Beginner Uninhabited Village (2)

"What's that at the back?" The round-faced girl in the couple raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the bus's rear seats.

Everyone followed her finger and saw something sitting by the window in the back row...

A mushroom?

It was a person wearing a loose black trench coat, which covered his entire body from top to bottom like a cloak. An absurdly large hood sat over his head, hiding his whole face in shadow.

With that coat and huge, round hood, he looked like a giant black mushroom.

The fierce-looking man swallowed. "Was this guy here just now?"

The middle-aged man's gaze grew wary too. "I didn't notice."

Everyone looked unsettled. With an outfit that conspicuous, there was no way none of them would have noticed him.

Yet that was exactly what had happened. They had made such a commotion on the bus, but not one of them had noticed someone sitting in the back row.

The round-faced girl clung to her boyfriend's arm and asked fearfully, "Why isn't he moving? Is he human?"

The fierce-looking man took a few tentative steps forward and called to the black mushroom, "Hey, are you a player too?"

The black mushroom remained motionless, as though he were dead.

The man glanced back at everyone, straightened up under their expectant gazes, and walked over to the black mushroom. "I'm just going to take a look. If you're a ghost, don't... don't get mad."

There was still no response. The man cautiously reached out and pulled down the coat's hood. "You-holy shit!"

His words cut off abruptly as he met a pair of cold, emotionless eyes.

Those pitch-black eyes regarded him icily, like a carnivorous beast watching a frog hopping around at its feet.

He looked barely into his twenties, yet he unnerved the fierce-looking man, who had spent years navigating the rough edges of society.

Startled by those eyes, the man feigned composure. "You weren't saying anything. We called you several times. You could at least answer."

The black mushroom tilted his head and blinked. The chill faded from his eyes, and he looked blankly at the man before him.

The fierce-looking man swallowed. "Are you human or what? Why haven't you said anything?"

The young man in the hoodie looked over too, his mouth falling open in admiration. "Wow-what a beauty."

Removing the hood had revealed a beautiful, finely sculpted face. His skin was smooth and fair, and every feature seemed painstakingly carved. With their chill gone, his eyes were extraordinarily expressive, their jet-black pupils gleaming like gemstones beneath the bus lights.

The rear seats were set a little higher, and he sat above the others, looking down at them as though that were his natural place.

The "black mushroom" suddenly pressed his lips tightly together, displeasure radiating from him.

The fierce-looking man looked helpless. What had he said now? Why had this guy suddenly gotten angry?

And that was indeed the case. Ji Xun was angry right now. Very angry.

Just moments ago, he had been informed that he was out of a job.

His poor performance had led the main system to suspect him of slacking off, and Ji Xun had received notice of his dismissal.

He had worked conscientiously and tirelessly all his life, starting as child labor in escape games when he was just a toddler. Even after growing up, he had toiled without complaint. Sure, players had a seventy-two percent chance of escaping him, but he had still kept grinding away at his job.

Day after day, he had finally saved enough points to own a little cabin in the Black Pine Forest, only to be fired before he could even move in.

To punish him for going easy on players, the Escape Game Main System had dumped Ji Xun into an infinite-flow game run by its neighboring sister system, supposedly so he could learn how their stage bosses did their jobs.

That bastard of a boss! May lightning strike him dead!

The young man in the hoodie discovered, rather miraculously, that he could make out a trace of aggrievement on the black mushroom's face.

"What's wrong?"

Ji Xun looked up at the baby-faced young man and answered sadly, "I just bought a house. I haven't spent a single day in it."

The young man in the hoodie said sympathetically, "I know exactly how you feel. I'd just gotten my admission letter before entering this game. If I'd known, I wouldn't have studied my ass off."

The two players, with their similar experiences, seemed to have found kindred spirits in each other. The fierce-looking man rubbed his eyes.

Those eyes had clearly been cold and merciless a moment ago. Had he seen wrong?

During the system announcement earlier, Ji Xun had been arguing with his former bastard boss over severance pay. He had fought his corner, hoping to at least get back the points he had spent on his house.

