By the time she finished everything, it was already four or five in the afternoon. Famished, Bai Xi found a crowded restaurant, ordered a bowl of beef noodles, and took her time eating.
"Hey, what do you guys think is going on lately? So many people are going missing," a middle-aged man with a square face at the next table remarked.
"A ton of people have been going to the police station to report missing persons recently. The news has covered it several times," another slightly plump, younger man replied.
"These human traffickers are too arrogant, brazenly kidnapping people like this."
Their conversation caught Bai Xi's attention. She pulled out her phone to search online and indeed found some information.
There had been an unusually high number of missing person notices over the past two days, spanning all ages and genders. Factoring in the survival game, she figured these disappearances weren't so simple. Perhaps other players, desperate to secure their spot in the final ten percent of survivors, were taking early action to eliminate the competition.
If it was the latter, she had to be careful.
After finishing her noodles, Bai Xi headed home. As she passed by a narrow alley, she heard a faint cry for help.
"I've been watching you all day, and I finally found an opportunity. Your world is going to end soon, and everyone is going to die. If you behave, I can let you live a little longer," a creepy, arrogant male voice sneered.
Bai Xi quickly pressed herself against the wall and hid. Were the players already acting this unrestrained?
In the alley, the woman was still struggling, but there was no way she could fight off a man, let alone a player who might have survived multiple worlds. Bai Xi hesitated for a moment before deciding to save her.
She glanced around. There were still a dozen or so pedestrians nearby. She picked up a brick from the base of the wall, chucked it into the alley, and turned around. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she disguised her voice and yelled, "Fire! Fire! Help, someone!"
Hearing there was a fire, people hurried toward the sound. Inside the alley, the creepy man panicked; no matter how strong he was, he couldn't take on a crowd. Covering the woman's mouth, he peered toward the alley entrance, trying to see which bastard had ruined his plans.
But Bai Xi had slipped away long ago. She wasn't stupid enough to stick around and get caught after raising the alarm.
As the crowd grew larger, the man was forced to release the woman and flee out the other end of the alley. The woman quickly retreated into the shadows, covering her mouth tightly, too terrified to make a sound.
When the crowd checked the alley entrance, there was no fire or even a trace of smoke, and the girl who had yelled was nowhere to be found.
"Young people nowadays have no sense of civic duty," someone grumbled. After a few more complaints, the crowd dispersed.
After slipping away, Bai Xi returned to her rented apartment. She locked the door behind her and sat on the sofa with furrowed brows.
If players were already this brazen, they would become completely unhinged once society's order collapsed in the later stages. She realized this survival game wouldn't just be about surviving inexplicable disasters, but also human malice. Being among the final twenty thousand survivors was not going to be easy.
The second day of the game. Survival rate: 99%.
Early the next morning, Bai Xi received a push notification on her phone. Dozens more people had mysteriously vanished last night, and quite a few had disappeared in broad daylight. The city police were taking the matter seriously, promising to crack the cases as quickly as possible and ensure the perpetrators did not go unpunished.
Bai Xi had originally planned to bunker down at home, since she had stockpiled enough supplies, but a new mission popped up.
[Novice Side Quest: Please stay at the City Police Station for two hours. Remaining within a ten-meter radius is sufficient.
Quest Reward: One lottery draw.]
With a mission available, laying low was no longer an option. She needed to farm as many rewards as possible during the novice period; once it ended, simple tasks like this would be gone.
Grabbing her backpack, Bai Xi headed out.
It was just past eight in the morning, and the temperature was pleasant. Outside, the birds were going CHIRP CHIRP in the trees, but to Bai Xi, the sound was grating. She flagged down a taxi and headed for the police station. Since so many people were going missing, there would definitely be families filing reports. There had to be some information there.
Hearing that Bai Xi was going to the police station, the driver struck up a conversation.
"There've been a lot of weird things happening lately. A couple of days ago, I drove a few people to West Mountain Park. When I asked them what they were doing there, they just hemmed and hawed and refused to say."
"Did they have any distinguishing features?" Bai Xi asked.
The driver thought for a moment. "They had a silver briefcase with a combination lock. It seemed really valuable; they never let it out of their hands the whole ride."
Before she got out of the car, the driver warned her, "You're a pretty young lady. You need to be extra careful these days. There are definitely folks taking advantage of the chaos to commit crimes."
"I'll be careful. Thank you, sir!"
Bai Xi closed the car door and turned toward the police station. The moment she stepped within the ten-meter radius, a white holographic screen popped up.
[Countdown started!]
A white timer appeared in the top right corner of her vision.
She first took a lap around the station to get a feel for the layout, just in case she needed an escape route. Then, she walked over to a row of chairs in front of the station and sat down. Quite a few people of all ages were gathered around the nearby noticeboards, including several young children.
The wait was tedious, so Bai Xi chatted with the people around her to pass the time. Eventually, the topic shifted to the missing persons.
"Ma'am, when did you realize your daughter was missing?" Bai Xi asked.
"The night before last, I told her to come home for dinner. I waited until past eight, but she never showed up, and no one answered her phone. Later, I asked her friends, and they all said she went straight home after work." The middle-aged woman sighed. "I just hope she went out to have fun and didn't have time to tell me."
Bai Xi mentally noted, "Two afternoons ago, between six and eight o'clock."
An elderly man nearby leaned in and said anxiously, "My grandson went missing yesterday morning. His teacher called to ask why he wasn't at school, and that's when we realized he was gone. Our boy has always been well-behaved; he would never skip class. Something must have happened."
"Sir, what time did your grandson leave the house? And what time does class start?" Bai Xi asked.
"He leaves at seven every day, and his morning study period starts at half-past seven."
With the elderly man and woman leading the way, the others chimed in one after another, venting their bottled-up emotions.
Bai Xi sat quietly and listened. She mentally organized the information everyone provided and found that most of the missing persons had disappeared during two timeframes: between 7:00 and 9:00 in the morning, or 6:00 and 8:00 in the evening.
She wondered, "Is it because there are fewer people around or because it's darker during these hours?"
Just as she was pondering this, a child's exclamation broke her train of thought.
The crowd gathered around to look.
Whoa! There was a massive hole under the tree, at least the size of two adult fists.
"Why is there such a huge rat hole here?"
"That's not a rat hole! Why would a rat dig a hole here? Plus, it's way too big. Are there even rats this massive?"
Soon, someone else cried out.
"Look, there's another one over there!"
Everyone quickly trotted over and gathered around. This hole was hidden in the roadside landscaping; without looking closely, it was completely unnoticeable.
Compared to the "rat hole" the crowd had just been guessing about, this one was a full thirty or forty centimeters in diameter. From within, the sound of RUSTLE RUSTLE could be heard.