black beast!

The Black Fog surged wildly through the complex as if it were alive.

He still hadn't found the Marriage Certificate, so Li Ran still couldn't sleep in Su Bingyao's bed.

At that moment, a wisp of Black Fog slipped through the crack beneath the door and entered the room. It circled the bed once, then floated toward the tatami.

Li Ran, lying on the tatami, was already snoring softly.

The Black Fog hovered above his head.

After a long while, it finally dispersed.

"Eee... eee... wah... wah..."

An infant's babbling voice came from one of the rooms.