Sowing Period

Sunny Village had a simple layout. A small river just over three meters wide at the foot of the mountain served as its dividing line, with homes lining both banks.

Every household had a string of dried mushrooms or other food that could be air-dried for storage hanging outside its door.

More than two hundred villagers lived there, spread across over forty houses.

Following the river would take you straight through the village, with no extra, complicated streets.

The houses were built with locally sourced materials, mainly wood, thatch, and stone.

Seemingly to avoid dampness from the ground or various venomous insects,

all the inhabited houses were built on wooden platforms more than two meters high.

This building practice existed in the real world too, though villages like this in the real world were mostly surrounded by bamboo groves rather than forests.

And the space beneath the platforms was generally used to keep free-roaming livestock.

Sometimes, when people woke up and went downstairs, they would even step on pigs or sheep that had wandered onto the stairs to sleep.

But no livestock were kept beneath the houses in Sunny Village. Instead, the space had been turned into farmland, apparently planted with something.

Since the crops had yet to sprout, there was no telling what plants they were.

Tan Huihui curled her lip. "It's pitch-black under those houses. What could possibly grow there? Are they growing moss?"

Normally, the moment Tan Huihui spoke, her number-one lapdog, Yang Ye, would chime in.

This time, however, Yang Ye was unusually quiet, following behind the group as docilely as a capybara.

Without someone to play off, Tan Huihui could not keep talking by herself and soon fell silent too.

Zuo Cheng'an knew why Yang Ye had suddenly become so quiet.

It was simply because, when he grabbed the clothes of his former companion Wang Cheng, he had seen a red air sac on the man's chest, just like the Mountain Monkey's.

It was merely a little smaller, completely invisible once covered by clothing.

Yang Ye thought he had found a clue that would let him dig into the instance's hidden quest, and wanted to quietly reap the rewards.

After all, the instance's main quest was survival and had nothing to do with solving mysteries.

Yet unusual phenomena had appeared in the instance, requiring players to investigate the answers.

What did that mean?

It meant a hidden quest was concealed within those unusual phenomena!!

As long as he found the answer, an S rating was guaranteed! With the new instance's invisible bonus factored in, an S+ was in the bag.

After all, those who earned S ratings were team leaders from major guilds! The very souls of their teams!

Along the way, Yang Ye first indulged in fantasies of his standing in the guild soaring after he earned an S rating, of holding beautiful women in both arms, and of even Tan Huihui, who had always looked down on him, willingly serving him.

Then he forced himself to calm down and consider how to trigger the hidden quest.

Putting together the information from the Wavebreaker Guild players who had previously escaped the instance,

once the instance had progressed to a certain point, red spots would appear on the players' bodies. Before long, those spots would develop into translucent air sacs, much like blisters.

But their outer skin was elastic and did not rupture easily.

Back in the safe zone, mere written descriptions had felt rather flat.

Now that he had a clear visual, however, Yang Ye instantly felt all that flat information come alive!

As for the others who knew this information about the instance,

either they did not know some villagers had the same air sacs as the Mountain Monkey, or their own bodies had yet to show any abnormalities.

They would never realize so soon that the instance's hidden quest might be connected to the blood-red air sac at the Mountain Monkey's throat!

That meant he had no rivals in the entire instance!

This had to be a heaven-sent opportunity for him, Yang Ye, to turn his fortunes around!!

Little did he know that merely accepting a hidden quest was useless. He still had to complete it and clear the instance alive.

Only then would he receive tangible benefits. Otherwise, it was all just castles in the air.

Zuo Cheng'an knew a little more than Yang Ye did.

In fact, it was not just Wang Cheng. Everyone in the village, young and old, had red spots or air sacs, all uniformly located on their chests, where their clothes could cover them.

The air sacs on some villagers had even entered the next stage, with a little fleshy sprout pushing out from inside.

It poked out just like a plant seed taking root and sprouting.

