Chapter 6: “Best Friend”.

Wait a minute… this feeling… something seems off?

Bai Linlin stared at the overly bright—almost smug, “plan accomplished” kind of—smile on Ruan Yuan’s face. The tiny sprout of unease in her heart shot up like a weed.

Had she agreed to the room fusion too hastily?

Why did it feel like she’d just gift-wrapped herself with a neat little bow and delivered herself straight to someone’s doorstep?

Before she could think too deeply, Ruan Yuan had already schooled her expression. She turned her gaze toward Lin Yan, who was still frozen in place a short distance away.

Her voice returned to its previous flat calm, yet carried an unmistakable note of command.

“You. Go. Kill the wolf.”

Lin Yan blinked, the shotgun barrel shifting slightly. He looked at Ruan Yuan, then at Bai Linlin, clearly checking whether this was some kind of trap.

“Wait a second?”

This time Bai Linlin reacted. She tugged at the hem of Ruan Yuan’s dress, tilting her small face up to ask.

“Just now… didn’t you stop him from going over? You even threw a flying knife to block him.”

She pointed at the exquisite dagger still embedded in the dirt.

Ruan Yuan lowered her head and gave her a smile.

This one was gentler than the earlier “gotcha” grin, but the depths of her eyes remained unreadable to Bai Linlin.

“Because,”

Ruan Yuan said slowly, as though stating the most obvious fact in the world,

“if the wolf had been killed just now, the game would have ended.”

“Game over, and Linlin—you would ‘disappear’.”

She reached out, fingertips lightly brushing the white strands of hair beside Bai Linlin’s ear.

“Then we would be separated. Who knows when—or in which instance—we’d meet again.”

Her tone was perfectly even, yet the words “disappear” and “separated” made Bai Linlin’s heart clench for no apparent reason.

“Oh… I see.”

Bai Linlin nodded half-understandingly.

So… Ruan Yuan had deliberately delayed things just so they could spend a little more time together?

The method was a bit odd, but… it seemed to come from a place of “best friend” concern?

She pushed down that faint sense of wrongness and nodded toward Lin Yan.

“Big Brother Lin Yan, then I’ll have to trouble you.”

“The wolf is on the bed in the bedroom inside. It… no longer has any ability to resist.” She skipped the gruesome details.

Lin Yan took a deep breath. He gave Ruan Yuan one last complicated look, then—still holding the shotgun—cautiously approached the cabin once more.

This time, no flying dagger stopped him. He quickly entered the house.

Not long after, a muffled sound came from inside—like a sharp blade sinking into flesh.

Followed by the faint noise of something heavy collapsing completely.

Almost simultaneously, the familiar semi-transparent panel popped into Bai Linlin’s vision.

【Wolf has died. Game ended.】

【Task settlement in progress…】

【Task ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (Phase One) completed.】

【Rewards distributing…】

【Obtained: Little Red Riding Hood’s Basket (Special Item)】

【Description: An seemingly ordinary vine-woven basket. Every 24 hours, it automatically refreshes with one piece of honey cake and one bottle of wine. The cake can relieve hunger; the wine restores a small amount of stamina and dispels minor negative statuses. Item can be taken out of the instance.】

【Evaluation: You seem to have discovered an unusual way to clear the stage? Survival itself is victory.】

【Overall combat power slightly increased: 5 → 6】

【Evaluation updated: Still cute, but apparently starting to learn how to make use of your ‘advantages’? (laugh)】

Bai Linlin: “…”

The evaluation bar was as infuriating as ever. Only +1 to combat power—what kind of joke was that!

And what was with the quotation marks around “advantages”!

Before she could finish internally roasting the system, the settlement info faded.

She felt a weight appear in her hands. The vine basket covered with blue-and-white checkered cloth materialized out of thin air.

At the same time, a powerful pulling sensation hit her. The forest, the cabin—everything around her began to blur and turn transparent.

Ruan Yuan’s figure in front of her also started to fade, but her voice came through clearly, carrying a trace of instruction.

“We’ll meet again in twelve hours.”

Ruan Yuan looked at her. At the very last moment she reached out and gently pinched Bai Linlin’s slightly chubby cheek—her movements noticeably more practiced than before.

“Wait for me. Don’t wander off, understood?”

“Unders—”

Bai Linlin barely started to reply before an irresistible wave of drowsiness seized her. Her consciousness plunged straight into darkness.

It felt like surfacing from deep water.

Bai Linlin opened her eyes to the familiar boundless pure white.

Ceiling, walls, floor—all that unsettling, uniform white.

She was back.

In the initial pure-white cubic space—her “personal room.”

She was lying on the floor (not even a bed!), the Little Red Riding Hood basket placed beside her.

She sat up and lifted the cloth covering the basket.

Inside lay a golden, fluffy piece of honey cake and a dark glass bottle, its cork firmly in place—the wine, presumably.

Her stomach gave a timely “growl.”

She picked up the cake without ceremony and took a big bite.

The taste was surprisingly good—sweet but not cloying, with the rich aroma of honey and wheat, and a satisfying texture.

A few bites in, the hunger eased considerably.

While eating, she summoned her panel.

Next to the main interface, a small, constantly pulsing semi-transparent icon had appeared—like an animation of two little houses merging. Below it read:

【Room fusion in progress. Remaining time: 11 hours 47 minutes 22 seconds】.

And beneath that, a more prominent countdown:

【Next forced game match: 23 hours 58 minutes 11 seconds】.

“So this death game really is mandatory, huh.”

Bai Linlin chewed the cake and muttered to herself, brows furrowing.

“Every twenty-four hours? Even work donkeys wouldn’t be squeezed this hard…”

The next question was far more pressing.

