A sock wrapped around the knob of a shut door.
That's a universal signal that Chen Mo received and registered almost instantly. Nonetheless, he would ignore that signal for privacy and approach.
It was his roommate, Vincent Trenton's bedroom. Vincent was born into a rich family, privileged since birth. He did twenty years of diddle-daddle to end up right next to Chen Mo anyway; his daddy's connection was just that powerful, and that same daddy's money was very attractive.
"Ah~ Oh~ Oh my god, fuck yes~" some fatherless college girl inside moaned so loudly that Chen Mo didn't even have to strain his ears.
Chen Mo raised his fingers and counted. Damn, this is the seventh voice that echoed from that room for March.
Chen Mo listened with disdain, but also with just a tinge, just a tinge of inescapable envy, as Chen Mo was a twenty-year-old virgin who never felt like he was below average in anything, aside from his rather forgettable physical appearance.
Black hair. Brown eyes. A slender body with barely any muscles to show.
It wasn't that women are visual creatures, but that humans as a whole are visual creatures. Chen Mo blamed this phenomenon on society; all that overstimulation from social media had shattered the concept of realistic expectations. Fuck society.
Nepotism and genetics had placed Vincent so far ahead of Chen Mo that he could never catch up. To that, Chen Mo said 'Fuck society' again.
It wasn't a healthy practice, so Chen Mo eventually retreated from eavesdropping and returned to his own bedroom.
A throbbing pain suddenly invaded the back of his left hand. He'd look down to find the veins on his hand protruding more than ever — almost a centimetre tall from the surface of his skin. His left hand had been like this for that entire day, but he never brought it to a clinic to check.
Chen Mo was the kind of guy that only surrenders to symptoms after they persist for a week. Since it's only been a day, he simply shook the pain off and entered his bedroom. Besides, it was already late at night; it's more convenient to get it check after sleep.
He laid in bed awake, smothered by darkness but unbothered.
The ceiling fan was creaking up above, and Chen Mo counted its rotations until his vision adapted to the darkness.
Except, it never did.
The image of the rotating fan only grew blurrier and blurrier every second, overtaken by splashes of ink gradually settling in from the edges of Chen Mo's field of sight.
Soon, only darkness would remain.
Chen Mo wasn't lying anymore, but he wasn't standing either. He couldn't feel anything, and he didn't have anything. Numbness, that was all Chen Mo could feel; all his senses had been deprived.
He was only a pair of eyes, and those brown eyes were only allowed to observe one thing.
The system. A videogame menu board shining an eerie neon lime.
[You have been invited into the Game!]
Letters began typing themselves onto the board unprompted. Chen Mo couldn't even shut his eyes; he was being forced to watch.
[How would you like to be called?]
The system asked, but Chen Mo didn't know how to answer; he didn't have a mouth. He only thought it, and
[XiaoBai! Got it.]
It was Chen Mo's gamertag.
[What's your gender?]
[Male! Got it.]
Chen Mo barely even thought that answer intentionally.
[What's your sexuality?]
What kind of question is this? Chen Mo would've scratched his head, but he couldn't.
[Straight! Got it.]
[What's your type?]
Chen Mo despised that question. Before pondering an answer, he'd craft up the perfect barrage of insults at the system in his head, knowing full well that the system heard it.
[Kind! Caring! Healthy! Got it.]
It was now that Chen Mo realised: the board was the title screen of the game he was entering. It wasn't eye-catching; one could even say it was designed to be inconspicuous, but on the bottom left corner was the name of the game.
[The Game That Doesn't Exist.]
[Evaluating player's power...]
[Evaluation completed!]
[Power: 8 (F rank)]
Ouch. Chen Mo's sense of touch returned just for a blink of an eye so he could feel the stab in his heart. F rank...
[Entering Game...]
[Loading Beginner Minigame...]
[School of Apparitions]
...
Chen Mo's senses didn't fade in; they invaded his body. The sudden sensory information overload almost made him jolt. He'd realise fresh air has a flavour after not tasting it for so long.
His throat was clogged, with rising liquid asking for a vomit. Chen Mo pressed on his chest to calm himself down, as his eyes slowly fluttered open to the sight of a wooden desk.
