Rules of the Strange: Starting with the Lunar New Year's Eve Dungeon

Dragon Kingdom, River City.

For three whole months, the sky over the Dragon Kingdom has been shrouded in dark clouds, and not a single ray of sunshine has been seen.

The atmosphere inside the National Strategic Command Center was incredibly oppressive.

Commander Qin Shan sat in the chair that symbolized supreme power, but he looked incredibly old at that moment.

He was clutching an empty cigarette pack in his hand, his fingers slightly white from the force of his grip.

"Five minutes left."

Qin Shan's voice was hoarse

"Xiao Li, what did the data team say? Is there any hope this time?"

The data analyst next to him, Xiao Li, wearing a white lab coat, pushed up his thick glasses.

"Elder Qin, according to the trillions of calculations performed by the Heavenly Eye system, our chances of winning this time..." Little Li swallowed hard, his voice trembling with emotion.

"Less than 0.1%"

Qin Shan's hand froze for a moment. Although he had already guessed it, his heart still sank when he heard the number.

"0.1 percent...it's happening again."

Xiao Li clutched his hair in despair.

"We lost badly the previous five times! The first time, that special forces king Iron Wolf had S-level physical fitness, but he was beheaded on the spot because he stepped into the threshold with his left foot first, which was considered disrespectful by the rules."

"The second time, that profiler who claimed to have an IQ of 180, someone who could see through even serial killers in this world, what happened?"

"A cat with a human face asked him if he looked more like a human or a god. He tried to analyze the cat's family background using psychology, and was instantly swallowed whole!"

"And the last time..." Xiao Li stopped there, too afraid to continue.

Qin Shan closed his eyes, recalling the painful memories.

Last time, a genius boy locked himself in a closet for three days and three nights in an attempt to break the rules, and eventually starved to death because he didn't understand the metaphor about "eating" in the rules.

"If we lose again, the Dragon Kingdom's remaining 10% of freshwater resources will be depleted." Qin Shan suddenly opened his eyes and slammed his fist on the table.

"By then, we won't even be able to shed a tear, let alone drink water! I refuse to believe that the fate of the Dragon Kingdom is sealed!"

At this very moment, the number of online viewers in the Dragon Kingdom's live streaming room has exceeded two billion.

The barrage of comments was so dense and fast that it formed a white waterfall, a venting of the public's panic.

"I'm doomed! If I lose again this time, my girlfriend says she'll have to break up with me and go back to her hometown to dig up tree roots and eat them!"

"Stop dreaming, upstairs! It's almost the end of the world, and you're still thinking about romance? Tree roots? By then, even the bark will be eaten away!"

"I heard that Japan, the land next door, has had incredible luck this time. That guy named Tanaka Jiro from last time won some kind of 'Midnight Ring' dungeon, and now the whole country is giving out rice to celebrate. It makes me so mad!"

"Don't even mention Japan, it makes me angry! And that country, I heard they prepared a whole set of crosses and holy water this time, saying they're going to roast the weird stuff like turkeys."

"Ha, what good are those foreign gadgets? Rules and superstitions are about rules! They're about brains! Does our Dragon Kingdom still have any hope? Five consecutive total annihilations! Five times!"

"Please, can the system choose a normal person this time? Even a butcher who slaughters pigs would be fine, at least he has some kind of malevolent aura! Last time, that popular celebrity went in and all he did was scream, it gave me a headache, and he died a horrible death."

Amidst the desperate wails of the entire nation, a cold, mechanical voice suddenly exploded in the minds of everyone on Earth. It was devoid of any emotion, as if it came from a judgment from a higher dimension.

【warn!warn! 】

[Global National Destiny Game Coming Soon!]

[This instance's codename: New Year's Eve.]

[Dungeon Level: S-Rank (Inferno Mode)]

[Randomly selecting chosen ones from various countries...]

At that moment, the whole world held its breath.

[Drawing complete.]

[Representative of the Dragon Kingdom: Yunxi.]

Meanwhile, in an unnamed, cheap rental house in the Dragon Kingdom.

"Hmm...don't make a sound..."

Yunxi suddenly sat up from the single bed, which was as hard as a stone slab, panting heavily, her forehead covered in cold sweat.

He looked around blankly.

The cramped room had half of its yellowed paint peeling off the walls, and several buckets of unfinished instant noodles were scattered on the floor.

"What's going on? Wasn't I repairing that damaged copy of 'Jingchu Suishi Ji' at the museum? How did I end up here the moment I opened my eyes?"

Before he could react, a flood of complex memories rushed into his mind.

Yunxi rubbed her temples, which felt like they were about to explode, and her lips twitched uncontrollably.

Good news: I've time-traveled, become five years younger, and returned to my golden age of twenty-three.

Bad news: This is a parallel world, the technology tree has gone astray, and the folk culture has been completely severed!

The people here don't know that you put up couplets for the Spring Festival, don't know that you eat zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival, and don't know that you eat mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

They don't even know what the King of Hell or the Jade Emperor do. In their minds, holidays are just days for shopping malls to have discounts and promotions.

"This is absolutely outrageous, it's outrageous to the extreme!"

Just as Yunxi was about to complain about this hellish start, that cold, mechanical voice rang in his mind—it was the voice bound to the system.

[Congratulations, Yunxi. You have been chosen as the sixth Chosen One of the Dragon Kingdom.]

Loading the copy...

[Teleportation countdown: 10, 9, 8...]

"Wait! I haven't brushed my teeth yet! And I haven't washed my face!" Yunxi shouted instinctively.

But the system clearly doesn't intend to give him time to pay attention to personal hygiene.

A flash of white light, and the rented room was instantly empty.

The next second, the screen in the Dragon Kingdom's live stream suddenly lit up.

Countless eyes were glued to the screen, and when they finally saw the young man in the center of the image, the entire live stream fell into a deathly silence for ten seconds.

In the picture, Yunxi is wearing a pair of bright red shorts with a SpongeBob SquarePants pattern, a faded T-shirt on her upper body, and her hair is as messy as a bird's nest.

A full ten seconds passed before the barrage of comments erupted like a volcano.

"Am I seeing things? This...this is our savior? Does he look like he was just kidnapped from his bed?"

"Oh no, Barbie Q is dead. Look at that vacant stare, look at that skinny little body, she's obviously a shut-in who plays games all night!"

"Heaven has forsaken my Dragon Kingdom! Even an old man selling pancakes would be better than him! At least the old man can make a pancake, what can this guy do? Sleep for some weirdo?"

"I'm reminded of the fourth chosen one, that college student, who looked just like that. He went in, saw a ghost, and peed his pants in fright. This guy will probably pee his pants even faster."

In the command center, Qin Shan looked at Yunxi on the big screen, and his blood pressure instantly soared to 180.

"Have you checked this kid's background?"