TANH Chapter 1: Guide 01

14TH AUG 2022~SV

There is a Guide among you.

【 Welcome to the Otherworld. 】

A cold mechanical voice pulled Wen Qing’s consciousness back. He raised his head blankly, opening his mouth to say something, but a cold wind suddenly rushed into his airway.

Wen Qing coughed twice. Not far away, he saw a large advertisement made of steel support frames and metal — Otherworld Building.

That name… sounded very ominous.

Wen Qing looked away, his heart beating fast.

A minute ago, he was still in the dormitory, about to bring toilet paper to the dorm leader in the toilet. When he opened the door, he arrived on this strange rooftop instead.

He didn’t know if the dorm leader had toilet paper to use now…

Wen Qing rubbed his arms, walking towards the emergency exit that was directly in front.

The white door was shut tightly. Wen Qing tried to push it, but it didn’t move, as if it was locked.

“Is anyone here?”

No.

Nobody.

There was no sun or moon in the sky, only a thick and gloomy fog that lingered around the building as if it was the only place that existed in this world.

Wen Qing cautiously approached the guardrail and glanced down.

It was still bottomless white fog.

With just a glance, Wen Qing’s hands and knees went soft.

He was scared of heights. Not only heights, but also ghosts, but he was the type who liked to play with those that he was afraid of.

He was obviously scared of heights, yet he liked to look down from tall buildings. He was obviously scared of ghosts, yet he still insisted on pulling the dorm leader to watch horror movies together.

【 There are still twenty minutes left before the instance’s passage opens. May the players who are present prepare well. 】

The mechanical voice once again sounded out.

Wen Qing heard it clearly, and a chill emerged from the soles of his feet.

He had read novels and watched TV shows of the “unlimited flow” genre, and he knew what players and copies meant.

It meant that he would die soon.

Wen Qing was very self-aware. He knew that a waste like him who couldn’t carry with his shoulders, lift with his hands and had an ordinary IQ had a low survival rate.

The school had just issued a grant yesterday.

He still hadn’t finished eating the pack of potato chips that he bought.

His salary as a part-time tutor hadn’t been paid to him yet…

Wen Qing daydreamed for a while, holding back his tears.

He couldn’t sit still like this.

Wen Qing mustered up his courage. He looked at the air and stammeringly asked, “Sy, System, I, can I choose to not play the game?”

The mechanical voice from before didn’t speak, but a cold sneer sounded behind him.

Wen Qing was startled. He turned around to see three men, good-looking enough that they didn’t look human.

Their faces seemed to have been carefully carved, with no flaws in their facial features. They were all different types of good-looking beings. Each of them was at least 1.9 metres tall. By comparison, their outfits seemed all the more ordinary, letting their existence seem closer to human beings.

One wore a size 23 red basketball uniform, another wore a shirt and trousers, and the other wore a loosely gathered white bathrobe and clogs.

He didn’t know why, but Wen Qing felt that the way they looked at him was a bit strange, almost like they were looking at puppies and kittens on the roadside.

Wen Qing’s first reaction was that they were his teammates, so he took the initiative to greet them, “He… hello.”

The man in the bathrobe laughed. The sound was no different than the sneer from before.

He leaned against the guardrail lazily, his legs crossed. His narrowed eyes glanced at him. “What are you?”

This teammate seemed a little rude.

Wen Qing silently complained in his heart, whispering, “I’m human.”

After his voice fell, the gazes of the three men grew stranger.

“Human?”

The bathrobe-wearing raised his eyebrows, an expression of having found something wonderful appearing on his face.

He whistled towards the basketball uniform-wearing man, and lightly said, “This is a human.”

These words sounded very strange.

What did he mean, saying “This is a human”?

Wen Qing’s eyelids jumped. He took a small step back, looking at the three people warily, “You, what about you guys?”