The viewers had already used their eyeball cameras to look through the villagers' clothes and inspect them one by one when the previous groups of players came in.

They had even named every stage in the fleshy sprouts' growth and development.

The appearance of red spots was called the "sowing period," while the red spots turning into air sacs marked the "latent period."

When a fleshy sprout broke through the skin, it was the "germination period."

After germinating, the fleshy sprout would keep growing and produce a flower. That was the "budding period."

But the viewers had never seen what came after that, because no player had survived until the flower buds bloomed.

Yang Ye knew none of this and was still feeling smug about the little scrap he had just discovered.

Zuo Cheng'an already knew most of the air sacs' entire development cycle, yet he still could not trigger the hidden quest.

With the few clues Yang Ye had, he was a long way from being able to accept it.

Some of the viewers in the Sunny Village Resort livestream were veterans who had watched players attempt the instance several times.

But an even greater number were newcomers who knew nothing and had entered the resort's livestream for the first time, curious about everything.

Naturally, they made use of the cameras' ability to pass through objects to resolve their own questions.

They were also the ones posting the most comments.

Much of the time, Zuo Cheng'an only needed to keep an eye on the questions these newcomers asked,

because in most cases, helpful viewers would answer them.

For example, someone had just asked why there were players who had previously attempted the instance among the villagers.

Someone answered that this was an old tradition in the game. As long as dead players had not been smashed into a puddle, they would eventually be repaired and recycled as NPCs.

Many people enjoyed looking for scenes where friends recognized each other or lovers reunited.

Of course, while there were questions veteran viewers could answer, there were also questions they could not.

For instance, why were the bubbles on some villagers large and others small, while some had even sprouted tendrils like bean sprouts?

Where did the Mountain Monkey come from?

How many times a day did the brat suck on eyeballs?

The veteran viewers could not answer these questions. They could only keep watching patiently.

Only if a player cleared the instance or completed its hidden storyline could they benefit from that player's efforts and learn the answers.

Some viewers loved the process of searching for answers and specifically sought out instances no one had cleared.

Others disliked using their brains and preferred having everything handed to them. They went to instances with complete guides, where every side quest had already been explored.

Clearly, most viewers who entered the Sunny Resort instance belonged to the former group.

Every one of them had an overwhelming desire to investigate, wishing they could be possessed by a master detective and instantly unravel Sunny Village's secrets.

The latter group, finding the livestream not only uninteresting but also full of annoying mysteries, had long since fled to Killing Is Art's livestream.

It had been a long time since Zuo Cheng'an had seen such agreeable comments.

At a glance, everyone was speculating about the village's abnormalities and proposing all sorts of ideas. Lewd or deranged remarks rarely popped up to offend his eyes.

Some people watched instance livestreams just to stare at beautiful women's breasts and asses, while holding the complete script in hand and mocking players who acted foolishly from an all-knowing perspective.

But in instances without complete guides, they could no longer look down on everyone from that all-knowing perspective.

Under those circumstances, showing off recklessly could easily backfire and make them look like fools.

Over time, naturally, none of them wanted to wander into new instances just to make themselves miserable.

It seemed that, aside from higher rewards, attempting instances no one had cleared offered this benefit too.

By sheer accident, it had filtered the viewers, removing more than half the scum.

For that reason alone, Zuo Cheng'an decided to attempt more new instances in the future, if only to spare his eyes.

Otherwise, after reading negative comments for too long, Zuo Cheng'an feared he might become twisted himself.

Though he had not been all that clean to begin with.

Soon, the village chief led the players through the entire village.

Just as the players thought the chief was going to lead them into the woods outside the village, they finally stopped in front of a wooden house.

Like the other houses in the village, this wooden house stood on a wooden platform, raised well above the ground.

Farmland had also been cultivated beneath it, and its entire layout was identical to the villagers' homes.

But this did not put the players at ease. Instead, the village chief's next words set their nerves on edge.