Chapter 2: Is Anyone Alive?

Page 1 of 3

"Stop her! Don't let her get away!"

Lu Xi summoned every last ounce of strength she had and sprinted wildly toward the ghost-woman.

Everyone was stunned by this sudden turn of events. Only the crew-cut boy gave chase, hot on her heels. The rest stood rooted to the spot.

Ji Yunxuan frowned, watching it all unfold.

That direction...

"Grandma! I'm the granddaughter you lost so many years ago!" Lu Xi flung her arms wide open, and just as she was about to hurl herself at the ghost-woman, she made a sharp pivot.

She dared not slow her feet for even a moment, running ahead like a woman possessed.

When the rules worked in her favor, she played by the rules. When morality worked in her favor... well, those people had no morality to speak of.

So Lu Xi had no choice but to muddy the waters.

Unfortunately, things did not unfold the way she had anticipated.

The ghost-woman did not give chase.

Instead, the companions of the girl whose body she now inhabited came tearing after her from behind.

From the look of it, they wanted her dead.

"You've got all this energy and drive, and instead of going after the ghost-woman, you come after your own companion — have you no conscience?!"

The words tore out of Lu Xi in something close to a roar.

Fear, fury, and despair all crashed over her at once.

And then, at precisely that moment, a stray branch in the mountain forest caught her foot. She was running too fast — momentum carried her entire body sailing forward through the air.

She braced herself to hit the ground hard and tumble into a wretched heap.

The agonized cry she expected never came. Instead, an overwhelming sensation of weightlessness surged over her like a tide.

In a flash, her memory leapt to the time she had ridden a pirate ship at an amusement park.

"How is this possible..." The crew-cut boy who had witnessed everything stood slack-jawed.

He had seen it with his own eyes — something like a black void had appeared without warning on the pitch-dark mountain path.

And the girl who should have gone sprawling face-first into the dirt had been swallowed straight into it.

Then the void vanished, as though it had never existed.

---

It didn't hurt?

Lu Xi lay flat on her back, utterly bewildered.

Above her hung dark gauze curtains. The surroundings were very dim.

She reached down and felt what lay beneath her. She seemed to be lying on a large, soft bed.

She sat up and looked around in confusion.

Hadn't she just tripped and fallen?

How had she teleported somewhere else entirely?

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Page 2 of 3

The surroundings were so dark that they were only the faintest shade above total blindness.

An enormous bed in the European court style stood before her, its four corners draped with heavy, dark-red curtains, the fringe along the canopy ornate and antique.

Lu Xi carefully climbed off the bed and made her way to the floor-length window, pulling one corner of the curtain aside.

Then she turned around — and startled violently.

Lying on that grand, ancient bed was a man.

There was someone else in the bed?

She genuinely hadn't noticed until now. For one thing, the room was pitch black. For another, this European-style bed was absurdly large, and the man had not made a single sound.

She hadn't even heard him breathe.

Could he be a corpse?

Given that this was the world of a horror game, the thought struck her as disturbingly plausible.

Light spilled in through the window, and its backlighting traced the contours of the man's face.

Heart hammering, Lu Xi crept forward one step — and in the next instant, she saw something that stole her breath.

She had thought Ji Yunxuan, the male lead of this world, was already devastatingly handsome. But compared to the man before her...

There was simply no comparison.

The man lay with his eyes closed, dressed in a black shirt that fit his lean waist perfectly. His fingers were long and slender. Beside his wrist lay a black cloak — the kind that resembled the magical robes from Harry Potter.

A male Sleeping Beauty?

Lu Xi stared at him for quite some time. Then, moving with exaggerated care, she crept closer and slowly extended one finger.

She swore she had never been so gentle in her life — while stealing something.

Damn it all, she was absolutely freezing.

Morality, fear — those were luxuries. This was survival.

Lu Xi snatched the black cloak, threw it over her shoulders, and bolted.

She did not know that the moment she turned and fled, the man's tightly shut eyes snapped open.

His gaze was dark and unreadable as he watched her retreating figure.

In that dim and shadowed room, the girl's eyes were clear and bright as still water — the only light in all that darkness.

"Ahem..."

A cough broke the silence, startlingly distinct in the quiet space.

The girl who had been mid-escape froze. She turned around, stiff and slow.

The "Sleeping Beauty" was awake.

Their eyes met. Lu Xi felt acutely embarrassed.

She was still wearing the cloak she had stolen from him.

The two of them stared at each other. Neither spoke first.

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Page 3 of 3

After a silence that stretched indefinitely, a gentle, harmless smile bloomed in the man's eyes — dark and still as midnight. "Are you a player too?"

His voice was unexpectedly pleasant, carrying a youthful quality. Paired with those clear, guileless eyes, Lu Xi was suddenly seized by a fierce and inexplicable urge to protect him.

Wait. Why would she, a young girl, feel protective of a grown man?

But his question had let her breathe again.

Lu Xi walked over, blinking rapidly, barely containing her relief. "Thank goodness — you're a player too? You scared me half to death just now. I thought you were a dead..."

She snapped her mouth shut.

First she had stolen from him, and now she was calling him a corpse to his face. Even by her own lax standards, that was a bit much.

He didn't seem annoyed. He only smiled at her gently. "Could you do me a favor?"

Lu Xi nodded, still dazed.

He raised one hand and tugged at the darkness beside him. In the silence, the sound of chains clinking rang out clearly.

"You're... you're bound in chains?" A fresh wave of shock crashed over Lu Xi.

In a survival game, there were mechanics like this? The NPC didn't kill the players — it went for something this bizarre instead?

A flicker of something crossed the man's dark eyes, there and gone before anyone could catch it.

He curved his lips slightly, his tone remaining impossibly gentle, his manner earnest. "I've been trapped here for a long time. By the calendar, I'm a veteran player — but I have no skills, no abilities, and my teammates abandoned me, so by experience, I'm practically a newcomer."

He gave a helpless little laugh. "Perhaps I was simply born unlucky. These chains — the person bound in them cannot break free on their own."

Lu Xi looked at the young man's pitiful expression and immediately thought of her own situation.

Was this not the very definition of cannon fodder? In a survival game — no skills, not particularly clever, not especially lucky, abandoned by the companions who had traveled alongside him.

A surge of genuine sympathy rose in her. She walked over and began working at the chains.

The moment her fingers touched the dark iron links, a sharp crack rang out. The chain split in two.

She hadn't expected it to be so easy. She looked up, delighted. "That's it?"

Ji Chenling's eyes flickered with a trace of surprise. He, too, seemed not to have anticipated it would be quite so simple.

"Do you have the strength to stand?" Lu Xi extended her hand and moved to help him up.

She had heard that prolonged bed rest caused muscle atrophy. She wondered if his limbs had grown weak.

Ji Chenling let a faint smile rest at the corner of his mouth. He allowed the girl to support him, then deliberately leaned into her side.

Lu Xi: "..."

He was handsome, yes — but he was still a grown man. He was impossibly heavy.

Lu Xi felt very much like one of those old oxen plowing a field, hauling along a magnificent and enormous burden.