Chapter 97: The Boy with His Own Soundtrack

The alarm blasted out with a swaggering gangsta rap hook.

"Dammit, how did my alarm turn into this song?" Chen Fan rubbed his bleary eyes and reached out to shut it off, but his feet were already bouncing to the beat.

"Huh? Damn, it's already eleven? I skipped class again."

He shot upright in alarm, only to remember a moment later that it was Mid-Autumn Festival and the school was on holiday. Yet something still felt wrong.

"I clearly turned the alarm off last night. How could it still be going?" Chen Fan picked up his phone. Sure enough, the alarm was switched off.

"For a man as imposing as your king, an entrance naturally has to come with its own soundtrack. Come on, sing along with me: shades, cigars, gold chains, fast cars, pretty women, stacks of cash—yo, yo, yo, check it out..."

"Shut up, you old pest. It’s barely morning and you’re chanting in my ear the second I wake up, and you’re even off-key." Chen Fan finally cut the Elder off, and at last there was some peace.

"Don’t tell me your power is just blasting music in my ear."

Chen Fan wetted a towel and slapped it over his face.

"A human-shaped speaker. Satisfied, my customer? Name a song, don’t be shy. If the sound quality suffers, that’s on me. I guarantee full three-dimensional surround sound."

"To hell with you. So you really are a DJ after all, huh? What happened to the high-tier divine card? Turns out you’re just the guy handing out fruit platters backstage?" Chen Fan almost swallowed his mouthwash from sheer astonishment.

"DJing is merely one of my insignificant hobbies. In truth, my ability is far more powerful. I can bring the dead back to life."

"Bring the dead back to life? Some sort of absurd anti-scientific black technology?" Chen Fan was instantly intrigued, and nearly swallowed his mouthwash again.

The Elder kept mixing the tracks and even started breakdancing. "It’s not exactly resurrection. More like making you immune to one fatal wound. Say you deliberately ran out into the road to get hit by a car—normally you’d be in a sorry state, but I can keep you from dying. Only once, though."

"Sounds pretty good. Fits my self-destructive habits nicely. Anything else?"

Chen Fan changed out of his pajamas. He had nowhere to go; his roommates were gone, and the dormitory had been left to him alone.

The Elder continued, "You can possess the abilities of every divine card, but only one kind at a time. At your current level, you can switch twice a day. Once you’re more proficient, you should be able to change once an hour."

"Well, that really is a fine card. Let me think—what role should I choose first? I’m a little tempted by the Seer’s intuition, but I’m also rather greedy, and the Witch’s strange potion sounds good too. The Hunter’s insight, the Fool’s chosen fate... Hmm, this is hard. Which one should I pick?"

The Elder cut him off. "You don’t get to choose. The system picks at random. When have you ever known anything this good to come so easily? Listen carefully: you are a Seer now. At noon, you’ll automatically change into a new role."

"Oh."

Chen Fan felt a little disappointed. His luck had never been all that great. Still, getting the Seer was acceptable enough.

"I have a feeling someone’s going to ask me out to play later."

Ding-ding-ding.

Chen Fan stretched out an arm and pulled his phone off the bed. One glance at the message proved his intuition right.

[Hey, got any Mid-Autumn plans? It’s so boring stuck in the dorm. I thought everyone had gone home, but who knew? Heh. Everybody’s doing who knows what and hogging the bandwidth. The internet’s lagging like crazy first thing in the morning.]

[Well, what do you want me to do about it? Everywhere’s crowded during the holiday. The nearby sights will definitely be packed. There’s no reason for two grown men to go shopping together, is there?]

As soon as Chen Fan sent that message, his intuition told him the other guy would invite him to the activity room to play Werewolf.

[Then where else can we go? Let’s head to the activity room. There’s AC and drinks, and we can even have takeout delivered. Hunkering down there for the day should be fine.]

[Fine, let’s head out. See you there. And remember not to wear your Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas.]

Chen Fan even added a final reminder. This was his second use of the Seer card, and the feel of it was already much better than the first time. It looked like his foundations had been properly established.

"Aren’t you hot, wearing jeans in weather like this?"

Li Peijun pointed downward and laughed. "They’re not real denim. They’re cotton, breathable. The outside just looks like jeans."

Chen Fan urged him on. "Oh, I see. Come on, let’s go. I feel like it’ll be crowded inside."

His intuition told him that too. And sure enough, once they got inside, it was packed wall to wall. But most of the people there weren’t actually playing Werewolf; more often than not, they were just sitting in the seats and playing on their phones.

Li Peijun asked in confusion, "If they’re just here for the air-conditioning, why don’t they go to the library? I think the AC there feels better."

"The chairs are more comfortable here. If it were you, with one hard wooden stool and one soft sofa, which would you pick?" Chen Fan quickly saw through the truth.

The two of them wandered around several times without finding a free seat. At last, when lunchtime arrived and the crowd thinned out a little, they sat down in the two seats nearest the storage room.

"Honestly, what a waste of resources. Why can’t these people just stand around enjoying the AC? It’s not like they’re here to play games," Li Peijun complained.

Chen Fan comforted him. "Administration has its difficulties too. If we get the chance, let’s discuss some solutions with Gu Kai and the others. It’ll probably improve once the weather cools off."

"By winter, I’m afraid another crowd will show up just to freeload the heating."

Chen Fan smiled. "I think more likely it’ll be a bunch of people huddled together in the dorms, keeping warm over hotpot."

They adjusted their VR headsets and prepared to enter the game.

Li Peijun noticed a NEW label on the right side of the first map and said excitedly, "There’s a Mid-Autumn special event! The Moon Palace dungeon. Why don’t we pick this one?"

"Huh? There’s an event like the Valentine’s special last time? Then let’s do this one." Chen Fan didn’t think too hard about it. As long as it wasn’t the Republican-era police station, everything was negotiable.

"Switching your role now. Current role: Guard."

"Hm?"

The game hadn’t even finished loading, so why had a role been assigned already? Chen Fan was puzzled. He took off the headset and looked at his phone. It was already noon.

"What use is a Guard, anyway?" he muttered, then put the headset back on.

Li Peijun seemed to hear him and teased, "Oh, so you’re the Guard? If I draw Wolf, I’ll definitely kill you on the first night."

"Go ahead. I welcome the challenge."

The map assets loaded very quickly. They must have been thrown together in a hurry. Before his eyes spread a star-filled sky, making it feel as though the whole world had drifted into outer space. In the distance stood a three-story pavilion, veiled in mist and cloudlike haze, painted in red lacquer with yellow tiles in an old-fashioned style. It was clearly the Moon Palace.

"Not bad, I guess. At least everything that should be here is here."

Chen Fan took a look around. The surrounding land was barren and desolate, with no extra ornamentation. Compared with the grand scope of the Warring States dungeon, the Moon Palace seemed rather modest by comparison. But this was his first time playing it, and the novelty kept him from caring too much.

"Wait, damn it, why can’t I move..."

At first he thought he had fallen into some sort of trap. Then he looked down and cried out, "How did I turn into a laurel tree?"