Chapter 1 Which Theme Players Least Want to Play

If you were to ask which theme players least want to play in a survival game series, it would definitely be the supernatural副本 (fùběn, instance/scenario).

It doesn't talk science with you, always stimulating your fragile, suspicious nerves from time to time.

You might not even understand what you experienced in the game after it's over, wondering if it was real or just a hallucination caused by your own heightened nervous tension.

After playing this kind of game, you'll have chills running down your spine at night for at least a month.

Lu Xiaoyao was so frightened by the urban legends in her hand that she didn't dare to turn the page.

As long as she doesn't look, the world is still the scientific and rule-of-law society she believes it to be, QAQ!

After fussing around for most of the night, the little lunchbox kid happily bought his boxed lunch and contentedly wrapped himself in a small blanket, a chubby lump curled up on the sofa in Lu Xiaoyao's office, fast asleep.

Then, Hanhan's turn came.

In the dead of night, at three in the morning, he looked at the urban legends in Lu Xiaoyao's hand and said, "Auntie, I can't sleep. How about you tell me a story? This one, how about it?"

Seeing Hanhan standing by her desk at some unknown time, half his face hidden in the darkness, his expression unclear, the boy's voice was crisp and chilling, and Lu Xiaoyao couldn't help but shudder.

"Ah, okay, wait a moment, I'll get you some warm milk, and then I'll read the story."

Lu Xiaoyao turned around to pour some of the hot milk from the coffee machine, muttering to herself, "This kid is actually leading me to read urban legends. He must be trying to point out game clues to me. Although it feels kind of creepy~"

Lu Xiaoyao's muttered monologue was naturally captured by the audience in the live broadcast room. Just when they were speechless, they heard Lu Xiaoyao say, "Being with the boxed lunch selling NPC should be a good thing, right? Otherwise, he wouldn't be reminding me so carefully."

Mingmei: "..."

Live broadcast room: [...]

[Wait, where did Lu Xiaoyao get this logic from? Being close to the boxed lunch selling NPC means it's a good thing?]

[LOL, hasn't she forgotten what kind of characters she used to ship as a CP back then?]

[Hiss, so, can someone explain Lu Xiaoyao's thought process to me?]

[Maybe, this isn't a problem of thought process.]

[?]

[It's simply that her brain has no grooves.]

[Their whole family's cleverness probably all went to Councilor Julian.]

[No, no, no, the little princess is very smart even at her young age, okay?]

Mingmei felt that the audience's comments were very pertinent, so pertinent that the topic went off track and directly mentioned Lu Xiaoyao's husband and daughter.

Regarding the topic of #IamtheDumbestintheFamily#, Lu Xiaoyao had indeed been quite troubled for a while. After all, people always compared her to her older brother (sister), grandfather, husband, and parents-in-law. Oh, recently, because her daughter had gradually appeared in front of the public, she was even questioned whether her daughter was smarter than her.

Although the IQ test results were like that.

But that can't be used to say that she's the dumbest in the family, right?

Originally, her marriage with Julian did receive a lot of attention from both the Empire and the Federation at the time.

It wasn't set in stone, but everyone who saw Julian's efforts said he was striving towards his father's goal of becoming the President of the Federation, right?

Inevitably, some people raised the question of whether Lu Xiaoyao would embarrass Julian if she became the First Lady in the future.

There was a lot of debate on both sides about this issue. The Empire pointed to Lu Xiaoyao's illustrious family background and the glory she had achieved in the battle against the Zerg before graduating from military academy, asking how Lu Xiaoyao could be embarrassing.

But the opposition派 (pài, faction) used Lu Xiaoyao's overly down-to-earth behavior and remarks during her live broadcasts to argue that Lu Xiaoyao wasn't dignified enough.

Regarding this, Lu Xiaoyao herself wanted to retort that her parents-in-law didn't even have an opinion, and Julian supported her in doing whatever she wanted. Did these people have nothing better to do?

What's wrong with her being down-to-earth when she plays games?

If she wanted to be down-to-earth in the netherworld, it was just a matter of a word!

