DipNovel Chapter 44 When Casual Players Meet Hardcore Players
Chapter 44 When Casual Players Meet Hardcore Players
Lu Dan opened his eyes and saw that the ceiling was no longer a corridor covered with human skins, but his own ceiling light.
"I'm back." He touched his ribs, which were intact. Only the faint chill in his left ankle reminded him that the bloody party with human skin flying everywhere was definitely not a nightmare.
The phone screen lights up at the appropriate time:
Settlement complete.
[Screenplay: The Abandoned School Building]
[Rating S (Disruptor of Order)]
[Received 600 points of compensation (including base salary, performance bonus, and special contribution award)]
[Current Level: Trainee Screenwriter (4/5 scenes)]
600 points is a small fortune, enough for him to arm himself as a low-level charlatan.
Lu Dan's gaze was quickly locked onto the rating column—4/5.
Lu Dan raised an eyebrow: "Even if my math was taught by a PE teacher, I still remember that before entering university, it was 1/5 of a game, one game equals three games? Is this considered a skipping grade reward? Or is it that I demolished that lousy school, and the system is afraid I'll demolish two more, so it wants to kick me into the official system as soon as possible?"
He wasn't in a hurry to squander his points. To him, points were like a reserve health bar, meant to be used wisely.
Ding-dong! The social bubble in the bottom right corner of the app popped up.
Lin Xiaoxiao: [Are you still alive, big star?]
Lu Dan: [Just came back to life, so I'm about to order takeout to celebrate, at least I didn't turn into a human skin specimen.]
Lin Xiaoxiao: [Okay, let's eat out tomorrow. I'm in Anshi, and Chef Bao will be there too. Let's meet up in person and talk about the post-mortem analysis.]
Lu Dan stared at the words "Anshi," his pupils contracting slightly. This was too much of a coincidence.
Lu Dan: [Okay, time and place.]
After replying to the message, he immediately switched to the app, opened the search engine, and his fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Anshi paranormal events", "Anshi missing persons", "murder mystery game designer dies suddenly".
The internet is a huge dumping ground, but with patience, you can always find some bloody scraps of cloth.
Ten minutes later, he stumbled upon a buried post on an extremely obscure local forum for ghost stories.
Is Anshi experiencing a year of bad luck lately? Two friends of mine who work in the murder mystery game industry have gone missing, saying they went out of town for research, but I have a bad feeling about it.
There were very few replies below, most of which were just spamming "prosperity, democracy, civility, and harmony." But a few replies caught the attention of the mainland supporters.
"I've heard about that too. There was this guy who wrote supernatural web novels, and he died halfway through. Is it some kind of new pyramid scheme?"
Lu Dan tried searching several other surrounding cities, but nothing happened. Not to mention the missing paranormal designer, even the loss of a cat could make headlines.
Only Anshi.
Lu Dan leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.
It seems this is not a global public beta test, but rather a test server set up in Anshi.
The city is sick.
......
The next day at noon, the sun was shining brightly, almost blindingly so.
Lu Dan stood in front of the mirror and carefully straightened his collar. These days, even if you're seeing a ghost, you have to dress presentably, let alone when you're meeting your teammates.
He chose a decent-quality dark gray trench coat to slightly conceal the unusual appearance of his left ankle. He looked like a melancholic author heading to a book signing, showing no signs of having just spent the night among corpses.
"Xie Shui" restaurant is a stylish private kitchen in Anshi, known for its high prices.
The waiter led Lu Dan into the innermost private room. He pushed open the door and saw a man and a woman sitting inside, which gave him a sense of absurdity, as if he were in another world.
Lin Xiaoxiao was wearing a white cashmere sweater, looking petite and cute, like a girl next door. This was the first time he had seen Lin Xiaoxiao like this, and it was hard to associate her with the ruthless character she played in the script.
The middle-aged man sitting opposite him, wearing a faded jacket and fidgeting with his teacup, was undoubtedly Bao Ping, his slightly weathered face etched with shrewdness.
"Hey, security captain, you're way more handsome in person than the beggar in the script."
