Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The Players were visitors.

This meant the town’s NPCs had no idea what they were originally like.

In other words, they could play their roles however they pleased.

Shen Xiao was the first to sit down. She had a naturally likable face and was quite good at social maneuvering. “Host, your food smells wonderful. Which master chef prepared this?”

The Dreamweaver chuckled. “My cook is shy, so I won’t be introducing him to you all.”

He took the first bite to confirm there was nothing wrong with the food. Knowing they would literally starve to death in this Script if they didn’t eat, the others picked up their chopsticks and joined in.

It wasn’t until they were almost finished that the Dreamweaver spoke up with a troubled expression. “I know why you’ve all come, but unfortunately, I’ve been fretting over something lately.”

He looked up and sighed deeply. “I recently developed a new hypnosis technique, but the results aren’t guaranteed. I’m reluctant to let my neighbors in town help me test it; it would be terrible if something went wrong.”

As if oblivious to their sudden change in expression, the Dreamweaver said kindly, “I wonder if you all would be willing to help me with my experiment?”

Sui Chunsheng stirred the rice in his bowl. “If we don’t agree, does that mean you won’t help us solve our insomnia?”

The Dreamweaver smiled. “Naturally.”

An Sheng frowned. “Does everyone have to do it?”

“Yes,” the Dreamweaver counted them. “Six guests. Whoever succeeds will have their insomnia cured.”

“One success, one good night’s sleep.”

Such a gentle NPC was a rare find in this game.

Even though his words clearly implied that the hypnosis could go wrong-and that he didn’t want to risk the Townspeople, so he was letting these outsiders risk their lives instead.

Ning Shuo thought for a moment and asked, “How should we conduct the experiment?”

The Dreamweaver looked at him, only then noticing the incredibly low-profile Ning Wang wearing a hat beside him. “I’ve never seen Twins as guests before.”

The Dreamweaver smiled. “Come in one by one. I will hypnotize each guest in turn.”

He said to Ning Shuo, “Since no one has any objections, we’ll start with you, sir, and end with your brother.”

Ning Shuo followed the Dreamweaver into the dim room and noticed there were seven beds inside.

Following the Dreamweaver’s guidance, he lay down on the first bed. Just as the Hypnosis Experiment was about to begin, Ning Shuo asked, “If the experiment fails, can I still wake up?”

The Dreamweaver smiled. “Why do you think it’s called a failed experiment?”

Ning Shuo nodded and seemingly casually activated his Word Spirit: “If it fails, please perform an experiment on yourself afterward and fail as well.”

Dreamweaver: “…”

He felt as though the man had just set some kind of trap for him.

Following the Dreamweaver’s instructions, Ning Shuo closed his eyes. A vast expanse of brilliant white light enveloped the darkness, and images slowly began to appear before him.

Ning Shuo looked around and found himself sitting on a sofa.

He froze, suddenly unable to remember what he had been doing just a moment ago.

Ning Shuo scanned his surroundings.

The curtains were tightly drawn, instant noodle cups were piled everywhere, and there was an indescribable smell in the room.

He naturally walked into the bedroom and made a phone call, asking a housekeeper to come and clean the next day.

Ning Shuo lay on the bed, scrolling through his phone out of boredom, when a message suddenly popped up: “Half-Immortal, hurry and open the door! I’m being followed!”

Ning Shuo frowned. He didn’t find the name ‘Half-Immortal’ strange at all, as if that had always been his name. “Who’s following you?”

The other side replied: “I don’t know, but I saw him holding a knife! Your place is the closest, hurry and open the door to save me!”

Ning Shuo instinctively got out of bed, but he stopped just as he reached the door.
As if he had finally found the end of a thread, Ning Shuo pulled on it and found the source of the anomaly.

He asked: “Who are you?”

The reply: “It’s me, Rong Xi! Half-Immortal, open the door, quick!”

Rong Xi.

That name, wrapped in distant memories, cut through the river of time and surged forcefully from the hidden corners of Ning Shuo’s memory once again.

…

When Ning Shuo first opened his eyes to this unfamiliar world, his behavior was exceptionally strange.

The strange thing was that he appeared to have decent martial skills, yet his physical condition was abysmal.

Most importantly, he had no ID card.

It was Rong Xi who noticed something was wrong and took him to the police station.

At the time, everyone around them was trying to dissuade Rong Xi, saying the man looked sickly and frail, and warning him it might be some new human trafficking scam.

Rong Xi had just grinned and said he had neither wealth nor looks, so kidnapping him to the mountains wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Rong Xi was his first friend in that world.

Ning Shuo wandered through this world, trying his hand at everything and doing well at it, yet he only had three minutes of Heat for anything.

In the end, it was actually his intermittent novel writing that lasted the longest.

Rong Xi had said with exasperated disappointment, “If I had a brain like yours, what couldn’t I succeed at? But look at you-you quit everything just as things start looking up.”

Ning Shuo laughed at him. “You should just rejoice in secret to know someone as smart as me.”

Later, Ning Shuo moved twice and deliberately cut off contact with everyone, including Rong Xi.

At most, they would exchange greetings during the holidays.

And the place where he lived now was the result of Ning Shuo’s second move.

In other words, Rong Xi didn’t know where his home was.

Rong Xi was still sending him messages: “Ning Shuo, open the door, quick!”

What did the Ning Shuo in his memory do back then?

At that time, he had only recently moved there. Even if Rong Xi had deliberately tried to find out, there was no way he could have learned his address in such a short time.

Furthermore, based on Rong Xi’s personality, sending a message was absolutely not what he would have done.

Rong Xi would have called and shouted that he was almost there and to start the party a bit later-in short, he would have let the people behind him know that many people were waiting for him.

More importantly, Rong Xi was a man with common sense and a brain. Ning Shuo’s house was at most a ten-minute walk from the police station. Heading toward the station while calling for help would have been far safer than Rong Xi running into a deserted hallway to find a Ning Shuo who might not even be home.

Besides, Ning Shuo had tried calling the other party, but they had hung up immediately. Coupled with the fact that his body back then was even worse than it was now, a sickly man facing a potential threat was truly not a good choice.

So, he had stalled the person on the other side while calling the police, reporting that a dangerous individual was lurking outside his door.

At the same time, he also began to worry about Rong Xi’s situation.

After a while, Rong Xi stopped sending messages. Ning Shuo thought the Murderer had left and was preparing to call Rong Xi directly when the sound of police sirens wailed outside the window.

He walked out of the bedroom and suddenly smelled the scent of blood.

As the ominous premonition grew stronger, Ning Shuo opened the front door, only to see Rong Xi’s mangled, blood-soaked corpse.

…

Now, Ning Shuo had returned to this point in time.

Ning Shuo thought dazed, “Is this a dream?”

When he saw Rong Xi’s body, many thoughts had crossed his mind, but the most frequent one was: If he hadn’t overthought things that day, if he had opened the door in time, could he have saved Rong Xi?

Almost subconsciously, Ning Shuo ran out of the bedroom, but as he passed the coffee table, he glanced at the computer.

With just that one glance, Ning Shuo’s footsteps froze.

Though the font was small, he could still see the pen name he used when writing novels: Ning Xie.