Chapter 5: Throat-slitting

This was truly a heart-wrenching discovery.

The muscles on the scar-faced man’s face twitched uncontrollably.

He slammed his fist on the table again and again. “It’s just as I thought, just as I thought.”

The scar-faced man eyed the crowd, repeating, “That thing is mixed in among us.”

He hadn’t listened to Li Yinan’s idea at all.

In fact, he looked down on the newbies and the women on the team.

To him, Li Yinan’s guess was just bullshit.

Moreover, he had already had this thought himself; Lin Kuo’s words had merely confirmed his theory.

Hearing these conclusions, the newbies exchanged glances.
A timid one fell right off his chair.

Even Liang Sihong’s face was grimly silent.
The dining room fell into a dead silence.

Liang Sihong swept his gaze over the group.
At this moment, each participant had a different expression.

Some were doubtful, some looked dazed, and some were filled with tears.
It was impossible to tell with the naked eye which one of them was the ghost that had snuck in.

Finally, he sighed deeply. “We might all die here.”

Lin Kuo looked up at Liang Sihong.

From the beginning, Liang Sihong had played the role of leader.

Although Lin Kuo knew this person was actually just a smiling tiger, this was the first time he had heard Liang Sihong speak in such a resigned manner.

Perhaps noticing Lin Kuo’s scrutiny, Liang Sihong gave a bitter smile and said, “You probably don’t know how powerful and unsolvable ghosts are in these instances. The survival rate for any instance involving supernatural elements is very, very low—especially when that thing is mixed in with the team. Basically, this type of instance always results in a team wipe. For so long, only The Morgue instance had a survival rate of 70%. But if the leader of The Morgue hadn’t been God S, how many of the participants would have survived?”

Hearing this, everyone simultaneously showed curiosity toward this God S.

Only Lin Kuo’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.

He still remembered seeing the bullet chat when he was checking the time on the stream’s progress bar.

Huge swathes of comments were all spamming God S.

Liang Sihong continued, “I think I mentioned points, right? God S is number one on the points leaderboard. The Morgue instance was S’s deification battle. It only took him one day to find the ghost mixed in with the team, but even so, people still died. This shows the difficulty of supernatural instances.”

Lin Kuo said, “So the audience are also instance participants?”

Liang Sihong didn’t expect Lin Kuo’s topic to jump so quickly.

He nodded and briefly introduced the Walled City.

“You can think of the Walled City as an alternate world. When we participate in an instance, the Main God System automatically opens our livestream channel. If we can leave this instance alive, you’ll be able to watch other people’s streams through the Walled City livestream. At that time, our identities will change from participants to viewers.”

The world of the Walled City that Liang Sihong revealed was just the tip of the iceberg.
The newbies all became curious about this Walled City, which temporarily eased the oppressive atmosphere in the dining room.

Li Yinan discovered a blind spot. “So… even if we pass this instance, we can’t return to the normal world?”

Liang Sihong gave a bitter smile, which was a tacit admission.

The newbies had mixed feelings.

Since they couldn’t leave the Walled City, they asked some questions about it.

Liang Sihong answered them one by one.

Throughout this, he kept observing Lin Kuo.

By Liang Sihong’s standards, the youth before him could not be considered to have a healthy physique.

When Lin Kuo moved to handle the food on the table, the movement of his clothes clearly outlined his bony spine.

However, he exuded an aura of calm detachment.

When he was serious, his gaze, like a sharpened blade, demanded not to be underestimated.

And ever since Lin Kuo asked his question, Liang Sihong could clearly feel the youth’s low spirits.

Liang Sihong asked, “What’s wrong?”

Lin Kuo didn’t speak, just pursed his lips.

His thin lips were pressed so tightly they lost all color.

If anyone who knew him were here, they would know that when Lin Kuo made this gesture, it meant he was unhappy.

At first, Lin Kuo had thought the audience in front of the livestream were supernatural beings that science couldn’t explain.

But he never imagined that these viewers, like him, were participants who would also join instances.

Since that was the case, Lin Kuo resisted this Walled City world even more.

They were all instance participants, so with what kind of mindset did these viewers leave comments like “watching newbies get scared out of their wits” or “won’t live past tomorrow” in the bullet chat?

Lin Kuo couldn’t understand it, but that didn’t stop him from feeling disgusted by these people who had been assimilated by this other world.

At the same time, he also solidified his determination to leave this place.

Lin Kuo stopped listening to Liang Sihong’s introduction of the Walled City.

He picked up an egg, lightly tapped it on the table to crack it, and then slowly peeled off the shell.

It was a perfectly ordinary boiled egg.

He examined it for a moment, then proceeded to peel the other eggs in the same manner.

Six smooth, shiny boiled eggs were exposed before everyone.

Lin Kuo continued to separate the six boiled eggs further, placing the whites in a bowl and the yolks on a plate.

Li Yinan couldn’t understand what Lin Kuo was doing.

Driven by curiosity, she leaned over and asked, “Boss, what are you doing?”

