TL note: I am an inexperienced translator, I can't promise 100% accuracy to what I am translating. Please support the author.
Translator: SleepyHypnos
Editor: Khun Simp
Inside the high-tech, blue and white-themed hall, people were coming in and going out.
Shen Qingcheng looked around. He just recently left the instance and appeared here. From time to time, some people will suddenly appear and disappear. Others treated it like it’s an everyday situation and nothing strange.
He stood on an independent platform within the sea of stars. It’s not a big platform, but Shen Qingcheng observed at least tens of thousands of people on this single platform. However, the platform didn’t look crowded at all.
Encircling the platform is a large glistening list, and information on the list changes from top to bottom in real-time according to the number of survival points. But the name on top has never changed, and this person’s code name is the number “7.”
Taking another look at the survival points—good gracious! Others have five figures while he has six!
Someone nearby noticed him looking at the list in a daze. He shook his head and sighs, “Another fan who is admiring God 7, our God 7 really is powerful,” he said with pride in his voice.
“Wait for a minute little brother!” Shen Qingcheng turns around and grabs the other person.
Shen Qingcheng has always been a shameless man. When people refuse to acknowledge his presence, he’ll still speak idly and cheerfully.
But here, someone actually took the initiative to speak to him?
The man he held was surprisingly young, who’s wearing a casual white T-shirt and big underpants. A big smile was printed on the front of the shirt. His handsome face showed a confused look at the moment.
He pulled his hand away from his grasp. “I was just speaking casually. You won’t take offense to that would you?”
As everybody knows, horror game players are roughly divided into two categories.
One group tries not to offend others without displeasing other people, which are called the moderates. On the other hand, the other group of people doesn’t care who they offend. Because in their eyes, other than themselves, others are only survival reserves. The moderates call them the radicals.
This young man is a newcomer. He has cleared a total of three games in the test instance today, but he was still feeling confused and reluctant to continue till the end. When he figured out the general rules of the game he was not ashamed to say he’s a moderate.
In order to live, he cannot feel ashamed.
He put up his guard as he looked at Shen Qingcheng.
“No, no, I didn’t take it as something offensive.” Shen Qingcheng said with a smile. He wasn’t aware of how many thoughts flashed through the young man’s mind in a minute. Nevertheless, it still didn’t prevent him from chatting him up. Shen Ge held the young man’s shoulder and asked, “Little brother, do you know what’s going on here?”
He wasn’t sure about questioning the young man earlier, but the youth just entered a custom instance in the game. He should have some knowledge about the essence of the game.
“More or less,” said the young man. This man’s strength is too strong. I can’t even move an inch.
Shen Qingcheng laughed like a blooming flower, “Then could you tell me?”
The young man immediately responded and looked at him suspiciously, “You a newcomer?”
Shen Qingcheng nodded. Newcomer, the newest of newcomers.
The youth didn’t believe him, “Don’t talk nonsense, the last batch of new players came out yesterday, so what kind of ‘new player’ are you?”
But he does look like a new chick.
Wait a minute, it seems that the Rookie King hasn’t come out yet?
Horror games introduce a large number of new players every once in a while, ranging from 8000 to 10000. It depends on the number of players who pass the test instance.
The older players are used to this kind of frequent occurrence, but the youth was a new sprout who just got in. His enthusiasm for welcoming newcomers has not yet subsided.
Today, he just finished an instance and had a three-day break, so he paid more attention.
Three days is enough time for him to wait until the result for the Rookie King comes out. The Rookie King is the first person to go through the custom instance and has eight or nine out of ten officially cleared.
But the present Novice Emperor got all the attention of the old players and dropped their jaws. The clearance time was less than two hours!
Why was a person clearing the custom instance in less than two hours such a big deal? Well, look at the No. 1 God “7” in the current ranking. It took him seven hours to complete the custom instance. The record has never been broken until now.
Everyone also suspects that the code name of God “7” is based on this 7 hours record.
