<h4>Chapter 52 </h4>


    The world turned upside down before his eyes. It was as ifrge swatches of colour were shattering into pieces and blending once more, upying one’s entire sight, entering along the nerves and piercing the brain.


    His eardrums were filled with a chaotic white noise. Mo Yi felt dizzy as his feet made contact with the actual ce, only realizing afterwards that — This time, he had been sent to the instance while standing.


    But it was toote.


    Nerves, which didn’t have time to react, couldn’t support the sudden gravity. Gravity pulled Mo Yi to the ground.


    Mo Yi, somewhat panicked, extended his hands in the air, eyes subconsciously closed, waiting for the oing pain.


    A hand like an iron-band reached out from the side, held his arm, and with strong force, pulled him up.


    Although Mo Yi was helped to stand, his brain was still in chaos.


    He turned his head, somewhat dazed, to look at the person holding him and subconsciously said, “Thanks ….”


    In the next second, Mo Yi’s voice was stuck in his throat, voice unable to send anything out.


    At the same time, a man was looking at him, his well-defined lips pursed in a sharp curve. A pair of eyes, light as mist, were attentively watching him, simr to a dark gray ocean.


    He let out a lowugh, “Be careful.”


    Mo Yi’s eyes widened uncontrobly, and he lowered his voice, “You—”


    Suddenly, at this moment, he remembered … In fact, he currently didn’t know the Mist’s name.


    “Unnamed Mist” was a game prompt in the first instance, and “Song Qi” was someone else’s name that he had borrowed.


    Mo Yi didn’t know what to call him for a while and couldn’t help but freeze in ce.


    At this time, an unfamiliar male voice came from beside him, “Neer?”


    Mo Yi turned his head, following the voice, only to see a tall man approaching, looking around with some misgivings, and then asked. “What’s wrong?”


    He then discovered that the man’s gaze directly passed through the Mist’s body, as if he didn’t see another person there, sweeping by without wavering.


    Mo Yi was taken aback, head turning to look at the Mist standing beside him.


    A trace of a smile was on his cold countenance, finger raised and pressed against his pale lips, making a gesture, “Shhh.”


    Mo Yi came to, turning his head to look at the man and showed a natural smile, “Not a Neer.”


    He frowned and lifted his chin in gesture, “It’s just that this is my first timeing across an instance like this and was just rmed. Thank you for your concern.”


    <h4></h4>


    The man epted this statement, nodded, a trace of worry appearing between his eyebrows. He said in a low voice, “This is also the first time I’ve encountered this situation. This … is very strange.”


    Yes. The instance this time was indeed extremely strange. It was important to keep in mind that originally, the instances were essentially situated indoors, the windows and doors tightly locked shut, and there was no way to escape.


    Yet this time…


    Mo Yi slowly looked around the entire space. Dark nothingness filled as far as the eye could reach. The boundless darkness twisted, squirming with malice and danger, surrounding the tform they were on.


    This time, the instance unexpectedly was in a semi-open space.


    The ground under their feet was soft with loess, and the entire tform seemed to be floating in boundless darkness, as if submerged in a pitch-dark sea without light, so dense that it was almost substantial, and the pressure made one almost suffocate.


    And in the middle of the tform stood a tall, crooked building.


    It appeared to be very old. The crooked and strange architectural style seemed to make one feel ufortable. There was even a dent on the old and dust covered roof on which dust fell.


    The whole building looked odd in every way and was almost entirely out of line with normal house structures, practically making one amazed at how it hadn’t copsed yet. It also made it impossible for the people standing in front of the house to fully view the house.


    Gray ss covered the windows. They appeared to be filled with malice as they spied on the outside of the house. The porch door was half open, the interior pitch-ck, as if quietly whispering something, waiting for prey to arrive.


    — And Mo Yi and the others were standing in the open space in front of the house’s porch.


    There were still yers being sent into the instance one after another. Their figures, almost as if out of thin air, appeared in the darkness. Aside from the few quick eyed ones who stood, each and every one, like Mo Yi, were caught off guard and fell.


    Mo Yi watched motionlessly on the surface, silently counting in his mind.


    Although he knew that each yer was teleported into the instance at a different time, this was the first time he saw other yers being teleported into the instance.


    Mo Yi’s eyes subtly narrowed, pitch-ck eyes gloomy.


    Before long, the teleportation of yers ended.


    Looking at the various bewildered or frightened facial expressions of the yers, Mo Yi, finding joy in the sorrows, thought: This open spaced instance had an upside — It was unlikely for there to be noisy Neers again.


    After all, this room and strange house that was floating in the darkness truly went beyondmon sense. Nobody could brainlessly regard this game as a prank.


    This time, since everyone was sent to the same ce, there was no need to gather again. Thus, the ethereal voice of the game soon sounded, “Hello. Wee everyone to therge-scale live escape game: STAY ALIVE.”


    The female voice encircled the entire pitch-ck, ice-cold space, sounding extraordinarily strange and frightening, “Your only task is to survive for 7 hours in the old house. The following are clues for you:


    Born on a Monday, Christened on Tuesday, Married on Wednesday, Took ill on Thursday, Grew worse on Friday, Died on Saturday, Buried on Sunday. That was the end of Solomon Grundy.


