Ever since sinAmaterasu and LeftHandForFriendship lost the match, those two in the QQ group hadn’t contacted her again.
The rest of the group silently treated her as if she didn’t exist.
Every day, people died, and new blood poured in.
Except for those who regularly spoke in the group chat, the others all felt like fleeting visitors—or hidden hunters lurking in the dark.
Cough cough… cough…
Her cold still hadn’t gone away.
She ate while thinking about the QQ group, sitting perfectly upright—forming a 90-degree angle with the table.
Suddenly, she paused and leaned her face close to the glass table, her pitch-black eyes staring at a tiny white speck.
She’d discovered half a grain of rice on the table—and instantly felt unbearably uncomfortable.
After tossing it into the trash, she noticed her hair had dipped into the other bowl of chicken soup…
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!
She nearly lost it, barely suppressing the urge to start hacking people apart.
Be elegant, be elegant! Elegant!
Taking a deep breath, she finally managed to calm the storm inside.
She dumped the chicken soup out, and of course—she had to wash her hair again.
She’d already lost count of how many times that had been.
Aside from her previous obsessive-compulsive disorder, she now seemed to suffer from Elegance Syndrome, which had upgraded her OCD.
Back when she didn’t have long hair, things weren’t this troublesome—now that she did, everything became a hassle.
Actually, she had another way to solve all these problems: accumulate 1,000 points and switch to a different body.
Her right hand moved to her left chest and gave it a squeeze—then lightly shook her head.
From an economic standpoint, it wasn’t cost-effective.
The best strategy was to use a body until it absolutely couldn’t be used anymore.
After experiencing one body swap, she understood the inconveniences it brought: ID verification was a problem, and getting used to a new body was another.
If she had used this current body for a few years, she wouldn’t have been so miserable during the Dark World sprint race.
Sitting at the computer desk, she lifted her right foot.
The scars on the sole had vanished.
Since returning from the Dark World, all her wounds had disappeared—as if they never existed.
Her gaze returned to the screen.
The group owner Shenzhu, who wasn’t even a QQ VIP, seemed to always be online—his avatar had never gone dim.
She clicked into a private chat with the mysterious group owner.
…
(Private Chat 1)
BookletNa: Hello.
Shenzhu: Hello.
The reply came instantly—not even a second passed. It was like chatting with an AI.
BookletNa: I love you.
Shenzhu: I love you too.
BookletNa: I don’t love you.
Shenzhu: I love you.
BookletNa: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
BookletNa: If Rie Kugimiya and Kana Hanazawa fell into the water, who would you save first?
BookletNa: When will you pay back the $1 million you owe me?
Shenzhu: The system holds no debt disputes with anyone.
…
After a round of testing, she confirmed: this guy was definitely an AI.
No matter the question, the response came instantly.
Only when it came to messy logical problems did it stay silent.
Of course, classified topics also got no response.
Questions like “Who created this world?” or “Is there a God?”—got nothing back.
…
Before going to bed that night, Miss Hua Ru finally figured out a few basic rules.
This QQ group wasn’t accessed solely through the “QQ 8.2 Greenified Version.”
According to the group owner, it was a matter of fate—but what exactly did “fate” mean? Since he held the right to define it, he could twist it however he liked.
But if you could enter—surely, you could also leave, right?
So how do you escape the Dark World?
According to the group owner: Earn 10,000 points, and you can exchange them to leave the Dark World.
Our pure, kind, and righteous Miss Hua Ru immediately latched onto that detail.
10,000 points to leave the Dark World?
If memory served correctly, the first character purchase cost 100 points, the second was 1,000, and the third a full 10,000.
Beyond that, there were even options costing 100,000 and 1,000,000 points.
Then what’s the point of the third character purchase?
The whole idea of progressive price increases was clearly designed to make point accumulation harder—to keep people grinding.
So if 10,000 points could let someone leave, why were there such massively expensive items in the system?
That was the key.
There had to be some reason people either had to keep playing or were willing to risk their lives to stay.
The answer could be found in the Shop.
…
1 point = 100 RMB.
That was the base exchange rate.
But—dare you actually use that money?
Currency has serial numbers.
How could one be sure it wouldn’t be traced?
Next came Miscellaneous Items.
These included basic necessities—toothbrushes, toothpaste, blankets, tents.
Most were cheap, ranging from 1 to 50 points.
Then came Armor.
Beyond ceramic body armor, there was liquid armor, and even sci-fi-style carbon nano armor.
But the armor section didn’t just include combat gear—normal clothes were also available.
Some of the clothes she had just ordered online earlier that day were already listed in the store.
Even better: she could customize clothing materials and styles—but customization cost points.
The amount varied depending on the design changes requested.
So… did that mean her online purchases had been a waste?
Not really.
Miss Hua Ru tried the Dark World’s clothing customization system.
For a standard daily-use outfit—a top and bottom set—the base cost was 2 points.
Cutting off the sleeves added another 5 points.
The lowest-grade material (E-rank) cost an extra 98 points.
D-rank material needed 198 points, and C-rank jumped to 998 points.
It was actually kind of user-friendly—was the 2 points left uncharged supposed to be used for bus fare or something?
“How nice!”
Yeah right.
Didn’t they know that people with OCD get really uncomfortable if numbers don’t end in a clean integer?
She glanced at B-rank material—and immediately gave up looking any further.
It cost 9,998 points.
That was insane.
Not to mention there were still A-rank and the highest-tier S-rank materials further down the list.
…
Now let’s look at the weapons—and this was where things got interesting.
Everything from cold weapons to firearms was available.
There were even:
1:1 replica of Elucidator
Original Elucidator
1:1 replica of “Fatty”
Original “Fatty”
1:1 replica of Buffett’s Golden Cannon
1:1 replica of the Sword of Physics…
Of course, none of these items had any special effects.
Even the original versions didn’t give you protagonist-level power-ups like instantly turning you into some overpowered Mary Sue.
…
Looking at the vehicles was even more fascinating.
There was:
A modded Type 59 tank.
A sweat-blood horse.
An F-22 fighter jet.
The I-400 submarine.
Bicycles, cars, even Unicorn Gundam and Iron Man MK3 armor…
She couldn’t help herself—she just had to check the prices, even knowing full well they’d be outrageous.
Bicycles were relatively reasonable—anywhere from 1 to 10,000 points.
Tanks, however, were ridiculous. The cheapest one, the “Nomad Tank,” cost 9,998 points.
Airplanes were surprisingly affordable. The cheapest was the Wright Brothers’ Flyer I, going for only 2,998 points.
Then she noticed that Iron Man armor was listed under “vehicles” rather than “armor.”
The cheapest version, MK1, cost 11,998 points.
You read that right—it was more expensive than a tank.
The MK2 armor—the one that freezes at high altitudes—cost 19,998 points.
Ridiculously overpriced.
The iconic red-and-gold MK3 armor, Iron Man’s first true combat suit, was a whopping 49,998 points—nearly 50,000.
…
At that point, she fully understood the reasoning behind setting 10,000 points as the threshold to escape the Dark World.
It was a dividing line between two types of players:
Those who just wanted to survive, save up the points, and return to a normal life
And those seeking thrills, who wanted to experience a different kind of life
But still—one match only awarded 500 points.
50,000 points meant 100 matches. That was absurdly expensive.
What’s more, even after buying these items, you weren’t guaranteed to be able to use them due to the “replacement” mechanism.
For example, take the 1,000-meter race mission she had experienced.
It was a world with no weapons allowed—so even if someone had bought a gun, a tank, or armor, they couldn’t use them, since there were no corresponding in-game items to replace.
Only if the mission world contained a type of item, could you swap it out for something you purchased.
Only then would it become usable.
To put it simply:
Let’s say you bought a Type 59 tank, and then entered the Dark World.
If the mission turned out to be the same 1,000-meter sprint Miss Hua Ru had experienced—you couldn’t use your tank.
But if the race was a tank race, and the system gave every player a default tank, then you could swap that default tank with your purchased one.
So, many of these seemingly overpowered items actually had major limitations.