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Chapter 514 Honkai Impact 3rd - The Dream of Two Billion Girls
After fifteen days, Mr. Green was finally able to leave Gu Mian and continue his search for a way back to the instance.

Gu Mian is actually quite strange.

Mr. Green doesn't want to stay in the real world, is it because he's afraid Earth will kill him?
But this host has been brought up for almost half a year now, and Earth hasn't made any response.

The fat man spent the whole night talking about how to plan ahead, and then he fell asleep while he was planning, snoring loudly.

The overworked fat man didn't wake up until noon the next day.

When he woke up, his first instinct was to think about what he should eat today, but then he realized something was wrong: "Wait a minute! How did I fall asleep? Weren't we discussing turning off the death protection mechanism yesterday?"

Sitting on the living room sofa, Chu Changge looked up at him and said, "You're the one who's talking about it."

Yesterday, Gu Mian couldn't stand the fat man's nagging, so she offered him some water to soothe his throat.

The fat man was flattered and accepted the water.

After drinking water, the fat man persisted for another ten minutes or so before finally falling asleep.

I slept until noon.

The fat man was secretly surprised for a moment, then subconsciously turned his head to look for Gu Mian all over the house. He got off the bed and ran into the living room. Seeing that there was only Chu Changge in the living room, he turned his head to look at Gu Mian's bedroom. There was no one in the bedroom. He only saw Xiao Hong lying on Gu Mian's bed folding boats. There was a CD on the bedside table.

Not seeing Gu Mian, the fat man asked, "Where is the doctor?"

Chu Changge didn't even look up: "They went to the ticket booth, and Coco went too."

What are you doing at the ticket booth?
The fat man paused for half a second, then suddenly asked with a strange expression, "They didn't go into a dungeon, did they?"

Chu Changge nodded: "Yes."

On October 1st, a bus carrying 38 passengers and a driver overturned and plunged off a mountain in Jinkou City. According to the Jinkou City Emergency Management Bureau, after all-out search and rescue efforts, as of 7 PM on October 5th, the wreckage of the bus had been found, and a total of 31 people had been rescued, including 1 injured, 30 with no vital signs, and 8 still missing. The search and rescue operation is still ongoing…

"It's all your fault!" "It's all your fault!" "It's all your fault!"

A malevolent, resentful voice enveloped my entire body, seeping into every pore. All that remained was darkness, with only the evil voice echoing in my ears.

"It's all your fault!"

Suddenly, a pair of pale hands reached out from the darkness and gripped her neck.

"Ah!" Zhao Shuang suddenly woke up from her dream, drenched in cold sweat.

The overhead light was on. She turned to look at the alarm clock by the bed. It was already seven o'clock in the evening. The sky outside the window was completely dark, and the lights in the buildings across the street were on.

The television in the living room was broadcasting breaking news. She saw two people standing in the bedroom doorway; they were her two colleagues, and they were staring at her with strange expressions.

"What's wrong with you?" Coco asked after a pause.

This instance is called "Amnesia," and it has five players. The task is to survive for thirty-six hours.

This instance also provides a detailed introduction to the backstory and the roles that players will play.

Putting all that aside, Coco entered the instance with Gu Mian, but couldn't find her. Instead, she saw a female player nicknamed "Cangyue Shisi" next to her, an NPC lying on the bed, and... a news report on TV about a bus overturning.

Zhao Shuang wiped the sweat from her forehead: "It's nothing, I just had a nightmare."

She is the only survivor in the news about the bus rollover. On October 1st, 38 people from her department went to the cemetery for a team building activity, and they all went missing that night.

Soon after, the police opened an investigation. They first found Zhao Shuang unconscious at the team building base halfway up the mountain at 1 a.m. on October 2. Then, at 10:10 p.m. that night, they found the bus that had overturned down the mountain. There were 30 bodies on the bus, and the whereabouts of the other eight people were unknown. As of October 5, the eight people were still missing.

It is worth mentioning that Zhao Shuang survived not because of timely search and rescue, but because she stayed at the team building base halfway up the mountain that day, while the remaining thirty-seven colleagues took a bus to the top of the mountain.

She has memory loss and only remembers that she stayed halfway up the mountain while her other colleagues went to the top.

She couldn't remember why the others went to the mountaintop, why she fainted, or any of the events that happened that day.

However, the hospital examination did not find any problems, and it was suspected that the intermittent amnesia was caused by the trauma.

Coco and Cangyue Shisi played the roles of two female colleagues who did not participate in the team building activities on October 1st. As far as they knew, there were three other colleagues who did not participate in the team building activities that day: Wang Chuan, Xia Jianren, and... Gu Mian.

As expected, Gu Mian's original name was maliciously used again.

The news broadcast on television had stopped by then. Cang Yue Shisi hesitated for a moment before asking, "What...did you dream about?"

In previous instances, she probably wouldn't have been in such a hurry to ask this question.

But it's different now.

With the dungeon rules changing and the death protection mechanism disabled, they must be proactive and find a way to survive before danger strikes.

The ghost this time is very likely from the team building event on October 1st.

Zhao Shuang took a deep breath. In fact, ever since she came back alive, she had often had similar dreams. She always dreamed that she was in a dark place, with resentful and terrifying whispers in her ears, and then a pale hand choked her neck.

She would wake up startled from her sleep every time, even if she slept during the day.

