“Oh, heavens! That good-for-nothing deadbeat took the money and ran off, who knows where! That was all the savings the family had left!”

“Is there anyone, anyone who can help me search for him in the mountains!”

Mingmei had just entered the game and opened her eyes to a white expanse. Not far away, she heard a woman crying and wailing. Mingmei stepped forward, walking on the damp, muddy ground towards the source of the commotion.

Reaching the center of the crowd, she saw a middle-aged woman with disheveled hair kneeling on the ground, crying miserably. Although the surrounding people were merely watching, Mingmei could clearly see the indifference in their eyes.

“Cuihua! Didn't your Wang Laosan make a lot of money recently? What? Did he run off with your money again?”

Someone in the crowd shouted at the middle-aged woman called Cuihua, “Didn't you just buy a color TV, refrigerator, and washing machine one after another a few days ago? What's going on now?”

“How would I know! The night before last, Li Laosan suddenly went mad, grabbed the money, and ran out. The fog was so thick, and it was dark outside. I couldn't keep up! Who knew… he! He just never came back!”

After saying that, Cuihua sat on the ground and wailed again. Mingmei didn't react but looked around, noticing that no other players had appeared yet.

Her uncle was really getting more and more cunning with his games. Even if he ultimately kept the Mysterious Merchant NPC in this new game, this round's Mysterious Merchant setting… it was better to not have it at all!

Mingmei silently digested her character information, thinking to herself: Hopefully, the players won't have psychological trauma after returning.

[Guigui, do you think I'll be able to meet Lu Xiaoyao in this game?]

[According to what she said in her live broadcast last night, she will be playing this new game as soon as it comes out today. Based on the account settings Mr. Yan Hui gave you and her, you should meet today.]

[Then please tune into Lu Xiaoyao's live broadcast for me.]

At Mingmei's request, Guigui opened Lu Xiaoyao's live broadcast.

Mingmei immediately saw that all five players in this game had gathered.

A car was full with five people. Julian was in the driver's seat, Mu Chen was in the passenger seat, and Meruita, Lu Xiaoyao, and Wang Wenfei were sitting in the back seat.

At that moment, it was raining heavily outside their SUV.

Raindrops splattered against the roof of the car, and the rain on the car windows formed a watery curtain, overwhelming the windshield wipers.

“Oh, you're so slow! Julian, can you drive a little faster? How long have you been playing this game since we started?”

From the moment they entered the game, they had been sitting in this SUV, driving towards Wang Wenfei's character's hometown.

They had agreed to go there for a vacation together.

However, after getting off the highway and onto the rural cement road, the sunny weather suddenly took a turn for the worse, and a torrential downpour arrived without warning.

The intermittent visibility through the windshield wipers made him afraid to drive faster than 20 kilometers per hour.

In this weather, how could he drive fast?

“In this weather, it's a miracle that such an old-fashioned machine like a car can even move. What's there to complain about?”

Julian was also annoyed by the heavy rain.

This was not very gentlemanly.

Julian silently suppressed his negative emotions.

Lu Xiaoyao snorted at his words. She was sitting by the window and wanted to roll it down to see the scenery in the rain, but as soon as she opened it a crack, the rain poured in, causing her to frantically roll the window back up.

“Pfft~”

Meruita, who was chatting with Wang Wenfei about vacation plans on Planet Wei, noticed Lu Xiaoyao's discomfiture and couldn't help but laugh.

“Stop laughing. How can you guys have so much to talk about after sitting in the car for so long?”

“Hmph~ Of course there's a lot to talk about when going on vacation. It's you, I asked you to come along, but you're busy doing live broadcasts every day. Don't blame me for not inviting you, okay?”

“Ha! Aren't you guys ultimately going online to play games even on vacation? That just shows how boring vacations are.”

Lu Xiaoyao said sourly, typical sour grapes.

She wanted to go out and let loose on vacation too, but wasn't it New Year's?

Moreover, this was the first time Lu Gui was attending various events with her grandfather as the heir of the Lu family. Since she had rejected Lu Gui's path, she could only learn how to be a strong support for her brother—holding down the fort.

Of course, occasionally relaxing (zhi bo) was allowed.

“The end of this cement road is my home.”

Suddenly, Wang Wenfei's backend message changed, and this line of dialogue appeared, so she said it out loud.

“Oh? Are we almost there?”

The topic had just strayed, and even the barrage was marveling at Lu Xiaoyao for not traveling during the New Year and staying home to do live broadcasts, moving countless cloud parents. When they heard Wang Wenfei's words, their attention shifted.

[Are there any veterans who have finished playing the game who can tell us if this game is scary or not?]

[Yeah, yeah, are there any jump scares?]

[The person in front, please, this new game just came out and our崽崽 (zaizai, darling) just went in. Even if others have gone in, what could they tell you about the game at this time? Unless the rain is too heavy and they got into a car accident, who can come out now?]

[Oh, right, that makes sense…]

Mingmei looked at the barrage and listened to Wang Wenfei's words. If there were no accidents, the place she was in was the village where Wang Wenfei was from.

She looked up at the sky. The sun had just risen, completely dispersing the thin fog that enveloped the village in the morning. The temperature was already rising.

The weather here was completely different from the torrential rain shown in Lu Xiaoyao's live broadcast.

After watching a farce early in the morning, Mingmei even felt a little hot. She should go back and rest for a while.

According to the character's setting information, she returned to her residence, a guesthouse.

Mingmei's apparent identity was the owner of the Crescent Village Guesthouse.

As for why there was a guesthouse here, it was because of the Crescent Moon Mountain outside Crescent Village, which had a very famous Mountain God Temple.

It had a constant stream of pilgrims throughout the year, and the scenery in the mountains was beautiful. Although it wasn't a popular tourist attraction, it was still somewhat famous within a hundred miles.

Therefore, opening a guesthouse here was a viable business.

Mingmei's guesthouse wasn't inside the village but was built at the foot of Crescent Moon Mountain.

The coolness upon entering the house instantly dispelled all her heat. She went straight to the counter, lay down on the rattan long chair inside, and pretended to doze off, continuing to watch Lu Xiaoyao's live broadcast.

At this time, the heavy rain that had been plaguing them finally disappeared. The cement road under the car had completely turned into a rural dirt road. Everyone opened the car windows, and the endless rice fields on both sides of the road had not yet formed ears of rice, but the breeze brought with it a refreshing fragrance of rice flowers, sweeping away the irritability from everyone's hearts!

“Ah~ the environment here is so good! Beautiful mountains and clear waters!” Lu Xiaoyao boldly leaned out of the car window (do not imitate in real life) and shouted, “Ah, I want to live here forever!”

“The environment in Crescent Village is really good. The older generation loves to live here. I'm the first person from our village to go to college!”

Wang Wenfei said this according to her character's setting and the system's prompts. As she spoke, she noticed something was wrong, and the smile that had just appeared on her face froze…