"Bang!"
With a deafening crash, an enormous floodlight suddenly blazed to life, instantly illuminating the room. Ye Chu instinctively closed his eyes and raised a hand to shield them from the sudden glare.
[Welcome to the livestream, players. This is one grand party!]
A piercing voice rang in his ears, like fingernails scraping across glass. Pain stabbed through Ye Chu's eardrums, and he couldn't help frowning.
[Here, you can experience betrayal, deception, concealment, death, and the occasional friendship. Here, you will be challenged to complete several instances. Succeed, and you can leave the game with a vast sum of money, free to enjoy a life of comfort without ever worrying about food or clothing again. But if you fail...]
The voice paused for several seconds. When it spoke again, its pace had quickened considerably, brimming with an almost manic delight:
[You will be immediately eliminated and erased on the spot!!! Now, allow me to introduce the players seated here!]
There was no telling where the voice came from. It was mechanical yet overflowing with emotion, an indescribably jarring combination.
Belatedly, Ye Chu blinked.
What... was going on?
He looked around. It was a small room of about twenty square meters. The walls and floor appeared to be wooden, creaking whenever the wind blew, as though the whole place might collapse at any moment.
An enormous round table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs. Ye Chu counted nine in total, with a number card placed in front of each seat.
Nine people sat in their respective places. Some looked terrified, some irritated, some expressionless, and some... downright excited.
He glanced at the number card in front of him. It read "seven."
Ye Chu thought back over what the voice had just said. He had read plenty of books and had always been quick to accept new things, so he soon processed that torrent of information.
He guessed he had been pulled into one of those legendary system-run infinite survival games. He would have to complete the required instances to leave, or he would die here.
At that thought, Ye Chu's expression grew more serious. Resolve showed in his beautiful, peach-blossom eyes as he began studying the other unlucky souls forced into the game with him.
The light in the room moved slowly, gradually converging above Player One. He looked about the same age as Ye Chu, around twenty, with medium-length hair and particularly alluring phoenix eyes. Despite the eerie atmosphere, there wasn't a trace of fear in his eyes. Instead, the corners of his lips curled with amusement.
[Su Fengzi, male, age 22. Bilibili content creator with a million followers. Horror game streamer.]
The introduction was brief. Before anyone could react, the spotlight moved to the second seat, where a petite girl with twin ponytails sat. Her large eyes were brimming with tears, and she looked so pitiful that it stirred sympathy. The mechanical system voice sounded again:
[Wu You, female, age 20. University student.]
The cold, mechanical voice continued. The people in the room had no idea what they were about to experience, nor did they know that their every move was being broadcast onto a giant screen for greedy spectators to "enjoy."
[Aaaaah, season 249 of And Then There Were None is finally out! Do you have any idea how I survived without you?! Do you?!]
[Another new season? Woohoo, this season's players are pretty good-looking. Wonder how good they'll actually be.]
[Wonder how many instances this lot will survive. Hope it's not like last season, when they all got wiped out before they were even halfway through.]
[Boring. See you, folks. I'm off to rewatch season 127. An eternal classic!]
The spotlight reached Ye Chu in turn, and the system's voice drifted through the room:
[Ye Chu, male, age 21. Third-year student at Peking University.]
The comments on the big screen suddenly multiplied. [Wow! This guy's kind of cute! Instant follow!]
[You call that kind of cute? I swear, out of the twenty-odd seasons I've watched, he's the best-looking person I've ever seen! Licking my screen!]
[Pfft, what's the use of being pretty? He's probably just eye candy, the kind who dies right off the bat.]
[LMAO, the system never disappoints. Everyone else gets "university student," but the hottie gets "Peking University." You really know your double standards.]
[That's not really a double standard, is it? Peking University is famous and prestigious. A few extra words make sense.]
[Has nobody noticed that the guy in seat one is handsome too?!]
The introductions went too quickly. Ye Chu could only briefly match names to faces and the numbers in front of them before the light overhead moved on again.
[Pei Yanchuan, male. Student at an educational institution.]
The comments paused for several seconds, then poured in even faster. [System, are you out of your mind? How dare you?!]
[You dragged a kid this young in here?!]
[He's so handsome too. Those puppy eyes! I love him. Drool, drool.]
After hearing the introduction, Ye Chu couldn't help frowning as he looked at the seat beside him. The boy had a wolf cut, with a streak of red dyed into his black hair, and large, round eyes. His fingers idly toyed with the number card in front of him. Sensing Ye Chu's gaze, he turned and smiled at him.
Ye Chu turned back, expressionless, his thoughts unconsciously falling into step with the audience's. He's almost old enough for university. What's he going to do? He can't let this disrupt his studies.
Sure enough, respect for university ran deep in Chinese bones.
The boy everyone was worrying about had no idea what the person beside him was thinking. He was still flipping the number card back and forth in his hands, trying to find more clues on it.
The light continued moving. [Lu Rui, female, age 25. Office worker at a company.]
Once the last player's introduction was over, all the lights came on again, illuminating the entire room.
[Player introductions complete. The rules for this instance will now be announced.]
The moment the voice stopped, someone at the table lost his patience. Player Three, a middle-aged man, shot to his feet. "What... what the hell is all this?! I want to go home! Send me home right now! All this crap about dying-who the hell would believe it?!" As he spoke, he moved to pull the door open and leave.
The instant he stood, a shrill alarm sounded through the room. Ye Chu covered his ears and frowned.
[Player Three, please return to your seat. Player Three, please return to your seat!] The system issued an icy warning.
[Sure enough, there's someone like this every season. Refusing to believe anything is their whole personality.]
[System, why don't you just kill him? His yelling is getting on my nerves.]
[No need to be so vicious. It's perfectly normal for the guy not to understand.]
[I just noticed he's the only middle-aged person here. All the other players look so young.]
[If Player Three continues to disobey the rules, the system will erase you immediately!]
"Hey, mister," Player One spoke up, his phoenix eyes narrowing slightly as he tipped his chin. "Sit down for a bit. Don't actually get yourself killed."
Player Three looked at Player One, still visibly alarmed and uncertain. The system's warning had already frightened him, and now that Player One had said the same thing, he immediately sat down.
Staying alive came first.
Seeing that no one else in the room was causing trouble, the system spoke again:
[The rules of "Real Werewolf" will now be introduced: This round uses faction-elimination rules. The game ends if the werewolves kill either all ordinary villagers or all special-role players. The good faction can also end the game by voting out every werewolf. There are nine players in this round: three werewolves, three special-role players, and three ordinary villagers. The special roles are the Seer, the Witch, and the Hunter. Each night, the Seer may check whether one player belongs to the good faction or is a werewolf. The Witch has one antidote and one poison, may use only one potion per night, and cannot save herself. Upon elimination, the Hunter may reveal their role and take one player with them. Please note: werewolves must personally kill a member of the good faction during the night. If they fail to make a kill before dawn, one werewolf will be randomly erased. Players will be erased immediately upon being voted out. Please take the game seriously. The game begins. Please remember our motto: entertain yourselves to death!!!]
Silence filled the room, broken only by the sound of breathing. Meanwhile, the comments had already gone wild.
[Holy shit! Real Werewolf right off the bat?! This season's opening with its trump card!]
[How many will even survive this round...? That's brutal. They'll probably add new players later, right?]
[Seriously, what's fun about watching a bunch of newbies? Shouldn't Werewolf be saved for the end? It's only good when they're all expert players.]
[These newbies... there probably won't be many left after this round. I've got a feeling this season will crash and burn even faster than the last. And then there were none.]
Before you continue