Chapter 76: The Denim Jacket

Lin Kuo reread the dungeon rules several times.
This was the first dungeon he had ever encountered where the rules explicitly encouraged saving teammates. On the surface, it was almost laughable—but underneath, he felt nothing but wariness.

Ever since the Walled City began, participants were pitted against one another, forced to scheme and betray. Now suddenly, the system wanted them to help each other? No matter how he looked at it, that smelled like a trap.

The cracks of the Walled City were filled with a thick, blinding fog. Lin Kuo walked for nearly twenty minutes before finally stepping out—and immediately froze at the sight before him.

It wasn’t a manor.
It wasn’t a village.
It wasn’t even a courtyard house.

It was—an entire city.

Its prosperity could rival the greatest metropolitan clusters in the real world—New York, Shanghai, Tokyo. Lin Kuo found himself standing on the rooftop of a hundred-story skyscraper. Below, cars swarmed like ants, crowds bustled like waves, and towering buildings rose one after another, densely packed, stretching endlessly into the horizon.

Neon light reflected in his eyes. For a moment, gazing at this sprawling urban circuit board, Lin Kuo couldn’t tell if he had somehow returned to the real world.

“Hey.”

A voice called out behind him. Turning, he saw he wasn’t alone. Seven or eight others were already standing on the rooftop—men and women alike.

Because the environment looked so much like a normal city rather than a warped dungeon, none of them had the eerie calm of experienced participants. Their faces carried confusion, fear, and anger.

“Where is this? I was home, just fine—and suddenly I wake up here?” one man in his thirties demanded. Lin Kuo glanced at him. Likely a newbie.

The man’s words triggered a chorus of panic.

“Yeah! I was on the road, driving—and then suddenly I’m here on this rooftop. Is this Chongqing? No, it can’t be. I don’t even live there!”

A girl suddenly shivered. “Wait, are you all like this too? I… I was in the shower.”

She was wearing nothing but a bath towel, trembling violently. “I heard a crackling, like electricity. I thought something in my house had short-circuited. But when I opened the bathroom door… I came out here.”

She pointed at the small iron access door nearby. Sure enough, it was standing open—proof she was telling the truth.

Her voice shook. “This… this is a ghost event, isn’t it?”

Everyone on the rooftop went pale. At first some had thought it might be a kidnapping—but now, they wished it was a kidnapping.

Lin Kuo listened silently. With nothing but words, he could already judge: every one of these people were newcomers.

Their faces looked as if they had seen a ghost. Truthfully, they weren’t far from it.

Finally, someone noticed Lin Kuo—calm, quiet, unreadable. In extreme unease, people instinctively searched for others like themselves, for reassurance. And standing there, so composed, Lin Kuo naturally drew their hope.

For the first time, he found himself oddly grateful to Liang Sihong. At least that man had been willing to explain the rules when Lin Kuo was still a newbie.

Now, having gone through several dungeons, Lin Kuo did speak more than before. But imagining the sheer effort it would take to explain the Walled City to all these fresh recruits, he felt a headache.

Under their complicated stares, he finally said flatly:
“Check your phones.”

Everyone quickly fished out their phones. The towel-wrapped girl, however, paled. “I… I didn’t bring mine.”

“Look again,” Lin Kuo said.

She thought he was mocking her. Already uneasy, a flicker of anger rose in her. “Do I look like someone who would have her—”

She stopped mid-word. Her fingers brushed against something hard beneath the towel. To her shock, it was her phone.

Terrified, she pulled it out. “How… how?! I left it in the living room! Why is it here with me?”

Lin Kuo didn’t bother explaining. That was how the Walled City worked: no matter how far you threw it, the phone would appear whenever you needed it.

One by one, the newcomers checked theirs. A chorus of screams broke out.

“Livestream? What is this?”

The girl’s face drained another shade of white. “I’m already half-dead from fright, and now I’m being live-streamed like this? In just a towel?!”

“…”
He had to admit—that did sound miserable.

He finished editing his own livestream title. Immediately, a new message appeared on his phone:

Dungeon: Death Notice
When you foresee a teammate’s death scene, it means you are attempting to snatch them back from Death’s hands. Saving someone successfully earns you points. The highest scorer chooses three people to survive. Survivors receive the dungeon’s point reward.

The newcomers exploded again.

“What is this? A game?”
“A livestream in the Walled City?!”

Their endless questions made Lin Kuo’s head throb. Just as he debated whether to explain, the rooftop door banged open. Two more players emerged.

Unlike the panicked newcomers, these two moved calmly. Veterans.

Lin Kuo secretly exhaled in relief. At least the burden of explaining could be dumped on someone else.

Sure enough, the veterans began answering the flood of questions, filling the role of reluctant guides.

“We’re inside the Walled City?” someone asked.
“Not exactly,” one veteran corrected. “We’re in a dungeon inside the Walled City.”

