In the hall, Xu Qingyao and Xu Zhun were heads-down, quickly cross-checking information in another, thinner registry book.
Seeing Fu Songcheng and Bai Mu come out of the elevator, Xu Qingyao immediately hurried over, her taut expression relaxing somewhat.
“Mr. Fu, you’re back.”
Xu Qingyao’s gaze circled over Bai Mu, confirmed she was unharmed, and then quickly got to the point. “We’ve found the specific room numbers for several players.”
“But…” Xu Zhun chimed in beside her, brows slightly furrowed. “There’s still no word at all on Mr. Yu. Besides him, three other players haven’t been found yet.”
Fu Songcheng’s steps paused slightly.
“Never mind him for now.” Fu Songcheng’s voice sounded steady, making one instinctively want to follow what he said. “Once the remaining players’ locations are confirmed, set out to find them.”
He pondered for two seconds and quickly made his deployment: “Compile the locations you’ve found, then move in pairs. If you encounter someone like Lin Feng—where you go in and five or six hours pass with no word coming out—contact me immediately.”
Fu Songcheng pulled a stack of pale pink envelopes from his system backpack.
Then, expressionlessly, he distributed the stack of pink envelopes to the people before him.
“As long as you write on it, no matter where in the instance the recipient is, they’ll see it immediately. I have this hotel’s universal room card and can open the door to enter the room again.”
Fu Songcheng had originally bought these from the system shop to write and curse Yu Huaiting. Now it was perfect—hand them out as communication tools.
“Go.” Fu Songcheng waved his hand. “Report back anytime.”
Watching Xu Qingyao, Xu Zhun, and the others enter the elevator separately, the hall quieted again.
Fu Songcheng turned around. The register, listing the room numbers of all the hotel’s guests, lay quietly on the ground. Fu Songcheng reached out and flipped rapidly backward. One page, two pages, a hundred pages, a thousand pages…
The register was infinitely long, the sound of turning paper especially jarring in the empty hall. No end, never reaching the bottom—just like this hotel with no upper floor limit.
It was actually still early.
From entering the instance until now, at most less than a day had passed.
On the giant clock at the center of the hall, the hands already pointed to five people.
Everything seemed within controllable range.
The instance’s puzzle difficulty wasn’t especially high. As long as one wasn’t completely devoured by the obsessions in the dreams, a steady clear was only a matter of time.
But Fu Songcheng’s heart was sinking more and more. He couldn’t find Yu Huaiting.
The register had no end; even after the two of them had conscientiously flipped through it for ages without finding him, Fu Songcheng wasn’t about to waste effort searching for Yu Huaiting’s name one by one. He decided to use the Bitter Couple identity to directly sense Yu Huaiting’s position.
He raised his right hand, his gaze falling on the black wristband on his wrist, and returned it to the system space.
The instant the suppression vanished, the longing born of being too far from Yu Huaiting surged at him like a bursting dam.
He missed Yu Huaiting.
Very much. Very, very much.
Fu Songcheng knew perfectly well that even alone, he was fully capable of leading these players safely through the instance. This wasn’t any kind of desperate strait.
But he simply missed the feeling of Yu Huaiting by his side.
The sudden weakness from unfastening the wristband made even himself find it a little laughable.
Two people in love—the closer the distance, the stronger the resentment, disgust, and killing intent in their hearts; the farther the distance, the more intense the love and longing.
Right now, his heart and eyes were full of frantic longing for Yu Huaiting, without a shred of hatred. This reminded Fu Songcheng that they were now very far apart.
Fu Songcheng took a deep breath and walked toward the elevator too.
He could sense that Yu Huaiting was up there, on a floor so high it was despairing.
The elevator doors opened before him, and Fu Songcheng stepped in. Facing the number buttons, he directly entered “99999” on the keypad.
Ding— The elevator began to ascend.
A journey long enough to fray the nerves.
An infinitely tall building—even at full elevator speed, it would take an extremely long time. The indicator lights in the car jumped madly, but the longing born of distance in Fu Songcheng’s heart showed no sign of weakening.
He frowned, sensing the undiminished longing for Yu Huaiting.
Ding—
A system notification sounded abruptly in the cramped elevator car.
He’d received a letter. The heart on the envelope flickered faintly—a message from Bai Mu.
[Xu Zhun is trapped in a player’s chain of dreams. It’s been over five hours.]
So he’d already waited five hours on the elevator.
Time passed so fast.
Fu Songcheng immediately opened the system shop, quickly browsing the item list.
He spent 600 points to buy an [Instance Courier], able to deliver items within an instance, then mailed Bai Mu the universal room card he’d gotten from the front desk.
Seconds later, he received a message.
[Got it, got it! I’ll swipe the card and go fish them out right now!]
Fu Songcheng wrote another love letter, telling Bai Mu to return the card to him—not to get trapped in a dream with the universal card on her. Bai Mu borrowed some money from Xu Qingyao to buy an [Instance Courier] and returned the card to Fu Songcheng.
The elevator kept rumbling upward, the floor numbers already jumping to an extremely exaggerated digit.
After a while, good news came from Bai Mu’s side.
[Done! I dragged Xu Zhun and the others out. And another piece of good news.]
Fu Songcheng leaned against the elevator wall, watching the jumping numbers, waiting for her to continue.
[Lin Feng woke Chen Yu, and is now helping us wake the other players room by room. The hands already point to eight corresponding items.]
[Very good.]
Fu Songcheng replied briefly and closed the system panel.
The course of events was unexpectedly smooth.
Though these players had only just finished their novice instances, they were, after all, special players Dawn valued and cultivated—performing better than many Fu Songcheng had met.
Everyone was being saved; every trouble was being resolved. The clock’s hands in the hall never once pointed at himself.
He wasn’t clear where Yu Huaiting actually was.
Ding—
The elevator gave a long chime and stopped at floor “99999.”
The elevator doors slid slowly open to both sides. A deep, dark corridor identical to the first floor’s lay before Fu Songcheng.
Fu Songcheng stepped out and stood in the center of the empty corridor, sensing Yu Huaiting’s state and position.
Nothing.
Nothing had changed at all.
Even at the 99999th floor, the Bitter Couple’s effect on him was no different from the first floor. The longing for Yu Huaiting hadn’t diminished in the slightest—even deepened by the long separation and waiting.
A person who shone so dazzlingly at everything—how was he so well-behaved when asleep, not even leaving himself a clue.
He’d never, as now, so urgently wished he could hate Yu Huaiting.
Because as long as he felt hatred, it meant the distance between them was closing, meant Yu Huaiting was near.
A system notification came—another pink love letter.
[Mr. Fu! Except for you and Mr. Yu, all ten remaining players have been woken by us! Everyone’s gathering in the first-floor hall now. How’s it going on your end?]
Everyone was awake.
Only he and Yu Huaiting were left.
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