“……”

Yang Wenchao’s expression was starting to look more and more like he was constipated.

Deep down, he really wanted to curse.

F**king “Third Big Leg”!

As your so-called “third big leg,” can I hit you?!

Seriously, can I?!

Obviously not!

Yang Wenchao was feeling…

A kind of unexplainable frustration—and a twinge of envy.

This Jiang Ye, isn’t he just stupidly lucky?!

More accurately, that bald guy of his is way too freaky!

A cross-apartment NPC—how rare is that?!

And he managed to survive an encounter with one!

Even f**king got a quest from the NPC!

NPC quests aren’t always difficult or full of rewards, but during the beginner phase, they’re definitely rare as hell!

And he just happened to get one!

Plus, he’s thriving in Apartment 9999…

While Yang Wenchao didn’t even have the guts to step foot in Apartment 9999!

The worst part? That guy isn’t even a game player!

Seriously…

No comparison, no harm—right?

But that kind of person, impossible to compare with, has become Jiang Ye’s backer…

And if it was just that one backer, fine.

It’s not like the bald guy can stick to Jiang Ye 24/7 and guard him around the clock.

But now there’s suddenly this “Blood Mist Guy” who looks exactly like Jiang Ye…

Yang Wenchao took a deep breath, glanced at the “Blood Mist Guy,” then looked at the smug Jiang Ye and lowered his voice:

“In the Doomsday Apartment setting, the weirder something is, the stronger it tends to be.”

“I remember there’s this creepy item called the ‘Cursed Puppet.’”

“Its trait is that it targets a specific creature within its range and mimics its expressions, movements, voice, etc.”

“Through imitation, it gradually erodes the target’s soul.”

“In the end, the Cursed Puppet replaces the creature it mimics, and the original becomes the puppet…”

On the surface, it sounded like he was just describing a strange item.

But the pointed glance he gave to the Blood Mist Guy made it clear what he was getting at.

Jiang Ye wasn’t dumb—he picked up the implied meaning immediately.

The darkened replica got it too—its pitch-black eyes glanced at Yang Wenchao.

That look alone put huge pressure on Yang Wenchao.

But Jiang Ye stayed chill, waving it off casually like it was no big deal:

“Eh, whatever.”

“With my current strength, if the Blood Mist Guy really wanted to do something to me, there’s nothing I could do about it anyway.”

“So worrying would be pointless.”

“If the sky’s gonna fall, it’s not like I can hold it up.”

Saying that, Jiang Ye suddenly straightened his expression and looked at Yang Wenchao seriously.

Yang Wenchao felt his heart skip a beat from the sudden shift in tone.

Jiang Ye said solemnly:

“Brother Chao, you once said—”

“You don’t believe good people get rewarded, but those who help you, Yang Wenchao, will definitely be repaid.”

“Well, I’m giving that same sentence back to you—”

“Anyone who helps me, Jiang Ye, will definitely be repaid!”

“I haven’t forgotten that you went to the rooftop to save me.”

With that, he flipped his hand and pulled out a bracelet, handing it to Yang Wenchao:

“This is a Lucky Bracelet.”

“I think my good luck might’ve come from wearing it.”

“Right now, it probably has about half an hour of luck left, so I’m giving it to you, Brother Chao, to repay you for saving my life!”

Jiang Ye looked absolutely sincere.

It made Yang Wenchao feel a bit awkward.

He looked at the Lucky Bracelet, feeling kinda conflicted.

After all, this kind of thing…

In the Doomsday Apartment game, forget gifting—items like this shouldn’t even pass through other people’s hands!

They’re too easy to mess with and trap people!

If you can’t even hand it over, gifting it is totally out of the question.

But…

A game’s a game.

Game players have some experience.

But this is the Doomsday Apartment’s beginner phase.

Beginner players definitely don’t have access to Blackened Crow Blood.

Plus, Jiang Ye isn’t even a game player.

There’s no way he understands the mechanics of the Lucky Bracelet, so naturally he wouldn’t use it to trick him.

So Yang Wenchao didn’t refuse. When he accepted the Lucky Bracelet, he even gave Jiang Ye a bit of insight:

“Lucky-type items in the Doomsday Apartment usually come with a time limit.”

“And there’s actually a hidden mechanic with luck items—”

“The good luck a player gets from them doesn’t just come out of nowhere.”

