After breakfast, Bai Lixin cleaned up the kitchen and went out.
He arrived at the Core Fire Guild. It was still early and there weren’t many people in the guild. When he entered, he only saw Zhou Guang and Li Cangshan.
Zhou Guang was busy with the guild’s daily affairs, and Li Cangshan seemed to have been in the guild for quite a while.
Every time he came to the guild, Li Cangshan is almost always there. If he’s not in the guild, he’s likely on the way to a copy.
Guilds had the right to apply for their own territory from the system. The more guild points given to the system, the larger the territory.
Guilds are ranked from one to five, but within the system’s classification, there are actually six levels.
They are Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Level 6 guilds have the largest territory, and so on, with Level 1 having the least.
Level 6 guilds also have more privileges. Every now and then, the system distributes guild rewards. Level 6 gets golden mysterious props, with even the lowest-grade being at least A-level.
Guild assessment is based on the average points, average performance points, and contributed guild points of guild members during a certain period.
As of now, the Core Fire Guild was currently at Level 4.
Their average points and performance points are not low, but the guild points contributed are just enough to maintain Level 4.
As for the top-ranked Shentian Guild and the Sand Sea Guild that rose to second place due to the Fury Flames Guild falling apart, they have the highest contributed guild points.
Level 4 guilds have their own training grounds. Occasionally, when some guild members are not in a copy, they come to the training grounds for practice.
When Bai Lixin arrived, Li Cangshan was in the midst of training.
Through the fogged circular glass, Bai Lixin saw Li Cangshan training vigorously in the room. Sweat soaked his vest, but it didn’t extinguish the fire in his eyes.
Zhou Guang walked up, “Why did you come so early today?”
Bai Lixin, “I just came to look around since I have nowhere else to go. Does Li Cangshan usually train in the training ground?”
Zhou Guang, “Yes. He’s quite disciplined, even more so than me. I thought I came early, but every time I come, Li Cangshan is already training.”
Bai Lixin’s eyes flashed with admiration, “Which floor is he on now?”
Zhou Guang: “He just finished a copy yesterday. I asked him casually today, he said used all the performance card points I gave him and jumped from the 100th floor to over 300 in one go. After that, he completed three more copies by himself, and now he’s about to reach the 400th floor.”
Bai Lixin, “He’s quite fast.”
Zhou Guang, “Yes, he’s really working hard, not inferior to you.”
“Oh, by the way,” Zhou Guang seemed to remember something, he hesitated for a moment, and then spoke, “When I came this morning, I found an envelope at the entrance, specifically addressed to you.”
Bai Lixin: “Where’s the envelope?”
Zhou Guang: “But I checked the surveillance, the envelope appeared out of thin air. Li Cangshan didn’t see this envelope when he came, and then, in an instant, it appeared on its own. Also, there’s something strange about that envelope.”
Bai Lixin, “Take me to see it. What exactly is strange?”
Zhou Guang: “I can’t put it into words. The envelope is black, with no signature and only your name is written on it. It’s unclear where it came from, information is unknown, so we don’t know if it’s a friend or foe.”
As they talked, they walked to the lounge. Zhou Guang searched for a while on the shelf and placed the envelope in front of Bai Lixin, “Here, this is the envelope.”
At the first glance, Bai Lixin knew why Zhou Guang felt this envelope was strange.
A faint black aura surrounded the black envelope. He couldn’t describe what that aura was, but it definitely wasn’t something good.
Bai Lixin took the envelope into his hand. The front of the matte-textured envelope only had five words written on it: Bai Lixin, open personally.
The back of the envelope was sealed with black wax. Bai Lixin rarely saw pure black wax. He rotated the envelope slightly and vaguely saw a skull imprint on the wax.
Zhou Guang felt uneasy, “It’s quite ominous. Maybe you should just throw it away? I always feel this envelope is unclean.”
Bai Lixin’s gaze fell on Zhou Guang’s face, and suddenly, his gaze stopped, “What’s on your face?”
