Chapter 1 Mission Objectives

[First Stage Mission Objective Completed]

[Second Stage Mission Objective: Explore the first floor of the house, find a way to the second floor, and survive.]

The system's notification belatedly rang in his ears.

Li Ang's eyelids twitched, and he inwardly complained, "Explore the house and survive? That means there are deadly dangers inside the house, and more than one, most likely?

With my hands free, and armed with this heavy metal block, your average serial killer isn't a deadly threat anymore.

For the system to remind me to be careful and survive in the house, there are only two possibilities.

Either a realistic type of maniac,

Or a spooky type of vengeful spirit or evil spirit.

The former would be like Jason or Michael Myers, horror movie villains who just can't be killed.

The latter would be like Freddy, Kayako, Annabelle—players with sealed powers can only run if they meet them.

Of course, it could also be that the house itself is a trap. One wrong step and you trigger a deadly mechanism or something..."

Li Ang thought about this, one thing leading to another, and walked forward. He discovered that the metal doorknob of the wooden door in front of the utility room had faint traces of dried water stains. The stains had been there for a while.

And the room had a faint smell of modern cleaning agent.

It should be the house's bathroom.

Li Ang held the heavy metal lock body in his left hand, and gently grasped the doorknob with his right, pressing down.

The doorknob turned downward, but the door didn't open.

Locked from the inside?

Li Ang's heart sank. He quietly took out key A from his pocket and inserted it into the wooden door's lock.

The lock cylinder of the wooden door was also a one-word type, but the size and teeth were different from key A. The key couldn't turn inside.

"Meow~"

A lazy and contented meow came from inside the bathroom, sounding somewhat muffled through the wooden door.

Immediately afterward, there was a turbid sound similar to chewing and swallowing.

A cat?

Eating something in the bathroom?

A large number of fragmented images immediately popped up in Li Ang's memory palace.

A man shouting "Give it an oli-give, bottoms up!" in the bathroom,

Nick Fury, the black director of S.H.I.E.L.D., wearing an eye patch and angrily cursing "Are you a furry?",

A宅男shouting "Transform!"...

Wait, what kind of stuff am I remembering?

Li Ang shook his head, throwing the messy images to the back of his mind. He pushed the bathroom door very slightly, but couldn't move it.

After confirming that he couldn't open the door silently, Li Ang didn't disturb the cat inside. He directly pulled out key A, took half a step back,

And lay down on the ground in the hallway, peering into the bathroom.

The lights weren't on in the bathroom, and he couldn't see anything clearly, but there seemed to be another smell besides air freshener.

The smell of blood.

"..."

Li Ang got up from the ground.

While examining the wooden bathroom door, he had been paying attention to the sounds coming from the direction of the dining room and living room.

The television there seemed to be malfunctioning, continuously making a "shasha shasha" sound.

And this "shasha shasha" sound was intermittent,

As if someone was constantly pressing the remote control buttons,

Seemingly trying to fix the television by changing the channels.

Confirming that there was someone in the direction of the living room,

The most urgent thing was to figure out where this was, and find a weapon for self-defense.

Li Ang quietly took a step, walking along the left side of the hallway. At the corner of the hallway was a potted green萝(luo) plant, growing quite well. The surface of the soil was wet. It had been sprayed with mist today at least.

Turning the corner, Li Ang saw the back door of the house and the sunroom.

The back door was wooden, white, with a round doorknob.

It was locked, and key A couldn't open it.

In the lower half of the wooden door, there was a square pet door, with a semi-transparent rigid plastic curtain hanging on it—some European and American families would specially open a small door on the door so that their pets could come back by themselves after a walk.

Li Ang squatted down and checked it.

The pet door was small, allowing only cats and small to medium-sized dogs to pass through.

At the bottom of the door, there were some black and white cat hairs, probably from the cat in the bathroom.

He reached out to touch the rigid plastic curtain of the pet door, but found that the plastic curtain was as if it was welded to the space, unmoving.

At the same time, a prompt from the system appeared in his vision [Cannot Open]

"Not allowed to pass through?"

