Having first replied to Shen Ning’s message, Fu Songcheng then began handling Chen Ke’s mission invitation.
Dawn was asking him to continue entering instances with those players—but going with them would make it hard for him to put on a truly captivating show.
Fu Songcheng’s fingertip tapped lightly on the virtual panel, his reply watertight.
[Fu Songcheng]: Mr. Chen, truly sorry—I’ve just taken a side job and already bound my next instance.
[Fu Songcheng]: But if I come out in time to catch you, I’ll meet up with everyone at Dawn and take the mission.
Seeing Fu Songcheng’s reply, Chen Ke sighed in regret. What side job could be more tempting than the chance to return to the real world!
[Chen Ke]: Understood, Mr. Fu. Looking forward to working together.
Curse as he might, he still had to keep Fu Songcheng happy.
After sending the message, Fu Songcheng closed the panel and turned to meet Yu Huaiting’s aggressive yet slightly expectant eyes.
Yu Huaiting raised an eyebrow, reached out to circle Fu Songcheng’s waist, and pulled him closer into his arms. “What are you doing in the next instance?”
Fu Songcheng leaned into his embrace and chuckled softly. “Didn’t you say you wanted to learn how to run instances? I’ll teach you. What else?”
Watching him look so masterful and deliberately mysterious, Yu Huaiting felt his heart itch. His Adam’s apple rolled involuntarily.
“Alright,” Yu Huaiting lowered his head and bit Fu Songcheng’s lips hard. “Teacher Fu~ I want to learn something else—are you willing to teach that now?”
“Get lost. We just did that yesterday.”
…
The next day, the two entered the next instance together.
[Loading instance…]
[A-rank puzzle instance: Fierce Souls Burning with Resentment]
[Instance Background: A dilapidated four-story rental building houses seven tenants, each with their own hidden agendas. Nightfall descends, and resentment spreads.]
[Shh—don’t turn back, don’t respond. Perhaps it’s you it’s looking for.]
[Mission Objective: Survive at least seven hours inside this building.]
[Current survivors: 8/7.]
[Countdown begins: 06:59:59.]
The weightlessness passed in an instant. When Fu Songcheng opened his eyes again, his nostrils were filled with a stale musty smell and a faint hint of blood.
He was in a cramped living room, the wallpaper peeling, the dim incandescent light overhead flickering from a bad connection.
“Hold still for now.”
Fu Songcheng murmured to himself. Rather than acting first, he was in the habit of adapting to the environment first.
However, before he could move, the peeling security door at the main entrance gave a grating creak.
The lock was violently broken from outside, the door kicked open and slammed heavily into the wall.
Yu Huaiting stood at the doorway, black greatsword in hand, backlit by the pale light of the corridor. The instant his gaze landed on Fu Songcheng, his ferocity melted into a sticky smile.
“That fast?”
Fu Songcheng wasn’t surprised—he just raised an eyebrow.
“Of course.”
Yu Huaiting walked in and raised his wrist, waving it.
Showing Fu Songcheng their two wristbands.
Yu Huaiting had torn off the wristband and, relying on the Bitter Couple’s pulling force, followed the sense to find him.
Having gone through one experience of not being able to find Fu Songcheng, Yu Huaiting was already very practiced at this small-scale game of finding his Songcheng-gege.
“I’m right across from you.”
Yu Huaiting leaned over and sniffed at Fu Songcheng’s neck like a large dog seeking praise. “Nothing unusual?”
“Not for now.”
Fu Songcheng patted his head. “Come on, I’ll take you through exploring the instance.”
Yu Huaiting reined in his clingy manner, straightened up, his sword tip angled toward the ground, his expression as earnest as a student listening to a lecture. “Master, please instruct me.”
Fu Songcheng was amused into a soft laugh by the title, but he immediately reined in his expression, his gaze lifting slightly to look toward a certain direction in the void.
