Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

Gao Hai immediately thought of this point, or rather, facing the likely tragic situation ahead, he could only comfort himself with this thought to avoid falling into a too dejected state.

"Ah—~"

A piercing female scream suddenly rang out, seemingly coming from the next room.

What's going on? This kind of cliché plot device—a strange scream that suddenly appears at the beginning of the story to advance the plot—doesn't it seem a bit old-fashioned? Is it going to happen that next, we'll walk out and find a corpse, then everyone's spouting nonsense before a middle-aged man suddenly collapses and sits on the ground, and then a primary school student hides behind him and starts giving a performance, pointing out the real culprit on the spot, or something?

Hey, this doesn't seem so bad. It's a hundred times, or even ninety times, better than participating in rule-based ghost story games.

"Should we go out and check the situation? There are probably more than just the two of us trapped here."

Gao Hai coughed lightly and spoke to Shinomiya Kaguya across the table.

Then he noticed that Kaguya Shinomiya had taken the printed paper on the table and was turning it over and over, trying to look at it from different angles. In the end, she even turned to the back side, which had no words, and examined it carefully.

Are you trying to see if there are any hidden texts?

I was only distracted for a moment when she quietly took the printer paper away without me even noticing. Are all anime women this outrageous? Is she some kind of descendant of a fraternity's Japanese branch?

"Go out and see what's going on. Here, take this rule sheet. My clothes don't have pockets, so I can't put this kind of thing in them."

Having seemingly confirmed that there was no hidden information, Kaguya Shinomiya placed the printed paper back on the table and spoke calmly to Takahashi.

Although she said she wanted to go out and take a look, Kaguya Shinomiya didn't move an inch. Clearly, she was waiting for Takami to make a move before she left, unwilling to go ahead of him. Takami didn't say anything about it, simply putting away the printed paper, folding it, and placing it in his pocket. Then, his gaze shifted to the only wooden door in the house and the doorway leading to the kitchen. He walked directly to the broken door, grasped the doorknob, and opened it.

squeak - ah -

An extremely harsh friction sound, accompanied by an excessively heavy and incredibly difficult pulling motion.

The joints of the door were almost completely rusted, and the inside was practically jammed; it could only be opened by brute force.

As the door opened, what appeared before Gao Hai was a small wall clock and a dilapidated wall just over a meter away from the door.

The door opens at the end of a long, narrow corridor.

At the end of this narrow, long, and uncomfortable corridor, there is a right-angle turn leading to another narrow corridor.

At the end of the corridor, Gao Hai saw a half-open toilet, an old-fashioned squat toilet that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a while. Fortunately, he didn't see anything that would make Lao Ba so excited, so that was alright. The main exit was right next to the toilet door, a rusty, very old-looking iron door.

Gao Hai tried to recall the layout of the house: upon entering, the toilet was on the right; to the left, there was a short corridor; a right-angle turn followed by another short corridor; then a right turn led to a small living room/bedroom; and to one side of the living room was the kitchen…

What kind of insane house structure is this?

What's wrong with the designer of this building?

With that thought in mind, Gao Hai reached out and grabbed the doorknob, then yanked the door open.

"The door lock is broken."

Looking down, Gao Hai noticed that the door lock was completely damaged, the lock cylinder wouldn't pop out, so the door couldn't be closed at all.

He suddenly had a bad feeling.

After opening the iron gate, I came to the outer corridor.

The atmosphere here was even more oppressive than inside the room, mainly because the corridor itself was very narrow, stretching out in a straight line to the left and right. Adding to the already narrowness, there were numerous tall cabinets, seemingly nailed to the corridor with virtually no way to climb or grab onto, leaving only a small space at the top barely enough for an adult to crouch on. The corridor was lit by a pale, harsh light, illuminating the peeling, cracked ceiling and walls, while rows of dark red, rusty doors lined this long, narrow passage.

The door that Gao Hai had just walked out of had a dark red doorplate marked with the number [204].

This is truly a perfect location for filming a supernatural movie.

Gao Hai's sense of unease grew stronger.

At this moment, there were already several people in the corridor. Gao Hai saw a black man with a short buzz cut, no, I mean a black guy; a middle-aged Asian man with a big belly and wearing a somewhat bulky suit and glasses; a burly white man who was obviously over 190 cm tall and had thorn-shaped tattoos on his face; a middle-aged Asian man who was carrying a backpack and looked unremarkable with a gentle expression; and a young girl who looked like a high school student and was wearing the same clothes as Kaguya Shinomiya.

"A fellow villager?"

Upon first seeing the girl, Gao Hai felt she looked somewhat familiar, but couldn't immediately recall who she was. He then looked at Shinomiya Kaguya, who had followed him out, and asked her.

"..."

