Chapter 3

It was already late at night when Xiao Tangqiu arrived him. He carried a bag of beer he bought from a 24-hour convenience store and turned on the computer, prepared to watch a comedy movie while drinking.

As soon as he turned on the computer, it automatically logged into his chat messenger and a dialog box popped up.

Cotton Candy: Little Candy Ball! Quickly! Come broadcast live with you!

Little Candy Ball: I’m not in the mood today.

Cotton Candy: I know you’re not in the mood but you need to do something to distract yourself.

Xiao Tangqiu had to admit that Cotton Candy was right. Every year, he had to paralyze his nerves with beer and comedy after visiting the grave. By the time he the movie ended, he would have a bigger void in his heart and then have nightmares all night.

Maybe he really should do something different to put this matter down.

Little Candy Ball: I think that you are a person afraid of broadcasting live so you pulled me to accompany you.

Cotton Candy: Hey, come on.

Little Candy Ball: What game?

Cotton Candy: A homemade horror game. It is said to be semi-finished and the author posted it on his personal website. I sent the link to you. Go download the game client and choose multiplayer mode after registration. Wait until we set up a team and then enter the game together. OK?

Little Candy Ball: A homemade game with a client? So big?

Xiao Tangqiu opened the website that Cotton Candy sent him and sure enough, it was a personal website. The page was very simple with nothing special. There were few choices and he soon found that game that Cotton Candy was talking about. It was a game called Abyss.

The game icon was a bit interesting. It was a snake biting its tail in an ‘8’ character. As a horror film and game enthusiast, Xiao Tangqiu knew that this snake was called Ouroboros. It was used in ancient Greek mythology and was called the eternal snake because it symbolized eternal life.

He clicked on the client download and thought it would take some time. Unexpectedly, it took only 13 seconds to finish.

The registration for this game was also very simple. There was no need for anything apart from entering an ID. Xiao Tangqiu entered his usual Little Candy Ball ID and the system told him that he successfully registered.

Everything was too simple. When he asked Cotton Candy about it, Cotton Candy said it was probably because the game was a semi-finished product.

Xiao Tangqiu didn’t think too much and sent his usual ‘live broadcast soon’ post on Weibo. He opened the live room to warm it up and drank beer while looking at the setting of the game.

As Cotton Candy said before, the setting of this game was a bit interesting. A horror game anchor one day played a horror game called Abyss but was suddenly pulled into the game. He personally experienced everything in the horror game and soon found that it seemed to be more than just a game. If he died in the game, he would never return to the real world…

“Wow, why is the background setting for this game so on trend?” Xiao Tangqiu told his and Cotton Candy’s fans who were filling the live broadcast room. “Aren’t we horror game anchors? We won’t be pulled into the game right?”

Cotton Candy laughed. “It is possible!”

Xiao Tangqiu might be a small horror game anchor but he still had a lot of fans. It was late at night but a few minutes after he released the live broadcast Weibo, the number of people in the live broadcast room quickly broke through 30,000 and the number was still rising.

The live broadcast hadn’t begun yet and the barrage of comments and gifts had already started. He casually thanked them for the gifts and clicked on the game client to enter the game. He saw a black screen and a line of bloody words appeared on it. “Welcome to the Abyss.”

The blood-red letters made him feel uncomfortable but he soon overcame it. He took a sip of the cold beer and clicked on the screen to continue. The next second, two options popped up—’Agree’ and ‘Okay.’

Xiao Tangqiu, “…” Was there a difference between the two options?

He silently clicked ‘okay’ and the original dark screen instantly became bright red, as if it had been splashed with a pot of blood. However, Xiao Tangqiu had already calmed down and he just clicked on the screen to continue.

Another line of blood-red words appeared on the screen. “The first story: The Fishing Village’s Ghost House.”

Fishing village? Ghost house?

Xiao Tangqiu was pondering on the name when he suddenly felt that something was wrong. It was quiet,too quiet.

This game was really too quiet. There wasn’t the usual horror game BGM or even any special effects. This quiet was a bit scary.

The even more frightening thing was that his room was too quiet. There wasn’t the sound of the air conditioner or any noise coming from next door. This was too abnormal. The sound insulation of this residential building was very poor and he often heard music coming from next door in the middle of the night.

At this moment, the whole world seemed to have fallen asleep and it was dead quiet.

Xiao Tangqiu was shocked and wanted to stand up to see what was going on. At this time, a burst of unprecedented sleepiness swept over him.

He instantly became sleep and it was like his eyelids were weighed down.

In less than three seconds, he fell asleep.

……

“Congratulations to the dear players for accepting the D-grade mission ‘Fishing Village’s Ghost House’. Your mission goal is to ‘remove the curse of the fishing village’. The time limit is 3 days and you will get 500 points after the mission is completed. You will be directly erased if the mission fails.”

“Finally, dear players, welcome to the abyss…”

“Hey!”

“Hey, hey! Wake up!”

Xiao Tangqiu opened his eyes with much difficult at a man’s simple and violent shaking. He suddenly flinched back when he saw the appearance of the man in front of him.

It was a rough looking black man with a sly expression. He wore a old white vest that his muscles bulged out of. His whole arm was tattooed and he was wearing a big gold chain.

Xiao Tangqiu shrank back with fright only to find that he was actually on a swaying tourist bus.

Wasn’t he doing a live show at home? How could he suddenly appear in a tour bus?

Xiao Tangqiu didn’t have a chance to react when screams came from the side, confirming his suspicions. “Who are you? Did you kidnap me? Let me go! I’m going to call the police!”

The man in the gold chain let go of Xiao Tangqiu and turned towards the screaming man, his tone quite threatening. “If you don’t want to die then shut up!”

Xiao Tangqiu took the opportunity to quickly look around the bus. The bus was very empty. It had dozens of seats but only 13 people were sitting down. Apart from him and the big gold chain, there were 11 other people.

Due to the small number of people, everyone was scattered around. The first row contained three people whose faces couldn’t be seen. The third row seemed to be a young couple. The fifth row contain two girls. The noisy man was sitting in the middle. Two rows in front of Xiao Tangqiu were three men and he was sitting alone in the last row.

“Why? Who are you? Let me go!”

“Don’t think I’m afraid of you! I’ll call the police right away!”

The gold chain man pulled the shouting young man by the collar and warned him, “I will throw you out the window if you yell again!”

The young man immediately shrank back like a small rooster. He huddled in his seat while everyone looked at the gold chain man with fright, not daring to scream.

The gold chain man placed his hands on his chest and looked around the tour bus with a blank expression. Then he sneered and said, “I believe you have heard that voice in your brain. Whether you believe it or not, you are now in a horror game. If you don’t complete the task in the game then you will die!”

He grinned, revealing two big golden teeth. However, the smile was very gloomy. “Dear rookies, welcome to the abyss!”