Players, Please Begin Your Performance - Chapter 4

Muscle cells contracted to complete every jump, retinas sensed the stimulation of light to capture external colors, and every movement was precise. Liu Cui’s item was not as simple as turning into sand; it had even altered her genes, allowing her cells to regenerate rapidly and her heart to shift positions. She now possessed physical coordination far beyond that of an average person, along with a sharper mind and a robust physique.

However, she still felt it was not enough. She needed to accumulate more chips to deal with the Boss. If she could find a powerful weapon on top of this, she would be truly invincible. Liu Cui greeted her team members, exchanged a smile with Yi Ban, and then calmly looked away. They were the true hunters of this dungeon.

Nearby, the pain from Ren Na’s fractured hand caused her to break out in a cold sweat. Her naturally anemic skin appeared terrifyingly pale. She did not dare to look at the people around her because she knew her situation was dire. Not only were she and her teammate exposed before everyone, but they had also lost an item. Under such a disastrous start, it was impossible to leave Liu Cui’s group.

Her teammate, Sang Zui, regretted rashly giving the item to the employee, but hindsight was useless. After all, coming up with such a solution in a moment of crisis was not easy.

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Sang Zui asked. “Stop hesitating.”

“I do not want to investigate clues at all. Let us go hide,” Ren Na said. Being anemic, she felt weak after being frightened. “As long as we survive this dungeon, is that not enough?”

“Where would we hide?” Sang Zui raised her face and stretched her stiff neck, sighing helplessly. “Right now, the chances of survival only increase if we find more clues. It will also help with future dungeons.”

Searching for more clues also meant facing more danger. Sang Zui’s words made Ren Na feel dizzy. She glanced around anxiously; the dangers here were not mere scares but could actually take a life.

“But joining Liu Cui’s group means we cannot just sit around and do nothing. There will be many dangers. We might die before we even get a clue,” Ren Na whispered. “That newcomer named Xing Yun did not team up with anyone. I saw her leave her small squad’s area. Why do we not follow her lead and gradually distance ourselves from the collective?”

Sang Zui looked at her, appearing speechless. “Understand the situation before you speak. I heard Liu Cui talking to other squad leaders. She requested that the leaders ostracize Xing Yun to force her into Liu Cui’s team. Xing Yun refused, which means she must have some secret clues for passing the level. Is she the same as us, who are completely in the dark?”

While Sang Zui and Ren Na were communicating in the observation area, Xing Yun approached. Seeing Xing Yun’s calm demeanor, Sang Zui felt envious. If her teammate had been Xing Yun, things would surely be much better. Not only was Xing Yun’s strength apparent, but her appearance was also captivating. Sometimes one had to admit the Creator was indeed biased.

Ren Na curled her lip, displeased by Sang Zui’s blatant comparison. “Maybe she is just a cold-hearted madman,” she said indignantly.

Just as Ren Na finished speaking, she saw Lao Xiangyun chasing after Xing Yun. The two of them seemed to get along quite well as they talked and laughed. At that moment, Xing Yun’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed slightly, and her amber gaze appeared very attractive.

It left Ren Na stunned. She was here because she had touched her boss’s cat. That cat had been too noisy, so she purposely lured it to the elevator where it was crushed to death. The next second, she had appeared in the infinite world. Consequently, she did not believe there were any kind souls in this game. But Xing Yun seemed different from the others here.

Sang Zui pondered, “Do you think those two are teammates? Do you know the background of the one next to her?”

Ren Na watched the two of them sit on the chairs in the lobby. She watched for a long time until Xing Yun’s gaze swept over, at which point she hurriedly looked away. She told Sang Zui, “The one next to her is a physicist.”

Sang Zui snorted. “That is completely useless. There is no science to speak of here.”

“The fact that we are not floating means gravity exists. The fact that we can walk means friction exists. There is some science to it,” Ren Na replied.

Sang Zui could not argue with that. She grabbed Ren Na’s arm, lifted her up, and dragged her back toward their assigned squad.

Meanwhile, in the residential area, Yu Yan saw that Ge Chuan had stayed in the room exactly as she had told him. She could not help but smile and ask, “Did you really get here just because you had a fight with your girlfriend?”

Ge Chuan nodded repeatedly.

The curve of Yu Yan’s lips widened. “Do you know how I got here?”

Ge Chuan shook his head.

“I went on a cave exploration, and I came here just because I had a fight with a teammate,” Yu Yan said, still smiling. “Is that not very similar to your situation?” Without waiting for a response, she continued, “The cave was wide at first. I climbed in using both hands and feet. But it became narrower and more cramped the further I went. I could only move like a worm, wiggling my body. My teammate got stuck and could not get out. He begged me for help. I did not help him, and I did not make any rescue calls.”

