Chapter 1 Daisy, Aren't You Worried?

"Daisy, aren't you worried? The class teacher said he wants to call your parents today."

The two girls lay on their respective beds, chatting with each other.

After a day of desensitization, Lu Xiaoyao had adapted to the fact that the delicate and lovely girl next to her was her classmate and roommate.

From being numb all over when she heard Mona's voice, to now being able to calmly accept her concern, Lu Xiaoyao had become used to it.

Mona knew about Lu Xiaoyao's bad pop quiz result in the afternoon.

After all, Lu Xiaoyao was in such a terrible state that the class teacher found her for a talk right after school. According to him, Lu Xiaoyao not only had bad grades but also lacked a proper attitude towards learning, so he had to call her parents!

"Let him call. If he does, I might get to see my dad."

When Julian wasn't around, Lu Xiaoyao felt no psychological burden calling him "dad." Of course, it would be different if he was present.

"I'm just worried that your father is as busy as my father. What if he doesn't have time to come, and your mother comes instead… Wouldn't Aunt Sheila come?"

"If Sheila comes, that's fine too, I guess."

Lu Xiaoyao momentarily forgot her persona of disliking her stepmother, Sheila.

What she was thinking now was that since she couldn't see Julian, she could still exchange information with Hu Yue.

"Aren't you afraid she'll say bad things about you in front of your father?"

Mona curiously looked at Daisy. Seeing that she really didn't care at all, a trace of hesitation flashed in Mona's eyes, and she added, "What if… your father gets a bad impression of you because of what your mother says?"

"Huh? Does he not have a brain? Does he believe everything others say?"

Lu Xiaoyao didn't understand Mona's hesitation. Instead, she turned over and sat up abruptly, then said, "If someone who claims to be close to you forms an opinion of you not based on their own observations, but instead on hearsay, can that be called being close?

"Forget about it. My space is small, and there's no room for someone like you. Please move aside. There are plenty of people who want to be close to me. I don't need you!"

Lu Xiaoyao curled her lip dismissively at this kind of person, and said, "If my dad is the kind who has a bad brain and is also blind, then he should get rid of that whatever stepmother and disappear from my sight. Who can't live without whom?"

Lu Xiaoyao's memory of her father was actually very faint, but she vaguely remembered him as a very warm and powerful man.

Then, she thought of her mother's madness these past few years, which often made Lu Xiaoyao wonder if her father had been blind to choose someone with a brain like her mother's, or if love made people stupid, causing her mother's personality to change so drastically.

"Daisy… your thoughts… are really… amazing!"

Lu Xiaoyao was lost in her own memories and didn't notice the strange light flashing in Mona's eyes as she heard her words.

There was admiration, respect, incomprehension, and disapproval… filled with all kinds of contradictory and complex emotions.

"Is it really that good?"

Lu Xiaoyao snapped out of it and smiled awkwardly, wondering if she had shared too much with Mona, considering their shallow acquaintance.

"Hey, that's not what I meant just now. I just mean… don't take other people's opinions too seriously. You're living your own life. As long as you don't break the law, don't cross the moral line, don't do illegal things, then you should just be comfortable.

"For example, hmph~ that class teacher, who cares if he blames me for a strand of hair falling out? Who knows if it fell out because of me, or because his own hair is too oily…"

Lu Xiaoyao felt uncomfortable when she mentioned the fat and greasy class teacher. She didn't know if she was being paranoid, but she always felt that the man's gaze was a little lewd.

Small and focused, with a lewd, ten-thousand-volt light.

It made Lu Xiaoyao feel uncomfortable all over.

"Mr. Doug is still good. He's just concerned about us."

Seeing that Lu Xiaoyao's target had shifted, Mona also started talking about the class teacher.

"Are you sure? What's good about him?"

Lu Xiaoyao turned her head abruptly and stared into Mona's eyes as she listened to her comment.

Seeing that her eyes were still so clear and untainted, not only Lu Xiaoyao but even Mingmei, who was watching the live stream, had to exclaim, "What the heck!"

This Boss didn't look like some kind of pervert at all. Instead, she looked like an innocent little fool!

"What's wrong?"

During the day, Mu Chen successfully found a job, and in the evening, he and Mingmei chose a spicy hot pot restaurant with many random NPCs in the game.

Before the spicy hot pot was even ready, Mu Chen helped Mingmei open a bottle of soda. Then, he suddenly heard Mingmei say this.

"Is this game's Boss really at 100% corruption?"

Mingmei felt that Mona's clean temperament didn't seem like someone who had been corrupted.

At most, she sometimes felt that the other person's words were a little green tea-like. (Someone who appears innocent but is actually manipulative.)

"It should be, otherwise Mr. Yan Hui wouldn't have sent us in this way." Mu Chen had never met Mona. After all, there was no rule that the Bosses in the escape series games had to have gatherings and dinners, right?

What if they met?

Would a group of psychopaths get together to discuss how to "play" with the players?

Making them wish they were dead?

Yan Hui wasn't that perverted, right?

"But, Mona looks… pretty normal…."

Mingmei told Mu Chen everything she had seen today. Mu Chen listened carefully, but he didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.

"If our information is correct, then Mona is pretending, or at least her acting is very good."

"But why pretend?" Mingmei couldn't figure it out. "Is she doing this to mess with Lu Xiaoyao?"

"Who knows?" Mu Chen chuckled and shook his head. "But listening to you, at least this villainous Boss seems to be emotionally stable for the time being and probably won't act up anytime soon. If there really aren't any insectoids in the school, then at least we'll have enough time to search for traces of the insectoid outside."

"By the way, have you… seen any strange NPCs?"

Mingmei still remembered the words "see you in the next game" that the Enforcer had said in the last round. Now that they had entered the game, she hadn't found the Enforcer.

"Strange? How strange?" In the last round, Mu Chen had seen the Enforcer with the same face as his future father-in-law from afar. Later, he heard Mingmei say that the real face should be different from Ming Yi, but she hadn't seen it, so Mu Chen became interested in the Enforcer.

"Here are your spicy hot pots."

Just as they were chatting, the staff in the restaurant brought over their spicy hot pots. Mingmei and Mu Chen subconsciously looked up—

Wow!

Speak of the devil!

The Enforcer NPC with Mingmei's dad's face had appeared again!