Chapter 20: Lived Another Day

Sunlight pierced through the gap in the curtains, dancing on the floor and giving the room a warm glow. The sky was as blue as if it had been washed clean. After the rain cleared, the soil emitted the fresh fragrance of grass.

Downstairs, street vendors began calling out their wares. The thump thump sounds of the upstairs neighbor taking their child down the stairs to school drifted over, along with the chirping of little birds resting outside the window.

Xie De struggled to open his eyes. He wearily reached out his hand to check the time: 7:25 AM.

He actually woke up this early.

"Actually, Host, you've slept for a day and two nights. It's already the second day. Don't you want to go to the bathroom now?"

Gibberish's voice came from the Xiaodu smart speaker on the nightstand.

A day and two nights? Not to mention, sleeping for so long really made him both tired and hungry. Xie De felt that it was his physical body that had woken up right now, not his soul. But then he felt that his soul was actually already awake, and it was his physical body that was as stiff as a corpse from extreme exhaustion.

He got up like a walking corpse, walked into the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face. It wet his hanging silver hair, soaked into his skin, and finally jolted his mind into a state of forced wakefulness.

Looking at his own face in the mirror, for a moment he actually felt as if a lifetime had passed.

"I'm still alive."

The corpses, flames, and ghosts in the scenario, along with the perpetually foul-smelling air, would involuntarily surface in his mind, making him feel an unbearable sense of dispiritment. A wave of burning sensation came from his stomach.

But he had already thrown up enough.

He didn't want to clean up. He felt like he could lie down for a little while longer.

Thinking this, Xie De turned around and lay down on the sofa. He fumbled to light himself a cigarette. Smoke rings floated in the air. When the sunlight hit them, tiny particles became visible. His expression gradually became dazed.

It wasn't until he felt some movement in his hand that he snapped back to reality. Looking down, it was the little centipede, holding a cockroach, planning to place it in his hand.

!

Starting up in shock as if on his deathbed, Xie De jerked his hand back, "What are you doing?"

As soon as he opened his mouth, his voice was terribly hoarse.

The little centipede trembled and looked up at him in naive bewilderment.

Gibberish said, "Isn't it because you lay there for too long? The little centipede thought you were going to croak if you didn't eat something. Don't forget, house centipedes eat cockroaches, so it's giving its own food to you. Hurry up and say thank you."

"...Thanks, but I won't eat it."

Xie De went to pour himself a glass of water. While drinking, he noticed a pile of things had appeared on the table.

"What's this?"

This pile of things consisted respectively of two talisman papers that didn't look simple, a box of bullets, a brand-new handgun, and a sniper rifle, all dangerous items.

Gibberish explained professionally.

"These are the newbie rewards given after clearing the scenario. They are extremely generous! I think it might be because we perfectly provided the storyline, plus we had good luck, that it's this generous. Host, really, even the protagonist's rewards aren't as generous as ours!"

"The most expensive things in here are those two talisman papers, called Door God Talismans. Whether in an instance or in real life, if you stick them on a door, no ghost can enter. The duration of its effect depends on the ghost's strength, but the time it can hold up in an instance is definitely much shorter than in reality."

"This box has exactly 1000 rounds of bullets, enough for you to practice."

"This handgun is an Austrian Glock 17, with a magazine capacity of 19 rounds and an effective range of 50 meters."

"This sniper rifle is an SSG3000, jointly developed by Germany and Switzerland, using a barrel and receiver produced by Krupp, known for its outstanding accuracy."

Gibberish squealed excitedly like a monkey.

"These are all great things! You can finally practice your marksmanship! Hahaha, we finally have some skills to protect ourselves with, moving one step closer to being a big shot!"

Xie De casually fiddled with them, his mouth twitching.

"Indeed, they are all good, illegal things. Gibberish, is it possible that the moment I take these things out, I'll have to go eat prison food? Where am I supposed to practice?"

Gibberish froze, then said stiffly, "...Then find a very remote place to practice. Host, you must build up your skills. You saw how scary it was in the scenario. Let me tell you the truth, you have to enter a scenario again in two months."

"Sigh."

Xie De let out a long sigh, "I don't want to move."

Then, as if remembering something, he dug out his leather trench coat and fished out the revolver and gold from inside.

He really got quite a lot of things from clearing one scenario.

However, what could solve his urgent needs right now was still this piece of gold.

Getting up to tidy himself up, Xie De put on a hat, glasses, and a mask, covering his face and anything unusual about him completely.

He picked up the trash thrown aside and walked downstairs. Feeling the fresh morning air brushing against his face and hearing the bustling sounds of pedestrians on both sides of the road, he finally felt a grounded sense of having truly lived another day.

The current season was the transition from spring to summer. The begonia flowers in the greenbelts were blooming passionately, wafting bursts of fragrance. Birds flashed across the sky. An elegant black cat jumped from a box in the alley onto the top of the wall, its green eyes curiously sizing up Xie De who had just walked by, and then it lazily yawned.

............

Two days later.

In an extremely remote mountainous area, the time came to 5:00 PM.

A bullet accurately hit a starfruit a thousand meters away, juices splattering everywhere.

The man, dressed completely in heavy coverage from head to toe, firmly held down the sniper rifle. His posture was correct, his core was extremely steady, and he was not affected by the recoil.

His long silver hair was tucked into a baseball cap, but a strand or two still fell to his cheek, looking ruthless and stern.

But the next second.

Xie De threw the gun aside, "Hit it, I hit it, I'm not practicing anymore! Right now my hands hurt, my shoulders hurt, my whole body hurts."

The phone next to him emitted a look of disdain.

"ε=(#`Д´)ﾉ, Are you kidding me? From morning until now, you've only practiced for three hours in total! And you even have me explicitly using a cheat code for you!"

Xie De, unable to bear it anymore, snapped back.

"Practicing shooting for three hours, but I also ran 20 kilometers! Climbed the mountain for so long, pitched the tent for so long, doesn't that count as time? Anyway, I'm not practicing anymore."