Chapter 100

Gale

Curly Hair had always known that player tools could fail in Xiao Chao's world. But she had never watched it happen this plainly before.

Thousand Mountain Descent — a tool heavy enough to crush any major boss into the ground — had become a sandbag a child might play with. Heartpiercing Pestle — capable of puncturing the soul and heart of an anomaly — had become a drifting paper airplane.

She stared at the things in Chao Musheng's hands, and in a moment of crisis, her mind went somewhere else entirely.

"Watch out!" Chao Musheng spotted cracks spreading across the corridor window and grabbed Curly Hair and Old He, pulling them behind the shelter of the wall.

Shattered glass flew past Curly Hair's hair. The three players who couldn't get clear in time were hit by the flying shards — arms cut open, blood running immediately.

The wind poured through the broken window howling. All three were knocked off balance. They looked at Curly Hair and the others in the shelter zone and stayed down on the floor, not daring to approach.

[Ding! Players are under a continuous negative status. One point of life will be deducted per minute.]

The wind tore at their skin like a blade. The three players looked at the window — the gap growing wider — with hollow despair. Behind them, another pane was starting to fracture. When it gave out, the wind would sweep them through it.

"Come here." An arm extended from the shelter. The young man's hair was wild in the gale, and the paper airplane and sandbag had already been tossed aside by the wind and carried to a corner.

The player nearest to the arm froze. He looked up at the young man, almost unable to believe that the person players were supposed to be fighting against would reach out to one of them.

"Quickly." Chao Musheng assumed the man was too frightened to move, leaned out into the wind, and pulled him in by hand.

"Xiao Chao!" Curly Hair kicked the rescued player out of the way and grabbed Chao Musheng's ankle with both hands. "Xiao Chao — the wind outside is too strong. You'll be swept away too."

Chao Musheng looked back along the sheltered stretch of corridor. Some decorative objects — nothing that could be used as a tool.

He looked at the carpet beneath his feet. Then back at the three remaining players. "Does anyone have a knife?"

The rescued player, Curly Hair, and Old He all faltered — they were players, their inventory absolutely included blades, but they couldn't take anything out in front of Chao Musheng.

"I have one." A door opened behind them. Song Xu stood in the doorway in his bathrobe, holding a pair of scissors the villa had provided.

"Thank you." Chao Musheng took them and cut a long strip from the thick carpet.

The villa's carpeting was premium — dense and unusually strong.

He tied the thick strip around a decorative antique fixture from the corridor wall, then flung the fixture end out toward the two players still in the open, letting the wind work with him. "Grab the strip — we'll pull you in."

The two players hesitated, then seized it.

Between all of them, straining hard, they dragged both players into safety.

The two had barely made it to the shelter when the second window gave out. Everything in the area they'd just abandoned was swept through in an instant.

"God." Song Xu stared at the torn, bleeding wounds on the three workers' arms and broke out in full-body gooseflesh. "That wind — it's like something possessed. Something's wrong."

Curly Hair glanced at him. Not possessed. But not far off, either.

"My room has a first-aid kit — come in." He collected himself and waved them toward his room.

"With wind this strong, opening a door would cause a draft that could—" Curly Hair stopped herself once she saw the layout of Song Xu's room. It had only very small windows. Not even large enough to fit a head through.

"I don't like big windows." He had clearly read her expression. "Small windows feel safer."

He'd once stayed in a hotel with floor-to-ceiling glass and forgotten to pull the curtains, and a paparazzo had photographed him picking at his foot. The image still circulated among people who wished him ill. Since then — small windows only.

Curly Hair guided the two injured players through the door, then turned to Chao Musheng. "Xiao Chao — what do we do now?"

Old He silently helped the third player in after them. He didn't dare speak too loudly in front of Chao Musheng.

He and Curly Hair positioned themselves, without needing to discuss it, between Chao Musheng and the three players — in case they tried anything.

Song Xu looked at the deep cuts on the three workers' arms, the flesh peeling outward, and touched his own arm. Injuries that bad and not a sound from any of them. Remarkable pain tolerance.

The three players couldn't control their expressions when they heard Curly Hair, in the middle of a crisis, ask an NPC's opinion.

A player deferring to the instance boss — was that right?

Curly Hair didn't look at them. If it weren't for Xiao Chao's kindness, these three would be dead already.

"Actually — Mr. Chao." Song Xu had just remembered something. "About twenty minutes ago, I ran into Editor-in-chief Chao in the elevator. She'd left with two assistants — something about a dinner."

He tried his phone to ask his manager to reach some industry contacts, but the signal was dead. "The signal—"

He noticed Chao Musheng was already on his phone, and thoughtfully closed his mouth.

After several rings, Chao Yin's voice came through. "Zhaozhao?"

"Mom." He listened to her voice — steady, no tension or fear. "Where are you?"