She had a strange feeling that the terrifying things in her dreams were people who died on the day of the team building event. She guessed that she might have been too traumatized, which was why she had such dreams.

Zhao Shuang placed her hands on her forehead and exhaled: "I dreamt of those terrifying things again. I always felt... those were our colleagues, and they resented me..." Resented?

Coco and Cangyue Shisi exchanged a glance, and some guesses formed in their minds.

Zhao Shuang raised her head: "By the way, Xu Ke and Li Cangyue, I haven't thanked you for spending these past few days with me."

Xu Ke and Li Cangyue are their current names.

The two forced a smile. In fact, Xu Ke and Li Cangyue lived in the staff apartment. Half of the thirty-odd people on the bus were living in this building.

Both of their roommates died, as did Zhao Shuang's roommates. After this happened, the girls were too scared to live alone, so the three of them moved into Zhao Shuang's room. According to their original plan, they intended to move out after renting another place.

“It’s okay,” Coco shook her head understandingly. “Why don’t you go back to sleep? You haven’t been sleeping well these past few days, you must be very tired.”

Zhao Shuang was indeed very tired. Insomnia had exhausted her body to the limit, but whenever she fell into darkness, she would be surrounded by unease.

She stared at the bright light above her head for a while before nodding as if she felt a little safer: "Then... I'll sleep a little longer."

Seeing Zhao Shuang lie down, the two exchanged a glance and walked towards the living room.

Once they were far enough away from Zhao Shuang's bedroom, Cang Yue Shisi spoke in a barely audible voice: "What do you think about the nightmare you told her about?"

Cang Yue felt that any player who dared to enter the dungeon on the first day the death protection mechanism was closed must be no ordinary person, even though the girl in front of her looked weak and seemed to be very young.

Coco shook her head slightly: "In the dungeon, such a dream is definitely not without reason. I guess the core of the dungeon is definitely related to our colleagues who died on the bus. They are very likely to harbor resentment towards Zhao Shuang, but Zhao Shuang has forgotten what exactly happened that day."

She paused and thought for a moment, then said, "Didn't they say there are still eight people we haven't found? Perhaps these eight people are the breakthrough point in the dungeon."

Cang Yue nodded in agreement: "The name of this instance is Amnesia, so it must be related to Zhao Shuang's amnesia. Perhaps the key to breaking the deadlock lies here. We should gather all the players together to discuss this. Speaking of which..."

She frowned as she spoke: "Among the five of us, there's one named Gu Mian?"

Gu Mian is the dream of billions of players.

The only person on the wanted list, in his own words, is someone whose "ranking is not in any particular order; everyone on the list has earned their place based on their own merit."

Of course, other players don't have this ability, nor do they want any ranking.

But everyone hopes to run into him in the real world and then stab him in the back.

Now that death is real in dungeons, players' dreams have changed. They now hope to encounter him in a dungeon and stab him in the back.

Cang Yue certainly had this idea. Gu Mian's bounty had already doubled several times, and now it was 100,000 game coins.

This is an absolute temptation.

When Cang Yue saw the name Gu Mian, she immediately thought of 100,000 game coins.

“Ah,” Coco looked like she didn’t recognize the person, “Yes, there’s someone named Gu Mian, is he the one on that ranking list?”

Cang Yue nodded slightly: "It's very likely."

As she spoke, she glanced at the fruit knife on the coffee table: "Let's take a look first, and then we'll talk about it when we're all together."

In this real-life death scenario, they are already struggling to survive. Fear and eeriness constantly surround them. They are so focused on staying alive that they may not have time to care about anything else...

Just then, a knock on the door suddenly sounded, followed by a young male voice: "Are you inside? Xu Ke? Li Cangyue? I'm Xia Jianren."

The voice was very soft, sounding timid and hesitant, as if the person had been frightened.

Xia Jianren is one of the five players.

Cang Yue strode to the door and checked the other person's identity through the peephole before opening the door. As she opened the door, she whispered, "Zhao Shuang is sleeping, so please keep your voices down."

Upon hearing this, Xia Jianren immediately slowed his pace and darted in like a cat. A man followed behind Xia Jianren. Cang Yue glanced at the other man's player panel; his nickname was "Wang Chuan Doesn't Want Candy," so he must be the player whose identity was Wang Chuan.

Xia Jianren looked around to make sure Zhao Shuang was in her bedroom before speaking in a low voice: "We also live in the staff apartment, downstairs, on the fourth floor. We were in the apartment when we entered the dungeon. We heard that you were living with Zhao Shuang, so we found Zhao Shuang's room number on the staff accommodation list."

Then they came looking for us.

At this point, four of the five players have been gathered, with only Gu Mian missing.

Gu Mian was sitting in a taxi, almost there.

When he first entered the instance, he was teleported to a main road near a mountain. Gu Mian learned from the instance introduction that the story begins with a team building activity, and he plays the role of a lucky person who did not participate in the team building activity.

The mission is to survive for thirty-six hours. In reality, it doesn't matter whether he meets up with other players or not. Even if he doesn't discuss it with others, it's fine for him to go hiking alone.

If he goes to meet with other players, he might even get stabbed in the back.

But upon seeing something on the side of the road, he decided to go check out the staff dormitory first.

Ah, Gugu is so diligent in pressing (hinting at voting).

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(End of this chapter)