Doll Survival Game

Luo Yiran repeated it in his mind, then he closed his eyes. The noise of people coming and going rose in his ears, and he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin. The wind, carrying the hustle and bustle of the world, rushed towards him.

He opened his eyes.

In front of him were tall buildings and busy streets, people talking loudly, and advertisements looping on the building’s LCD screens. It was a typical city scene.

Luo Yiran was momentarily stunned, then he looked down at himself and found he was sitting neatly on a red bench. His body was the same size as others, and his fingers no longer had ball joints…

These were human limbs.

Luo Yiran turned to see the face reflected in the window behind him. Unlike his own gentle and soft features, this face was bright and attractive, but not feminine. It was a face that stood out in a crowd but wouldn’t make people feel unapproachable.

Ah, not really fond of it.

Luo Yiran stood up. His gaze didn’t linger long on this face but instead focused on another line of disappearing text on the window–

[Find the “key” to escape this world.]

Just this sentence, with no hint about the key… But it was in quotation marks, suggesting the key might not be a literal key?

It must refer to some crucial thing.

Something crucial related to the Dead Woman.

Luo Yiran pondered for a moment, then suddenly thought of something and looked down at his right index finger: “Where’s the puppet?”

The sense of connection in his index finger was completely gone. Could it be that only the doll body could control the puppet?

But it didn’t feel right; the invisible thread connecting them seemed like a soul linking to a soul, not just a shell.

So the connection was hidden…

“Ah! Qiu Qiu, you’re over here!” A clear voice of a girl suddenly came from behind. Luo Yiran turned around due to the loudness of the voice and saw a girl in a blue top waving at him: “Come on, the others are arriving.”

“…”

Is it role play? Luo Yiran couldn’t figure out the character setting of this role, so he naturally nodded and walked towards the girl while checking his pocket. He first took out a student card.

XX High School, senior year, Class 2, Qiu Qiu.

XX, these letters are too perfunctory; even a random name would be better.

He put away the student ID and took out his phone.

After quickly browsing through it, he raised his eyebrows slightly.

Walking unhurriedly to the girl, Luo Yiran put away his phone and flashed a bright smile: “Hope we can buy the books we want!”

The girl nodded: “Yeah, by the way, the workbook you recommended last time was great! The summary questions were very typical.”

Luo Yiran felt no awkwardness. He raised his eyebrows confidently: “Of course! I tried it first.”

“Ah, it’s already April… Only a little over a month left until the college entrance exam.” The girl seemed a bit down but quickly perked up: “Let’s not talk about it! Buy the books and go back to school to study!”

Today was Sunday, and students who lived far from school didn’t go home, so they arranged to go out and buy some books together.

Qiu Qiu and this girl’s home were nearby, so they arrived first.

Not far away, a few young men got off the bus. They saw the two and raised their hands: “Qiu Qiu! Wang Mingyue!”

Luo Yiran raised his hand and waved. His gaze searched among the group–was the Dead Woman here?

“When we get back to school, Qiu Qiu, can you help me with math?” One of the boys came over with a bitter face: “I did terribly on the last test.”

Luo Yiran made an OK gesture and smiled, showing eight white teeth: “No problem!”

The boy hugged him, excitedly saying: “Good brother!”

Luo Yiran smiled.

From Qiu Qiu’s conversations with others and his own notes, he was a very obviously extroverted person.

He had good grades but wasn’t a bookworm, had many interests, was smart, and was very popular.

Usually, such people easily become those who only give without asking for help because they can handle most things themselves, but Qiu Qiu’s emotional intelligence should be high too; he would let others help with small tasks.

He was the kind of person who lived very freely.

Luo Yiran browsed through his phone.

“Ah, I’m really envious of Qiu Qiu, who can easily get good grades, is good at sports, and plays guitar! So impressive.” The boy next to him sighed.

Luo Yiran browsed through his phone and casually said: “Not really.”

His gaze lingered on the photos in the friend circle, matching people with names, then he looked up: “I’m really envious of your skateboarding skills. How about teaching me after the college entrance exam?”

The boy was stunned, then he got excited: “Sure! Let me tell you, skateboarding is really hard. At that time…”

Luo Yiran put away his phone and seemed to listen attentively, but his thoughts slightly drifted away–would this small instance require a long stay?

None of these people included the Dead Woman.

And the magician should have entered this instance, right? Wonder where he is, if he has any character setting.

Well, since there’s no time limit, staying longer is fine. The Dead Woman should be a classmate or a student he would interact with.

Luo Yiran slightly raised his eyes, looking at everything in front of him that was identical to reality–though the troublesome part was that Qiu Qiu was a senior with good grades and athletic skills, while he was just a sophomore.

