Congratulations on Your Successful Escape

The world turned upside down before his eyes. It was as if large swatches of colour were shattering into pieces and blending once more, occupying one’s entire sight, entering along the nerves and piercing the brain.

His eardrums were filled with a chaotic white noise. Mo Yi felt dizzy as his feet made contact with the actual place, only realizing afterwards that — This time, he had been sent to the instance while standing. 

But it was too late.

Nerves, which didn’t have time to react, couldn’t support the sudden gravity. Gravity pulled Mo Yi to the ground.

Mo Yi, somewhat panicked, extended his hands in the air, eyes subconsciously closed, waiting for the oncoming pain.

A hand like an iron-band reached out from the side, held his arm, and with strong force, pulled him up. 

Although Mo Yi was helped to stand, his brain was still in chaos.

He turned his head, somewhat dazed, to look at the person holding him and subconsciously said, “Thanks ….”

In the next second, Mo Yi’s voice was stuck in his throat, voice unable to send anything out.

At the same time, a man was looking at him, his well-defined lips pursed in a sharp curve. A pair of eyes, light as mist, were attentively watching him, similar to a dark gray ocean.

He let out a low laugh, “Be careful.”

Mo Yi’s eyes widened uncontrollably, and he lowered his voice, “You—”

Suddenly, at this moment, he remembered … In fact, he currently didn’t know the Mist’s name.

“Unnamed Mist” was a game prompt in the first instance, and “Song Qi” was someone else’s name that he had borrowed. 

Mo Yi didn’t know what to call him for a while and couldn’t help but freeze in place.

At this time, an unfamiliar male voice came from beside him, “Newcomer?”

Mo Yi turned his head, following the voice, only to see a tall man approaching, looking around with some misgivings, and then asked. “What’s wrong?”

He then discovered that the man’s gaze directly passed through the Mist’s body, as if he didn’t see another person there, sweeping by without wavering. 

Mo Yi was taken aback, head turning to look at the Mist standing beside him.

A trace of a smile was on his cold countenance, finger raised and pressed against his pale lips, making a gesture, “Shhh.”

Mo Yi came to, turning his head to look at the man and showed a natural smile, “Not a Newcomer.”

He frowned and lifted his chin in gesture, “It’s just that this is my first time coming across an instance like this and was just alarmed. Thank you for your concern.” 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

The man accepted this statement, nodded, a trace of worry appearing between his eyebrows. He said in a low voice, “This is also the first time I’ve encountered this situation. This … is very strange.”

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This time, the instance unexpectedly was in a semi-open space.

The ground under their feet was soft with loess, and the entire platform seemed to be floating in boundless darkness, as if submerged in a pitch-dark sea without light, so dense that it was almost substantial, and the pressure made one almost suffocate.

And in the middle of the platform stood a tall, crooked building.

It appeared to be very old. The crooked and strange architectural style seemed to make one feel uncomfortable. There was even a dent on the old and dust covered roof on which dust fell. 

The whole building looked odd in every way and was almost entirely out of line with normal house structures, practically making one amazed at how it hadn’t collapsed yet. It also made it impossible for the people standing in front of the house to fully view the house.

Gray glass covered the windows. They appeared to be filled with malice as they spied on the outside of the house. The porch door was half open, the interior pitch-black, as if quietly whispering something, waiting for prey to arrive.

— And Mo Yi and the others were standing in the open space in front of the house’s porch.

There were still Players being sent into the instance one after another. Their figures, almost as if out of thin air, appeared in the darkness. Aside from the few quick eyed ones who stood, each and every one, like Mo Yi, were caught off guard and fell. 

Mo Yi watched motionlessly on the surface, silently counting in his mind.

Although he knew that each Player was teleported into the instance at a different time, this was the first time he saw other Players being teleported into the instance.

Mo Yi’s eyes subtly narrowed, pitch-black eyes gloomy.

Before long, the teleportation of Players ended. 

Looking at the various bewildered or frightened facial expressions of the Players, Mo Yi, finding joy in the sorrows, thought: This open spaced instance had an upside — It was unlikely for there to be noisy Newcomers again.

After all, this room and strange house that was floating in the darkness truly went beyond common sense. Nobody could brainlessly regard this game as a prank.

This time, since everyone was sent to the same place, there was no need to gather again. Thus, the ethereal voice of the game soon sounded, “Hello. Welcome everyone to the large-scale live escape game – STAY ALIVE.”

The female voice encircled the entire pitch-black, ice-cold space, sounding extraordinarily strange and frightening, “Your only task is to survive for 7 hours in the old house. The following are clues for you: 

Born on a Monday, Christened on Tuesday, Married on Wednesday, Took ill on Thursday, Grew worse on Friday, Died on Saturday, Buried on Sunday. That was the end of Solomon Grundy.

Wish you a happy game.”

The flat, straightforward, and unfeeling mechanical voice slowly recited the sentences with a rhythmic feel, and in such an environment, it couldn’t help but make people shudder with fear.