Lin Xiaoxiao put down her chopsticks, smiled, and invited Lu Dan to sit down. Her familiar tone instantly broke the awkwardness.
"Teacher Lin, you flatter me. It's mainly because I wasn't being strangled by someone, so my complexion is naturally better."
Lu Dan pulled out a chair and sat down, casually tossing his pack of good cigarettes onto the table and pushing it to Bao Ping across from him.
Bao Ping was taken aback for a moment, then accepted the gift with a somewhat flattered air: "Hey, you've gone to all this trouble. Brother Lu, with your air of sophistication, you're definitely destined for great art."
The dishes were served quickly, all of them so exquisite that one hesitated to even pick up their chopsticks.
"Let's get down to business first."
Lin Xiaoxiao took a sip of tea, and the smile on her face faded slightly.
"This meal was actually an apology banquet, and the manuscript 'The Abandoned School Building' was actually my promotion manuscript."
"Promotion to Bachelor's degree?" Bao Ping's hand, which was picking up food, paused, and he looked surprised. "Officially promoted to Senior?"
Lu Dan poured himself a glass of water and casually answered for Lin Xiaoxiao, "If you're going from trainee to full-time, or from full-time to senior, we'd be eating offerings in the morgue right now, not having this private kitchen."
"Probationary to full-fledged employee?" Bao Ping's voice rose several octaves, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.
"Don't be ridiculous, is it really that difficult to get promoted from trainee? Three bosses, plus a disgusting setting like spatial displacement. This is the difficulty of a B+ level script."
Lin Xiaoxiao frowned, somewhat puzzled: "Is it that difficult? The lowest grade of scripts I've ever worked with is C+."
"Pfft!" Bao Ping spat out a mouthful of tea. He frantically wiped the table, then took out his phone, opened the app interface, and shoved it in front of the two of them.
[ID: Bao Ping (a script designer who likes to repair things)]
[Level: Formal Screenwriter (4/7 scenes)]
"See that? I'm a full-fledged screenwriter." Bao Ping looked at me like I'd seen an alien. "My initial promotion script was just a C+ level haunted apartment, where two teammates died. And you call that an apprenticeship?"
The air in the private room suddenly became quiet.
Lu Dan put down his water glass, his eyes turning somewhat amused: "Master Bao, how many games will it take you to advance one level?"
"Five games, we still need to accumulate enough points," Bao Ping said matter-of-factly.
Lu Dan and Lin Xiaoxiao exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of seriousness in each other's eyes.
"My first scene was a B-grade script," Lu Dan said calmly. "And after this scene, my progress bar jumped three steps, and it's now 4/5."
"What?" Bao Ping was completely dumbfounded, his mouth agape for a long time.
"Skip a grade? Do you own this app?"
Lin Xiaoxiao sighed: "Master Bao, it seems we're playing different versions of the game. You're playing the regular player version, while Lu Dan and I, those unlucky ones, might have been assigned to the hellish beta server."
Lu Dan nodded. No wonder Bao Ping's performance in the script, though seasoned, always had a sense of composure that, while fearful, was not yet hopeless.
It turns out that he had been smurfing in low-elo games and was suddenly pulled into high-elo games, and he hadn't adjusted yet.
"Let's not talk about that anymore. Since the versions are different, Lu Dan, you'd better listen carefully to what comes next."
Lin Xiaoxiao tapped the table, drawing their attention back. Her expression turned serious.
"I've been promoted and am now a full-fledged screenwriter. The system has unlocked some new permissions for me and also told me the rules for the next stage."
She stared into Lu Dan's eyes and said, word by word, "Lu Dan, you're about to be promoted. Remember, once you become a full-fledged screenwriter, you'll be dealing with more than just ghosts and monsters."
"What does that mean?" A sense of foreboding rose in Lu Dan's heart.
"A confrontational script." Lin Xiaoxiao uttered these four words with a chilling undertone.
"From the formal screenwriting stage, on set, two or even more design teams may be randomly matched to work on the same script."
"Our mission is no longer just to survive or solve the mystery." She gestured with her finger across her neck, "We also have to botch their act, or just kill them off."