chapter 5
“The game has begun.” Lu Li’s voice was soft and ethereal, paired with his light gray pupils, like the seductive call of a sea siren, making people unable to resist sinking in. “You’re too noisy.”
Qi Mingda, hot-tempered as ever, couldn’t stand it. “Ungrateful bastard, are you messing with me…”
“Wait.”
He pointed at Lu Li’s nose, furious.
“You’ll be begging me soon enough!”
“In a childish beginner Instance like this, there’s no one I can’t kill!”
Nuo Nuo’s hand reached into the room, carefully wiping the Round Table clean.
One Building Block after another fell onto the Round Table, placed horizontally and vertically, stacked back and forth. In just a few minutes, she had built more than a dozen layers.
The Players craned their necks but couldn’t see the top.
Nuo Nuo finished stacking all the Building Blocks and looked around with satisfaction.
Most of the tall stack was made up of the same color.
Except for nine scattered among them.
They were red.
“Nuo Nuo stacked Building Blocks that would never fall. But when Daddy came home, the Building Blocks suddenly collapsed. Daddy was very angry and kept whipping me…” Nuo Nuo’s voice grew sharp, tinged with both sobs and anger. “Nuo Nuo didn’t do anything wrong. It must be one of you who broke Nuo Nuo’s Building Blocks.”
Nuo Nuo’s fingernails grew longer.
She drew a heavy line in the middle of the table.
Yu Tong and Lu Li were on the right side of the line; the Male Newcomer was on the left.
Nuo Nuo pointed at the Male Newcomer. “You will be the first to prove your innocence. Starting with you, go clockwise-each person draws out one red Building Block.”
“When someone draws and all the Building Blocks collapse, that means they’re the one who broke Nuo Nuo’s Building Blocks!”
The nine red Building Blocks reflected on the faces of the Players around the Round Table, making them even paler. No one dared to act rashly.
After explaining the rules, Nuo Nuo was no longer angry. She grinned and giggled, “Even though it did something bad, Nuo Nuo won’t punish it. Once we find out, Nuo Nuo will give it a reward.”
“Reward it by letting it stay with me forever.”
The Male Newcomer pointed out by Nuo Nuo stood up first, sweating profusely, carefully measuring and calculating among the nine red blocks.
Judging by everything that had happened in the game so far,
If you drew wrong, you were dead for sure.
The Male Newcomer checked the angles, the overlapping areas, the load-bearing range.
He dragged it out until everyone was getting impatient, then finally gritted his teeth and drew one.
The Building Blocks wobbled, then stabilized.
The man patted his chest hard and sat back down, gasping for breath.
One by one, the Building Blocks were drawn.
The veteran Players had exchanged for Items, easily picking out their blocks and passing the turn to the next Player. Soon, only three remained.
It was Qi Mingda’s turn.
He wasn’t in a hurry to pick. Instead, he turned and asked Lu Li, “After I draw, it’s your turn. Have you thought it through?”
“Thought about what?” Lu Li glanced at him, his eyelashes as black as crow feathers, the gray in his pupils utterly emotionless.
“I have an Item that guarantees a hundred percent pass.”
Qi Mingda said viciously, “I also have an Item that can trip people up, like increasing your bad luck probability, raising your chance of failing to ninety-nine percent.”
Qi Mingda’s lackey, Qiao Ren, chimed in, “That’s right, you’d better know what’s good for you. Whether you live or die is up to Brother Qi!”
Qi Mingda imagined Lu Li would be so scared by these words that he’d get down and beg, so he arrogantly raised his chin, waiting for the groveling.
This clueless newcomer-he was easy to handle!
This whole D Grade Instance was his domain!
After a long wait with no sign of Lu Li begging, there was only a soft laugh.
“There’s still a one percent chance of passing. That’s pretty high.”
Lu Li looked at him and blinked. “My luck is pretty good.”
Qi Mingda was stunned for a moment, then realized that Lu Li hadn’t taken his threat seriously at all and was still spouting off.
“This is not the time for jokes!”
Qi Mingda switched Items, furious and humiliated, and pulled out a Building Block that was guaranteed not to collapse. Then he squeezed his Wristband hard, and a cloud of black mist appeared in his palm.
He threw the shapeless black mist at Lu Li, his voice chilling, “You’re so eager to die? I’ll grant your wish.”
Items that affect other Players’ success rates cost a lot of Points. He’d thought a verbal threat would be enough to make Lu Li back down, but it hadn’t worked at all.
Gritting his teeth, Qi Mingda actually redeemed the Misfortune Item.
He coveted Lu Li’s luck as a newcomer who’d drawn a Gold Card, but there were plenty of D Grade Instances, and new Players kept entering the game.
He could always find another newcomer who knew how to behave.
Lu Li watched calmly as the black mist enveloped him, and even reached out to catch it.
The black mist seeped into his skin, icy cold, turning into black water that dripped onto the table.
It seemed as if misfortune had truly descended.
Or perhaps it had been completely dissolved.
Unhurried, he opened the light screen on his Wristband to check the Live Stream Room stats.
[Audience: 5890]
[Overall Instance Live Stream Room Ranking: 2nd]
[Points: 3000]
[Real-time Bullet Comments: Level too low, not yet unlocked]
The number after Points was changing in real time, still rising rapidly. The Audience in his Live Stream Room couldn’t wait to send gifts, hoping he’d redeem an Item.
Lu Li didn’t redeem anything. Instead, he simply closed the light screen, watching the Bullet Comments jump up and down.
[Hurry up and redeem an Item! Why are you just standing there? I’m dying of anxiety!]
[Why did Qi Mingda have to target him? I just spent a thousand in this Live Stream Room! Now it’s all going down the drain! Bad luck!]
[Misfortune Item has a ninety-nine percent probability! It costs fifty thousand Points to redeem! Who could survive that?]
[This Streamer is just showing off! I’ve hated show-offs for two lifetimes! Serves him right if he dies!]
[The Streamer is so good-looking, it’d be such a shame if he died!]
The Bullet Comments, full of curses and complaints, abruptly stopped when Lu Li raised his hand.
Under everyone’s gaze, Lu Li drew a red Building Block.
It didn’t fall.
The veteran Players watching the spectacle all gasped sharply.
One Player pinched his own thigh, grimacing in pain to confirm it wasn’t a dream. “This is as rare as drawing an Instance with a zero percent clearance rate. How did he do it?”
Another Player slumped in his chair, muttering, “That was a Misfortune Item with a ninety-nine percent probability!”
The newcomer Players hadn’t survived the first night, hadn’t unlocked the Shop, and didn’t understand what fifty thousand Points meant.
Qi Mingda had nearly gone bankrupt just to kill Lu Li.
–
Yu Tong had been on edge the whole time, sitting in the last seat.
She’d prayed countless times for the Building Blocks to collapse before it was her turn.
That way, she wouldn’t have to sit on pins and needles, suffering like this.
She saw the argument between Lu Li and Qi Mingda, and heard that Lu Li had a Misfortune Item on him.
Only two Building Blocks remained.
Either Lu Li died, or she did.
In her gaze fixed on Lu Li, besides nervousness and anticipation, there was a hidden malice and excitement.
As Lu Li drew his Building Block, Yu Tong clenched her fingers, silently chanting:
Fall, fall, fall!
But now Lu Li had become that one percent.
The one to die was her.
One hundred percent, it was her.
Yu Tong’s Heart stopped; she collapsed in her chair, trembling all over.
“How is this possible!” Qiao Ren swallowed hard, his eyes flickering. “Brother Qi, just now…”
He lowered his voice, “Did you really use the Item?”