Zhou Guang touched his face in confusion, “What? Is there something on my face?”
There happened to be a mirror in the lounge. Zhou Guang walked to the mirror, and when he saw his face, he suddenly froze, “What is this on my face?”
There was a black mark slowly appearing on Zhou Guang’s left cheek. It was not large, but not small either. Five slender black columns connected to a square black block, resembling a small baby’s black handprint from a distance.
Bai Lixin: “You didn’t have it on your face when we met earlier. It appeared just now.”
The young man’s gaze fell on the envelope in front of him, and he said firmly, “You touched this envelope, so the black handprint on your face may be related to it.”
With that, Bai Lixin lifted the seal, opened the envelope, and poured out its contents.
Inside was only a card, still black, with several twisted paragraphs written in blood-red.
[Invitation]
[Dear guest, congratulations on becoming our 999th lucky customer.]
[We hereby invite you sincerely to participate in our dare challenge game.]
[The game will commence at midnight two days from now. Please keep the invitation with you at the specified time; it will guide you into our game.]
[To prevent you from getting lost, the moment you touch the invitation, it will leave a mark on you, making it easier for us to find you.]
[Please note that anyone marked that attempts to escape will be cursed by the undead. You will be directly pulled into the game, becoming one of the undead.]
[Looking forward to you and your friends’ participation. Enjoy this visual and sensory feast~]
In the lower right corner of the invitation, there was also a bloody red handprint.
Bai Lixin: “…”
I need a moment of silence.
S419M spoke hesitantly: [Uh, Lord Host, this seems to be the grand prize from the lottery you just bought?]
[…]Bai Lixin rubbed his slightly throbbing forehead: [Be more confident, remove the “seems.”]
He thought he could turn the tables and make a comeback today, but apparently, he was still too young.
S419M:[This looks like an invitation to a copy. How can a copy entrance be hidden in the mall? Who would have thought? Whoever draws this is in for a lifetime of bad luck.]
[Oh, sorry, turns out it’s our Lord Host who drew it.]
Bai Lixin: […Shut up.]
While Bai Lixin was brooding over his luck issues, Zhou Guang remained in shock, “How can something like this exist? It looks like an invitation to a copy, just like our last movie ticket. This garbage game, aren’t copies usually entered randomly by ourselves? How come it’s delivered to us actively?”
“Targeted, this is definitely targeted!”
Bai Lixin just smiled awkwardly: “…”
‘Let the system take the blame for this.’
When Zhou Guang finally regained his composure, Bai Lixin cleared his throat, “Since the situation has occurred, it seems we can’t avoid it.”
“At midnight the day after tomorrow, the two of us gather at the guild and enter this game together.”
Zhou Guang sat on the sofa helplessly, “That’s the only way. Don’t worry, I’ll investigate the source of this envelope in the next two days. I suspect it might be a trap set by the Shentian Guild. They really are everywhere. In your last copy, there was a member from their guild, and now they’ve sent you something so disgusting right after you came out.”
“They are truly everywhere!”
Bai Lixin smiled with guilt, “…”
‘Shentian Guild, bear this blame!’
“God Xin, when did you arrive?” A door creaked open, and Li Cangshan walked into the lounge, panting and wiping his head with a towel.
He greeted Bai Lixin when he saw him, then went straight to the table, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it in big gulps.
During the pouring, for some reason, the towel hanging around Li Cangshan’s neck suddenly fell. It happened to land on the cup nearby, and the cup tipped over, water spilling out.
Seeing the water about to soak the envelope, Li Cangshan instinctively reached out to save it.
His movements were so fast that Zhou Guang and the guilt-ridden Bai Lixin didn’t even have time to stop him. The black envelope on the table was already in Li Cangshan’s hands.
At this moment, Li Cangshan didn’t notice the subtle and hesitant expressions on Bai Lixin and Zhou Guang’s faces. He focused all his attention on the wet table, apologizing repeatedly while wiping it with a towel: “Sorry, my clumsy hands accidentally spilled the water.”