"I'm out for dinner with two friends." The warmth of a smile crept into her voice at the sound of her son's. "Is there anything you want? I can bring you something back."

"No — it's all right." Listening to the wind howling outside, he kept his own voice perfectly even. "The weather in Linhai has been changeable. What's it like where you are?"

"We're only ten or fifteen minutes from the compound by car. How different could it be?" She glanced out the restaurant window — a busy pedestrian street, beautiful at night. "Stop worrying about things at your age."

"I'm just checking on you." His tone didn't shift. "Enjoy dinner with your friends. I'm with Xiao Juan and the others."

He hung up, glanced at the three heavily injured workers on the floor. "The weather is normal less than twenty kilometers away. This should be a small-scale localized event."

No weather alert had gone out — it wasn't a typhoon or widespread natural disaster.

This prolonged gale was inexplicable. The saving grace was that the event had ended and the artists and fans had mostly cleared the area.

Song Xu looked at his own phone skeptically, tapped at it, still nothing. How was Chao Musheng's phone working?

To the players, the fact that Chao Musheng's phone could connect at all was the most alarming thing in the room.

This was the phase where players surrounded and closed in on the boss — the extreme weather was a standard instance mechanism for restricting the boss's movement. At this point the boss had two options: be eliminated by players, or kill the players trying to harm him.

What was not supposed to happen was sitting in an NPC's room, having been rescued by the boss, listening to the boss call his family.

"The wind still hasn't stopped." Old He looked at the small window on the wall. The entire building seemed to be shuddering.

Curly Hair kept her eyes on the three players continuously, ready if they moved toward Chao Musheng.

No wonder this instance had felt chaotic from the beginning — no logic to it. Even the number of players entering had been unclear; the main quest was vague. At first she'd assumed the system had noticed something was wrong with her and was using the confusion to eliminate her. But the instance hadn't been trying to get rid of her — it had been trying to get rid of Xiao Chao, her leverage.

Too many players, and this was a real world — most players had to rely on their own skills to stay hidden.

The players desperate to get home were the system's preferred weapons: they entered the instance with stable cover identities and a clear main quest direction.

Those of them who'd entered under paparazzo cover were only the system's contingency weapons.

Maybe the system hadn't even known whether Xiao Chao would appear. Once it confirmed he was here, every player's main quest collapsed into a single objective: remove Xiao Chao for the Main God.

The Main God didn't care about player survival. Every player in the instance was a tool toward Xiao Chao's death.

A Main God, powerful enough to build countless instance worlds — so urgently wanting to remove a living person. It couldn't just be that it found him unpleasant to look at.

The wind screamed outside. The scene should have been terrifying. But listening to it, Curly Hair detected something in the sound that felt slightly hollow — like a bluff.

*

Linhai Meteorological Warning Center.

A quiet night shift. The staff's mood matched the data.

When the phone rang, the person who picked up still had a smile on his face — until the voice on the other end registered. His expression froze. "You're saying... there's a sustained gale at the Baiyuan Villa compound in Xifeng District?"

He frantically pulled weather data from every radar, satellite, and detection instrument covering the Xifeng area. All normal.

"Sir — making a false report of a natural disaster is a criminal offense." He signaled a colleague, who traced the call's location. It was, in fact, coming from the Xifeng area.

"I'm aware." The voice on the line was young. "The number of people currently trapped in Baiyuan Villa should exceed one hundred. There are injuries from broken glass. We need emergency response."

"Could I ask for your identity information, sir?" The number of people trapped made the operator's chest tighten.

Other staff monitoring the call quickly pulled up the compound's topographical map. Baiyuan Villa sat on the edge of a sea cliff — no record of isolated natural disaster damage in the past twenty years.

The young man on the line gave his name and identification number. The operator pulled up his records.

"Thank you for providing this information. We will contact emergency response departments and coordinate rescue as quickly as possible."

"Identity confirmed." The operator handling the caller's information had a grave expression. "Caller: Chao Musheng. Currently enrolled student, Jinghua University."

"The Xifeng weather instruments are reading normal. But satellite imagery of the Xifeng area shows a grey patch in the sky above it. The satellite is capturing the image very poorly — unable to determine conditions inside."

"Contact all relevant departments — get to the scene as fast as possible."

"Call Baiyuan Villa's contact numbers."

"Unable to connect — every front desk number at the compound is unreachable."

The warning center contacted every department at maximum speed to begin emergency relief. Staff who'd been home sleeping were called back in.

"This doesn't make any sense." The responders heading to the scene reviewed the compound's terrain map again and again. The geography of Baiyuan Villa made a 'channel effect' localized gale highly unlikely.

They felt a helplessness they didn't often feel. In the face of natural disasters, human understanding was still so limited.

