Chapter 4 - 4 4 Developing in an Unspeakable Direction

4: Chapter 4: Developing in an Unspeakable Direction 4: Chapter 4: Developing in an Unspeakable Direction Before entering the game “Perfect Life,” Han Fei had searched for strategies online, where positive reviews dominated. Many beta testers believed that this game was a paradise artificially created, embodying people’s aspirations and expectations for a wonderful life. At the time, Han Fei had also fantasized about the scenes he would encounter upon entering the game, making many friends, no longer worrying about money, and repeatedly living a “boring” life of drunken revelry, luxurious indulgence, and decadent pleasure. Imagination was beautiful, but the reality was that Han Fei was now crouching in an old blanket with a kitchen knife in hand, smelling the faint musty odor in the air, and staring intently at the severely peeling electronic wall clock. Two-thirty in the morning! The beginner task of sleeping had already started for a while, and the house was quiet with nothing unusual happening. Han Fei had also started to waver, although Granny’s warning was frightening, after all, this was primarily a healing life simulation game. Even if life was difficult, no one’s life involved dealing daily with psychopathic killers and supernatural legends. Another ten minutes passed, and everything in the house was still normal, Han Fei slowly relaxed. Unable to leave the bed and somewhat bored, he opened the Attribute Panel and started to study it seriously. “With such a groundbreaking game sure to become a hit after public testing, accumulating early game experience could even let me earn some extra money from the game.” Name: Han Fei Access Number: 00000 Level: 1 Profession: None Brain Power: 6 (Generally refers to all abilities and energy produced by the brain, including intelligence, psychology, experience, knowledge, and more) Physical Strength: 4 (All abilities related to physical fitness) Charm: -10 (Charm is not a quantitative concept, every individual has their unique charm) Luck: 9 (The higher the Luck Value, the luckier one will be) Evil Thought: 0 (Guess how bad a person can be?) Mental Threshold: 100 (Under various internal and external disturbances, through self-regulation, a person’s mind remains stable, but an individual’s mental state cannot remain immutable. When stimulated beyond a certain limit, the player will be forced offline. Simply put, the lower the mental threshold under severe stimulation, the easier it is to go insane) Life Value: 100 (When Life Value goes to zero, the character dies. Note, everyone has only one life, and all data is reset after death) Talent: Soul-returning (Unknown level talent, effect unknown, a few lucky players obtain a talent when creating an account) Skill Bar (All skills that the player masters will appear here): Medium-level Acting, Basic-level Cooking Skill Character: None (The bright spots of human nature, possessing various characters can greatly assist your life) After inspecting the Attribute Panel, Han Fei felt puzzled. The game character had been created without his knowledge and was almost exactly the same as him in real life. “Could it be that the game account is linked to citizen information? Automatic facial recognition? Also, each character in the game only has one life, with all data reset after death, which seems quite cruel.” Many games now decrease death penalties to enhance gaming experience, but this game does the opposite by mirroring real life, where death results in losing everything. “It seems I need to be more cautious. This building I’m living in seems rather abnormal; I must find a way to move out as soon as possible...” Before Han Fei’s gaze had left the Attribute Panel, a strange noise unexpectedly reached his ears. Squinting his eyes, Han Fei lay on the bed like a cat, “There’s only me in this room, what was that noise just now?” The sound wasn’t loud, but because it was very quiet in the night, Han Fei heard it very clearly. Clutching the kitchen knife, Han Fei’s eyes had already adjusted to the dark, his gaze sweeping over all the furniture in the room. The house was very old to begin with, and with all the windows sealed with wooden boards, it felt incredibly oppressive. Initially, Han Fei hadn’t felt much, but the longer he stayed, the more uncomfortable he began to feel inside. “Could this house have been a haunted house before? The elderly lady warned me not to be tempted by the cheap rent, and generally, the rent for haunted houses is very low.” Click, click... As Han Fei’s tension led him to wild imaginations, that strange noise was heard once again. He held his breath, Han Fei watched the living room submerged in darkness, where all the furniture outlines were only visible as deep black shapes, seeming as if they might move on their own at any moment. “Where is that noise coming from?” His gaze sweeping back and forth, Han Fei finally focused on the bathroom door. His pupils gradually narrowed, and his heartbeat began to quicken. Bang! Han Fei clearly saw that the bathroom door handle moved slightly! “Impossible! I went into the bathroom before turning the lights off, and there was no one there!” The air seemed to freeze, Han Fei dared not even blink. The bathroom door lock was still the kind connected inside and out from many years ago; if someone inside turned the handle, the outside handle would turn too. “Granny told me to lock the bathroom door, could it be because she knew there was something hidden in this house’s bathroom?” Han Fei had not a trace of sleepiness, his concentration was even sharper than during his college entrance exams. The electronic clock on the wall tick-tocked, time trickling away, and at 2:44 AM, the bathroom door handle made a noise again. The movement of whatever was trapped inside the bathroom grew stronger, in the empty room, the bathroom door handle began to turn up and down continuously! Click! Click! Click! The trembling noise of the lock tormented his nerves, Han Fei stared fixedly at the mop jammed on the door handle, which with the increasing trembles, gradually slid down, soon creating a crack as the bathroom door was pulled open. The profound darkness hid unknown horrors and the house instantly became silent. Soon after, five pale fingers stretched out from the crack in the door, a slender arm grasped the mop stuck on the door handle. “What is that?” Cold sweat soaked his back, Han Fei’s hands and feet went cold, he knew he was only playing a game, but his body instinctively reminded him to get out of there fast. The mop stuck on the door handle was removed, and the previously shut bathroom door swung open as if blown by the wind, mysteriously on its own. The lights in the room were off, and the pitch-dark bathroom was empty, as if everything that had happened was just an illusion. “The door opened inward, but the shoe cabinet is still blocking the doorway; it seems that thing hasn’t come out yet.” Han Fei clenched a kitchen knife, his entire attention focused on the shoe cabinet by the bathroom doorway. Cold sweat slid down his cheeks, his heart thundered, Han Fei was highly alert, yet no further strange sounds came from the room. “Is that thing still in the bathroom?” From the corner of his eye, he subconsciously scanned the living room, where Han Fei had already memorized the placement of all the furniture; he looked at those vague deep black outlines. As his gaze swept across the central sofa in the living room, his heart seemed to be violently yanked, next to that sofa, a dark shadow had appeared out of nowhere! “There’s definitely no furniture placed at that spot, I remember it clearly!” His heart felt like it was about to burst out of his throat, Han Fei played games to relax and bring back a smile, now these encounters had exceeded all his expectations, so he decided to exit the game. No matter what you are, as long as I exit the game, everything can be resolved. Opening the Attribute Panel, Han Fei located the option to exit the game in the corner, but now that option was greyed out, after repeatedly clicking on it, a truly desperate scene unfolded. “Attention! You can only leave the game after playing for more than three hours and completing at least one task!” That cold voice in his brain made Han Fei’s eyes twitch, he almost literally died from shock. “I can’t exit?!” The cold dark energy stimulated his body, when Han Fei looked up again, he discovered that the dark shadow originally beside the sofa had silently moved to the bedroom door. Being closer, he could finally see clearly, it was not some dark shadow at all, but a person squatting on the floor!