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Chapter 912 Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Congratulations on triggering the special instance 'The Cursed Night of Claw Machine Play'!

Gu Mian was discussing the Upside-Down City with Xu Xingcheng a second ago, and the next second everything went black before she saw the game panel pop up and this line of text on it.

Lately, I've been entering special dungeons quite frequently. These consecutive special dungeons are like salesmen trying to sell funeral clothes, urns, and burial plots to the dying—they're hoping you die soon, but they can't say it out loud.

Gu Mian felt that Earth had the potential to be a cemetery salesperson.

Putting aside the funeral clothes and burial site for now, Gu Mian turned and scanned his surroundings. The darkness hadn't yet dissipated, and he could only see a pitch-black expanse.

There is no one around.

The fat man was right next to him just before he entered the special instance. Gu Mian didn't know if he had also been pulled into this claw machine special instance.

Although she didn't see anyone around, Gu Mian still spoke up just to be on the safe side: "Is anyone there?"

His response was a stagnant silence.

Good, nobody's here.

With so many people in the apartment, Gu Mian didn't believe she was the only one pulled into the instance. It was possible that all the players who entered this instance were isolated.

He continued looking at the game panel in front of him, thinking that the surrounding darkness should dissipate once the dungeon information was fully explained.

But the more he read the following content, the stranger it seemed. This was the first time Gu Mian had ever seen such a bizarre dungeon description.

[Number of claws/dolls: Set by player "六六大顺"]

[Number of doll retrieval openings: Set by player "Qi Huo Gui Gu Zi"]

[Number of obstacles on each floor: Set by player "Fatty Wang"]

[Number of obstacles on the second level: Set by player "岸芷汀兰"]

[Number of obstacles in three layers: set by player "Sweetheart Seven"]

[Number of obstacles in four layers: set by player "Mouse Loves to Eat Cat"]

Alright, now there's no need to worry about whether the people in the apartment have been pulled into the instance. Just look at the list above, and there are three familiar names. This isn't a special instance; it's practically a reunion dinner for the apartment residents in another location.

Putting aside the fact that the fat guy came in, how did that An Zhi Ting Lan end up in the same instance as me again? Gu Mian had just sent her away half a day ago.

Moreover, the number of players pulled into this instance is definitely more than the six on the list. Gu Mian herself was also pulled into the instance but did not appear on the list. It's really hard to say how many players actually entered this instance.

The biggest mystery right now isn't how many players have entered this instance, but rather its bizarre instance design.

The Cursed Night of Claw Machines – Judging from the name, this should be a dungeon related to claw machines.

Claw machines are found in shopping malls everywhere; there were even two in the cafeteria at Gu Mian's university. He had tried playing one before, and unsurprisingly, he spent hundreds of coins and won nothing.

Chu Changge said this was normal; if Gu Mian really pulled out a doll from inside, he would reasonably suspect that the doll contained a bomb.

However, the claw machines in the mall are not as free as those in this instance, where all the settings of the claw machines are set by the players.

Gu Mian had seen claw machines that typically only had one claw and one pickup slot, but here the player could set the number. If the task was to win a prize, more claws were obviously better, but what was the point of the number of pickup slots? The difficulty of winning a prize and the number of pickup slots were completely unrelated.

And what are those obstacles on the first, second, third, and fourth layers? Are they things to prevent them from playing the claw machine?

Just as he was thinking, the game panel disappeared, and the surrounding darkness receded.

This was so sudden and unexpected. Gu Mian was originally waiting for it to issue the dungeon quest, but she didn't expect there to be no such process at all.

What's going on with this instance? Not only was there no instance description or number of players listed, but there wasn't even an instance quest.

How are the people inside supposed to leave? Are you encouraging everyone to take shortcuts and destroy the instance?
The surrounding environment wasn't much better than before; it was still pitch black, but with a little effort, I could at least make out what was around me.

Gu Mian's eyes fell upon a narrow corridor, its white floor tiles stained with filthy marks.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out that this wasn't a corridor, but a narrow passageway leading to a public restroom. The toilet stall doors on both sides were also covered in black and white stripes, indicating that the restroom wasn't very clean.

“Public toilet…” Gu Mian looked at the stall next to her.

He was at the very back of the toilet, with a window covered by stainless steel security bars behind him, and the next stall was the innermost stall.

It was nighttime in the instance. Looking out the window, all that could be seen was thick darkness and a round moon. Only the moonlight shining in from outside allowed Gu Mian to barely see her surroundings.

The door to the adjacent cubicle had fallen off halfway due to years of disrepair, with only a hinge holding the old door afloat.

Through the crack in the door, Gu Mian saw that the drain in the cubicle had been sealed with cement, and in the corner of the cubicle were a few mops and a plastic bucket with a broken handle.

"Since there's a public restroom here, this place must be a shopping mall, hospital, office building, or school." Gu Mian analyzed the situation as she walked out of the restroom. As she passed the remaining stall doors, she made sure to open them to see if any ghosts were planning to stick their heads out and scare her.

The ghosts in this instance seem to be quite considerate, not jumping out to scare people in such an eerie place as a public restroom. The restroom looks like it hasn't been maintained for years; limescale and unidentified black stains cover the floor and walls, and some partitions have swelled and cracked from long-term dampness, with bits of the partitions scattered all over the floor, making a rustling sound when stepped on.

"Considering that this is most likely a claw machine-themed instance, there should be quite a few claw machines here, so this place is probably a shopping mall."

