The milk tea car practically fell out of the portal, crashing to the ground with a loud bang. It skidded across the floor, leaving a long black tire mark before finally, barely, coming to a stop without flipping over.
“Holy shit!” Xue Xun had been ready to scold them for pulling something so reckless again—but the moment he saw them tumble out of the portal alive, the milk tea car battered and dented like it had survived a war, all his complaints died in his throat. He rushed forward instead. “How are you? Any injuries? Who’s in critical condition?”
“Use healing items first! Get rid of the debuffs! I’ll contact the treatment center right now!”
He fussed around in a panic, looking like he wanted to carry each person off on a stretcher himself—only to realize that, surprisingly, everyone seemed a lot less hurt than he’d feared.
Most people were completely intact. The ones who’d been badly injured had already been treated after the tree demon fight. Anyone who’d managed to jump onto the milk tea car had only minor injuries at worst. Looking around, Xue Xun found that the only one in poor shape was Master Zhi Yin.
But the man was sturdy by nature—after catching his breath and drinking a restorative item He Wuning had given him, he already looked much better.
The only one really acting like an injured victim was the system itself, which was lying on the ground in front of the car, howling at the top of its digital lungs: “My carrr—my poor car—!”
“How did the durability drop to zero all at once?! What terrifying damage, waah!”
It turned to tug pitifully at He Wuning’s sleeve. He Wuning half-lidded his eyes and said flatly, “You’re already out. What’s there to be scared of?”
“Oh—right!” Q-chan blinked, then immediately switched from panicking to fuming, hopping up and down. “Pfft! Unbelievable! How could they just spit venom at my car like that? So rude!”
It kept muttering angrily under its breath. Beside it, Xiao Jie—who had just escaped from the dungeon—looked at the venom burns on the back of the truck and shivered. She was so glad she’d chickened out and hadn’t fought back earlier. If she had, by the time the others arrived, she probably wouldn’t even have a corpse left—just a puddle.
She took a deep breath and glared fiercely at the venom mark, echoing Q-chan, “Exactly! No manners at all!”
“They kept insisting we play even after we said we didn’t know how! No manners—that’s why they were short a player in the first place!”
It was the first time anyone had ever agreed with Q-chan. Delighted, it fluttered up and down excitedly. “Yeah! Exactly! Too much!”
The two of them—one human, one system—linked arms and loudly cursed out the dungeon bosses together. He Wuning gave them a sidelong glance. Meanwhile, Xing Yue sent the others off to the treatment center, then came over to ask Xiao Jie, “Did you get any intel?”
“Yes!” Xiao Jie straightened up immediately and reported, “In the first round, the ant-girl self-drew a hand worth two fan and deducted 1000 HP from the master.”
Cao Wu, the only self-proclaimed mahjong expert present, adopted a knowledgeable air. “That means the base rate is one fan for 500 HP.”
“Plus that 88-fan Big Three Dragons hand later—I’d say they were playing National Standard mahjong.”
Xue Xun whipped out his notebook, scribbling furiously while nodding. “Mm-hmm, good pacing, keep going.”
Xiao Jie tried hard to recall every detail from the dungeon, leaving nothing out. “She was upset that her win was too small—said she wanted to drain all my HP. But it looked like the three of them could coordinate. The spider woman said the monk didn’t look like he could play, so they might as well keep me. The ant-girl hesitated after that.”
Master Zhi Yin, who hadn’t yet gone to the treatment center, nodded. “This young lady and Mr. He both have relatively low HP. I told them my HP was higher, that starting with me would let the game last longer. That’s when they took 1000 HP from me instead.”
He Wuning’s expression was complicated. Did he really have to mention my HP in there too…?
The master, oblivious to the look, continued, “At the time, I had two defensive items equipped—one with damage reduction, one with reflect—but neither activated.”
“Ignoring defense and special effects,” Xue Xun muttered as he wrote, his brow furrowing deeper with each line. “And with partial control over dungeon rules themselves… We’ve never encountered a dungeon boss like this before.”
He sighed. “Actually, we’ve never even seen a boss that could talk to players. Up to now, most dungeons only have bosses that repeat a few preset lines.”
He Wuning glanced at Q. The little system immediately fluttered up and said, “I checked the forums earlier too! There’s no record of any dungeon like the one we just ran into. It might’ve been added after the recent update!”
“Or maybe it existed before,” He Wuning said quietly, looking up. “But if no one ever made it out alive… then naturally, there’d be no record.”
“Still,” he added after a pause, “I think that’s unlikely.”
Xing Yue frowned. “Why?”
He Wuning’s expression didn’t change. “Just a hunch.”
Xing Yue didn’t take his words lightly. Frowning, he began to think — after all, he’d already witnessed He Wuning’s intuition before, and given his own ridiculously bad luck, he had a certain respect (or fear) for anything that even smelled of the supernatural.
Everyone exchanged glances, their expressions growing increasingly serious.
Why had a dungeon like that appeared there of all places?
It clearly wasn’t a coincidence.