This time, the new Rookie King only took one-third of God “7’s” clearance time. It brought shock to everyone, sighing, thinking another God 7 will appear.
Shen Qingcheng innocently looked in awe at the young man who was trapped in his own world of questions. He felt humbly ashamed, only knowing the special skills of a deserted practice.
The youth’s eyes were different when he looked back at Shen Qingcheng, now filled with disbelief and surprise. He’s really surprised about what he just found out. If he’s correct, the man in front of him should be the Rookie King who broke the record of God 7.
He put down a bit of his guard and asked again, “Are you really a newcomer?”
“Mhm..” What is there to lie about? It’s only the inner workings of the game that he’s asking about. Shen Qingcheng felt a little helpless.
“My name is Chen Ge, the code name is Ge Ge Wu[1]” the youth introduced himself and kindly reminded him, “You haven’t made your code name, have you? You can use your personal terminal to make one first.”
“All the people who appear here are players. Anyways, I haven’t seen any staff.”
The rookie list was still hanging outside the platform, and real-time queries can be made on the terminal. At this moment, if the person in the first place has changed, then he’ll know that this person is the Rookie King.
Chen really is hoping that the other party is the Rookie King.
Shen Qingcheng quietly recalled that before he closed his eyes, he had put his mobile phone on the bedside table. As he listened to Chen Ge’s words and reached in his trouser pocket, he really did fish out a mobile phone.
The style was more advanced than it was when he was still in the instance. When he turned it on, there were three unread messages on the screen.
The plug-in investigation results, a game reward, and a game statement.
“Can you look at it for me?” Shen Qingcheng tapped on a message which has the results of the plug-in investigation. He wants to know how a liberal student could make a plug-in cheat!
Chen ge didn’t agree and didn’t look at his terminal. Recalling his novice process, he said, “Just agree to the game statement.”
Shen Qingcheng scrolled until he reached the end. “Just click agree without reading it?”
“If you don’t mind the live broadcast. I’m not very clear about the details, but there is a default broadcast agreement in it. I heard that it can be converted into real currency, and it can be directly transferred into the player’s account when we return to the real world.”
This sentence was a bit informative. Shen Qingcheng took a glance at Chen-ge for a few seconds before he clicked [Agree.]
Can he really go back now? He knows he’s gonna be stuck in this game world forever. He’s already dead and has nobody to go back to.
Chen Ge scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “Don’t look at me, I also don’t know if it’s true or not.” He was thrilled when he first heard the information.
“Brother, I think we should talk more about this.” Shen Qingcheng patted the youth’s shoulder.
This time, Chen Ge was very cooperative, “You should put your code name first.” He then fished out his phone from his pocket and kept on refreshing the rookie list.
Three minutes later, the one on the top of the rookie list really changed. This means that the person beside him is 80% likely to be the rookie king.
This time, however, Chen Ge was a bit surprised on encountering a potential thigh to hug…..
He said with inexplicable emotion, “Have you changed it?”
“It’s changed,” Shen Qingcheng complained regretfully. “All my favorite codenames that I frequently use are all taken, so I just choose randomly.”
“What code names were you going to use?”
Shen Qingcheng touched his chin and mumbled, “Old Devil Shen, Great Devil King…”
Chen Ge looked at the code names on the rookie list again, and his mood was in turmoil. Good thing he didn’t choose random code names when he just started. Who could stand a code name like “Devastating Beauty?”
The person beside him spoke, “I’m alright with Devastating Beauty as the code name. Devastating Beauty, and it doesn’t sound powerful, which is quite appropriate for me.”
Chen Ge took a glance at the face of the person who spoke and found that it quite did.
The conversation between the two people didn’t attract any attention. Instead, the codename on the top of the rookie list got the attention. Everyone talked about whether the new Rookie King is a beautiful girl this time? Otherwise, why would they have such a cute codename?
Most people say that they are not sure if it’s really a beauty, but they are sure that it’s a lady.
Shen Qingcheng listened to the discussion with a gossip-eager face and nodded from time to time. He was more active than Chen Ge, the outsider.
