This Taoist priest is so unprofessional!

"Is...is this thing reliable?"

Wang Xiaoer leaned closer to Zhang Chen and asked in a low voice.

"This is my livelihood, what do you say?"

Zhang Chen didn't even turn his head, and there wasn't a trace of a joke in his voice.

"No matter what happens later, stay close to me and don't wander off."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhao Qiang, who had been silent all along, finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"Playing tricks!"

He spoke loudly, as if trying to bolster his courage.

"They're just a few broken copper coins, right? It's probably static electricity! Or a magnetic field! Either way, there's a scientific explanation!"

As he spoke, he actually reached out and tried to touch the string of swaying copper coins.

"Don't touch it!"

Zhang Chen shouted sternly.

But it was too late.

Zhao Qiang's fingers had just touched the edge of the bottom copper coin.

"Sizzle!"

A soft crackling sound of an electric spark!

Zhao Qiang felt as if he had been stung by a scorpion, and with a scream, he abruptly withdrew his hand.

A slightly blackened burn mark remained on his fingertip.

"Holy shit!"

Zhao Qiang winced in pain, looking at his fingers, the color draining from his face instantly.

After that, he dared not utter another word.

The entire second floor fell into a deathly silence.

All eyes were fixed on the string of copper coins that were still trembling wildly.

The clock on the outside wall ticked silently.

23:50…

23:53…

Time passed by, second by second.

When the hands of time finally pointed to exactly midnight.

"Sizzle—"

A piercing electrical explosion suddenly rang out!

In an instant, all the lights in the entire internet cafe went out!

Darkness, like a tidal wave, swallowed everything.

Li Hao and Zhao Qiang simultaneously let out a suppressed gasp.

Wang Xiaoer's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously moved closer to Zhang Chen.

In the pitch-black darkness, inside that "ghost box"...

"Buzz!"

A soft sound.

The computer screen, which had its power cord unplugged, lit up by itself!

Now, the screen that lit up on its own became the only source of light in the darkness.

A faint green light, like will-o'-the-wisps, shone on Li Hao and Zhao Qiang's pale, terrified faces.

"what!"

Zhao Qiang could no longer hold back and let out a short scream, his whole body going limp with fright.

Li Hao was in no better shape; he covered his mouth tightly, his body trembling like a leaf.

Wang Xiaoer was so frightened by this sudden scene that his heart stopped. He instinctively wanted to run downstairs, but fortunately, he had a strong will and managed to hold back.

Zhang Chen, however, did not react much. His gaze pierced through the darkness and was fixed on the eerie screen.

The screen displays a login interface.

The backdrop is a gloomy ancient battlefield, with an eerie dark red sky, tattered banners stuck in black soil, and mountains of corpses piled up in the distance.

In the center of the interface, several distorted Gothic-style characters are faintly discernible.

Legend of the Underworld.

"This...this isn't the 'Era of Gods and Demons'..." Li Hao's voice trembled uncontrollably.

"Gods and Demons Era is the name of the Chinese version." Zhang Chen's voice rang out in the darkness, sounding unusually calm. "The original version of this game is called Legend of the Underworld."

Even more bizarrely, against the backdrop of that ancient battlefield, the account and password input fields were automatically filled with a long string of meaningless characters, resembling garbled text or some kind of ancient rune.

The cursor blinked rhythmically at the end of the password field, as if waiting for something.

"The power's off... how is that possible..." Wang Xiaoer muttered to himself.

"Waiter, my phone," Zhang Chen said succinctly.

Wang Xiaoer then realized what was happening and hurriedly pulled his phone out of his pocket, turning on the flashlight function.

A blinding beam of light pierced the darkness.

"Go check the circuit breaker," Zhang Chen ordered. "See if it tripped."

"I...I don't know..." Wang Xiaoer was a little scared.

"Go quickly, didn't you see it when you came? It's at the bar." Zhang Chen's tone left no room for argument.

Wang Xiaoer gritted his teeth, gripped his phone tightly, took a deep breath, and turned to run downstairs.

In the dark internet cafe, only the beam of his phone was flickering, stretching the shadows of rows of computer chairs across the wall in a menacing manner.

He jogged to the back of the bar and found the main electrical box.

Upon opening it, all the switches were still in their original positions, none of them had tripped.

It's not a power outage.

The power went out of nowhere!

Wang Xiaoer felt a chill run from his tailbone to the back of his head. He didn't dare to stay any longer and scrambled back up to the second floor.

"Brother Chen! It...it didn't trip!" He gasped for breath, his voice trembling with tears. "The main switch is fine!"

The moment he finished speaking.

Inside the private room, the blood-red "Enter Game" button on the computer's login screen lit up by itself without anyone touching it!

The sound, in the deathly silent private room, was as crisp as a clap of thunder.

Immediately afterwards, the character entered the game!

The screen image changed.

The loading progress bar was incredibly fast, almost instantaneous.

The eerie green light intensified, casting a ghostly glow on the faces of the group, making them appear as if they were in a horror movie.

In the game screen, a character dressed in tattered beginner clothes stands alone in a desolate graveyard.

The surrounding area was filled with crooked tombstones, and the ground was covered with knee-high weeds. Several crows perched on bare tree branches, tilting their heads and silently watching the character with their dark eyes.

The whole scene exudes a sense of deathly silence and despair.

Li Hao was so frightened that his legs went weak, and he almost knelt on the ground.

"Master, what... what's going on? Is it a hacker? Is someone remotely controlling it?"

He preferred to believe it was the most sophisticated hacking technique rather than consider the most terrifying possibility.

Zhang Chen stared intently at the screen, offering no reply.

His brows were furrowed into a knot.

Sudden.

The chat box in the lower left corner of the game interface suddenly popped up without warning.

A line of blood-red words, like seeping blood, slowly emerged.

[Nearby] [? ? ?]: Help me...

Everyone's heart was in their throat.

Before they could react, a second line of blood-red text appeared.

[Nearby] [? ? ?]: I'm so cold...

The blood-red words seemed to carry warmth, and a bone-chilling cold instantly permeated the entire private room, ten times more intense than the previous chill!

Zhao Qiang could no longer hold back and let out a suppressed sob.

Then, the third line of text appeared.

[Nearby] [? ? ?]: Play with me...

These words are completely different from the previous two.

It was no longer a cry for help, but an invitation—a malicious invitation from the abyss.

"Much more troublesome than hacking."

Zhang Chen finally spoke, gritting his teeth as he said each word clearly.

"This thing... is 'trapped' inside."

"Trapped inside?" Wang Xiaoer didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

Zhang Chen didn't explain; his entire attention was on the screen.

Because the game character on the screen moved.

Its movements were as stiff as a marionette, its neck making a "crackling" sound as it slowly, little by little, turned around.

It was a very ordinary beginner character model, with the system's default template face, without any special features.

But at the very moment it was fully facing the screen, facing everyone.

That face has changed!