Mu Shicheng stared at the silver coin.
Then at Bai Liu.
His expression looked genuinely haunted.
“Are you insane?”
“You want to buy Mental Bleach for one point?”
He looked utterly speechless.
“Do you even know how expensive that stuff is? Mine’s high-grade! It cost over a thousand points!”
“Besides...”
Mu Shicheng pointed accusingly.
“How is this any different from freeloading?!”
“The coin plus a live demonstration of my skill.”
Bai Liu’s smile remained perfectly calm.
“You can watch first, then decide whether to help me.”
“I imagine you’ll be the first player ever to witness my Personal Skill.”
Hearing him speak in such a composed, almost coaxing tone, Mu Shicheng couldn’t help wavering.
Truthfully, he didn’t think he could lose.
Even if Bai Liu showed him the skill, Mu Shicheng could simply refuse afterward.
Bai Liu’s mental value was still dangerously low.
Besides, all coercive abilities—including theft-type skills—were prohibited inside the Game Lobby.
Even if Bai Liu possessed some kind of stealing ability, it shouldn’t work here.
At least... that was how the system was supposed to function.
After thinking it over, Mu Shicheng finally snatched the coin from Bai Liu’s fingertips.
“Deal.”
A crooked grin spread across his face.
“Show me your skill.”
[System Notification: Trade established between player Bai Liu and player Mu Shicheng.]
[The Poor Drifter Bai Liu has obtained one bottle of Mental Bleach.]
[System Notification: Player Mu Shicheng has gifted player Bai Liu one bottle of high-quality Mental Bleach worth 1,700 points.]
[A player whose mental value falls below 20 may recover completely after use.]
An aluminum can appeared in Bai Liu’s hand.
It resembled spray paint.
Without hesitation, Bai Liu shook it once and sprayed himself directly in the face before Mu Shicheng could react.
White mist exploded around him.
Mu Shicheng froze.
Then he let out a tragic scream.
“That was my discounted limited-stock premium bleach!!”
By the time he lunged forward, Bai Liu had already emptied half the can.
The exhaustion vanished from Bai Liu’s face almost immediately.
Meanwhile, Mu Shicheng looked seconds away from dying of heartbreak.
“What exactly is your skill?!” he demanded. “Stealing?!”
“But robbery skills don’t work in the lobby! Players can only trade here!”
“So how the hell did you steal my bleach from the system warehouse?!”
“I already demonstrated the skill,” Bai Liu replied pleasantly.
He rose to his feet and patted Mu Shicheng on the shoulder.
“Thanks for the Mental Bleach. It works great.”
Mu Shicheng followed behind him like an aggrieved monkey, endlessly demanding explanations.
He even used a strange balance-scale item to determine whether Bai Liu had lied.
The result returned:
[True]
Which only confused Mu Shicheng even more.
Meanwhile, Wang Shun was busy explaining the fundamentals of the game system to Bai Liu.
During the explanation, he casually mentioned:
“Almost all the rookies from your batch are dead now.”
Then he hesitated.
“Actually... there was another decent newcomer named Mu Ke.”
“He’s still struggling, but he probably won’t survive much longer. I checked earlier—he already fell into the Death Comedy zone.”
Bai Liu’s expression shifted slightly.
“Mu Ke?”
The reason Bai Liu had lost his previous job was largely because of a rich young master named Mu Ke.
The company had accepted him as some sort of spoiled internship experience.
Bai Liu’s supervisor had immediately sacrificed Bai Liu’s position to make room.
Mu Ke was infamous for his terrible temper.
During the handover period, Bai Liu had left numerous game design drafts and horror-game demo files on his computer.
When he returned the following day, everything had already been thrown away.
Not just the computer.
Everything on his desk.
Mu Ke had discarded all of it without permission.
When Bai Liu calmly asked where his computer had gone, Mu Ke merely replied that it looked old and ugly.
So he threw it out.
Then he casually offered to buy Bai Liu a brand-new top-spec replacement.
Bai Liu originally wanted to explain that the machine contained years of horror-game concepts and irreplaceable files.
