Chapter 1 What Can Ten Thousand Yuan Do in Modern Society?

Buy one-twentieth of a toilet in the center of Yin City?

Enjoy three consecutive days at a bathhouse?

Buy a room full of chive boxes and lie in them?

Yesterday, Li Ang said one true thing to the possessing ghost: he really did work as a tutor, and because of his grades, the pay was quite good.

However, Yin City is, after all, the economic center of the Republic, an international hub for finance, shipping, trade, and technological innovation. Consumption is high, everything is expensive, and it's not easy to live here.

His tutoring salary barely covers rent, utilities, internet, and daily expenses. Spending even a little extra could lead to a financial crisis.

Normally, Li Ang would haggle over every penny when buying a bundle of noodles. Suddenly receiving over ten thousand yuan in cash, he naturally had to plan carefully.

He opened Taobao and started shopping.

CQB bulletproof tactical vest, stab-resistant gloves, anti-fragmentation goggles, built-in knee pads, all-black tactical pants, tactical boots, high-intensity flashlight, pepper spray, stun gun, seamless steel pipe, camping hatchet, Cold Steel Mini Lawman folding knife, nail gun, high-strength yacht rope, empty oil drums, various machine tools including a small press, junior high school lab equipment including beakers and alcohol lamps, copper, wood, chemical fertilizers, motorcycle shock absorber tubes...

He used different Taobao accounts to purchase these items, and the shipping addresses were scattered throughout Yin City. All the items, pieced together, just managed to use up the ten thousand yuan.

While waiting for the items to be delivered, Li Ang didn't idle. With the spirit of "better safe than sorry," he searched the internet for local urban legends in Yin City.

Players can only receive rewards by completing tasks, and the best way to trigger tasks is to investigate on-site and personally come into contact with the real events of horror and the supernatural.

Things like strange laughter echoing in apartment building corridors in the middle of the night, green mucus seeping out of rental apartment walls, and long strands of hair appearing under a lonely guy's pillow every day.

In the past few days, Li Ang visited many locations where these supernatural events were said to have occurred, but to no avail. He didn't know if these events were purely fictional or had already been resolved by other players.

Li Ang was also confused about whether supernatural events arose around players as the Killing Game developed, or if supernatural events occurred randomly and attracted players.

The former would be easier to deal with, but the latter would be terrible—who knew how many supernatural events had already occurred and hadn't been discovered by players or the state apparatus?

The number of victims in that case would be terrifying...

Finally, Li Ang arrived at the very center of all urban legends in Yin City—Qianhua Road.

This road is located in the People's Square area of central Yin City and is one of the city's most prosperous commercial streets.

At the beginning of the last century, this street was included in the French Concession, and a large-scale, heavily French-style high-end residential area was built. With the outbreak of the October Revolution, Tsarist nobles fleeing from the north opened high-end shops here that extolled French culture.

Times have changed, and the world has shifted. Today, Qianhua Road still retains its luxurious and elegant atmosphere. Ancient buildings that have been passed down for a hundred years are integrated with modern, top-tier international luxury stores, creating a world-class commercial street.

In short, land on Qianhua Road is worth its weight in gold.

On a street next to Qianhua Road, on the top floor of a shopping mall, in a coffee shop, Li Ang held a cup of the cheapest coffee in the shop and sat by the window, looking at the news videos on his phone while gazing at Qianhua Road below through the glass.

Warning signs had already been placed at both ends of the road. The shops on both sides of the street were closed, and all loiterers had been evacuated. Only maintenance workers in orange uniforms and fire trucks remained on the street.

"Yesterday at around 3 p.m., a gas pipeline leak occurred on Qianhua Road. Maintenance personnel were dispatched to the scene for emergency repairs, and traffic police and fire departments also implemented temporary blockades on the corresponding sections of the road and took water spraying measures to dilute the gas on the road surface."

"As of now, the leakage risk has been basically brought under control, and the specific time for the road section to be unblocked still needs to wait for further notice from the fire department."

