“Let’s go back first.”
Yu Huaiting took a deep breath, looking at Fu Songcheng’s ashen face, no longer in the mood for cake.
He briskly pulled a fresh-keeping food container from his system backpack and, in three swift motions, carefully packed up the remaining cake on the table—including the small slice on Fu Songcheng’s plate.
He did the whole thing extremely fast, extremely practiced.
“Done.” Yu Huaiting lifted the food container. “Let’s go back to the rest room.”
Only after a long while did Fu Songcheng manage to open his eyes. The world before him was still swaying, but it no longer made him want to vomit like before.
He took a deep breath, nodded, and slowly stood up, supporting himself on the table.
The road back became endlessly long.
Fu Songcheng walked very slowly, his steps unsteady, as if treading on cotton. Several times he nearly crashed into the wall.
Yu Huaiting could only watch helplessly as Fu Songcheng swayed and staggered. His hands rose countless times, wanting to steady the other’s arm, wanting to circle the other’s waist.
Yet each time, they could only fall back down.
He was like a vicious dog chained by an invisible leash—able only to pace anxiously around his master, unable to do a thing.
After no small effort, the two finally reached the rest room door.
Fu Songcheng leaned against the doorframe, breathing slightly heavily.
His complexion still wasn’t good—but he didn’t understand why, with the same negative effect, Yu Huaiting seemed to have no reaction this time.
During the burning, he’d clearly felt Yu Huaiting’s hand trembling. He very much wanted to ask Yu Huaiting why, but his head was dizzy and heavy. After thinking it over, he decided to wait until he saw him tomorrow to ask.
“Go back and rest.”
Fu Songcheng straightened up, preparing to close the door. “I’ll be fine after a sleep.”
Yu Huaiting suddenly spoke, his gaze full of worry and reluctance. “Call me if anything.”
Fu Songcheng nodded. “Good night.”
The door clicked shut.
Yu Huaiting stood at the door for a long time—so long that the corridor’s motion-sensor light went out—before he finally turned and walked into his own rest room.
The room was very quiet, so quiet it made one’s heart panic.
Yu Huaiting opened the food container with the cake and focused on eating the salted cake he’d packed back.
…
The rest room door clicked locked.
Fu Songcheng leaned his back against the door panel, and the strength he’d been forcing himself to maintain scattered in an instant.
He practically collapsed onto the bed.
In the A Thought of Old Dreams instance, Fu Songcheng had expended far too much mental energy, and upon leaving the instance, he’d suffered the system’s mental attack.
He truly had no talent for the I Ching, so he could only spend more effort deducing and setting up formations. To let that fool Yu Huaiting pick it up immediately, he had to construct a death-trap illusion that trapped the opponent.
Yu Huaiting maintained the formation, unwilling to let Fu Songcheng discover how much energy it drained—but Fu Songcheng was no different, hiding his own weakened side.
His self-respect demanded he always be strong and reliable. Fu Songcheng wasn’t used to sharing his frailty with others—especially not Yu Huaiting.
The physical wounds had healed under Yu Huaiting’s potions, but the extreme mental exhaustion couldn’t be compensated by one or two potions.
Fu Songcheng smiled bitterly and glanced at the system calendar.
Since they’d entered the A Thought of Old Dreams instance, rest-area time had already passed two weeks.
In his and Yu Huaiting’s perception, A Thought of Old Dreams had lasted four days at most.
Before he could think further, the system notified him of new messages.
[Player Chen Muhuai has sent you 99+ private messages.]
Fu Songcheng felt his head buzzing. Enduring the dizziness, he opened the chat box.
Chen Muhuai had gone from initially asking about the instance’s progress to later confirming whether he was alive—chattering on with concern for him.
He felt somewhat moved—even in this absurd, life-and-death-unknown instance, there were still people living as cowardly and kind as in the real world.
“All safe.”
He clicked send.
Fu Songcheng could hold on no longer. His head tilted, he collapsed onto the bed, and sank completely into unconsciousness.
…
The next day, Fu Songcheng woke at exactly eight.
He flexed his wrists, propped himself up to sit, and found the negative status gone, his spirit rarely eased.
