Chapter 1

The four had just greeted each other and were preparing to discuss their next strategy when Ji Chang's expression suddenly changed. "Everyone...all the items in my inventory have turned gray. Is this happening to you too?"

At his reminder, the other three also opened their game menus and checked their inventories.

"Me too, everything is grayed out, and I can't take anything out," Qiu Fengse replied.

"Same here," Feng Bujue added.

Honghu said directly, "This must be a restriction the script has placed on us..." He paused. "But there's not even a hint about it?"

Ji Chang was a cautious strategist. His thinking might not be as fast as his teammates', but he was very thorough and always thought things through carefully. After hearing Honghu's words, he realized another problem: "Then what if...there are other restrictions? For example..."

"Time," Qiu Fengse picked up his train of thought. "Suppose this script only updates the tasks and doesn't give us any system prompts at all. If we have to figure out all the settings and rules ourselves, then the easiest factor that could lead to a total party wipe is time."

Honghu nodded. "That's definitely possible... What if this script has hidden time limits, and we don't know about the rules and just explore slowly..."

"We should be able to find related hints about time limits quickly," Feng Bujue interjected in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Yes...that's right." Honghu continued, pondering, "There are no rules that cannot be broken. If there really is a time limit, there will definitely be similar plots or hints, and they will appear early in the script. It would be too much if they appeared when our time was obviously running out, or if there were no hints at all..." He stopped himself.

Honghu turned his head, pushed up his glasses, and looked at Feng Bujue with a suspicious gaze.

Qiu Fengse and Yu Zhongji Chang hesitated for a moment, then realized what was happening and shifted their gazes to Feng Bujue.

"What?" Feng Bujue immediately pretended to be clueless. "Did I say something wrong? I thought that with you guys around, any restrictions or puzzles would be solved quickly, so I just said it casually."

"Uh..." Honghu chuckled twice. "No, no, you're right. You have a talent for puzzle-solving, haha..." In his heart, he thought: *Tch... so that's what he meant. Casual, optimistic rambling, and his tone was so calm and confident. I thought he deduced it in an instant, scared me half to death.*

Qiu Feng and Ji Chang shrugged, their expressions noncommittal.

Feng Bujue secretly breathed a sigh of relief and thought, *I accidentally blurted out the conclusion that popped into my head... Fortunately, I didn't say much, so I managed to get away with it. I can't keep doing this. This isn't the attitude I should have when I'm just here to make soy sauce*. From now on, I'd better stop thinking and think about something else... Right, think about Si Yu's recovery... um... a feverish beauty...

"Hey... why does this guy suddenly have such a perverted expression..." Qiu Feng whispered to Ji Chang beside him. "He was only praised by Honghu, does he really need to react like that..."

Ji Chang swallowed. "Could he be a 【BEEP】..."

"That word is a bit offensive, you should say homosexual," Qiu Feng lowered his voice even more.

"Hey... you still understood it even after it was censored..." Ji Chang whispered.

Honghu looked at Feng Bujue's drooling, grinning face and became even more convinced that this guy was just a newbie trying to latch onto someone's coattails. The title of Dark Vanguard probably meant that he often sided with the villains in previous scripts or was used to using stealth skills.

"But... come to think of it." Honghu murmured to himself, "Did Qiu Feng and Ji Chang know each other before... Their conversation doesn't sound like it. How did they get together and start whispering so quickly... Hey, hey... was that mouth shape saying 'gAy'... are these two that... love at first sight?"

Only a few minutes had passed, and these "smart people" with their hidden agendas had already created many misunderstandings...

"Ahem... Anyway, based on the only hint we have right now, which is the opening CG, the 'Mystery Club' is likely to be in this building," Honghu said, raising his voice slightly.

Qiu Feng continued, "If the 'Mystery Club' refers to the entire building, this script would be too simple. It's impossible to clear the game just by walking through the door."

Ji Chang added, "Then it must refer to a specific room in this building."

"Hmm..." The three of them hummed in unison, striking a pose imitating Shinichi.

At this moment, Feng Bujue suddenly took out a magazine clip from his pocket and said, "Items outside the inventory seem to be usable."