Chen Ge: This thigh is different from what he imagined.
There were more and more people coming and the place they were currently in was not suitable for the next information exchange, so they decided to enter Chen-ge’s personal space.
Personal space is designed to be one-on-one bonding with players. Players can rest inside the space between games or when preparing for the next game.
As long as it’s not during the game instance, the space is absolutely safe.
“The official instance is different from the test instance. It is more difficult and requires a longer survival time, usually ranging from half a month to a month. Customs clearance tasks have also changed. One is to survive to the end, and two is to solve all the storylines and finish the instance ahead of time. “
“However, the game does not advocate time clearance, because players can only get one survival point every day. That is not enough to exchange for props in the mall. There will be more rewards for solving the storyline.”
Although up until now he has been leaning into carelessness, he has never met a big boss who has solved all the storylines.
“I have a question,” Shen Qingcheng raised his hand. “If a player solves the storyline on the first day and the reward is less than that of a month, what should he do?”
Chen Ge wants to laugh, he wants to figure out the storyline on the first day? Stop dreaming. Then he suddenly remembered that the person beside him had cleared the test instance in less than two hours, so he couldn’t help but remain silent.
“It’s not like that. If a player solves the storyline on the first day, he can get not only the reward of the storyline but also the reward of survival for 30 days.”
“Other players have only one-day survival and extra rewards based on what they know about the storyline.”
“And there’s a lot more reward for working out the storyline than for taking time,” he thought. “There are at least 50 survival points.”
It’s only 30 days at most, and it’s not even guaranteed that you can live within that period.
Shen Qingcheng put down his hand, “Understood, go on.”
Chen Ge then said: “Survival points can be used to exchange props. There are many functions of props. You can go to the terminal mall to have a look later. In addition, you can exchange rest coupons and worldly coupons. It’s said that there will be rest coupons in the instance, but I haven’t heard any news of worldly coupons being dropped. “
“And the most important thing is that props can be dropped, and survival points can be circulated among players.”
“What do you mean?”
Chen Ge said in a low voice: “That is to say, if a player kills another player in the instance, he can inherit all the survival points and randomly dropped props of the killed player.”
He remembered the copy he had just finished, in which there was a newcomer who didn’t know anything and died in the instance.
She doesn’t have any company, so as soon as she entered the instance, she revealed the fact that she was a newcomer, and was killed by a certain player.
“When players die in the game, they will be eliminated directly without special prompts,” Chen said. “I’m not quite sure if it affects anything in this world.”
Shen Qingcheng looks at the youth, who has a sad expression on his face.
Chen Ge: “Do you have any other questions?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet… “Oh, yeah,” he asked curiously, “Why are you so honest and answer everything I ask you?”
The man who had made up his mind to hold his thigh showed a tint of shyness. Chen Ge was a little embarrassed and said, “I want to hold your thigh.”
In all truthfulness, that’s what he wants.
Shen Qingcheng: “I’ve only passed one test instance. Also, you arrived earlier than me.”
Chen Ge shook his head, “If you rank by seniority like this, the record of God 7 would not occupy the first place in the ranking. God 7 is the record holder of Rookie Kings, and now it’s you.”
When he finished the task, the game seemed to say that he was number one. Shen Qingcheng suddenly realized that, got up, and patted the child’s head, “Hold it then. ” Shen-ge will give you a good thigh to hold on to.
He hit the snake with the stick[2], “Brother Shen, don’t worry. If you don’t say anything in the instance, then no one will bother you. I won’t bother brother Shen unless there is a critical moment.”
On the other hand, it’s also to guard against this self-proclaimed brother Shen. If he turned out to be a radical, then he would be the first to die.
But at the end of the day, if you don’t hug the thigh, you may die. If you do hug the thigh, you may also die. It’s better to just hug the thigh.
“Not bad,” Shen Qingcheng, who saw through his thinking, said in surprise. He didn’t mind the other side’s defensive wall. “It’s better to be smart and play safe.”
