WTNL Chapter 55

Antai Community
Chapter 55: It’s all about survival

“…”

Wen Jianyan closed the live broadcast interface with a head full of question marks.

Su Cheng asked, “What’s wrong?”

“…I don’t know.”

Wen Jianyan blinked. After pondering for a bit, he said somewhat uncertainly, “My viewers seem a bit weird today.”

Su Cheng was equally baffled, like a monk who couldn’t find his own head: “???”

However, Wen Jianyan quickly tossed the anomaly of the live broadcast room’s comments to the back of his mind.

Since he couldn’t obtain information from the viewers, he could only start from elsewhere.

When acting together with that group of streamers earlier, he had been hovering on the distant fringes, keeping them at arm’s length, making them almost forget the existence of him, this “NPC”.

Under the constant barrage of crises, even the streamers themselves were struggling to preserve their lives. They had even less time to pay attention to a person who deliberately stayed out of their line of sight in terms of both positioning and actions.

Especially when it came to minimizing his presence, Wen Jianyan could absolutely be considered an expert.

However, this also brought about a problem.

That is, there were many clues Wen Jianyan couldn’t directly touch, which led to him being unable to acquire the necessary amount of information to the greatest extent.

He stood in place and pondered for a few seconds, then turned to look at Su Cheng: “When you were in 1304 earlier, did you find the note in the paper doll’s hand?”

Su Cheng was startled: “Yes.”

Wen Jianyan nodded, walked forward, and crouched down beside the male host paper doll.

Soon, he pried a small note out of the paper doll’s stiffly clenched hand. He unfolded the note, and the handwriting on it was clearly visible: “Forever together with baby.”

Eaten into the stomach, they indeed were together.

Wen Jianyan stood up, turned around, and went to the bathroom.

The door that Su Cheng had tightly locked just now was easily twisted open, emitting a soft creak in the darkness. With the end of the special route, the dismembered parts of the female corpse inside had disappeared, leaving only a floor full of dirty bloody water and hair.

Soaking in the middle of the pool of bloody water were the fragmented pieces of a paper doll.

Wen Jianyan found the part belonging to the “hand” and likewise found a piece of paper in it—

“Family harmonious and beautiful, never separating.”

In a certain sense… it was achieved as well.

Wen Jianyan placed the two notes together and compared them, then turned to look at Su Cheng and asked, “Oh right, the note you found in the paper doll’s hand in 1304 earlier, was the handwriting on it different?”

Su Cheng clearly didn’t expect Wen Jianyan to ask such a question.

He racked his brains for a long while and shook his head somewhat defeatedly: “I… I don’t know.”

Earlier in 1304, he had at most only looked at the note he found himself. As for the note in the other streamer’s hand, he only heard the contents and hadn’t thought to look at the handwriting at all.

“At least you have an impression of the handwriting on the note you found, right?”

Su Cheng thought for a moment: “Yes.”

Wen Jianyan stepped forward and showed the two notes in his hand to him: “Is it similar to the handwriting on these two notes?”

The handwriting on one note was relatively bold and rugged, while the other looked much more delicate and refined.

Su Cheng shook his head affirmatively: “Not similar.”

“I see.”

Wen Jianyan nodded thoughtfully.

Su Cheng pressed, “What’s wrong? Did you discover something?”

“It’s nothing.” Wen Jianyan tucked the two notes into his pocket: “I just confirmed that these notes should have been written personally by the deceased. They are their own wishes, not some curse from someone else.”

“Alright, let’s sort out the clues we know now.”

Wen Jianyan looked at Su Cheng and spoke slowly:

“If we deduce downwards along the timeline, the residents in 1306 made a wish, and the wish was fulfilled in a twisted form, so the family massacre occurred in 1306.

The infant from 1306 was put into a Soul-Locking Urn, and was then obtained by the residents in 1304.

A family massacre occurred in 1304.

It’s roughly like this, right?”