Now that people often directly called her a big dummy, Lu Xiaoyao already had a response ready—her baby wasn't a product of "negative times negative equals positive," so her being so smart must mean that both parents had worked hard.

She must have inherited her intelligence and talent too!

So, Lu Xiaoyao warmed up the milk and handed it to little Hanhan, picked up the urban legends book, cleared her throat, and began to read to him.

"If you want to be clever and intelligent, then offer the most exquisite of cleverness to the god of cleverness~ Remember, the cleverest part of a person is the brain~ Offer a good, clever person's brain to the god, and the god will be pleased and will surely bestow upon you cleverness and wisdom..."

Reading to this point, Lu Xiaoyao couldn't continue reading.

She couldn't help but touch her skin, muttering to herself, "Why does this content feel so wrong to me?"

"Continue~"

Holding the milk and lowering his head, Hanhan sat at the table. Lu Xiaoyao's back was now chilled by the story she was reading. Hearing the boy's calm voice also calmed her heart slightly, and she continued reading.

As she read, Lu Xiaoyao only felt that the urban legends book she was seeing was like some kind of xj scene.

"WTF! Offering other people's eyeballs can predict the future? 99 pairs of eyeballs? Do you think this stuff is saliva, and you can spit out a bunch every day?"

"And offering people's limbs is just to strengthen yourself? What kind of god is this?"

Lu Xiaoyao was about to curse out "external heresy." The urban legends book recorded how the believers of various gods prayed and how they performed sacrifices to ask the gods to descend.

Each sacrifice was just short of stating that they needed to sacrifice living people!

"No one would actually believe this, right?" Lu Xiaoyao felt that she couldn't even laugh after saying this, because although she hadn't seen these things like sacrificing living people's organs and limbs with her own eyes, it was connected to the thick stack of case files on her desk.

It was incredibly ironic.

There have been too many cases of dismemberment, missing arms and legs, or missing organs in City A in recent years.

Could these all be the work of god-worshipping believers?

Thinking of this, Lu Xiaoyao was so frightened that her face turned pale without her realizing it. She turned her head stiffly, wanting to continue coaxing the boy to sleep, but found that at some point the child had already taken the urban legends book that Lu Xiaoyao had been reading into his own hands.

His back was one with the night, only his eyes were astonishingly bright. He looked at Lu Xiaoyao, raised the corners of his mouth to reveal cute little tiger teeth, and pointed to the content behind, asking, "Here, what about the sacrificial rites for the god of wealth?"

…

[Host, Hanhan and Fanhe are calling you to pick them up and take them home.]

Mingmei was watching the live broadcast, so nervous that she couldn't breathe. Guigui's sudden opening of her mouth dragged her thoughts back out again. m..oΓg

"Huh? They're so fast?"

Mingmei was dumbfounded. Just a second ago, Hanhan was still being scary. How could Guigui say that Hanhan was already out the next second?

[Now, the NPCs' autonomous consciousness has begun to take over.] When Guigui said this, Mingmei understood what the bursts of crying and madness in the barrage just now meant.

Well, Lu Xiaoyao is probably going to be in trouble.

After all, the real boss is about to go online.

Then, that night, just after Lu Xiaoyao had eaten dinner with the four little darlings, she received Lu Xiaoyao's video call complaining.

Regarding the matter of how there could be a boss in the form of a child and a boxed lunch selling NPC, having personally experienced the terrifying power of this kind of game, Lu Xiaoyao didn't hide anything and directly asked, "Meimei, which utterly immoral person in your game development department designed this? Aren't they afraid of retribution for designing this kind of game?"

Ming · the person who will be punished · Mei:?

"Be good, listen to my words, take this employee of yours to counseling for a sequel. If there's a problem with this thing's mind, let's treat it early..."

Lu Xiaoyao was still chattering on and on, and Mingmei was still telling herself about the events in the game today. She didn't hear Mingmei's opinion for a long time, but when she looked up, she was dumbfounded.

[You have been blacklisted by the other party for 250 hours.]

Lu Xiaoyao:?