WTNL Chapter 281

(3/20)

Anchor Hall
Chapter 281: Only dead men can keep secrets

“Let’s go.”

Seeing her disguise exposed, Orange Candy pouted in disappointment.

She removed her appearance, and in an instant, the tall, handsome man who had just stood there at 1.9 meters in height disappeared, replaced by a petite, slender girl.

With a dark expression, she said, “The conference room is just ahead.”

Walking down the deep red corridor, the two moved forward; the thick, soft carpet beneath their feet absorbed nearly all of their footsteps.

Suddenly, Wen Jianyan thought of something and turned to look at Orange Candy beside him: “By the way, you just said that only official members can use appearances here. Does that mean I’m still not an official member?”

“Of course. You didn’t think just making it to the top ten was enough, did you?”

Orange Candy still seemed a little miffed.

She lazily lifted her eyelids, gave Wen Jianyan a sidelong glance, and spoke coolly.

She seemed to remember something, her gaze lingering thoughtfully on Wen Jianyan for a couple of seconds before she added, “But I didn’t expect you to become a candidate this early.”

Back in the “Changsheng Building” instance, Orange Candy had noticed that this guy was no weakling; he could even match up to the top ten anchors. She figured that with a bit of time, he would eventually qualify to join the Secret Council, but she hadn’t thought it would come so soon.

Although she was accustomed to the high rewards from team missions, this kind of colossal score, enough to boost a newcomer from Number 034 to Number 008… even she had never seen anything like it.

“It was just luck, really. The last mission leaned more toward puzzles,” Wen Jianyan looked down and smiled with a bit of craftiness, skillfully wielding his sweet-talking talent, “If it had been a regular team fight, I probably wouldn’t have made it… Still, I’d have to rely on seasoned squads like yours who know how to operate in team missions.”

“Hmph.”

Orange Candy snorted, narrowing her eyes.

She worked hard to suppress the faint smile tugging at her lips, then nodded with feigned reluctance, accepting his well-placed flattery in full.

“Well, of course.”

Soon, the two of them reached the end of the hallway.

At the far end of the ochre-red corridor was a massive, heavy door, the deep red on the door even darker than that of the hallway, like thick, coagulated blood.

Orange Candy stepped forward and placed her hand on the door.

The seemingly weighty door was pushed open effortlessly, gliding inward without a sound.

Before Wen Jianyan lay a grand hall dominated by red hues, a scene of opulence.

A low-hanging chandelier glistened brilliantly above an antique redwood round table, surrounded by chairs—Wen Jianyan quickly counted. Ten chairs in total.

There were already people waiting in the room besides them. To be exact, two people.

The Mason sat in one of the chairs at the table.

When he saw Wen Jianyan and Orange Candy, he visibly froze for a moment.

Fanning the flames, Orange Candy waved at him with a cheerful grin.

“…..”

The Mason’s expression darkened.

“Come in, the others should be arriving soon.”

Orange Candy casually pulled out a chair and flopped into it, lazily lounging. She pointed at the unremarkable man seated across from her: 

“That guy’s The Mason. You saw him at the door just now—Number Six.”

Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingered on the man’s face for a moment.

In that instant, he suddenly realized that he didn’t “know” the man.

Although he had just seen him in the hallway, for some reason, the man’s face seemed as though it had been erased from his memory, leaving only a blank. Only when Wen Jianyan looked directly at him again could he recall his appearance—a phenomenon that Wen Jianyan, who was highly skilled at remembering faces, had never encountered before.

This sensation reminded him of the red elevator in the center of the previous anchor hall.

Perhaps it was some sort of cognitive interference.

Beside him, Orange Candy lifted her chin lazily and introduced, “And that one there, he’s Bai Xue, Number Nine.”

Following Orange Candy’s introduction, Wen Jianyan looked at the fourth person in the room.

It was a young man who appeared to be quite young.

His hair and skin were extremely pale, almost devoid of pigment like someone with albinism, as if he could dissolve and vanish into the air at any moment.

From the moment Wen Jianyan entered, he hadn’t made a sound, nor had he even glanced in that direction. His expression remained blank as he kept his head down, pale eyelashes lowered, steadily stacking the playing cards on the table in front of him. When he reached a certain number, he would take them back into his hand and start stacking them again, one by one.

It was as though he was entirely lost in his own world.

Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingered on him a little longer.

The codename rankings for the top ten on the Oracle Leaderboard were public. Though he knew no one among them besides Orange Candy, he’d heard the names of these individuals.

Since Wen Jianyan entered the mission, the top ten rankings had remained unchanged. In fact, this had been true for most of the current anchors alive in Nightmare. In their memory, the top ten were always the top ten, never changing.

So when Wen Jianyan broke into eighth place, it created quite a stir on the forums.

