Damn, Master of deception

[Hello, novice anchor, congratulations on starting your first live broadcast.]

At this moment, a voice suddenly sounded. The voice was mechanical and calm, and it was particularly abrupt in the empty dormitory.

[I'm going to tell you the rules now.]

[This is an ordinary time-limited instance with a duration of 10 hours. The current time in the instance is 7:00 p.m., that is, you need to survive until 5:00 a.m. tomorrow to clear the instance.]

Wen Jianyan: "..."

He looked down at his ID card and fell into a moment of silence.

Oh boy!

10 hours and 20 minutes, the gap… isn't it a bit too big?

[The card in your hand is an ID card, and the content of the ID card will be unlocked with the progress of the plot.]

[The basic survival time has been issued to you, and more time can be redeemed through points.]

He just continued to listen to the voice broadcast in an emotionless tone:

[The rules for the anchor to earn points:

1. Real-time settlement will be made according to the number of viewers in the live broadcast room. (The next point settlement: Two hours later.)

2. Complete the live broadcast task.

3. Audience rewards.]

[More ways to earn points will be unlocked as you explore.]

After explaining the rules, the voice suddenly became full of passion:

[The audience is God, and popularity is everything! Please fight for your live room!]

"..."

Fight you big-headed ghost!

The dormitory returned to silence.

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

Although this voice relieved his nervousness a little, he could still clearly hear his rapid and irregular heartbeat. The frequency of his breathing was stable, but his lungs were still screaming for more oxygen.

He subconsciously clenched his fingers.

The sharp, hard edges of the ID card had a distinct sting.

Wen Jianyan was able to clearly realize that his life was hanging by a thread, so he repeated the time limit in his mind—Twenty minutes.

He was a very greedy person, especially when it came to "living".

According to the rules, Wen Jianyan must obtain enough points within twenty minutes to stay alive.

This method of settlement based on the number of viewers in the live broadcast room was unreliable; after all, he couldn't live till the first settlement point.

Then there were only the remaining two options…

Obviously, the audience in the live broadcast room was also clear about this.

The barrage became significantly more active:

[Oh, the anchor wants a reward, right? Show some sincerity then.]

[Kowtow to the audience first, maybe I'm in a good mood and give you a few dozen or hundreds of points.]

[By the way, this novice anchor is very good-looking…]

The unmasked malice and joy were revealed as the lines of text drifted by. As if watching and waiting for a commodity to sell at a high price, excitedly speculating and looking forward to how to chew it from the bone and swallow it.

They had seen a lot of this kind of little anchor who was on the verge of life and death.

The time limit for survival that the streamers watched helplessly draw nearer, like a noose around their necks tightening little by little, their eyes constricted and trembling, their faces twisting under intense despair and fear.

In this case, as long as there was a chance to survive, they would seize it regardless.

No matter how terrifyingly over-the-top demands the audience made, there was no limit to their satisfaction.

Kneeling, kowtowing, self-mutilation, crying, begging for mercy—the snot and tears were flowing, ugly and pitiful.

Wen Jianyan lowered his eyelashes, and a small shadow fell on his fair face, adding a bit of vulnerability to his upright appearance.

There was no superfluous expression on his face. His lips were lightly pursed, and after a few quick glances up and down on the live broadcast interface, he precisely clicked the "Hide" button above.

"..."

There was a momentary stagnation in the barrage in the live broadcast room.

In the dead silence, a comment slowly floated past:

[Wait, did I see it right? Is the anchor hiding his own broadcasting interface?]

In fact, most anchors who were in the process of clearing the level would hide the broadcasting interface. However, if the anchor was in trouble or in a life-and-death situation, they would often leave it open.

After all…

Although the audience in the live broadcast room couldn't spoil the plot in the barrage, they could reward points to their favorite anchors.

Even if it was just on a whim, it was still a gift for the anchor.

The audience is God, and popularity is everything.

This kind of new anchor, who was about to die in ten minutes, actually turned off the broadcasting interface under such circumstances?

Was something wrong with his brain? Or, did this anchor actually think that in this case, arrogance and pride would still be valuable?

Really, laughing out loud.

Although the anchor could not see it, the number of people in the live broadcast room had once again climbed slightly.

Now, there were more than 80 viewers in the live broadcast room, all of them filled with schadenfreude and waiting to see a good show.

After hiding the live broadcast interface, Wen Jianyan took a slow, deep breath. The moist air mixed with dust, and a musty smell poured into his nostrils.

To be honest, after watching the remarks in the live broadcast room, Wen Jianyan actually… didn't feel anything.

