I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

……

……

In a wooden house deep in the mountains of western Ontario, only a few embers remain in the hearth, emitting a dim red glow.

Yang Asha sat on a small stool, mending clothes by the light of the pine torch.

She was very good at needlework, and the clothes she mended were so well-made that you couldn't see any marks. Even the most picky embroiderer in the village would praise her for her skillful hands.

Thinking of this, Yang Asha sighed.

She was sixteen years old and had to stop going to school after graduating from junior high school.

The national poverty alleviation cadres came several times, and the leading lady talked herself hoarse, but her father still wouldn't let her go to school.

My father always said that it was useless for girls to study, and that it would be better for them to find someone to marry in a couple of years and receive a dowry.

But Asha has no desire to get married at all.

The poverty alleviation cadre told her that there was a subway built underground and skyscrapers taller than the clouds outside the mountains. He told her that girls studying in the city drink milk tea, wear pretty dresses, and earn their own money to spend.

Yang Asha loves pretty dresses and beautiful clothes and jewelry.

—The silver ornaments her mother left her were sold by her father to buy wine.

Yang Asha wants to go out, wants to see the subway, wants to drink milk tea, wants to earn her own money, and wants to study.

She had already secretly planned that when the cadres came next time, she would steal the household registration book and then take the chickens and ducks she raised at home to sell.

Anyway, her father drinks and doesn't work, so she cuts grass to feed the chickens and ducks at home.

Yang Asha rubbed her eyes. The snoring next door was deafening; her father had clearly drunk too much again.

She quietly pulled a second-hand phone from her sewing basket—it had been secretly given to her by a poverty alleviation cadre.

The phone didn't have a SIM card and couldn't connect to the internet, but Yang Asha had made an agreement with the granddaughter of the family in front of her, so she could occasionally sneak in some internet access from her.

The signal was pitifully weak, only a single bar.

Yang Asha opened the live stream and looked at the girls her age with bright eyes.

Look at their clothes, their bags, their shoes, and the light in their eyes when they talk about the outside world.

The next second, my phone screen went black for no apparent reason, and I was suddenly transported to a rather strange live stream room.

"Make a wish, make a wish for the live stream."

Yang Asha squinted and quietly read out the name of the live stream room.

……

……

A spacious apartment with a river view in the city center, featuring a floor-to-ceiling window facing the city's neon-lit nightscape.

Jiang Chen leaned back on the leather sofa, scrolling through his phone listlessly.

—The lights were off inside, but the city lights streamed in, illuminating the luxury brand packaging bags scattered on the floor, the half-finished champagne bottles, and the clothes strewn about.

He had just returned from a bar and felt that life was utterly meaningless.

Sports cars, beautiful women, parties, horse racing, luxury goods, yachts, investments, sailboats, fasting, spiritual practice...

He's tired of all the games he's had.

Life goes on like a copy-paste job, every day is the same, like a piece of chewed gum, utterly tasteless.

As for scrolling through phones, it's either influencer photoshoots or mutual flattery among businesses, which makes people sleepy.

"Isn't there anything interesting to do...?"

He muttered lazily.

There are fewer and fewer exciting things to do.

He's tried every extreme sport imaginable: racing cars, skydiving, deep-sea diving, wingsuit flying, rock climbing... but it's really not all that great.

He wanted something more exciting, something different.

It could stir up a big splash in his stagnant life.

Ideally, it would be... the kind of encounter that ordinary people would never even meet.

Jiang Chen smiled, inexplicably feeling that he was a little crazy.

The next second, the live stream redirected.

……

……

At 2:17 a.m., in the ward of the Special Events Investigation Department of Jiangcheng.

The motion-activated lights in the corridor were off, with only the green light of the emergency exit glowing faintly.

"Don't open that door!"

Zhao Weilai suddenly jumped out of bed, his pajamas already soaked with cold sweat.

She dreamed of the scenes from the Jiangcheng University instance again.

An artificial lake perpetually shrouded in white mist, stinking toilet cubicles, skinned corpses, and a shrill female voice echoing in the administration building corridor.

The final scene of the dream is always that grinning human skin.

"call--"

Zhao Weilai raised his hand and wiped his face.

It's been two days since I came out of the dungeon.