He cleared his throat, his voice unhurried, every word clear—less like he was teaching Yu Huaiting than giving a slow, methodical commentary to billions of Source Star viewers.
“For survival puzzle instances, the first step should be confirming the safe zone’s boundary; the second step, finding the death-trigger mechanisms.”
Fu Songcheng spoke while leading Yu Huaiting through the two rooms on the third floor. “In this kind of instance, the attacks launched can be physical monsters, or certain rules or the concretization of resentment.”
He taught in great detail, breaking down every action and every deduction into pieces.
Though Yu Huaiting felt he could handle these things on instinct anyway, seeing Fu Songcheng’s serious manner, he very cooperatively nodded along.
After the two finished searching the third-floor rooms, apart from dust and some clutter, there were no obvious clues.
Only the bedroom window was somewhat eerie—densely plastered with yellowed newspapers, blocking the view.
Yu Huaiting stood before the window, pointed at the newspaper-covered glass, and turned his head to ask in an extremely humble tone, “Can I smash it?”
Fu Songcheng walked over to his side, calmly looking at the window. “You can do anything that damages the scene. But the premise is, you must have sufficiently high combat power to bear the consequences of breaking the rules. If you don’t have that confidence, don’t do it.”
Meanwhile, on distant Source Star, because Fu Songcheng and Yu Huaiting were teaming up in instances, their CP fans had grown more and more numerous, and a joint livestream room had been opened just for them.
At this moment in that livestream room, the bullet comments were scrolling at a frantic speed.
[Holy crap, is it my imagination? That look just now—I feel like he’s teaching me through the screen?]
[So pretentious]
[It started earlier. Is Brother Fu going for a teaching certificate or what hahaha—explaining more thoroughly than our Source Star’s survival analysts.]
[He’s really trying to teach me!]
[My brain gets it—where do I go to claim the combat power?]
Just as the bullet comments were all grumbling, in the livestream feed, after hearing Fu Songcheng’s words, Yu Huaiting’s mouth curved into an arrogant cold smile.
“I know this one.”
His wrist flipped, the greatsword swung, carrying a sharp sword qi.
Clang—!
An extremely piercing glass-shattering sound exploded through the silent building.
The newspaper-covered glass was smashed to pieces by Yu Huaiting’s single slash, shards of glass mixed with paper scraps flying everywhere.
A cold, bone-piercing wind instantly poured in through the hole, carrying a thick stench of blood.
The next moment, both felt the surrounding temperature plummet.
A ghostly female figure in tattered red clothes, hair disheveled, flashed into existence without warning less than half a meter before Yu Huaiting.
The female ghost tilted her head, her neck bent at an eerie broken angle, viscous black blood flowing from her pitch-black eye sockets, her whole body radiating an aura of extreme venomous resentment, staring fixedly at Yu Huaiting, who’d broken the taboo.
“Courting death.”
Yu Huaiting’s eyes sharpened. Without the slightest hesitation, he backhanded a vicious horizontal slash.
The blade howled past with fierce wind—but passed straight through the female ghost’s body, as if slashing at a holographic projection.
The female ghost’s image flickered, and instead of vanishing, she let out a piercing shriek of laughter.
Fu Songcheng was quick-eyed and quick-handed, pressing down on Yu Huaiting’s shoulder as he was about to keep swinging, and said in a low voice, “Stop.”
He turned to look at the phantom, his tone still that unhurried instructional manner: “This is a mental contamination or hallucination-type attack—very common in instances with deep resentment. No physical body, so physical attacks are ineffective.”
“There are generally two ways to respond to this kind of attack. If you judge that you’ve already fallen deep into an illusion, you can physically stimulate yourself—pain, for example—to forcibly wake your reason. If it’s mental contamination, then don’t tangle with it—find the source of the contamination, that is, the formation’s eye.”
Fu Songcheng patted Yu Huaiting’s shoulder and teased half-jokingly, “That slash of yours just now, apart from wasting stamina, had zero effect. You’re not supposed to hack at the air.”
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