Not a god

Chapter 185 Hunting Time
The situation in Shanghai is truly bizarre. All players are blackmailed by those thirteen public evil skeletons. As soon as you log into the game, leave the safe zone, and stand on this land, you'll be charged for the air you breathe here.

Chen Xi looked online and searched for information about the Shanghai Destiny Man, only to find it filled with lamentations and unbearable suffering.

There have been calls for the third-tier powerhouses on the Shanghai God List to make a move, but even without the revival of spiritual energy, these third-tier powerhouses are not on the same level as ordinary people. In fact, 11 of the 17 third-tier powerhouses have not completed real-name authentication and are just using a string of numerical IDs.

Unlike young people, these old guys don't want to be famous at all. It's an attitude that makes them seem indifferent and distant.

As for the second tier, now that half a year has passed, the number of second tiers in Shanghai has reached an astonishing 70 or more, which is much more than in Jiangcheng.

The gap between Tier 2 and Tier 3 is too large. Even the weakest Tier 3 has the power to instantly kill the strongest Tier 2. Among the chosen ones, it's a game where after revealing their level, whoever has the higher level wins. There is no such thing as challenging someone of a higher level as in fantasy novels.

Of course, this excludes those like him who possess external strength.

Moreover, Chen Xi discovered that the so-called fees here actually showed that the "Hail Master," who oversaw thirteen professions including rickshaws, nightclubs, and funeral services, was surprisingly reasonable in some respects.

As long as you pay them rent regularly every month, you can not only operate within their territory, but also enjoy their industry services.

Just like these rickshaw owners, after paying the rent, they could ride rickshaws anywhere in the city without paying any additional fees. And these rickshaws were really fast; they could travel more than ten miles in less than five minutes, speeding by like lightning.

The same applies to other spirits, such as the Longevity Shrine Master who oversees the cemetery. He will collect your soul after you die, and this will reduce the death penalty time by about 10%.

However, it is clear that the services offered by these Corpse Lords are ridiculously expensive compared to the value of the evil spirits that are paid for.

It's like spending a thousand dollars in real life and ending up with a roast chicken – a huge waste of money.

Not to mention that this was a forced sale.

However, a very strange atmosphere pervaded the place.

Faced with such unreasonable "extortion," the people here didn't have a strong sense of resistance. Instead, they were thinking, "Why play 'The Destiny' if you don't have money?" "These out-of-towners have come here to beg for money." "I've never thought it was expensive at all. How is spending tens of thousands a month expensive?"

Even knowing they are being drained of blood by a group of undead, the people here still develop a strange sense of pride and identification with this land—a somewhat distorted and warped value system.

No wonder there aren't many comments online about the high rents in Shanghai. People here are used to this kind of life, and those who aren't used to it pretend to be under pressure from those around them.

Beneath the glamorous exterior lies a fragile and insecure mind, an urgent desire for recognition, and a distorted desire for self-expression influenced by the environment.

What has the greatest impact on a region is not necessarily the filth, but the foul-smelling wind from the dreamland.

At noon, I went out for lunch with the people from the branch. The food was so-so but ridiculously expensive. Chen Xi originally planned to treat everyone, but the branch president, Fu Xiaoliu, insisted on paying for everything.

It turns out he's a real Shanghainese; the office building the branch rents belongs to his family.

"My dad said that if I don't make a name for myself, I'll have to go back and inherit the family business..."

He gulped down a large mouthful of red wine, a look of melancholy on his face, and raised his empty wine glass high: "Vetter~"

"..."

……

In the afternoon, we returned to the branch office building, where there were private rooms, similar to those in an internet cafe, specifically for those who wanted to log in.

It's a bit like the training rooms in those fantasy novels, with each cubicle being a little over four square meters and containing a computer.

Chen Xi logged in here, into her dreamland in Shanghai.

Shanghai Dreamland was divided into thirteen blocks, each under the jurisdiction of one of the thirteen "Bodies".

The environment here is vastly different from that in Jiangcheng.

Jiangcheng's Dreamland is a complete scan of the existing buildings and then generates corresponding desolate ruins. However, the Dreamland in Shanghai... the Paramount Ballroom, the Fushougao Pavilion, the trams... it looks exactly like the old Shanghai depicted on TV.

Moreover, the streets were teeming with people at this time, and judging from their attire, there were female students wearing indigo cotton and newspaper boys in tattered gray clothes, giving off a strong sense of Shanghai beach in the last century.