After she, Deng Ziwen, Ding Feifan, and a few others survived by sheer luck, they were immediately taken to the Special Incident Investigation Department.

Officials said they are important witnesses who need protection and cooperation with the investigation.

So they were placed in this heavily guarded witness ward building.

There are armed police on guard 24 hours a day, the rooms have private bathrooms, and meals are delivered to and from the room.

Even the cell phones were uniformly issued encrypted devices, and there was a call bell by the bedside.

Logically speaking, this should be the safest place in the world.

But Zhao Weilai still couldn't sleep well.

Weng Yang and Liu Guilan are recovering well, at least that's what Zhao Weilai thought when he ran into a few people at the restaurant.

As for Deng Ziwen and Ding Feifan, neither of them seemed to have any psychological trauma.

Now, when Zhao Weilai closes his eyes, his dreams are filled with scenes from the game.

She was especially afraid of opening doors.

Whether it's the bedroom door, the bathroom door, or the main gate, as soon as her hand touches the doorknob, she subconsciously holds her breath and her whole body stiffens.

Zhao Weilai was afraid that he hadn't yet emerged from the illusion.

PTSD.

That's what the team's psychologist said, and told her to relax and recover slowly.

But it's not that easy.

Zhao Weilai threw off the covers and got out of bed. He shivered as his feet touched the cold floor.

She walked to the window, lifted a corner of the curtain, and looked down.

The searchlights in the courtyard swung back and forth, barbed wire was erected on the high walls, and the sentries at the gate stood ramrod straight.

An impregnable fortress.

But for some reason, she felt uneasy.

The last room on this floor is occupied by Lin Hao, a player who supposedly came from another instance.

That person is strange; he rarely goes out and locks himself in his room all day.

Even if you occasionally bump into them in the hallway, they always have a gloomy face and frighteningly dark eyes.

What's most striking is that even in the sweltering summer heat, with temperatures nearing 38 degrees Celsius, he would still wear a scarf.

As for the neighbor, there lives a girl named Suya. She has a very cheerful personality and smiles at everyone.

Perhaps because Zhao Weilai has a profession, she receives more information than others.

—The case of Chow Sang Sang, where only the upper half of the body remained alive after the amputation, is not an isolated incident.

In the intensive care unit on the top floor, there was a player whose body was half-paper-mache, but apart from Su Ya and the others, no one had ever seen him.

"Buzz...buzz..."

A sudden, abrupt vibration sounded at the same time.

Zhao Weilai almost dropped the mineral water bottle in his hand.

The officially issued encrypted phone is vibrating.

Zhao Weilai blinked in confusion.

This phone is internally encrypted; it can only call internal numbers and can't even access the internet... Who would message her at this hour?

She took it out and saw that the screen was lit up, and a gray page popped up out of thin air, taking up the entire screen.

Zhao Weilai's sixth sense triggered a frantic warning.

……

……

What's going on? It's the middle of the night! I was watching a game stream, and suddenly this happened? Am I still in China??

[This message popped up on my tablet suddenly. What is this? Is it viral marketing? Is TikTok really that aggressive?]

[Trembling? I came in from Slowshou...]

[Huh? This is Bilibili—so which streamer's new live stream is this? Forced pop-ups across all platforms?]

[Wishing Livestream... What does this mean? Does it grant people's wishes? What a cringeworthy name.]

[This is weird, I can't even shut down my computer, and I can't log out.]

……

Dozens of comments scrolled by rapidly, and the number of viewers in the upper left corner of the live stream was slowly increasing.

The entire live stream was very strange.

In the center of the image is a thick darkness, like a blot of ink spreading out, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

In the background, a blurry outline is pressed against the front of the camera, as if something is sitting upright.

At the top of the screen are five gray-black characters:

[Wishing Livestream Room.]

—No profile picture, no ID, no follow button, no gift tipping section.

The entire page is ridiculously clean.

Aside from those five words and a dark area, there was only a tiny line of gray numbers in the upper left corner of the screen:

Current viewership: 327.

The numbers are still slowly increasing, sometimes by one, sometimes by two, as if people are gradually coming in.

Zhao Weilai's heart skipped a beat.

……

Suddenly, the screen moved.