His movements were swift, and he quickly wiped the water off the table.
He then put the envelope in his hand and looked at it carefully. After making sure it wasn’t wet, he handed it to Zhou Guang: “President, fortunately, I rescued it in time. Nothing happened to the envelope.”
Seeing the black envelope approaching, Zhou Guang even subconsciously stepped back, his face expressing “don’t hurt me.”
Li Cangshan finally noticed something was wrong. He took back the envelope in confusion, “Is there something wrong with this envelope?”
Seeing the small handprint slowly appearing on Li Cangshan’s neck, Bai Lixin cleared his throat and corrected himself, “So, let me repeat. At midnight the day after tomorrow, the three of us gather at the guild and enter this game together.”
Zhou Guang: “…”
Awkward.
Li Cangshan: “???”
‘I’m confused.’
S419M: [Haha, this is karma, Lord Host.]
Bai Lixin: […]
It wasn’t until five minutes later that Li Cangshan finally understood after seeing the contents of the invitation.
He touched the small handprint on his neck in front of the mirror and muttered to himself, “This handprint is so small.”
Zhou Guang: “Yeah, it’s not big.”
Li Cangshan: “It looks like a water monkey’s.”
Zhou Guang: “???”
Isn’t it supposed to be a baby’s handprint?!
Compared to Zhou Guang, Li Cangshan was much calmer, even analyzing the content of the game mentally. “This game is called the Dare Challenge Game. Combined with the black envelope and these small handprints, it should be in the supernatural direction rather than the monster direction, right?”
“I’ve been learning the scientific development perspective since I was young and didn’t believe in feudal superstitions. So, I don’t know much about the content of supernatural games. Do you two know?”
Zhou Guang: “I’ve seen a bit of horror films. If it’s a dare game, usually a few… um, brave people intentionally seek haunted buildings or participate in supernatural games for exploration. And these brave… um, fearless people always choose to do it at night.”
“The locations include but are not limited to hospitals, morgues, schools, the wilderness, etc. The more famous games involve things like summoning spirits or using a Ouija board.”
Li Cangshan listened attentively, nodding repeatedly, “It makes sense. Hospitals often have dead people, schools are dense with stories, morgues are full of corpses, and the wilderness often has wild animals. But what do you mean by summoning spirits and using a Ouija board?”
“You don’t know about summoning spirits and using a Ouija board?” Zhou Guang looked at Li Cangshan in surprise. “Even if you don’t watch ghost-related things or believe in feudal superstitions in the real world, haven’t you encountered similar supernatural things in these previous copies?”
Li Cangshan: “I have encountered them. I’ve heard from other players about things like Sadako and the Slit-Mouthed Woman, but I haven’t heard of summoning spirits and using a Ouija board.”
Zhou Guang: “Well, spirit-summoning involves several people holding a pen with a piece of paper underneath. Four people need to cooperate to summon a spirit. Once the spirit arrives, the four people ask questions, and the spirit responds by circling words with the pen they hold.”
Li Cangshan pondered for two seconds and then said in a serious and studious manner, made an analogy, “So, is a Ouija board game played with a board?”
Zhou Guang was slightly stunned, “If you put it that way, it seems not wrong.”
It seems like there’s something wrong, but what he said also seems right.
Li Cangshan: “So, are Spirit-summoning and Ouija board games related? They have similar names and operation mechanisms. Or maybe, are they relatives? Did one of them plagiarize the other’s idea?”
Zhou Guang: “…”
‘This question, if you can see them, could you ask for me? I’m getting curious about what you said.’
Li Cangshan’s brain circuit seems to be a little fresh and refined. So subtle.
Bai Lixin: “Besides what Zhou Guang mentioned earlier, buildings where murders, especially gruesome ones, occurred, and places where suicides happened, also become game locations for some people daring to try.”