Mo Yi was taken aback. 

This clue … he had heard it in passing. It was a 19th Century English nursery rhyme and it had been widely circulated.

Mo Yi’s brows furrowed, head raised to look up at the patch of emptiness that wrapped around the platform, only to see that after the female voice fell, from the pitch-black sky that was devoid of light, a familiar fluorescent blue countdown emerged:

6: 59: 56

Solomon Grundy’s life was only seven days long. And this time, their time for survival happened to be seven hours … 

— Could there be any intrinsic connections here?

He took a deep breath, suppressing the countless questions that arose in his mind. Then, he raised his eyes and looked at the Player’s varying facial expressions.

There were 17 Players in total this time.

The proportion of Seniors was not low. There were at least ten people. 

Mo Yi’s lips pursed, brows somewhat furrowed in doubt.

Although there were a lot of Senior’s this time … There were still Newcomers mixed in.

Before entering the game, Mo Yi had two guesses about this instance. One was that the entire instance was the Membership Test instance, and the participants were all candidates for membership in the Advanced Players Club.

The second was that this was a very difficult instance. Unlucky Newcomers and Seniors were sent in. Candidates who completed the instance became Senior members of the club while the other Players who were not candidates for membership still had their accounts settled with a reward for having passed a high difficulty instance. 

— Since there were Newcomers in this instance, the first guess was obviously overturned.

So… was it the second?

Mo Yi’s heart was a little inexplicably uneasy.

The few Newcomers who were sent in were all dumbfounded, staring at the bizarre space that exceeded common sense, their wide-opened eyes filled with the fear of the unknown. 

Panic was spreading and taking root in the crowd, expanding, and occupying every gap, squeezing every breathable wisp of air.

At this moment, a Senior woman stepped forward and broke the stagnant atmosphere.

She was tall and slender, faint impatience between her delicate and pretty eyebrows, mouth opened to speak to the group of trembling Newcomers, “Firstly, this game is real. Dying in the game is the same as dying in reality. Secondly, I suggest you pay attention to the clues given by the game. It can save your life.”

She paused, her sharp eyes looked around the quiet platform, and continued, “The other thing is, it’s better not to act alone.” 

Her voice fell. As if a switch had been turned on, a low sob rang out from the crowd. The Senior frowned, a bit annoyed, not saying anything more, and turned to look up and down at the crooked house in the middle of the platform.

The other Seniors also separated one after another and searched for clues on the narrow platform.

Mo Yi also followed after everyone, slowly walking around the house.

Only, it was just an overgrown and barren land on which several withered trees with crooked necks were planted, short and yellowed, its thin bony branches flushed with a dead ash grey, stabbing up into the sky. 

There was a crooked path on the bleak and desolate soft loess ground, extending from the edge of the entire platform and emerging abruptly from the darkness, and then curving to join the house’s crooked porch.

The whole surface area of the platform was not very large. It didn’t take long for everyone to have walked everywhere.

Aside from a clearer understanding of the outside of the crooked and shapeless house, nothing else was gained.

One after another, everyone couldn’t help but cast their sight to the house that stood in the middle of the entire platform. 

It stood there quietly. On the oddly shaped porch, the shabby door was half opened, revealing a dark corner.

It was as if it was waiting for something.

The Senior man who had spoken to Mo Yi a moment ago said, “… Now, there’s no other choice but to go inside.”

A panicked, and stifling ambience filled the air within the crowd. Some people nearly had a nervous breakdown from the eerie and horrific pressure. A female Newcomer shouted, somewhat hysterical, “No! No way! I’m definitely not going in there!” 

The low sounds of weeping from earlier resumed and several Newcomers subconsciously drew close, nodding one after another. One of the bolder looking Newcomers asked a little timidly, “Anyway … Anyway, it’s enough to live for seven hours in this game. So, wouldn’t it be okay if we stayed outside for seven hours?”

The tall Senior woman sneered. “Whatever you want.”

After that, she turned around and walked towards the house’s porch.

Other Seniors and some Newcomers also followed her into the house. 

Three Newcomers hesitated, but nevertheless chose to stay outside.

While walking, Mo Yi’s eyes searched aimlessly around the house.

Suddenly, from out of the corners of his eyes — A blurry, distorted face was tightly pressed against the glass in the second-floor window, quietly looking at the crowd downstairs.

A chill ran down Mo Yi’s back, and the hairs on his body instantly stood up. 

He hurriedly returned his eyes to the window.

There wasn’t anything by the gray window. An intact handprint on the glass was slowly fading away.

Translator’s Note: Hi everyone! I’ve decided to change the term for the game “copy” to “instance.” I thought that might make more sense than copy. I haven’t made the changes to the past chapters. This will be done at a later time. I’ll change it back if a lot of people prefer “copy” over “instance.” Thank you for all for reading and for the comments!