Christmas Eve, late, 11:30 PM.

Feng Bujue logged into Thriller Paradise in sleep mode.

After logging in, he first checked his friend list, and found…besides himself, only An Yueqin from the guild was online.

Seeing that she was not in a "game" state, Feng Bujue immediately sent a communication request.

"Eh? You're online pretty early." Two seconds later, An Yueqin's voice sounded from the communication channel. "Is the manuscript finished?"

"Hey, hey…why bring that up as soon as you open your mouth?" Although he wasn't talking to her face-to-face, Brother Jue instinctively narrowed his eyes and replied, "Haven't I been avoiding deadlines for months?"

"Okay, okay, I won't rush you." An Yueqin replied with a smile, then added, "But…seriously, shouldn't you be online so early on a day like today?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Feng Bujue asked back.

"Don't you and Ruoyu…have any activities?" An Yueqin asked suspiciously. "Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling already said hello a long time ago, saying they wouldn't be online today."

"Oh…you're asking about that." Brother Jue said. "Activities…there were…" For some reason, his tone sounded a little unhappy. "This afternoon, I went out to eat with her, and in the afternoon, she drove me to several sales offices to check out the market…"

"Huh?" An Yueqin was stunned. "You two…chose December 24th to go look at houses?"

"What's wrong with today?" Feng Bujue said. "It's not a national holiday…besides, even if it is a national holiday, sales offices usually don't close."

"Heh…hehe…" An Yueqin chuckled a few times. "Okay…after all, I'm a normal person, and the way you two get along…is beyond the comprehension of us mortals."

"Then…normal person, want to queue up for a script together?" Feng Bujue asked smoothly.

"Just the two of us?" An Yueqin replied. "What about Ruoyu?"

"She's sleeping in my room now." When Feng Bujue answered this question, he showed obvious displeasure again. "And I…am lying in the only gaming pod in my house."

"I feel like there are a lot of things to complain about in your answer…" An Yueqin also heard some subtle information from these words.

"To put it simply, she's staying at my place tonight to accommodate her parents' 'private time'." Feng Bujue said, "Anyway, her family is relieved to have her here."

"Although I don't know if I should say this…" An Yueqin seemed to have thought of something and reminded him, "But I still have to ask—on such a special day, with such a rare opportunity…is it really okay for you to just come online and play games like this?" She paused. "Aren't you going to try knocking on the door or something?"

"Ah…" Feng Bujue replied in a hopeless tone, "Obviously…the things you're talking about now, and the things you haven't said…the methods you can think of, and the methods you can't think of…I've tried everything I can try."

"And it all ended in failure?" An Yueqin could guess the answer from his attitude.

"Isn't that obvious? Otherwise, this conversation between you and me wouldn't even exist…" Feng Bujue replied hoarsely.

"Hahahaha…" Unexpectedly, a second later, An Yueqin burst out laughing.

"What are you laughing at?" Brother Jue asked.

"Schadenfreude." An Yueqin used these four characters…appropriately, perfectly summarizing her mood at the moment.

"Sigh…" Feng Bujue quickly concealed it with a sigh, and then blurted out a few insulting words, starting the anti-mockery mode, "I know, you're just using laughter to hide your own miserable situation, because you also logged into the game early on such a day…" He paused for half a second and recited, "As the saying goes—how much sorrow can you have, just like a single dog."

"Yes~yes~I'm a single dog." An Yueqin drawled. "But, I don't have any worries; I came online so early today because I made an appointment with someone to play a treasure hunt script together, so, you can play alone tonight, I won't keep you company."

"Eh? Who are you queuing with? Take me with you." Feng Bujue continued.

"Sorry." An Yueqin refused decisively, "I'm queuing with the sisters from the Red Tassel team, including me there are exactly six people, there's no room for you."

"Hey, hey…when did you hook up with the Red Tassel people? And you've already started calling each other sisters?" Feng Bujue said strangely, "Do you want to quit your current job and become a professional player there?"

"I'm just queuing up for a script with them, do you have to take it to that extreme?" An Yueqin said, "Don't you often play with professional players? I don't see you joining any studios." At this point, she paused obviously, "Oh, never mind, the message just came, bye-bye."

After saying goodbye to Brother Jue hurriedly, An Yueqin ended the communication.

Feng Bujue stood in front of the touch screen for a few seconds, then…shrugged his shoulders: "Okay~then I'll solo queue."

In fact, he didn't mind queuing up for a script alone, it's just that he couldn't enjoy the team buff from guild members.

[Feng Bujue, Level 51]

[Please select the game mode you want to join.]

Because he wasn't in a very good mood, Brother Jue didn't deal with emails or look at the goods in the Scare Box.

He planned to brush a treasure hunt mode script first, to warm up and change his mood.

[You have selected Treasure Hunt Mode, please confirm.]

[Confirmed, team size random value generated: three people.]

[You have entered the queue, searching for other ready individuals or teams.]

[Matching completed, coordinating neural connections, script generating…]

[Loading begins, please wait.]

The basic settings of this treasure hunt mode are the same as the team survival mode on normal difficulty; therefore, Brother Jue joining the queue alone will have at least one teammate, and at most five.

Seeing this…you should all vaguely think of a problem: in this mode, teaming up with strangers is very likely to cause some conflicts of interest.

Usually, in the team survival mode, similar conflicts are not very prominent, but in the context of the limited-time event of "Christmas Treasure Hunt"…players will naturally become more utilitarian; it is not impossible for conflicts to arise during the distribution of spoils, or even for players to pit each other during the script.

Of course, it is also very simple to solve this problem, just gather six people to play together…most game studios also do this.

And this also means that almost all professional players will brush treasure hunt mode scripts in teams of six.

To put it more bluntly, the teammates that Brother Jue has been assigned to are almost impossible to be studio players…