Li Ang raised an eyebrow. He didn't know bone reduction techniques, so he couldn't possibly squeeze through such a small door.

The system prompt that he couldn't open it meant that he wasn't allowed to use metal wire or something to pass through the pet door and pull the wooden door open from the outside, thereby directly escaping the house.

"Okay then."

Li Ang stood up from the ground and looked at the sunroom next to the back door.

The floor of the sunroom was carpeted, with several low cloth chairs of different colors, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows with white curtains.

Li Ang walked forward and gently lifted a corner of the white curtain. He saw that the glass floor-to-ceiling windows were tightly closed.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he saw a full moon hanging high in the sky, with stars twinkling.

Outside was a standard American middle- to high-end residential neighborhood backyard, with manicured lawns, trees, and shrubbery hedges adjacent to neighbors.

A handmade swing was also hung on the branches of a large tree in the backyard.

It was late at night,

Perhaps the soundproofing effect of the floor-to-ceiling windows was too strong. Li Ang couldn't hear any sounds from outside, including the chirping of insects, the calls of birds, or the sound of distant vehicles.

The lights in the other neighborhood houses outside the floor-to-ceiling windows were mostly off. Only a few houses had lights on.

In front of some residences, SUVs or sedans were parked, including luxury cars.

It looked like a very ordinary American middle- to high-end neighborhood.

Li Ang gently tapped the floor-to-ceiling window with his finger knuckles. It felt like knocking on a piece of steel. The words [Cannot Open] also appeared in his vision, prompting him that he couldn't pass through.

Okay, what about other places?

Li Ang turned around to look at the sunroom.

This place was obviously used by the homeowner's family to rest and relax. A clock hung on the wall, showing the current time as 1:02 AM.

A huge bookshelf was placed against the wall.

The bookshelf was filled with various books, including but not limited to the Bible, economics, philosophy, psychology, and popular novels.

The surface of the cloth chairs had some pilling, showing signs of frequent use.

An English collection of poems by Han Shan was placed on the seat of one of the chairs. Only the first few pages were filled, and the rest were blank.

Many of the books on the bookshelf were the same.

Only some popular novels and comic books had more pages with content.

In addition to various books, the bookshelf also had some children's toys,

Toy trucks, Lego bricks, anime character figures, Barbie dolls, baseball gloves and hats for children.

"It seems like there is at least one pair of young sons and daughters in this family."

Li Ang scanned these toys and picked up a photo frame from the bookshelf.

The photo frame had a photo of a family of four standing in front of the house.

The wife was dignified and elegant, the husband was handsome, and the children looked very cute. All four were blonde.

Wait, blonde?

Li Ang frowned and gently pulled out a strand or two of hair from his head.

He was very sure that in his own vision, the hair on his bangs was black.

However, after the hair was pulled out, it instantly turned golden—proving that the character he was playing in the script mission was blonde himself.

"Could it be that 'I' am the male owner of this family?

Wearing an expensive suit, earning a lot of money, it does seem like he can afford to buy a house in this high-end neighborhood.

But why was 'I' locked in the utility room?

Where did 'my' wife and children go?"

Li Ang's mind raced, quickly thinking, "Could it be that 'I' cheated and betrayed the family and got caught? Or did robbers break into this house?"

He put the photo frame into his suit pocket and continued forward.

In front of the sunroom was a white wooden door, which also couldn't be opened.

Through observation of other houses in the neighborhood, Li Ang confirmed that the white wooden door connected to the house's garage.

And when he tried to open the garage door, no system prompt appeared in his vision—this meant that the garage door could be opened, but he was still lacking the corresponding method.

"Can't get into the garage yet..."

Li Ang thought for a moment. Standing here, he could faintly hear the "shasha shasha" static from the television in the living room, and no footsteps were heard.

If the utility room where Li Ang came out was the center,

To the left of the utility room were the sunroom, bathroom, and garage.

These three places had already been explored. The bathroom and garage were temporarily inaccessible.

Li Ang squatted on the ground, his back pressed against the wall at the corner of the sunroom hallway, and took out the photo frame from his pocket, slowly extending it past the corner.