After saying this, Yu Yan suddenly covered her mouth and laughed loudly. She exaggeratedly wiped away a tear that did not exist and said to Ge Chuan, “Is that not interesting? A perfectly healthy person left to rot in a cave, and no one knows. Why are you not laughing?”

Ge Chuan trembled, his voice as quiet as a mosquito. “I really just fought with my girlfriend.”

Yu Yan stopped talking and her face darkened. Ge Chuan fell to his knees with a thud. “It really was just a fight.”

Yu Yan suddenly grabbed his hair and forced him to look into her eyes. “Liar!”

“I, I,” Ge Chuan swallowed. The pull on his scalp made his eyes slant upward. He began to sob and crawled a few steps toward Yu Yan’s knees. “I did hit her, but her eye only went blind because she accidentally tripped and hit the corner of the table. You cannot blame me! I only pushed her. Who knew she was so unstable?”

Yu Yan listened to his excuse. “Go out, turn right, and go to the room at the end of the corridor.”

“Okay.”

Ge Chuan regretted his words immediately. Although he had promised to follow Yu Yan’s orders, the corridor was so gloomy it was terrifying. He did not even have the courage to step out of the room.

“Did you not say you would listen to me?” Yu Yan urged him from behind.

“Can you tell me why?” he asked.

“Are you going or not?”

Ge Chuan gritted his teeth and walked over. Yu Yan was his teammate; surely she would not harm him. They were in the same boat. If something happened to him, Yu Yan would also be in trouble.

“I am right behind you.”

Thinking that Yu Yan was behind him acted like a reassurance for Ge Chuan. Although his legs were shaking, his steps became a bit larger.

“Walk faster.”

He could feel breath on the top of his head, which then moved to his neck, waist, and stomach. There was even a wave of heat against his calves. Ge Chuan seemed to lose his ability to think. His head felt fuzzy. Could it be that Yu Yan actually liked him? At this thought, his trembling legs felt stronger.

A sense of ecstasy and pride surged within him. Since he was a child, he had always been pursued by girls at school; his looks were certainly good. In the end, Yu Yan was just a woman. Would she not feel lonely traveling through various dungeons? She had no trusted man by her side before, but now she had him.

“You should have said something sooner.” Ge Chuan licked his lips, his steps feeling light as if he were walking on cotton. Come to think of it, Yu Yan was much better than his girlfriend. This was a guaranteed win.

Yu Yan pressed a gun against the back of Ge Chuan’s head. When he tried to turn around, she cocked the hammer, which immediately made Ge Chuan anxious. Did she want to play some new role-playing game? But using a gun was a bit too frightening.

“Expert, what is this for?” As soon as the room on the far right was opened, Ge Chuan could not help but ask excitedly. Yu Yan, standing behind him, offered no sweet words or intimate contact. She kicked him in the waist, sending him flying into the room.

“Get out!”

The moment Ge Chuan entered, he felt as if his heart had been suddenly gripped. His breathing became difficult. The unknown space terrified him, and he pounded on the door desperately. “Let me out! What is this for!” At that moment, the sensation of breath reappeared on his body, but this time, Yu Yan was not there.

Yu Yan just listened coldly from the outside, with no intention of opening the door. She only smiled when she heard Ge Chuan’s screams followed by the sound of crunching and chewing. She looked at the foot she had used to kick Ge Chuan and wiped it against the wall with disgust.

She asked the system, “Is the task progress still 50%?”

[50%]

“Tsk.” Yu Yan frowned.

Knowing the task progress was a privilege granted only after surviving eleven dungeons in the infinite world. She had known the progress was at 50% on the very first day. This meant the Boss had already been in the hotel when they entered the dungeon. He had likely been observing them in secret for a long time.

While re-exploring the residential area, Xing Yun ran into the pensive Yu Yan and gave a friendly greeting. Yu Yan waved her hand. “We meet again. Come over here.”

Xing Yun looked at the dark corridor and Yu Yan’s ambiguous smile. She felt an inexplicable palpitation in her heart. She bit her lip nervously, making her damp lips appear even more vivid.

“If she wanted to harm someone, she would have done it already,” Lao Xiangyun said from behind her. “She would not wait until now.”

Xing Yun knew this. Yu Yan had not only refrained from harming her but had also shared information about the infinite game. No matter what kind of person Yu Yan was, Xing Yun was grateful for that.

