Pei Ye stared at the pop-up prompt and fell into a long silence.
[o(*￣︶￣*)o]
[Continue] [Leave]
Through this smug emoticon, Pei Ye could almost imagine her friend's half-smiling, confident expression. Even though that jerk was incredibly unreliable, they had indeed grasped Pei Ye's lifeline, forcing her to continue this game.
Pei Ye was once the commander of the Federation's strongest frontline combat legion. She retired three years ago. When she announced her departure, it caused an uproar among both allies and enemies. No one knew why she would leave right in her prime. Uninformed netizens furiously branded her a "coward," while her enemies woke up laughing from their dreams.
Faced with the outside world's well-meaning or malicious speculations, Pei Ye never stepped forward to explain, and the Federation Military Department also tacitly maintained its silence. It wasn't that they didn't want to clear her name, but rather that Pei Ye, based on various considerations, had proactively requested that the real reason not be made public.
In the prime of her life, she had contracted a vicious disease.
Her Spiritual Domain had inexplicably begun to collapse. To this day, no cause had been found, let alone a cure or a way to contain the condition. When Pei Ye learned that treatment would be ineffective, she made the decision to retire, handing the Seventh Legion over to a reliable junior named Jiang.
Now, however, her friend was using this game to give her clues about this terminal illness. Pei Ye glared at those words so hard she almost burned a hole through them.
"If this is a lie, I'll absolutely tear down your base!"
She decisively clicked [Continue].
[Welcome back, Player o(*￣︶￣*)o. This game will not disappoint your high expectations.]
[Please cooperate fully with your cub to complete this mission.]
[Would the player like to receive the mission's plotline?]
[Accept! I'd be a fool not to!]
[I am the absolute king; no cheats required.]
"Cooperate fully? What can a 2D character do to help me?"
[Player, your cub can cheer you on by spamming '666' for you! (*^▽^*)]
Pei Ye was speechless.
When others acted cheeky, it was cute, but when this jerk did it, it was just repulsive! The mere thought that her friend was the lead writer for this game's script made Pei Ye feel physically nauseous.
"Receive plotline!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, a massive stream of images flashed rapidly through her mind.
This world was a book with a rather long title—"The Beauty of the Red Envelope Group." The female lead who owned the red envelope group was named Lei Yating. Not only did she possess the Golden Finger of the red envelope group, but she was also a bona fide "Reincarnator."
Why put "Reincarnator" in quotes? Because this reincarnation was merely what Lei Yating believed to be a reincarnation. In reality, it was a massive conspiratorial trap. The specifics of this trap were not detailed; the game only provided vague, cryptic clues.
Conspiracies aside, the story followed the standard trope of a reincarnated woman's counterattack. In her previous life, the blind and overly forgiving Saint Mother Lei Yating was bullied to death by a scumbag and a home-wrecker. The home-wrecker ruined her marriage, and the female lead was eventually murdered by the scumbag and his mother. Filled with rage, Lei Yating reincarnated. She accidentally joined a highly delusional chat group called the "Heavenly Court Immortals Group" and reached the pinnacle of life from then on. Cultivation and Alchemy, subduing Demons and catching ghosts, singing, dancing, and acting to become an award-winning actress, writing novels and songs, playing e-sports, winning Olympic gold medals in sprinting, long-distance running, and hurdling, and even promoting sketchy unregulated products to the entire world... In short, however far her heart could reach and however big her dreams were, that was exactly how overpowered her cheats became.
Pei Ye's current identity was, of course, not Lei Yating. She was now Xiao Hong, an orphan without a father or mother who had come out of a remote mountain village. Even though she only scored high enough on the college entrance exam to attend a vocational college, in the eyes of the villagers, she was a university student, and they had pooled together the tuition money to send her to school.
Coming from an isolated village, Xiao Hong was immediately dazzled by the prosperity of the big city. To blend into the so-called big city as quickly as possible and wash away her rural rusticity, she learned to smoke, drink, get tattoos, and fight like the delinquent girls near her college. Last night was a "sister's" birthday, and Xiao Hong followed her to a bar to celebrate. Little did she know that this sister was actually a pimp who secretly sold Xiao Hong to a certain rich second-generation heir.
