[Ding! Team successfully formed!]
[Drawing game project…]
[Ding! Special marker detected! Checking invitation…]
[Ding! No special invitation detected! Entering Shattered Mirror Continent…]
[Beep! Instance activated: Ancient Tomb Apartment!]
[Entering… please wait…]
[Beep! Passive · Chosen Girl Effect Activated!]
[Congratulations to the player for obtaining 2111+500 Guansi.]
Player: Mu Anqi
Age at Death: 20
Ability: I've Got Plenty of Money
Points: 100.6
Transaction Serial Number: 64805368
Guansi: 15490
Ancient Tomb Apartment? This should be within the Taiyin Realm, right? But do ghosts need tombstones? It's also very possible that this is the cemetery area for monsters after they die…
Since Mu Anqi is a player, unless the Nirvana Space randomly transports her to these locations used as game arenas, she cannot obtain any other information about the game from the residents of the Shattered Mirror Continent. This… is probably a form of fairness?
Adjusting her sportswear, Mu Anqi surveyed the apartment. She wasn't sure if it was the background or the overcast weather today, but this area had no sunlight and looked gloomy. The Ancient Tomb Apartment sat amid this desolate forest, and as for the "ancient tomb"… Mu Anqi thought, maybe she would have to go through the wasteland?
First, she needed to regroup.
Entering the apartment, Mu Anqi didn't see anyone she knew. On the sofas in the lobby on the first floor, quite a few people were already seated.
…A large-scale game?
Just as Mu Anqi was about to find a corner to sit, Zhao Guogu and Si Suying entered the lobby. Zhao Guogu immediately spotted Mu Anqi and quickly walked over, patting her shoulder: "Long time no see."
"Long time no see!" Zhao Guogu looked especially well; perhaps after being recruited by the Four-Leaf Clover, the luck of an already lucky person added to another lucky streak, turning her into a double-charmed individual. With such luck, life naturally went smoothly.
Si Suying also walked over. She glanced at the players in the lobby, and as they greeted each other, many players curiously looked over. "Let's find a corner to chat."
"Okay!" Mu Anqi replied. "Have you learned to make any new items recently?"
"No." Si Suying shook her head. Zhao Guogu had also been trying hard to pray for new blueprints, but… perhaps Zhao Guogu's talent didn't lie in this area, and even her lucky streak didn't help. "And the other two… teammates?"
"Yeah, but it seems they haven't arrived yet…" As she spoke, Mu Anqi spotted Xia Yun in an ancient swordsman outfit, wearing a conical hat. As Xia Yun noticed Mu Anqi, she stood up and waved. She grabbed Wu Sansheng, who had fallen behind, and walked toward Mu Anqi.
"What's going on with this game? There are so many players?" The last time there were this many people, it was Xia Yun's trial instance.
"I don't know. When we entered the game, Nirvana Space didn't give any prompts or say how to clear it." Mu Anqi couldn't figure it out either. She glanced at Zhao Guogu. "But since we've got a lucky charm in our team, this game shouldn't be too dangerous, right?"
"…Not necessarily." Zhao Guogu scratched her head shyly, looking a bit embarrassed. "It's exactly because I'm lucky that I often turn danger into safety. But if there's no danger, how would my luck stand out?"
Mu Anqi: "…"
They exchanged information about the new skills they had gained. Zhao Guogu showed some of the items she had won from her lottery draws, while Mu Anqi briefly mentioned the demon blade and rifle she had purchased. After they finished sharing intel and learning about each other's abilities, all the players in the lobby had arrived.
The moment everyone was assembled, a voice echoed simultaneously in Mu Anqi and the others' minds:
[You are a group of friends on a self-driving trip. You originally planned to explore the forest, but accidentally lost your way and entered a desolate woodland. The sky grows darker and darker, as if it's about to rain heavily. Finally, before night falls, you discover an apartment! However, no matter how you look at this empty apartment, it seems strange… As night deepens, you decide to rest here for the night and leave tomorrow.]
"Storyline?" Mu Anqi was a bit surprised. "Isn't this forcing us? It looks so weird—if it were me, I'd run away in the middle of the night. Who would stay here to rest?"
Just as Mu Anqi said that, a few players had already stood up and headed toward the apartment door. The door was wide open, and those players went out for a look around but came back shortly after. Obviously, even if they could leave the apartment, it was impossible to escape from this area.
"If this were a movie or TV show, something would definitely happen tonight, and tomorrow we wouldn't be able to leave even if we wanted to." Zhao Guogu shrugged and looked toward the staircase. "Since the apartment's empty, let's find a big room and sleep together."
Some players who had already caught on went upstairs first. Following Zhao Guogu's suggestion, Mu Anqi and the others also went up. The apartment had no manager, but the rooms were clean and neatly arranged. They came early enough to choose, and finally picked a large bedroom with two double beds and decided to settle there.
There was a key hanging by the apartment door; after taking it down, the room was considered theirs. They searched the place but didn't find anything suspicious—instead, they found four more keys in the bedside drawer, matching exactly the number of people in the room. If those weren't deliberately placed there… who would believe it?
