Infinite: Dawn Game

The "pupa shop" is exactly the same as it was before he left.

Inside the cold-colored "cocoon" sat male players, their cries, curses, and fighting sounds mingling together, making it impossible to distinguish the faces of the male and female players.

Ignoring the noise around him, Yu Shijiu looked around carefully again, but still couldn't find the man with the missing arm.

If it's not in the "pupa shop"...

Yu Shijiu turned his head to look at the densely packed screens on the other side, trying to find the live broadcast footage belonging to Fang Zhi.

Then gave up.

"Looks like we can't find it..."

Yu Shijiu was somewhat disappointed, but not discouraged. Just as he was about to leave the "Chrysalis Shop", a timid and soft female voice sounded from behind him.

"You, you are, are you looking for Fang Zhi?"

Yu Shijiu was taken aback and turned around.

A woman who looked somewhat familiar, holding a child, cautiously looked up at him, her eyes darting away. She even nearly fell backward in fright when the chubby child curiously peered at the baby in her arms.

"Meow!"

Fatty was startled and nimbly ran behind the woman to support her as she almost fell, meowing several times.

Watch out, human meow! You're holding a baby, meow!!

"Thank you, thank you."

The woman, who nearly fell, was pale-faced and kept bowing and thanking her child while holding him in her arms.

She seemed to realize that her retreating motion was inappropriate, and there was guilt in her eyes as she looked at Fatty.

"Meow meow!"

Fatty sensed the woman's guilt, and the hair on his body that had stood on end in fright slowly calmed down.

The baby in the woman's arms didn't cry. He looked much thinner than a normal baby, but compared to the woman holding him, he was quite chubby.

Fatty was clearly interested in him. He leaned closer, looked down at the child's rolling eyes, and grinned, revealing his sharp teeth to scare him.

baby:"……"

He happily showed off his gums, which had just grown a tooth, and giggled, even reaching out to tug at the mustache on either side of his chubby face.

Fatty: "...Meow?"

This little baby isn't afraid of me, the cat?

"Local chronicles..."

Yu Shijiu watched as Feifei curiously walked forward to look at the child in the woman's arms, silently repeating what the woman had just said.

“Yes, yes,” the woman nodded in agreement. “I’ve heard Fang Zhi mention you. He said you’re a good person and told me not to believe what those people on the live stream said.”

“…” Yu Shijiu was uncharacteristically silent for a second. “Yes, it’s Uncle Fang. Do you know where he is?”

Seeing Yu Shijiu call Fang Zhi "Uncle," the woman's unease lessened somewhat. She reached up and smoothed her messy hair, whispering:

"He just logged into the game. If you had come ten minutes earlier, you would have seen him just in time."

"That's because I arrived too late."

Yu Shijiu approached the woman, looked down at the baby's face in her arms, and finally found a memory in his mind that he had seen the baby before.

He once threw a lollipop into the other person's arms.

"It is you."

Yu Shijiu suddenly realized, and curiously reached out to touch the baby in the woman's arms:

Will he still cry a lot?

The baby tugged at his chubby beard and giggled, not even noticing that someone was pinching his cheek.

“He’s much better lately,” the woman said somewhat embarrassed. “He was crying because he was too young and couldn’t control himself. Did he disturb you?”

"No."

Yu Shijiu was telling the truth: "The soundproofing in the 'Chrysalis Shop' is actually quite good."

"……Yeah?"

The woman smiled, her dark circles under her eyes were unusually prominent under the light, and she would glance back every now and then, a hint of fear in her eyes.

Noticing the fear in the other woman's eyes, Yu Shijiu frowned slightly and glanced discreetly in the direction the woman was looking back.

Several men stood in that direction, their fingertips flickering with sparks, smoke billowing, and every now and then a few coughs filled with phlegm could be heard.

There were also some conversations that sounded particularly vulgar, such as old men liking to have ambiguous relationships with young women.

"Sister, you and Uncle Fang have a good relationship, right?"

Yu Shijiu withdrew her gaze and asked with a grin, "What's your relationship?"

The woman's expression did indeed become somewhat strange, seemingly a mix of helplessness and urgency.

"...Uncle Fang saw that I was pitiful with my child, so he would sometimes take care of me... It's nothing special."

The woman didn't continue speaking. She seemed to have thought of some embarrassing things, her eyes reddening, and she could only force herself to stay calm.

"Are you going to wait here for Uncle Fang to come back, or will you come back later?"

"Just a moment."

Yu Shijiu thought for a moment, then smiled at the woman and said:

"Sister, take me to see Uncle Fang's live stream screen. I want to see Uncle Fang."

Since we've already come all this way to "Chrysalis Shop," we can't just go straight back.

The woman nodded, forcefully swallowing back the tears welling up in her red-rimmed eyes.

"It's in that corner over there."

The woman was carrying the child and walking forward when Fatty saw this and quickly snatched his beard from the baby's hands to avoid being pulled painfully.

Yu Shijiu followed behind her, smiling as he looked around, occasionally nodding to some of the players who were watching him.

—Although he didn't know those players...they recognized him at a glance.

The players felt a chill run down their spines from his gaze and quickly looked away.

When I got to the live stream screen for the local chronicles, the surrounding noise had subsided considerably.

The woman's arm was getting tired, so she switched arms to hold the child, shook her arms, and whispered:

"Few people watch Uncle Fang's live streams; everyone prefers to watch the live streams of veteran gamers."

On the small screen, a middle-aged man with a missing arm covers his mouth and nose, his body covered in bloody wounds, and he is walking along the wall, hiding in the distance, looking for the monster that is searching for him.

Yu Shijiu watched quietly as Fang Zhi huddled inside a round plastic tube on the screen, watching a strange, eerie creature with a knife pass by the tube, constantly emitting violent roars.

"Most of Uncle Fang's game instances are this kind of hiding and playing. Baby, don't cry, don't cry, Mommy's here..."

The child in the woman's arms seemed hungry, and just as he opened his mouth to cry, the woman stuffed a slightly chewed-up pacifier into his mouth.

"...In hide-and-seek games, as long as you can hide until dawn, you're considered alive."

The woman raised her tired eyes and sighed, "For players like us at the bottom, just surviving is a blessing."

These hiding-type game instances are relatively simple and straightforward. As long as players don't recklessly try to unlock side quests for points, most of them can survive.

Yu Shijiu didn't speak. He watched Fang Zhi, who had evaded countless pursuits throughout the night, fall asleep exhausted at dawn before turning his gaze away.

“This kind of game instance is not bad,” Yu Shijiu clicked his tongue, “I hope I can come across one too.”