“Some experts on the forum analyzed this—”

“When players are in a lucky state, monster drop rates and chances of triggering positive buffs clearly increase.”

“But once the lucky state ends, drop rates actually go below average.”

“So strategy experts have speculated—”

“The essence of luck items is basically borrowing from the user’s future luck.”

“Usually, after the luck effect wears off, players go through a string of bad luck.”

“So the correct way to use luck items is to fight as many monsters as possible while the effect is active. Then once it’s over, log off for a while and let the unlucky part pass offline.”

“Even though this isn’t technically a game, this trait probably still applies.”

“If you were wearing that Lucky Bracelet just now, then for the next while, it’s best to rest up and avoid taking risks.”

Only then did Jiang Ye learn about this kind of mechanic.

His first thought was to ask—

What about the Misfortune Bracelet then?

Is that also borrowing from future misfortune? And once it ends, you get super lucky?

But of course, he couldn’t mention the Misfortune Bracelet to Yang Wenchao.

Otherwise, wouldn’t that totally give him away?

Also, based on Jiang Ye’s own guess, he figured the Misfortune Bracelet might be just like that “Cursed Puppet” Yang Wenchao mentioned earlier.

It had already turned into some kind of cursed item.

So the misfortune it brought to players likely came from the item itself.

Of course, Jiang Ye wasn’t actually sure whether the bracelet he gave Yang Wenchao—the one powered by his own blood—was really a Lucky Bracelet or a Misfortune Bracelet.

If it was still a Lucky Bracelet, then great, it counts as him repaying a favor.

But if it had turned into a Misfortune Bracelet, well… that’d just be Yang Wenchao’s bad luck.

As for him, he could at least use this as an experiment to figure out whether his blood was like the auspicious Crow Blood or the cursed Blackened Crow Blood.

Yang Wenchao had no idea.

Seeing that there wasn’t much time left on the Lucky Bracelet, he waved to Jiang Ye and said:

“That ‘Third Big Leg’ thing—I’ll just pretend you were joking.”

“No need to talk about repaying favors either. I mean, it was the bald guy who insisted on rescuing you.”

“But I’ll still take this Lucky Bracelet. Just think of it as payment for all the info you shared.”

“Since there’s still some time left on it, I’m off to go grind and level up.”

“Game players aren’t anything rare. As for Xing Man, that guy—you’d better not let him walk away alive.”

With that, Yang Wenchao slipped the Lucky Bracelet onto his wrist.

It clinked with a sharp “clang” against the bracelet he was already wearing.

Then, as if venting, he gave Xing Man a good kick.

As he turned to leave, he suddenly glanced toward the stairwell on the first floor.

Next moment, his figure flickered and vanished.

Meanwhile, Xing Man, who’d just been kicked again for no reason, was inwardly cursing.

But after thinking about what Jiang Ye and Yang Wenchao had talked about…

Then, as Jiang Ye’s gaze swept over to him again…

He felt a chill run down his spine!

“Jiang Ye, don’t listen to—”

But before he could even finish, Jiang Ye cut him off.

He also gave Xing Man a solid kick, then stepped onto his back and said seriously:

“Three questions. Answer them properly, and I’ll let you go.”

“R-Really?!” Xing Man looked stunned, but excitement lit up in his eyes fast.

He knew it!

These top students from Class 1 and Class 2 didn’t have the guts to kill!

Jiang Ye one-shotting Ran Ziyi had just been an accident in self-defense…

He wouldn’t kill him!

Hope flared up in Xing Man’s heart, and he quickly swore: “As long as you let me go, I’ll answer everything honestly!”

“First question—”

“You game players, other than having played the game before, do you have any special advantages?”

“Like the announcements you hear, the abilities you awaken, or anything you had in the game—did you bring any of that over?”

Xing Man didn’t think too hard before answering: “Before the apartment fusion, I already talked this over with some classmates from Class 9!”

“I’ve got a few bros in Class 9 who also played the game, and here’s what we figured out—”

“When game players show up in the real Doomsday Apartment, we don’t really get any perks!”

“The announcements we hear, the abilities we awaken—it’s all the same as regular people.”

“And everything we had in the game didn’t carry over to this apartment.”

“The only real advantage was—”

“All game players were initially placed on the 20th floor.”

That actually was a pretty solid benefit.

Access to Duel Rooms and the High-End Mall, right from the start.