After breakfast, Bai Lixin cleaned up the kitchen and went out.
He arrived at the Core Fire Guild. It was still early and there weren’t many people in the guild. When he entered, he only saw Zhou Guang and Li Cangshan.
Zhou Guang was busy with the guild’s daily affairs, and Li Cangshan seemed to have been in the guild for quite a while.
Every time he came to the guild, Li Cangshan is almost always there. If he’s not in the guild, he’s likely on the way to a copy.
Guilds had the right to apply for their own territory from the system. The more guild points given to the system, the larger the territory.
Guilds are ranked from one to five, but within the system’s classification, there are actually six levels.
They are Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Level 6 guilds have the largest territory, and so on, with Level 1 having the least.
Level 6 guilds also have more privileges. Every now and then, the system distributes guild rewards. Level 6 gets golden mysterious props, with even the lowest-grade being at least A-level.
Guild assessment is based on the average points, average performance points, and contributed guild points of guild members during a certain period.
As of now, the Core Fire Guild was currently at Level 4.
Their average points and performance points are not low, but the guild points contributed are just enough to maintain Level 4.
As for the top-ranked Shentian Guild and the Sand Sea Guild that rose to second place due to the Fury Flames Guild falling apart, they have the highest contributed guild points.
Level 4 guilds have their own training grounds. Occasionally, when some guild members are not in a copy, they come to the training grounds for practice.
When Bai Lixin arrived, Li Cangshan was in the midst of training.
Through the fogged circular glass, Bai Lixin saw Li Cangshan training vigorously in the room. Sweat soaked his vest, but it didn’t extinguish the fire in his eyes.
Zhou Guang walked up, “Why did you come so early today?”
Bai Lixin, “I just came to look around since I have nowhere else to go. Does Li Cangshan usually train in the training ground?”
Zhou Guang, “Yes. He’s quite disciplined, even more so than me. I thought I came early, but every time I come, Li Cangshan is already training.”
Bai Lixin’s eyes flashed with admiration, “Which floor is he on now?”
Zhou Guang: “He just finished a copy yesterday. I asked him casually today, he said used all the performance card points I gave him and jumped from the 100th floor to over 300 in one go. After that, he completed three more copies by himself, and now he’s about to reach the 400th floor.”
Bai Lixin, “He’s quite fast.”
Zhou Guang, “Yes, he’s really working hard, not inferior to you.”
“Oh, by the way,” Zhou Guang seemed to remember something, he hesitated for a moment, and then spoke, “When I came this morning, I found an envelope at the entrance, specifically addressed to you.”
Bai Lixin: “Where’s the envelope?”
Zhou Guang: “But I checked the surveillance, the envelope appeared out of thin air. Li Cangshan didn’t see this envelope when he came, and then, in an instant, it appeared on its own. Also, there’s something strange about that envelope.”
Bai Lixin, “Take me to see it. What exactly is strange?”
Zhou Guang: “I can’t put it into words. The envelope is black, with no signature and only your name is written on it. It’s unclear where it came from, information is unknown, so we don’t know if it’s a friend or foe.”
As they talked, they walked to the lounge. Zhou Guang searched for a while on the shelf and placed the envelope in front of Bai Lixin, “Here, this is the envelope.”
At the first glance, Bai Lixin knew why Zhou Guang felt this envelope was strange.
A faint black aura surrounded the black envelope. He couldn’t describe what that aura was, but it definitely wasn’t something good.
Bai Lixin took the envelope into his hand. The front of the matte-textured envelope only had five words written on it: Bai Lixin, open personally.
The back of the envelope was sealed with black wax. Bai Lixin rarely saw pure black wax. He rotated the envelope slightly and vaguely saw a skull imprint on the wax.
Zhou Guang felt uneasy, “It’s quite ominous. Maybe you should just throw it away? I always feel this envelope is unclean.”
Bai Lixin’s gaze fell on Zhou Guang’s face, and suddenly, his gaze stopped, “What’s on your face?”
