Chapter 28: Night in the Dormitory Building, Patrolling the Dorms…

Seeing that Wang Xingxing was completely dumbfounded, Rao Fei slapped his forehead and remembered.

Although Wang Xingxing’s trainee experience gave him a huge advantage in this dungeon, beyond that, he was actually just a half-newbie forced onto the saddle. Ever since joining The Bureau, he had mostly taken on the external tasks that rookies commonly handled.

Now that Wang Xingxing had suddenly been split off into a team by himself, unable to join the others, Rao Fei blended into the crowd for the sake of ensuring a smooth clearance later. He quietly pulled out a bone-white finger bone and a chunk of dark red flesh that looked somewhat disgusting at first glance.

This was a weird item he had applied for from The Bureau before entering the dungeon.

Due to the dungeon’s restrictions, they couldn’t carry many weird items, and every one had to be used on the blade.

Right now, for protection and preservation, it definitely counted as being used on the blade.

A few minutes later, Wang Xingxing, who had already followed the main group upstairs, suddenly felt a daze wash over him.

He felt like he had activated a dual-perspective hack while playing a game.

His body had clearly reached the third floor, yet he could still vaguely see Bureau Chief Lin walking ahead of “himself,” along with Peng Jia and Peng Xu.

He wasn’t a complete newbie egg after all, so he immediately realized that Rao Fei had used one of the weird items he brought into the dungeon on him.

This weird item’s name was 【Ten Fingers Linked Heart】.

The item consisted of two parts: one was the finger bone, and the other was the heart fragment.

By burying the finger bone into a gash in one’s chest and irrigating the heart fragment with blood from another’s fingertip, it could achieve about fifty percent fuzzy shared perception.

Sure enough, just as he recalled the function of this weird item, Wang Xingxing heard a faint voice by his ear: “Wang Xingxing, it’s me, Rao Fei. You’re all alone on the third floor—be extremely careful and keep in contact with me at all times.”

“Remember, on the third floor, besides yourself, you absolutely cannot fully trust even the other trainee players!”

After saying that, Rao Fei repeated the coded message that Wang Xingxing hadn’t fully grasped before.

He emphasized that unless absolutely necessary, he shouldn’t wander around in front of the third-floor supervisor. This time, the priority was to play it safe—protecting Bureau Chief Lin and surviving to the end would be the greatest victory!

Wang Xingxing committed Rao Fei’s instructions to memory. He thought of his eighty-year-old grandfather and eight-year-old sister, and his gaze toward the young man ahead filled with awe. He quietly fell back several positions.

According to what the veterans had said, the powerful weird entities in the weird world were all lunatics. Who knew if the one ahead might kill him just for stepping into the dorm with his left foot first?

At the front, Su Ximu, who had led the trainees to their destination, gave his little flag a final shake. He turned around, faced the gazes of all these trainees, steeled himself, and recited the speech he had prepared: “Um… hello, everyone. My surname is Su—you can call me Little Su or Supervisor Su.”

“For the next period of time, I’ll be handling the daily affairs for the six dorms on the third floor, including supervising all of you to maintain healthy living habits during the filming of the show.”

“If any of you have any issues, you can knock on the door of the dorm at the stairwell entrance and call for me.”

“For now, you can go ahead and pick the dorms and beds you want. In one hour, I’ll go to each dorm to distribute the dorm rules.”

The trainees selecting their dorms was also one of the behind-the-scenes highlights for the later program.

That was why the associate director had notified everyone in the work group from the start to let the trainees choose their own dorms.

Every single trainee present was a player pulled into the dungeon.

Probably considering the nature of the dungeon, the new and veteran players selected this time all had decent looks.

The new players had encountered such bizarre and dazzling events for the first time—they weren’t without moments of disbelief in reality or breakdowns.

But after being worn down by the island landing interviews and auditions, plus the precedents of those new players who tried to escape the dungeon, all the remaining new players had chosen to compromise.

After nearly a full day to settle down, the rational new players who had regained their senses heard what Supervisor Su said up front and immediately started calculating in their heads.

From No. 43 to No. 63, there were twenty-one trainees on the third floor, and each room had four beds.

That meant one of them was definitely going to be left without a roommate!

In this dangerous environment, being left alone was almost equivalent to courting death.

Once they figured that out, the five new players assigned to the third floor immediately prepared to act. But as they looked up, they discovered that the veteran players around them had already dragged their suitcases and rushed out.

Sneaky bastards!