His head was propped on his forearm, both resting limp on the desk. Chen Mo was struck by nostalgia of sleeping during class back in high school.
Two soft, delicate hands were grasping his shoulder and shaking gently.
Chen Mo straightened himself to be greeted with more nostalgia; it was high school. The orderly arrangement of wooden desks. The rough, uncomfortable plastic seats. The billowing curtains that were scribbled on with markers or pens. The blackboard with a few incomplete fragments of words written in chalk. The class notice board next to it with solid blocks of words that no one would bother to read.
As the curtains wafted in the presence of breeze, undulating beams of moonlight spilled through and illuminated the otherwise dark classroom.
He turned and found the owner of those hands that were attempting to wake him.
She was wearing her school uniform but in a very modern fashion; a couple of the white shirt's buttons were undone to expose her cleavage, and her gray pleated skirt was folded up to expose her gluteal fold. Thigh-high stockings complemented her curvaceous thighs, and two dusky ribbon decorated her long silver hair.
She had also cut off the sleeves, transforming the dull formal uniform into an erotic sleeveless blouse.
Her eyes shone a mesmerising azure as she spoke, "What are you doing asleep?"
The game's user interface suddenly obstructed the view of Chen Mo's dream girl.
[School of Apparitions.]
[You are an ex student of Theater High School, which is famous for its beautiful campus and horrifying nights. You and your friend, Amelia, decided tonight to raid the haunted facility in an attempt at a romantic date.]
[Final Objective: Escape Theater High School]
[First task: Survive Jack's attack]
The information flashed so quickly that Chen Mo narrowly captured it all before the system vanished again.
"Xiao Bai?" The silver-haired beauty called him by his username. She tilted her head with concern, as her hands reached to caress Chen Mo's cheeks.
There was an arrow pointing downwards next to her forehead.
Chen Mo didn't need to press it; he only needed to think that he was touching it, and the arrow would reverse direction, extending a paragraph of information downwards. It was her NPC profile.
[Name: Amelia Cunningham.]
[Age: 21]
[NPC Power: E rank]
[She was the one who invited you to raid Theater High School at 12 a.m.. She loved swimming, and she wished to use the gym's pool here as your main date spot.]
[Amelia will become your reward if you manage to keep her safe throughout the duration of the minigame.]
She will become my reward? Chen Mo was somewhat caught off guard by that. On one hand, he'd be happy to finally get his first girlfriend in twenty years. On another, he wished his first girlfriend was a real person and not a videogame NPC.
But all of that shouldn't be his priority right now, and he recognised this. What should be his priority should be his first task.
Survive Jack's attack?
Who's Jack?
"Earth to Xiao Baiiiii." Amelia whispered into his ear.
Chen Mo quickly pulled away from a girl clearly out of his league due to embarrassment. "I'm fine."
"Well, come on then." Amelia tugged on his sleeves. "Let's go swimming. You're boring me here."
Amelia yanked Chen Mo out of his seat and led the way confidently. Chen Mo wasn't even trying to retaliate, yet he could still feel the sleeves of his uniform almost tearing from Amelia's overwhelming enthusiasm.
At the bottom left corner of Chen Mo's vision, a line of text appeared out of thin air.
[sean_069: lmao]
[sean_069: F rank in the hardest beginner minigame. gl brochacho.]
Chen Mo understood that it was a live chat pretty quickly, even though he couldn't comprehend why his perspective was now a livestream.
On the top left of his vision was the number '1' next to a big red dot. One viewer, and that was sean_069, who just told him that he was in the hardest beginner minigame.
"Wait." Chen Mo applied strength to his arm, defeating Amelia's pull and bringing them to a halt.
"What?" Amelia wasn't exasperated. She turned back with sincere eyes. Her tone suggested genuine care and kindness.
Chen Mo didn't have a particular reason to stop; he just wished to be more cautious after the warning from a stranger spectator.
Then,
creaaak...
It was the back door to the classroom. It opened deliberately at a uniform speed, suggesting a force that wasn't wind.
Yet, there wasn't anyone holding the knob, or anyone outside in the dark hallway.
No one visible, at least.
Chen Mo saw an arrow pointed downwards.