After all, the way he made a living, it could be said that he was a fraudster. But in reality, he was a professional scammer targeting high-end customers. What dignity, pride, morality, and conduct; they were completely worthless to him.

As long as he could live, there was nothing he wasn't willing to do. However, in the rules just now, Wen Jianyan captured a keyword precisely and clearly.

Time.

The way to clear the instance was the survival time, the points were also used to exchange the survival time, and the initial allocation was also the survival time.

Time, time, time.

It could be said that time was the only and absolute measure in this instance. At the same time, it was also the most urgent thing he needed right now.

——Spending these precious twenty minutes just to wag their tails and beg the dozens of viewers, praying for the possibility of a charity… It was simply the most uneconomical transaction he could think of.

What's more, Wen Jianyan was all too familiar with what kind of reaction a human's nature would evoke in such a situation.

He knew and so did the audience.

This group of old foodies was probably already tired of watching this kind of drama, and it was even more impossible to spend a lot of money just because of this. After all, according to those remarks just now, they didn't seem to be that kind of existence.

And things that were delivered to your door in vain were the most worthless.

As a fraudster, Wen Jianyan understood that well.

Well, now there was one last option left.

Wen Jianyan's gaze moved down and landed on the taskbar in front of him.

For the time being, only one live broadcast task had been refreshed:

[Novice anchor please explore the instance and unlock the ID card.

Completion Degree: 0%]

Wen Jianyan looked around the room.

Generally speaking, if he want to know his current status, searching in the dormitory was the easiest and most direct way.

But…

Wen Jianyan looked down at his ID card. There were only 17 minutes left in the countdown, and it was rapidly decreasing by the minute.

He had so little time.

If that's the case, then the only option left was to take risks. If he didn't succeed, he would become benevolent! How to catch big fish with zero risk!

Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, put the ID card in his pocket, and strode out.

The corridor was empty.

The old-fashioned ceiling lamps hung crookedly on the ceiling. The dim, pale light swayed slightly, dividing the corridor into several half-lit and half-obscured areas.

It was quite disturbing.

Under one of the lamps, a rust-dappled half-map affixed to the wall could be seen faintly.

Wen Jianyan stepped forward quickly and stood still in front of the map. It was covered with dark and greasy handprints, and most of the patterns had been peeled off, but some vague handwriting could still be discerned.

He glanced up and down extremely quickly, then turned his head and trotted in a certain direction.

In the barrage area of the blocked live broadcast room:

[???]

[What is the anchor doing?]

[Neither asking for a reward nor going through the dormitory, I'm afraid that something is wrong with his brain?]

[Never mind, there are fifteen minutes left, hurry up, I can't wait!]

Although it was only a few seconds, Wen Jianyan had already firmly memorized the map in his heart.

He ran down the corridors with his memory.

The closed bedroom doors flew past him one by one, and the windows were all pitch black, like empty eye sockets.

A pale, smiling face slowly emerged from a window. Its eyes rolled and landed on the young man who was running past, and the corners of its mouth curved even more—

"!!!"

Wen Jianyan abruptly stopped his pace, and almost tripped himself because of the sudden movement.

His heart was beating wildly. He turned his head in horror towards the window he just passed by.

"..."

Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!

There was nothing in the window except the flickering lights.

Through the shallow layer of gray, Wen Jianyan could vaguely see the outline of his face.

He didn't know if it was an illusion… this time, the face was much closer than last time. It was as if he was approaching him little by little.

Wen Jianyan felt goosebumps crawling up his arm.

[Hahahaha, it seems that the time of death is getting closer and closer.]

[However, what happened to this anchor? Seeing this situation, his face didn't even change, and he continued to run forward…]

[Of the anchors who were in this instance before, there was not a single one who didn't scream when they saw the ghost so close.]

[Is he really not scared at all? Impossible, right?]

Wen Jianyan rushed downstairs at the fastest speed.

Although the first floor was a hall, it still looked crooked and cramped, and the walls and floor were all greasy and shrouded in a dark shadow.

Through the gray window, one could vaguely see the boundless darkness outside.

The door was closed but not locked.

The youth's pace did not slow down.

[I thought it would be a potential new anchor, and I secretly looked forward to it…]

[His first reaction was to run? It's boring.]

[Where's the suspense, let's go.]

The number of online users in the room dropped rapidly from more than 80.

While rushing toward the door, Wen Jianyan suddenly stopped and turned around——

He stopped at the door of the duty room.

Unlike the other doors, the duty room was locked.