Gas pipeline leak? Tell that to the ghosts.

Li Ang shook his head. Qianhua Road is lined with either large shopping malls, headquarters of Fortune 500 companies, or internationally renowned luxury goods stores. Saying that this street is a treasure trove that brings in money every day is no exaggeration.

Money makes the world go round. If it really was a fire mission, the crisis would probably have been quickly resolved and the road unblocked under the dual pressure of economy and administration.

The fact that it has been blocked for so long without any sign of being unblocked means that it can only be related to supernatural forces...

Li Ang took a sip of coffee and watched the "maintenance workers" on Qianhua Road discuss for a while before bringing in a... super-large rotary drilling rig.

This type of drilling rig weighs at least a hundred tons, has a drilling diameter of 1 to 2.5 meters, and can drill to a depth of 100 meters. It is generally used for extra-large bridge piles for highways and railways.

And now, the behemoth drilling rig was turning its tracks and driving recklessly onto the commercial street. After the maintenance personnel buried the casing, the drill bit gently touched the concrete surface and began to rotate and excavate with a roar.

One meter, two meters...

The drill bit slowly descended, the noise cut across the street, and the ground vibration spread around. The coffee on Li Ang's table rippled.

Forty meters, sixty meters, eighty meters...

Gas pipelines definitely can't be buried so deep. What are they digging?

Li Ang quietly put on his sunglasses and casually inserted the cat-eye lenses into his eye sockets.

With a little added perception attribute, coupled with the visually sharp cat-eye lenses, it was enough for Li Ang to observe every move of the maintenance personnel frame by frame.

Boom!

The gradually sinking drill bit suddenly stopped, and Ding Zinsi, the driver in the rotary drilling rig, was startled.

Twenty-year-old Ding Zinsi is an outstanding graduate of the Lanxiang Vocational School in Qilu Province, famous for "which school is the best for excavator technology." He can use CNC machine tools to arrange flowers, use the excavator's shovel to stir-fry dishes, and drift an F1 car with a hand-held tractor.

He is a veteran of many battles, and if the Republic had a Gundam unit, Ding Zinsi would definitely be a gold medal pilot.

But now, Ding Zinsi was holding the control handle of the rotary drilling rig, feeling a little overwhelmed.

"Is the drill bit at the bottom?!" A colleague's voice came from the intercom hanging from the top of the cab.

"No!" Ding Zinsi took the intercom and said, "It seems to be stuck! We should use a small impact drill cone to clear the drill cones around the drill cone, and then pull the drill cone out..."

Before he could finish speaking, another loud noise came from the ground.

Boom!

Ten meters underground, a huge force tugged at the drill bit. The immense power was transmitted along the telescopic drill rod, causing the giant rotary drilling rig, weighing over a hundred tons, to suddenly lift up above the ground and slowly tilt forward, as if in a slow-motion movie.

The surrounding maintenance personnel were dumbfounded, watching the entire drilling rig fall over.

The hundred-ton weight slammed onto the ground, the roar was deafening, and dust flew everywhere.

The steel and iron bones of the rotary drilling rig were twisted and deformed. Relying on his survival instincts, Ding Zinsi, who was shaken senseless, climbed out of the shattered cab and fell to the ground.

The nearby maintenance personnel hurriedly stepped forward to drag him away, retreating backward.

Most of the drill rod of the fallen rotary drilling rig remained underground. As the third loud noise came from the ground, the long drill rod, painted with red paint, was actually dragged into the ground, disappearing without a trace!

It was as if... something underground was angry because it was disturbed...

Inside the coffee shop, the young men and women who heard the loud noise gathered by the glass window, pointing and filming videos of the smoky Qianhua Road.

Hidden in the crowd, Li Ang withdrew his gaze, drank the coffee on the table in one gulp, went downstairs, and left.

Whatever was deep underground on Qianhua Road was not something he could afford to provoke at the moment.

You have to fight monsters one level at a time, and do missions one by one. Being too ambitious will only lead to a faster death.