Chapter 10: Burning Flames

Wei Congxin’s scream could be described as shaking the heavens. Yan Shanque, huddled under her blanket and just drifting off, jolted awake and shivered, clutching her little blanket tighter.

Qin Dan, who had shut his doors and windows tight and even stuffed the cracks with cloth strips just in case he heard things he shouldn’t, was also startled by this earth-shattering yell. His hand trembled, instantly ruining the Talisman he was drawing with blood.

“What a mouse’s courage that guy has. Looks impressive but useless; a newbie’s just a newbie. If you’re gonna die, die on your own; don’t drag me into it.” Qin Dan burned the ruined Talisman, his expression dark.

“Gh-ghost, ghost, ghost…” Wei Congxin stared at the three unmoving pairs of eyes outside, scared out of his wits, nearly passing out on the spot.

Alone late at night in this strange, eerie world, waiting for danger to descend—only to realize that, unbeknownst to him, several pairs of eyes were already behind him, peeping at him…

Just thinking about it made his scalp go numb.

“Knock, knock, knock—”

Misfortunes never come singly. The thing outside the door seemed to hear the commotion inside and let out a hoarse, androgynous voice that felt like intangible claws gripping his heart: “Guest—would you like a late-night snack—”

‘Like’ your hammer!

Go eat crap! Who the hell eats at a time like this!

Threatened from the front and ambushed from the rear, two trails of tears streamed down Wei Congxin’s face.

He knew perfectly well that his most urgent need was to find a way out, that even running into the bathroom was better than cowering like a turtle here. But the intense fear had made him rigid all over, unable to move for a moment.

Was he really going to die here today?

Wuwu, his mom and dad, his games, his figurines, his apartment he’d just registered under his name… wuwuwu…

“Hey, Little Coward.”

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out.

Wei Congxin looked back, horrified, and saw the three pairs of eyes shift, revealing two familiar faces.

That doggone big shot, ah, no, Mysterious Big Shot Lin Yujing, and the key Instance NPC, Little Young Master Pearl.

Wei Congxin was instantly dumbfounded. “Why is it you two?!”

“Sorry it’s not the ghost you were hoping to meet, Little Coward Wei.” Lin Yujing’s tone was amazed. “Can’t believe you actually spotted us. You’re pretty sharp, aren’t you, Little Coward? Is this the special intuition little animals have when facing danger?”

The youth in the graphic tee gritted his teeth. “Screw you! If you two weren’t up in the middle of the night staring outside my window, how would I have been scared into making a sound?”

The nearly 1.9-meter-tall burly man burst into tears on the spot. “If you’ve got some scheme, just come at me directly! Don’t stab me in the back, wuwu.”

“Aiya, we were just watching quietly, wouldn’t have done anything. Besides, we were clearly being very stealthy. If you hadn’t noticed, wouldn’t nothing have happened?” Lin Yujing shrugged, detached.

“Bang, bang, bang—” A second round of knocking sounded.

Perhaps it couldn’t even be called knocking anymore; it was violent pounding on the door, faintly carrying the excitement of spotting prey.

“AHHH, it’s coming in!” Wei Congxin’s nose and tears flowed freely. “Why are you still making snide remarks at a time like this?! I’m about to die, and you’re still making snide remarks! Do you even have a heart?!”

The grey-haired youth scratched his head, then suddenly had an epiphany. He whispered, “So you actually do want to live, Little Coward? You were standing there frozen; I thought you wanted to die.”

Wei Congxin was furious and frantic. “Can you please stop being so sarcastic with me?!”

Yin Luo just stood aside, watching them go back and forth. Suddenly, he reached out and covered Little Bear’s eyes.

Education must start from a young age. Little Bear was just a little plushie cub; it absolutely couldn’t learn bad habits. If it did, waiting until it was Lin Yujing’s age for treatment would be too late.

Little Bear, who had been watching the show with relish, was puzzled: OvO?

The White Rabbit Plushie subtly adjusted its position, rubbing against his palm in the process, cozying up to its little master.

So what if its eyes were covered? It was a plushie; how could it see the world through its gemstone eyes? Of course, there were other ways.

Tee-hee.

The unbridled conversation inside the room seemed to enrage the thing outside the door. It could no longer maintain a human facade, emitting monstrous roars.

“Guest—open the door, have a snack—”

“Have a snack—”

“Eat it—open the door and eat it!”

“Open the door and eat! Let me eat!!”

The knocking sounds turned into pounding. The door and its frame, even the floor beneath their feet, vibrated.

It wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen if such force hit a human body; a one-way ticket to the afterlife, probably.

Forgetting his anger, Wei Congxin yanked the curtains open and tried to open the window to get out.

After struggling for a while, he realized the window in this guest room—perhaps to eliminate safety hazards—was welded shut. The window could only open a tiny crack, less than twenty centimeters wide.

There was no way an adult male like him could squeeze through such a small opening.

Gritting his teeth, he didn’t hesitate to grab the chair and smash it against the windowpane with all his strength!

Wei Congxin’s strength was considerable, plus the weight of the solid wood chair itself. The recoiling force was so strong that the webbing between his thumb and forefinger ached intensely, his muscles nearly tearing.

But the windowpane didn’t budge. Not a crack, not even a tremble. This wasn’t just the glass being too thick or too hard; it defied all logic. Even a solid wall would vibrate if hit hard with a heavy object, let alone window glass.

It was as if game rules had been triggered; the entire room had transformed into a sealed space.

Why was this happening? Why did he have to die here?

The youth in the graphic tee wept profusely, his face full of despair.

“Do you want to live?” Lin Yujing asked suddenly, watching his frantic attempts to save himself. “I can save you.”

Wei Congxin was stunned, then his eyes lit up. “Seriously?”

Yin Luo, who had been silently observing, glanced coldly at him, feeling that the expression on the grey-haired man’s face was like watching an ant about to be submerged by water.

“Of course, it’s true.” The grey-haired man smiled brightly. “It just requires a tiny, little price.”

Conditions somehow made things feel more reassuring. In such a situation, unprovoked goodwill was what felt unreal.

“What price?” Wei Congxin asked.

“Money.”

The grey-haired man was very straightforward: “Or rather, Gold.”

Not only Wei Congxin, but even Yin Luo frowned slightly. He suddenly remembered the gold bracelet Lin Yujing had made for him.

This was a far lighter price than Wei Congxin had imagined. He thought that in the eyes of such a big shot, the desired price would be something esoteric and detached from normal logic.

For example, a part of his body, or maybe his soul, his luck—he’d run through all the possibilities. Never did he imagine it was something so worldly.

For a moment, Lin Yujing’s image as a Mysterious Big Shot suffered a blow in his heart.

Lin Yujing continued persuading him: “Little Coward, you gotta understand, money is something external, not brought in life, not taken in death. Just a few external possessions like that for your life is basically you making a profit of a hundred million! Let me be straight with you. I’m only kind-hearted and unique. If any other veteran Player were here today, even ten kilograms of gold plus the rest of your life might not be enough for them to risk breaking the game’s rules to save you.”

Wei Congxin listened, his head spinning, as he babbled on, thinking: if you hadn’t insisted on crouching outside my window, I wouldn’t have made a sound… Several times he wanted to interject and ask exactly how much one kilogram of gold was worth, but never found the chance.

“Four hundred thousand,” Yin Luo, unable to watch any longer, reminded him. “Less than four hundred thousand.”

“Mm-hmm.” Lin Yujing shot the black-haired youth a knowing look. “You can pay on credit, you know. Seeing as Comrade Little Coward doesn’t look particularly rich, you can pay me back once you’re a formal Player and have points…”

“I have money!” The graphic tee youth finally found his chance to speak, feeling for some reason a sense of satisfaction. “I own an apartment in a first-tier city, unfurnished. Market value is at least twenty million!”

“Whoa! Never imagined Comrade Little Coward, while looking like an ordinary otaku, is actually a rich ordinary otaku,” the grey-haired man marveled, clapping softly. “Then… a pleasure doing business~”

Wei Congxin finally found his confidence and yelled, “Then hurry up and save me, ah! It’s about to come in!!”

“Don’t rush. Since it’s come to this, why not take a look at its appearance, gather a bit more information?” Lin Yujing’s tone was excited, even eager to go into the room for a closer look at the thing. “The first step to becoming a Player is treating these worlds like real games and trying hard to explore the rules. It’s only the first day and you’re already this scared. What will you do in truly unsolvable Instances, Little Coward?”

His words weren’t finished before, under the continuous assault from the thing outside, the thick solid wood door finally gave way and crashed to the floor.

Everyone tensed, staring at the doorway, wanting to see the true face of this Instance monster.

But nothing came in.

What entered first were flames.

—Fiercely burning flames!

Fire spread from outside into the room. The door began to burn, the carpet burned, and the wallpaper, faced with such high temperatures, quickly ignited and burned away, revealing the wall beneath, which then also turned scorched and black.