The young man squatted, reached for his cuff with his slender fingers, and pulled out a piece of iron wire from somewhere. He bent the iron wire with familiarity and gently stirred it in the keyhole.

"Click."

The lock made a crisp sound.

In just a few seconds, the door to the duty room slid inward.

"Huh…"

Wen Jianyan stood up and breathed a sigh of relief, and between the drooping fingers, the iron wire disappeared magically.

"….."

"….."

The number of people who were still decreasing in the live broadcast room suddenly stagnated and fell into a brief silence.

Wen Jianyan pushed open the door of the duty room and stepped in.

According to the map, he saw just now, this was an old-fashioned dormitory with only three floors. The first floor was the hall and washroom, and the second floor and the third floor were the dorms.

The map was covered with rust, so he couldn't clearly see what was written on it. However, the number of dorms on each floor was very limited, so the scale of this school must not be very large.

Wen Jianyan knew a few things about the old schools with limited funds.

That was…

They have limited places to store important items.

If there was any place to gather the most information in the shortest amount of time, here was his best chance.

Like the style of the entire dormitory, the duty room was also very shabby.

A narrow bed was placed against the wall, where the teacher on duty could rest, a few books were piled up in a mess on the bookshelf, the dormitory timetable was hanging on the wall, a table was placed close to the window, and the outside window, which was usually used to talk to students, was also locked right now.

Wen Jianyan didn't delay for a second and immediately began to search and rummage with an agility that ordinary people couldn't match.

The locked drawers and cabinets were opened one by one and were quickly restored.

A roster of past students.

Teacher shift schedule.

The prompt sound of "information has been obtained" continued to be heard in his ears.

Some viewers in the barrage suddenly realized:

[Oh, he is increasing his degree of exploration to get the points.]

[Many anchors only know that they can increase the degree of exploration to obtain points after several attempts, and he actually reacted without notification. His future is promising.]

[Hey… so, maybe he can really redeem enough time this time!]

[It's better not to jump to conclusions so early, there are only a few minutes left.]

The barrage fell into silence.

Time was always a cruel thing, especially when there were only twenty minutes from the beginning.

Although Wen Jianyan's movements were really fast, he still couldn't stop the minutes and seconds from slipping through his fingers.

The top of the live broadcast interface marked the remaining survival time of the anchor, and before he knew it, there were only less than six minutes left.

In an instance, the remaining five minutes of survival time were a critical threshold.

If the anchor was only left with less than five minutes of survival time, then he would become the target of the entire instance and would indiscriminately attract the attention of all non-human beings in the instance, whether they were ghosts or NPCs.

It was no less than holding a small flag in his hand and shaking it wildly, shouting, "I'm here! Come and catch me!"

Once the anchor fell into such a situation, the danger would only increase rapidly. Most people probably wouldn't be able to last even for five minutes.

When the time reached 05:00 minutes, the countdown was dyed a dazzling bright red.

Wen Jianyan was standing in front of the table, flipping through the documents, but his action suddenly paused.

He could clearly feel that the temperature around him had dropped without warning, and the already cold and damp room had now turned bone-chilling at the moment. The chill was so strong that it was terrifying. It penetrated the skin like a steel knife and infiltrated the bones.

A strong feeling of being watched came from behind.

Wen Jianyan slowly turned his head, almost uncontrollably. In the vanity mirror placed on the table, he saw his blurred figure in the darkness.

A pale hand silently and slowly stretched out from the half-opened cabinet behind, pressing against the wall.

Over his shoulder, Wen Jianyan saw a face emerging from the shadows.

It was a smiling face. The pale face looked like it was carved from melted wax, and the simple facial features were combined on the smooth surface, like a weird smiling mask. At this moment, the corners of its mouth were silently grinning at Wen Jianyan.

The jet-black hair was like a sticky snake, and water droplets fell from the end of the black hair.

Drip drip—

It leaned out of the cabinet little by little and slowly walked toward the youth.

One step, two steps.

As the distance became closer, the details on the smiling mask slowly became richer.

More and more like…Wen Jianyan himself.

At this moment, heavy and dragging footsteps sounded from outside the half-closed door of the duty room. The sound of footsteps appeared particularly abrupt in the deadly silent room, bringing an extremely ominous atmosphere. Every step was like stepping on the human heart.

"Hum", "Hum", "Hum".

A burst of intermittent humming came from a distance.

The melody was eccentric and cheerful, and it became clear gradually with the sound of footsteps, which stood out even more in the dead and empty dark environment.

As soon as this iconic voice was heard, the audience who knew the plot immediately became excited.