He said, “I’ll go back to my personal space for a while. By the way, will you come with me for the next copy?”
If you want to enter the same instance, you must form a team in advance.
Chen Ge hesitated. He has just finished a copy and has three days off. Newcomers have only one day off. If he agrees, he has to enter the copy tonight.
But the other side is the Rookie King. After missing the prime time of a good relationship forming, there will not be such a good opportunity again.
So he nodded, “Ok.”
Shen Qingcheng looked at him with a smile, which seemed to see through Chen Ge. He clicked on the terminal to return to his personal space and disappeared in front of Chen Ge.
Shen Qingcheng who returned to his personal space was stunned. This shabby place with no sofa, bed, wardrobe, table, chair, or snack is his personal space?
He thought that Chen-ge’s room was monotonous enough. It turned out that he misunderstood the other. Apologies.
Unbelievable. Shen Qingcheng had to sit on the ground, out of sight, out of mind to view information.
“Now publishing the result of plug-in processing: player overflow attribute will be permanently reduced in the copy. As compensation, the player props mall has opened a special mode, and all props can be purchased with 10% off the original price.”
Seeing the content of this message, Shen Qingcheng’s face turned black. What kind of ghost game is this that can’t even figure out where he would even get a plug-in?
It’s not that he’s modest. He really doesn’t have the technical level. It’s almost the same to say he kills fierce ghosts.
He felt exasperated, immediately found the information below for customer service, angrily typing, “You found out for sure I cheated?”
The usually slow customer service replied very fast:
“No, so the player was compensated.”
Shen Qingcheng was shocked, “If I didn’t use a plug-in, why am I being treated like this?”
“It’s to lower the overflow attribute,” the customer service corrected, “The player’s deterrence and ‘golden eye buffs’ will affect the game NPC, thus affecting the game balance.”
Seeing this, Shen Qingcheng let out two laughs. He couldn’t really blame the game, and the explanation made him extremely comfortable. Whatever, if the player attribute is lowered, it’s lowered.
He went on to look at the next message.
“The player has completed the task: Player escaped from Mang Mountain and is rewarded 10 survival points. Clearance time is 1 hour and 52 minutes. Players have broken the historical record and is rewarded 100 survival points.”
Shen Qingchen tried to scroll down more, but there was nothing there. Only 110 survival points in total?
Counting the record-breaking reward, doesn’t that mean other players only have 10 points? This game is too stingy.
Shen Qingchen shook his head.
There is not much time left for him to enter the official copy. He clicked into the mall to see if there was anything suitable. Due to him being a rookie player, he can only bring one item into the dungeon.
Mall props are divided into two types, life and competition.
The former is used in personal spaces, such as dressing up the room, exchanging entertainment, food, etc. The latter is used in instances, mainly attacking props and defensive props. Attacking props can cause damage to spiritual creatures.
Shen Qingchen now understood why the test instances are only 10 points. The cheapest item in the mall is 10 points.
Glancing at the names of all the props, he made a face, then finally placed an order.
[You have received a new life gift package. Original price: 100 points. Price paid: 90 points.]
[You have obtained the attack item: Mother Rong’s Silver Needle [3]. Original price: 10 points. Price paid: 9 points.]
[Survival points balance: 11.]
A few hours later, it was time to enter the copy.
[1] Ge Ge Wu
Brother Wu. Ge Ge is just a way of addressing an older male.
[2] 他打蛇随棍上 (dǎ shé suí gùn shàng)
Means taking advantage of the favorable opportunity to make some good. Also refers to taking advantage of the opportunity to fight back against the opponent.
[3] Mother Rong
A famous character in a historical show/movie (don’t remember which.) The silver needle/hairpin was used to stab this girl.
Thank U, khun simp for making the footnotes. This sleep deprived sleepy person is very greatful to you and shall serve you in his next life. ＿|￣|○
Support this sleepy person with caffeine. https://ko-fi.com/hypnostl
HypnosTL 
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