Before logging in, Chen Xi had checked the strategy guide and found that most of the people on the street were Phantoms.

People's memories and longings about the Shanghai beaches of that era weave this scene in their dreams, encompassing all the scenery and these illusory remains.

The phantoms are not hostile to players. You can even talk and communicate with them. The shops on the street can also trade normally with the phantoms, but the currency for the trade is also ghosts.

These phantom remains are like NPCs. In fact, the entire Shanghai Dreamland is like an immersive game that simulates a real-life scene on the Shanghai Bund.

Therefore, the gameplay in Shanghai is quite interesting. Many times, silly players log in not to kill monsters, but to run around the streets and flirt with female college students from the Republican era, flirt with someone's concubine, flirt with... Players are all like this. Even in a game like King of Glory, some people will use camera angle manipulation to see the female hero's panties, let alone in a 100% immersive game like this.

Otherwise, they would go on a killing spree against these phantom remains, but killing phantom remains does not produce evil spirits.

Hidden among the phantom remains are also evil remains, which are difficult to distinguish when walking on the street.

Besides these phantom remains, there are thirteen other common evil remains here. Just then, a rickshaw driver came up to Chen Xi and asked if she wanted to ride in his rickshaw.

This is a henchman of the rickshaw owner, one of the Thirteen Skeleton Masters.

"Sir, sir, would you like a ride?"

"How much?"

"One evil spirit per mile."

"no need."

These evil spirits aren't like those in other places, who immediately start shouting for violence. Instead, they come to you to talk business, and at most, if you refuse, they'll run you over in a rickshaw.

"boom--"

In an instant, the air in front was compressed, and the wreckage along with the rickshaw was twisted and deformed as if squeezed by a tremendous force, and finally pressed to the ground.

The incident caused a stir in the street. All the phantoms around him watched him run away in panic, but after a short while, they acted as if nothing had happened and went about their business as usual.

After killing the monstrous creature, Chen Xi also saw its memories.

This is the story of a rickshaw puller from the last century. He started out working for the owner of a rickshaw depot and always dreamed of owning his own rickshaw. However, due to the machinations of thugs and the owner's daughter, he bought a rickshaw three times but lost it each time. In the end, his lover also died, and he became a walking corpse in the bustling city of Shanghai. Even in death, he believed that he had not tried hard enough.

"..." Shouldn't this person be in Beiping?
I heard about a skill, the "Old Man's Cart-Pulling Technique," a skill about how to pull a rickshaw with less effort. And that's not all; he can remember the way to any place he's been... yet another useless little skill.

They didn't even have the chance to try Wanwan.

He also obtained a multi-life-level evil soul. However, multi-life-level evil souls were no different from waste paper to him. He had basically wiped out most of the third-tier skeletons in Jiangcheng. The reason he came to Shanghai was not only for business and to take Wanwan and the others out to play, but also to sweep around here.

"Let me see where these thirteen skeletons are..."

……

In front of the Paramount, a man and a woman got out of a rickshaw. Wang Zisong jumped forward and landed on the ground. Behind him, the woman stepped on a low stool placed by the rickshaw driver and held onto the handrail, her figure graceful.

The man standing in front of the Paramount Ballroom was none other than Prince Song, who was once jokingly called the nation's spendthrift.

He was beaming with joy these days. Not only did his guild produce two second-tier members, but he himself also obtained the second-tier Evil Fate Fruit and broke through to the second tier.

Playing games is all about having fun. After consuming the Evil Fruit, I smashed nearly one or two small targets in a fit of rage, learned a few second-tier 'Humanity Forbidden Techniques' related to swords, bought a large sword-shaped Evil Fruit, and led my guild brothers to rampage and kill everything in sight. This kind of exhilaration is unmatched by any other game.

There were also the rich young men who used to hang out with him. Those guys had no talent like him and had advised him not to mess around. But now that he's defied fate, they're incredibly envious. They keep asking him questions, hoping to get another "Evil Fate Fruit" from him.

After he bought the cursed fruit, he tried to contact the owner of stall number one, but the owner completely ignored him.

That stall owner at Jiangcheng's No. 1 stall is truly mysterious. No one knows where he comes from, but he can casually sell even items that can kill a third-tier evil spirit. Just how many terrifying masters were hidden in the old era?