Next game—no Ruan Yuan by her side. With her current “cute and otherwise useless” (now upgraded to combat power 6) little body, how was she supposed to survive?

Rely on acting adorable? What if she ran into monsters that didn’t buy the cute act?

Anxiety made her fidget.

She finished the cake in a few more bites and carefully placed the wine bottle back in the basket.

Might come in handy as a mini health potion in a pinch.

She paced two laps around the pure-white, empty room.

It wasn’t large—maybe thirty square meters—and completely bare.

Except for one door.

A door she hadn’t noticed before—or had subconsciously ignored.

It was set into the pure-white wall, also white, almost blending seamlessly with the surface.

Only a faint outline of the frame and a small, unremarkable silver handle gave it away.

Bai Linlin walked up to it, hesitated, then reached out and grasped the handle.

She gave it a gentle twist.

Click.

The door opened.

It could be opened!

Her heart jumped. She took a deep breath and slowly pulled the door ajar.

Outside… wasn’t darkness, nor void. There was light.

She pulled the door fully open and stepped through.

The sight before her made her breath catch instantly.

She stood in something like a “corridor” or “street.”

The ground beneath her feet was the same pure white, stretching forward endlessly.

Lining both sides of the “street” were countless identical pure-white structures—just like the one behind her.

Perfect cubes, featureless, like meticulously arranged giant white shipping containers… or coffins?

Row upon row, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Some doors were tightly shut. Others stood open, revealing similarly empty, pure-white interiors.

In the distance she caught a fleeting glimpse of a human silhouette flashing past an open doorway—too fast to make out any details.

What… exactly was this place?

A player hub?

A safe zone?

While she was still stunned by the monotonous yet eerie scene, the friend list icon in the corner of her vision began to flash.

It was Ruan Yuan.

She tapped it open.

Ruan Yuan: 【Linlin, are you awake?】

Bai Linlin replied immediately: 【Mm-hmm, awake. Back in the white room.】

Ruan Yuan: 【You’ve lost your memory—do you still remember the rules here?】

That hit the nail on the head. Bai Linlin answered honestly: 【No, I don’t. I just opened the door of my room. Outside… it’s really strange.】

Ruan Yuan didn’t seem surprised: 【If you opened the door, you should be seeing a lot of buildings identical to your room, right?】

Bai Linlin: 【Yes, tons of white cube houses, all neatly lined up. What exactly is this place?】

Ruan Yuan didn’t answer directly. Instead she asked: 【Linlin, besides being white and completely empty, do the buildings around you have any other features? Windows? Furniture?】

Bai Linlin glanced back at her own utterly barren cubic room: 【Just white, empty, pure white. Nothing at all.】

Ruan Yuan paused for a few seconds before replying: 【Then Linlin’s house is very low level. Level 1.】

House level? Level 1?

Ruan Yuan continued to explain: 【You can think of this place as the players’ ‘safe zone’ or ‘rest area.’ After clearing a game, besides item rewards, players sometimes receive a special ‘building core’ or ‘upgrade points.’ Use those to level up your personal room.】

Bai Linlin looked at her featureless room and roughly understood what “low level” meant.

Ruan Yuan: 【Level 1 rooms are like yours right now—just an empty shell with only the most basic ‘return’ and ‘store bound items’ functions. After upgrading, the space expands, basic furniture appears, and depending on your preferences, some minor auxiliary functions might unlock—slow stamina recovery, simple training equipment, things like that.】

Bai Linlin pressed: 【And after upgrading? Do you leave this place?】

Ruan Yuan: 【Yes. At Level 2, your room automatically ‘detaches’ from this layer and enters the second layer. The environment and facilities there are better, and rooms become more personalized. But correspondingly…】

Bai Linlin’s heart sank: 【The death games you get matched into become harder?】

Ruan Yuan: 【Mm. Difficulty and rewards usually correspond. Higher-level players get matched into instances with overall greater difficulty and danger. There are other ways to gain resources too—that’s for later.】

Bai Linlin digested the information. So this was basically an alternate version of an upgrade-grind-climb-the-tower game? Except failing meant real death.

A crucial question suddenly occurred to her: 【Sister Ruan Yuan, then you… what level are you?】

This time Ruan Yuan replied almost instantly. The answer made Bai Linlin’s eyes widen.

Ruan Yuan: 【Level 22.】

Level 22?! Bai Linlin nearly choked on her own saliva. Level 1 and Level 22?! Wasn’t the gap a little too ridiculous? She typed furiously: 【Huh?! Then how did you get matched with me? A Level 1 newbie instance?】 This matchmaking is broken!

Ruan Yuan’s reply carried a hint of playful secrecy: 【Secret.】

Secret again!

Before Bai Linlin could keep pressing, Ruan Yuan sent one final message, tone leaving no room for argument:

【For the remaining time, stay inside your room. Don’t wander. The ‘street’ outside isn’t absolutely safe—especially for you right now. Wait for me. Once the fusion finishes, I’ll come over.】

At the end of the message was a simple symbol.

🙂

That smiley face, in Bai Linlin’s eyes at this moment, somehow made the slight relaxation she’d felt from learning new information tighten right back up again.

She stood at the doorway of her Level 1 room, gazing out at the endless, neatly arranged white “coffin houses,” then turned to look back at her own equally barren little white box.

A Level-22 Ruan Yuan… why would she deliberately match into a Level-1 newbie instance just to find her?

Really just because they were “best friends”?

She closed the door, shutting out that eerie world beyond.

Leaning back against the cold door panel, she slowly slid down to sit on the pure-white floor.

The basket rested beside her leg.

The countdown to the next game ticked silently in the corner of her vision.

The room fusion countdown ticked as well.

What exactly… was waiting for her?