My wife, who's in a vegetative state, please stop eavesdropping on my thoughts.

Adele covered her forehead and said with a hint of helplessness:

"Aunt Bai, do you really think these three people are good enough for Elune?"

There was an overwhelming sense of disappointment in her tone and eyes, and she even wondered if she had gone mad by making this decision.

All three of them are just too ordinary...

Too mediocre...

The white cat swayed its tail gently and made a human-like sound.

"Our opinions are not important; what matters is whether they can have any effect on the slumbering Elune."

Adele sighed helplessly:

"Okay, let's see tomorrow."

Chapter 5: Wei Xiao

As night approached, Weiss sat alone in the single room prepared for him by the Selenes family.

A large bed covered with light gray silk bedding was placed against the wall, the curtains were half-drawn, and moonlight shone in through the gaps.

A finely crafted brass desk lamp sits on the desk, its shade engraved with delicate star patterns. The light shines through the openwork design, casting dappled shadows on the wall. In the corner stands a soft chair, its armrests upholstered in matching velvet, its legs adorned with four intricately carved flowers. Even in a mere guest room, the Selenes family has not been careless.

Instead of examining the neatly arranged toiletries, Weiss went straight to the window and sat down.

So much has happened in just a few hours since I received the invitation this afternoon.

Although it is unknown what the Selenes family needs these addicts to do.

But right now, there is a more pressing matter to deal with.

Weiss turned his gaze to the World Book floating in his field of vision, and his eyes fell on the crescent-shaped bookmark below it.

Number 1411: Wei Xiao (Not Contained)

Tell a joke before midnight every day, or there will be a mysterious big surprise.

He had read this line of text several times.

But the reason why forbidden things are called forbidden things is because their costs are often hidden behind those seemingly harmless words.

Moreover, the phrase "mysterious big surprise" doesn't sound like a good thing at all.

Especially in the early days of the internet, the various messy contents were comparable to those on the foreign dark web.

Weiss still remembers the time when he was a young boy and was so frightened by a pop-up female ghost in a mysterious and surprising app that he threw his phone away.

Even muting the phone couldn't stop the ghost's screams...

It was a childhood nightmare.

Weiss looked up at the moon's position outside the window and roughly estimated the time.

I was led to my room by the butler at around 9 p.m., so less than an hour has passed since then.

There are still more than two hours until midnight.

There's enough time, but it shouldn't drag on too long; who knows what this mysterious surprise might actually be?

"Let's give it a try first."

"I wonder if this taboo item has a high or low threshold for humor."

Weiss muttered something to himself, then focused his attention on the crescent-shaped bookmark, a thought silently forming in his mind: "Get out."

The bookmark trembled slightly.

Then, it slowly emerged from the pages of the World Book, like a leaf lifted by the water, hovering about half an arm's length in front of Weiss.

Weiss instinctively reached out his hand.

The moment the fingertips touched it, the dark golden light seemed to be absorbed, rapidly condensing, contracting, and then taking shape—

It eventually settled on his right index finger.

It is a crescent-shaped ring.

A narrow, curved line hooks onto the knuckle, its surface smooth and gleaming with an indescribable dark golden luster.

Upon closer inspection, the two ends of the arc curve slightly upturned, resembling a broken smiling face that is grinning.

Weiss raised his hand and examined the ring for a moment.

I didn't feel anything unusual.

It sat quietly on his finger, like a delicate ring.

"so......"

"All I need to do now is tell this thing a joke?"

Weiss's expression was strange.

He had absolutely no idea what was funny about it. Was it a lame joke? A pun? A riddle? Dark humor?

After thinking for a while, I decided to tell a rather complicated joke.

For no other reason than that he felt that anything that could be called a taboo item must have a high level of intelligence.

Telling silly jokes like "Why did Xiaoming do this?" might actually provoke it.

Have you ever heard of the grandfather paradox?

Wei Xiao did not react at all.

Weiss didn't seem to care and continued talking to himself.

"Suppose there is a superhuman in an extravagant system who travels back in time and kills his young grandfather."

"If his grandfather died, his father would not have been born. If his father would not have been born, then he himself would not have been born. But if he himself would not have been born, then who killed his grandfather?"