Without a doubt, Kaguya recognized the girl at first glance, and the girl recognized Kaguya as well. Although they recognized each other, neither made any physical contact, exchanging only glances to avoid being recognized as acquainted. While such concealment was largely meaningless when wearing the same school uniform, avoiding being assumed to be familiar might be somewhat effective, so they did so without hesitation.

Maki-kun, you're here too?

Grandma, you're here too?

It seems the person behind all this possesses considerable power, having targeted both the Shinomiya and Shijo families simultaneously...

Although that's what they say, it seems that their goal isn't something like ransom. Grandma, do you have any clues?

We're the same age, can you please stop using that term? Don't you even know what time it is?

Even if you say that, my great-aunt is still my great-aunt. Isn't that how our generation is?

Although there was no verbal communication, perhaps due to the special ability of being a two-dimensional being, Kaguya Shinomiya and this girl with braids completed a series of rather complex exchanges with each other through just their eyes.

At the same time, Gao Hai, after his initial confusion, quickly remembered the girl's identity.

This girl, isn't this girl Shijo Maki?

The most tragic character in the original Kaguya-sama manga, she spends every day in the turmoil of the "White Album" (or rather, the "White Album"). Well, she's even worse off than the "White Album." At least in the "White Album" scenario, there are three people pulling each other along, but she's a complete loser, forced to endure wave after wave of PDA, watching her best friend and her crush spend their sweet years together, and even causing a death at 17, leading to a bizarre shotgun wedding.

I never imagined that this poor girl, who was constantly persecuted in the original work, would also be chosen to enter this game of strange rules. Honestly, judging solely by her personality, she'd be an angel in the original story. If what I'm experiencing now is really a movie, TV show, game, or novel, I honestly wonder if the author is mentally disturbed. Why would they throw such a cute and pitiful child into this kind of storyline?

Various thoughts flashed through Gao Hai's mind, but he didn't show them on his face.

At this moment, he and the others in the corridor were looking at room 205, the room next to his and Kaguya Shinomiya's, the room from which the scream had just come from, and they had no idea what was going on inside.

Chapter 5: Shouldn't the start of a horror movie be during safe time?

In the narrow corridor, apart from Takami and Kaguya Shinomiya who had just left the room, there were five other people present. Four were men and one was a woman. Apart from Kisaki, only the black man looked relatively young, probably around 20 years old. The other three looked to be middle-aged men, at least 30 years old.

The portly executive and the young black man both had obvious expressions of tension and confusion on their faces. If they weren't pretending, they were likely participating in this death game for the first time, just like Gao Hai and Shinomiya Kaguya.

In contrast, the tall white man also appeared nervous, but at the same time, he showed a hint of wariness towards others and an undisguised fear. However, Gao Hai couldn't yet determine why he was reacting this way. In short, Gao Hai instinctively felt that the other man was probably no longer a novice player, or that he had seen something terrifying that others hadn't, which explained his unusual behavior.

As for the man with the bag, he seemed quite calm, giving off a reliable vibe like a seasoned gamer. The others around him were also gathered around him. Apart from the white man and Shijou Maki, it seemed that while Takami and Shinomiya Kaguya were still lingering in the room, this man had already managed to gain some trust among the gamers.

However, precisely because of this, Gao Hai felt that this guy was worth being wary of. After all, this place was very likely a death game controlled by supernatural forces, and who knew how low the moral standards of the people trying to survive here would be.

In summary, the two characters seem like minor extras, one is a supporting character with a small storyline, and the other is likely a villain from the human side or someone with many secrets about the Big Brother. As for Maki, she's a two-dimensional beautiful girl who has a thing for Takami, so she's not within the scope of his commentary.

As Takami and Kaguya Shinomiya sized up the people in front of them, the eyes of those who had arrived in the corridor earlier also fell on the two of them at the same time.

Some of those eyes showed confusion, some disappointment, some indifference, and others were difficult to read.

The temperature in the corridor was very low, so low that it felt like a cold wind was blowing silently.

Under the pale light, Gao Hai could see that the couplets and the character "福" (fortune) pasted on the wall next to room 203 had all faded and turned gray, leaving only a few barely legible characters.

Peeling paint and shards of glass, broken at some point, littered the ground, making a distinct cracking sound if you stepped on them carelessly.

He couldn't find the stairs immediately, and only after careful observation did he confirm that the stairs should be at the ends of the narrow corridor on both sides. However, because of the distance, he could only vaguely make out that the stairs looked like stairs on both sides, and couldn't see the specifics clearly.

The location of room 204 is slightly to the right of the center of the building. If you encounter something you can't fight in the corridor and need to escape, the stairs on the right should be closer. However, something seems a little strange; the structure of the stairs looks a bit odd from a distance. I hope I'm just imagining things.

The observation and thinking took a total of a few seconds.

Those few seconds were naturally enough for the people in the corridor to observe Takami and Kaguya Shinomiya as they walked out.

"Two students? That's great, two more burdens..."

