Chapter 1 The Beginning

“Among this group, it seems my level is the lowest...”

Li Ang thought to himself, "If players really can't harm each other in cooperative missions, then encountering a veteran is a good thing. At least I can get a lot of information."

Xing Hechou saw that everyone had opened up their player information and felt relieved. He said with a smile, "Very good. Mutual trust among team members is a good start to completing the mission.

Let's start with introductions. I've done four regular missions and two script missions. I specialize in close combat and emergency medicine. You can call me Lao Xing."

With this example, Wanli Fengdao introduced himself, "I use a long sword and know a little martial arts. I'm good at assassination. You can call me Little Knife Bro."

Little Knife Bro.... Li Ang glanced at Wanli Fengdao's greasy middle-aged face with a wretched beard and said nothing.

Seeming to notice Li Ang's strange gaze, Wanli Fengdao's mouth twitched, and he glared and said, "What are you looking at? What's wrong with calling me bro? I'm also a 90s kid."

What?

Xing Hechou couldn't help but glance at Wanli Fengdao a couple of times. The monk widened his eyes in disbelief, and even the silent cold-faced woman cast a glance.

"I really am a 90s kid!" Wanli Fengdao said anxiously and angrily, "It's just that I look a little more mature."

A little? That's at least 20 years overloaded, right? People would believe you if you said you were forty-two or three.

Leaving aside the appearance of Wanli Fengdao, the little monk put his palms together and said, "This humble monk is Huibing and has some strength."

Huibing? I'm also paomo.

Wanli Fengdao complained inwardly, looking at Huibing's delicate face, red lips, and white teeth, his heart skipped a beat. He coughed and said, "So, you really are a monk?"

"Genuine." Huibing smiled. The well-placed smile and slightly raised corners of his eyes made Wanli Fengdao feel a chill run down his spine, and he subconsciously turned his face away.

This monk is toxic.

The cold-faced woman in night clothes said, "Liu Wudai, uses a bow."

Her voice was very nice, her tone was steady, concise, and indifferent.

It was Li Ang's turn. He pushed the mask on his face and said,

"Hello everyone, I'm a personal mercenary Meihouwang (Monkey King) who has been practicing for two and a half years. I like to sing, dance, and rap. Speaking of Meihouwang, the African warlord melee movie will be released in the second half of this year. I will continue to play Meihouwang Sun Wukong, and use the artistic image of the Monkey King to create a positive image, promote both literature and art, and promote Chinese culture..."

Li Ang was eloquent and couldn't stop once he started. Xing Hechou hurriedly called a stop and said awkwardly, "Uh... Brother Li, you don't need to say so much, just introduce your strengths."

Although everyone wouldn't share all their real information, you're the first one I've seen bragging so openly.

What a freaking Monkey King.

"Is that so?" Li Ang had prepared a lot of self-introductions just now, and he was very disappointed that he couldn't use them. He pouted and said, "My little finger is particularly long."

With that, Li Ang stretched out his palm, clenched his four fingers, and revealed his little finger.

Xing Hechou's eyes twitched. "Not this."

"My fourth toe on my left foot is particularly long." Li Ang prepared to take off his boots to prove himself.

Are you kidding me?

Xing Hechou took a deep breath and stopped Li Ang from taking off his boots, feeling his blood pressure index soaring. "Not this either."

"Oh, my beep—is particularly long."

"Please don't be obscene, thank you. And why are you adding sound effects to yourself?"

If it weren't for the Special Affairs Bureau requiring field personnel to recruit and absorb civilian players as much as possible, Xing Hechou would probably have used force to subdue this "companion" who was suspected of being mentally ill.

Li Ang's feigning madness wasn't just because of his personal bad taste.

It was also because he suspected that Xing Hechou, a veteran player whose style of acting resembled a soldier and who could produce professional-grade unmanned reconnaissance records in minutes, had an official background. He deliberately used the jokes to analyze Xing Hechou's behavior and collect information.

"Hmm..." Li Ang frowned and thought for a moment. "I can open my spiritual sense and identify spirits. Does that count as a specialty?"

"Oh?" Xing Hechou's eyes lit up. The special ability to activate spiritual vision was extremely valuable, whether in the real world or in script missions.

"Yes, yes, yes," Xing Hechou smiled. "With this ability, we can foresee supernatural elements in advance and avoid danger to a large extent."

As a professional soldier and a Special Affairs Bureau field agent, Xing Hechou had a responsibility to recruit and absorb civilian players he encountered in cooperative missions. Originally, he thought Li Ang was just a Lv3 newbie player with no help. It seemed that he had to change his strategy...

Main mission updated: Go to Zhi Han Temple within ten minutes.

The system prompt sounded in everyone's ears, and Xing Hechou's expression changed slightly, "10 minutes? Everyone, I don't know who is better at scouting?"

