Li Xian silently committed that information to memory. After saying goodbye to the other man, he quickly selected a moderately priced room from the shop.
Basic accommodations were so cheap they would barely dent Li Xian's balance, costing only 20 to 50 points a day. In contrast, a luxury suite cost 200 points a night, leaving a conspicuous gap in pricing.
He did not need a particularly nice room just to sleep, so Li Xian chose the one that cost 50 points.
The bed looked bigger.
After purchasing a day's use, Li Xian followed the directions up the stairs to the third floor.
The lighting throughout the building was as bright as daylight. While talking to the man with the backpack, Li Xian had even felt fairly alert, but the moment he stepped out of the lobby and into the dim room, all his accumulated exhaustion came flooding back.
Li Xian did not even turn on the light. Once he found the soft bed, he collapsed onto it and fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, Li Xian had no idea how long he had slept.
He opened the light screen. In its most prominent position, a countdown ticked away the time until he next entered an instance.
10:38.52
He had slept for nearly thirteen hours.
Li Xian rubbed his eyes, then got up and turned on the room's light.
A conspicuous red dot had appeared at the top of the screen interface. When Li Xian tapped it, a long string of friend requests popped up.
Li Xian: "?"
Stranger still, he did not recognize a single name among the people requesting to add him.
He patiently rejected them one by one, until he scrolled to the bottom and finally saw a familiar name.
Song Qingzhang.
Li Xian accepted his request, and the other man immediately sent him a message.
"Bro! Thanks for that last instance."
"If you hadn't reminded me, I wouldn't even have known I needed to hand over the register."
When the instance ended and he heard he had earned an extra 1,000 points, he had been genuinely surprised.
Especially when that reward was subsequently tripled.
Although he had no real sense of how much that amount could buy, the gleam in Zhao Fengyi's and Qian Xin's eyes had told him it was no small sum.
Both the information about the register and the decision to hand it over to an NPC had come from Li Xian's guidance. Song Qingzhang felt he owed him a personal thank-you.
Li Xian: "No problem."
Song Qingzhang: "But what was that abnormal instance content the system mentioned? Something about it feels off."
Li Xian did not know either. He and Song Qingzhang were both new players who had just completed their first instance; they did not even know whether this sort of situation was unusual.
The two had no choice but to drop the subject.
Song Qingzhang: "Oh, right, I looked into it. You can enter instances as a team."
"Li Xian, can I go with you again for the next one?"
A teammate?
Li Xian considered it for a moment, then agreed.
On the other side of the screen, Song Qingzhang clenched his fist in apparent triumph:
"Then remember to call me when you're going into the instance!"
Li Xian sent an "OK" hand gesture. Then, remembering something, he asked Song Qingzhang:
"A lot of people I don't know are trying to add me. Do you know what's going on?"
"Huh? That shouldn't be happening... I haven't received a single friend request."
He himself had only managed to add Li Xian through the instance completion record. How had so many strangers found him?
Song Qingzhang found it odd. After thinking for a while, he seemed to remember something:
"Qian Xin and I came out through the same instance exit. He seemed to run into a few people he knew. They asked which instance he'd cleared, and he said Stone River Village."
"They got really excited when they heard that and asked how he'd cleared it. He said he hadn't done much himself, and you were the one who'd driven all the progress..."
"I left after hearing that."
Li Xian finally understood where all those inexplicable requests had come from.
He sighed. "Got it."
He did not like attracting attention. Now he could only hope the news had not spread far.
Li Xian closed the chat interface, only to receive dozens more friend requests immediately afterward.
"..."
He simply stopped looking at the flashing red dot and opened his "Personal Inventory" instead.
An interface identical to a game's inventory appeared before him. Two items sat within its neatly arranged slots.
One was the Marriage Certificate belonging to him and Ji Xie.
The other was a wooden doll that looked exactly like the one in the Stone River Village instance.
With a thought from Li Xian, the doll moved from his inventory into his hand.
A string of text appeared above it.
[Item: River God Doll] [Quality: S] [Item description: It seems to be connected to a portion of the River God's power, but only those who have gained their approval can use it. Otherwise, you may receive a little "punishment."] [How to use: Throw the doll at any living creature. It will turn into a stream of water and restrict their movements for 5 seconds (can be used once per instance).]
After putting the wooden doll away, Li Xian repeated the process of taking it out and storing it several times.
He should be able to retrieve items this way inside an instance, too.
Once he was familiar with the controls, Li Xian returned to his personal status panel.
His dangerously low mental value had recovered considerably after a night's sleep. It would probably be fully replenished before long.
His health points still showed three question marks, so he had no idea how much they had recovered. Li Xian lifted his shirt. The knife wound on his chest had mostly healed, leaving only a faint ache when he touched it.
So he bought a serving of curry rice for 30 points.
[Description: An utterly unremarkable chicken curry rice. You may not find a less distinctive curry anywhere, but at least the meat in it is guaranteed to be chicken.] [Effect: Accelerates health point recovery for half an hour (only when consumed in the Player Hub).]
The system had even thoughtfully supplied Li Xian with a set of utensils.
Li Xian set the chopsticks aside and scooped up the rice with his spoon, glancing at his points as he ate.
19,462 points.
What he had spent since leaving the instance amounted to little more than spare change.
By the look of it, prices here were pretty low.
The discomfort in his chest vanished completely as he ate. Li Xian checked the time and called Song Qingzhang, and the two headed to the instance entrance together.
At the entrance, a player paced anxiously.
"Soon... I'll be forced into an instance any second..."
"I don't want to go back to a hellhole like that..."
Song Qingzhang swallowed, seemingly infected by the man's panic.
In truth, he did not want to go either.
He had simply forced his fear down and put on an indifferent front.
Li Xian glanced at the distracted Song Qingzhang and urged him on:
"Let's go."
Then he stepped through the entrance without the slightest hesitation.
A flash of light passed, and Li Xian appeared in a completely unfamiliar setting.
Dense forest surrounded him. The gravel path beneath his feet wound into the distance, where a Western-style mansion glimmered with lights, as though waiting for guests to arrive.
Li Xian walked toward the building and reached out to pull open the door.
Several people had already arrived inside the mansion, scattered around the hall with varying expressions.
The first thing to catch Li Xian's attention was a portrait hanging on the wall.
Nearly two meters tall, the painting depicted a beautiful woman in a long floral dress. Her fair arms were crossed in front of her, and she smiled out of the painting.
Although the life-size portrait was beautiful, there was something indescribably eerie about it in this setting.
No one stood near it.
Song Qingzhang spotted Li Xian from across the room. His eyes lit up, and he hurried over.
Li Xian looked away from the portrait, nodded to Song Qingzhang, and began studying the people around them.
Aside from the two of them, there were five people in the hall. Four had gathered together as though they knew one another.
A young man in a black T-shirt seemed to be saying something to his companions. When he saw Li Xian enter, he even had the presence of mind to smile and nod at him.
Li Xian ignored him and turned his gaze away, missing the seemingly appraising look on the other man's face.
The remaining man was tall and stood silently against a corner wall. He showed no intention of joining the group of four or speaking to Li Xian and Song Qingzhang.
Song Qingzhang whispered in Li Xian's ear, "He was already standing there ignoring everyone when I arrived. He hasn't even changed position."
At those words, Li Xian glanced at the man again, only to meet his gaze head-on.
The upturned corners of those eyes struck him as oddly familiar.
Before Li Xian could search his memory, the door behind him swung open, bringing a faint breeze.
Someone else had arrived.
Before you continue