Unwilling to comply, Xiao Hong struggled and jumped from the second floor. She hit her head upon landing and died instantly. Worried about getting caught up in a homicide, the rich heir dumped her body in a secluded alley with no surveillance cameras. In the end, she was sent to the hospital by a good Samaritan.
Xiao Hong and Lei Yating were roommates. According to the prompts, the instance mission was related to Lei Yating. As long as Pei Ye followed her around, she could easily complete the six exploration tasks.
"As expected of a beginner's tutorial difficulty."
Knowing that the mission was merely to explore a few secrets rather than preventing Lei Yating from being deceived or defeating the behind-the-scenes boss, she suddenly found it quite dull. She turned on the faucet, planning to wash her face. The crust built up in the corners of her eyes was just too uncomfortable!
Clean tap water flowed out of the faucet. Just as she was about to cup a handful of water to splash onto her face, the water in the sink began to change.
"What's that smell?"
The restroom originally only had a slight strange odor, but now, it was laced with the rotting stench of a corpse. Her expression remained placid as she looked at her cupped hands. The water flowing from the faucet was no longer clean and transparent; instead, it began to turn yellow, like the rust-infused wastewater that spews out when turning on a tap after the water supply has been shut off all day. As the faucet continued to gush, the water did not run clear, and the putrid stench hitting her nose grew increasingly pungent.
In a mere three seconds, the flowing tap water transformed into a thick, foul-smelling, yellow pus. Relying on her exceptionally sharp eyesight, Pei Ye even spotted maggots tumbling out alongside the yellow pus, their yellowish-white bodies wriggling side to side. The yellow pus filled the sink at an entirely unscientific speed, and the maggots began to squirm even more joyfully.
SPLAT.
A massive blood clot the size of a baby's fist squeezed out of the faucet and smashed into the yellow pus, causing the foul liquid to blossom out in a splash. The stench assaulting her nose was no longer limited to simple rot. In Pei Ye's words, it was more like foul socks that had been stockpiled for two years, marinated in a pile of stinky tofu for another two years, and then sprinkled with the cadaveric fluid of rotting meat...
Pei Ye's face darkened. For someone with a keen sense of smell, this was an absolute disaster!
At this moment, a pale, emaciated right hand entered her line of sight. Its fingernails gleamed with an ominous purplish-black hue. Pei Ye followed that hand upward, locking gazes directly with a woman who was slowly crawling out of the mirror. After confirming the look in the other's eyes, Pei Ye decided this person definitely did not fit her aesthetic standards.
"A prank?" Pei Ye raised an eyebrow and asked.
The woman grinned ferociously without saying a word. She merely split her mouth open. Dark, ugly purulent blood oozed from her tongueless oral cavity. Her churning, fleshy eye sockets were completely empty, save for the protein-rich maggots happily wriggling within them. Despite lacking eyes, she could stare straight at Pei Ye. Her disheveled, long hair resembled black snakes that had come to life, baring their fangs and brandishing their claws as they tried to climb up Pei Ye's arm.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she crawled out of the mirror. The woman's fingernails gouged out ten long, black streaks across the marble washbasin. She let out a raspy, cackling laugh at Pei Ye, and the yin energy lingering around her body surged wildly.
Pei Ye lowered her eyelids, coldly casting a glance at the woman's hands. This creature's fingernails were a full ten centimeters long, their tips tapering into sickly, sharp cones. If they were to successfully scratch her, a single swipe would absolutely leave five bloody holes.
Just as her ten fingers were about to latch onto Pei Ye's throat, Pei Ye made her move.
Her action was very simple.
Right in front of the woman's face, Pei Ye pressed her hand firmly against the top of the creature's head and forcefully shoved it down, burying the woman's head directly into the sink full of yellow pus.
The woman let out a sharp, high-pitched, ghostly shriek, resembling the sound of nails scratching across a chalkboard, giving one the illusion that their entire scalp was about to explode.
Pei Ye's expression grew even colder. Lifting her up like a little chick, Pei Ye grabbed the woman by her hair, yanked her out of the sink, opened the toilet seat, tossed her inside, and flushed.