Unexpected Situation

Overall, Liu Xing was very satisfied with this Intermission Growth. Both First Aid and Other Languages: English had improved ideally, and his Driving Skill had directly risen to 50. That was basically enough for a Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG; at the very least, he could be sure he would not crash the car.

After completing his Intermission Growth, Liu Xing officially entered his first Advancement Game.

Scenario: Harvest Festival

Difficulty: Medium

Number of Players: Six

Background: In a certain county town in the Shu Region, the annual Harvest Festival was being held at Immortal Crane Temple in the town center. The townspeople had all gathered to take part in the festival, but according to the older generation of the county town, the Harvest Festival was steeped in myth...

Player Character Card

Name: Liu Xing

Occupation: Doctor

Education: Graduate student

Birthplace: China, Shu Region, Rong City

Gender: Male

Age: 23

Background: Born into a Traditional Chinese Medicine Family, Liu Xing had studied traditional Chinese medicine since childhood. As a result, despite his young age, Liu Xing possessed considerable medical skill. He had also taught himself psychology in college. Although Liu Xing's physical fitness left something to be desired, he possessed jumping ability far beyond that of ordinary people. At his college sports meet, Liu Xing had dominated the men's high jump event for his year.

Connection to This Scenario: After Liu Xing returned from England, media coverage made him something of a celebrity at the hospital. Not long after transferring to the Emergency Department, the slow-to-react hospital director rewarded Liu Xing and gave him another half month of paid leave so that he could relax.

Thus, Liu Xing used his paid leave to attend an English Training Class and Driving School, learning English and driving.

During the final three days of his vacation, Liu Xing and five friends he had met online went to attend the Harvest Festival held in a county town near Chengdu. It also counted as their first Offline Gathering.

Character Attributes

Strength: 55

Constitution: 40

Willpower: 80

Luck: 80

Dexterity: 50

Appearance: 70

Size: 45

Intelligence: 85

Inspiration: 90

Education: 87

Cthulhu Mythos Knowledge: 1

Sanity Value: 78/80

HP: 8

MP: 16

Damage Bonus: None

Skills: First Aid 83, Medicine 78, Psychology 71, Psychoanalysis 70, Persuasion 60, Investigation 40, Jump 70, Other Languages: English 22, Driving 50.

As usual, his vision blurred for a moment. When Liu Xing came to his senses, he was already at the Harvest Festival.

"Hello, players. I'm kpcao, your KP for this Advancement Game. As a KP who enjoys pleasure, I hope you can entertain me with your actions. Of course, I'm not an unreasonable KP. As long as you can persuade me, some rules can be ignored." A sleazy male voice rang out beside Liu Xing's ear, giving him the feeling that its owner was a pervert.

"Oh, one more thing. This Advancement Game takes place in summer, so please remove any personal items that are inconvenient to carry now. If you insist on bringing along certain unsuitable personal items, I'll make a necessary check when importing the plot. You'll bear the consequences yourselves." As soon as kpcao finished speaking, all of Liu Xing's personal belongings and a trash basket appeared before him.

Clearly, this was what "remove" meant.

After thinking it over, Liu Xing decided to throw both the Qingming Oiled Paper Umbrella and the Qingming Sacrifice into the trash basket. A man carrying an oiled paper umbrella around a festival in the height of summer would look strange no matter how one looked at it. Besides, the Qingming Sacrifice was truly hard to look at. Liu Xing did not even have a backpack or anything else to carry it in. If he swaggered through the streets holding it in his hand, the helpful people around him would probably call the police and have him sent to the station...

As for the bottle of Ancestral Green Tea, it was only around a hundred milliliters, so Liu Xing decided to carry it in his pants pocket. This was a medium-difficulty Advancement Game, and Liu Xing felt that his SAN Value would be in serious danger. He had to be ready to restore his SAN Value at any time and avoid falling into a Madness State.

After a while, the personal belongings and trash basket in front of Liu Xing disappeared. Kpcao's sleazy voice sounded again beside his ear. "OK, time's up. It looks like one player wants to gamble on his luck, so I'll grant his wish. We'll now enter the Imported Plot. There are still twenty minutes before the time you agreed to meet at the Festival Entrance, so you may move freely during this period. And a friendly reminder: the mission in this Advancement Game is Trigger Type. I hope you can trigger the mission while enjoying the festival."

After kpcao finished speaking, Liu Xing regained control of his body, though his clothes had already been changed into summer wear.

The bottle of Ancestral Green Tea was tucked into Liu Xing's left pocket, while his right pocket contained his phone, Cthulhu's Candy, and Qingming Season Rain.

With twenty minutes of free time remaining, Liu Xing looked at the crowded masses around him and began observing the Harvest Festival grounds.

The Harvest Festival could roughly be divided into two sections. One was Immortal Crane Temple on a small hill, which required climbing more than a hundred steps to reach. It seemed to be a place for burning incense and worshipping Buddha. The other was made up of the various street stalls beneath Immortal Crane Temple. On the left were snack stalls selling fried noodles, candied hawthorn, and similar foods, while on the right were game stalls with air rifles for shooting balloons and goldfish scooping.

Liu Xing thought about it. Since the scenario was called Harvest Festival, Immortal Crane Temple should contain information related to the Harvest Festival. It might even trigger the mission.

Therefore, Liu Xing decided to visit Immortal Crane Temple first.

Thus, Liu Xing followed the crowd up to Immortal Crane Temple like an ordinary tourist.

Immortal Crane Temple was a small Taoist temple consisting of two buildings. One was the temple hall. Only after Liu Xing entered did he discover that it enshrined a very Cthulhu-like statue... Simply put, it was a statue with a face full of tentacles...

Inside the temple hall, Liu Xing also saw a stone stele recording the origins of the Harvest Festival.

However, just as Liu Xing was about to step forward and examine the stele, he suddenly heard the sound of dice hitting the ground. Then a scream came from outside the temple hall.

Liu Xing knew that one of the players had gotten into trouble.

Liu Xing hurried out of the temple hall and discovered a man in his twenties lying painfully on the steps leading to the hall, blood already flowing everywhere.

At the bottom of the steps, Liu Xing saw a bloodied scalpel.

Liu Xing felt that he could probably guess what accident had happened to that player...

PS: This chapter was dedicated to Kite and that suffocating maneuver.