The living room was pitch-black.
All electrical devices that emitted light had been discarded, and the windows that let in light had been tightly covered.
Su Wu still walked through the dark living room with effortless ease.
Thanks to his Dark Walker talent, the darkness had little effect on his vision now.
He entered the bedroom and sat down at the desk.
Scanning the surrounding walls, he could see blue-green mold gradually spreading across them. Pale yellow water stains had also begun to appear.
The supernatural was silently encroaching on this place.
A backpack sat on the desk.
His notebook, food, water, medicine, candles, cigarettes, a High-Powered Flashlight, the Imperial Bell, the Gang Cave, gold, and other important supplies were all inside it.
Su Wu took the Imperial Bell and flashlight out of the bag, put the newly purchased coarse porcelain bowl inside, and left the Gang Cave, which had developed a few cracks, at the very bottom.
The supernatural entity within this human-bone flute had already merged with the Shadow Fiend to form the Corpse Buddha Ghost Hand, which was now on the simulator's sale list.
Perhaps the cracks had begun appearing because it no longer had a supernatural entity sustaining it.
Its only remaining use to Su Wu was to unlock its owner's past life.
As long as that function remained intact, Su Wu did not care how poor its condition became.
Holding the Imperial Bell in one hand, with red candles tucked into his pocket, he opened the simulator.
"Welcome to the Perfect Life Simulator!" "Your wallet balance is 670 origin jade. Personal life simulation costs 1 origin jade..." "Would you like to spend origin jade to bring real-world items into the simulation?"
In his last few simulations, clearing the Shadow Fiend's area had stopped yielding basic rating rewards. Only successfully evading the Shadow Fiend's pursuit earned him a reward.
After all those gains and expenditures, Su Wu currently had 670 origin jade left in his wallet.
He checked the options for items he could take out and saw the coarse porcelain bowl he had just bought among them.
Option 6: A poorly crafted large coarse porcelain bowl from the modern era.
Just as the stallholder had said, the porcelain bowl was an old object from the modern era.
Su Wu did not choose to bring this item into the simulation. Instead, he looked at the four screens appearing around the dial.
The first screen showed him sitting at his desk. Selecting that scene would start his future simulation in his own room.
The second screen showed him sitting inside the Little Temple. This was a save point.
The third and fourth screens were both pitch-black. The former was the past life of the Gang Cave's owner and cost 500 origin jade to unlock.
The latter was the past life of the coarse porcelain bowl's owner and cost 100 origin jade to unlock.
After letting his gaze linger briefly on the four screens, Su Wu focused on the second one-the Little Temple save point.
"Loading talents..." "Loading game..." "Your future life has been loaded successfully!"
The darkness slowly dispersed.
Inside the Little Temple, the flame on the lampstand burned silently, its warm orange glow spilling outside.
Su Wu leaned against the wall until the dizziness in his head subsided, then got up from the floor.
He held the Imperial Bell, and a handful of red candles were still tucked into his pocket.
Setting his things aside for the moment, he picked up the notebook and phone he had left on the floor last time and checked them. Neither one's records had changed in the slightest.
Mold appeared on the 13th.
Three murders occurred in Peaceful Garden on the 14th, in Building 3.
On the 15th, the young couple upstairs died. A mysterious person joined the group and told everyone to block off their light sources. His own home began to become unsafe.
Su Wu had previously started from his rented room and reached the Little Temple save point in several simulations. Every time he checked the diary, its contents remained unchanged, exactly as they were now.
But the first time he entered the simulation, the dates of all the events recorded in the notebook had been vastly different from the current ones.
Something must have happened between his first simulation and the later ones to cause the Shadow Fiend to awaken early.
After investigating, Su Wu determined that replacing the sound-activated light in the hallway had caused this result.
He had made various preparations in his later attempts, including sealing the windows and gaps around the door, but none of those preparations had changed the notebook's contents in the slightest.
Only after he replaced the hallway's sound-activated light had every event in the notebook occurred earlier. That made the cause obvious.
Su Wu put the notebook and phone back where they had been.
The phone screen lit up intermittently, displaying one pop-up message after another: "Wang Zhiyou invites you to join Boyu No. 3 Work Group."
"Little Tiger invites you to join Boyu No. 3 Work Group."
"Wang Zhiyou invites you..."
"Huang Zhicheng invites you..."
These pop-up messages kept appearing without a moment's pause, as though they would not stop until Su Wu joined his old Work Group.
The Work Group had been corrupted by a supernatural entity. Su Wu had previously seen an eye emerge from the screen with his own eyes, searching for his whereabouts.
He had long since learned his lesson. Whenever he saw the Work Group in his chat list, he immediately left it and even uninstalled the social app.
Yet even after he uninstalled it, these pop-up messages continued to appear.
For now, apart from taking up a little of his phone's memory, the messages seemed to have no other effect on Su Wu.
So he left them alone for the time being.
He also wanted to use this opportunity to observe exactly how this supernatural entity operated.
Su Wu took a candle from inside his clothes and brought it close to the lampstand. The wick ignited the instant it touched the flame.
The candle flame swayed silently.
This kind of candle had a plastic casing around it to shield it from the wind.
It was also fairly thick and could burn for a long time.
Shielding the flame with his hand, he waited until the red lanterns in the sky outside fell and their crimson glow faded. Then he immediately stepped out of the Little Temple and headed straight for the entrance of a restaurant ahead!
A sedan was parked outside the restaurant.
Its door stood open.
Holding the candle, Su Wu hurried over to the car, pulled out the headless corpse slumped over the steering wheel, and sat in the driver's seat. He set the candle on the dashboard, then turned the ignition, shifted into gear, and pulled away.
The car entered the road and kept accelerating!
During his earlier simulations, he had already discovered that the keys were still in this car, though its owner had died in the driver's seat. Su Wu had then tried driving it to escape.
He had obtained his driver's license just over six months ago and had never had a chance to get any hands-on practice.
But in the simulated future, he could drive recklessly and crash into anything he liked, which had actually improved his driving skills.
By now, he could pull away smoothly and navigate fairly complicated road conditions.
He had also gained a talent as a result: Veteran Driver (white).
Veteran Driver (white): You can skillfully drive vehicles and navigate fairly complicated road conditions.
The sedan rounded a bend and headed straight down a main road.
Streetlights and neon signs illuminated all manner of horrific crash scenes along the road.
Su Wu's car swam like a fish between these "obstacles," its speed entirely unaffected.
Then the streetlights suddenly went out. The flashing neon and illuminated signs dimmed along with them.
Darkness descended on the city.
The Lantern Fiend was about to appear.
Su Wu's heart instantly leaped into his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he kept glancing at the red candle on the dashboard, its flame trembling.
At the same time, he kept his foot pressed hard on the accelerator, using this interval of darkness to drive even farther!
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