And more importantly, they could exchange Survival Points for money from the apartment merchants.

That reminded Jiang Ye of something, and he speculated further:

“In your game, the pay-to-win part is probably Survival Points, right? Can killing people in the game earn you Survival Points?”

Xing Man shook his head. “You guessed right. In the game, the pay-to-win system is all about buying Survival Points.”

“When you meet apartment merchants, that’s how the ‘first recharge bonus’ is triggered.”

“And players killing each other doesn’t grant any Survival Points.”

“Besides that, Survival Points in the game can also be used for resurrection.”

“But in the real apartment, I’ve tested it—Survival Points don’t have resurrection power.”

D*mn, he even tested that?

This Xing Man must’ve killed quite a few people.

Now that Jiang Ye had a rough understanding of the in-game setup, he asked another:

“Second question—

“Do you know how to get Survival Stones?”

At this, Xing Man frowned:

“In the game, Survival Stones were actually easy to get.”

“Even though it looked like an apartment setting, the game was packed with monster spawn zones—”

“At the end of each floor’s hallway, there were dedicated dungeon entrances; the higher the floor, the harder the dungeon.”

“Then in the Red Light Elevator, you had a chance to trigger special secret realms.”

“Also, every player’s assigned apartment room came with a personal instance, which contained Survival Stones.”

“Usually, players would grind in the far end of the hallway, since the monsters there had set levels and the risk of accidents was lower.”

“Pay-to-win whales usually went for high floors or the Red Light Elevator.”

“The secret realms triggered in the Red Light Elevator always had monsters way above your level—so even whales often got wiped out.”

“But the game’s horror effects were really well done, and the secret realms were super thrilling, so whales didn’t mind getting wiped.”

“As for the personal apartment room instances, they were generally for fun and could be entered repeatedly.”

“For example, some girls would be assigned tasks like growing flowers, planting veggies, or feeding cute animals—they’d spend ages in there just enjoying themselves.”

“My personal instance in the game was raising snakes. And those snakes could even be used to play a Snake game -_-||”

“Besides that, during holidays in real life, the game would run top-up promos and apartment events.”

“Like during Chinese New Year, there were limited-time dragon and lion dance skins, plus group events where players worked together to blow up the Nian Beast. It was a whole vibe.”

“Of course, that was all in the game.”

“In this real Doomsday Apartment…”

“So far I’ve only managed to find the dungeon at the end of the hallway. I haven’t figured out how to trigger the secret realms in the Red Light Elevator or the personal instances in our apartment rooms.”

Yikes…

Jiang Ye had searched every corner of his own apartment too and hadn’t triggered any personal instance either.

So he couldn’t help asking: “Then how did you trigger personal instances in the game?”

“You’d tap on ‘Return to My Apartment,’ and then just wander around the room—when you swipe the screen, anything clickable would open up the instance.”

Ah… yeah, that actually makes sense.

Games are always flat-screen experiences.

You click around with a mouse on a computer, or swipe your finger on a phone screen…

Usually, anything on the screen that reacts is hiding something important.

Once you find those and poke around a bit, triggering a personal instance isn’t hard at all.

But in real life, yeah, it’s definitely more of a hassle than in a game.

Still, now that it was confirmed that personal instances in player apartments were how you got Survival Stones, Jiang Ye’s main body started seriously searching the apartment room with Replica #3 and #4.

At the same time, through Replica #1, he asked Xing Man one last question:

“Are there any differences between apartments with different numbers?”

“Like, apartments with special numbers such as 6666 or 9999—do they have anything unique about them?”

Xing Man nodded. “There are, yeah. But I can’t say for sure if it’s the same in real life as in the game.”

“In the game, apartments with special numbers usually had some kind of special features.”

“For example, some of them had a Civil Affairs Bureau where you could get married in-game;”

“Some special-number apartments were all-female, with an aesthetic, dreamy vibe;”

“There were even some with completely different gameplay—you didn’t need to grind or level up. Instead, you could just hang out with NPCs and play all sorts of random mini-games, both solo and multiplayer…”

“As for the ones you mentioned, 6666 and 9999… I remember Apartment 9999 was also known as the Pay-to-Win Apartment, or the Strong Players’ Apartment!”

“Like, if you made it onto the War God Ranking in the Duel Room, you could get a room in Apartment 9999.”

“Yeah, get—like, completely free, no rent at all!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep