Ch67 - Fear of the Full Moon

The five people in front of them had no identification to prove their identity but their temperament was different from ordinary players. Their bodies were standing tall and straight like a flagpole. This was the best business card.

They quickly introduced themselves. 

He Yinchuan was 26 years old. At the age of 23, he retired from the special forces due to injuries. He served as the fire captain for a year before entering a factory with a toluene leak three times to save people. Finally, he was carrying a child whose mother had brought him to the factory to play when he was blown out from the aftermath of the explosion.

Once he recovered, the leaders were really afraid of his desperate efforts and forced him into a civilian position. Therefore, he was a former captain. His code name was  ‘Gou Jian’. (A king of the Kingdom of Yue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goujian)

Behind He Yinchuan, the man who was half a head taller was called Zhou Ao. His introduction was brief. “Zhou Ao, current captain of S City’s Police and Fire Brigade.”

He was originally the vice-captain and a colleague in the same unit as He Yinchuan. He happened to be in the same team as He Yinchuan. Now the two people were back together. He was probably injured in the last instance. He had a bandage around his left hand that wrapped around his entire hand and arm tightly. He didn’t like to talk so He Yinchuan gave him the codename ‘Bianzhong’ in the hope he could make more noise. (Bianzhong: set of bells) 

Lu Bifang, a junior of the police academy. His physical ability was superior but with his grades, it was likely that he would’ve just been a small police officer who mediated between families at a police station. The 1.87 meter tall man couldn’t help blushing when he talked to strangers, forming a very sharp contrast. He was codenamed ‘Benma’. (running horse)

Liang Shu was a military doctor but she looked more like a model. She had a very calm temperament. Her lips were always slightly raised and the gentle rhetorical question ‘is this difficult?’ was all over her face. She looked very reassuring at first glance. Her code name was ‘Gong Deng’. (Palace lantern)

Lin Zhisong was a student at the military academy’s school of telecommunications and engineering. Perhaps it was because he had been dealing with dead objects like circuit boards and data for a long time. He was a baby-faced guy with an overall nervous temperament, who shrank back behind everyone.

During the introduction, he didn’t say a word. He Yinchuan was responsible for the whole process. He only finished it at the right moment. His role was to collect comprehensive information about the instances and record all types of information in the instance. His code name was ‘Chan Wen.’ (Cicada Pattern)

Their code names were all objects related to bronze and were appropriate for the situation.

Since the disappearances had become widespread, the state initiated a voluntary recruitment, using the army, military academies and current and retired police forces to recruit volunteer teams to help search for the missing.

Someone had to find the missing people. However, the missing people never came back. Thus, the volunteer team was almost a death squad.

The search method was very simple. Volunteers in groups of three, four or five people drove slowly through the cities or villages that were becoming vacant, trying to find an opportunity to disappear. Sometimes, the volunteers returned to the ‘room’ unharmed. Other times, they disappeared silently in a corner of the city. 

At the time when they signed the voluntary waiver, their superiors also gave them as much autonomy in action as possible. It could be said that before entering the game, every volunteer had left behind a will and was ready to die in the line of duty.

The Bronze Brigade was lucky to enter Forces of Temptation as a complete team. After two instances and gaining a rough understanding of the game, they decided to protect the players in the same instance as them as much as possible. They didn’t intend to act separately.

The cooperation of the five people was very good. They specialized in PVE and their passing speed was very fast. They didn’t give themselves any time off. So after finishing the last instance and getting a 12 hour break, they immediately opened the next instance. In other words, they didn’t have time to know about the existence of Cube Boat from the world channel.

*** 

Nan Zhou watched every face in front of him.

He just failed to hear the task of the instance.

Yet looking at everyone standing here and not in a hurry to explore, he inferred that this should be like Xiao Ming’s Daily Life. The system had given them a period of preparation time.

*** 

The official greetings and introduction exhausted all of Captain He Yinchuan’s seriousness.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“You are quite easy to talk to.” He Yinchuan liked to smile. There was no sign of the desperate man who didn’t think his life was worth anything when working. “The last time we met a team of players, they had to check our IDs. We took them out and they said the IDs were forgeries. It took a long time just talking about our identities.”

Itbe Cb abemtfv tlr jgw. “Xfa ab yerlcfrr.”

Lf Tlcmtejc mbeutfv jcv mbcagbiifv tlwrfio. “Tfr, yerlcfrr lr yerlcfrr.” 

Lf ibbxfv jgbecv. “Mlgra bo jii, atbrf bo sbe ktb jgfc’a qtsrlmjiis ola, qifjrf gjlrf sbeg tjcv.”

Ol Tlctjcu qegrfv tfg ilqr. Vtf mjgfoeiis fnjiejafv tfg qtsrlmji ragfcuat jcv ofia rtf kjr bc atf nfguf bo ‘bxjs’ jcv ‘cb.’ Lfg fcvegjcmf kjrc’a j ylu qgbyifw obg jc bgvlcjgs ulgi. Dea lc atlr fzagfwf fcnlgbcwfca—

She was seriously considering if she would drag them back or not when an arm was lifted beside her. Nan Zhou honestly said, “I am.”

Li Yinhang, “……” 

Boss, what are you up to again?

Still, without looking at his height, Nan Zhou really did have a gentle appearance. He was originally very white, as white as porcelain jade. This gave people the illusion that there would be fine cracks when pinched slightly. In the moonlight, his slender and pale fingers hanging by his side were seriously lacking blood.

It wasn’t until he slightly lifted his chin that He Yinchuan’s group was able to make out his face from the glowing moonlight silhouette. All five were visibly stunned when they saw his face. Looking at this face that was slightly sweating and in urgent need of care, his words were very convincing.

Meanwhile, ‘Chan Wen’ Lin Zhisong who was standing the furthest away, took the initiative to move forward after seeing Nan Zhou’s face. He carefully examined Nan Zhou’s face and his eyes lit up with interest. 

After receiving Nan Zhou’s name and occupation, He Yinchuan turned his head. “Xiao Lu, I’ll leave him to you.”

Before Benma ‘Lu Bifang’ had time to answer, he heard Lin Zhisong say, “Give him to me.”

Then Lin Zhisong strode closer to Nan Zhou. Before he could arrive, a figure moved and separated the two.

“Sorry.” Jiang Fang nodded slightly at Lin Zhisong. “I can take care of him.” 

The excessive moonlight from outside the window greatly hindered their visual ability. Just now, they had thought Jiang Fang’s silver hair was due to a poor vision problem caused by the light color of his hair.

He Yinchuan narrowed his eyes. “A foreign friend?”

Jiang Fang only looked at Lin Zhisong. “Thank you.”

He Yinchuan turned back and whispered to Zhou Ao, “If we can’t protect them well, will it lead to foreign diplomatic problems?” 

Zhou Ao’s expression didn’t change. “Just protect them all.”

He Yinchuan quickly straightened out his line of thinking. “That’s fine. Each person will take care of their own. Xiao Lu, you are the side guard. Always keep an eye on them.”

Lu Bifang answered with a cry of agreement but his eyes were always staring in Jiang Fang’s direction. Jiang Fang received the gaze so he shifted his gaze and gave a polite nod. Lu Bifang instinctively shifted his gaze, as if avoiding something.

Jiang Fang slightly raised an eyebrow. Then he soon shifted his energy back to the weak Nan Zhou. 

For Li Yinhang, she naturally didn’t think that this bigshot had a problem. She firmly believed that Nan Zhou had his own plan and was cosplaying here. Even though she thought that the Bronze Brigade was very trustworthy, she only treated them as outside aid. She still sat on her own side without moving.

“Let’s go look for supplies.” Li Yinhang looked at Lu Bifang and thanked him heartily. “Policeman uncle, thank you.”

Lu Bifang, “……”

I… am 22 years old. He blushed and made a sound in response. 

Nan Zhou silently observed the surrounding environment.

The two teams were currently in a simple two-story concrete building. The construction workmanship of this floor was relatively rough. Based on the cold, decaying smell inside and the cold glass that was cracked, it was obvious that this place had been abandoned for a long time.

This time, there were only two groups of players for a total of eight people. They intended to split into two and go their own ways.

Lu Bifang originally intended to stay behind as the side guard. Then after seeing that Cube Boat didn’t seem to have any intention of taking him to act together, he hesitated before keeping up with his team. 

He Yinchuan and Zhou Ao took the lead. The other three were behind them, habitually taking the tactical distance. The military doctor Liang Shu asked him softly, “Aren’t you following them?”

Lu Bifang replied, “It is a safe area. I will follow you to find some supplies and see what is good. I’ll give them priority for these things later.”

Lu Bifang couldn’t help looking back at the three people still standing by the window and whispering together.

Liang Shu wondered, “Xiao Lu?” 

The reason why Lu Bifang left with them was because he wanted to say something. He was afraid that once the task really began, he wouldn’t have the chance to say it. Liang Shu was slim and slender. Lu Bifang didn’t have to bend down much to whisper to her, “Sister Liang, I seem to have seen that man before.”

“Who?”

Lin Zhisong interjected, “Are you talking about that art teacher?”

Lu Bifang looked at him. “No, it is the foreign man.” 

Lin Zhisong hummed and turned his head away. His personality made him uninterested in people he didn’t care about. He didn’t even want to give a look. Fortunately, Lu Bifang was broad-minded and didn’t notice his awkwardness at all. “I think he is particularly familiar.”

“Hmm.” Liang Shu trusted the judgment of the second youngest member of the team. “You follow them first while thinking about it. Don’t worry.”

Having said that, Liang Shu turned to the youngest member, Lin Zhisong. “How about you? What did you find?”

Lin Zhisong’s eyes remembered Nan Zhou’s pale, somewhat sharp-shaped lips. He thought about it. “…I’ll think about it slowly as well.” 

***

On the other side, Li Yinhang finally figured out that Nan Zhou wasn’t faking it. She was anxious. “What’s going on?”

Jiang Fang held Nan Zhou’s waist. “It is altitude sickness caused by high altitude. No matter the physique, it can’t be blocked.”

Li Yinhang patted her chest. “Fortunately, we met them.” If their teammates this time had been someone like Xie Xiangyu, they would probably be sacrificed to the heavens straight away. 

“The tinnitus is terrible.” Nan Zhou covered his ears. “What is the instance’s mission?”

Li Yinhang wondered, ‘…Is it that serious?’

Still, she didn’t say much in case she increased the anxious atmosphere for no reason. She immediately ran to a room. She fetched a thick, stiff cold blanket and covered Nan Zhou with it. Then after asking permission from Jiang Fang with her gaze, she pushed open the window nearest to them with a cobweb-like crack in the center.

Nan Zhou always thought that the white light flooding in just now was caused by the terrible full moon. It wasn’t until the window opened that he really saw what was going on outside. 

He heard the sound first before seeing the appearance. Before the window opened, Nan Zhou heard a quiet bass that was like a whimper, or the music of a bagpipe. The moment the window opened, he recognized that it was just the sound of the wind. It was a continuous, endless wind.

Despite the preparations, Nan Zhou shivered.

The crystal snow mountains that stretched out endlessly before him were like a group of monsters resting quietly. Even the lead-gray clouds were captured by the low temperature. It was difficult to flow and so froze in the sky.

The snow that blew into his face choked his lungs, causing Nan Zhou to cough suddenly. Every cough made his cheeks become more pale and transparent. He almost blended in with the snowy whiteness from outside. 

Through the blanket, Jiang Fang gently patted his chest while closing the window with his other hand. The moonlight was cut off and Nan Zhou’s condition slightly improved. His red fingers pressed against the blanket as he supported himself on the edge of the frozen, blackened window frame, coughing so hard that his eyes turned red. His entire body ached and his muscles were trembling. He couldn’t use any strength at all. He hated the feeling.

Nan Zhou let out a sigh. He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand and asked, “What is the name of the instance?”

Jiang Fang replied, “Fear of the Full Moon.”

Nan Zhou thought about the name. He asked again, “The game time?” 

“We need to find enough supplies in this building. In two hours, the task will begin. Once it starts, the instance will last 12 hours.”

12 hours?

Nan Zhou seemed to feel something. “So the task?”

Jiang Fang raised his hand and pointed out the window to the dark peak hidden by the wind and snow. “Race with the mountaineering team there for 12 hours. The side that leads will win.”