"I am." Wanli Fengdao walked unhurriedly to a big tree by the roadside, looked up at the treetops, took a light breath, and stepped lightly on the yellow earth road with his flip-flops.

The whole person jumped into the air, and his ten fingers were like extremely sharp mountaineering ice axes, deeply embedded in the tree trunk.

Wood chips flew everywhere. Wanli Fengdao was like a nimble ape, using his hands and feet together, and climbed to the treetops in a few strokes. After looking around, he quickly slid down the trunk, patted the dirt in his hand, and said calmly,

"Go west along this road for about seven hundred meters. There is a dilapidated temple at the foot of the mountain, which should be the mission location. There is smoke rising behind the low mountain to the east, and there may be an ancient village or something."

"A village?"

Xing Hechou nodded and took out a black small suitcase the size of a briefcase from his backpack.

He placed the suitcase on the ground, turned the combination lock to open it, and inside was a silver-gray drone, as well as a large-capacity battery, spare propellers, and a tablet remote control with a display screen.

Xing Hechou took out the silver-gray drone, placed it on the ground to calibrate its balance, and then picked up the tablet-shaped remote control to operate the drone to take off until it disappeared into the clouds, invisible to the naked eye.

When this highest-level player was operating the drone, he didn't avoid other people's eyes peeking at the remote control screen, and generously shared the screen with everyone.

The high-altitude overhead picture showed an ancient village located on a vast plain. Low adobe tile house buildings with blue bricks and tiles were rising with curling smoke. The entire village was bisected by a ribbon-like river.

With the village as the center, crisscrossing fields spread outward, and the golden light under the setting sun reflected on ten thousand acres of fertile land.

An old man in a straw raincoat, a yellow ox walking on the dirt road, a child running around in old linen clothes with a runny nose, a peasant farmer in a linen shirt and single pants, wearing a turban and sandals, carrying a hoe...

All the elements together weave a picture of ancient rural China.

In the north, you can vaguely see a large ancient city.

The drone slowly flew back, followed the road westward, and came to the foot of the mountain.

At the foot of the mountain was an open and flat open space, in the middle of which was a dilapidated temple. The large open spaces on both sides and behind the temple were overgrown with weeds, but you could vaguely see traces of past cultivation.

The temple didn't cover a large area. The colored paint on the red brick walls outside the temple was mottled and peeling off, and green vines climbed up the wall roots, spreading wantonly.

The blue tiles on the roof were dilapidated and covered with dead leaves.

The road in front of the temple was paved with square blue stone slabs, and two rows of stone lamp posts were placed on both sides of the stone slab road. However, they had been unattended for a long time, and the lamps were full of dust.

On the vermilion door screen, the wooden plaque read "Gu Han Temple" in three large characters.

The drone flew at low altitude, hovering over Gu Han Temple, looking down from a high position.

In the center of the Gu Han Temple courtyard was a white copper pagoda, with a bell tower and a drum tower on the left and right, the Heavenly King Hall in the front, the Great Hero Hall and the Sutra Pavilion in the back, and monk rooms and dining halls on the left and right sides of the central road. The innermost part of the entire building complex was the printing room, the warehouse, and the warehouse with the Changsheng Ku (Longevity Warehouse) sign hanging on it.

Small but complete.

Limited by the scope of reconnaissance, Xing Hechou silently controlled the drone to fly back and put it back in the suitcase. Only then did Wanli Fengdao belatedly realize and said hesitantly, "Um, Lao Xing, don't you have a drone? Why did you still let me climb the tree to observe the surroundings just now?"

It wasn't that Xing Hechou didn't trust Wanli Fengdao. He used the drone to confirm the surrounding terrain and landforms, and to determine the specific age.

The man with the square face smiled and said, "It's not that I don't want to use drones. It's okay if the background of the script mission is modern, but if the background is ancient or another world, there is a high probability that there will be demons and ghosts, and outside cultivators in classical Zhi Guai stories.

Using drones rashly is likely to attract the attention of these supernatural forces in advance, and even cause the plot mission to develop in an unpredictable direction."

As a staff member of the Special Affairs Bureau, Xing Hechou had read a lot of data files left by other players who had performed missions before.

A brainless newbie player, when performing a team cooperation mission with a Tang Dynasty background, presented a laptop computer with Zizhi Tongjian, A History of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties in China, and A History of World Industrial and Agricultural Technology Electronics to Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi.

As a result, the plot began to go berserk. The player was not only treated as a demon and tragically executed, but also introduced the transcendental monks lurking in the Tang Empire, driving thousands of flying swords, traveling thousands of miles overnight, and chasing and killing the player's teammates all the way.

At present, the transcendental power of the Republic of Zhonggong in the real world is not enough to interact with the "script world" used as the background board in the script mission. Even this kind of interaction itself is considered by think tanks to be potentially dangerous.

