Triggering a Rule

The man’s attention was fixed entirely on the monstrosity woman in front of him. He didn’t notice the comments wailing in despair at all.

His newcomer companion was huddled behind the sofa, trembling and too scared to make a sound. They were completely stunned by the man’s actions.

After the window was opened, just as the man had expected, the woman slowly poked her head through it and looked around the living room. After a brief inspection, she slowly withdrew, a fixed smile on her face. “She really isn’t here.”

“I told you she wasn’t in my house.” Seeing the woman pull her head back through the window, he let out a small sigh of relief and hurried forward to close it, still swaggering as he spoke. “Now that you’ve seen the living room, you should apologize to me, ugly woman.”

The woman chuckled. The instant the man approached the window, she suddenly reached out and grabbed him by the collar.

The man shuddered in fright. He’d been somewhat wary, and his reaction was lightning-fast: he pulled a knife from his clothes and cut through the collar she’d grabbed. Then he scrambled backward in panic and fell to the floor, his face deathly pale.

“Hehehe... What a pity.” The woman narrowed her eyes and pinched the tattered collar in her hand. Her lips curled, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. “I was this close to biting your head off.”

The man’s face turned ashen. He’d been badly frightened. If he hadn’t cleared a few instances, stayed on his guard, and reacted quickly, he might already have been eaten.

He gasped for breath, gradually calming down. But when he thought of how he’d just been scared into scrambling away in front of every player in town, his anger flared again. Now that he was far enough away for the woman to be unable to grab him, he began cursing her from the floor. “You damn woman! If you’ve got the guts, come in here and bite me! If you want to bite your grandpa’s head, you’d better make sure your neck’s long enough!”

“I’ve cleared plenty of instances. What kind of monstrosity haven’t I seen? You think I’m scared of an ugly woman who looks like she’s been dead and unburied for four or five days?!”

As he shouted, the woman’s smile twisted. Her sharp nails scraped at the windowsill, and her grin stretched wider and wider. Fury was hard to conceal in her eyes. “All right.”

She was already angry after Yin Xiu had gotten the better of her. Now someone else dared to provoke her to her face. This player was nowhere near as cautious as the last one.

As the woman’s laughter grew more excited and frenzied, she slowly pushed her head through the window. Cracking sounds came from the joint where her neck connected to her body as her flesh twisted and stretched. Her neck visibly grew longer, extending as her head drew closer and closer to the man on the floor.

When the man realized something was wrong, he turned in a panic and tried to run.

He had barely gotten to his feet when a huge mouth behind him lunged down and bit him in one snap. Blood splattered across the living room floor.

His headless body swayed, still poised to flee, then slowly toppled to the floor.

“Aaaaaah!” Their newcomer companion inside the house broke down in terrified sobs. They scrambled into the room where the little girl was locked away and bolted the door behind them.

The woman pulled her head back through the window, and it settled neatly onto her shoulders. She twisted her neck, making it crack, but apart from the blood covering her face, her body was unchanged.

“That tasted awful.” A swallowing sound came from the woman’s throat. Her bloodshot eyes were full of disgust. She paid no more attention to the other player hiding in the room and slowly walked away.

Players in towns across the various planes were stunned by what they’d just seen.

The first player to get into trouble had heard someone tapping at the window and opened the curtains. He hadn’t realized the rule in time, and the woman had seen the little girl playing in the living room.

The woman’s head had burst through the window and killed the little girl. The player had panicked, fled through the door, and then died because the little girl’s death meant he’d broken a rule.

After that, the woman had been thwarted by Yin Xiu and left in frustration.

Imitating Yin Xiu’s approach had been the right move, but that man clearly hadn’t taken this beginner instance seriously. He was far too arrogant. Even after avoiding danger, he’d gone out of his way to provoke her, and it cost him his life.

His death prompted the players watching the live streams to quickly message the players still alive in their own towns, telling them what to do.

Players inside an instance can see the comments, so leaving them on can sometimes bring them strategy tips from outside, which is helpful. However, players can only see comments from their own town, not other towns, while players back in town can see everyone’s screen in the current instance.

That means players in other towns can watch other people’s screens, figure out the strategy, and pass it on to players from their own town. For this kind of real-time guidance to work across concurrent instances, there has to be an expert who encounters the problem before everyone else and knows what to do.

Clearly, Yin Xiu was that big shot.

Players can also freely block the comments. Sometimes unreliable remarks can affect the mindset of players in an instance, so they can choose to turn them off and stop seeing any comments.

Very few players choose to do that. After all, the benefits of receiving outside help outweigh the drawbacks.

Yin Xiu was one of those few.

“That player died horribly.”

“He deserved it. He copied Yin Xiu’s homework, so how did he still manage to get himself killed?”

“Still, his death helped the others survive. Everyone’s cleaning up their houses now, hiding the little girl and her things so the woman can’t see them and get suspicious.”

“Yin Xiu was caught off guard when he took the lead, but he handled it pretty well.”

“Mostly because he wasn’t scared and kept a clear head. Why wasn’t there a big shot like Yin Xiu in my instance?”

“Yeah... I kind of want to be Yin Xiu’s roommate. Then he could carry me through the instance.”

“You should think that through. Don’t forget who made the rules for the whole town. If that person said you can’t be Yin Xiu’s roommate, then you can’t. Don’t go looking for trouble.”

“But he never said why we couldn’t! He just told everyone in town to stay away from Yin Xiu. If I’d known Yin Xiu was such a big shot, I would’ve made friends with him. Just look at his current roommate—useless, just sitting in the corner.”

“Heh, buddy, take my advice. Our town sticks together, and there are very few sudden player deaths because of his rules. If he says you can’t be Yin Xiu’s roommate, then you can’t. Don’t question it.”

“So why can’t we? Are you bullying newcomers who don’t know the story and speaking in riddles on purpose?”

The comments started arguing.

After learning who Yin Xiu was and watching how he handled his instance, the townspeople began to split into factions. Some of those who had kept their distance from him tried to befriend this unassuming big shot who just wanted to take it easy, while others followed the town’s rules and continued to stay away from him.

The two sides began arguing back and forth, and things quickly became impossible to sort out.

Then a comment drifted by softly: “Everyone, I’m new here... I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who exactly is this ‘he’ you’re all talking about?”

“Have you read the rules sheet distributed in town?”

“I have. I know it by heart.”

“The notes on the back of the rules sheet were written by him. He’s the manager of our town, and a player too, but he’s usually in and out of instances working on strategies, so he rarely stays in town.”

“He was the one who made the rule telling everyone to stay away from Yin Xiu, a long time ago.”

“Do you know why Yin Xiu still lives alone to this day?”

“Because everyone who broke that rule died.”