"Brother Song, what fun things have you come up with today?"

The woman in the same rickshaw as him was his 27th girlfriend this year. What was her name again? Was it Xiao Cui or Xiao Li...? I've actually forgotten.

He pointed behind him: "Where is this?"

"The Paramount Ballroom."

Do you know what this is?

With a mysterious look on his face, Wang Zisong pulled out a black gold card from his pocket, with the words "Paramount Platinum VIP" emblazoned in gold on it.

Like other places, the Paramount Ballroom is the territory of the black-haired geisha, one of the Thirteen Masters of Shanghai, who is in charge of the Kabuki world.

To participate in activities here, you must pay rent to the Paramount. Once you pay a certain amount, you will receive a 'Paramount VIP' card, which allows you to enter the Paramount and enjoy services, although it mainly involves listening to the singers on stage performing the same two or three songs over and over again.

The female companion looked confused: "The Paramount membership card... seems a little different from mine."

Prince Song explained, "This card is different from yours. This is a Platinum VIP card. With this card, you won't have to pay rent within the Paramount area anymore, and..."

He kept everyone in suspense: "After getting this card, you can go to the top-tier private room at the Paramount Ballroom one day a month and have afternoon tea with the black-haired songstress."

"The black-haired songstress? That third-tier skeleton master?"

The female companion was somewhat surprised. Having afternoon tea with a monstrous creature sounded a bit creepy, but most people in Shanghai knew what Thirteen Mukuro looked like. This black-haired songstress was beautiful and graceful, and she even resembled a famous singer in Shanghai.

"Is there some special feature to this afternoon tea?"

Wang Zisong said that he didn't actually do anything while having afternoon tea with the black-haired songstress. He just chatted with her for a while, talking about the recent weather, his favorite music, and pastries.

"Do you know how many ghasts I spent to get this card?"

"How many?"

Prince Song spread his hands, extending five fingers. His female companion asked doubtfully, "Five thousand evil spirits?"

"nonono..."

"Fifty, fifty thousand?" The female companion was incredulous.

As the number of Chosen Ones increases, the price of Evil Souls has dropped to around two or three thousand, but these fifty thousand Evil Souls, when converted, are worth over a hundred million.

She even thought Prince Song had gone mad to exchange hundreds of millions for a card just to have afternoon tea.

Prince Song shook his head: "Five hundred thousand."

It's confirmed, he's just insane.

Prince Song said with some pride, "Platinum is just the entry ticket. The real prize is this Black Gold card, and it's a unique, limited-edition card that requires spending one million Evil Souls. And after obtaining this Black Gold card..."

After obtaining that black gold card, it's not just about having afternoon tea with the black-haired songstress, but about gaining her friendship. And by gaining her friendship, you can pay 100,000 evil souls to have her help you once.

This is the information he received after obtaining the Platinum Card. In other words, at that time, for just two or three hundred million, he would have the opportunity to ask a Tier 3 Evil Corpse for help!

Those old-era chosen ones were arrogant and condescending only because they had third-tier experts in charge.

As for Prince Song and his guild, they now have the opportunity to receive protection from a Tier 3 guild. That's Tier 3, a being at the level of a terrestrial immortal. With this opportunity, their guild can truly stand on equal footing with other guilds.

The power of a third-tier being is that of a true terrestrial deity, whose abilities and methods are beyond comprehension.

Today, he brought the remaining 500,000 evil souls here to spend money and gain the friendship of this powerful Tier 3 boss.

However, at that moment, the earth suddenly shook violently, and the sky and earth changed color.

"What, what's wrong?"

"Was there an earthquake?"

"The Paramount, the Paramount is about to collapse..."

The surrounding phantoms scattered and fled. Prince Song was horrified. He saw the magnificent Paramount building turn into ruins in an instant right in front of him.

Amidst the ruins, a man floated in the air, clutching a basketball bound with seaweed. He glanced at the basketball, then casually tossed it aside, looked in another direction, and vanished instantly.

Only the ball remained, rolling a long distance across the ruins before finally landing at Prince Song's feet.

This isn't a ball, it's a head.

Once, the powerful and beautiful black-haired songstress landed on the ground, her empty eyes meeting his gaze.

"Dead, dead..."

A terrifying Tier 3 Skeleton Lord, just like that, suddenly died?!

(End of this chapter)