But grades were manageable, and sports… should be fine?

But guitar really wasn’t his thing. Hopefully, during his stay, there wouldn’t be any situation requiring him to play the guitar.

Luo Yiran was worried about the guitar, while Zhang Mimi faced a more direct and troublesome situation. He stared wide-eyed at the test paper on the desk–why did he arrive just in time for an exam? Was this a high school test? He should have learned this before, right?!

But why did he completely not understand it at all!

Also, Zhang Mimi turned his head to the side and looked at the face reflected in the window–wasn’t this his face from his younger days? His hair wasn’t dyed, and his face looked more youthful… but something was off!

The face was indeed his, but this wasn’t him during high school. Not to mention that the school didn’t look familiar at all, and what was with the hair covering his ears? In his high school, hair wasn’t allowed to cover the ears!

And when he had black hair, it never covered his ears!

But the face was undeniably youthful…

“Sorry I’m late…” a girl’s timid voice came from the door.

Zhang Mimi looked up, and just as he was about to look away, he heard the teacher say, “It’s okay, you’re not fifteen minutes late yet. You’re Lin Na, right? Go to that empty seat.”

The girl nodded slightly, her ears turning red as she sat down.

Zhang Mimi became alert in an instant–so she was “that Lin Na.”

The Lin Na that Lin Ye had mentioned, who had the same name as his cousin Lin Na and was in the same school.

So, was this his cousin’s school?

The girl sat down next to him, and Zhang Mimi’s gaze quickly swept over her–he didn’t see any visible injuries, so she hadn’t been bullied yet?

He should keep an eye on her afterward.

And where was Tang Bai? That key must have something to do with Tang Bai, right?

No, no, the main focus now is…

Zhang Mimi stared at the test paper on the desk, feeling dizzy–if he scored in the single digits, would something happen?

It shouldn’t… he remembered his grades were just barely passing before.

Ah, so annoying!

[Sea Palace]

“Master, have you encountered this before? Two instances overlapping?” Tian Tang tossed the power pole in her hand and sighed, “The badges here are so hard to find, and there’s always the risk of triggering a game of ghost tag.”

Wei Lianlian was examining the murals on the wall for clues and replied, “No, I haven’t… but have you communicated with those players trying to enter Baige Tower?”

Tian Tang waved her hand, “No! It seems like there’s another set of rules between us. They can’t see us, and although we can see them, we can’t touch them, like watching a movie…”

“But I eavesdropped… no, I listened openly.” Tian Tang squatted down, wiping the dust off the wall in front of her, and looked at the fish-headed people holding weapons. Thinking they looked too strange, she said, “Their instance task is to find a local human and take them to the top floor of Baige Tower, the seventh floor.”

“Sounds simpler than our task, just going to one location.”

Wei Lianlian frowned, “But their prerequisite is to find a human.”

Tian Tang blinked, “But all the remaining humans are on Baige Tower, so it’s easy to find… Eh, they don’t seem to know that and keep searching outside.”

“That’s the difficulty distinction, I guess, though it’s still simpler than ours.” Wei Lianlian looked back at the mural, “But since they don’t know humans are on the tower, do they also not know that this Monster World is a full-immersion game?”

Tian Tang was taken aback, “Right, they don’t know. Our setting is as full-immersion game players, so what are they? NPCs? Or did they travel here?”

She let her thoughts wander.

Their setting was as game players, but the game had a bug, so if they couldn’t complete the chosen task, they couldn’t exit the game, and dying in the game meant real death, brain death.

However…

Playing Monster World of the same nature in World Human, it was like a matryoshka doll.

Although Luo Yiran and their instance was even stranger.

Why didn’t they know Monster World was a game? And why did the instances overlap?

“Their setting might be more complex, but it could also be just passing through Baige Tower, though the former is more likely.” Wei Lianlian withdrew her hand, her expression calm, “We seem to enter instances randomly, but the difficulty is mostly based on the player’s ability. Do you think with Luo Yiran and their group’s strength, they would enter a low-difficulty instance?”

Tian Tang widened her eyes, not quite understanding, “But their task is just to take a human to the top of the tower, and Luo Yiran and the others should have already gone in. Once they’re in, they should be able to find a human… it doesn’t seem difficult.”

Wei Lianlian had a guess, but it was just a thought, so she didn’t say it, only mentioning another matter, “Do you remember the city where this full-immersion game was released, the city where ‘we’ are in the instance, what’s it called?”

The system mentioned it when entering the game, so Tian Tang quickly replied, “Sky City! It’s said to be a futuristic city!”