Chapter 65

Su Ximu looked at the paper in his hand and silently recited its contents in his mind.

The first line read: “Welcome home to our new house, Little Mu. Your third brother, who loves you the most, feared you had been away from home for too long, so he prepared a little gift to help you quickly fit into the family. Please strictly follow it.”

Just this one sentence alone brought the intense sense of dissonance, which had been suppressed, surging back into his heart.

This was the note Third Brother had written for him. Not only did he recognize the self-reference on the note, but he also knew this was Third Brother’s handwriting.

Third Brother’s handwriting was much neater than it had been when they were kids, but he still recognized it.

Because in the past, they had often practiced writing and drawing together.

Su Ximu pursed his lips and set aside the other content for the moment, repeatedly reading just this one sentence.

He suddenly remembered the first day he arrived in this world. Third Brother had sat by his bed, waiting for him to wake up.

Later, because he hadn’t understood the situation at the time, he hid in the bathroom. Third Brother knocked on the bathroom door from outside and spoke to him.

He had actually sensed it then—the upward lilt in Third Brother’s tone at that time, a kind of casual, playful attitude from Third Brother.

He had felt something off at the time, but after snapping out of it later, he only thought Third Brother was angry because of his hangover.

But…

Su Ximu’s thoughts were different now.

Back then, he had been convinced he had accidentally taken over the ‘Original Host’s’ body, like a cuckoo in the nest. So all his ideas about the family and its members could only be inferred from what he had read in the book and the Original Host’s memories.

It was like looking at flowers through the fog—unclear and indistinct.

But now, Su Ximu glanced at that sentence on the paper again.

The way language is written and expressed is truly magical. For some reason, from this short sentence alone, he could see the writer holding pen and paper, a mocking expression on their face.

Third Brother, who called himself the one who loved his little brother the most, gave off no sense of genuine warmth in the text.

Su Ximu felt like he was doing reading comprehension word by word, sentence by sentence. Only after finishing and analyzing the first line did he look further down.

Next came the family rules, numbered one, two, three, four…

【1: Eldest Brother is a very strict person. When Eldest Brother is home, you need to come home early.】

Su Ximu nodded. He fully agreed with the second half.

In the past, when he went out to play every day, Eldest Brother didn’t pay much attention to him at first and didn’t talk much.

But later on, whenever he went out and came home late, Eldest Brother would worry and be the first to hug him when he got back.

【2: Second Brother has a very good temper. Second Brother is trustworthy. When going out to play, you can look for Second Brother.】

Su Ximu nodded again, agreeing completely.

【3: Third Brother doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s working.】

The young man tilted his head in confusion but then thought that Third Brother must have grown fond of work after getting older. That’s why he didn’t like being disturbed.

【4: When Eldest Brother is angry, you can go hide at Neighbor Ox Grandpa’s house next door.】

He had only been to Ox Grandpa’s house next door once.

Su Ximu didn’t feel like he knew Ox Grandpa next door all that well yet. But seeing the word “next door” made him involuntarily think of Neighbor Grandpa from when they moved.

Upon closer thought, he felt Ox Grandpa and Neighbor Grandpa looked a bit alike. But not entirely.

【5: Please get up on time at 8:30 a.m. for breakfast, eat lunch promptly at 11:40 a.m., and have dinner promptly at 6:00 p.m. These are all carefully prepared by Aunt Zhao for the family members. If family members don’t arrive on time, she will be sad.】

【6: Uncle Li is a very competent butler. Please go to Uncle Li to receive more family guidelines.】

He had probably completely ignored these two. After reading them, Su Ximu casually flipped the paper to the next page.

【7: Xiao Xi is exempt.】

The young man holding the paper froze completely.

Xiao Xi… exempt?

A massive sense of dissonance rose again. Su Ximu instinctively flipped the paper back to look at the first sentence.

He murmured softly to himself: “Welcome home, Little Mu. Please strictly follow the rules.”

“Xiao Xi is exempt.”

“Welcome home, Little Mu. Please strictly follow the rules.”

“Who… is Little Mu?”

Was it him?

Was it the him who had just arrived in this world?

Su Ximu felt like he had fallen into a huge mystery. He vaguely grasped a thread but still couldn’t unravel it.

He began overturning his previous assumptions. Sometimes it’s better to play dumb in life, but some things needed to be figured out.

He didn’t think Third Brother would do anything to him. He just no longer wanted to stay in the dark. He wanted clarity because he sensed that, during the time he didn’t know, Third Brother seemed to have undergone some change he couldn’t yet say was good or bad.

Including Eldest Brother and Second Brother.

It was all so strange. This world was too strange.

With this in mind, over the next while, Su Ximu mustered the focus he used for high school language arts reading comprehension and scrutinized the paper in front of him over and over.

The self-suggestion he had cultivated since childhood was already shaky after these successive shocks in the past few days.