After all, no one wants to see a Tang Empire that is running into the era of great industry, sending out thousands of steampunk-style mechanical swordsman monks to contact the Republic of the real world...

Therefore, field personnel of the Special Affairs Bureau still need to make self-preservation their primary task, and exploration and interaction are only ranked second.

In plot missions with ancient backgrounds, ghosts, demons, and monsters may appear at any time. You must use modern technology cautiously, and even if you use it, you should minimize the frequency.

No one dared to test the 10-minute time limit given by the system. Xing Hechou quickly put away the drone and led the way, and the group followed the small road westward and soon came to Gu Han Temple at the foot of the mountain.

Although the drone had already scouted it once, when everyone walked closer, they could more clearly appreciate the desolation, dilapidation, coldness, and silence of this temple.

"This ghostly place is enough to be used as a filming location for A Chinese Ghost Story."

Wanli Fengdao stood on the stone slab road, lightly brushed away the accumulated dust in the stone lamp post with his palm, and sneered, "Who of you will go first?"

Xing Hechou glanced at the remaining people. The iceberg beauty named Liu Wudai hadn't said a word from just now until now, the little monk Huibing looked timid and afraid of trouble, and the young man wearing the Monkey King mask was too low in level and looked unreliable no matter how you looked at him.

Heh....

Xing Hechou looked at Li Ang, "Can you see if there is a problem inside?"

Li Ang activated his cat eyes, scanned with his spiritual sense, and shook his head, "I didn't find any problems, but I can't be sure there is no danger."

Xing Hechou nodded.

Everyone watched Lao Xing step onto the blue stone slab and walk step by step to the steps in front of the hall, but then they heard Li Ang say, "Wait a minute!"

Li Ang spoke quickly and urgently, his voice low and serious, startling Wanli Fengdao to draw his long sword, Liu Wudai to draw her compound longbow, Xing Hechou bounced back to his teammates, tightly grasped his long halberd, and blocked Huibing.

A group of people held weapons, stood back to back, and observed the surrounding movements, fearing that enemies would jump out from somewhere.

They still remembered that Li Ang had spiritual sense and was the team's first line of defense against supernatural phenomena.

"Everyone, don't be nervous." Li Ang, surrounded in the center, scratched his head.

"I just saw that Lao Xing's shoelaces were untied, so I reminded him."

Can't you remind him in a lower voice?!

The crowd, who had been startled for nothing, silently put away their weapons and lost the mood to investigate slowly. They followed Lao Xing directly to the front of the temple.

In fact, Li Ang had clearly seen that as Xing Hechou approached, a slender, pale arm without any blood color slowly stretched out from the plaque of Gu Han Temple, hanging down naturally, seeming to grab Xing Hechou's hair and lift him up, while the others had no reaction to this at all.

After Li Ang spoke to remind him, the arm contracted back into the plaque and disappeared—even if Li Ang activated his eyeballs to open his spiritual sense, he couldn't see any traces of the spirit body.

A group of people walked under the plaque, and just as Xing Hechou was about to push open the vermilion gate to enter the temple, an extremely shrill and mournful cry of a woman came from inside the temple.

The woman's cry was sharp and clear as if it was in their ears, as if wronged by flying snow in June, as if holding grievances that were difficult to calm in the world, so miserable and sad that people's scalps tingled and their whole bodies trembled.

The branches and leaves of the trees in the forest moved rapidly, and an evil wind blew, blowing away all the fallen leaves on the bluestone slabs outside the temple. The already rusty door shafts made an astringent "creaking" friction sound, and the vermilion gate, untouched by anyone, slowly opened.

The door was wide open, but the five people under the plaque of Gu Han Temple did not move.

It was because the buildings in the temple had not been repaired for a long time, were dilapidated and desolate, and were silent and eerie. There was no sign of human presence in the temple, and the source of the shrill cry could not be seen.

In the Asian supernatural system, a formless, powerful ghost is always more terrifying than a tangible zombie.

No matter how powerful a zombie is, it can be dealt with by a round of artillery fire,

But powerful ghosts like Kayako from Ju-On, Sadako from The Ring, Hongyi, and Chu Renmei from The Haunted Cop Shop

Tend to create illusions, teleport through walls, distort and tamper with time and space, and have a variety of attack methods that are extremely difficult to prevent, let alone destroy.

"Should we use the drone to search again?" The monk Huibing said softly.

"The 10-minute time limit is almost up. The system said, 'Go to Gu Han Temple'."

Li Ang shook his head, gave a weird laugh, and pushed the door in. The others did not put away their weapons and followed closely behind.

Main mission updated: Survive in Gu Han Temple for seven days, during which you must not leave Gu Han Temple for more than 500 meters.