Chapter 1 A Silent Night's Gaming

Christmas Eve, late, eleven thirty PM.

Feng Bujue logged into Thriller Paradise in sleep mode.

After logging in, he checked his friend list, only to find that… besides himself, only An Yueqin from the guild was online.

Seeing that she wasn't "in-game," Feng Bujue immediately sent a communication request.

"Eh? You're online pretty early." Two seconds later, An Yueqin's voice came through the communication channel, "Did you finish your manuscript?"

"Hey, hey… why bring that up right away?" Although he wasn't talking to her face-to-face, Brother Jue instinctively narrowed his eyes and replied, "Haven't I been off your back for months now?"

"Alright, alright, I won't rush you." An Yueqin replied with a laugh, then added, "But seriously, shouldn't you be doing something else on a day like today?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Feng Bujue countered.

"Don't you and Ruoyu… have any plans?" An Yueqin asked doubtfully, "Xiao Tan and Xiao Ling already said they wouldn't be online today."

"Oh… you're asking about that." Brother Jue muttered, "Plans… well, there were…" For some reason, his tone sounded a bit annoyed, "This noon, I went out to eat with her, and in the afternoon, she drove me to a few sales offices to check out the market…"

"Huh?" An Yueqin was stunned, "You two… chose December 24th to go house hunting?"

"What's wrong with that date?" Feng Bujue said, "It's not a national holiday… besides, even if it were, the sales offices wouldn't be closed."

"Heh… hehe…" An Yueqin chuckled a few times, "Okay… I'm just a normal person, I can't understand your way of getting along."

"So… normal person, wanna queue up for a script together?" Feng Bujue asked opportunistically.

"Just the two of us?" An Yueqin replied, "What about Ruoyu?"

"She's sleeping in my room right now." When Feng Bujue answered this question, he revealed obvious displeasure again, "And I'm… lying in the only gaming pod in my house."

"I feel like there are a lot of things I could pick apart in your answer…" An Yueqin also picked up on some subtle information in these words.

"To put it simply, she's staying overnight in my room tonight to accommodate her parents' 'date night'." Feng Bujue said, "Anyway, her family trusts her with me."

"Although I don't know if I should say this…" An Yueqin seemed to think of something, and reminded him, "But I still have to ask—on such a special day, with such a rare opportunity… you're just logging in to play games, is that really okay?" She paused, "Aren't you going to try knocking on the door or something?"

"Ah…" Feng Bujue replied in a state of hopeless resignation, "Obviously… the things you're saying now, and the things you haven't said… the methods you can think of, and the methods you can't think of… everything that could be tried, I've tried."

"And it all ended in failure?" An Yueqin could guess the answer from his attitude.

"Isn't that obvious? Otherwise, this conversation between you and me wouldn't even be happening…" Feng Bujue replied hoarsely.

"Hahahaha…" Unexpectedly, An Yueqin burst out laughing a second later.

"What are you laughing at?" Brother Jue asked.

"Schadenfreude." An Yueqin used these four words… appropriately, perfectly summarizing her current mood.

"Sigh…" Feng Bujue used a sigh as a cover, quickly held back a few sarcastic remarks, and turned on anti-taunt mode, "I know, you're just using laughter to hide your own miserable situation, because you logged into the game early on a day like this…" He paused for half a second, reciting, "As the saying goes—how much sorrow can you have? Just like a single dog."

"Yeah~ yeah~ I'm a single dog." An Yueqin drawled in reply, "But I don't have any worries; I logged in so early today because I made an appointment to play a treasure hunting script with someone, so, you can play alone tonight, I won't keep you company."

"Eh? Who are you queuing with? Take me with you." Feng Bujue followed up.

"Sorry." An Yueqin refused decisively, "I'm queuing with the sisters from Red Iris, it's exactly six people including me, there's no room for you."

"Hey, hey… when did you hook up with the people from Red Iris? And you're already calling each other sisters?" Feng Bujue asked strangely, "Do you want to quit your current job and become a professional player for them?"

"I'm just playing a script with them, do you have to take it that far?" An Yueqin said, "Don't you often play with professional players yourself? I haven't seen you join any studios." Speaking of which, she paused noticeably, "Oh, never mind, the message just came, bye-bye."

Hastily saying goodbye to Brother Jue, An Yueqin ended the communication.

Feng Bujue stood in front of the touchscreen for a few seconds, then… shrugged his shoulders: "Alright~ then I'll solo queue."

Actually, he didn't mind solo queuing, it's just that he couldn't enjoy the team buffs from guild members.

[Unfettered Madman, Level 51]

[Please select the game mode you wish to join.]

Because his mood wasn't very high, Brother Jue didn't bother with emails or checking the goods in the Scare Box.

He planned to brush a treasure hunting mode script first, to warm up and change his mood.

[You have selected Treasure Hunting Mode, please confirm.]

[Confirmed, team size random value generated: Three players.]

[You have entered the queue, searching for other ready individuals or teams.]

[Match complete, coordinating neural connection, script generating…]

[Loading, please wait.]

The basic settings of this treasure hunting mode are the same as the team survival mode on normal difficulty; therefore, Brother Jue joining the queue alone will have at least one teammate, and at most five.

Seeing this… you should all vaguely realize a problem: in this mode, teaming up with strangers is very likely to lead to some conflicts of interest.

Normally, in team survival mode, similar contradictions are not very prominent, but in the context of the limited-time "Christmas Treasure Hunt" event… players will naturally become more utilitarian; it's not impossible for conflicts to arise during loot distribution, or even for players to screw each other over during the script.

Of course, the solution to this problem is also very simple, just get six people together to play as a team… most game studios do this as well.

And this also means that almost all professional players will brush the treasure hunting mode scripts in teams of six.

To put it more bluntly, the teammates that Brother Jue is assigned to right now are almost certainly not studio players…