chapter 109

Bosi was in an unprecedented predicament.

He lifted his arm to pull his glove back on, but his hand accidentally brushed against that tail.

His fingers sank right in, nothing between skin and fur.

Soft, fluffy, a white tail.

It felt like if he squeezed it too hard, it would crumble.

The next second, the tail seemed to have a mind of its own. Just as he was about to pull back from that mistaken touch, it slid along his palm and curled around it.

An unnatural tail-shaped bulge immediately rose along Bosi’s Arm under the sleeve of his Black Robe.

He didn’t have time to stop it. The bulge kept stubbornly inching forward, finally nestling happily against a patch of cold snake scales. It seemed to really enjoy that chill, and went still.

His Arm felt like it was on fire.

No matter how he pushed, the tail stayed tightly coiled.

Bosi jerked his head up to look at Lu Li, thinking he must have woken up.

Lu Li’s face was buried in the pillow. His sleeping position had relaxed a little, and his breathing was even. He was still deeply asleep.

Only then did Bosi calm down.

Right.

If Lu Li were awake, there’s no way he’d allow something this outrageous to happen.

This human still knew his limits.

The crazy behavior was all the Appearance’s fault.

The Appearance was just an Item redeemed from the Shop. Items and their users should be judged completely separately.

He’d always been strict with rewards and punishments. Even if the Appearance had made such a bold move, the punishment shouldn’t fall on Lu Li.

It should fall on the Necromancer Game’s Appearance Development Department.

–

In the Appearance Development Department, thousands of miles away.

Bear Manager shot to his feet, his whole furry body trembling. He slapped his thick, fur-covered shoulders to manually generate some heat. “I suddenly felt a chill! Did someone turn on the AC? It’s like an ice cellar in here! How are we supposed to create cute products in this environment, let alone improve our Department’s KPI and overall competitiveness? Who turned on the cold air!”

“Report, the AC is off.”

Bear Manager still felt cold. “Turn on the heater.”

“Let me see this week’s output and interaction data for the products first.” He started checking each employee’s screen one by one, pointing and commenting. “They need to feel alive! They need to connect to the users’ neurons and convey the users’ true feelings! Look at your animation-so stiff. And that fur, each strand is like a needle! Will Players still be interested in redeeming it after seeing that?”

Bear Manager slapped the desk so hard it went bang-bang. “I heard the neighboring Home Goods Department got the new requirements from upstairs and is under special scrutiny. Lately they’ve been working overtime so much their faces are completely bloodless. Do you all want overtime too?”

“Report, we’re all ghosts. Our faces never had any blood color to begin with, they’re just black!”

“Stop ‘reporting’! Instead of nitpicking my wording, how about you hurry up and fix that wildly wrong human anatomy on your screen!”

–

Bosi wavered internally between tearing off the damned tail and not disturbing Lu Li, who had worked all day and needed sleep.

The tail didn’t move again.

Nothing unexpected happened either.

The heat faded from scorching to merely warm.

In the end, Bosi convinced himself to put his work aside and just sit here for a while.

If he woke Lu Li and this embarrassing scene was discovered, there’d be no way to explain it.

Tell Lu Li the tail made the first move.

Would anyone believe that?

There was a soft “pop.”

The tail suddenly vanished.

Bosi stared at the Black Robe, at the fabric sinking back to its flat shape, still a bit unaccustomed to how smooth it looked.

He glanced sideways.

The ears on Lu Li’s head had also disappeared without a trace.

So the Appearance’s duration had expired.

That was fast.

He’d only wrestled with that tail for a few minutes at most.

–

Sometimes, Lu Li would dream of his time in the Laboratory, and lately those dreams had become especially frequent.

Maybe it was because he had seen flames several times inside the Instance; there was fire in tonight’s dream as well.
Endless fire and blocks of red-hot iron pressed in on him. He couldn’t even open his eyes, could only feel pain magnified a thousandfold.

This wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of this world of raging flames.

He no longer remembered how the Neck Collar had been put on him.

It seemed like they had to burn away his skin first, then use some special method to embed it directly into his flesh.

The Neck Collar looked like a single solid black ring, but in truth it was composed of thousands of precise sensors nested layer upon layer, linked into the nerves of his flesh. Any violent touch or tug would amplify his pain, preventing him from clawing it to pieces himself.

The Researcher never told him what the Neck Collar was really for, or what the consequences were.

They just let him go insane in the brief gaps between torturous experiments, trying to tear the Neck Collar off, only to suffer backlash a hundred, a thousand times worse.

In the end, he developed a conditioned fear of the Neck Collar-he couldn’t break free, and he didn’t dare touch it.

Like a dog in the bell experiment.

From then on, the act of forcibly damaging the Neck Collar would only ever be associated with failure and pain.

The Researchers stood safely behind glass, outside the sea of flames, their faces twisted in mirth as they laughed and watched him try again and again, then bow to reality and give up.

Fortunately, this time, in the dream, he found something wonderfully cool amid the fire.

It was black, yet when he drew closer, he realized it wasn’t just black-there were shimmering colors hidden within.

He couldn’t help but tighten his arms around it.

The tighter he held it, the weaker the presence of the Neck Collar became, and the less he hurt.

Then that cool, icy object suddenly vanished.

Lu Li woke up.

He sat up too fast and smacked his head on the underside of the desk. Dazed, he rubbed his forehead, still foggy, and stared blankly at Bosi. “What are you doing here?”

Bosi glanced at the desk leg Lu Li had just collided with, then looked back, expression serious. “You have a fever.”

Lu Li sat there a moment, and that sentence snapped him fully awake.

He looked Bosi up and down, suspicious. In his opinion, the one who most needed sleep right now was Bosi.

“How could I have a fever? Are you sleep-deprived?” Lu Li said. “Did you forget? I don’t get sick, and I don’t die.”

He thought back to the dream.

Thinking of the thing he had held in the fire, he sat up straighter and took out a small bottle from his Wristband.

Lu Li held the bottle up and waved it in front of Bosi’s eyes.

The black hard chunk inside rattled back and forth, making a crisp clinking sound.

“Does this belong to you?”

“I found it inside the Brooch you gave me.”

Bosi’s body went rigid. “Never seen it before.”

Did Lu Li live his daily life with a magnifying glass?

He’d actually managed to find the Scale he’d tucked inside the Brooch.

Thankfully, a single piece like this was almost impossible to identify for what it really was.

“And it’s not that nice to look at when it’s black like this. Probably just dust from sitting in that Brooch too long.”

Bosi held out his hand. “I’ll throw it away.”

“No way!” Lu Li protested. “Why are you saying it’s ugly? That’s only because the lighting in Game Night is terrible. You’ve never seen it in daylight. It’s not pure black at all-it’s gorgeous!”

“Gorgeous?” Bosi narrowed his eyes like he was examining it closely, then changed his tune. “I was mistaken earlier. That’s not dust.

“It’s mine.”

–

All the way until Game Day ended, Lu Li still hadn’t gotten out of him what it actually was.

All Bosi said was that if he performed a little better in this Instance, he could give him another piece.

Lu Li was convinced it had to be some kind of treasure.

Otherwise why give it out one piece at a time? How stingy could you get!

He had to figure out a way to get more.

Luo Jia Bai circled the Pillar twice. The second time he passed Lu Li, he asked for his thoughts. “This Pillar is both tall and wide, its entire surface smeared with blood. You can’t see the top, and there isn’t anything to grab onto. Do you have any ideas at all about how to climb it?”