Players, Please Board the Train

Using the immigration bureau's online platform, Xu Huo contacted private detectives near the residences of those two families, commissioning them to investigate their pasts.

The doctor who had appeared at the Seventeenth Hospital hadn't taken the children away right from the start; their deaths only occurred after a certain period of "growth." This suggested that the "doctor" wasn't focusing on one or two specific "seedlings" but was casting a wide net.

Shang Shuming might have been one of the fry caught in that net, but whether the person who later appeared before Peng Ya and the others was truly "Doctor Shang" was uncertain.

At this point, he began to suspect that the doctor from the Seventeenth Hospital hadn't been a lone operator. He likely had many accomplices, and they might have been similarly cultivating and grooming successors. "Doctor Shang" might not have been the original doctor, nor was he necessarily the real Shang Shuming. The identity of a psychologist might simply be the guise they used to navigate different worlds.

The only certainty was that Shang Shuming had become part of this group. Now, the question was whether any of the children taken from the Welfare Home had been selected in the same way.

The sky was gradually darkening. Xu Huo planned to spend the night here, and just as he was about to drag a table over to use as a bed, a sudden, thunderous banging came from outside the door. In the next second, a strange odor wafted in, and before he knew it, the scenery before his eyes had completely changed.

Amidst the torrential downpour, he found himself face-to-face with a ghastly, dead-white face.

Locked in a mutual gaze, the other person stared at him without moving, and he stared back just as motionlessly.

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning split the sky, momentarily illuminating the dim forest. The dead-white face blinked, its blue-gray lips trembling twice before it managed to force out words, "Hi... I don't suppose you have anything to eat..."

Xu Huo shifted his gaze. Beside the speaker were four other people, some standing, some sitting under a tree to take shelter from the rain. Their expressions and postures were all drained of vitality. While the "dead-face" was speaking, they all stared at him, transfixed, and someone couldn't help but swallow hard.

These people looked genuinely miserable. Probably from being soaked in the rain too long, each one showed signs of hypothermia.

Opening his "Umbrella of Justice," Xu Huo took some food from his luggage compartment and handed it over. The "dead-face" snatched it with trembling hands, tearing open one of the sealed bags with her teeth and tossing the rest to the others. In an instant, the sounds of five people chewing and swallowing nearly drowned out the rain.

After devouring the food in a few bites, they craned their necks to catch rainwater directly, drinking their fill. Having barely satisfied their hunger and thirst, the five of them stared at Xu Huo with eyes that gleamed green.

"If you're still hungry, you could always consider killing one of you," Xu Huo said slowly, taking out a handkerchief to wipe the rain from his face while casually surveying the surroundings. As far as the eye could see, it was all identical trees, resembling a vast, sprawling primeval forest.

"We don't eat people," the "dead-face" said, wiping the rain from her own face. "If we were Player-Eaters, we wouldn't be starving like this."

Xu Huo ignored her outstretched hand. "This should be the site of a Random Dungeon, right?"

Without a trace of embarrassment, the "dead-face" withdrew her hand and introduced herself, "My name is Lu Zhen. We've been in here for several days, but we've been trapped in the forest the whole time. We never got a dungeon notification, and we can't find a way out. No idea what's going on."

The others chimed in, "This damn game must be trying to starve us all to death here! We've been going around in circles the whole time!"

"So you've been getting rained on here for days?" Xu Huo only spoke after hearing their story.

Their faces were probably too stiff from the cold to show much expression; you could barely catch a hint of awkwardness in their eyes. Their blank expressions gave off a vibe of "whatever happens, happens."

Even a newbie player wouldn't fail to find the dungeon grounds. Besides, Random Dungeons generally have no player limit—whoever shows up counts. Xu Huo hadn't entered with a train ticket, so there was no need to wait for a set number of people for the dungeon to start.

Without saying anything more, he turned and walked away. Lu Zhen quickly took two steps after him, "Are you looking for a way out? Take us with you!"

Paying no attention to the five people behind him, Xu Huo alternated between walking and stopping. A few minutes later, he encountered another group of players also getting soaked in the rain.

The two parties exchanged glances. The man in a raincoat at the front of the other group nodded at Xu Huo.

Without a word, both groups moved in the same direction with unspoken agreement. After another ten-plus minutes, an old, dilapidated villa faintly emerged from the forest ahead.

"Why?!" Lu Zhen blurted out, her companions looking equally incredulous.

But no one cared about their reaction. Xu Huo and the man in the raincoat led their groups toward the villa and knocked on the front door.

The door was opened by a female player with a pretty face. She smiled warmly at Xu Huo and his group. "Oh my, so many people have arrived! Come in, come in! The rain outside is so heavy, hurry up and warm yourselves by the fire!"

Inside the main hall, there were eight more players. Half of them had dry clothes, just like the woman at the door. The other four were gathered around the fireplace, looking like they hadn't arrived much earlier than this group.

These people, including the raincoat man's group of seven, were in decent shape. Only Lu Zhen's five looked completely drained and utterly pathetic.

Their appearance simply couldn't go unnoticed. Under everyone's scrutiny, the five immediately showed their unease.

The female player who opened the door smiled gently and took Lu Zhen's hand, patting it soothingly. "Don't be scared, little sister. It's not like we're going to eat you. Come warm up by the fire, steady your nerves. We've still got to clear the dungeon, after all."

Lu Zhen struggled to pull her hand away, first glancing at Xu Huo before moving toward the fireplace with her companions. The living room wasn't small, but it wasn't exactly huge either. All the players were right there; if something happened, the others wouldn't just stand by and do nothing.

The female player stood still, her gaze sweeping over Lu Zhen and her group one by one. Then it landed on Xu Huo. Seeing him holding an umbrella, she reached out to touch it.

Xu Huo lifted the umbrella slightly out of her reach, offering a faint smile. "This is my precious treasure. Regular folks can't touch it."

A few pairs of eyes in the living room flicked toward the umbrella, both openly and covertly, but quickly looked away. The female player tossed her hair, speaking in a coquettish tone, "Don't be so tense, big bro. We're all in the same boat, aren't we? Getting to know each other makes for better cooperation."

Xu Huo maintained his smile without replying. The female player, sensing she was getting nowhere, looked away and muttered, "Lone wolves never get far in this game."

"Cut the crap," a young player sitting on the stairs, fiddling with a dagger, said. "With this many people, the dungeon should start by now."

BOOM!

A thunderclap roared outside. In the next second, the villa's front door slammed shut and locked itself. Then all the lights in the house went out, and an electronic screen projected itself in the middle of the room:

[Welcome, players, to the "Villa with Only One Master."]