At his prompt, Qiu Fengse seemed to remember something. He also took something out of his coat pocket, a small bag of chocolate. He tried a few times and said, "But items outside the inventory can no longer be put into the inventory."

"Basically, the inventory is equivalent to being sealed..." Honghu murmured.

"Then all the items we find can only be held in our hands or put in our pockets," Ji Chang continued.

"Now that we've clarified this rule, there's a question... Should we go straight into the building, or explore the surrounding map first?" Qiu Feng said. "Leaving aside the time limit, if it exists, if we choose to explore the city for equipment, even if we find something valuable, we'll only be able to carry a limited amount. It wouldn't be appropriate to carry large standard weapons, controlled knives, etc., around in public."

"Moreover... restricted inventory means that if we trigger a fight, we can only fight with our bare hands," Ji Chang added. "Although I'm not completely useless in a fight, it's not my forte..."

Honghu nodded slightly and continued, "That makes sense, but I think we should at least observe the surroundings first." He explained, "First of all, we don't know if we can come out after entering this building. The setting where the entrance automatically closes is quite common. Secondly, our starting coordinates after entering the script are at the entrance of this building, not inside the building, which also indicates that there are things to explore outside the building. Otherwise, the system wouldn't have bothered to do that."

"Hmph... this 'strategist' is quite capable," Feng Bujue thought. "Even if the system doesn't give any hints, he can still make reasonable deductions based on the extremely limited known information."

Qiu Feng and Ji Chang agreed with Honghu's suggestion, and Feng Bujue naturally followed the crowd. The four of them discussed and decided to quickly explore the area within half a kilometer of the building separately to get a general idea of the script.

This "general idea" included many things, such as... what era, what country, what city, whether it was completely fictional or based on a real prototype, whether the plot was adapted from other works or purely generated on the fly. Were there zombies in the city? Aliens? Ghosts? Superheroes?

These things could all be investigated. Just picking up a torn newspaper on the street or using a working public phone could confirm many things. For these puzzle-solving players, completing this most basic level of intelligence gathering was a piece of cake.

Unfortunately, in this particular script, they didn't have the chance to use their skills.

Ten minutes later, the four of them regrouped in front of the building from four different directions, three of them looking less than pleased.

"Judging from the newspapers and shop signs, they're using German here, but the system doesn't provide any translation," Qiu Fengse said.

"There aren't many pedestrians on the street, and they're all white people. I spoke to them in Chinese, but they just pretended not to hear," Ji Chang added. "I didn't dare to use force to stop them, because attracting the police would be bad for us."

"Judging from the pedestrians' clothing, the appearance of public facilities, and the cars on the road, this should be the early 21st century. The location is hard to say, there are quite a few German-speaking areas," Honghu said. "Since we don't understand the language or the writing, and we don't have the local currency, it's really hard to know too much without breaking the law or using violence."

Feng Bujue was the last to speak. "I borrowed some change and a cell phone from a young man in his twenties. I tried many numbers like 110, 119, 120, 114, 10086, but none of them worked." He paused. "After that, I used the change to buy some snacks from a convenience store." He patted his bulging pocket. "If you guys want to eat some..."

"Hey! That's not the point!" Qiu Feng interrupted him. "Since you understand German, you should have asked him some useful information, like the specific era and location of this script, and whether he's heard of the 'Mystery Club'."

"Who said I understand German?" Feng Bujue said.

"Huh?" Ji Chang said. "Then how did you borrow... wait..." He seemed to understand. "You didn't..."

"I stopped that young man and tried to communicate with him in Chinese and English, but I failed," Feng Bujue said calmly. "So I picked up a brick and grabbed his collar and said two sentences in German, 'Qì sǐ ǒu lèi' and 'Fáng'ài zán dōu zhā zhā'. Then he gave me his phone and wallet."

"God..." Honghu shook his head, covering his face with one hand.

Qiu Feng's mouth twitched. "Isn't that just mugging..."

"Alas... bricks are the international language," Ji Chang sighed.

Honghu added, "Let's just go into the building... If the police come, it'll just escalate..."

Feng Bujue shrugged expressionlessly. "Okay."