Su Cheng nodded.

“According to the information provided by Granny Wen, the family that stole the Soul-Locking Urn would be entangled by evil spirits, and then a family massacre would occur.”

Wen Jianyan turned his head and pointed to the empty, rummaged-through shrine not far away, saying:

“So, there should have been a Soul-Locking Urn in the room of the 1306 residents as well, and this Soul-Locking Urn must have been taken away by other streamers before we arrived.”

Su Cheng: “Indeed…”

He slowly furrowed his brows, a look of hesitation and confusion appearing on his face.

“It seems you’ve realized it too.”

Wen Jianyan smiled, his amber eyes curving slightly: “…Granny Wen was lying.”

“The Soul-Locking Urn in 1304 was completed after the family massacre in 1306 took place.” Wen Jianyan slightly curled his finger bones and gently tapped the knocked-over shrine in front of him:

“It’s even possible that Granny Wen made it herself and then gifted it to the next family.”

Su Cheng shuddered, a chill climbing up his spine, his hairs standing on end. His voice involuntarily became dry: “Wait, then why did she ask us to go find…”

Wen Jianyan didn’t answer. Instead, he walked straight to the TV cabinet, picked up his phone that had been tossed there, and turned off the camera recording.

[Main Quest 1: Hold a soul-summoning ritual in Room 1306 (Time limit: one hour)]
[Completion: 100%. Reward points: 5000]

[Main Quest 2: Film the soul-summoning ritual, duration must not be less than ten minutes]
[Completion: 100%. Reward points: 5000]

He opened the quest list, then flipped the phone around to show the screen to Su Cheng:

[High-Difficulty Side Quest Refreshed: Retrieve the lost Soul-Locking Urn]
[Completion: 33%]

Su Cheng was taken aback: “Oh right, high-difficulty side quest… meaning, we won’t die if we don’t complete it!”

Wen Jianyan nodded: “Exactly.”

After all, he had completely played out the ultimate main quests of two instances and had slowly figured out some unspoken rules of the Nightmare Live Broadcast Room—the degree of freedom in the instances was very high. Streamers could freely choose to take different routes, and the rewards obtained would be vastly different. The ultimate main quest of an entire instance was the most difficult and dangerous, and it usually required an extremely high plot modification degree to unlock.

And high-difficulty side quests were often related to the ultimate main quest.

Wen Jianyan put his phone away and slowly concluded:

“Alright, since that’s the case, our upcoming course of action is basically determined.”

“Let the other streamers and that old lady full of lies deceive and scheme against each other. We won’t get involved. We absolutely must not delay the main quests for a high-difficulty quest.”

He reached out and patted Su Cheng’s shoulder, saying solemnly:

“Everything prioritizes preserving our lives.”

Surviving until the instance time limit is victory!

Wen Jianyan knew exactly how much he weighed.

He was never the type of person who would risk everything for the truth or for profits. Besides, his luck had become exceptionally bad since entering the instances. Just resolving the death-courting main quests on his own identity card took all his effort, let alone actively exploring the more difficult and terrifying ultimate main quest.

Furthermore, it was precisely because Wen Jianyan had accidentally performed too well on the surface in his first two instances that led to him—a D-rank streamer with slow talent channeling, low system shop unlock progress, and low base points—being forcibly thrown into a B- level instance.

If he stumbled into unlocking the ultimate main quest again this time, he wasn’t sure if he could survive to see the next instance.

Therefore, although he had deduced some conclusions that might already be close to the truth of the instance, Wen Jianyan had no intention of pursuing them further.

—Nothing was more important than his own little life.

More importantly, the remaining points in Wen Jianyan’s account were enough for him and Su Cheng to survive the remaining duration of this instance. Dealing with the death-courting main quests on their identity cards from time to time would be enough.

With the two of them cooperating, the difficulty of solving these quests shouldn’t be high.

He looked at Su Cheng:

“Alright, what was your main quest again?”