“But look!” a newbie pointed to the skyscraper opposite. On its rooftop, a huge neon sign blazed: Walled City Tower No. 2.

Lin Kuo followed their gaze. Looking again, he realized nearly every skyscraper carried glowing signs: Walled City Bank. Walled City Hall. Walled City Duty-Free Mall…

As if this were a real city that had always existed.

“…”

So unlike Death Password, this dungeon’s cityscape wasn’t just abstract rules—it was a fully fleshed-out, realistic metropolis. And that thought chilled him more than anything.

Just how powerful was the Main System, to create something so vast and lifelike at will? Could mere players ever hope to fight something like that?

He took a deep breath, retreated to the corner, and texted Sheng Wen.

Time slipped by as they chatted. Before long, the remaining players arrived. Someone called out to him: “Hey, handsome! Everyone’s here!”

Lin Kuo quickly typed:
[Lin Kuo]: Talk later.
[Sweet Like The Wind]: (^o^)/~

Pocketing his phone, Lin Kuo rejoined the group.

Self-introductions began. A man spoke first:
“Liu He, from Lower District A. Everyone introduce yourselves—it’ll be easier to recognize each other.”

One by one, the others followed. When it came to Lin Kuo, he simply said:
“Lin Kuo.”

“Newbie?” Liu He asked.

“Lower District B.”

Veterans always carried district tags. Liu He nodded.

All told, there were thirteen participants: eight newcomers, five veterans. Except for Lin Kuo, all the veterans were from Lower District A.

So Zhou Mu had been right—Upper District players rarely wasted their time on three-star dungeons.

Liu He spoke again: “The rules should be clear enough. Straightforward, really—”

The towel-wrapped girl raised a timid hand. “Not really… I don’t get it.”

Liu He suppressed his irritation. “What part?”

She hesitated. “How exactly do we foresee someone’s death? Is it like a dream? Or… a sixth sense?”

“That’s possible,” Liu He said. “This is a three-star dungeon. The rules won’t be spoon-fed. Dreams, hallucinations, gut instincts—it could be any of them. Don’t women have stronger intuition? Try it.”

There were only two women: the towel girl (she introduced herself as Xiaoyu) and another named Li Yuan, a young veteran who looked barely high school age—about Lin Zhi’s age.

The two closed their eyes. After two seconds, Li Yuan opened hers. “Nothing.”

All eyes turned to Xiaoyu. Her eyes stayed shut, but her whole body shook, lips going pale.

“What do you see?” Liu He demanded.

Her reaction sent shivers through the group. But no matter how they pressed, she remained lost in her own vision—until Li Yuan finally shook her hard.

“What did you sense?!”

Xiaoyu jerked back into reality, swallowing with difficulty. “I… I saw… It was terrifying. An earthquake. The building shaking. Everyone running, trying to escape… it was horrible!”

Her description was vague, but it was enough. Before Liu He could press further, Lin Kuo cut in:
“Get downstairs.”

If an earthquake was coming, the most important thing was to leave the high-rise.

The others jolted, then scrambled toward the stairwell. Liu He glared at Lin Kuo: “Earthquake, and you want to take the elevator?!”

“It hasn’t started yet,” Lin Kuo replied calmly.

He stepped inside.

Some hesitated. If the quake struck immediately, the elevator meant instant death. But if there was a delay, it was the fastest escape.

Lin Kuo pressed his hand to the door. “The rules said saving teammates. If Death could take us so easily, would the dungeon even be worth it?”

To the others, it sounded like he was just grasping at loopholes. Liu He snorted and ran for the stairs, several following him.

In the end, only two entered the elevator with Lin Kuo: Xiaoyu and Li Yuan. He pressed 1.

Silence filled the cabin. Neither girl spoke—tension lingering after their earlier clash—and Lin Kuo wasn’t one to initiate conversation.

Finally, Xiaoyu laughed nervously. “Well… like this, I can only take the elevator. Running down the stairs like this would be… streaking, haha.”

Lin Kuo thought for a moment, then shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she whispered, reaching out to take it—

Suddenly, the elevator doors flickered with an image.

A corpse, head crushed beneath one of the glowing rooftop signs, smashed into the concrete. The scene was so bloody Xiaoyu screamed and stumbled back.

Li Yuan snapped at her. “What, you wanna start jumping around in a moving elevator? You’ll kill us all faster than Death will!”

Xiaoyu trembled. “Didn’t you see it?! On the doors! A picture—someone dead!”

“Who?” Lin Kuo asked.

Her face was ashen. “I—I only saw for a second. I couldn’t make out his face.”

“What was he wearing?” Lin Kuo pressed. He had carefully memorized each player’s clothing during introductions.

Xiaoyu quivered, eyes brimming with tears. “A gray-black denim jacket…”

She turned, eyes widening as she saw Lin Kuo’s reflection in the polished steel doors—his gray-black jacket.

Her voice cracked, almost hysterical.
“It was that jacket! It was you!”