"This is the basic logic of the grandfather paradox."

Weiss paused for a moment and glanced at the crescent moon ring on his finger.

There was still no response.

"but--"

Weiss then changed the subject.

"I have a friend who suddenly came to me one day, looking very excited, and said, 'I've solved the grandfather paradox!'"

"I asked him how he cracked it."

He said: "I just killed my grandfather with a single blow, but look, I'm still standing here. I haven't disappeared, so this paradox doesn't hold true and I've already solved it."

"I was completely stunned. I said, 'Wait a minute, don't rush, what about the time travel part?'"

He looked at me blankly and asked, "What time travel part?"

"So, I realized..."

"That guy seems to have simply committed a brutal murder of his own grandfather..."

After Weiss finished speaking, he fell silent.

The crescent ring remained silent.

The only sound in the room was the occasional soft crackling of the fire in the fireplace.

one second.

Five seconds.

ten seconds.

Nothing happened.

Weiss stared expressionlessly at the ring on his finger.

An awkward silence fell.

Was it really going to be awkward silence?

Is this thing the kind that's extremely funny?

Or is it that the taboo object simply lacks the ability to understand jokes, and that line of description is nothing more than meaningless nonsense?

Just as Weiss was feeling a little embarrassed.

A sudden, violent tremor ran through my fingers.

The crescent ring started to shake.

It started as a slight, tentative tremor, but later showed signs of being completely out of control.

Suddenly, the dark gold luster on the ring's surface became bright and dazzling, and the upward curve of the two ends of the crescent moon visibly increased—as if the mouth was widening and widening.

"Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz—"

A fine humming sound emanated from the ring, so high it was almost piercing.

Weiss instinctively tried to take it off his finger, but the ring was as if it were welded on and wouldn't budge.

It's still shaking.

And the shaking got worse and worse, and it just wouldn't stop.

"Alright, that's enough, stop laughing."

Seeing Wei Xiaoxiao's unstoppable laughter, Weiss himself was starting to lose his composure, afraid that he would burst out laughing in the room and be mistaken for a lunatic by the Selenes family.

Wei Xiao Ring ignored him; the frantic, almost convulsive tremor looked exactly like—he was laughing so hard he was about to collapse.

Weiss tried his best to control his expression, watching the ring on his finger tremble for almost two minutes before finally feeling the vibration begin to slowly subside.

About half a minute later, Wei Xiao finally stopped laughing completely.

They returned to their original quiet state, as if nothing had happened.

After a while.

A new line of text appeared on the page of the World Book.

Number 1411 - Dangerous Laughter (Not Contained)

Wei Xiao was amused by your comment; containment progress increased to 14%.

The containment progress has increased significantly in one go.

Upon seeing this line of writing, Weiss silently breathed a sigh of relief.

"It seems like we can just follow this pace from now on, right?"

"If I have to tell one story every day, I'll be exhausted in about six months at most. If I only need to tell no more than ten, it'll be fine..."

"Is the containment progress of this guy based on how funny the jokes are?"

With a thought, Weiss put the crescent ring back into the Book of Worlds.

The ring transformed into a dark golden stream of light, reverting to its original shape as the curved bookmark at the bottom of the page.

Weiss leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the moonlight outside the window for a while.

The Selenes family will announce the specifics tomorrow, but we don't know what exactly they, the addicts, are required to do.

Chapter 6: First Encounter, Mind Reading

"dong dong dong"

Weiss was sleeping soundly.

He hadn't slept this well in a long time.

The silk quilts were smooth and cool, the mattress had just the right firmness, and the curtains kept out the morning sunlight, with only a thin wisp of gold showing through at the edges. The room was filled with a faint scent of fragrant wood, like the mellow fragrance that had been soaked in the quilts for many years, making one unconsciously linger in a deep affection.

Weiss felt as if he had returned to the century before he transmigrated, a time with air conditioning, spring mattresses, and blackout curtains—no, even more comfortable than that, a completely different dimension from the slums of the downtown area!

He turned over and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

They showed absolutely no intention of getting up.

"Mr. Weiss, breakfast is ready for you."

A few seconds after the knocking, a maid's polite voice came from outside the door again.