The trainees erupted with an unnaturally enthusiastic vigor for grabbing beds.

Su Ximu stepped back a few paces and looked at the cameras set up all around. He couldn’t help but feel that no line of work was as simple as it seemed without outsiders watching.

As an idol selection show competing on popularity, the trainees had to shine brightly not just on stage, but off-stage too—anywhere there was a camera, they had to be ready at all times.

Look, the trainee at eleven o’clock—he had successfully grabbed a bed not by the door and was so moved that he burst into tears!

At the ten o’clock position, the trainee who was one step too slow and had to live alone in a dorm went pale-faced. His hands trembled as he opened the dorm door, and in the end, he broke down and begged the other trainees for help, wanting to share a room with them that night.

But he was rejected by the other trainees on the grounds that there weren’t enough beds.

The trainee’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and he viciously grabbed a handful of his own hair.

Su Ximu glanced at that trainee again, unsure. So, because this world was rather volatile, did the audience prefer this kind of volatile trainee style?

Not far away, No. 51 Trainee, with his buzz-cut head, had been rejected. He was originally prepared to go berserk and snatch a bed from the neighboring dorm, but just before acting, he suddenly locked eyes with the supervisor at the stairwell entrance.

That gaze was calm and icy, carrying scrutiny. No. 51 Trainee was certain that if he really did it, the other would tear him to shreds in an instant!

No. 51 Trainee swallowed hard, his face drained of color, and immediately reached out to push open the door to his assigned dorm.

Sure enough, the cold, scrutinizing supervisor smiled at him.

Good thing he had controlled himself and not stepped into the trap.

He had already fully witnessed the malice of these monsters back during the first island landing interview today.

Su Ximu happened to make eye contact with No. 51 Trainee from not too near or far. He clearly felt that No. 51 Trainee’s chain of emotions had been instantly disrupted.

Feeling like he had interrupted No. 51 Trainee’s performance, the teenager’s expression went blank. When the other looked at him again, he gave an awkward yet polite smile.

Because of this little interlude during dorm selection, Su Ximu didn’t linger in the corridor any longer and instead returned to his own dorm to wait.

Until the cameraman carried the camera up to the third floor, ready to distribute the dorm rules to the trainees together with him.

The entire Bizarre Island was divided into many fields of varying sizes, and each field had its own distinct rules, along with different staff responsible for management.

The dorm rules for the third floor of the dormitory building that Su Ximu was in charge of were fairly simple, as issued by the program group.

【1: As a qualified trainee, you should strive to improve your skills. After 6:30 a.m. each morning, please head to the cafeteria for breakfast, then go to the practice room to train. Do not linger in the dormitory building.】

【2: During lunch break from 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., you may stay in the dorms, but please keep quiet.】

【3: Please keep your dorm clean and hygienic.】

【5: After 10:00 p.m., all trainees must go to bed and rest. Do not leave your dorms or make noise.】

【6: If you hear footsteps in the corridor at night, do not be afraid—that’s the supervisor patrolling.】

【7: At any time, if you hear someone knocking on your dorm door, do not open it. The supervisor and instructors have keys to every dorm.】

【8: Body management is something every qualified trainee must keep in mind at all times. The dorms are equipped with electronic scales—please monitor your weight regularly.】

【9: If trainees receive three or more complaints from the supervisor of their floor, that floor’s supervisor has the right to add a new rule.】

【10: Do not bring prohibited items.】

Su Ximu had originally thought that since these trainees were all fairly young and living together, some might not have much dorm experience. It would be normal for newcomers to violate a rule or two at first, so as supervisor, he had prepared to familiarize himself with the rules and promptly remind them.

But he hadn’t expected them to take it even more seriously than he did as the supervisor.

After pasting the rules sheet on the wall of yet another dorm, he even saw a trainee standing right in front of it, pretending to recite them from memory.

Especially once 10:00 p.m. passed, when Su Ximu stepped out of his own dorm, he found the entire third floor dead silent.

All the trainees were like hibernating moles, lying quietly in their little nests, striving not to make a single sound—as if terrified of attracting a ferocious predator.

If he hadn’t heard the trainees chatting around nine-something earlier, Su Ximu at this moment would have started suspecting whether the entire third floor had anyone on it besides himself.

The third-floor dorm corridor was pitch black at this time, and the phone in his pocket was still buzzing with vibrations—the associate director was urging the second-floor supervisor to hurry up and patrol the dorms.

Apparently, it made for good program effects, and the footage was something the audience loved to watch.