But the bastard boss had sneered and tossed him straight out of the system space with a wave of his hand. Ji Xun was so furious that he wanted to take a taxi to the BOSS Protection Association that very night and file a complaint against that skinflint.

Now both his savings and his house were gone. All he could do was hope his new boss was kindhearted enough to give a laid-off former boss like him a few points in reemployment assistance.

Ji Xun sighed deeply, wondering what benefits bosses received in the infinite-flow system.

"By the way, what are your in-game identities?" asked Tang Cha, the young man in the hoodie. "I'm an unlucky high school student who failed his entrance exams and came to the village to unwind."

After the announcement, they had discovered a control panel in their minds. Besides an identity panel, it also included a shop, a social channel, and an inventory.

"Pretty comprehensive," muttered Lu Jiancheng, the fierce-looking man, as he opened his identity panel. Then he exclaimed angrily, "An unscrupulous entrepreneur who abandoned his wife and child, here to develop a tourism project... fuck! I hate scumbags more than anything!"

Everyone checked their own panels.

"I'm a struggling novelist who came to the village for inspiration." Fang Rui, the girl with glasses, gave a self-deprecating smile. "That's pretty accurate."

Xin Xin, the round-faced girl, said, "I'm here to meet my boyfriend's parents."

Her boyfriend, Zhou Yang, nodded. "My role is bringing my girlfriend home to meet my parents."

The middle-aged man had remained silent. When everyone looked at him questioningly, his gaze shifted evasively.

Tang Cha frowned. "Come on, mister. This isn't the time to keep secrets."

"I'm... an unemployed middle-aged man who came here to kill himself," Zhao Fu said with a bitter smile.

Everyone froze. After a moment's thought, Fang Rui said gravely, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I really do write novels in real life."

Xin Xin exchanged a glance with her boyfriend and said quietly, "We just met each other's parents too."

Tang Cha spread his hands and shrugged. He really was an ambitious young man who had just graduated from high school. Then he turned a suspicious gaze on Lu Jiancheng.

Lu Jiancheng pointed at himself in astonishment. "Why are you looking at me? No way! I've hated scumbags all my life!"

"Right, you haven't told us your identity yet," Fang Rui said, looking at Ji Xun.

Ji Xun said expressionlessly, "Just an ordinary working stiff."

Ji Xun angrily closed the panel. The words "a miserable wage slave who could never afford a house even after saving for a lifetime" seemed like his bastard boss's merciless mockery of his former employee.

There was little else they could learn from the identity panels. After discussing it, they decided to wait and see.

Tang Cha grumbled, "They don't even give us a beginner's bonus pack. Trash game! It's doomed!"

Ji Xun felt around his waist. Something had materialized beneath his coat, lifting his gloomy mood a little.

His bastard boss still had a shred of humanity.

[Ding-dong-the bus has arrived at the Uninhabited Village stop. Players, please take your belongings and prepare to disembark.]

The arrival announcement suddenly sounded, and the moving bus slowly came to a halt.

As the bus reached its stop, the doors swung open, letting the acrid smell of smoke pour inside.

Not a sound disturbed the still night. Beyond the doors lay a cold silence like a black hole. Lu Jiancheng swallowed and raised a hand to signal everyone to stay put, then inched toward the doors and quietly peered outside.

The enthusiastic fans who had greeted them earlier were gone. Only then, with the system urging them on, did they slowly get off the bus.

The bus started up again the moment they stepped off. Xin Xin glanced back, screamed, and threw herself into her boyfriend's arms.

The bus's interior had looked no different from an ordinary bus, but its exterior was battered and covered in rust, dried blood, and bloody handprints. Mottled bloodstains had dyed the entire body red.

Most terrifying of all, the bus that should have been empty was packed with standing passengers. Every one of them stared gloomily out the windows, their eyes brimming with venomous resentment.

"So we were standing right beside all these guys?" Tang Cha managed to say. "Isn't that bus over capacity?"