Though the first-floor hall had lost these two central figures, the atmosphere had already been thoroughly heated up.
The remaining players didn’t return to the stiff, guarded state from the beginning.
They gathered in twos and threes. Some genuinely organized games of Werewolf and the like on their own; others, having just screwed each other over in pass-the-parcel, naturally added each other as friends and sat together chatting.
Of course, a few players, not forgetting their original purpose, split off to strike up conversations with the gloomy-faced Blue Star big shots in the corners—after all, the ultimate goal of a friendship instance was still to interact face-to-face with players you liked.
On the second-floor balcony, the evening breeze was slightly cool.
Fu Songcheng leaned lazily against the wooden chair, taking stock of the spoils. He opened his system panel and set the permissions to shared between the two.
The panel unfolded before them, rows upon rows of the dense loot list and point balance instantly filling their view.
[Current Point Balance: 51,600]
[Low-grade Items (D-rank–F-rank): 74 pieces]
[Mid-grade Items (C-rank–B-rank): 12 pieces]
[High-grade Items (A-rank–S-rank): 9 pieces]
The high-grade and mid-grade items were almost all ones the two already had. The overwhelming majority of this instance’s income was still points—but even so, it was quite substantial.
Fu Songcheng’s slender fingers casually swiped across the virtual panel. Yu Huaiting looked at the item list.
“I want this one!” He reached out and tapped, materializing an item from the panel.
[Screaming Pink Pig].
He flipped further down. “And this one.”
[Fake Gold Earring That Can Only Be Worn on One Ear].
“Oh oh! This one’s not bad either!”
Fu Songcheng watched speechlessly as he stuffed these utterly useless junk items into his own storage space.
“Are you keeping them to open a general store when we get out?”
Yu Huaiting squeezed the pink pig in his hand, and the pig let out an extremely shrill “miserable squeal.”
He laughed uncontrollably. “Fun!”
“Fine, fine, fine.”
Fu Songcheng didn’t stop him, transferring him some recovery potions and attack items. “I’ll hold the points. Any objections?”
“No objections, no objections. You manage it all!”
Just as the two were sorting items, a red notification box suddenly popped up on Fu Songcheng’s system interface.
[System Notification: You have received an anonymous email.]
Fu Songcheng raised an eyebrow slightly and opened it.
The email’s content was extremely brief, without even a header.
[Attachment: Points x10,000]
[Message: The friendship instance is pretty fun.]
Fu Songcheng looked at that ten thousand points, his eyes flickering slightly. Ten thousand points was no small sum.
Seems there really had been a reclusive Source Star rich lady hidden among the crowd on the first floor.
“What is it?” Yu Huaiting leaned over to glance. “Ten thousand points? What’s this? A tip?”
Fu Songcheng accepted it all. “Probably a performance fee?”
Over the next half hour, players came to the balcony one after another.
Many had been having a blast downstairs earlier and now boldly came up to strike up conversation with the two—no longer the tense, drawn-swords atmosphere of Truth or Dare from when they’d first entered the instance.
They asked a bunch of bizarre questions. Some Fu Songcheng wasn’t willing to answer, so Yu Huaiting would bare his claws and scare people off. Gradually, the players crowding around figured out the two’s temperament and started teasing them with dirty jokes.
Back-and-forth, give-and-take.
[I want to go play too! Real-name envy!]
[Ahhhh why is this so cute!]
[A large-scale team-building scene—official, you’d better tell me there are still experience slots!]
Unfortunately, this instance was extremely short—its purpose was friendship to begin with—and after two hours, everyone was sent out of the instance.
[System Notification: ‘Truth or Dare’ friendship instance has ended.]
[Settling rewards for all surviving players…]
[Preparing to teleport out of the instance. Please stand by. Countdown: 10, 9…]
The instant before teleporting out, Fu Songcheng locked onto the waiter NPC he’d robbed and sent him a tip.
[System Notification: Player Fu Songcheng has transferred 3,000 points to you.]
The waiter NPC looked up toward the second-floor balcony.
But saw nothing.
He stared blankly at the 3,000 points that had returned to his account, his mind a mess.
“He gave it back?”
If Fu Songcheng hadn’t returned it, he’d only have been angry for a bit, then sulkily liked posts cursing Fu Songcheng. But at the last moment, he’d returned his points. The resentment of being bullied was transformed by Fu Songcheng’s maneuver into a knowing smile at having been teased.
This person really is so annoying.
But I can’t help feeling happy anyway.
If a person is always good to you, you take it for granted; if they’re always bullying you, you get angry.
But Fu Songcheng always gave a slap and then a sweet date—stringing everyone along like this.
The Source Star viewers were almost being trained into masochists by him.
Meanwhile, outside the instance, on Source Star’s major game forums and livestream platform comment sections, the pot had thoroughly boiled over.
The screen recordings of this instance—named “friendship” but actually “robbery plus team-building”—spread virally across the internet.
[Holy crap! Watching this got my blood pumping! I want to go play too! Who wouldn’t want to play pass-the-parcel and other team-building mini-games with their favorite players!]
[+1! Usually we only get to watch them hack people in killing instances—today seeing them play games feels like the fourth wall is broken!]
[The ones above, a few broken attribute gems and you’re all charmed like this? Don’t forget—at the start, when Yu Huaiting was pointing a sword at you robbing your items, who was running fastest? (sly)]
[How’s that the same! That’s called showmanship! And in the end they didn’t really do anything to anyone—they even handed out perks!]
And the most surreal part was Source Star’s secondhand trading platforms.
[Holy shit brothers, quick, go look at Sweet Cat Trading Network! Someone’s listed the gems Fu Songcheng gave out in the instance just now!]
[What?! Items from the game can be brought out? My fourth wall is shattered!]
[They don’t have attribute bonuses outside, but they’re confirmed authentic!]
[The current bid’s already been driven up to twenty thousand Source coins by some rich ladies!]
[Holy crap! Less than ten minutes out of the instance—these people move this fast?!]
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