The tall white man lowered his head and spoke in a low voice, looking very unhappy.

The man seemed quite reluctant to act with others. After muttering something, he turned around and went back into the house, locking the door behind him. Gao Hai noticed that the room he went into was room 209.

"Hello, you can call me Lao Guo. We all woke up in one of the rooms here. Did you find a piece of paper with something written on it in the room where you woke up?"

The middle-aged man with the backpack stepped forward and introduced himself to Takahashi and Kaguya Shinomiya. His tone was very calm, and he had a smile on his face, giving people a sense that he was trustworthy.

Shijou Maki did not come forward to greet her; she simply stood a short distance away without saying a word, making a gesture as if she were sizing up Shinomiya Kaguya.

"You mean the Shirakawa Apartment Living Rules? There used to be one set for each room."

Gao Hai didn't try to brush off Lao Guo's question, because he had noticed from the moment they came out that the young black man and the middle-aged man both had the same printed paper. Although they were some distance apart and couldn't read the contents of the paper carefully, a quick glance revealed from the bold and red headings that the contents of the printed papers were exactly the same.

So, was it the person named "Xusheng" mentioned on the printed paper who made many copies of this thing and stuffed one into every room?

"So everyone got it after all? Looks like we were lucky this time. This should be an easy Twilight-level game."

The man who called himself Lao Guo smiled and said, his expression becoming more relaxed.

Is it a low-difficulty, twilight-level game?

For some reason, seeing Lao Guo's "I'm an experienced veteran" look, Gao Hai suddenly felt like he was Cao Cao's defeated soldier, fleeing with this man, and then Lao Guo suddenly stopped and laughed when they reached a valley, reciting a line like, "I laugh at Zhuge Liang's lack of strategy and Zhou Yu's lack of wisdom. If I were to use troops..."

"Let's talk about it later. Trust me, everyone will be fine. The difficulty of Twilight-level games is generally not too high."

Old Guo was naturally unaware of what Gao Hai was thinking. He simply spoke a few words with Gao Hai and Shinomiya Kaguya before turning his attention back to the room from which the screams had come.

"You're still talking about this... what game, game..."

The somewhat overweight middle-aged man, who looked like a corporate executive, frowned after hearing Lao Guo's words, his expression becoming increasingly distressed.

He seemed to be in a bad mood; he had shown disappointment to Takami and Kaguya Shinomiya when they came out earlier. But now, after hesitating for a moment, the man cautiously stepped forward, stood in front of Takami, and forced a reasonably kind smile.

"Hello, are you also Chinese? I'm Sun Dajun, a senior executive at XX Group. Um, do you know what's going on here? Is this some kind of reality show?"

Perhaps it was because his shirt had Chinese characters printed on it that he was recognized as being from the same country. However, Gao Hai felt that what was more important was the dried red and white stain on his clothes; he still wondered if it was his brain matter.

As for Sun Dajun, although he tried his best to remain calm, the slight tremor in his voice indicated that he had more or less realized that the current situation was not a "reality show," but he was unwilling to believe it and wanted to deceive himself in this way.

"I don't know, but I kind of hope this is a reality show. Did you all suddenly wake up in some room? By the way, I just heard a scream, does any of you know what happened?"

Gao Hai shook his head slightly, trying his best to appear normal, and asked in a somewhat timid tone.

So far, nothing incomprehensible has emerged to wreak havoc.

Excluding extreme cases such as the game starting with something that severely pollutes the mind and drives them all crazy, making them unable to see danger, Gao Hai tentatively concludes that they should still be in a safe period.

Just like in the opening scene of a horror game or movie, the main characters have just appeared and are happily heading off on vacation. Everything seems normal until the protagonist or a minor character recklessly opens a door they shouldn't have opened or does something they shouldn't have done, and then things start to spiral out of control. Therefore, the period before that is conventionally considered a safe time to gradually immerse the audience.

After all, according to that rule, the place called Shirakawa Apartments should be generally safe between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., and as long as you don't do anything reckless, you won't encounter any danger here.

So for now, I should try to make myself look weak and marginalized. Maybe this will help me gather more information and understand the situation better, and avoid becoming a minor character who triggers the flag and is the first to call "GG".

Thinking this way, Gao Hai acted like a timid and ignorant young man. Behind him, Kaguya Shinomiya, who was initially cold and aloof, also showed subtle changes in her facial expressions and body movements, giving the impression of a little girl who was also in fear and resisting communication with others. She acted even better than Gao Hai.

She didn't even need to speak to deliver such an impressive performance; Gao Hai felt it was a waste that this girl wasn't an actress. However, thanks to this performance, Sun Dajun, who realized that the two were unreliable, only managed a few encouraging words like "We should all be fine" before turning his attention back to room 205.

At that moment, everyone in the corridor heard stumbling footsteps coming from that room.

Bang!

The door to room 205 was violently pushed open.