Su Ximu glanced at the work group messages on his phone again and thought that the reason the trainees were so eerily quiet was probably to cooperate with the program group in building atmosphere.

After all, he had lived in dorms before and knew that even the quietest normal dorm wouldn’t be this silent.

Seeing the other supervisors energetically reporting their progress to the associate director in the work group, Su Ximu took a deep breath, pulled out the small flashlight from his pocket, and turned it on.

He had tested it earlier—the voice-activated lights in the corridor had suddenly broken for some reason.

The only one not completely broken was at the end of the corridor, flashing on and off in red alarm light.

Su Ximu didn’t want to think that way, but he couldn’t quite control it.

He felt that lighting effect was very much like a haunted house.

The only thing on-site that could reassure him was the similarly flashing cameras.

He gently pushed open the door to Dorm 301—the door wasn’t locked.

Following the photos shared by the other supervisors, Su Ximu shone the flashlight on the trainees’ faces, then took a few clips of behind-the-scenes footage with his phone and uploaded them to the work group for the editing team to use later.

In the dorm, all four trainees lay ramrod straight on their beds at this time, and even the blankets covering their bodies didn’t have a single wrinkle.

He had no idea how the trainees managed to squeeze themselves into quilts folded into such perfect shapes.

After flashing the first dorm’s trainees, Su Ximu’s tense mood eased a bit.

Because he had already seen through it—these trainees were just pretending to sleep for the program effects.

No one could maintain such perfection after actually falling asleep.

Yeah! No one!

He turned and left the first dorm.

But he didn’t see that after he left, those trainees still didn’t dare show the slightest flaw—not even their breathing, which they kept at roughly the same rhythm and volume as before. As if afraid he would kill a carbine and come back.

Su Ximu arrived at the second dorm, where the trainees were still lying there stiff as zombies.

One of the trainees wasn’t great at faking sleep—after closing his eyes, his eyelashes fluttered at a noticeable frequency. Su Ximu made a point of recording this trainee’s performance a bit longer, thinking the program group might want that kind of footage.

Stuff like the supervisor checking rooms while trainees nervously pretended to sleep.

Then came the third dorm. Before he could even finish shooting the video, a heart-wrenching scream rang out.

“Ah!!!”

“Monster! Don’t! Don’t come over!”

Su Ximu was so startled by the sudden scream that his hand shook, but he instinctively gripped his phone tighter.

The phone was expensive. He couldn’t just drop it. That was his first reaction.

His second reaction was that the sound seemed to come from downstairs.

Did something happen downstairs?

He tried to convince himself that this scream was also part of the trainees’ performance effect, but he couldn’t quite convince himself.

Because this scream was just too realistic.

But there were no monsters in real life.

So it was still the show effect?

Second floor.

A Split-Mouth with its mouth torn directly from both corners to the roots of its ears was currently holding an axe, excitedly chasing a player running down the corridor.

It toyed with its prey like this. Each time the axe was about to chop into the opponent’s body, it would mercifully let him go.

It continued until it herded the person to the stairwell position, then happily appreciated the other’s struggles and despair.

The escape stairs were right in front of him, but just one step away, he couldn’t take it no matter what.

It was just like an air wall blocking his hope of escape.

“I want to go home…” Trainee No. 39 had a despairing expression. “My dad is sick. I have to go home…”

The veteran players, after entering the dungeon, were restricted by their personas and couldn’t communicate straightforwardly with the new players. They also couldn’t tell them that they had three death opportunities.

But it didn’t make much difference anyway.

【Weird 101】 was a large-scale instance with a huge mental impact on players.

Most new players, after dying in the dungeon, wouldn’t get a second chance.

Unless their mental strength was strong enough.

Trainee No. 39’s despair didn’t move the Weird approaching him step by step. Instead, it made its mouth grin even wider.

“No problem. In a little while, they can come accompany you.”

The Split-Mouth raised its axe. The trainee slumped in the corner struggled continuously but was bound by an invisible force.

Until…

Very light tap-tap-tap.

Slow, cautious footsteps came from upstairs.

Su Ximu carefully poked his head out from the stairwell corner, wanting to observe the filming situation downstairs.

But he just happened to lock eyes directly with the Split-Mouth.

The Split-Mouth was completely stunned. “You, how did you come down?”

It was past ten. Weren’t the stairs sealed?!

The youth looked at the colleague whose voice was familiar but who had special effects makeup that startled him, then took two more steps down.

Indicating that he came down just like this.