Zhou Guang touched his face in confusion, “What? Is there something on my face?”
There happened to be a mirror in the lounge. Zhou Guang walked to the mirror, and when he saw his face, he suddenly froze, “What is this on my face?”
There was a black mark slowly appearing on Zhou Guang’s left cheek. It was not large, but not small either. Five slender black columns connected to a square black block, resembling a small baby’s black handprint from a distance.
Bai Lixin: “You didn’t have it on your face when we met earlier. It appeared just now.”
The young man’s gaze fell on the envelope in front of him, and he said firmly, “You touched this envelope, so the black handprint on your face may be related to it.”
With that, Bai Lixin lifted the seal, opened the envelope, and poured out its contents.
Inside was only a card, still black, with several twisted paragraphs written in blood-red.
[Invitation]
[Dear guest, congratulations on becoming our 999th lucky customer.]
[We hereby invite you sincerely to participate in our dare challenge game.]
[The game will commence at midnight two days from now. Please keep the invitation with you at the specified time; it will guide you into our game.]
[To prevent you from getting lost, the moment you touch the invitation, it will leave a mark on you, making it easier for us to find you.]
[Please note that anyone marked that attempts to escape will be cursed by the undead. You will be directly pulled into the game, becoming one of the undead.]
[Looking forward to you and your friends’ participation. Enjoy this visual and sensory feast~]
In the lower right corner of the invitation, there was also a bloody red handprint.
Bai Lixin: “…”
I need a moment of silence.
S419M spoke hesitantly: [Uh, Lord Host, this seems to be the grand prize from the lottery you just bought?]
[…]Bai Lixin rubbed his slightly throbbing forehead: [Be more confident, remove the “seems.”]
He thought he could turn the tables and make a comeback today, but apparently, he was still too young.
S419M:[This looks like an invitation to a copy. How can a copy entrance be hidden in the mall? Who would have thought? Whoever draws this is in for a lifetime of bad luck.]
[Oh, sorry, turns out it’s our Lord Host who drew it.]
Bai Lixin: […Shut up.]
While Bai Lixin was brooding over his luck issues, Zhou Guang remained in shock, “How can something like this exist? It looks like an invitation to a copy, just like our last movie ticket. This garbage game, aren’t copies usually entered randomly by ourselves? How come it’s delivered to us actively?”
“Targeted, this is definitely targeted!”
Bai Lixin just smiled awkwardly: “…”
‘Let the system take the blame for this.’
When Zhou Guang finally regained his composure, Bai Lixin cleared his throat, “Since the situation has occurred, it seems we can’t avoid it.”
“At midnight the day after tomorrow, the two of us gather at the guild and enter this game together.”
Zhou Guang sat on the sofa helplessly, “That’s the only way. Don’t worry, I’ll investigate the source of this envelope in the next two days. I suspect it might be a trap set by the Shentian Guild. They really are everywhere. In your last copy, there was a member from their guild, and now they’ve sent you something so disgusting right after you came out.”
“They are truly everywhere!”
Bai Lixin smiled with guilt, “…”
‘Shentian Guild, bear this blame!’
“God Xin, when did you arrive?” A door creaked open, and Li Cangshan walked into the lounge, panting and wiping his head with a towel.
He greeted Bai Lixin when he saw him, then went straight to the table, poured himself a glass of water, and drank it in big gulps.
During the pouring, for some reason, the towel hanging around Li Cangshan’s neck suddenly fell. It happened to land on the cup nearby, and the cup tipped over, water spilling out.
Seeing the water about to soak the envelope, Li Cangshan instinctively reached out to save it.
His movements were so fast that Zhou Guang and the guilt-ridden Bai Lixin didn’t even have time to stop him. The black envelope on the table was already in Li Cangshan’s hands.
At this moment, Li Cangshan didn’t notice the subtle and hesitant expressions on Bai Lixin and Zhou Guang’s faces. He focused all his attention on the wet table, apologizing repeatedly while wiping it with a towel: “Sorry, my clumsy hands accidentally spilled the water.”