This was clearly a temperature far beyond ordinary fire; the very air began to warp in the heat.

Nothing could withstand such terrifying heat. Whether flammable materials or items like glass and metal, everything melted. The room was instantly filled with thick smoke and the sound of explosions and cracking.

But strangely, no matter what happened inside the room—the temperature, the flames, the smoke—none of it transmitted outside, separated only by a pane of glass.

“Whoa, looks like once you make a sound and are discovered, you don’t face a monster but directly trigger a scene. That’s certainly taking the road less traveled.” Lin Yujing watched through the window, clicking his tongue in wonder. “This novice Instance is interesting.”

Wei Congxin’s ears were filled with heart-stopping crackling sounds, his vision completely filled with firelight. The acrid, choking smoke made him weep and tear up. “Big brother, Big Brother Lin Yujing, I’m begging you, hurry up, will you! If I die, your money’s gone!”

“Alright, alright. Such a pity we didn’t see what that thing looks like.”

Finally, just when the fire was literally singeing eyebrows—the point of no return—Lin Yujing, with his gloved right hand, pushed the window open. The fixed fittings and screws fell to the ground. The window that Wei Congxin had desperately tried and failed to open was instantly opened to its widest.

Then, with another scoop of his hand, he single-handedly lifted the tall, sturdy youth weighing over 170 jin and casually flung him out.

Landing flat on his butt, Wei Congxin’s mind was blank.

This was completely different from the Big Shot he’d imagined, pulling out some artifact and displaying divine might! Earning that four hundred thousand was way too easy, damn it!

Wei Congxin’s voice trembled. “Big Brother… Lin, how did you do that? That window…”

Lin Yujing sneered. “Trade secret, understand? Think I’d tell you?”

“…”

Alright… then…

Only then did Wei Congxin finally start to calm down. In a voice he thought was subtle, but which Yin Luo heard perfectly clearly, he asked, “Big Brother, how come you’re with the Little Young Master?”

What he really wanted to ask was how those two had gotten hooked up, but he didn’t dare.

Lin Yujing stated the fact. “Fell from the sky.”

Wei Congxin took it as nonsense, not believing a word.

He looked at the White Rabbit Plushie with ruby eyes in the Little Young Master’s arms, his suspicion not diminishing.

If that third pair of red eyes he’d seen earlier belonged to this rabbit plushie called “Little Bear,” it was indeed a reasonable explanation.

But why did he remember that the pair of red eyes he saw just now were clearly narrowed, as if smiling?

Wei Congxin shuddered. Stop, stop! He couldn’t scare himself anymore. Illusions, all illusions.

The nearly 1.9-meter-tall burly man wiped away tears, feeling only the bitterness of life.

Perhaps Lin Yujing’s rule-breaking had finally angered the monster. The flames that were previously contained within the room swelled and expanded, their color shifting from intense red-orange to a faint, eerie blue that looked even more sinister in the dark.

But no matter how the flames struggled, they couldn’t pass through the window to the outside world. Like a caged beast, or a legendary Earthbound Ghost.

Yin Luo watched the fiercely burning, contorted flames. For some reason, images of blazing fire also appeared in his mind.

But unlike the flames in Wei Congxin’s room, the fire in his mind felt both warm and accompanied by a nauseating, sickening smell like burning filth.

It reminded him of the black claws, like charred human hands, he’d glimpsed perched on the fourth-floor window.

He felt colder and colder. Waves of chill emanated from deep within his bone marrow, spreading to his limbs, slowing his thoughts.

Even the gemstone pendant on his bracelet could only slightly suppress it, unable to eradicate it.

His vision began to blur before him, the night tinged with red light.

So cold…

So very cold…

How he wished for warmth…

Fire… he wanted fire… burning fire…

Burn it…

Burn it… Burn it all!

The black-haired youth closed his eyes, his breathing rapid.

The first to notice something was wrong was Little Bear.

The White Rabbit Plushie, enjoying the drama, twitched its ears and immediately shot out from Yin Luo’s arms like a little cannonball, kicking directly onto Lin Yujing’s meticulously styled head.

Lin Yujing reflexively ducked, completely bewildered. “What the hell?”

He turned his head just in time to see the black-haired youth lose consciousness and collapse.

“Hey hey? Comrade Little Coward hasn’t fallen yet; how come you’ve collapsed first?” Despite his words, the grey-haired man still rushed forward to catch him.