Su Bai checked his own state, and at last, he closed his eyes. He knew that he was very close to Main Task 1 and that there must be more awards for Main Task 1 than Main Task 2, so it would be better if he could accomplish Main Task 1.
But a man must know his own limitations; with him being in such a bad shape, any ordinary adult or even a teenager could easily kill him right now. He was injured and then had forced a long chase. Now, he was so exhausted that he could not handle the fight which might happen next. Especially, at this moment, someone had showed up behind the dormitory door. Apparently, the person in the room had sensed something and was about to come and open the door to check out.
“Accomplish Main Task 2,” Su Bai answered that voice in his mind. He had no other choice. As the old saying went — “Hee who hesitates will lose”.
[“Main Task 2 is accomplished.”]
[“Dear audience, this is the end of today’s story. As for the real murderer, maybe some of you have already come to a good conclusion, but others haven’t yet.
“For those who have no idea about the real murderer, you can friend us on WeChat by searching “kongbu66” and listen to our official account. The answer will be published there.
“At the end of the story, I would like to say something: in this world, there are a lot of mysteries; what’s written in those mystery novels may not be all imaginary. Maybe, those people around you, or those things around you, are not as simple as you think.
“There are ghosts in this world, and there are a lot of unsolved horrible things. As one of the common lives, we believe that we are capable of everything, due to the education we received since we were young and the outlook of this world we’ve been instilled. Yes, the spacecraft of mankind is able to land on the moon, but we are still so ignorant about the planet we are living on and about the society we have built with our own hands. And this is not an overstatement.
“In this world, there are quite a few people who are equipped with skills that can scare you. Some of them are longtime audience of us Dreadful Radio, and of course, many of them are not the audience of Dreadful Radio, but they do have incredible powers.
“He might be your roommate or the security guard in your block or the woman cleaning the streets or the driver of a taxi, or… he might be someone beyond your imagination.
This world is safe; this world is not safe.
“Here, I sincerely wish that all my audience be healthy, ignorant and fearless; sometimes ignorance is a kind of happiness…
…isn’t it?”]
……………
“Buzz!”
Su Bai felt a strong fishy scent in his nose and suddenly opened his eyes. He found himself sitting on a chair. On the table in front him, BBQ dishes were still steaming. He seemed to be drinking beer, but somehow, the beer was poured onto his own face.
Luckily, he was sitting in the corner so no one noticed his odd behavior.
However, by a table in front of Su Bai, there sat a guy… that sunglasses guy!
The sunglasses guy was sitting there, the same as he used to be. But the camouflage guy who had been sitting on the opposite side was now gone. Su Bai knew that Guo Gang had died in that story.
He who died in the story would also die in reality.
The sunglasses guy glanced at Su Bai. Then, Su Bai stood up and so did that sunglasses guy. But they were no longer against each other like they had been in that story; the sunglasses guy just walked toward Su Bai with a smile, took out a business card from his pocket and put it on the table in front of Su Bai. Then he slightly bowed in farewell to Su Bai and left the BBQ joint.
He didn’t want vengeance?
Su Bai was a little surprised and confused. But thinking of the fact that the sunglasses guy had to rely on deceptive tricks when he was trying to kill him in that story, everything seemed understandable.
There seemed to be some rules, but Su Bai just hadn’t gotten a clear idea about them yet.
Taking out his cell phone, Su Bai saw a message on WeChat. It was a “Preview Message” from the official WeChat account, i.e., a “secret” message from the owner of the official account.
Su Bai clicked it. This preview message had only been read for only three times, the three readers being him, the sunglasses guy and Childe Hai.
[ This story has a total award of 500 Story Points;
Contribution Ratio of this story is as follows: ]
Next, there was a photo of a person with red letters showing his contribution ratio:
Guo Gang who had died: 0.
The sunglasses guy: 20%.
Seeing this, Su Bai slightly frowned. The sunglasses guy had a contribution ratio as high as 20%?
Then he thought of the white light that had landed on that paper man when he was following the paper man into the woods and later into the dormitory building. The paper man was capable of hiding itself, then that white light…
An image came to Su Bai: he was chasing the flickering paper man in the woods while the sunglasses guy was hiding in the darkness. Silently, he took off his sunglasses and then the paper man started to give out white light, which made it a beacon for Su Bai, so it was unable to get rid of him. Although the sunglasses guy was not decent because he left his companion behind and fled, he did show up at the key moment, made his own contribution and deserved his awards. Apparently, he was like a fox— he had no lower limit and not base line, but he could always been keen on going after profits.
Childe Hai: 30%.
And finally, Su Bai: 50%.
That was to say, this time Su Bai had gotten 250 Story Points.
What were story points for?
With such a question, Su Bai continued to enter the official account. The ID of this official account, kongbu66, somehow fit this occasion[1].
This time, it was a little different from the last time. As soon as Su Bai got to the homepage, a message was sent automatically:
[“Dear audience, your Story Experiences have been accomplished twice, and there’s one more time to go before you become an Intern Audience and get qualified to exchange items with your story points.
Hope you can keep working hard and… survive.”]
So his 250 story points were not available for now?
Su Bai clicked that column of “Exchange” and got to an e-shop. There were plenty of items, tools, bloods, skills… but everything was grey for Su Bai, which meant they were not accessible to him.
The reminder said that there was one more experience story to go before he was able to exchange anything?
Su Bai thought of the power possessed by Childe Hai and the sunglasses guy. He would be lying if he said he didn’t want that or he wasn’t envious of that; these kinds of power would increase the odds of survival in story worlds, and even for ordinary people in the real world, who would refuse to have some special power that could make him unique?
For power, any normal man would be eager.
Just then, all of a sudden one item lit up right in front of Su Bai… It became colorful, which meant that it was available for exchanging!
Was that an exception?
[Broken Vampire Blood]
[Price: 222 Story Points]
[After it get integrated with your blood, your body will gain a small part of skills of a low level vampire. This blood has no update for exchanging and has unknown side effects.]
[Item for Disposal. No Limit on Exchange]
Su Bai clicked “Purchase” without hesitation. Keeping story points with himself would be stupid; he had one more story to experience before he passed the election. If someone like Guo Gang, who had apparently made exchanges, could die in those stories, then he could not expect any more escape by luck.
All of a sudden, a drop of blood appeared on Su Bai’s cell phone screen; it was black and it directly immersed into Su Bai’s finger. At the next moment, Su Bai’s soul shivered, and he felt as if his body was put in an icehouse. But it was only for a short time. Su Bai took deep breath twice and then, before he could thoroughly feel what was happening inside his body…
…his shoulder was patted with a hand unexpectedly:
“Aha! Found you!”
———————————
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In Chinese, “kong bu” stands for dreadful, therefore Su Bai thought this ID was very suitable for this account.