“…”

Wen Jianyan looked at Bai Xue thoughtfully.

Before he became eighth, Bai Xue’s codename had already been ranked ninth, which logically meant he should’ve been pushed to tenth.

Could Orange Candy have forgotten this detail?

Or, after he became eighth, did something else change within the top ten rankings?

Or perhaps…

“He’s always like this,” Orange Candy noticed Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingering on Bai Xue for too long and, assuming Wen Jianyan was curious about the guy’s reclusiveness, lazily added, “Just ignore him.”

Wen Jianyan didn’t explain further, only retracting his gaze and giving Orange Candy a slight smile. “Thanks.”

The large room quieted down, with only the dull sound of cards landing one by one echoing.

Orange Candy lay sprawled on the table, idly twirling a strand of her hair.

Wen Jianyan, meanwhile, sat in another chair nearby, lowering his gaze as he recalled information about the Nightmare top ten.

In Nightmare, anchors couldn’t watch each other’s broadcasts, meaning their knowledge of other anchors usually came from teaming up in missions or from interactions in the anchor hall.

However, the higher-ranked the anchor, the less frequently they entered missions. Ordinary anchors rarely encountered them, and their knowledge of them was scant.

Even for someone as socially adept as Wen Jianyan, his understanding of these people was only surface-level.

Among the top ten, numbers four, seven, and nine were free agents, while the remaining anchors belonged to one of three guilds: Oracle, Dark Fire, and Eternal Day. The top three on the Nightmare Leaderboard were each the heads of these guilds.

“…”

The fingers Wen Jianyan had resting on the table curled slightly.

The Oracle guild leader and vice-leader…

He turned to look at Orange Candy and asked, “By the way, do you know what the top-ranked person on the Nightmare Leaderboard is like?”

“No idea.”

Orange Candy shrugged. “I’ve never seen him.”

Wen Jianyan blinked in surprise. “You haven’t?”

“Yeah,” Orange Candy propped her chin on one hand and looked over. “The top three are all guild leaders, right? They almost never attend Secret Council meetings. And with the amount of points they have, they hardly ever need to go on missions. Isn’t it natural I haven’t met him?”

She thought for a moment before adding, “Of course, you occasionally catch glimpses of numbers two and three, but as for number one, I honestly don’t know what he looks like.”

“Wait a second—anchors can choose not to attend the Secret Council?” Wen Jianyan blinked, picking up on a key detail from Orange Candy’s answer.

The Mason’s voice came from across the table: “In fact, only the top three have the choice to attend or not.”

Wen Jianyan looked up at him.

The previously unremarkable man now sat there with a calm expression, the dark look on his face completely gone, as though whatever had happened before had been a figment of the imagination.

The Mason spoke evenly, “But aside from the top three, any anchors not currently in a mission must attend.”

As he spoke, he pointed at the brass bell in the center of the table.

The bell was small, placed precisely at the table’s center.

Its face was blank, but it had several hands, each bearing a Roman numeral.

Wen Jianyan’s gaze rested on it as he examined it closely.

There were nine hands in total; the three longest overlapped at the bottom, completely still, while the four above—marked six, seven, nine, and ten—were of varying lengths, slowly rotating around the face at different speeds.

In other words, besides him, only four others would attend this session of the Secret Council.

However—

There was no hand-marked eight on the dial.

Wen Jianyan lowered his gaze, a thoughtful look flickering in his eyes.

The Mason explained, “The numbers shown on the dial represent the member codes for those attending the meeting this time.”

He tapped the tabletop with his fingertip, “Once number ten arrives, we can begin.”

As he finished speaking, the heavy door opened once more.

A well-dressed man appeared in the doorway.

He had a handsome, almost model-like face with smooth, youthful skin, but his eyes were an unsettling, lifeless ash gray, like the hollow depths of a tree, devoid of vitality. This eerie contrast made his otherwise attractive face feel oddly jarring and uncomfortable, making it difficult even for Wen Jianyan to guess his exact age.

“So, everyone’s here.”

The man smiled, raising a hand and elegantly removing his hat.

His gaze swept slowly around the hall, pausing briefly on Wen Jianyan before retracting without a trace. “Looks like I’m the one who’s late. How rude.”

Wen Jianyan squinted slightly.

This must be number ten.

Codename: “The Gentleman.”

He was also one of Oracle’s vice-leaders.

Oracle had four vice-leaders, all of whom ranked in the top thirty on the overall leaderboard, with The Gentleman holding the highest rank among them.

Perhaps due to his role as a guild vice-leader, The Gentleman was one of the relatively active members among the top ten, occasionally appearing at the same social events as Wen Jianyan. Yet, due to his insufficient rank, Wen Jianyan’s knowledge of The Gentleman was limited to rumors, and he had never actually met him in person.

