Global Collapse

Chapter 622 Wouldn't it be wonderful to have three months of drafts saved up?
Gu Mian didn't expect to see Coach Che again so soon.

Mr. Green's mouth must be blessed; whatever he says comes true.

Gu Mian was very happy to see old friends in the dungeon, and he gave the driving instructor behind him a friendly smile.

The driving instructor, however, was not happy; his expression was as if he had eaten shit.

He stared at Gu Mian's face with a look of astonishment, and even subconsciously took a few steps back. After realizing that he was not dreaming, Coach Che immediately turned around and left. After walking a distance, he suddenly remembered something, turned around and jogged back, picked up the file that had fallen on the ground, and ran away.

Coco, who was closest to Gu Mian, saw him raise a kind smile and turned around to look in the same direction, but only saw a figure hurrying away.

Coco had never met the driving instructor, but she realized that Gu Mian seemed to know this NPC.

After the driving instructor left, Gu Mian turned her head to continue looking around the courtroom.

The overhead lights shone brightly, illuminating every corner of the courtyard.

This is a courtroom of about 200 square meters, half of which is for the audience, but there is no one there now. The other half is reserved for the judge and the prisoners.

There are two doors here. The larger door faces Gu Mian directly and is located behind the audience seating area. It's for the audience to enter and exit. At this moment, the door is open, and a round clock hangs above it. Gu Mian sees that the current time is 12:03. They should have entered the instance at 12:00.

The other door is a little smaller, located diagonally behind the judge's bench. Judges, assistants, and staff use this small door to enter and exit; the driving instructor just ran out through this door.

Gu Mian was sitting in the judge's seat, which was a long table, with several other people sitting on either side of him.

A few meters directly in front of the judge's bench was another small table, behind which a young man was sitting with his wrists and ankles locked to the chair beneath him.

The young man kept his head down silently. Gu Mian's gaze shifted from his face to the table in front of him, where a small brass plaque indicated the young man's identity—"Prisoner."

Each player had a small bronze badge representing their identity. Gu Mian reached out and took the badge in front of her; it had two characters written on it.

"Judge." Gu Mian looked at the small card in her hand. The game said that there was only one judge per group, and the other three were assistants.

As he pondered this, he turned to look at the signs of the people next to him.

Coco was sitting next to Gu Mian on her left; her sign read "Assistant Coco".

It even has a name on it?

He then went to look at Xie Bi'an on the other side.

Xie Bi'an sat to his right, and the sign on it read "Assistant Xie Bi'an".

Gu Mian walked past Xie Bi'an, intending to look at Chu Changge's sign on the right, but instead saw that the sign for the person to Xie Bi'an's right read "Assistant Bai Lu".

What happened? Chu Changge changed his name?
He looked up in confusion at the person sitting to Xie Bi'an's right.

The person sitting in that seat was not Chu Changge, but a woman wearing a white shirt.

Has Chu Changge undergone another gender reassignment?

Undeterred, he opened the player's profile and confirmed that it was indeed not Chu Changge, but a female player named Bailu.

Apart from the "prisoners" not far away, there were only four people in the courtroom, and they were clearly a group of four.

Coco also noticed Chu Changge's disappearance. She glanced around and said, "Mr. Chu has probably been assigned to another group."

The female player named Bailu also looked somewhat surprised, seemingly not expecting to be grouped with three strangers. Judging from her expression, Gu Mian guessed that she had also been matched into the dungeon with her teammates.

Interesting. Gu Mian stroked her chin: "Putting players who enter the dungeon together into different groups, are we going to create vicious competition among them, like in the 'Cover the Eyes' dungeon..."

At that moment, the young female player's voice rang out: "Um... um... hello everyone."

The egret hesitated slightly when it greeted the guests.

She entered this instance with her friend, but when she opened her eyes, her friend was gone and three strangers appeared next to her.

Presumably, the dungeons were rearranged and regrouped.

It was one thing to be matched with strangers, but she couldn't help feeling that these players were a bit odd.

The player closest to her was completely shrouded in a black robe, not a single thing showing. This person hadn't uttered a sound since entering the instance, and Bai Lu didn't even know if he was male or female. The nickname field on the player panel still showed a red "Anonymous," which felt extremely ominous.

Fortunately, his name was on the bronze plaque in front of him—"Xie Bi'an".

Hmm, the name "White Impermanence" makes Bai Lu feel even more uneasy.

To the left of this player named "Xie Bi'an" is a handsome, well... doctor? At least that's what his nickname says, with a bright green "doctor" on his head.

Bai Lu thinks she might have eaten a poisonous mushroom today, since all the other players' nicknames are so colorful.

Besides the bright green "Doctor" nickname, the white coat this player was wearing also indicated his identity as a doctor. However, this was the first time she had seen a doctor who loved music so much. He had a huge guitar bag on his back, as if he was about to improvise a piece at any moment.

