The Strange Arrival

The man in sportswear howled and cried as he was beaten. He had thought he was already pretty formidable, only to get utterly thrashed. He had not even had time to use his Elemental Card and had been completely unable to fight back. Could a woman really be this strong?

But how could a woman's strength possibly exceed his? Even his coach could not match his current strength—otherwise, they would not have hired him as an assistant coach.

Could she be a Player too?

"Player? Are you a Player?" he begged loudly. "Since we're both Players, why do we have to kill each other? We can only go farther if we help each other!"

Ye Zhao gave a cold laugh and raised her hand with an iron fist. "Are you worthy?"

The man in sportswear was slapped so hard that his head spun, and one of his teeth even fell out. Though he had been terrified when facing the strange entities these past few days, as long as he pretended not to see them, they would not hurt him. This was the first time he had ever been beaten so badly!

Having rarely suffered hardship, he simply could not endure this kind of torment. He felt like he was about to die.

"Don't, please don't kill me. I'm rich, and I know people from the Ye Family—the Ye Family whose Ye Corporation Cinemas are all over the country. I'm good friends with their eldest daughter. As long as I can leave the game alive, I can give you five million! No, fifty million!"

Ye Zhao could not be bothered to listen to his nonsense and casually took stock of his belongings.

Cash: 500.

Exorcism Talismans: 5.

Sedatives: 2.

Lightning Strike—Elemental Card: 1.

Tsk, so poor.

When the man in sportswear saw that all his possessions had been searched, he panicked even more. "Ma'am, please spare me! I'll die without those items!"

"What does your life or death have to do with me?" She lowered her head and spoke softly. "When you stepped on my dress and left me naked in public, you did not care whether I would die either."

The man in sportswear froze, seeming to search through his memories while also unable to believe it. "Ye Zhao? You're Ye Zhao? How can you treat me like this? I'm going to tell Mingyue—"

Bang! Bang! Ye Zhao landed two more iron-fisted blows. The man in sportswear was in so much pain he wished he were dead, but the beating knocked some sense into him. He immediately changed his tune. "I'm sorry. Mingyue told me to do it. You know how it is—I couldn't disobey her. I had no choice..."

Ye Zhao gave an oh. "Ye Mingyue told you to do it? Do you have proof?"

"I don't have proof, but I can testify against her! I'm a witness!"

Ye Zhao said, "Aren't you in love with Ye Mingyue? You're willing to testify against her now? You are not planning to trick me, then turn around and accuse me once you're out, are you?"

"How could I?" The man in sportswear swore to the heavens. "My feelings for Ye Mingyue were all fake. My parents told me to get close to her, so I had no choice. I actually hate Ye Mingyue too. She's covered in knockoffs, yet she still acts like some princess?"

"You're the real Miss Ye, the little princess of the Ye Family!"

The corner of Ye Zhao's lips tugged upward. Though she did not believe the man's bullshit, she would be delighted if he could smear Ye Mingyue's name. In any case, whether he died sooner or later made no difference. He might as well offer up his last bit of value. "All right. I'll give you a chance. I won't kill you for now. If you make it out alive and do as you said, I can still kill you."

Joy appeared on the man in sportswear's face. "Okay, okay, okay! I'll remember. I'll definitely remember!"

Ye Zhao clicked her tongue. "Get lost."

The man in sportswear scrambled to his feet. He looked fearfully at Ye Zhao, then at the game items scattered across the floor. He tried to pick them up, and when Ye Zhao did not stop him, he moved at lightning speed. Before he could even shove them into his pockets, he clutched them in his hands and bolted.

He ran as though ghosts were chasing him from behind.

Ye Zhao raised her hand and fired a shot at the man in sportswear. With a bang, the bullet grazed past his ear. He dropped to the ground with a thud, and when he looked back at Ye Zhao, his eyes were filled with terror.

She did not stop. Another shot, then another, then a third—all missed. What a pity.

The man in sportswear fled in abject terror and vanished from sight in the blink of an eye.

Ye Zhao put away her gun and shook her head. "What a loser."

Apparently, fate wanted her to watch a show.

Feeling bold today, she decided to go to the mall and buy a few new outfits.