More importantly…

Before he entered the “Changsheng Building” instance, the Gentleman was already ranked tenth on the leaderboard.

In other words, even though he became number eight, the positions of number nine and number ten hadn’t changed.

Wen Jianyan vaguely guessed the nature of this meeting.

“It seems we haven’t gathered like this in a long time,” the Gentleman said, reminiscing as he turned his head, gazing at Wen Jianyan with those tree-hollow-like, ashen-gray eyes, smiling pleasantly: “You truly are impressive for the younger generation.”

“Your praise is misplaced; I was just lucky.”

With a flawless smile, Wen Jianyan narrowed his amber eyes, responding sincerely.

The Gentleman pulled out a chair at the far end of the round table, sat down, and placed his top hat on the smooth tabletop, “Being humble is a virtue for the young, but one shouldn’t be too humble either.”

“Tch.”

Orange Candy, sitting nearby, seemed unimpressed with this exchange of pleasantries and affected politeness, letting out a derisive snort from her nose.

“Alright, enough with the formalities.”

The Gentleman shook his head, looking toward the Mason and suggesting naturally, “You are the highest-ranked person at this meeting. How about you explain the rules to our new friend?”

The Mason: “No thanks. I’m tongue-tied as always; you should do it, just like before.”

“Just like before…”

Wen Jianyan keenly caught the key phrase in his words.

“Very well.”

The Gentleman didn’t refuse.

He folded his gloved hands on the table, turning to Wen Jianyan: “You might have guessed, the Secret Council is a small, secret organization with a limit of only ten members. Only those who rank within the top ten on the total points leaderboard qualify to enter. Of course, the council’s existence is a secret to most anchors.”

“You may wonder about the council’s purpose, but unfortunately, you don’t have clearance for that yet.”

The Gentleman’s voice remained calm and courteous:

“Entering the top ten only grants you the eligibility to enter the council; it doesn’t mean you’re truly one of us yet.”

He raised a hand, pointing to the brass bell on the table.

On its face, the number 008’s hand was still conspicuously absent.

“You may have realized that although your points have overtaken the previous number 008, this doesn’t mean the previous holder will be shifted down. Instead, you will compete for this position in the next instance.”

Wen Jianyan’s heart sank slightly.

No wonder.

The council was a “secret” not just because few anchors could, like him, amass such a vast number of points to replace someone already in the top ten.

But also because of this mechanism—meaning that even if someone has the power to break into the top ten, they wouldn’t directly replace the existing members but would have to compete against others with similar points… Only the survivor would become a council member.

This was why the number of council members always remained at exactly “ten.”

Once removed from the council, they only faced one fate:

Death.

—Only dead men can keep secrets.

“So, the top ten rankings have never changed internally?” Wen Jianyan asked.

“You’re quite perceptive.”

The Gentleman’s smile didn’t waver, and he nodded elegantly, “That’s correct.”

The number of instances the top ten anchors enter, as well as the points earned in each, isn’t entirely controllable, so while they’ve secured the right to join the council through competition, they may still accumulate more points than those ranked just above them.

“As long as you’re in the top ten, you have the option to challenge an anchor ranked higher than you for their spot—but this also requires a competitive instance to complete,” the Gentleman said.

“If you choose not to compete, then any surplus points won’t be counted by the Nightmare System, but as compensation, these points can be doubled for use when making purchases.”

Wen Jianyan lowered his gaze, concealing the deep contemplation in his eyes.

So, the current top ten rankings are not purely based on strength and total points but rather resemble… the order they entered the council.

Even if an anchor later gained high points through more difficult instances, allowing them to climb higher, they usually chose to stay at their original position.

Wen Jianyan speculated that the main reason might be that no one would want to risk a deadly competition with a peer just for a higher rank.

No matter the angle, it wasn’t worth it.

Naturally, the lower-ranked members are more susceptible to being replaced, but instead of challenging well-established veterans, it’s wiser to face those newcomers who haven’t yet found their footing—the chances of success are likely higher.

Thus, even with the opportunity to move up, most opt to stay in their current rank.

Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes slightly.

This means that within the current top ten, the rank order doesn’t entirely reflect current power levels. Some with lower recorded points might already possess even more terrifying resources.

“In any case, your next instance will be a competitive one, and the previous 008 will also be participating. If you can complete this instance, you’ll officially become one of us.”

The Gentleman continued smiling pleasantly.

“You’ve only recently entered the Nightmare, correct? I noticed that your records don’t show experience in this type of competitive event. If needed, I’d be happy to provide a more detailed explanation.”

Like a magician, he pulled a card from his pocket, offering it to Wen Jianyan:

“—How about discussing it over dinner tonight?”

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