*

"Xiao Chao." Curly Hair's throat was dry. "Who did you call?"

"The meteorological disaster warning center." He put away his phone. "I don't know exactly how strong the wind is or how far it's spreading — but if I don't alert the warning center in time, there could be more people affected."

Whether it was too unexpected from a supposed boss, or the blood loss making them lightheaded, the three players' minds felt fuzzy.

You're a boss in an instance. Why are you worried about natural disasters?

And after saving our lives — how are we supposed to bring ourselves to come after him now?

"Your wounds are fairly deep — you need the bleeding managed." He looked at their pallor. "I learned basic first aid at summer camp, but I'm not entirely sure I'll do it right. Do you want to try?"

"Please, Mr. Chao." The player who spoke first was the one Chao Musheng had pulled in by hand. He extended his arm.

If the boss had wanted them dead, he'd already had the opportunity.

Chao Musheng's movements were slightly unpracticed. He worked on the wounds while keeping his voice calm. "Emergency responders will be here soon. Don't be afraid."

The three players laughed inwardly in despair. What difference does being afraid make — we're losing nearly a point of life per minute. When it hits zero, so do we.

"The bleeding stopped." Song Xu stared at the player's arm in astonishment. "Mr. Chao — is there anything you can't do?"

Curly Hair glanced at the artist who never stopped flattering Xiao Chao, even now.

The life drain has stopped.

The player jerked his head up. Chao Musheng had already moved on to the second injured person.

"Mr. Chao — thank you!"

"Don't mention it." He was more practiced now. "My technique isn't smooth — I may have caused some pain. Bear with it a moment."

He quickly treated the remaining two. The room was thick with blood smell. Song Xu, ever attentive, appeared with a glass of water. "Mr. Chao — you've worked hard. Please have some water."

"Thank you." He smiled at Song Xu. "I'm sorry for bringing so many people into your room."

"Not at all!" The smile briefly dazzled him. "It's an honor to help. And honestly — with company around, I'm less frightened."

*

The wind showed no sign of stopping. The compound was vast and remote. Emergency responders reached the outer gates and were stopped cold by what they saw inside.

"There's no wind out here. In there — it's like a cyclone." They were in full equipment and still not close enough. An expert from the warning center held them back. "The wind inside is too strong. If you go in now, you'll be carried away."

They stared at the scene, faces grave. In all their years, none of them had seen a natural phenomenon like this.

"There are people trapped in there — we can't just leave them!"

Bang.

A tree inside the compound was wrenched up by its roots and flung against the gates, smashing the stone sculpture standing there.

"This..." Everyone watched the toppled sculpture, their worry deepening. With wind this strong — what had become of the people inside?

The surrounding area had already been cordoned off in case the wind spread. But the wind seemed contained — churning only within the compound's walls, the entire space dark as a pit, stranger than any cyclone.

"Fall back to the heavy vehicles — stay safe." The expert's face was bloodless. "We cannot approach the wind zone in these conditions—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

A man was walking toward the compound gates.

"Wait!"

The man didn't appear to hear. He stepped through the gates without looking back and disappeared into the gale.

What? When had that man appeared?

Every rescue worker stared in disbelief.

*

The black gale swept through every corner of the compound and finally concentrated all its force around the VIP building.

The building stood like a sugar drop that had fallen into an anthill — surrounded by a dense mass that couldn't swallow it whole, only surround it with effort.

Several players held themselves against the walls with tools, bodies scored with wind-cut bleeding lines. Flying grit and debris obscured everything; all the lights were out. They could barely see.

Then suddenly — the wind around them eased.

That was...

A player raised a face covered in cuts and looked toward the figure ahead.

The man walked through the gale as if walking on level ground. He stepped over a player lying on the floor with the same expression one might use stepping over a stone.

He moved with composed, deliberate steps past one battered player after another — and just when everyone expected him to continue, he stopped beside a player in a security uniform.

The security player recoiled in terror. He had no idea what this man was, but in the instant of his appearance, he had felt a suffocating nearness to death.

The man lowered his head. Looked at him once.

What kind of eyes were those. The security player couldn't find words for it. By the time awareness returned to him, his body was disappearing, inch by inch.

"No—"

He didn't even manage a scream. He dissolved into mist and vanished in the dark.

The players who had witnessed it shook uncontrollably. Certain their own turn was next — but the man had already stepped onto the VIP building's entrance stairs.

*

"Mr. Chao." Song Xu, looking at the three workers whose faces had gone paler than paper, was quietly afraid one of them would die in his room. "With wind this bad — the rescue team probably can't get in?"

If the rescue team tried to come, wouldn't they be swept away?

Please don't die in here. If they died, he would have nightmares for years.

"Don't worry — this kind of small-scale localized extreme weather can't last long." Chao Musheng checked the time, working to keep everyone's mood steady. "The wind should stop now."