But there was no point.
Mu Ke came from money.
Rumor claimed he suffered from congenital heart disease and had therefore been spoiled his entire life.
Whatever he wanted, he received.
If he wanted a position at a company, someone else lost theirs.
Bai Liu knew his own personality well enough.
If he spoke too harshly and triggered the young master’s illness, the resulting medical bills would probably ruin him.
So instead, Bai Liu calmly accepted the outrageously expensive Alienware replacement computer Mu Ke bought for him.
Then he meticulously calculated compensation for every discarded item.
Including half a pack of tissues.
After collecting every cent, he left under Mu Ke’s contemptuous stare.
Now, hearing Mu Ke’s name again, Bai Liu suddenly said:
“I want to see him.”
Wang Shun found the request strange, but still led him toward the Death Comedy zone.
Mu Ke’s little TV sat abandoned in a remote corner.
This type of desperate survival struggle wasn’t particularly popular even in Death Comedy.
It lacked entertainment value.
Players on the brink of death appeared constantly in this game.
The audience had long since grown numb.
Occasionally someone glanced at Mu Ke’s tear-streaked face as he desperately fought to survive.
Then they quickly looked away again.
Bai Liu opened Mu Ke’s game panel.
Mu Ke had already completed two pages of the Monster Book.
One of them was [Merman Sailor].
The corresponding reward item was [Merman’s Amulet].
Bai Liu’s gaze paused.
“His will to survive is strong,” Wang Shun remarked quietly. “But he probably still won’t make it.”
“He managed to obtain an Underwater Bubble earlier through rewards, but the Mermen destroyed it almost immediately. After that, nobody bothered supporting him anymore.”
Mu Shicheng folded his arms.
“This rookie’s actually decent.”
“If he survives and agrees to sell me that Merman’s Amulet, I’d gladly sponsor him.”
“That item’s extremely useful.”
“But no sane player willingly sells Monster Book items.”
“So all we can do is watch him die.”
Bai Liu agreed.
If he were in Mu Ke’s position, he wouldn’t sell it either.
Still.
Allowing something this valuable to sink uselessly into the sea right in front of him...
That wasn’t Bai Liu’s style.
He spoke silently to the system.
[System. Can I trade with Mu Ke while he’s still inside the game?]
[System: You and player Mu Ke do not currently exist within the same dimensional space. Transaction impossible.]
Bai Liu lowered his eyes.
[Define dimensional space.]
[System: Time and space between both parties must be unified, continuous, and inseparable.]
[Your current spacetime and player Mu Ke’s spacetime are separated. Therefore, ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) trade cannot occur.]
“Time and space...”
Bai Liu unconsciously rubbed the coin hanging around his neck.
Then he murmured softly:
“So it’s not completely impossible.”
[System. Display the item Siren Bones.]
[System: Loading item.]
A pale fish bone nearly two meters long materialized before him.
It glowed with a cold white fluorescence.
The bone structure was elegant and almost translucent, beautiful in the same cruel way as the Siren King himself.
But despite its beauty, the object was unmistakably a fully extracted spine.
Its elegance carried a horrifying undertone.
One end tapered into a razor-sharp spine.
The other formed a smooth grip.
It resembled a whip.
Slowly, the bone coiled itself around Bai Liu’s waist.
Its touch felt icy, almost scale-like.
Finally, it settled loosely across his hips like a strange bone chain.
The sharpened tip rested lightly against his navel while the grip hung beneath his belt.
Against Bai Liu’s white shirt and dress pants, the thing looked absurdly out of place.
Mu Shicheng reached out curiously.
The instant his fingers neared Bai Liu’s waist, the fish bone suddenly snapped upright like a living creature and stabbed toward him.
Mu Shicheng yelped and jerked backward.
Half his health vanished instantly.
“What the hell is that thing?!”
He stared at Bai Liu in horror while shaking his numb hand.
“Players are isolated inside independent spaces in the lobby!”
“So why can this thing attack me?!”
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
The truly terrifying issue was this:
Players were not supposed to be capable of attacking each other inside the Game Lobby.
