Zheng Xun started his livestream at five in the morning.
He was outside White Tower No. 3 in District 179, one of the dungeons marked by the Azure Mist Guild.
The picture shook twice, and Zheng Xun's face appeared in the middle of the livestream.
"Hello, hello, can you hear me?"
: God Zheng!!
: Holy shit, it's Erchui?
: You bastard, you finally remembered to come back! Where have you been these past few days?!
: I almost didn't recognize you.
: I thought you'd accidentally died in some dungeon.
: Didn't you say you started a guild? Why are you still running dungeons solo?
: Can't afford to recruit anyone?
"Mm-hmm, I know you all missed me."
The comments covered all sorts of topics, and plenty of people were pretending to be haters. Fame brought controversy. Zheng Xun had quite a few fans now, but plenty of people disliked him too.
Zheng Xun ignored all that and treated them all as friendly greetings.
"I'm running a dungeon today. Nothing difficult, so just sit back and enjoy."
Zheng Xun was undeniably one of White Tower's hottest players at the moment, drawing viewers wherever he went. As before, he was running the dungeon in the early hours of the morning, an ungodly time, but hundreds of thousands of people still flocked to the stream within five minutes.
: I'm dying, Erchui said "nothing difficult."
: For the newcomers: the guy you're looking at has cleared only two dungeons since his debut, and both were 3S-class.
: The important thing is that, aside from his mental state, he seems to be in one piece.
: Being in one piece is probably all Erchui has going for him. His mental state is worrying.
: I recommend checking into a hospital for treatment.
: I wonder what difficulty today's dungeon will be?
: If you ask me, Erchui has some of the worst luck among players. Why does he keep opening 3S dungeons?
: The Songbird one doesn't count, does it? That was basically an open-book exam.
: Here we go, Erchui's about to open the box!
: Wait, isn't there a logo by the entrance?
This time, Zheng Xun didn't rush to open the dungeon as he had on previous occasions. Instead, he deliberately lingered by the entrance for a while.
Ordinary viewers simply assumed he had been cooped up for too long and had a lot to say now that he was out.
But some attentive viewers noticed something.
: Isn't that Azure Mist's guild emblem?!
: Holy shit, it's a marked dungeon!
: What's a marked dungeon?
: It's a dungeon that a top-twenty guild has investigated in advance and plans to enter soon. Ordinary players shouldn't touch them, or they could end up losing their lives.
: I remember other guilds steer clear of marked dungeons too, right? They don't want to offend anyone.
: Huh? Does God Zheng not know?!
: Erchui, hurry up and read the comments! You're killing me here!
: Run, Hammer! Azure Mist is huge, and our little guild just got off the ground. We can't afford to piss them off!
The commenters were anxious, but Zheng Xun himself seemed completely oblivious.
Instead of looking at the stream, he looked around, examining the tower's exterior from top to bottom before noticing the palm-sized, celadon-colored guild emblem.
"What's this?" He even rubbed it with his hand, but it wouldn't come off. "A kid's doodle."
With that, he stood up and shoved open the White Tower's door.
: Shit, Erchui, use your brain!
: Erchui's IQ has gone offline again. What kid would play near the White Tower?!
: Is there anyone nearby in real life who can warn him? Offending a major guild is no joke!
The White Tower treated everything equally, but there were unwritten rules between guilds and players.
Once someone offended a major guild near the top of the rankings, the consequences were unimaginable.
The major guild would put that person on its blacklist, and other guilds naturally wouldn't take them in. Players under the guild's management wouldn't enter dungeons with anyone on the blacklist either.
Zheng Xun was a lone wolf who liked running dungeons solo, but not everyone had the ability to do that. Many White Tower dungeons had no limit on the number of entrants, but a team was best off with four to seven people. Experts had calculated that the odds of survival were far higher in a group than when running solo.
If a major guild shut someone out, they truly had no ability to survive in the world of the White Tower.
The commenters were worried about Zheng Xun, but he kept pretending not to see them.
"What's everyone talking about? You're commenting too fast for me to read. Anyway, I'm going in."