Su Cheng looked down at his phone screen: “Find a second streamer besides you and me within one hour.”

“This quest isn’t hard.” Wen Jianyan thought for a moment: “Even if we stay in this room without moving, we can complete it. Plus, they might come looking for us proactively very soon.”

Su Cheng froze: “What do you mean?”

Wen Jianyan shot him a glance: “Don’t you remember? Guiding Hand.”

This item could point out the location of a hidden item for the streamer. As the streamer’s rank increased, the level of the item the Guiding Hand could point to would also increase.

Since the Soul-Locking Urn itself was a hidden item, other streamers could find their way over by activating the item.

“However, we’ll be in a lot of danger if that happens,” Wen Jianyan said thoughtfully.

After all, a competitive relationship between the streamers had already formed, and those streamers’ reserves of points and items were far greater than theirs. If a conflict really broke out, they would definitely be the ones to suffer.

Wen Jianyan would never bet his hopes of survival on the kindness of others.

More importantly, although he had no intention of risking his life to unlock the main storyline, since these items had already entered his pocket, it was absolutely impossible for him to spit them back out.

Being cowardly is fine, but you absolutely cannot be cowardly without dignity!

Wen Jianyan walked to the door and carefully peeked his head out to observe outside 1306.

Compared to before they just entered the door, the corridor appeared even more bizarre. That shallow dark red light had deepened at some unknown point; a dense, unresolvable bloody hue shrouded the corridor before them.

The walls and floor curved, bent into a strange arc shape. Countless corridors from other floors were still connected to the 13th floor, but if one looked inward, they would find that they were basically all similarly twisted into near-arc shapes.

Su Cheng stared at Wen Jianyan’s back: “You mean…”

The young man standing at the doorway turned his head to look over. The blood-red light fell into the depths of his eyes like bright fire. He looked at Su Cheng behind him, the corners of his lips curling into a shallow arc, his handsome face half-hidden between light and shadow:

“We must strike first and take the initiative, of course.”

Wen Jianyan wore a harmless smile on his face: “I just love dealing with streamers the most.”

Su Cheng: “…”

For some reason, he had a very ominous premonition.

“Are we almost there?”

The streamer in the lead asked.

He looked very young and tall, but there was always a faint, fierce aura between his brows. When locking eyes with him, it always gave one an invisible, chilling sensation.

His name was Gao Chengxin, rank C+, belonging to a guild ranked in the top twenty, considered a relatively prestigious mid-level member within it.

“Almost. The Guiding Hand shows the item is right ahead.”

Wang Hanyu answered while staring at the red marker in the air that only he could see.

Gao Chengxin and his other two companions had a conflict with another team of streamers inside 1306. They ultimately won and obtained the Soul-Locking Urn from 1306. However, they were subsequently trapped in the mirror world because of it, spending almost half an hour to escape. Although they didn’t encounter life-threatening danger, they lost track of the Soul-Locking Urn in the process.

So, although they were the ultimate victors, the Soul-Locking Urn was not in their hands.

After leaving the mirror, they met Wang Hanyu and Chen Mo. Since their situations were similar, the two groups quickly formed a temporary alliance.

Although it was an alliance, after discovering that there were other streamer squads in this world who had also accepted Granny Wen’s quest and were searching for the Soul-Locking Urns, everyone realized—

In this instance, streamers were pure competitors against one another.

After all, there were only three Soul-Locking Urns, but everyone wanted to complete the quest.

However, a temporary alliance was also necessary.

As time passed, the layout of the entire inner world had undergone an earth-shattering change.

The corridor of the thirteenth floor was now completely connected end-to-end, twisted into a massive circle. The other few corridors were the same, connecting with each other, creating complex and twisted paths. From time to time, they would unexpectedly bump into streamers from other squads in the corridors.

It was precisely because of this that they vaguely had an idea of the combat power of the other sides.

At the very beginning, there should have been at least eight squads on the map, each consisting of roughly two to three people.

