There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

```

Mystery City didn't have any sort of banquet culture, so after everyone finished eating at the restaurant, they simply went home if they were off work or returned to their posts if they were still on duty. If they said they would eat for an hour, then they just ate for an hour!

What made Pei Sheng happy was that he finally got the contact information of one of the receptionists.

Next, he could ask her out for a meal alone!

Xu Shuo renegotiated a labor contract with one of the script hosts, who would now manage the daily operations of the offline game store, while the operations side was taken care of by the studio, as had been decided before.

Therefore, the newly established operations department of the studio was divided into two teams as well, one with fewer people managing the promotion of Mystery City, and the other liaising with the online game.

Everything was ready, just waiting for the game to go online!

To tell the truth, Xu Shuo was even more nervous when the new game was about to launch than when he was opening the store, since their studio was originally focused on online game development, with the main emphasis still being there.

As for that store, he planned to leave it to Xu Xi eventually, but for now, he just wanted to get it up and running.

The game officially launched on Sunday. In the early stages, Xu Shuo had already invested heavily in promotional guidance, and now he was waiting to see how the downloads and revenue would turn out the next day.

He had no intention of watching the data all night.

Because before going to sleep, he entered the Script Space.

After Xu Shuo completed his Punishment Task, he had leveled up to Second Level. According to the plan, Hong Rao had prepared a team campaign for him, especially waiting for him to reach Second Level.

Now, it was said that the group had been waiting for him for nearly half a month.

Upon hearing this, Xu Shuo said, "Actually, I can go in by myself."

But Hong Rao had refused this idea from the beginning.

"No! Strictly speaking, that script is a High Rank Second Level Script, and you've just entered Second Level. Even if you have a Character Card and props, those players have come up from Low Rank step by step. They have countless tactics at their disposal!"

"But I..."

"Don't worry, in this round you can just lie back and get through it."

Hong Rao winked at him, "There's a batch of props in this script that the victorious camp will definitely get. This time you just need to go in and gain some experience; you barely need to do anything. Isn't leeching great?"

That last sentence convinced Xu Shuo.

This team campaign involved ten players, a five versus five camp, with a future backdrop and involving magic elements.

The rest of Xu Shuo's team, according to Hong Rao, were all connected to her friends, essentially all familiar players who often teamed up to play scripts together.

Previously, Hong Rao had no students who could join, but now that she had a student, she definitely had to make up a part of the team!

This was also Hong Rao's first step in introducing Xu Shuo into her own circle. As players who had been battling it out in the Script Space for who knows how long, they weren't really lone wolves.

Lone wolves might have all died out already.

Xu Shuo opened the script to take a look. Although his memories would get blurred after entering the script, it wouldn't hurt to check it out now, and it had been said that those with powerful spiritual power might be able to retain some subconscious awareness.

You never know, right?

...

While Xu Shuo was familiarizing himself with the script, several new followers appeared on his fan list. Soon after, Hong Rao also sent over the information of those four players.

Once they followed each other, they could become friends who could chat with each other.

However, one of them realized upon following Xu Shuo... this person had already followed them a while back!

"Eh? When did this happen? Could it be that he's seen one of the performances I participated in, hence becoming my fan?"

"It's probably because Hong Rao already shared your information with him, so he followed before you did," said the man sitting beside him, flipping through a magazine, nonchalantly.

"..." Cheng Can.

What the hell, I have four digits in my fan count, okay!

Biting his lip, Cheng Can clicked on the newcomer's profile, quickly looked through it, then entered the Performed Scripts list. He glanced at the scripts, then randomly picked a video to watch.

Ten minutes later...

"Holy shit! This guy finished in just ten minutes!"

The man next to him heard the exclamation and looked up.

After his initial shock, Cheng Can gave the progress bar a bewildered look to confirm it really was ten minutes, and the guy in the theater solved the mystery and reasoned as if he had the script, navigating it smoothly with no obstacles!

It must be because the script was too simple!

```

He refused to believe there was something supernatural at work, so he exited the video and clicked on another.

After ten minutes...

"Fuck, he must be cheating!"

Cheng Can watched several scripts in a row and realized that as long as the plot wasn't complex and didn't require going through necessary procedures, this ruthless player generally finished around the ten-minute mark.

Moreover, he often seemed to be idly sleepwalking through the whole process, only to snap to attention at critical moments and break the script.

Even though he'd had a mentor teach him how to run scripts, this still didn't seem scientific!

What's more, the more he watched, the more he felt that this person's face looked a bit familiar. Strange, had he seen him before?

Wait, some of the plots seemed familiar too?

While Cheng Can was deep in thought over the video, the man beside him pulled over the system panel and watched the theater play at an increased speed.

Then, he watched several other theaters in the same way.

"It must be this kid who found the director from his world and then exploited the loopholes in the memories of the real world to level up rapidly by running scripts in batches," the man said indifferently after watching.

Because all these scripts that were cleared quickly without exception all had the same low-rank world view.

If Hong Rao really wanted to train a student, she wouldn't arrange such simple scripts even for first level, since it's obvious that the rewards gained in the end wouldn't be high and could only be used to rack up performance points.

After some thought, he reasoned that Hong Rao's move was probably to get the student up to second level quickly to then form teams... and freeload.

The man rubbed his temples with a hint of a headache thinking about this, knowing full well Hong Rao's penchant for freeloading on petty things.

But he didn't understand...

Would students truly grow in such a fashion? Wouldn't they just die again during the fourth-level assessment?

First-level scripts might not be critical, but they allow newcomers to familiarize themselves with the game's mechanics, refine their acting and critical thinking skills, and build a foundation.

Without a solid foundation, even if they later possess great power and items, they'll be nothing but a house of cards.

Many second-generation gamers are just like a good-looking flower pot that is rotten inside.

Although they seem gloriously unbeatable on the surface, they can't even win against Cheng Can!

Cheng Can: ?

He watched as his mentor's expression briefly flickered like a painter's palette, before turning to give him a meaningful look. And such a gaze, he had encountered many times before!

Cheng Can felt uncomfortable: "What did I do now?"

The man shook his head with a peculiar expression: "Nothing, you're fine."

It's just that there might really be a chance to lead a rookie soon.

...

"Hm? This person..."

On the other hand, when Xu Shuo came back online, he naturally noticed that a player he was following had already drawn his attention.

His follow list only contained four people.

The first was Patient No. 8, whom he saw complaining on the forums after coming out of The Fifth Hospital. He watched the guy's performed script and casually hit follow.

It's worth mentioning that this person had also participated in "Dancer in the Dark"—the first script Xu Shuo watched in Script Space.

Turns out, this guy had been in three now-defunct scripts.

As for the other three people he followed, they were naturally Hong Rao, Luo Kai, and Luo Kun, whom he particularly had blocked.

Xu Shuo wasn't afraid of the latter; he just thought it would be very troublesome, given that guy's ability to mess things up, probably turning a script's direction from rural teacher to alien invasion—roughly that exaggerated.

A script that should have ended quickly was twisted into an eighteen-turn mountain road covered in blood.

After watching Luo Kun's theatrical performance, Xu Shuo wanted nothing more than to keep his distance from this trouble.

Fortunately, he had advanced to second level now.

With this in mind, Xu Shuo casually opened the blacklist and pulled up Luo Kun's personal profile to take a look.

Level: Second Level. Continue reading at empire

Grass, a plant.