At the end of the Spirit Ghost Voyage, having already seen the control room and how the ghosts operated, Mu Anqi, Wu Sansheng, and Xia Yun were no longer surprised. They divided up the keys, then pushed the two double beds together—plenty of space for five people to sleep.
"Everyone has a change of clothes, right?" Mu Anqi asked. She had quite a few sets of pajamas and sportswear in her bag.
"Yes." After several rounds of games, everyone had learned to come prepared. Although food from the Nirvana Space shop couldn't be brought in, there were no restrictions on clothes or shoes. Considering there might be survival games in bad weather, Wu Sansheng had even stuffed a compressed down jacket into her backpack.
Mu Anqi washed her hands briefly, then used her candy cane to produce a bunch of candies to share with everyone. "There's no one in this apartment, and we've got no clue about food or water for now. If anyone gets hungry, just eat some candy to fill your stomach a bit."
"Take your keys. Let's first get familiar with the place," Mu Anqi said. "There should be a kitchen or other facilities here, right? Since it's called the Ancient Tomb Apartment, we also need to find out where the tomb actually is."
"I'll go outside the apartment," Xia Yun said. "I can fly, so I'll see things more clearly… Hmm, let Wu Sansheng come with me—she can draw a simple map."
Mu Anqi handed Wu Sansheng her never-ending supply of gel pens and a notebook. "If you run into danger, come back right away. It's only the first day."
"Alright, thanks." Wu Sansheng took the paper and pen. "Be careful of illusions or mental-type attacks. Don't enter strange rooms recklessly. Players' positions aren't fixed—our background is a road trip, but others might not share that."
There were at least thirty people in that lobby earlier, and many, like Mu Anqi's group, had gathered together right from the start—obviously team players. With so many players here, it couldn't be that everyone was lost on the same road trip, right? Even if they were, given the keywords empty apartment and tomb, there might be ghosts hiding among the players, just waiting for someone to stray off alone before striking.
"I'll be careful," Mu Anqi patted her chest. "Thanks to your support, I managed to buy some good armor. It doesn't protect against mental or illusion attacks, but it does weaken yin energy and curses."
"…If anything, I'm the one who owes you. I needed offensive items to defend myself anyway." Wu Sansheng looked a little helpless at Mu Anqi's gratitude. She raised her wrist slightly, showing the bracelet and the small gun-shaped charm. "Thank you."
After finishing their discussion and establishing a "safe house," Wu Sansheng and Xia Yun teamed up to explore the area around the apartment, while Mu Anqi went to look around the building with Si Suying and Zhao Guogu.
The apartment's layout was a bit like a hotel—perhaps it had been built as a rest stop for people coming to visit graves. There was a dedicated kitchen, maybe once used to provide meals for "tenants." Mu Anqi wandered around the kitchen, took an electric kettle and stored it in her storage ring, then carried off a box of instant noodles and a box of sausages. As for rice, noodles, pots, and dishes… she decided to leave those for other players. There were no fresh vegetables, and though she stared speechlessly at the dozen or so boxes of potatoes, she still put one box into her ring—then another box of apples.
There was no meat in the kitchen; even the fridge didn't have any eggs. Potatoes were by far the most abundant thing here—clearly, the game's planners didn't want the players eating too comfortably. Mu Anqi grabbed some seasonings and, after taking another box of instant noodles, hurriedly left the kitchen.
"Go, go, go—hurry before the other players see us!" Zhao Guogu, who was keeping watch, called out as soon as she saw Mu Anqi come out, motioning for Si Suying to quickly leave the first floor.
"No meat, and the only vegetable is potatoes. I just took two boxes of instant noodles," Mu Anqi said quietly.
"Instant noodles aren't bad. Maybe I'll even draw another pack," Zhao Guogu joked lightly. The three of them quickly went upstairs, and whether it was because of Zhao Guogu's luck or not, they didn't encounter any other players along the way.
There weren't any special facilities on the first floor, and starting from the second floor, it was all various rooms. The apartment looked like it had been built specifically for rent. Mu Anqi and the others checked a few unclaimed rooms and found that some one-bedroom units had private bathrooms, kitchens, and all kinds of home appliances—just that the fridges were completely empty and the cupboards only held tableware. As for why their own room didn't have a kitchen… probably because it had two beds instead?
The second, third, and fourth floors were all rental-style apartments. At most, there was a public restroom near the stairwell on the far left, but with private bathrooms in each room, who would bother going there?
When they reached the fifth floor and tried to go up to the sixth, they found that the staircase leading upward was blocked by an iron gate and chains.
"There's definitely a secret on the sixth floor." Mu Anqi looked at the iron door and couldn't help but complain, "But isn't this setup a little too deliberate?"
"Should we go up and take a look?" Zhao Guogu sensed the area but didn't detect any danger.
"No rush. Let the other players test the waters first." With so many players gathered in one game—apparently in "teams" acting together—Mu Anqi had no intention of making herself the target of everyone's attention.
"There are footsteps," Si Suying's pointed cat ears twitched as she warned.
"Go down that staircase!"