It sounded like a human cough, the kind of cough that's aged and has a bit of phlegm.

The darkness in the scene slowly dissipated like mist.

First, an old rattan recliner was revealed, its dark brown rattan worn smooth, with a piece missing from the armrest.

Then, all the audience members saw what was sitting on the recliner.

It's a mouse.

A rat that was outrageously large, beyond imagination.

It was more than a person tall, covered in glossy black fur, and sat upright on the recliner with its hind paws on the ground and its front paws on the armrests.

Its posture is exactly the same as a human's.

Humans are very strange creatures.

Many people find it cute when a person has animal features, such as animal ears, fur, or a tail.

But if human organs appear in an animal, and that animal skillfully performs actions that only humans can do—

That would be terrifying.

The strangest thing is that the rat was wearing a drab, grayish-brown cloth shroud.

The fabric is dark, and the buttons are fastened all the way to the chin. The third button from the left seems to be fastened incorrectly, as it is crooked.

It was wearing a black velvet melon-shaped hat on its head, with the brim pulled down low, making it look out of place.

What's truly chilling is the rat's face.

Its facial features were still rat-shaped, with a pointed snout and a beard, but its eyes were human eyes.

The corners of the eyes droop, the pupils are dark brown, and there are even eyelids.

Human eyes are on the face of a giant rat.

The uncanny valley effect was instantly triggered.

The viewers in the live stream felt a sudden chill run down their spines, and goosebumps spread from the back of their necks all the way down their arms.

An indescribable mix of nausea and chills shot up down my throat:

A large rat dressed in a funeral shroud and wearing a melon-shaped hat, with human eyes, sat on a recliner like a human.

This scene is so jarring, it's enough to give me the creeps.

"Hello, human, I am your loyal mouse servant."

The mouse raised one of its front paws; the tip of the paw was black, sharp, and long.

"Welcome to the Wishing Livestream."

As soon as the first sentence was spoken, the live stream chat was flooded with scrolling comments:

I can't take it anymore, I'm going to throw up, ugh—

[This is so bizarre! What alchemist went crazy and made something like this?]

[Humans and rats... Ugh... Which modeling company is so disgusting as to create something like this as an act of revenge against society?]

How do I turn this off? I've smashed my phone, but I still can't exit!

This is disgusting. I can't turn the volume down no matter what I do. I should call the police. This is an act of revenge against society.

To be fair, the special effects were pretty good; they looked quite realistic.

579.

In just a few words, the number of viewers had already risen to over five hundred.

The number of people is still rising.

The large rat on the screen, also known as the servant rat, leaned forward slightly. Its melon-shaped hat slipped, and it raised its paw to steady itself.

Those human eyes looked straight at the camera, as if they were looking at everyone in front of the screen:

"I am the guide mouse."

Its voice was slow, deliberate, and had a slight pause, like a child learning to speak:

"Here, you can have anything you want, as long as you can afford it."

"Wealth, fame, health, lifespan, love, beauty..."

It paused, then gently tapped the armrest of the wicker chair with its paw, making a soft "tap-tap" sound, and began to speak enticingly:

"Even superhuman powers are within reach."

Off-screen, Zhao Weilai's eyebrows twitched suddenly, and he turned around to press the call button.

A power beyond that of ordinary people.

Isn't the class awakening in dungeons just the so-called "power beyond mortals"?

She'd bet this thing is definitely related to the dungeon!

……

……

The number of viewers has jumped to 1287.

The live stream was quiet for a long time, then suddenly a comment slowly floated by:

"You want everything? Then I want 500,000, no, I want 1 million, can you give it to me?"

"The first one."

The mouse servant in the darkness tilted its head, its melon-shaped hat tilting to one side. It grinned, revealing sharp teeth, as if it had received some interesting toy.

"The first one."

The next second, outside the screen, Yang Hexuan disappeared from his spot, leaving only the chair shaking slightly.

The passerby playing video games next door jumped three feet high in terror:

"Holy crap!!!! Everyone's gone! Everyone's gone!!"

"This guy's dead! Call the police!!"

"Holy moly! Holy moly! Holy moly! You're the one who's gone crazy online, a perfectly normal person just vanished, vanished! In the blink of an eye!! I'll make sure your whole family dies if I'm lying!"