In addition, this doctor seems to like touching his chin and talking to himself. Although his chin is indeed very handsome, does he have to touch it all the time?
The person furthest away from her was also a female player. Compared to the other two present, this female player was much more normal. Her nickname color was normal, her clothing was normal, and she looked like a normal player. She was very young, probably only seventeen or eighteen years old.

The normal player was talking familiarly to the doctor, it seemed that the two had been matched into the dungeon together.

Just then, the female player named Coco noticed her gaze and looked over. Bai Lu immediately gave her a friendly smile.

But the female player blinked, then a look of fear appeared on her face, and she shrank behind the doctor.

Then Bailu heard the female player say in a pitiful voice, "Doctor, I'm scared."

This expression, this tone.

Well, she seems to be a green tea b*tch!
Bai Lu's mouth twitched; she was the only normal person in this group!

Gu Mian silently watched Coco shrink into his side. He had forgotten that Coco had always been a pitiful, innocent girl in the dungeon, fond of playing dumb to take advantage of others and using her weakness to deceive them. Having gotten used to her normal self, it was really hard to bear hearing Coco speak in this tone.

"Ahem, hello." Gu Mian coughed a few times and responded to the stranger's greeting.

Coco peeked out from behind him and replied to Bailu in a very soft voice, "Hello."

Then Xie Bi'an turned his hood to look at Bai Lu and said in a gentle voice, "Hello."

Upon hearing Xie Bi'an's voice, Bai Lu paused slightly. "His voice is so pleasant," she thought to herself.

After a moment of contemplation, she came to her senses and looked at the three people in front of her: "Are you also playing a dungeon with your friends?"

Gu Mian put down the sign in her hand and said, "The three of us are together."

The egret choked; the three oddballs were together...

"So it really is true that birds of a feather flock together?" she murmured to herself.

Gu Mian didn't hear what she mumbled: "What did you say?"

"No, no," Bailu quickly waved her hand and said, "I came in with a friend, but it seems we've been separated."

As she said this, she looked around again, but didn't see any other players.

“There must be more than one courthouse in this place.” Gu Mian looked at the open door across the street. She could see a wide corridor outside the door, and if she turned her head slightly, she could see the windows in the corridor. The weather outside was fine, with large clouds floating in the pale blue sky, and the wind was pushing them slowly forward.

He looked away: "I guess there are at least three courtrooms. You should be able to see your teammates once you get out of here."

There are twelve players, divided into groups of four, so there must be at least three courtrooms.

Bai Lu nodded. Her teammates weren't around, but the dungeon had to continue. She turned her gaze to the prisoner in the room and said softly, "The dungeon quest requires us to make the right judgment within three days. I suppose it's about judging him?"

The courtroom in this copy is not exactly the same as the real courtroom.

Although Bai Lu has never worked in a court, she has seen lawsuits in TV dramas.

Gu Mian also looked at the prisoners in front of her: "No plaintiff, no defendant, no lawyer, no audience..."

Coco added from the side, "There isn't even a case file."

Gu Mian realized something and turned to look at the small door behind her.

“Yes,” Bailu looked at the empty table in front of her with a puzzled expression, “If you want us to make a judgment, you have to tell us what happened, right? But there isn’t even a recap of what happened.”

The previous events were probably eaten by the driving instructor.

Gu Mian guessed that Coach Che was probably the guiding NPC in this instance, explaining the case to them, but this guy was so happy to see him that he ran away in a crazy frenzy.

He figured that the players in the other two courts had already started learning about the case with the help of NPCs, while the four of them could only stand there completely bewildered.

Xie Bi'an's voice suddenly came from under the cloak: "The mission is for us to make a judgment within three days, but there's no rush. I remember the instance also mentioned that we need to find evidence, right? Once we find the evidence, we can make the judgment and then leave the instance."

"After the verdict is delivered, you have to leave the courtroom before you can leave," Gu Mian added.

“That means we don’t have to stay here all the time,” Coco said, looking at the young man in the middle of the courtroom. “We can go outside and look for clues and evidence first, and then come back to try him.”

Bai Lu nodded: "Yes, we need to know what case we are going to judge first. This case looks difficult. I thought we just had to judge the case, but I didn't expect that we would have to figure out the case process ourselves."

It used to be true that all you had to do was judge the case, but now the guiding NPC has run off with the case file.

As he thought about it, he picked up the small hammer in front of him, which was on the judge's table and none of the other players had it.

Gu Mian had seen judges in TV dramas adjudicate cases by simply striking the table with a small gavel and announcing the verdict.

He eagerly picked up the hammer, a bold idea forming in his mind: "I have a great way to get everyone out right now."

Upon hearing this, everyone turned to look at him.

Gu Mian raised the gavel in her hand: "I'll find him guilty right now, and we'll be dismissed from court on the spot. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

The egret stared wide-eyed, unable to tell for a moment whether the person was joking.

"Wait, wait," Coco grabbed Gu Mian's raised arm. "Doctor, please calm down."

Today is another day of hard work!
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(End of this chapter)