"End of the third round. Surviving players: 1,523. Congratulations on evading the Hunter's attack. You've earned an extra two seconds to choose your form."
"Rest period commencing. Teleporting now…"
Before she left, Su Bai still lingered in the chat, shamelessly boasting and earning the envy of countless players.
It was the same old house, the ceiling hidden beneath a transparent barrier. Ye Shu’s right eyelid twitched uncontrollably; staring at the elaborate food on offer, she’d lost all appetite.
This game… something about it didn’t feel so simple.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that the white mist could return—that this time, she absolutely couldn't allow herself to collapse, or, at the very least, lose consciousness completely.
Sure enough, in the very next second, the system’s voice echoed again.
"Third round of Hide and Seek complete. Players who failed three consecutive rounds will be erased!"
"Damn it! Didn’t they say seven days... How can this be counted as a failure?"
"It was pure bad luck—the major forms we drew were useless. They can’t just..."
"I never heard of a rule about erasure after three failed rounds! You did this on purpose!!"
Players who hadn’t survived a single round exploded with rage.
The images on the screen were pre-set by the system—no matter what they picked, they were dead either way, and the Hunters were anything but merciful.
They were just fodder—cannon fodder, and nothing else.
This game never gave them a real chance at survival.
"Restart! We demand a restart!"
Ye Shu placed her half-eaten bread back into her storage, turning her gaze to Su Bai, who was still devouring food as if nothing had happened.
She remembered that Xiao Bai claimed the desert scenario was her first ever game.
But this kind of calm composure… where did that look like a rookie? More like a seasoned survivor, tried and tested in carnage.
"Shushu… are you sneaking looks at me?"
Caught off guard, Ye Shu’s eyes met Su Bai’s smiling gaze.
"No," she replied coolly, gently pushing away the person twined around her, then shifting her gaze to the seething players, their numbers not small—perhaps a third of all still left. The spacious lounge had been trashed, delicate pastries scattered everywhere…
In truth, their complaints were misplaced.
From the moment you're chosen for the survival game, you lose the notion of human rights.
The system’s purpose was to breed the ultimate survivor; failures deserve to be eliminated. That was something they should have understood long before they stepped into this game.
Still, if the system really wished to kill everyone, it could have erased them all from the start—there’d be no need for this elaborate theatre.
Humans, at least, were granted a slim hope for life.
"Game players cleared. Retained."
"Erasure complete!"
"What?"
"Aah!"
"No—I’m not ready to…"
In the span of a breath, the failed players were annihilated.
Even after having witnessed this scene countless times—players bursting into bloodied mist before her eyes—Ye Shu couldn’t help but tense and draw her brows tight.
"Shu, are you scared?"
Su Bai shot her a sideways glance, only relaxing when she saw no change in Ye Shu's tightened expression.
"Are you joking?"
"Xiao Bai, didn’t you miss a round? This rule about three consecutive failures—how trustworthy is this system, really? You get it, right?"
You can't trust the system!
Ye Shu had struggled out from the heap of corpses, and she’d already died more times than she cared to remember… Fear was a feeling long lost.
What was strange was how, for the first time, the system had begun erasing players mid-game.
"I know."
"Ahhh! Everyone's dead, everyone... I'm done with these games."
"I want to go home—this damned game, let me go home!"
"It's nothing but a one-sided hunt—you Hunters, we prey have only two endings: death or cowering and surviving, sob sob…"
Every game was stocked with fresh blood—novices. No matter how much rigorous training they’d gone through back on Blue Star, nothing compares to real combat; they seemed resolute but were brittle inside.
Three rounds of games had left them on edge, and now the lounge was transformed into a slaughterhouse: too many dead, too much they were powerless to change. Madness was inevitable.
And despite it all, these rookies weren’t wrong.
Hide and Seek had turned from a game into a brutal hunt.
If she could, Ye Shu would shatter these rules.
Once again, the familiar white mist seeped in through the ceiling, players collapsing one after another.
Ye Shu pressed her sleeve hard to her nose and mouth, straining to slow the intake of the poisonous vapor.
After two minutes, a squad made their way through the transparent barrier.
Ye Shu narrowed her eyes, let her breathing soften, and made herself appear as deeply asleep as possible.
The white mist reached far, visibility dropping to near nothing.
Those—the Hunters—stalked the fog, clad in no protection at all, striding freely where no player could dare.
"Tap. Tap. Tap."
Footsteps approached her.
With half-lidded eyes, Ye Shu caught only a blurred, towering silhouette. As the steps drew closer, she snapped her eyes fully shut, feigning unconsciousness.
The steps came to a halt a meter away.
And waited.
Keep moving. Go. Don’t stop.
She had no desire to learn who this intruder was.
Yet fate had other plans—after a few minutes, the figure shuffled closer still.
A rush of hot, tickling breath washed over her cheek, suffused with a repulsive scent.
That scent pressed closer, pine and musk closing in on her.
Ye Shu lay unmoving, faking death on her side.
As Lin Qingyue’s hand was about to touch the side of her face, a shadow darted out, intercepting with lightning speed.
"Grrrowl! How dare you eye my master!"
A black tiger emerged from thin air, its snarl baring jagged fangs squarely at Lin Qingyue.
Lin Qingyue—an old nemesis. Da Piaoliang remembered him well, but hadn’t expected Ye Shu to summon it now, nor that its opponent would be this man.
Da Piaoliang: "...Rrr!"
Master said: show no fear, the louder you roar, the more right you seem! Even if you’re scared, you must never show it.
"You," Lin Qingyue said, instantly recognizing the uncanny creature always by Ye Shu’s side. What he’d dismissed as a trivial pet had not only survived, but somehow grown stronger—remarkable.
Still, was it his imagination, or was the thing terrified of him?
"Move aside. I’ll handle this."
Ye Shu wanted the fight done quickly.
She had inhaled far too much of the mist—her strength dropping by the second.
Lin Qingyue’s eyes flicked to the peachwood sword, and his eyelid twitched.
"You really want to kill me that badly?"
Did that even need to be said?! As if she’d ever thank him for murdering her!
Ye Shu rolled her eyes in clear contempt, gave no answer, and pressed her attack—the sword in her hand moving faster and faster toward Lin Qingyue.
Across the room, other Hunters watched with surprise.
Never before had prey stayed on their feet so well under the influence of the drugged mist.
The Hunters had injected themselves with a counteragent ahead of time, sparing them the gas’s hypnotic effects.
After barely two exchanges, Ye Shu’s body could endure no more.
The mist, with every motion, churned faster through her veins, draining her energy to nothing.
"Da Piaoliang, cover me," she ordered.
In her final flicker of consciousness, she drove the peachwood sword home into his chest.
This round, she’d won.
Even if she was killed here, time itself would rewind—and she’d be sure to drive the blade through Lin Qingyue’s throat with her own hands.
…
Da Piaoliang caught her as she collapsed, lowering her gently to the floor.
"This lunatic… she’s still holding a grudge? Wasn’t I killed a few times myself? By now, we should call it even…" Lin Qingyue muttered with a baffled sigh, squatting beside Ye Shu and tilting her chin upwards, unconcerned as blood from his chest soaked his shirt.
The black tiger curled in on itself, the uncanny beast shivering helpless on the ground.