He took a shower. He’d originally wanted to go train at the training hall, but feared that being too far from Yu Huaiting would trigger the Bitter Couple rules and disturb Yu Huaiting’s lie-in.
So he could only stay in the rest room, waiting for the puppy to wake naturally and come find him.
Fu Songcheng sat on the sofa, opened the system panel, and took stock of the instance’s spoils.
This instance hadn’t given any point rewards. The only thing issued was the wristband transformed from the story fragments, marked with specific functions that would only open after the Death Party 4.0 version update completed in a day.
The wristband was pure black all over, its material soft to the touch. He turned it over and studied it for ages but couldn’t figure out what this thing could actually be used for.
Fu Songcheng pressed his lips together and slipped the wristband onto his left wrist.
Once everything was settled, he opened the constantly flashing communication column.
Chen Muhuai had messaged almost at the same moment: “Engineer Fu! I knew you’d be checking your mailbox at this hour!”
Back when they worked together, Fu Songcheng would check his mailbox messages on a schedule, and over time the colleagues around him all knew his habit.
Fu Songcheng replied quickly: “What happened?”
Chen Muhuai’s text radiated anxiety: “The ‘Veteran Leads Newbie’ instances that used to be regularly available—none have opened these past two days. The forum’s guessing it’s because of that damn 4.0 version update. But I’ve only got four days until my forced instance deadline! If I don’t enter a Veteran Leads Newbie instance and go into a formal one instead, I’ll definitely die…”
Fu Songcheng looked at the words on the screen and fell silent.
A month ago, when he’d first been dragged into Death Party, Chen Muhuai had been the first acquaintance to show him goodwill.
But Fu Songcheng was, unfortunately, an extremely stingy person.
Looking at the anxiety between Chen Muhuai’s lines, he searched high and low but couldn’t find a single soft, comforting phrase—let alone share his meager items and points with him.
He deleted and rewrote in the chat box, and in the end only recommended the training hall Fu Songcheng himself went to, sharing some of the formal instance experience he and Yu Huaiting had been through.
After sending the message, Fu Songcheng didn’t look at Chen Muhuai’s reply again. Instead, he casually tapped the [Player Rankings] at the top right of the system’s main interface.
Number one on the Power Ranking was still Yu Huaiting.
He kept scrolling down. The top fifty on the list were all unfamiliar names.
Until his gaze landed on twenty-third place.
“Lin Feng.”
Fu Songcheng murmured the name, eyes narrowing slightly.
Whether he and Yu Huaiting had been targeted this time because they’d run into heaven-favored Lin Feng and Chen Yu, or because they’d been marked by someone—Fu Songcheng couldn’t be sure. But there was no rush; the next instance would give him the answer.
Fu Songcheng switched out of the Power Ranking and tapped the [Comprehensive Rating Ranking] beside it.
Yet the scene before him made his gaze freeze.
His own name still sat steadily in second place, rated “S+.”
But the original first place, SSS+ Shen Ning, had become [???].
Dead players wouldn’t appear on the rankings—clearly Shen Ning was still alive.
Fu Songcheng had always been full of doubts about Shen Ning. Even though the two had cleared the instance together, he still found it strange.
In Return to the Living World, Shen Ning had clearly appeared as a key figure inside the instance—even something close to an NPC.
Yet she could simultaneously log into Death Party as a player. And now, with the 4.0 update imminent, her name had vanished from the rating rankings.
Combining this with his and Yu Huaiting’s current instance, Fu Songcheng had a very bold hypothesis.
Outside the screen.
“Zhang Xinci…”
Shen Ning looked at Fu Songcheng on the screen and sighed softly. “Oh no—Fu Songcheng.”
When Source Star’s closed-beta experience players logged out, their player IDs became [???]. In Return to the Living World, she herself hadn’t expected that with her memories sealed, she’d climb to number one on the rating rankings and draw attention.
After the public beta began, experience players would have their appearance and identity modified by the system to prevent viewers from recognizing them.
This was also one of the improvement suggestions Shen Ning, as a closed-beta experience player, had submitted for Death Party.
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