Su Nian was jolted awake by a wave of rotten stench.
The smell was hard to describe—like expired milk, moldy wood, and rusty pipes all stirred together and left under the sun for three days. Her stomach lurched violently. She sprang up from the ground and nearly threw up.
Then she froze.
She wasn't on the street.
She was standing in the middle of a dilapidated street. Crooked, low houses lined both sides, their walls peeling like they had some kind of skin disease. Every window was shattered, and the black openings looked like eyeless sockets. The sky was gray-white. There was no sun, and she couldn't tell whether it was daytime or dusk. Beneath the stench, the air carried an indescribable pressure, as if something heavy were perched on her shoulders.
Su Nian instinctively felt her pocket. Her phone was still there. She pulled it out and saw that the black interface remained, but the text had changed:
[Beginner Scenario: Surviving the Abandoned Town. Transmission complete.]
"...What the hell."
She pressed the screen several times, but the interface didn't budge. She tried making a call. No signal. She opened the browser. No internet. Every function on the phone except the black interface seemed to have frozen.
"Hey—is anyone there?"
Her voice bounced a few times along the empty street, but there was no reply.
Then she heard footsteps.
Not one person's. Several people's. Chaotic, panicked footsteps came from different directions, as if people were trying to find their way. Su Nian instinctively backed into the corner of a house, lowered herself, and peered around the wall with half her head.
A young man in a tracksuit ran out of an alley. His face was deathly pale, and his lips were trembling. The moment he saw Su Nian, he looked as if he had spotted a lifeline. He charged over and grabbed her arm. "Were you transported here too? Do you know where this is? I woke up beside a garbage pile, my phone wouldn't connect, and I—"
"Let go." Su Nian's voice was flat.
The young man froze and released her.
Su Nian took a step back and looked him over. Early twenties, thin, his eyes as panicked as a startled rabbit's. No weapon, no injuries. He looked like an ordinary person.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Chen... Chen Baiyu."
"Chen Baiyu, calm down first." Su Nian's tone was the same one she used to soothe a customer who had been waiting too long for the microwave at the convenience store. "Take a deep breath and tell me what you know."
Before Chen Baiyu could answer, two more people emerged from another alley. One man and one woman. The man was in his thirties, wearing a wrinkled shirt like he'd been snatched away right after work. The woman was about Su Nian's age, with light-gold hair. She looked much calmer than the others, but unease still lurked in her eyes.
"You were transported here too?" the man in the shirt asked, his voice hoarse.
Su Nian nodded.
The last person arrived the latest. He was a middle-aged man with glasses, slightly overweight, panting heavily as he walked. Sweat covered his forehead. He braced himself against the wall as he approached. When he saw the other four, he first let out a sigh of relief, then immediately grew tense again. "Your... your phones are—"
"All the same," Su Nian finished for him.
Five people. Five ordinary people inexplicably dumped here.
Silence lasted for about ten seconds.
Then the voice came.
It didn't come from any direction. It rang directly inside everyone's head, as if someone had shoved a loudspeaker into their skulls. The voice was emotionless and cold, like a machine-generated announcement, reciting each word:
[Welcome to the Beginner Scenario: Surviving the Abandoned Town.] [This scenario has five participants. All have arrived.] [Objective: Defeat this scenario's final NPC to return to reality.] [Warning: Death here is real death. Good luck.]
Then the voice vanished.
Silence.
Silence for about three seconds.
Chen Baiyu was the first to break down. His legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees. His voice trembled. "What does that mean? What do you mean, real death? Is this some kind of prank show? Where are the cameras?"
The man in the shirt looked awful too, but he was still standing. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his knuckles white.
The blonde woman said nothing, but her hands were shaking.
The bespectacled middle-aged man leaned against the wall, breathing harder and harder, as if he were about to hyperventilate.
Su Nian stood where she was, her expression unchanged.
Her mind raced.
Death here is real death—she understood that part. Whatever kind of hellhole this was, dead meant dead. It wasn't a game, a dream, or a prank show. She didn't know why she'd accepted the premise so quickly. Maybe her life was already absurd enough that a little more absurdity didn't matter.
But her attention wasn't on the word "death."
She was thinking about something else.
"Hey," she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was unusually clear amid the panic. "That System, or whatever it is—does clearing the scenario come with prize money?"
Everyone looked at her.
