Global Collapse-Chapter 545 - 513: The collapse - The dream of 2 billion girls_1

Chapter 545: Chapter 513: The collapse - The dream of 2 billion girls_1

After fifteen days, Mr. Green could finally leave Gu Mian to continue his search for the instance.

Gu Mian was actually very curious.

Mr. Green doesn’t want to stay in the real world. Is he afraid that Earth will strike him down?

But this host had been brought out for almost half a year now, and Earth hadn’t shown any signs.

Fatty had muttered all night about how to prepare for a rainy day, and eventually fell asleep, his snores shaking the heavens.

It wasn’t until noon the next day that the hardworking Fatty woke up.

When he woke up, his first thought was what he should eat today. But then he realized something was wrong. "Wait! Why did I fall asleep? Weren’t we discussing the deactivation of the death protection mechanism yesterday?"

Chu Changge, sitting on the living room couch, glanced at him. "You were the one talking."

Yesterday, Gu Mian couldn’t stand Fatty’s incessant chatter, so he gave him some water to soothe his throat.

Fatty was pleasantly surprised to accept the water, never imagining that Gu Mian had added a sleeping pill to it.

When Gu Mian administered a drug, its effects doubled.

In fact, it multiplied several times over, transforming the sleeping pill into a knockout draught. Fatty, having consumed it, held out for another ten minutes or so before falling sound asleep.

He slept soundly until noon.

Fatty was secretly surprised for a moment, then he instinctively began looking for Gu Mian throughout the house. He hopped off the bed and jogged into the living room. Finding only Chu Changge there, he then turned to look at Gu Mian’s bedroom. There was no one inside; only Xiao Hong was on Gu Mian’s bed folding paper boats, with a CD on the bedside table.

Not seeing Gu Mian, Fatty asked, "Where’s the Doctor?"

Chu Changge didn’t even lift his head. "He went to the ticket booth. Keke went with him."

What are they doing at the ticket booth?

Fatty was stunned for half a second, then suddenly asked with a strange expression, "They wouldn’t have entered an instance, would they?"

Chu Changge nodded. "Yes."

「On October 1st, a bus carrying thirty-eight passengers and one driver in Jinkou City overturned and fell down Fenshan Mountain. According to the Jinkou City Emergency Management Bureau, after a full search and rescue effort, as of 7:00 PM on October 5th, the bus wreckage had been found. A total of thirty-one people were recovered: one injured, thirty with no vital signs, and eight still missing. The search and rescue operation is still ongoing...」

"It’s all your fault!" "It’s all your fault!" "It’s all your fault!"

Resentful voices, filled with malice, surrounded her, seeping into every pore. In front of her was pitch darkness, with only those sinister voices reverberating in her ears.

"It’s all your fault!"

A pair of bluish-white hands suddenly stretched out from the darkness, grasping her neck.

"Ah!" Zhao Shuang abruptly woke up from her dream, soaked with cold sweat.

The overhead light was on. She turned to look at the alarm clock beside the bed; it was now seven in the evening. The sky outside the window had completely darkened, and the lights in the building opposite were on.

The television in the living room was broadcasting breaking news. She saw two people standing at her bedroom door; they were her two colleagues, who were currently looking at her with strange expressions.

"What... happened to you?" Keke hesitated before asking.

The name of this instance was "Amnesia." There were five players, and the task was to survive for thirty-six hours.

This instance also provided a detailed introduction to the story’s background and the roles the players were to assume.

Setting that aside for now, when Keke entered the instance with Gu Mian, she couldn’t see him. She only saw this female player with the nickname "Cangyue Shisi," an NPC lying on the bed, and... the news of the bus rollover being broadcast on TV.

Zhao Shuang wiped the sweat from her forehead. "I’m fine, just had a nightmare."

She was the sole survivor mentioned in the bus rollover news. On October 1st, thirty-eight people from her department went to Fenshan Mountain for a team-building event, and they all went missing that night.

Soon after, the police opened an investigation. They found Zhao Shuang in a coma at the team-building base halfway up the mountain at 1:00 AM on October 2nd. At 11:32 PM that same night, they found the bus that had rolled down the mountain. Inside were thirty bodies; the other eight people were missing. By October 5th, these eight people were still missing.

It’s worth mentioning that Zhao Shuang survived not because of a timely rescue, but because she had stayed at the team-building base halfway up the mountain that day, while her other thirty-seven colleagues rode the bus to the mountaintop.

Her memory was impaired. All she could remember was staying halfway up the mountain while her other colleagues went to the mountaintop.

She didn’t remember why the others went to the mountaintop, why she had fallen unconscious, or the major and minor events of that day.

However, a hospital check-up found nothing wrong, leading to the suspicion that she was suffering from intermittent memory loss due to shock.

Meanwhile, Keke and Cangyue Shisi were playing the roles of two female colleagues who hadn’t participated in the team-building event that day. According to what they knew, three other colleagues also hadn’t participated: Wang Chuan, Xia Jianren, and... Gu Mian.

As expected, Gu Mian’s real name was maliciously used once again.

By now, the news broadcast on the television had stopped. Cangyue Shisi hesitated a moment before asking, "What... did you dream about?"

If this had been a previous instance, she might not have been in such a hurry to ask this kind of question.

But now things were different.

The rules of the instance had changed. The death protection mechanism was shut off. They had to be proactive and find a way to survive before danger arrived.

And the ghost this time very likely stemmed from the team-building event on October 1st.