[It's the old witch! It's the old witch!]

[The luck of this newcomer is really bad. He actually encountered the most difficult ghost and the most difficult NPC at the same time. I have never seen any anchor who gets this kind of treatment.]

The footsteps stopped at the door of the duty room.

The next second, the humming stopped, and an overwhelming silence suddenly enveloped the room.

As if waking up from a dream, Wen Jianyan bent down suddenly and went to the half-opened cabinet under the table.

The barrage, which was still cold and clear just now, finally became hot at this moment.

[Lmao, the newcomer is really naive.]

[If it's a normal situation, you can dig into a cabinet and hide under the bed. Although you can't hide from ghosts, the probability of escaping NPCs is still very high. But now NPCs are 100% attracted to him, he will definitely be discovered.]

[Alas, it's a pity, if it weren't for the limit at the beginning, the development potential of the anchor is quite high.]

[Don't complain, at least it's worth watching now.]

"Bang——"

The door to the duty room was slammed open from the outside.

A tall and fat woman appeared outside the door. Her extremely thick lenses couldn't hide the viciousness and gloom in those eyes. Her thick grey lips were pursed tightly, the corner of her mouth was dripping with a white fluid, the flesh on her face was shaking slightly, and a strong sense of coldness filled her arrogant face.

"Who's there?"

"Bang!"

After a soft sound of hitting something, the young man grinned and stood up while holding the back of his head.

The glasses on his face were a little crooked, and a little dust was smeared on the side of his face.

"Ah!"

As if seeing a savior, the young man's eyes lit up slightly: "Teacher Yang, you are here!"

The flesh on Teacher Yang's face shook, and she was stunned for a while, obviously not thinking of this development direction.

"The dean gave me the key and asked me to get the roster of newly enrolled boarding students."

Wen Jianyan scratched his cheek and gave the other party a shy smile: "It seems that there is a student who has not come to report, so the roster needs to be revised. Dean Shen wanted it in a hurry, so I came in without authorization. I'm really sorry…"

Looking at the rookie anchor, who was talking nonsense without changing his expression, the barrage area was dead silent.

The young man was wearing the broken glasses that he had just picked up from the bottom of the cabinet. Although the legs of the glasses were a little crooked, they didn't look abrupt when combined with his actions just now.

The previous alertness and indifference had long since disappeared.

He pursed his lips a little embarrassedly, his face was stained with a little dust, and his glasses gave him a fledgling bookish air, making him look innocent and youthful. A pair of amber-colored eyes flickered behind the lenses with unquestionable sincerity and apology.

Teacher Yang narrowed her eyes. Her sinister little eyes stared at the young man in front of her through the thick lenses.

Wen Jianyan suddenly realized: "Oh, I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself yet!"

He hurriedly stepped forward and stretched out his hand to the other party. When he was just halfway through he seemed to suddenly realize something, then he hurriedly rubbed his dusty palm on his trousers with a shy expression,

"I'm a new trainee teacher here, just call me Xiao Wen."

He stretched out his hand again.

Teacher Yang lowered her head and glanced at the palm of the other's outstretched hand, not knowing whether she believed it or not.

The young man blinked blankly and asked with concern:

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell? Do you want to go to the infirmary?"

Just after he finished speaking, he seemed to suddenly realize something and frowned in embarrassment: "But Teacher Wang Ping shouldn't be here today…"

Finally, the old witch let out a heavy snort from her nose.

She stepped forward with an agility that didn't match her size and took out a crumpled booklet from a box deep in the cabinet.

A clattering sound rang out in the narrow duty room.

The old witch licked her greasy fingers, opened the booklet, and asked, "Tell me which student didn't come to report?"

The moment the voice fell, the barrage was boiling.

[F*ck, f*ck, f*ck! She believed him, she believed him, she believed him!]

[How can a good guy play like this?]

[I'm amazed by him! How does the anchor know so much information?]

[Didn't he turn over the staff list and the duty list or something just now? Did you just come?]

[Yes, but who can make up such smooth nonsense in such a short period of time, oh my god!]

Wen Jianyan knows nothing about the audience's reaction.

He lowered his head and leaned over. His long, slender fingers lightly tapped one of the pages, and his fingertip landed on one of the names.

"Cheng Wei"—that was the name on the ID card he had drawn.

The young man smiled and said, "This."

The old witch took out a pen from her breast pocket and wrote three words after Cheng Wei's name: Not reported.

The chat, which was in full swing just now, was silent for a few seconds.

"….."

"….."

[Damn, He is the Master of deception.]