His movements were swift, and he quickly wiped the water off the table.
He then put the envelope in his hand and looked at it carefully. After making sure it wasn’t wet, he handed it to Zhou Guang: “President, fortunately, I rescued it in time. Nothing happened to the envelope.”
Seeing the black envelope approaching, Zhou Guang even subconsciously stepped back, his face expressing “don’t hurt me.”
Li Cangshan finally noticed something was wrong. He took back the envelope in confusion, “Is there something wrong with this envelope?”
Seeing the small handprint slowly appearing on Li Cangshan’s neck, Bai Lixin cleared his throat and corrected himself, “So, let me repeat. At midnight the day after tomorrow, the three of us gather at the guild and enter this game together.”
Zhou Guang: “…”
Awkward.
Li Cangshan: “???”
‘I’m confused.’
S419M: [Haha, this is karma, Lord Host.]
Bai Lixin: […]
It wasn’t until five minutes later that Li Cangshan finally understood after seeing the contents of the invitation.
He touched the small handprint on his neck in front of the mirror and muttered to himself, “This handprint is so small.”
Zhou Guang: “Yeah, it’s not big.”
Li Cangshan: “It looks like a water monkey’s.”
Zhou Guang: “???”
Isn’t it supposed to be a baby’s handprint?!
Compared to Zhou Guang, Li Cangshan was much calmer, even analyzing the content of the game mentally. “This game is called the Dare Challenge Game. Combined with the black envelope and these small handprints, it should be in the supernatural direction rather than the monster direction, right?”
“I’ve been learning the scientific development perspective since I was young and didn’t believe in feudal superstitions. So, I don’t know much about the content of supernatural games. Do you two know?”
Zhou Guang: “I’ve seen a bit of horror films. If it’s a dare game, usually a few… um, brave people intentionally seek haunted buildings or participate in supernatural games for exploration. And these brave… um, fearless people always choose to do it at night.”
“The locations include but are not limited to hospitals, morgues, schools, the wilderness, etc. The more famous games involve things like summoning spirits or using a Ouija board.”
Li Cangshan listened attentively, nodding repeatedly, “It makes sense. Hospitals often have dead people, schools are dense with stories, morgues are full of corpses, and the wilderness often has wild animals. But what do you mean by summoning spirits and using a Ouija board?”
“You don’t know about summoning spirits and using a Ouija board?” Zhou Guang looked at Li Cangshan in surprise. “Even if you don’t watch ghost-related things or believe in feudal superstitions in the real world, haven’t you encountered similar supernatural things in these previous copies?”
Li Cangshan: “I have encountered them. I’ve heard from other players about things like Sadako and the Slit-Mouthed Woman, but I haven’t heard of summoning spirits and using a Ouija board.”
Zhou Guang: “Well, spirit-summoning involves several people holding a pen with a piece of paper underneath. Four people need to cooperate to summon a spirit. Once the spirit arrives, the four people ask questions, and the spirit responds by circling words with the pen they hold.”
Li Cangshan pondered for two seconds and then said in a serious and studious manner, made an analogy, “So, is a Ouija board game played with a board?”
Zhou Guang was slightly stunned, “If you put it that way, it seems not wrong.”
It seems like there’s something wrong, but what he said also seems right.
Li Cangshan: “So, are Spirit-summoning and Ouija board games related? They have similar names and operation mechanisms. Or maybe, are they relatives? Did one of them plagiarize the other’s idea?”
Zhou Guang: “…”
‘This question, if you can see them, could you ask for me? I’m getting curious about what you said.’
Li Cangshan’s brain circuit seems to be a little fresh and refined. So subtle.
Bai Lixin: “Besides what Zhou Guang mentioned earlier, buildings where murders, especially gruesome ones, occurred, and places where suicides happened, also become game locations for some people daring to try.”