But as time went on, and after a few encounters, the number of people had sharply decreased compared to the start. Some died at the hands of fellow human streamers, while others were killed by malicious ghosts. All in all, there were only about seventeen or eighteen people left on the entire map now. The squads that originally only had two or three people quickly realized the true nature of the competition and began to consciously merge together temporarily.

By now, they had basically merged into two to three teams.

One team was active on the second floor, one on the eighth floor, and Gao Chengxin’s team had just arrived on the tenth floor.

After the teams merged, the streamers temporarily occupied three points on the inner world map, maintaining an unstable stalemate. Although no conflicts broke out between them, they were always on guard against each other. Even though everyone had Guiding Hands in their backpacks, no one dared to act rashly.

However, Gao Chengxin’s team soon lost their patience.

There were five people in their team in total. Three had found the Soul-Locking Urn in 1306, and two had found the Soul-Locking Urn in 1304. Logically speaking, they should have been the team with the highest collection progress of Soul-Locking Urns on the entire map. However, because they were screwed over by the system setting, their hard work ended up benefiting others, resulting in them becoming a team that hadn’t obtained a single Soul-Locking Urn in the end.

This point truly made them impatient and irritable.

So, after a brief discussion, they finally decided to strike proactively. No matter what, grab one Soul-Locking Urn first and talk later!

Relying on the help of the Guiding Hand, Gao Chengxin’s squad carefully approached that direction.

Not only were they afraid of alarming the target, but they were even more worried that moving too loudly would draw the attention of another party, ultimately ending up besieged by the other two teams.

Suddenly, a figure appeared without warning ahead!

Chaotic footsteps echoed in the hollow corridor, like hurried drumbeats, making one’s heart involuntarily leap into their throat.

This sound seemed exceptionally piercing in the dead silence. Gao Chengxin and the others instantly tensed their nerves, stopped their footsteps simultaneously, and subconsciously assumed a combat stance—

“W-wait a minute!”

That streamer’s voice sounded exceptionally panicked: “Don’t attack yet, I’m just one person!”

Gao Chengxin and the others noticed that the streamer was indeed alone, without any other companions.

And…

His voice sounded somewhat familiar.

The next second, Wang Hanyu’s pupils shrank. He abruptly reached out and grabbed Gao Chengxin’s tense forearm, stopping his intention to attack: “Wait! I know him!”

Gao Chengxin froze: “Could it be…”

Wang Hanyu nodded: “That’s right. It’s the streamer who was acting with us earlier and was also pulled into the mirror after finding the Soul-Locking Urn in 1304.”

Then they definitely couldn’t attack.

Not because the streamers valued old sentiments that much.

At a time like this, more companions meant a higher win rate. Plus… although the other party was pulled into the mirror with them, they didn’t come out together. So, he might have learned some other information.

It could be about the other teams, or it could be about the Soul-Locking Urn.

Either way, it was equally important.

Soon, that streamer ran panting up to them.

After getting a clear look at their faces, he clearly recognized his teammates who had separated from him earlier. His eyes widened slightly: “…I-it’s you guys! That’s wonderful!”

Wang Hanyu stepped forward and asked with concern: “Are you alright? We’ve been worried about you ever since we got separated. Did you encounter any danger?”

Su Cheng ran somewhat out of breath.

He nodded while panting heavily, stood in place, and took a long time to recover before finally speaking: “I… I did.”

Wang Hanyu took a step forward, stared straight at him, and asked: “Tell us about it?”

“Do… do you guys remember that NPC who entered the inner world with us?”

Wang Hanyu paused.

Ah, right, that NPC.

Speaking of which, it was strange. Even though that NPC had been moving with them since the 13th floor, for some reason, his impression of that NPC was never very deep. The other party was like a marginalized person; although always on the team, he never actively entered their line of sight. Under the continuous tense environment earlier, he had almost forgotten the existence of such an NPC in the team.

