The red veil-like clouds in the night sky faded into the darkness, leaving only a faint blush cast by the moonlight. It fell upon the young man’s pale face, bringing no sense of horror but instead an air of enchantment—especially around the eyes on the upper half of his face.
Amidst that enchanting and dreamlike beauty, his peach-blossom eyes appeared even clearer and more sincere.
Ling Xiao stared at his face for a long time, then lowered his gaze to his chest, speaking with detached indifference. "Flower god? Don’t you know that lingxiao flowers are transformed from God-Eating Flowers that bloomed on me? Do you even know what God-Eating Flowers are?"
When Ling Xiao raised his eyes again, they seemed darker, deeper than the night itself. The corner of his mouth lifted in a cold, faint smile as he said, "God-Eating Flowers—they are blossoms that feed on gods."
Ning Su was taken aback.
It was time for the meeting, but not many people had come down to the courtyard.
From the three-story building emerged a young girl and an old man.
The old man stood at the front and said, "We’ve called everyone here to discuss safety matters and confirm the number of people living in this tenement building."
While the girl stood on the stone steps counting heads, the old man continued, "As you all know, things have been unstable lately. Several people in our community have died. The person in Room 307 lay dead for days before being discovered. That’s why we’ve asked everyone to gather—to verify who lives in which room and how many people are in each unit. Neighbors, please look out for one another."
Clearly, only a portion of the residents had come down.
The old man could only sigh at this. "Times are hard. We need to rely on each other."
He added, "We’ve just received word from outside—monsters are drawn to those with intense emotions and strong desires. Everyone should try to remain calm in daily life."
It seemed many residents were already aware of this. Some faces were utterly numb, while others grew more anxious upon hearing the old man’s words.
Ning Su noticed Ling Xiao staring fixedly at a certain spot ahead. Following his gaze, he saw a man in a navy-blue shirt among the crowd.
The shirt was worn unbuttoned over a white undershirt, beneath which a flash of red was visible.
When the man turned his head in their direction, a strange smile played on his lips, and his pupils glowed with a faint red light.
Amid the sea of heads in the night, it was unnerving.
The girl finished counting and began noting down everyone’s room numbers in a small notebook. When she reached them, she blocked Ning Su’s line of sight.
"What’s your room number?"
Ning Su replied, "511."
The girl’s hand, holding the pen, stiffened. "Someone died in 511 just two days ago. I can’t believe the landlord rented it out to you so soon."
Ning Su: "..."
After the warning, the girl reminded them to be careful and moved on to record the rest.
Ling Xiao: "Are our son and daughter okay in the room?"
Ning Su: "..."
So they're your son and daughter now?
Ning Su let out an "ah," and said, "A bit worried."
Ling Xiao turned to look at him. "Worried about who?"
Ning Su: "..."
He'd been seen through—it was true he wasn't worried about the two kids.
The old man finished explaining about sealing the main gate and the need to register when entering or exiting, then dismissed the meeting.
The others hurried back to their rooms, leaving only the players behind.
There were eight players who had come downstairs—it was unclear if this was all of them—six men and two women, sharing rooms in pairs.
They found a corner to discuss the instance.
The first topic was the instance number. They couldn't figure out what "00" meant, which made it impossible to determine the instance's difficulty level.
"Looking at the instance task, it seems pretty straightforward. No need to solve puzzles—just eliminate ten monsters to clear it," said the one who often whistled, Ling Xiao's teammate, Qin Wu.
"Not necessarily. It depends on how strong the Desire Monsters are. We haven't encountered any yet," another person said.
"Then what about the '303010' after the '00'? There's no level indicated, so how can we tell how many rounds there are?" Tang Xin asked.
Ling Xiao: "It might mean this is the 303,010th instance among all instances."
Everyone was momentarily stunned.
"I did the math—it really could be," Qin Wu remarked with emotion. "So there have already been 300,000 instances opened."
After discussing the instance number, they moved on to the instance name.
The instance name didn't seem to reveal much for now, and they leaned toward the idea that the instance name was simply the name of the country they were in.
Next, the instance task.
Earlier, Qin Wu said the instance task seemed simple—no puzzles or anything, just kill ten Desire Monsters.
But that wasn't entirely accurate.
There was one word in the instance task worth pondering: "judgment."
"What does 'judgment' mean?"
"Probably means we have to decide whether the desire monsters we encounter should be eliminated?"
"But the system gives no prompts or explanations. What punishment would there be if we judge incorrectly? It only says we need to judge and then eliminate ten desire monsters. Does that mean judgment is entirely subjective, and right or wrong doesn't matter?"
"Then why use the word 'judgment' at all?"
"Broadening the meaning of judgment—aside from deciding whether desire monsters should be eliminated, maybe the system is also reminding us to assess their strength and whether we can handle them. After all, the system specifically warned us that desire monsters are aggressive."
"Right, we need to gauge the strength of the desire monsters. We only need to eliminate ten. If we encounter one that seems particularly fearsome, we shouldn’t confront it head-on—just find another one."
"That makes sense. The strength of desire monsters might vary—some powerful and terrifying, others easier to deal with. That could also explain why the dungeon level is 00."
Several people supported this view. Neither Ning Su nor Ling Xiao spoke.
At the very least, Ning Su didn’t agree that varying strength of desire monsters corresponded to a dungeon level of 00.
The other parts sounded somewhat reasonable, though.
Qin Wu said, "Let’s wait until the desire monsters appear to see what they’re actually like and how dangerous they are."
For now, that seemed to be the only option.
When they returned to their room, where someone had just died, the two children were lying on the bed studying, heads close together. The scene was warm and cozy, with no hint of horror.
Ning Su asked Ling Xiao, "That man we saw in the courtyard earlier, the one with red glowing eyes—was he a desire monster?"
The sky in this world was tinged with red, and red eyes seemed to correspond to that, which was suspicious.
Ling Xiao replied, "It’s hard to say for sure. He lives in room 610. We should keep an eye on him."
By 10 PM, the entire cylindrical building had fallen into silence. If viewed from outside, only a few windows were still lit.
The two children climbed onto the bed and slept to Ning Su’s left.
Ning Su lay quietly on his side, listening for any movement outside.
Ling Xiao lay flat on the adjacent bed, eyes closed—it was unclear whether he was asleep or not.
All the players had assumed something would happen in one of the small rooms in the cylindrical building that night, but nothing did.
Not only did nothing happen that night, but the next two nights also passed without incident.
Three days had passed—one-tenth of the dungeon time—and they still hadn’t encountered a single Desire Monster.
Some players were starting to get restless.
“What’s the point of holding a trial or making choices? There are ten of us, we need to kill 100 Desire Monsters, and after three days we haven’t even run into one. This is ridiculous.”
“Should we leave and search elsewhere? So many players have joined the game, but there are only a few of us here. Maybe the main action isn’t in this area?”
“But this place feels off… There should be Desire Monsters here.”
Just as they were debating whether to go out and hunt for the monsters, something happened in the tenement building.
Someone had died.