Those women had seemed to be summoned by that transparent vine — most likely targeting He Wuning. It was just that things had been chaotic at the time; everyone had been thrown around, and only Xiao Jie and Master Zhi Yin had accidentally been dragged in.
“Um…” Xiao Jie looked around at their faces. “I think… it might be an unreleased dungeon.”
He Wuning raised a brow slightly. “Why do you think so?”
Xiao Jie pulled a flashlight-like device from her pocket. “This is an identification tool my team made me carry. It can scan and show the exact remaining HP of a monster. I secretly used it on them when I got the chance.”
“Their HP came up as a string of question marks.”
Xing Yue frowned instinctively. “That’s impossible. Aren’t you already Level 50?”
“I’ve been max level for ages, and I’ve never seen that before,” Xiao Jie answered honestly. “But before I hit max level, when I scanned monsters above my level, it showed question marks. So if their level’s even higher than mine…”
“Could they be monsters scheduled for the next update?”
She murmured. “You know how this game keeps getting updated out of nowhere. The awakening system was dropped suddenly, too. Maybe they’re planning to raise the level cap soon.”
He Wuning nodded lightly. “Possible.”
Xiao Jie lowered her head. “That’s all I found. I… that’s it.”
Xing Yue placed a firm hand on her head. “That’s fine. You did well — calm under pressure. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Waaah—” Xiao Jie suddenly burst into loud sobs. Xing Yue froze, stepping back in alarm. “W-what’s wrong now!?”
Yi Luo pointed and accused, “You pressed too hard! You hurt her!”
Xing Yue’s eyes widened. Xiao Jie, gasping between sobs, shook her head frantically. The only married man in the group, Cao Wu, sighed. “Captain, for god’s sake, give her a tissue!”
Flustered, Xing Yue rummaged through his pockets and finally pulled out something that could barely qualify as paper — a medicated patch — and handed it to her.
Still crying, Xiao Jie didn’t look, took it blindly, and wiped her face— “OWWW! It stings! It’s minty! My eyes burn!”
Yi Luo looked at Xing Yue, half speechless, then gave him a big thumbs-up.
He Wuning glanced over at the chaos, then opened his communication interface.
Xue Xun blinked, while Yi Luo leaned in without shame, clearly trying to peek. “What’re you doing? Who are you reporting to?”
Xue Xun glared at him. “What are you saying? Brother He knows you can’t just leak unconfirmed intel around!”
Then, hesitantly, he peeked too. “So… uh, Brother He, who are you talking to?”
He Wuning didn’t even look up. “The Voice of the World.”
Yi Luo’s eyes widened. “That voice from when the game updated before? What for?”
“Reporting a bug,” He Wuning said flatly, glancing up. “If the next-version dungeon spawned early, shouldn’t we get some compensation?”
Yi Luo stared at him as he openly typed in the chat window: “That mobile dungeon from the snake’s mouth isn’t part of this version, right? Is this a bug?”
Message sent — clean and decisive.
“...Hiss—” Xue Xun gasped. It was the first time he’d ever seen a player dare talk to the Voice of the World like that. He leaned in, unable to resist watching for the reply.
He was sure the game, notorious for its indifference to human suffering, wouldn’t respond at all — He Wuning’s message would probably vanish into the void. But to his shock, not only did a reply come quickly, it was downright polite — like a real customer service rep.
“Received. Reviewing the report. Please wait.”
“Bug confirmed. Premature release of next-version content confirmed. We sincerely apologize for the poor experience. All effects caused by the bug will now be corrected.”
The tail of the milk tea car, previously corroded by venom, instantly restored itself. Master Zhi Yin blinked, staring as his HP bar suddenly filled to max.
Xue Xun gawked. “Wait, what— so this Voice of the World is actually kind of reasonable, huh?”
He Wuning thought for a moment, then continued typing: “And the compensation?”
“This was an error in the game.”
Xue Xun hadn’t even finished gasping from before when he took another sharp breath. “Brother He! C-c-could you at least sound a little nicer! Be polite—be polite!”
He Wuning’s face stayed perfectly blank. “Why? Isn’t it normal for players to curse out the damn devs when the game screws up?”
Xue Xun: “…”
Well… he wasn’t wrong, but—Was this even a normal game anymore?
Voice of the World: “The players who violated the rules have been punished. Calculating the effects caused. Please wait.”
Voice of the World: “Now issuing compensation to players affected by the bug, along with a bug-report reward. The items will be delivered as gift packs — please check your inventory.”
Xue Xun looked at He Wuning, who wore an expression of complete entitlement, and suddenly started to wonder if maybe he’d been taking this game too seriously all along…No, impossible — how could you not take this seriously?!
He covered his face helplessly.
A sudden rushing sound came from above — He Wuning looked up, and saw dozens of winged gift packs falling from the sky. They spun in midair, then split into two groups: one chasing after the injured who had just left, and the other flying straight toward them.
Yi Luo squinted. “There are little chibi avatars printed on the gift pack shells… let me see which adorable grumpy face this one belongs to—”
“Oh, it’s our Brother He.”
He Wuning: “……”
-----
The author has something to say:
He Wuning: There’s a bug. Pay up.
----------
No comments:
Post a Comment