Chen Baiyu stared up at her from his knees as if she were insane. "With everything going on, you're asking about prize money?"
Su Nian looked down at him. "With everything going on, you're still kneeling? Get up. The ground's filthy."
Her tone stunned Chen Baiyu into standing up before he even realized what he was doing. Only after he was on his feet did he wonder why he had listened to her.
But he didn't kneel again.
The blonde woman glanced at Su Nian. The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she wanted to laugh but held it back.
Su Nian ignored everyone's reactions. She looked at her phone again. A small line had appeared on the black interface, one the System hadn't read aloud during its announcement:
[Completion Reward: Prize money will be assessed according to performance and deposited into the designated account after returning to reality.]
Su Nian stared at the words "prize money" for three seconds.
Then she put her phone away and turned to survey the surroundings.
"All right," she said. "Since death is real, let's not die yet."
The man in the shirt frowned. "Easy for you to say."
"I didn't say it was easy. I said let's not die yet." Su Nian pointed at the ruined houses around them. "This place looks like it's been abandoned for a long time, but the street layout is still intact. That means people used to live here. Where people lived, there are supplies—food, water, tools, or at least something we can use as a weapon."
She paused and looked at the other four. "Which of you knows how to fight?"
No one raised a hand.
"Who runs fast?"
Chen Baiyu hesitated, then raised his hand. "I... I was on my college track team."
"Good. You're our runner." Su Nian looked at the blonde woman. "You?"
The blonde woman thought for a moment. "I've had first-aid training."
"Even better." Su Nian nodded, then looked at the man in the shirt and the bespectacled middle-aged man. "What about you two?"
The man in the shirt was silent for a moment. "I'm an engineer. I can't fight, but I'm pretty good with my head."
The middle-aged man with glasses wiped away his sweat. "I... I can't do anything. I'm just an ordinary office worker."
Su Nian looked at him without a trace of disdain. "That's fine. Just stick with me and help carry things."
Her tone didn't sound comforting. It sounded like she was assigning tasks. Just like when she worked the morning shift at the convenience store and told a new part-timer, "You restock. I'll run the register."
This wasn't bravery. Su Nian knew perfectly well that she wasn't brave. She was simply used to finding a path forward in situations that couldn't possibly get any worse. When the convenience store's water heater broke, she boiled water to wash the dishes. When the drink shop's shaker was too heavy, she switched to her left hand. When her mother ran off and left her with two million in debt, she paid it back fifteen thousand at a time.
Now she'd been dumped in some hellhole where people could die. She'd stay alive first and worry about the rest later.
Stay alive, collect the prize money, and go back to pay off her debts.
The logic was simple.
"Let's go." Su Nian started toward the nearest house. "I can't tell what time it is from the sky, but I think this place has nights. If it has nights, we need to find somewhere to hide before dark."
"How do you know there will be a night?" the man in the shirt asked as he followed her.
"I don't. I'm guessing." Su Nian pushed open a rickety wooden door. "But if I'm wrong, the worst that happens is we waste our time. If I'm right and we don't prepare, we die. Which one do you prefer?"
The man in the shirt said nothing more and followed her inside.
There was nothing in the first house. The furniture had rotted into piles of splintered wood. The floor creaked beneath their feet. Stains from some unknown liquid marked the corners, and the place smelled like something had died there a long time ago.
The second house was in slightly better shape. The kitchen held several rusty cleavers. A drawer contained a roll of tape and half a candle. Su Nian distributed the cleavers—she took the largest, Chen Baiyu took one, and the man in the shirt took another. The blonde woman took the tape, saying it could be used to make an improvised tourniquet. The bespectacled middle-aged man took the candle, his hands still shaking.
"What can these knives even kill?" Chen Baiyu asked, staring at the rust-covered cleaver in his hand.
"No idea," Su Nian said. "But they're better than nothing."
She led the four of them down the street, observing as they went. The layout of the town was strange—all the streets led in the same direction, as if they had been deliberately designed in the shape of a funnel to guide people toward somewhere. Su Nian noticed, but she didn't mention it. Saying so would only make the others panic more.
After about twenty minutes, they found a relatively intact two-story house. The doors and windows were still in place, and one room on the second floor could be locked from the inside. Its window offered a view of the street in two directions.
"This one," Su Nian said.