The next few days were relatively peaceful. With the Exorcism Bronze Mirror's protection, Ye Zhao found survival in the strange world much easier.

At the same time, during her outings over the past few days, Ye Zhao noticed that the number of strange entities on the streets and in the alleys had gradually increased. Before, she had only occasionally encountered one or two, and humans had still been the main inhabitants of this world.

But now, whenever she looked up, she saw entire swathes of strange entities staring at her with wide, dull, cold eyes. Humans had instead become the minority among them.

Because of this, Ye Zhao went out less often. Yet strange entities were slowly pouring into the hotel as well. The most obvious change was that the knocking outside her door had become increasingly frequent.

This gave Ye Zhao a very bad feeling. Things might look calm now, but after the nuclear explosion in the previous world, she could not help worrying that this world might also face a total-annihilation crisis.

On the tenth day after entering the game, Ye Zhao had not gone out for two days, not even to the gym.

She had placed Exorcism Bronze Mirrors in her living room, bedroom, and bathroom. But correspondingly, the moment she opened her door, she would see strange entities staring at her with blank eyes. So lately, she had been holed up in her room and did not dare go out casually.

Today, she again decided to hide properly. Her daily entertainment was lying by the window and observing the surroundings through binoculars.

She had used binoculars before, but they had only shown normal scenes. Now, with one glance, fifty percent of the figures on the ground were strange entities.

Ye Zhao swept her binoculars wildly over the strange entities below, hoping to find out why there were suddenly so many of them. Perhaps they had some ghostly boss among them who could command them?

From what she had observed over the past few days, strange entities were not mindless.

But as she watched, a Passerby Ghost that she had glanced at through her binoculars suddenly lifted its head. Its pair of gray-white, shadowy eyes stared straight at her across the great distance!

The abrupt eye contact startled Ye Zhao.

[Sanity Value: -10.]

She immediately looked away and pretended nothing had happened.

How had it noticed her?

This was the first time during this period that a ghost had discovered she was spying on it.

For a moment, Ye Zhao did not dare look downstairs again. She sat back on the sofa, unwrapped a milk candy, and put it in her mouth.

Sure enough, only something sweet could make her feel that there was still a little beauty left in this world.

Life was so bitter.

"Knock knock knock knock!" The knocking suddenly rang out. Fortunately, Ye Zhao had gotten used to it and did not lose any Sanity Value from the abrupt sound.

It had to be said that she had really grown a lot.

The knocking did not stop, but she ignored it outright and pulled out her phone to browse for a while.

She also wanted to know how the other players were doing. She searched online using keywords related to players and actually found a post created by a game player. The original poster had even set up relevant banned words to avoid being discovered by the strange entities.

[Brothers, save me! My items are almost used up. How am I supposed to survive the next five days?!]

[This damn trash game! Why did it choose me? Why did it choose me? I don't want to participate at all!]

[Ten million to buy game items! Ten million to buy game items! Ten million to buy game items! I'm the heir to a hundred-billion fortune, and I absolutely won't default on payment. DM me if you're interested!]

[Waaah, all my items are used up. What do I do? Can anyone take me in? I can do anything—I can host guests, cook meals, and even warm your bed!]

[Only five days left. Everyone, hang in there!! If we make it through, we win!]

There were players pouring out their woes, as well as Natives who had wandered in by mistake: [Hahaha, this post is so funny. Why is everyone crying? What kind of game item costs ten million? Are you crazy?]

Of course, posts like that generally received no replies. After all, no one knew whether the person on the other end of the internet connection was human or a ghost.

One comment caught Ye Zhao's attention.

[So scary... Have you guys noticed that those things have become more numerous and more terrifying these past few days? It always feels like they could kill us at any time. Does anyone know what's going on?]

Ye Zhao checked these people's IP addresses one by one and found that not all of them were in the same city as her. It seemed that the players were spread across a wide area this time. Then a scenario where everyone was wiped out in one wave like a nuclear explosion probably would not happen, right?

She bit down on the milk candy in her mouth and poked at her chin. When she happened to glance up, she saw the Passerby Ghost pressed tightly against the window, its eyes wide as it stared at her greedily and excitedly!

Who knew how long it had been lying there, or how long it had been watching...