He straightened his back, trying to make himself look tougher. But as soon as he opened his mouth, he stuttered nervously, “You, you guys aren’t, aren’t human?”

The bathrobe-wearing man laughed softly, walking slowly towards Wen Ziqing.

Wen Qing thought about stepping back, but when he thought about how there were three ghosts here, his two feet wouldn’t obey him. They became unreasonably soft, and he could only force himself to stand.

The bathrobe-wearing man walked to Wen Qing’s side. He lowered his eyes, and they were full of mischief.

“Have you ever seen such a good-looking human like me?”

Saying that, he casually raised his hand, his fingertips inadvertently scraping across Wen Qing’s wrist. 

It was bone-chillingly cold. Even if his hand moved away, Wen Qing could still feel the cold air on the other’s body, which was colder than a freezer in a refrigerator.

This body temperature wasn’t something that humans could have.

They really… they really weren’t human?

He hadn’t even entered the instance yet, but he was about to be the first blood?

Wen Qing’s face instantly lost its color. His lips trembled slightly, and tears beaded in his eyes.

This appearance caused the man in the bathrobe to be slightly startled. This was his first time seeing such a timid human.

He was actually afraid of him…

He had little courage, his face was also small, and he wasn’t even as big as his palm.

He lowered his eyes and swept them across Wen Qing.

There was a lot of wind on the rooftop. Wen Qing was wearing a loose white T-shirt. The corners were flying off, revealing a delicate waist, making him look thinner and more pitiful.

The bathrobe-wearing man clicked his tongue, and was about to speak when the red basketball uniform-wearing man suddenly spoke up.

“Enough…”

His last few words were a series of strange syllables that Wen Qing couldn’t hear clearly.

He guessed that it was the bathrobe-wearing man’s name, because the bathrobe-wearing man tilted his head to look at the basketball uniform-wearing man and shrugged.

【 There are still ten minutes before the instance’s passage opens. May the players who are present prepare well. 】

“Player? What player?”

“Where is this place?”

“What, what’s going on?”

“Who are you all?”

……….

A loud noise suddenly sounded from the other end of the rooftop.

Wen Qing glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. There were a few young people, both male and female, all of which looked like normal people.

At least they were more normal than these three things, that he didn’t know if they were ghosts or humans.

Wen Qing took a deep breath, turned and ran towards those young people’s side.

His legs were a little weak. Just a second before he fell, he was supported by someone.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Wen Qing panted, and smiled at the boy who offered his hand to help.

The boy had a baby face. When he smiled, he looked very cute.

“My name is Zhou Zhou.”

Wen Qing sniffed and whispered, “My name is Wen Qing.”

Zhou Zhou looked at his reddened eyes, and looked at the three men that were not far away, and asked, “Do you know what this place is?”

Wen Qing shook his head and truthfully said, “I don’t know. I was in the dorms, and I arrived here as soon as I opened the door.”

“Me too,” Zhou Zhou sighed and said, “I was playing games at home and suddenly arrived here when I opened the door to get takeout.”

Looking at the thin smile on his face, Wen Qing couldn’t help but think that this person really had a good mentality, still being able to smile even in this sort of situation.

He himself was working very hard to not cry.

A girl in a ponytail with a bag raised her hand and said, “When I got off the bus, I arrived here by accident. Nothing was different before.”

Everyone shared their experiences one by one, and except for Wen Qing, there was a total of six people.

Two boys, four girls, all in their twenties. The youngest girl had just come of age, graduated from high school and still hadn’t gone to college yet. All of them were brought here after passing through a door. 

When everyone finished talking, Zhou Zhou glanced at the bathrobe-wearing man and the others, and asked, “Wen Qing, do you know those three?”

Wen Qing quickly shook his head, “I don’t know them.”

“They also appeared here all of a sudden, and they, they’re very strange……”

After speaking, Wen Qing carefully raised his eyes and glanced at the bathrobe-wearing man.

The three of them stood in their respective corners, and there were no expressions of confusion or fear on their faces, as if they were used to this situation.

Wen Qing had just glanced at them for a second when the bathrobe-wearing man looked over, making him so frightened that he hurriedly leaned against Zhou Zhou.

“Could they be old players?” Zhou Zhou asked.

Everyone’s attention was focused on Zhou Zhou.

Zhou Zhou smiled at the crowd and explained, “Just now, that voice said that all the players on the scene should prepare well, so the three of them should also be players.”

“All seven of us are newcomers, and the three of them seem to be familiar with this situation, so I guess that they might be old players who have experienced a few things before.”

Hearing this, everyone nodded.

“It seems like it.”

“Why don’t we go over and ask?”

Wen Qing opened his mouth, wanting to say that the bathrobe-wearing man shouldn’t be an old player.

If he was an old player, he wouldn’t have asked what he was when he saw him……

Before he could open his mouth, Zhou Zhou and the others had already walked towards the bathrobe-wearing man.

【 The instance’s passage has been opened, may all players please head into the game. 】

With a click, the emergency exit’s closed door suddenly opened.

It was dark behind the door, with no light at all.

Everyone looked at the door, but not a single person dared to approach it.

“Want to go in?”

【 The instance’s passage has been opened, may all players please do not stay, hurry up! 】

“What happens if we don’t go in?” Zhou Zhou asked.

The system did not explain.

Wen Qing stood in the middle of the crowd, anxiously staring at the darkness behind the door.

“If you don’t go in, you will die.”

A low and hoarse voice suddenly sounded near his ears, and Wen Qing was so scared that he gave a start.

That familiar sheer had appeared again.

The bathrobe-wearing man seemed to be satisfied by his reaction. The corners of his mouth hooked up, and he lifted his legs to walk in, followed by the basketball uniform-wearing man and the white shirt-wearing man.

The remaining seven people glanced at each other hesitantly.

“We’ll really… will we really die?” a girl asked.

Zhou Zhou shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Let’s just go in too.”

Their sudden appearance in this place was already supernatural, and nobody dared to bet their lives. So, they all walked through the white door one by one.

When Wen Qing passed through the door, he didn’t dare to blink.

He opened his eyes wide, and stared at the addictive darkness behind the door closely.

With one step through the door, the world changed.

The place was the living room of a villa.

The living room was very empty. There were no sofas, TVs or other furniture, only a long marble table in the center, accompanied by a few white ashwood chairs. A big clock was hung on the wall behind the table, and its second hand ticked, announcing the time.

【 Looking, looking, looking for a friend

I found a very good friend

Saluting and shaking hands with them

You are my very good friend. 】

The cold mechanical voice suddenly sang a children’s song. It sounded very strange, like the introductory song to a horror movie, using the cutest tune to sing the most terrifying words.

Wen Qing was scared until his lips turned white, his fingernails digging into his palm unconsciously. 

【 All players have entered, and the god-level instance is officially open. 】

【 There is a guide among you. 】

【 Only the guide can open the gates of the villa. May the players find the guide, and leave the villa together with the guide. 】

【 All players can cast their votes at 9 o’clock every night. The player with the most votes needs to open the gates of the villa to confirm if they are the guide. 】

【 In case of wrong votes or if the players fail to find the guide, clues on finding the guide will be provided. 】

The rules were a bit like Werewolf. Every day, they could cast their votes once. The rules sounded very friendly towards players. If they couldn’t find the guide, they would be given clues.

Wen Qing sighed in relief, thinking to himself that the first level for newcomers would be easier.

【 Identity cards will now be issued. 】

【 Players are requested to keep their identity cards gently. 】

After the voice fell, a few lines appeared in front of Wen Qing’s eyes.

Name: Wen Qing

Identity: Ordinary human

Age: 20 years old

Specialty: Timid

The author wants to say something:

Wen Qing: ???