"Will — will it stop?" Song Xu wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the moment Mr. Chao said the wind should stop, the wind itself seemed to howl back with something that sounded like frustrated fury.

He was probably hallucinating from shock. Winds didn't have feelings.

"Of course." Chao Musheng nodded with certainty. "It can't go on much longer. The conditions won't allow it."

This doesn't follow natural law.

Whooooo—

Whoo...

The wind cut off completely.

"Cough, cough—" Chao Musheng choked on his own saliva. He quickly picked up his water and drank several sips.

"The wind stopped?" Song Xu climbed on the chair and pressed his face to the small window, listening intently. "Mr. Chao — the wind really did stop!"

The three players couldn't believe it. Extreme weather in an instance ran for days at minimum. How long had that lasted?

They listened carefully. As much as they didn't want to believe it — the wind was genuinely gone.

"Exactly as I said. This kind of localized extreme weather simply cannot sustain itself." Chao Musheng checked the time, exhaled quietly, and turned to the three dazed workers. "Rescue will be coming in very soon. You're safe."

No, that's not—

Everything felt wrong to the three players, but they couldn't say any of it in front of the boss. They could only look helplessly toward Curly Hair and Old He.

Old He's expression was barely better than theirs. All he could think about were Chao Musheng's words just now, and the wind that had cut off mid-howl.

The system wanted Mr. Chao dead. Why would it let the wind stop so easily?

No — this wasn't how the Main God operated.

"Mr. Chao called it perfectly!" Song Xu jumped down from the chair and resumed his unwavering campaign. "You said the wind would stop — and it did."

This was the man who knocked Song Cheng flat and ran the Song family off. Of course he called it right.

"I just got lucky." Chao Musheng, mildly embarrassed by the effusive praise, gave a dry cough. "Now that the wind's stopped, let's go check the other rooms for injuries."

He opened the door. The corridor was dim; the emergency lights were still on. He was about to knock on the adjacent room when he noticed a familiar figure at the far end of the hall.

He hesitated, walked a few steps forward, and asked quietly: "Is that... Mr. Xu?"

"Zhaozhao."

The corridor lights came on. Xu Chenzhu stood beneath them, hair disheveled, a leaf on his shoulder.

It really was him.

"The wind was this strong — how did you get here?!" Something rang in Chao Musheng's head, and he ran to him. "Are you hurt? What were you thinking — with wind like that, were you trying to get blown up to the sky like a rocket?!"

Xu Chenzhu listened to the voice that was clearly furious at him, and smiled. His color was slightly pale.

"What are you smiling about?" Chao Musheng brushed the leaf off his shoulder and touched the back of his hand — ice cold. "From the wind?"

"Yes." The corners of his mouth stayed curved. "I finished the livestream and thought you'd probably be resting by now, so I came to check on you."

Chao Musheng looked at him in silence for a moment, then reached out and took hold of his wrist. "I'm taking you to Song Xu's room first. How did you know I was in the VIP building?"

"The wind was that bad — I assumed you'd be worried about Auntie Chao." He followed obediently, letting Chao Musheng pull him forward. "But I didn't know which room you were in, so I just waited here."

Song Xu, who had come rushing out to continue his flattery campaign, nearly lost control of his face entirely when he saw who was beside Chao Musheng.

That's Xu Chenzhu?

In weather like that — he fought through a gale to come here?

"What were you about to do?" Xu Chenzhu glanced at Song Xu, whose features were organizing a vote, then his gaze returned to Chao Musheng with unmistakable warmth. "I'll come with you."

"I'm going to knock on doors and check for injuries." He looked back. "You're coming too?"

"Yes." Xu Chenzhu looked at his wrist where Chao Musheng's hand was. "With you."

"All right then." Chao Musheng agreed almost without pause, then turned to Song Xu. "Song Xu — do you have spare masks?"

"Yes!" Song Xu nodded vigorously, still not in full command of his features. "Mr. Chao! Yes, I do!"

Xu Chenzhu stood in the doorway and looked at the three injured, bleeding people inside. Something cold moved through his eyes.

At the instant Chao Musheng glanced back, Xu Chenzhu's expression dropped, and the warmth he wore in front of Chao Musheng returned.

"Put this on." Chao Musheng took the masks from Song Xu and handed one to Xu Chenzhu. "Xiao Juan — you stay here with the three workers and wait for the rescue team. The rest of us split into groups and check the other rooms."

He put the mask in Xu Chenzhu's hand. "Mr. Xu doesn't split off — he's with me."

Song Xu's eyelids went haywire. He very much wanted to be sensible about this, but his gaze would not cooperate and kept going back to Chao Musheng and Xu Chenzhu.

Swear to heaven — he really didn't want to ship real people.

But those two — they were so real.