However… this NPC disappeared after entering the inner world. He didn’t know if he got teleported to somewhere else, but having been separated from them for so long, he was probably dead by now.

It was just a pity about the Hard-level hidden item in his hands; who knew where it had ended up now.

But before Wang Hanyu could feel any regret, he heard Su Cheng suppress his rapid panting and slowly utter a sentence he completely didn’t expect:

“He, he is actually not an NPC.”

“…What?”

Wang Hanyu’s eyes widened slightly, staring fixedly at Su Cheng not far away, an expression of disbelief on his face: “Then he is…”

Su Cheng’s face carried a post-exercise flush. His chest heaved rapidly up and down, and he said in a somewhat unsteady voice:

“He’s a streamer.”

“He, he was acting from the very beginning. He came in with people from his own guild. I don’t know through what channel, but he knew this competitive relationship would appear in this instance, which is why he lurked by our side under the identity of an NPC.”

Everyone’s gazes focused on Su Cheng.

Su Cheng took a deep breath and continued, “I, after I escaped from the mirror, my location wasn’t actually far from 1304, so I went back and got the Soul-Locking Urn. I was originally planning to go find you guys, but before I found you, I bumped into that NPC first. He used a trick to swindle the Soul-Locking Urn from my hands and was even preparing to kill me to silence me. But I still managed to escape in the end…”

Under the gaze of so many streamers, Su Cheng felt a sense of trepidation in his heart.

He wasn’t like Wen Jianyan; he wasn’t the type who could lie without changing his expression. In such a tense situation, he could easily speak incoherently due to excessive nervousness.

However, as a relevant professional in the deception industry, Wen Jianyan had quickly come up with a solution for this.

That was—”Run”.

Running too fast could cause one’s facial features to contort, face to flush, and breathing to become rapid and uncontrollable. These instinctive physiological phenomena could perfectly cover up the instinctive reactions caused by lying.

And even if others noticed him speaking incoherently or lacking logic, their first reaction wouldn’t be that he was lying, but would link it to his current physiological state.

Facts proved that professionals are professionals; the proposed solution was truly extremely effective.

“However…”

Su Cheng caught his breath and took a coin folded from yellow paper out of his pocket: “Before I escaped, I got this from him.”

In their line of sight, the red marker of the Guiding Hand hung above Su Cheng’s head, bobbing up and down, pointing downwards, indicating the existence of a hidden item.

A glint of fervent heat flashed through Wang Hanyu’s eyes, and he subconsciously stepped forward.

A Hard-level hidden item!

But Su Cheng tucked the coin back into his pocket and continued, “According to what I know, their squad’s progress is the fastest. They have already secured two Soul-Locking Urns now.”

What?

They already collected two out of three?

Gao Chengxin’s eyes turned sharp, and his expression became grave and serious.

This was crucial information capable of shattering the balance of the entire situation! You must know, every squad had a mirror capable of entering and exiting the surface and inner worlds. So, as long as any squad was the first to find three Soul-Locking Urns, they could go to Granny Wen to turn in the quest, and the rest of them would have no hope left.

At this moment, he suddenly thought of a point the other party just mentioned:

“You said he came in following a team from his own guild? Do you know which guild he belongs to?”

Su Cheng barely maintained his surface composure, slowly spitting out two words: “Dark Fire.”

On the other side, the young man with amber eyes stood under the dark red light. The black clay urn in his palm increasingly accentuated his slender fingers and fair skin.

“…That’s right, if they get this urn too, they will complete the quest.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly, his long, thick eyelashes covering the rippling faint light in his eyes. With a trace of imperceptible bewitchment and induction in his voice, he spoke lowly in the deep, long corridor:

“We can’t let that happen, right?”

__

Author’s Note:

Wen Jianyan: Since I’m going to be a shit-stirrer, I might as well stir to the end! (Worst comes to worst, I’ll just push the blame onto Dark Fire at the end)