Zhao Shuang took a deep breath. Ever since she had made it back alive, she often had similar nightmares. She would dream she was engulfed in darkness, with voices full of hatred and terror whispering in her ears, followed by pale hands choking her neck.

Each time, she would awaken startled from her sleep, even if she fell asleep during the daytime.

She had a strange feeling that the terrifying things in her dreams were the people who had died during the team-building day. She guessed she might have suffered such a great shock that it caused these nightmares.

Zhao Shuang placed her hands on her forehead and let out a breath. "I dreamt of those terrifying things again. I constantly feel... it’s like they were our colleagues, and they resent me..."

Resentment?

Keke and Cangyue Shisi exchanged a glance, a suspicion forming in their minds.

Zhao Shuang looked up. "Oh, right. Xu Ke, Li Cangyue, I haven’t thanked you both for accompanying me these past few days."

Xu Ke and Li Cangyue were the names of their current identities.

The two of them forced a smile. In reality, both Xu Ke and Li Cangyue lived in the staff apartments. Half of the thirty-odd people from the bus that crashed down the mountain had lived in this building.

Their roommates had all died, and so had Zhao Shuang’s. After something like this, the young women didn’t dare live alone, so the three of them moved into Zhao Shuang’s room. According to their previous plan, they were going to move out once they found another place to rent. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"It’s nothing," Keke said, shaking her head understandingly. "Why don’t you go back to sleep? You haven’t slept well these past few days, with only intermittent rest. You must be exhausted."

Zhao Shuang was indeed exhausted. Insomnia had pushed her body to its limit, but whenever she was surrounded by darkness, unease would envelop her.

She stared at the bright overhead light for a good while before, as if feeling a little safer, she nodded. "Then... I’ll sleep a bit longer."

Watching Zhao Shuang lie down, the two exchanged a look and headed to the living room.

Once they were far enough from Zhao Shuang’s bedroom, Cangyue Shisi spoke in an extremely low voice that only the two of them could hear, "That nightmare she mentioned... what are your thoughts?"

Cang Yue felt that any player who dared to enter an instance on the first day the death protection mechanism was shut down couldn’t be an ordinary person, even though the young woman before her appeared gentle and quite young.

Keke shook her head slightly. "In an instance, a dream like that definitely isn’t baseless. I guess the core of this instance is related to our colleagues who died on the bus. They very likely resent Zhao Shuang, but she has forgotten what exactly happened that day."

She paused, then mused, "Didn’t they say eight people are still missing? Perhaps these eight people are the breakthrough point for this instance."

Cang Yue nodded in agreement. "This instance is called ’Amnesia,’ so it must be related to Zhao Shuang’s memory loss. Perhaps the key to finding the way out lies here. We’d better gather all the players to discuss this. Speaking of which..."

As she spoke, her brow furrowed. "Among the five of us, is there someone named Gu Mian?"

Gu Mian was the dream of billions of players.

The only person on the wanted list, who, in his own words, said, "Rankings are immaterial; getting on the list is all about your own abilities."

Of course, other players didn’t possess such abilities, nor did they want any ranking.

But everyone hoped to encounter him in the real world and then stab him.

Now that death in an instance had become real, the players’ aspirations changed. Everyone now hoped to encounter him in an instance and stab him there.

Cang Yue naturally had this thought. Gu Mian’s bounty had multiplied several times and was now one hundred thousand Game Coins.

This was an absolute temptation.

The moment Cang Yue saw the name Gu Mian, she thought of the one hundred thousand Game Coins.

"Ah," Keke said, feigning ignorance. "Yes, there’s a Gu Mian. Is he the one on the ranking list?"

Cang Yue nodded slightly. "Highly probable."

As she spoke, she glanced at the fruit knife on the coffee table. "Let’s observe for now. We can discuss it once we’re all together."

In this instance where death was real, survival itself was a struggle. Fear and eeriness constantly enveloped them as they painstakingly tried to stay alive. They might not have the luxury to worry about anything else...

Just then, a knock on the door suddenly sounded, followed by a young male voice calling out timidly, "Are you in there? Xu Ke? Li Cangyue? I’m Xia Jianren."

The voice was extremely soft, sounding timid and as if he had received a fright.

Xia Jianren was one of the five players.

Cang Yue strode to the door and only opened it after confirming his identity through the peephole. As she opened it, she whispered a reminder, "Zhao Shuang is sleeping. Please keep your voices down."

Hearing this, Xia Jianren immediately lightened his steps and darted in like a cat. Another man followed Xia Jianren. Cang Yue glanced at the other man’s player panel; his nickname was "Wang Chuan doesn’t want candy." This must be the player whose identity was Wang Chuan.

Xia Jianren glanced around and, after confirming which bedroom Zhao Shuang was in, spoke softly, "The two of us also live in the staff apartments, just downstairs on the fourth floor. We were in our apartments when we entered the instance. We heard you were living with Zhao Shuang, so we found her room number from the employee accommodation list."

And so, they came over.

Now, four out of the five players had gathered. Only Gu Mian hadn’t arrived yet.

「At this moment, Gu Mian was in a taxi, almost at his destination.」

When he first entered this instance, he was transported to a main road near a mountain. Gu Mian learned from the instance introduction that the story began with a team-building event, and he was playing the role of a fortunate individual who had not participated in it.

The mission was to survive for thirty-six hours. Actually, it didn’t matter to him whether he met up with the other players or not. Even without discussing things with others, it wouldn’t be an issue for him to go climb the mountain alone.

If he decided to meet the other players, he might even get stabbed.

However, after seeing something by the roadside, he decided to head to the staff housing first.