“To be safe, you stay here. If things go wrong, come and help. I will go check it out first,” Xing Yun said and walked over without hesitation.

Yu Yan made a face of exaggerated sadness. “Why did you discuss it for so long? Am I not trustworthy?” She soon waved her hand again. “Forget it. It does not matter what you think. After all, you are so pleasant to look at, much better than the toad in this room.” As she spoke, she opened the door. Ge Chuan walked out absent-mindedly, looking extremely haggard.

Xing Yun sensed a foul aura from Ge Chuan, whose eyes were dark and who seemed unstable. She could not help but cover her nose. She could not say exactly what the smell was, but it felt heavy with the scent of death. Xing Yun remembered this man; he had been slashed in the neck in the lobby. With the lobby’s healing ability, it was like living through a nightmare.

Xing Yun looked at Ge Chuan, her face full of confusion. Yu Yan seemed to be in a great mood. She approached Xing Yun and leaned on her as if using her as a crutch. “Actually, the Boss returned just as we arrived at the dungeon.”

Xing Yun stood a bit straighter, trying to move away from Yu Yan’s hold, but the other woman clung to her like an octopus. She considered the credibility of Yu Yan’s words. After all, the diaries of the employees and the Boss said he had gone out for medical treatment. However, Yu Yan’s words did wake Xing Yun up. The information she had found was from the Boss’s diary. Who in their right mind keeps a diary? Was the information there truly reliable?

Suddenly, a masked employee appeared at the other end of the corridor. His eyes bulged out hideously. “There are many guests in the residential area who need rest. Do not talk in the corridor, and do not linger.”

The employee’s entire body appeared stiff. His joints made a cracking sound as he walked. Both the sight and sound were incredibly eerie. Lao Xiangyun quickly pulled open the nearest door and hid inside. Yu Yan and Xing Yun also hid nearby.

But the employee did not let them go. He pounded on the door from the outside, making a sharp, ear-piercing scream. Xing Yun could not help but cover her ears. In her attempt to hide, Xing Yun scratched her arm. Blood dripped onto the floor, and a single drop instantly expanded into a thin layer. A human hand reached out from the blood. Long, blood-red nails grabbed Xing Yun’s calf. The pressure increased steadily, making Xing Yun sweat from the pain, yet she could not escape.

She pounded on the hand and tried using her flashlight and a lighter, but nothing worked.

“It is not afraid of anything!”

“Sigh, let me try.” Yu Yan was not idle either. She fired a shot, but it passed right through the arm without causing any damage. Using a knife to slash also resulted in no sensation of contact.

Xing Yun felt desperate. White mist began to spread outside the room. The unmodeled area made Xing Yun afraid to move. She lifted her leg and pulled the hand out of the blood a little, revealing its shoulder and long hair. It was a woman.

Yu Yan held her down and told her to be careful. If she pulled some mysterious humanoid creature out from the ground, it would be difficult to handle. But because Xing Yun did not move, the hand crawled up her calf. Each movement poked bloody holes into her skin.

Xing Yun did not stop thinking and was still considering what to do. At that moment, the blood on the floor turned from bright red to dark red, and the hand embedded in Xing Yun’s skin gradually disappeared. The pounding and shouting outside weakened until only the sound of a hand scratching the door remained, so shrill it was impossible to ignore. A foul smell of rot pervaded the air, making Xing Yun gag.

Yu Yan frowned, composed herself, and signaled for Ge Chuan to open the door. Ge Chuan nodded dully and followed Yu Yan’s instruction. Upon opening the door, he saw a skeleton. Some rotten meat still hung on the frame, but it soon disappeared, and the employee uniform on the skeleton became tattered. The corridor lights flickered on and off. Finally, with a sizzling sound, the bulb shattered, leaving everything in total darkness.

Xing Yun frowned. “Why is this happening?” She tore a piece of fabric from the hem of her clothes to bandage her calf. If the wound were not there, she would have suspected everything was an illusion.

Yu Yan pondered. “I have a few ideas, but I need more clues.”

Xing Yun stepped over the skeleton to find Lao Xiangyun. She discovered that it was not just their room that had a skeleton at the door. There were others elsewhere, some next to carts and some curled up at doorways. She bypassed the skeleton at Lao Xiangyun’s door and knocked.

Xing Yun realized that the room Lao Xiangyun had hidden in was the same room where she had woken up on the first day. According to Liu Cui’s squad groupings last night, she had also rested in this room. It was quite a coincidence. Xing Yun closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander, trying to dull the pain in her leg.

From inexplicably entering the infinite world out of boredom, to witnessing various deaths, and now the situation with the blood hand, only a few days had passed. But in these few days, Xing Yun felt her life had been more turbulent than in her previous eighteen years. She looked at Yu Yan. If the Boss had been here since the beginning as Yu Yan said, then only the remaining 50% of the task, not being haunted by vengeful spirits, remained.

Who was the vengeful spirit? When would it appear, and in what form? All of this was unknown to Xing Yun. Why did the employees suddenly turn into skeletons? What was the origin of the thing that grabbed her?

Lao Xiangyun opened the door tremblingly, her clothes soaked with sweat. “Boss, you finally came to save me.” Seeing Lao Xiangyun about to lunge at her, Xing Yun immediately stepped aside, fearing she would get snot on her.

Lao Xiangyun did not mind and pointed at the room. “I just saw the room’s layout change. It was different from how it is now. It was very clean and bright. It happened fast, but I saw it.”

Yu Yan nodded and fell into deep thought. The group went to the lobby together. A lot of noise was made by the return of Liu Cui’s squad, and many people gathered in the lobby.

Liu Cui appeared very flustered. “Members of the squad were attacked by employees while exploring some darker scenes. Some people unfortunately died.”

The scene was filled with discussion. Yu Yan shook her head and snorted. “All dead? Only you and the one next to you are alive?”

Yi Ban looked at Yu Yan. “Some were killed by employees, and some were executed for violating the alliance by attacking each other.” She paused. “And it is not just the two of us. There are others; they will be here soon.”

Xing Yun was confused. If people were still alive, why did they not act together? But she was facing too many problems now, so this had become irrelevant. Yu Yan was also puzzled. Based on her deduction, she had thought all the members would die at Liu Cui’s hands. After all, Liu Cui had discovered something that did not belong here and used it on Ge Chuan. Would Liu Cui not have noticed?

Killing everyone she disliked was Yu Yan’s motto. She tilted her head slightly to look at Xing Yun and could not help but smile. As for things she found interesting, she would find a way to keep them by her side and play with them slowly.

Yi Ban had not lied. Some people soon walked over one by one. They all seemed confused, standing by Yi Ban with their heads down, appearing to follow her every command. Xing Yun frowned. Sunken eyes, dark circles, and sallow skin, their condition was far too similar to Ge Chuan’s. They did not look like living people at all.

She narrowed her eyes, observing everyone in the squad in the dim light. Except for Liu Cui and Yi Ban, who were talking, the others were like the living dead, appearing dull and dazed. Yu Yan leaned over and told Xing Yun, “Yi Ban’s item must be a summoning type.”

Xing Yun showed a questioning expression.

“In the Hell Lucifer dungeon, Lucifer hated the angels still in heaven because he had been sent to hell. In his madness, he dragged many pure angels into hell, staining their wings black. When gods fight, mortals suffer. In that dungeon, many mortals were also infected and became this half-dead state, only taking orders from Lucifer.”

“She actually brought Lucifer to this dungeon.” Yu Yan looked at Ge Chuan and smiled cruelly. “I thought it was a dungeon reward and that I was the only one who found a way to change teammates. I did not expect that others had already paved the way.”

Xing Yun shivered, and Yu Yan pressed a hand on her shoulder. “Do not be afraid, good child. The methods for using dungeon abilities are very complex. And since you are so interesting, I will not target you.”

Xing Yun remained silent. It seemed that although items within a dungeon could not be taken out, each one was terrifyingly powerful. But the most powerful thing was not the item, but the person using it. If one did not know about the Hell Lucifer dungeon, they would not be able to summon him.

Xing Yun felt a lingering pain in her calf. She discreetly curled her body slightly to ease the discomfort. It seemed that in infinite dungeons, experience was the most important thing. Yu Yan brought over a chair.

“Ahem.”

Xing Yun felt a stir in her heart. She was about to say thank you when she saw Yu Yan sit down and look up at her with a smile. “What? Do you want to steal my chair?”

Xing Yun: “…”

“Tsk, you sure are cold.”

“I am not.”

“Say something soft to me, and I will let you sit.”

Xing Yun shook her head. “I do not need to.”

Yu Yan rested her head on her left hand against the back of the chair, observing Xing Yun. Seeing her tightly pressed lips and sweaty nose, she raised an eyebrow and then extended her leg. “I can reluctantly let you sit on my lap.”

Before Xing Yun could respond, an employee arrived. “Is anyone looking to apply for a job at the hotel? There are fewer and fewer employees, but more and more guests. It is quite a headache. Without enough staff, we cannot maintain the hotel’s operations, and terrible things will happen. We look forward to your active applications.”