Moreover, he had only succeeded in self-suggesting before because he chose not to resist.

Now, with his mind made up, every time that bewildered feeling surged in his heart, he shook his head forcefully. His eyes remained fixed straight on the paper, his mind constantly trying to carefully recall everything from these days.

By the end, his eyes were tearing up from straining to stay wide open.

Finally, through this relentless effort, those details that had begun to fade and be forgotten gradually came into focus.

His memories traced back further and further. The young man, who hadn’t blinked for a long time, finally blinked. In his mind even appeared the horrifying figure of the Doll Big Bear buried in the deepest corner.

The Doll Big Bear had handed him a slip of paper. It said those were the game rules. Violating the rules in the game meant death.

‘Rules.’

This word felt very familiar to Su Ximu now.

Game rules were rules.

So were the family guidelines also a kind of rules?

Suddenly, Su Ximu’s hand trembled as he held the note. He suddenly remembered something.

That was:

Before he came to this world, in his original world, the hottest thing online wasn’t short videos, TV dramas, or games—it was rules horror!

Rules horror stories had simple, easy-to-understand initial setups, similar to online game dungeons. Each rules horror could be seen as a dungeon.

Every dungeon had a final BOSS, also known as the dungeon horror or dungeon BOSS.

Players entered the dungeon with the goal of surviving or clearing it. Their greatest reliance—and greatest pitfall—in the dungeon came from the dungeon rules they received upon entry.

Su Ximu didn’t know much about the forums and games related to rules horror from his previous world’s internet.

But his dorm mate, the second oldest, Li Zhuofan, loved surfing the web.

Much of his knowledge about the internet came from Li Zhuofan.

Su Ximu recalled how Li Zhuofan, after playing a rules horror mini-game, took off his headphones and casually complained to him: I seriously suspect there’s some massive, terrifying profit chain behind these rules horror things! Lao Yao, can you believe it? Just this rules horror concept—forums all over the world, standalone games, mobile games, board games developed by all these companies, and they all have the exact same setup!

Hiss, I mean, rules horror isn’t even that fun. How did it blow up worldwide in just these couple years?

Dark forces! There must be some puppet master behind it!

Tch, or maybe there’s another possibility: our world is actually just like the game settings, with real weird dungeons! The people pushing these games and forums are desensitizing us regular folks.

Rules horror.

Weird dungeons.

“Weird.”

Inside the door, Su Ximu repeated the word.

Outside the door, Su Wuzi stood quietly.

As a weird, his senses were very sharp. Even though he intentionally restrained himself and didn’t pry, the moment Xiao Xi murmured it aloud, he heard it clearly.

Su Wuzi just stood there outside the door, eyes downcast, listening to the sounds of the paper flipping back and forth inside. Under the dim light, his skin was coldly pale, his thin lips also pallid, giving him a ghostly air.

He stood there for who knew how long until light footsteps sounded from inside the room.

With a very faint click, the door was silently pushed open from within.

The young man inside, still holding that paper, slowly poked his head out. He looked left and right. When he discovered Second Brother standing not far away, he wasn’t startled or scared.

Because Second Brother had always liked to quietly linger in corners before.

On the contrary, he immediately waved at Second Brother and called out softly: “Second Brother.”

The called Su Wuzi looked up and stepped forward.

Once he was close, the young man immediately welcomed him into the room.

The scene was like a secret agent rendezvous.

After closing the bedroom door again, Su Ximu relaxed a bit more. But he still vigilantly searched the seemingly empty bedroom before tentatively speaking to Second Brother in a low voice.

He asked: “Second Brother, I know everything now. Our old home is gone, swallowed by this world. That’s why you, Eldest Brother, and Third Brother came here, right?”

“I guessed this world is very strange. Powerful beings are called weirds, and among the weirds, there are BOSS weirds. They can have dungeons!”

“Second Brother, this place is a dungeon too, right?” The young man, having figured everything out and successfully resisted the self-suggestion, now had clear, bright eyes that made him seem very sharp.

Su Wuzi nodded and opened his mouth to speak.

But then knocking sounded from outside the room again. The young man looked out warily and once more carefully opened the door.

There stood Butler Li, holding a tray with a small aroma candle on it.

Su Ximu reacted like he was facing a great enemy. He naturally took the aroma candle from Butler Li’s hands and thanked him obediently.

After the man left, he closed the door and leaned against it, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

He looked at Second Brother with the eyes of someone who had just escaped mortal danger, then jerked his head toward the door, his gaze signaling: Second Brother, the dungeon big BOSS is Butler Li, right?!

Third Brother’s rules only wrote a little bit but told him to go to Butler Li for the full set!

And Butler Li was always appearing out of nowhere, everywhere at once.

He had played a bit of strange talk games before too. They all said that the weirds who seemed a lot like BOSSes were often the most deceptive, like Third Brother.

Whereas the unassuming ones were very likely to be it!

He had long felt something was off about Butler Li!