“Seeing if it’s food prepared for humans.” Lin Kuo leisurely swallowed the egg whites. After swallowing, he took a sip of milk before giving his conclusion. “It’s edible.”

Li Yinan pointed at the remaining yolks. “What about these yolks?”

A trace of expression finally appeared on Lin Kuo’s face.

“…I don’t like egg yolks.”

“…”

The scar-faced man, who had been trapped in his self-created panic, suddenly said, “What are you still looking at? The reason there are only six portions is because that thing is mixed in among us! The butler didn’t prepare food for that thing!”

The atmosphere instantly plummeted.

Lin Kuo ignored the scar-faced man.

He tilted his head to study the members of the team.

This was the first time he had seriously observed this temporary team.

After his observation, he looked at the remaining egg yolks.

His brow furrowed again, this time more deeply, and the vertical line between his eyebrows deepened with it.

Including him, the team consisted of five men and two women.

The expressions on their faces were uglier than the last.

Lin Kuo was an artist; meticulous observation of people and things was a basic skill in art.

He was certain that the expressions displayed on their faces were, without exception, human expressions.

But if that was the case, why were there only six eggs?

And why had the butler prepared seven sets of tableware at the beginning?

He had a gut feeling that figuring this out would solve “The Intruder” instance.

As time passed, the atmosphere in the dining room grew even more dismal.

The other girl among the newbies also couldn’t help but start crying.

The scar-faced man hated it most when women cried and cursed angrily, “What’s the use of crying? You think crying can…”

Speaking up to this point, the scar-faced man suddenly thought of something.

His angry scolding came to an abrupt halt.

The scar-faced man took out his phone.

He forced a smile that was uglier than crying.

“Big brothers and big sisters, I’m begging you, please donate some items to me.”

Everyone was stunned for a moment.

They had all forgotten that the viewers in the livestream could donate items to them.

So, under the scar-faced man’s lead, everyone except Lin Kuo took out their phones and started begging the audience for items.

Wang Miao was a game streamer in the real world, so begging the audience for items came more naturally to him than to the others.

“Whoever donates an item to me will be my real father and mother. Your son can kowtow.”

Liang Sihong was a little speechless, but he could understand.

After briefly asking the audience for items, he saw the unresponsive bullet chat and knew it was probably hopeless.

After putting away his phone, he saw Lin Kuo looking at them with a complicated expression.

Liang Sihong felt a bit embarrassed under his gaze.

“Is it useful?” Lin Kuo asked earnestly.

He had discovered earlier that donating items required points.

Even the useless scattering flowers required 20 points, and the final reward for their instance was only 200 points.

Who would spend points for free to send them warmth?

Moreover, these viewers weren’t watching the livestream with the intention of helping others.

The humans who entered the Walled City had lost the ability to huddle together for warmth.

Liang Sihong shrugged. “What if?”

In the face of supernatural forces, humans were weaker than ants.

No one would place all their hope on others.

This was a last resort.

Lin Kuo averted his gaze.

He also took out his phone.

Lowering his head, he glanced at the screen, which was filled with a massive amount of bullet comments:

______________________________________________________________________________________

[If the streamer had a better attitude, I might consider sending an item.]
[Forget it. With a stream title like this, whoever sends an item is an idiot.]
[I would rather waste my points than donate an item to this streamer.]
[I advise the streamer not to grovel. That way, I can still look up to you a little :)]
[If God S wasn’t in this stream, I wouldn’t have even clicked in.]
[Panicking now, aren’t you, aren’t you.]
[In this situation, I just want to say, serves you right, hehe.]
[Sigh, it’s been so long and no one’s died yet. This instance is so boring.]

______________________________________________________________________________________

Lin Kuo’s expression didn’t change.
This reaction from the bullet chat was within his expectations, and besides, he hadn’t taken out his phone and opened the Walled City livestream to beg them for items.

Lin Kuo looked at the phone’s front-facing camera.
This Walled City itself was an inexplicable existence, so how the front-facing camera, acting as the lens, managed to broadcast a person’s every move while in their pocket was not a question Lin Kuo sought to explore.

He only needed to confirm the camera’s position to ensure the viewers in the livestream could look directly at him.

And so, Sheng Wen made eye contact with Lin Kuo through the livestream.

He found that Lin Kuo’s pupils were like obsidian.

Generally, dark pupils would make a person look gentle and harmless—but not Lin Kuo.

The color of Lin Kuo’s pupils was tinged with the detachment he exuded, causing a tremor in one’s heart upon meeting his gaze.

Sheng Wen, like all the other viewers in Lin Kuo’s livestream, was trapped in this cool, icy gaze.

Before they could react, they saw the Lin Kuo on the screen curl his lips.

His right hand was clenched into a fist, but his thumb was raised.

At this moment, that raised thumb slowly drew a line across Lin Kuo’s slender neck.

Sheng Wen was stunned.

It was an extremely standard throat-slitting gesture.
Coupled with the undisguised mockery on Lin Kuo’s lips, it was clear how much malice this gesture carried.

The bullet chat exploded.