“Main Quest progress updated. Explore Ye Jie Elite Academy to resolve the seven supernatural phenomena. Current progress, 1/7”
Passing Rain sighed in relief after hearing the system announcement. Her level of courage should be higher than normal, perhaps even higher than a player like Brother Long, so she did not react that exaggeratedly when she saw that chilling news article.
However, she could not stop herself from worrying. This was because, in their previous phone call, Feng Bujue explicitly said that he was already next to the well and was attempting to do the quest. Passing Rain, who received additional information from the article, combined with the song that they heard earlier, naturally also came to the conclusion of ’don’t ever look down into the well’, but before the next round of communication, she was unable to inform Feng Bujue. This kind of helplessness was indeed quite tormenting.
That was the effect the system was going for. Perhaps their worries for each other were unfounded, but that worry would undeniably become their burden. Annoyance was no different from fear; it would cause one to make mistakes.
With the announcement from the system, she felt better. She glanced at the time on the phone. It would be 00:25:00 in another two minutes. She had finished exploring the first floor of the main building, so she decided to stop and wait. She would move upstairs after completing the call.
However, right then, she heard the system say, “In this scenario, if you stay in one place or wander around explored areas for too long and try in any way to delay the progress of scenario, it will be treated as ’AFK-like behavior’, and your Terror Points will slowly increase as time goes by.”
Hearing that, Passing Rain sighed. She picked up the phone and her lamp before walking down the corridor. The ’AFK-like behavior’ concept was absent during the closed, and it was only introduced after the open beta. Using this scenario as an example, assume that it was not Brother Jue and Passing Rain attempting it but instead two unfamiliar players. If one of them was a coward and was not really a stand-up player, they would find a place that they thought was safe and hide there from the start of the game. Whenever the time came, they would make and answer the call, so they would never be the responsible player. Their teammate would be risking their life, attempting to solve the quest. In fact, they might end up being the responsible party since they had so many objectives to juggle. Of course, there was also a possibility that both players were that type of individual, and they were merely chatting with each other while staying in hiding.
This was one of the examples. In other scenarios, some players would go AFK for the sake of survival. To prevent such things from happening, the system introduced the AFK-like behavior concept during the open beta. If the player was deemed to be AFKing , whether they were scared or not, their Terror Points would slowly increase, and the longer they spent AFKing, the faster the Terror Points rose. They would be forced to leave when it reached one hundred percent. Only by summoning courage and reentering the scenario would they be able to negate this influence.
Of course, not every scenario had this setting. In some scenarios like the Saw game or the isolated time controlled by Sam Montier, their difficulty and quest objectives were heavily tied to time, and dragging things out would often lead to death.
Two minutes passed, and it was time for the call. Passing Rain was at the bottom of the staircase. As she climbed, she pressed the speed dial button.
“One, two, three, four…” Passing Rain counted the steps in her heart while she placed the phone beside her ear.
The tone rang twice before Feng Bujue answered. “I’m fine, how about you?”
That was his first sentence. He answered the question that she might ask and quickly tossed out his own question.
“Everything is fine. I’m going up the second floor now.” When Passing Rain said that, she already finished the first set of the floors. She turned 180 degrees to the left, and before her was the second set. After that, it would be the second floor’s corridor.
“I just climbed up the first set of stairs. There were twelve steps.” She continued moving. “You don’t need to remind me about the song. I understand it well. The hints are very obvious.”
Feng Bujue was taken aback before laughing. “…In that case, what should we take about in our future conversations?”
“Just keep each other updated on the quest progress,” Passing Rain replied before adding, “Don’t ask about the other person’s condition or if they’re injured because that won’t help the situation. We won’t be able to help each other anyway; the knowledge will only muddle our mind.”
Feng Bujue agreed completely with Passing Rain, but what Passing Rain could say easily would not sound the same coming out Feng Bujue’s lips because he was a man. If he said something like that, he would appear ruthless, cruel, ungentlemanly, and cold-blooded, but it did not feel at all strange being laid down by Passing Rain in her detached manner.
“Wow… you’re a mind reader because that was exactly what I was thinking!” Feng Bujue instantly updated her on his progress. “By the way, I’m now in the building on the northeastern side. I think the music room is here, so I plan to go take a look.”
“Thirteenth,” Passing Rain suddenly said. “This staircase that led to the second floor had thirteen steps… Yes, thirteen steps.”
Before Feng Bujue could say anything, the time was up. The call was over.
“Hey? Hello!” Feng Bujue yelled twice before ending the call helplessly. He sighed to himself. “Hmm… I can’t help but be worry about that last sentence.”
By then, he had also reached the door to the music room. He entered it and used his flashlight to scan around. The rows of tables and chairs looked normal, and there was no bloody handprint or talisman on the wall. The only thing remotely eye-catching was the piano in the room.
Feng Bujue hummed, “So Fa Re, La So Re…”
He took a deep breath. “Am I supposed to play the notes? Will it trigger some kind of mechanism, making something fall down from the cupboards?”
He turned around and raised the flashlight to shine at the glass cupboards against the wall where the music books were, but they looked perfectly normal.
“Hmm… Perhaps I need to sit or step on the piano stool?” Feng Bujue said in contemplation.
Feng Bujue’s eyes slowly moved to the statue of Beethoven in the corner of the room. It was a fairly common bust of Beethoven made from white marble; the scale was almost 1:1.
Feng Bujue walked over and flashed the light at the status. “Brother Ven, what do you think?”
Of course, he did not expect the statue to answer. He placed the flashlight and phone on the cupboard by his side and tried to move the statue. He realized that the thing was normal, and it was not hiding anything like a button or hidden mechanism. It looked like it was just a normal decorative item.
“Brother Ven, we’re both artists. It’s not nice of you to embarrass me like this.” Feng Bujue entertained himself with this charade as he picked up his phone and flashlight.
Eventually, he walked over to the piano. Even though he knew that he might trigger some horrible event, he had to give it a try. He extended his fingers and pressed on the keys following the notes given in the song.