pearl

The movie's light washed over Xie De, making his silhouette flicker in and out of view. He looked like someone with a story, not a person from reality, but someone who had stepped out of fiction.

He was looking up, watching the movie carefully, when he realized it contained only one scene: a woman repeatedly raising an axe to chop wood. The setting looked like an American farm. The black-and-white footage and endlessly repeating scene made it especially eerie.

The thudding of the axe sounded just like the meat-chopping noises in the horror films 455 had made him watch, except it was even more frighteningly close. It felt as though the woman chopping wood was about to step out of the screen.

He sucked in a breath, his own speculation raising goose bumps all over his body, then lowered his eyes, unwilling to watch any longer.

Xie De had all but given up on his own cowardice. 455 had tried to build his courage by sending him into graveyards and haunted houses and making him watch horror movies. Instead of getting braver, Xie De had nearly been scared into developing PTSD.

Anything involving bloodshed or violence made his breathing quicken and his heart race. He was so easily triggered that 455 no longer dared push him too hard.

Now, with his courage still undeveloped, he had entered another Instance. The thought that it was full of ghosts made Xie De want to cry.

Wait, hadn't I teamed up with the protagonist's group? Where did all the pros go? Those three behind me are obviously newbies! They're even less reliable than I am.

"Hey! Do you know what this place is?" The office worker swallowed and worked up the courage to ask.

Xie De turned his head and glanced up at him, his long silver hair falling to one side. He answered honestly, "An Instance."

The model let out a startled cry. "Is this real?"

She clearly knew what an Instance was, and their surroundings were so eerie and dark.

She clapped a hand over her mouth and began to panic, hurrying over to Xie De almost immediately. Whatever she had imagined, she started desperately pleading with him.

"Please, please let me out. I'll give you anything you want. My family has money, so much money. I can give you all of it. Please, I'm scared. I can't do these challenges..."

Girl, you're begging the wrong person. I'm scared too.

Xie De was just about to speak when the office worker came over as well, facing him with the tragic resolve of a man heading to his death, his eyes bloodshot.

"Bro, I have elderly parents and children to support, and I'm just an ordinary person. I don't have anyone powerful backing me. Even if you want the people above me to watch us kill each other to survive, I-I can't do it! What do you expect me to do? Please, let me go."

Why are you joining in too?!

The middle-aged woman behind them also started to speak.

39 looked down at them with a cold sneer, his dark green eyes displaying the bloodlust of a cold-blooded animal.

"You really are ridiculous."

Apparently, this man wasn't going to let them leave. Tears instantly streamed down the young woman's face.

Xie De hurriedly said, "I'm a player."

Her tears stopped, hanging on the verge of falling. She wiped the corners of her eyes and said in an uncertain voice, "I-I understand."

Do you really?

The office worker looked as though he wanted to say something, but under the pressure of the man's powerful presence, he didn't dare utter a word. He could only swallow his anger.

Anyone could clearly see that this man was no ordinary person! With all that hostility and icy menace radiating from him, how could he claim to be a player at the Instance's mercy?

Even if he really was a player, that hardly meant he was a good person. He was probably the sort who had no regard for human life. They didn't quite dare approach him for protection.

People admired strength. When the strong met the strong, they appreciated each other warily, but when the weak met the strong, they were either timid and deferential or ingratiating. The gap in strength became a psychological chasm.

The middle-aged woman shut her mouth completely and sat there quietly, looking around helplessly.

Then the three of them huddled together far away from Xie De and introduced themselves.

The model was named Qiu Shanyi. As she had said, her family was well-off.

The office worker was named Liang Renhuai and came from the capital. In truth, he had no children and wasn't married. He only had a gambling-addicted father to support.

The middle-aged woman was named Zhang Qiuyue. She was a single mother whose son had just started university and gotten a girlfriend.

Their experiences had nothing in common. They really couldn't understand why the Instance had chosen them.

Still, without discussing it, they all refrained from asking Xie De anything, warily banding together to "exclude" him.

455 came online humming. "Host, have you found the protagonist? Huh! Host, what's wrong?"

T^T

"Obviously, I've been ostracized."

455 flew into a rage. "The audacity! What a bunch of shallow players, judging only by appearances and not what's inside! You can tell they'll never amount to anything. Host, listen to me. Let's ignore them. Remember, it doesn't matter. We've got our own team anyway."

"Mm."

Xie De stood up expressionlessly, intending to look for clues.

The three players beside him all cried out in alarm.

Xie De went rigid. On the enormous screen before them, the woman who had been endlessly chopping wood leaned toward the screen with a grin, her axe in hand. She turned her head stiffly, wearing an inhuman smile that exposed eight teeth, then swung the axe and hacked viciously into the screen.

The screen shattered just like that.

"Aaaah..."

The three new players let out piercing screams, running around like headless chickens.

Not one of them was reliable. Xie De forcibly suppressed his panic, knowing he needed to calm down and think carefully right now... He couldn't calm down at all!

"455! Was this in your plot?"

On the verge of tears, Xie De hurried to the door and pressed down hard on the handle twice.

"No. Uh, calm down first. An Instance won't create a guaranteed death trap. There must be some clue here that you haven't noticed..."

"To hell with the clues."

Unable to open the door, Xie De pulled out the Glock. With a bang, he shot the lock apart, then kicked the door open.

Outside was a perfectly normal Universal Studios corridor, except the lights were dimmed in a repeating pattern. The smell of popcorn hung in the air, and posters for various movies lined the walls from left to right.

Animated films, horror films, romances, arthouse films-it had everything.

There was no time to look at the movie titles on the walls.

Xie De ran straight out, too panicked to care where he was going, his nerves taut as he constantly watched for ghosts that might emerge around him.

Thank goodness for the past few days of training.

His sharpened senses picked up a sound around the corner. Was it a player or something supernatural?

Whatever. Gun up.

As the saying went, all fear stemmed from insufficient firepower.

Wei Yanchi had barely stepped out when a gun pressed against his head. Instinctively, he began thinking about how to subdue the person holding him at gunpoint, but then a familiar tobacco scent washed over him, carrying a faint sweetness of cedar.

He met the eyes he had been longing to see for so long.

"Mr. 39!"

Protagonist, there you are!

Two other players were following the protagonist, one of whom was Beiwei. Dressed in sportswear, Beiwei had cut her hair into a very short wolf cut and looked like a cool girl. But the instant she saw him, her eyes lit up. She went straight around Wei Yanchi and ran to his side.

She said nothing, simply standing there.

The other was probably another new player. He had a bald crown and wore a suit, his eyes darting around uneasily as he swallowed and looked at Xie De.

Sure enough, you could tell new players from veterans at a glance.

Xie De withdrew his gun and cast a wary glance behind him. After he had left, the three new players had quickly run out too, apparently hoping to follow him. But he had been too frightened to look back even once and had strode away so quickly that he naturally left all three far behind.

If this was a scenario in which someone had to die, which of those three would it be?

There was a saying about escaping danger.

You didn't need to run fast. You only needed to run faster than your companions.

Though his conscience might condemn him for it, Xie De hoped he could be forgiven. He really wanted to survive.

His heart was still pounding fiercely. 39 lit a cigarette and held it between his lips. "Any leads?"

Wei Yanchi came back to his senses and shook his head. "We need to find more people. I think there should be four screening rooms here. Could you tell me what movie you were watching just now, Mr. 39?"

What movie was it?

Xie De only knew one scene: a woman chopping wood over and over.

455 prompted him, "That movie's called pearl."

That sounds so familiar.

39 exhaled a mouthful of smoke and lowered his gaze slightly. "pearl."