chapter 5

“You three-get over here and move all this stuff over there.” Old Wang showed up in front of them again, pointing as he barked orders.

Qin Nan’s face went deathly pale.

Move props? This wasn’t moving props-this was asking for their lives.

The other two didn’t look any better. Neither of them moved. Seeing that, Old Wang frowned, his tone turning ugly. “What are you standing around for? You trying to die?”

That single word-die-hit Qin Nan like a plucked nerve.

Jian Fan had said it: if you didn’t do what the NPC told you, you’d be erased on the spot. Moving the props might get you killed. Not moving them might get you killed too. A fifty-fifty choice-and with how little information he had right now, whether he lived or died came down to pure luck.

Qin Nan looked at the other two.

The two other Game Players weren’t in any better shape mentally than Qin Nan, but they didn’t have time to stall. If they stood there too long, it would be treated as refusing the NPC’s instruction-and that could mean being erased.

The taller of the two made the first move.

He clenched his teeth and walked over to start carrying props. Once he moved, the other one followed. Qin Nan went with them. If all three of them were carrying, then that meant he still had a two-in-three chance of making it.

Seeing them finally act, Old Wang flashed a satisfied smile and turned to leave.

Time kept ticking forward.

Qin Nan’s mind raced. What clue was tied to the heart disease? As he tried to work it out, he also forced himself to pay attention to every tiny detail of moving the props, doing everything he could to avoid any action that might trigger a Death Setting.

Fortunately, death didn’t seem to have come for him yet.

At that moment, Jian Fan was in the dressing room. In front of him was a row of costumes. He needed to choose one, and two other Players had to make the same kind of choice.

He was an Old Player, so he understood the rules better than most. The moment you were required to make a choice, it meant you might be one step closer to death.

He’d told Qin Nan this world was hard. That wasn’t an exaggeration.

According to the rules, you were only erased if you triggered a Death Setting. In simpler worlds, as long as they were careful enough, they could avoid those triggers. But this world was different. The Script had already given a Death Premonition-meaning they had to die one by one, following the Script’s assigned time and method of death. All they could do was hang on as long as possible, become the last few Players to die in the Script, and break the game before their scheduled time ran out.

And this world’s setup also meant they could never truly be a complete team. They had to work together to find a way to break the situation, but at the same time, they were each other’s enemies.

If you wanted to live, then someone else had to die.

Death was like a blade hanging over their heads, ready to drop at any moment. And they also had to guard against other Game Players stabbing them in the back.

With no information to go on, this was another choice that depended entirely on luck.

Jian Fan tugged at the corner of his mouth, stepped forward, and casually grabbed a set of clothes. Then he turned and went into the changing room.

Qin Nan was still moving props.

He was getting anxious. The third dead person still hadn’t appeared. The blade hanging over his head tortured his nerves every second-and he didn’t even have a partner he could talk to.

The sudden change still happened in an instant.

Qin Nan had just set down a prop and was turning around when he heard the sound of someone collapsing. The Game Player who’d made the first move had just lifted a prop crate when his face abruptly drained of color and he fell straight backward. At the same time, the crate slipped from his hands.

The crate wasn’t latched shut. When it hit the floor, the props inside spilled out and rolled everywhere.

They were all small decorative items. Qin Nan’s gaze snapped to the scattered props by instinct-and the moment he saw what they were, he froze.

Then he understood what clue the heart disease was connected to.
In that pile of prop cases, there was a heart-shaped light.

The moment Qin Nan saw it, he couldn’t help cursing. This was pure luck-who would carry a prop case over just to check what was inside? And how could anyone possibly tell in advance, from a heap of props, that this heart-shaped light would be the key trigger for death? This was completely insane!

Qin Nan was furious, but there was nowhere to vent. Those were the rules-there was nothing he could do but obey them.

Old Wang showed up again, calling everyone over to clean up the set.

Qin Nan didn’t move.

He even thought, in a fit of self-sabotage, that maybe getting erased wouldn’t be so bad. One death and it’d all be over. If he lived, he’d have to stay on edge every second. At this rate, even if the game didn’t erase him, he’d be driven mad.

The thought grew stronger and stronger. Qin Nan didn’t help with the cleanup. He walked to the rest area, dropped into a chair, and resigned himself to whatever came.

The other players and the NPCs busied themselves cleaning up.

Before long, the set was spotless.

“Departments, ready.” A voice rang out across the set. Qin Nan followed the sound and looked toward the director.

The director was staring at the monitor, walkie-talkie in hand.

Qin Nan’s gaze slid to the side.

A cameraman was shouldering a camera. Qin Nan looked along the direction of its lens.

After Jian Fan changed into his costume, an NPC called him over. By the time the third victim appeared, Jian Fan had already been strapped into the Wire and hoisted up at the NPC’s request.

The sight of the Wire made Jian Fan think of what Qin Nan had said earlier-falling from a height.

That was another Death Premonition. And unfortunately, it seemed he was the next one. Even so, Jian Fan stayed calm. The closer death got, the steadier he became; his mind, meanwhile, grew even more active.

Everything he knew about this world flashed through his head, detail by detail. He didn’t let a single thing slip past-especially what Qin Nan had seen and heard before he crossed over.

What important information was hidden behind those things Qin Nan saw?

Jian Fan wasn’t the only one who thought of the Death Premonition. When Qin Nan saw Jian Fan hanging high on the Wire, he shot up from his chair. He realized it too: falling from a height was likely Jian Fan’s cause of death.

Qin Nan had seemed resigned earlier because the third victim had already appeared. But now he had to face the fourth-and that person was someone who, not long ago, had become his partner. There was no way he could stay calm.

How was he supposed to stop Jian Fan from dying? If Jian Fan died, Qin Nan would be left fighting alone, and the next death would very likely be his.

Qin Nan couldn’t stay indifferent anymore.

No one could take Jian Fan’s place. The only option was to find a way to break it.

Qin Nan’s eyes swept the area rapidly, trying to pick out the key clue.

They were probably about to film. At this moment, both the game players and the NPCs had withdrawn from the shooting area. The director was focused on the monitor, and all the equipment had turned toward Jian Fan.

Everything seemed perfectly normal.

What now? Qin Nan’s thoughts churned. Jian Fan had said that new players would receive an extremely important hint. Could that hint really be nothing more than “falling from a height” as the method of death? That had to be written into the Script-how could it count as an important hint? So what was the important hint, really?

A movie. Death Crew. Filming. The Script…

Qin Nan’s eyes suddenly lit up.

The Script wasn’t a Death Premonition at all-it was literally a script. The answer had been there from the start: this was the Death Crew Filming Base.