Fu Songcheng lowered his eyes, looked at the teacup before him, and sent the message in his mind.
[Fu Songcheng: Someone knows a way to avoid the system’s weekly forced instance entry.]
Clack!
The chopsticks in Chen Ke’s hand clattered onto the table. Then, realizing he’d lost composure, he pretended it was because of the food.
“This… this really is delicious!”
Yu Huaiting watched Chen Ke’s reaction with distaste.
He now felt Chen Ke was practically the reincarnation of Zhu Bajie.
One meal, and he was making a fuss, couldn’t even hold his chopsticks steady. And from the moment he sat down, this person had been dragging his Songcheng-gege into boring conversations about the dishes, fishing for something to say.
Yu Huaiting rolled his eyes and unceremoniously pulled the plate of meat slices Chen Ke had called delicious over in front of himself, confiscating Chen Ke’s prop for his performance.
But Chen Ke had no attention to spare for Yu Huaiting’s unfriendly look.
[Chen Ke: Who?!]
Fu Songcheng unhurriedly raised his teacup and blew at the tea leaves floating on top.
[Fu Songcheng: I can tell you, but you must relay this method to me exactly as it is. Help me make the connection so I can talk to him directly too. Most importantly—]
Fu Songcheng’s gaze turned extremely sharp, scraping across Chen Ke’s face like a blade.
[Fu Songcheng: Any information about this person, any content about avoiding instances, absolutely must not be mentioned in any form, in any public setting, or even in your Dawn internal meetings. You know, I know. If you can’t do that, or if word leaks, you’ll die before this secret does.]
Chen Ke swallowed. For the first time, he felt Fu Songcheng’s killing intent—darker and more sinister than Yu Huaiting’s blunt, bloody ferocity, wrapping around him thread by thread.
[Chen Ke: Deal.]
Fu Songcheng looked at him and nodded in satisfaction.
[Fu Songcheng: Si Yi.]
Ding—
Chen Ke’s system panel suddenly gave a soft notification chime.
“Your friend Fu Songcheng has pushed ten friend requests to you.”
Chen Ke froze and instinctively opened the panel.
Ten names were neatly lined up there, and among them, “Si Yi’s” name was conspicuously nestled in.
Fu Songcheng set down his teacup, his voice neither loud nor soft—just enough for the NPC passing outside the private room to hear: “Some former colleagues of mine. They’ve just cleared their novice instances and are very drawn to Dawn, wanting to understand the situation. I couldn’t be bothered with the trouble, so I sent them all to you. Aren’t you a recruiter? Take a look and show them the ropes.”
Chen Ke looked at the ten names on the panel and instantly understood Fu Songcheng’s intent.
Don’t expose.
Don’t show any special attention to Si Yi. Even in making contact, treat all ten equally, using the pretext of “recruitment” to cover the true intent.
Eyes were everywhere.
Chen Ke had perhaps also vaguely sensed something off about the system, known that sensitive topics couldn’t be discussed openly, which was why he’d chosen private communication from the start.
But Fu Songcheng—who had truly seen the “Source Star” livestream, who had personally witnessed how those alien bullet comments discussed players’ lives and deaths like watching a monkey show—had to be even more cautious.
There were eyes in the sky. He had to be more careful, and more careful still.
Chen Ke put on an enthusiastic smile and, in front of Fu Songcheng, accepted all ten friend requests one by one. “Since they’re your friends, they’re Dawn’s friends. I’ll arrange for someone to liaise with them.”
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Fu Songcheng nodded politely.
With business concluded, the time that followed seemed to genuinely turn into a simple meal.
Not wanting to waste the large sum of points he’d spent, Chen Ke joined the ranks of the focused diners.
Yu Huaiting and Fu Songcheng had just about finished eating. He tugged Fu Songcheng’s sleeve and grumbled in a low voice, “Gege, let’s go. It’s so stuffy here, and he’s eating pretty happily all by himself.”
Fu Songcheng checked the time, stood up, and said to Chen Ke, who was wasting no food, “We’ll go first. Eat well.”
Chen Ke waved a hand. “Thanks.”
That “thanks”—who knew whether it was thanking Fu Songcheng for agreeing to look after Bai Mu and the others, or thanking him for the earth-shattering secret he’d provided.
Fu Songcheng said no more and left the restaurant with Yu Huaiting.
Source Star bullet comments:
[Can someone explain what that meal just now was about?]
[No idea. I think I’ve become a bit Yu Huaiting.]
[Using Yu Huaiting as an adjective hahahaha]
[It really was lavish, huh. This Child Star population’s cuisine is really diverse.]
Yu Huaiting took Fu Songcheng’s hand again.
“Gege, Chen Ke is such a weird guy.”
Yu Huaiting asked curiously while swinging Fu Songcheng’s arm.
“He got a bit shaken up and wanted someone to confide in. Zhao Yixing died—he’s feeling awful, but life and death in instances is routine. He couldn’t bring himself to say it at the meal, which is why he was so awkward.”
Fu Songcheng used this to give the dry dinner conversation a justification, allaying Source Star viewers’ suspicions.
“So good at analyzing—how about analyzing my psychology?”
“Get lost.”
That night.
[Death Party 5.0 version is online.]
[Interaction, communication, adventure, thrill.]
[Welcome, everyone, to this party!]
The player count notification on the system panel had vanished. At the final moment, 176,794,213 remained.
Three days, nearly six million dead.
Rather than a party, it was a meat grinder.
Looking at the system notification, Fu Songcheng felt this tagline was aimed at Source Star players—they’d probably already logged in.
Fu Songcheng was very curious how many Source Star viewers, along with all of humanity and himself, could be drawn into joining this game.
Source Star.
“President Shen, the new version has launched smoothly, and the player-count display error has been resolved.”
Shen Ning gave a brief “Mm” in reply.
In the report in her hands, as of launch, total player count: 176,814,037.
Twenty thousand more players.
Leave a Reply