    Wish you a happy game.”


    The t, straightforward, and unfeeling mechanical voice slowly recited the sentences with a rhythmic feel, and in such an environment, it couldn’t help but make people shudder with fear.


    Mo Yi was taken aback.


    This clue … he had heard it in passing. It was a 19th Century English nursery rhyme and it had been widely circted.


    Mo Yi’s brows furrowed, head raised to look up at the patch of emptiness that wrapped around the tform, only to see that after the female voice fell, from the pitch-ck sky that was devoid of light, a familiar fluorescent blue countdown emerged:


    6: 59: 56


    Solomon Grundy’s life was only seven days long. And this time, their time for survival happened to be seven hours …


    — Could there be any intrinsic connections here?


    He took a deep breath, suppressing the countless questions that arose in his mind. Then, he raised his eyes and looked at the yer’s varying facial expressions.


    There were 17 yers in total this time.


    The proportion of Seniors was not low. There were at least ten people.


    Mo Yi’s lips pursed, brows somewhat furrowed in doubt.


    Although there were a lot of Senior’s this time … There were still Neers mixed in.


    Before entering the game, Mo Yi had two guesses about this instance. One was that the entire instance was the Membership Test instance, and the participants were all candidates for membership in the Advanced yers Club.


    The second was that this was a very difficult instance. Unlucky Neers and Seniors were sent in. Candidates whopleted the instance became Senior members of the club while the other yers who were not candidates for membership still had their ounts settled with a reward for having passed a high difficulty instance.


    — Since there were Neers in this instance, the first guess was obviously overturned.


    So… was it the second?


    Mo Yi’s heart was a little inexplicably uneasy.


    The few Neers who were sent in were all dumbfounded, staring at the bizarre space that exceededmon sense, their wide-opened eyes filled with the fear of the unknown.


    Panic was spreading and taking root in the crowd, expanding, and upying every gap, squeezing every breathable wisp of air.


    At this moment, a Senior woman stepped forward and broke the stagnant atmosphere.


    She was tall and slender, faint impatience between her delicate and pretty eyebrows, mouth opened to speak to the group of trembling Neers, “Firstly, this game is real. Dying in the game is the same as dying in reality. Secondly, I suggest you pay attention to the clues given by the game. It can save your life.”


    She paused, her sharp eyes looked around the quiet tform, and continued, “The other thing is, it’s better not to act alone.”


    Her voice fell. As if a switch had been turned on, a low sob rang out from the crowd. The Senior frowned, a bit annoyed, not saying anything more, and turned to look up and down at the crooked house in the middle of the tform.


    The other Seniors also separated one after another and searched for clues on the narrow tform.


    Mo Yi also followed after everyone, slowly walking around the house.


    Only, it was just an overgrown and barrennd on which several withered trees with crooked necks were nted, short and yellowed, its thin bony branches flushed with a dead ash grey, stabbing up into the sky.


    There was a crooked path on the bleak and deste soft loess ground, extending from the edge of the entire tform and emerging abruptly from the darkness, and then curving to join the house’s crooked porch.


    The whole surface area of the tform was not veryrge. It didn’t take long for everyone to have walked everywhere.


    Aside from a clearer understanding of the outside of the crooked and shapeless house, nothing else was gained.


    One after another, everyone couldn’t help but cast their sight to the house that stood in the middle of the entire tform.


    It stood there quietly. On the oddly shaped porch, the shabby door was half opened, revealing a dark corner.


    It was as if it was waiting for something.


    The Senior man who had spoken to Mo Yi a moment ago said, “… Now, there’s no other choice but to go inside.”


    A panicked, and stifling ambience filled the air within the crowd. Some people nearly had a nervous breakdown from the eerie and horrific pressure. A female Neer shouted, somewhat hysterical, “No! No way! I’m definitely not going in there!”


    The low sounds of weeping from earlier resumed and several Neers subconsciously drew close, nodding one after another. One of the bolder looking Neers asked a little timidly, “Anyway … Anyway, it’s enough to live for seven hours in this game. So, wouldn’t it be okay if we stayed outside for seven hours?”


    The tall Senior woman sneered. “Whatever you want.”


    After that, she turned around and walked towards the house’s porch.


    Other Seniors and some Neers also followed her into the house.


    Three Neers hesitated, but nevertheless chose to stay outside.


    While walking, Mo Yi’s eyes searched aimlessly around the house.


    Suddenly, from out of the corners of his eyes — A blurry, distorted face was tightly pressed against the ss in the second-floor window, quietly looking at the crowd downstairs.


    A chill ran down Mo Yi’s back, and the hairs on his body instantly stood up.


    He hurriedly returned his eyes to the window.


    There wasn’t anything by the gray window. An intact handprint on the ss was slowly fading away.


    <strong>Trantor’s Note:</strong> Hi everyone! I’ve decided to change the term for the game “copy” to “instance.” I thought that might make more sense than copy. I haven’t made the changes to the past chapters. This will be done at ater time. I’ll change it back if a lot of people prefer “copy” over “instance.” Thank you for all for reading and for thements!