Anyway, Gu Mian had never seen cute claw machines in places like hospitals or office buildings. She had seen them once or twice in the school cafeteria, but there weren't many of them.

He had now crossed the toilet corridor and arrived at the handwashing area outside; the toilet door was just ahead. The moonlight streaming in through the window struggled to climb the floor, exhausting itself by the time it reached the handwashing area, unable to continue serving Gu Mian.

There was no light outside the toilet door; it was as dark as a stagnant pool. Gu Mian suspected that if she walked out and bumped into a ghost, she would have to touch the ghost's face a couple of times to make out what the thing in front of her looked like.

Using the last bit of light in the restroom, Gu Mian began to carefully examine the place.

He had just come out of the men's restroom, and a large mirror on the wall reflected his image. However, there were several huge cracks in the mirror, making his reflection look very distorted.

Judging from the dilapidated toilet stalls and the dusty mirror in front of them, this place has been abandoned for a long time.

Gu Mian saw that the toilet light switch was on the wall next to the door. He pressed the switch to try to turn on the toilet ceiling light, but he didn't know if the light was broken or if the circuit was broken. He could only hear a sound when he pressed the switch.

A flashlight is an essential item in every player's inventory, but unfortunately Gu Mian's game doesn't have an inventory, so there's no flashlight for him to use.

He had no choice but to grope around in the toilet by the moonlight to see if he could find a portable light source. He couldn't just go out in the dark; he might fall into the pit as soon as he stepped out.

If you really can't find a light source, you can stand at the toilet door and shout twice for someone to hear you and come to pick him up.

The people in the apartment know that Gu Mian doesn't have an inventory function, so they usually store two or three essential items like flashlights in their inventory so they can take them out for Gu Mian when they go into a dungeon together.

Considering that the people in the apartment might not be near this public restroom, howling here might not only fail to attract the person who was supposed to pick him up, but instead attract ghosts who wanted to fight him to the death.

He looked at his empty hands and decided to find a suitable weapon first.

Ren Leshan held the knife handle sticking out of his pocket with one hand and carried a flashlight in the other as he walked among the collapsed food shelves.

The area illuminated by the flashlight was limited, and the place was too big, so he had to stop every now and then to use the flashlight to check for any dangers around him.

Before entering this instance, he had very few game coins left. Last night, he and his team planned to enter the instance today, but before they could even take action, he was pulled into a special instance.

Ren Leshan was very interested in the list of six people given in the previous instance. He saw a familiar name on it—"the fat guy surnamed Wang".

It's the fat guy who's with Gu Mian and 007.

Ren Leshan understood that the six-person list provided by the instance did not include all the players in the instance; his own name was not on it. This meant that if Gu Mian and 007 had also entered the instance, their names might not have appeared on it either.

That fat guy looks like a brainy simpleton. He usually just follows Gu Mian around like a puppy. Since he's in this instance, Gu Mian is probably in too, just not on the list.

There's a very high chance that 007 entered this instance with them.

The thought of this filled Ren Leshan with a great sense of crisis. The time he spent being imprisoned in the warehouse by Gu Mian and 007 was still vivid in his mind. Outside the instance, Gu Mian and his people would imprison him and exploit his remaining value if they encountered him, but they couldn't imprison people inside the instance. All the players who survived here would eventually have to leave the instance.

Ren Leshan was certain that if Gu Mian saw him in this instance, he would have no chance of survival.

"Since we can't imprison and exploit her anymore, let's just kill her"—he could even simulate Gu Mian's inner thoughts.

Ren Leshan believes that Gu Mian is more cruel than himself.

In the match-3 game, you kill your teammates to survive, and you covet other people's lives because you are in danger yourself.

But Gu Mian was different. In that instance, Gu Mian didn't care about his own life or death. He killed and beheaded the people on the same level because his teammates on the next level were in danger, so that he could make up a headless corpse for his friends on the next level.

Of course, it was thanks to Gu Mianren and Leshan that they realized that corpses used for disposal could be artificially created...

In short, seeing Gu Mian in a dungeon is worse than seeing a ghost. Ghosts are bound by the rules of the dungeon, but Gu Mian is unreasonable and can go crazy at any time.

Thinking of this, Ren Leshan stopped and carefully observed his surroundings. It was an abandoned supermarket, with broken shelves and scattered beverage bottles and cans on the ground.

He carefully stepped over the bottles and warily watched every corner he was about to reach, knowing that Gu Mian's face might pop out from behind any moment.

Ren Leshan desperately wanted to use his wits to get out of this instance as soon as possible, but this instance was too strange. Not only was there no information about the instance, but there were no instance quests either. The only clue he could make from the instance name was that it was a claw machine game.

However, there was no explanation on how or where to catch them.

However, judging from the number of obstacles per level set by the players, this claw machine game must be quite complex.

The rules set by the players were not clearly stated beforehand; you have to find the corresponding player to find out exactly how they set them up.

It seems I need to actively seek out the players who set the rules, and then deduce a way to leave the instance using the clues I find. Fortunately, Gu Mian isn't among those who set the rules, but the fat guy is on the list almost as high up as Gu Mian herself.

It's worth mentioning that Ren Leshan's teammates weren't on the list—he narrowed his eyes, sensing something was wrong. This special instance might not have even included his teammates, leaving him to fight alone. He wondered if, besides that fat guy surnamed Wang, there were any other people from Gu Mian's side on the list.

Happy Valentine's Day (five days after) everyone! (Just kidding)