: Wait! Scroll up and look!
: It's over, it's over. I can already see Azure Mist putting a bounty on Erchui.
: Isn't anyone from Azure Mist going to show up?
: Don't ever say Erchui's in one piece again. He's blind.
Of course, Zheng Xun wasn't blindly blundering into a marked dungeon out of ignorance.
The people from Azure Mist-or at least those who had been in the teleportation room last night-knew that perfectly well.
He was doing it on purpose!
Early that morning, the member on duty monitoring the marked dungeon had woken everyone up, saying a player was about to open it.
Usually, this meant another guild was bringing people to pick a fight. Their own guild's team members had to assemble quickly and hurry to the White Tower to defend the dungeon, and if things went badly, there could even be a real-life brawl.
All three of Azure Mist's teams had gotten ready, but after pulling on their pants and getting dressed, they looked and saw just one person standing alone outside the marked dungeon.
"Zheng Xun..."
The monitoring room was packed, with people crowded several rows deep. All of Azure Mist's core members were present.
Meng Yijia looked at the figure on the screen, gritting his teeth.
Xu Guan watched in silence.
After the camera zoomed in, Zheng Xun either noticed it or it was a coincidence: facing the Azure Mist members on the other side of the camera, he curled up the corners of his mouth.
One of the more hot-tempered first-team members couldn't hold back.
"Captain, he's provoking us!"
"Yeah, Captain! He dares poach our Azure Mist's marked dungeon all by himself!"
"Even if another guild came looking for trouble, they'd bring at least a dozen people!"
Those dozen or so people would be divided up like this: five would enter the dungeon to fight, while the rest fought outside.
The team members were young and hot-blooded, and Azure Mist's status as a powerhouse gave them confidence-and more than a little overconfidence.
What was Zheng Xun doing?
Poaching a marked dungeon was raiding their home turf, and livestreaming it was drumming up publicity.
It was like a thief banging gongs and drums outside your vault, ready to blast the door open with a cannon.
No one could put up with that.
By now, it wasn't just ordinary viewers in the livestream. Other guilds were watching the show too.
The top-twenty guilds had a large group chat for their leaders and core members. Usually, aside from a few chatterboxes who liked to flood the chat, most people lurked.
At five thirty in the morning, these night owls stirred.
[Sen Miao] Li Shaoan: [Image]
[Sen Miao] Li Shaoan: Passed this on my morning run. Isn't it one of Azure Mist's marked dungeons? How come the door opened on its own?
The others in the group had been enjoying the show in the livestream and were just waiting for someone to speak first.
Now, the innocent captain of Sen Miao's first team had tossed in a grenade, blasting everyone else out of hiding.
[Tourmaline] Huang He: It didn't open on its own. Someone pried it open. [Livestream link]
[Xiangbei] Du Wenshu: Who's blind enough to dare poach a marked dungeon?
[Nine Cauldrons] You Xueshan: It's Zheng Xun, the newcomer who's been making waves lately.
[Ten Thousand Ages] He Yuxing: Zheng Xun? Didn't he disappear for days? Where's Songbird? Come out and say something! @[Songbird] Cheng Jie
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: ?
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: What do you want me for?
[Ten Thousand Ages] He Yuxing: What do you mean, what for?! Your guild's Zheng Xun is entering a dungeon!
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: First, Zheng Xun isn't a member of our guild.
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: Second, he's entering a dungeon? I'll go take a look.
Cheng Jie entered Zheng Xun's livestream and promptly sent him a yacht.
[Ten Thousand Ages] He Yuxing: ?
[Ten Thousand Ages] He Yuxing: Bro, don't be ridiculous. Open your eyes and look whose dungeon Zheng Xun is opening!
Cheng Jie lay in bed with his legs crossed, grinning.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: Oh, sorry, I didn't see it properly.
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: It's Azure Mist's marked dungeon. He Yuxing, why's someone from Ten Thousand Ages getting so worked up? I'll call them over.
[Songbird] Cheng Jie: @[Azure Mist] Xu Guan, @[Azure Mist] Meng Yijia