Using the reflection on the surface of the photo frame, Li Ang saw a corner of the living room—there was a large sofa and a smaller sofa to the left of the large sofa.

Behind the living room was a hallway extending upward, seemingly leading to the second floor.

But to pass through there, he would definitely be seen by the "person" at the sofa in the living room.

"Seems like there's no other way..."

Li Ang frowned and thought for a moment, then turned around and went back to the sunroom, picking up a children's baseball bat placed next to the bookshelf.

This baseball bat was made of wood, a little light,

But it was better than nothing.

He picked up the baseball bat, returned to the right-hand hallway where the utility room was located, squatted down, and, keeping close to the hallway wall, entered the open kitchen.

Then he took a meat cleaver from the kitchen.

Li Ang held the baseball bat in his left hand and the meat cleaver in his right.

He quietly entered the dining room, keeping close to the dining room wall, and peered into the living room.

From this angle, he could finally see the scene in the living room clearly.

In the living room, there was a low coffee table and three sofas, one large and two small.

A white blanket was draped over the back of the large sofa, and there was a floor lamp next to each of the two small sofas.

Opposite the sofa set was a large-screen television, which was full of static and snow.

"No one?"

Li Ang frowned, tightly gripping the meat cleaver in his hand, bending over, and moving towards the living room in the darkness.

Fizz!

Almost the instant Li Ang reached the back of the sofa and squatted down to hide, the television returned to normal.

A black-haired white man in a suit appeared on the screen,

Speaking in a magnetic voice, delivering the news, "...The wildfire in Paradise, Butte County, Northern California, has become the most destructive fire in California history...

So far, the burned area has exceeded 150,000 acres, with 85 confirmed dead and more than 1,500 missing. Many of the missing are over 65 years old.

More than 10,000 buildings have been destroyed.

Paradise, the town closest to the source of the fire with a population of only 27,000, has been almost completely burned to the ground.

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's investigation, the wildfire was likely caused by power transmission lines in the mountains..."

The sudden sound of the television news report made Li Ang's heart stir.

A serious wildfire did occur in Northern California in the real world, around November of 2018.

Could it be that this script mission is set in the real world?

Or is this script mission taking place in the real world?

Li Ang quietly flicked the kitchen meat cleaver, the time of the California wildfire was around the time this session of the Killing Game officially began.

Theoretically, it was possible to be related to the Killing Game, but it couldn't be 100% confirmed yet.

He was about to listen further to the news report on the television when he heard a very clear sound of pressing buttons from the sofa next to him.

Then, the news report on the television immediately changed channels and started playing a singing and dancing talent show.

Huh?!

Li Ang's pupils shrank. He didn't see anyone on the sofa in the dining room just now.

Unless that person was too short and lying on the sofa, causing Li Ang to be unable to see them from the dining room angle.

Is it the son or daughter of this family?

Just as Li Ang was thinking and hesitating,

The sound of pressing the television remote control buttons came from the sofa again.

The television screen also went from a singing and dancing talent show,

To a news program from another local station, "...Today, a serious car accident occurred in Carmel. A Chevrolet SUV accidentally lost control while driving and crashed into a motorcycle..."

Then, it quickly switched to a cartoon—the sounds in the cartoon were very distinctive, obviously the animated situation comedy *The Simpsons*, produced by American Fox Television, and it was playing Season 7, Episode 8.

After switching to *The Simpsons*, the television stopped switching channels and continued to play without changing.

"..."

Li Ang squatted behind the sofa and waited silently for a moment. *The Simpsons* was still playing on the television, and there were no other sounds from the sofa.

He tightened his grip on the baseball bat in his left hand and the meat cleaver in his right, stamped his feet on the ground, and suddenly straightened up, swinging the knife at the sofa.

Clang!

The sound of metal clashing echoed in the living room.

Li Ang's pupils shrank suddenly.

Since the character he was playing might be the male owner of this family, and there might be a son or daughter in the family on the sofa, Li Ang's knife was just a tentative chop, reserving some strength.

However, before he could completely chop down, the blade was blocked in mid-air.

The source of the block was an arm, an arm from a wooden doll.