They reinforced the doors and windows with planks and tape they found nearby, then cleared a space in a second-floor room. Su Nian sent Chen Baiyu to search the nearby houses for food and water. She told the man in the shirt—who said his name was Fang Zhiyuan—to study the house's structure and look for a back door or basement that could serve as an escape route.
The blonde woman sat in a corner, tearing the tape into strips and neatly sticking them to her arm for later use. Su Nian walked over and crouched beside her.
"What's your name?"
"He Wei."
"He Wei, you were calmer than the others just now."
He Wei looked up at her and said flatly, "I was just scared stiff. That's different from being calm."
Su Nian smiled—a first for the day, though only the corner of her mouth moved. "If you can still get things done while scared stiff, that's good enough."
He Wei didn't answer, but her hands steadied as she tore the tape.
Chen Baiyu came back with several bottles of water that might or might not still be drinkable and two cans that looked like canned food. The labels were too blurry to identify.
"I'm not sure if any of this is safe to eat..." he said hesitantly as he set everything on the floor.
Su Nian picked up one of the cans and shook it, listening to the sound inside. Then she used the back of her cleaver to knock it open. Inside was some kind of meat paste, grayish in color. It didn't smell spoiled.
She scooped a little into her mouth.
Chen Baiyu's eyes widened. "You're just going to eat that?"
"I've drunk milk two days past its expiration date." Su Nian chewed, her expression unchanged. "At least this isn't sour."
She handed the can to the others. "Eat. Who knows where the next meal is coming from."
The bespectacled middle-aged man—who said his name was Lao Wu—nearly dropped the can when he took it, his hands shaking violently. Su Nian reached out and steadied it for him without saying anything.
After they ate, the sky did indeed begin to darken. Su Nian had guessed right—this place had nights. The gray-white sky slowly turned iron gray, then dark gray, and finally an almost pure black. There was no moon or starlight, only a sliver of dim light seeping through the cracks around the windows, its source unknown.
Then the sound appeared.
It wasn't the System's voice. It came from outside.
A low, intermittent growl, like something dragging itself along the street. Su Nian crouched by the window and looked out. Something was moving in the darkness. She couldn't make out its shape, only a mass of shadow darker than the night itself, gliding slowly down the street.
Everyone held their breath.
Lao Wu's breathing suddenly grew loud. Su Nian turned and glared at him, mouthing, "Shut up."
Lao Wu covered his mouth with both hands. Tears streamed between his fingers.
The shadow stopped beneath their building for a moment.
Su Nian tightened her grip on the cleaver. The rust on its handle bit painfully into her palm, but she didn't move. Her heart was racing so fast she could hear her blood pounding against her temples. Yet her hands didn't shake.
Not because she wasn't afraid. She was terrified.
But fear wasn't worth it. Being afraid wouldn't make her any less dead, so she might as well use that energy to figure out how to stay alive.
The shadow lingered for more than ten seconds, then continued moving forward. Its growl gradually faded into the distance.
Everyone exhaled at the same time.
Chen Baiyu's face was as pale as paper. "What was that thing...?"
"No idea." Su Nian lowered the cleaver and realized her palm was slick with sweat. "But it didn't come up here. That means it either didn't know we were here or knew and couldn't be bothered. Either way, we're not going outside tonight."
She leaned against the wall, set the cleaver beside her leg, and closed her eyes.
"You can still sleep?" Fang Zhiyuan asked incredulously.
"I'm not sleeping. I'm conserving energy." Su Nian didn't open her eyes. "We have to fight monsters tomorrow. Stamina is worth more than fear."
Fang Zhiyuan opened his mouth, but in the end, he said nothing.
He Wei silently sat down beside Su Nian, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes.
Chen Baiyu hesitated, then sat down too.
Lao Wu was still trembling, but when he saw the others sit, he slowly slid down to the floor as well, clutching the candle to his chest like it was something that could save his life.
Fang Zhiyuan was the last to sit. He took the spot closest to the window and kept his eyes fixed on the darkness outside all night.
Su Nian hadn't really fallen asleep either.
With her eyes closed, she was doing the math in her head.
If this place was real, if clearing the scenario really came with prize money, and if that prize money would really be deposited into her account—then this was the highest-paying job she'd ever seen.
The risk was death.
But in her current life, there wasn't as much difference between a slow death and a sudden one as people might think.
Su Nian opened her eyes in the darkness and stared at a thin crack in the ceiling.
It looked remarkably similar to the crack in the ceiling of her rented room.