---

Chapter 148 Out the Door Without Checking the Almanac

At the mountaintop platform, quite a few people were watching the sunrise.

Xia Xinyan and Ling Mo walked along with the others, but there was still quite a bit of distance between them, and they didn’t say much to each other.

The girl beside them was pretty chatty, but the others were fairly normal. Even the online game celebrities among them hadn’t yet reached the level of popular stars; they wouldn’t crowd around the two and cause a fuss.

At least for now, most of them seemed perfectly reasonable.

From their conversations, Xia Xinyan learned the chatty girl’s name was—

Su Xiaobai.

And her boyfriend’s name was Sun Yang.

She didn’t catch any of the other girls’ names, and didn’t feel comfortable asking.

Looking back, she was a bit too eager.

Ling Mo, however, had grown utterly impatient. After reaching the mountaintop, he decided it was time to part ways: “We’re going to do a dungeon now, so let’s say goodbye here.”

Upon hearing this, Xia Xinyan thought for a moment and nodded.

It was clear that trying to create an opportunity for Ling Mo now was out of the question; she didn’t want to rush things.

But the two had underestimated the chatty girl’s enthusiasm: “Oh! Perfect! I want to do a dungeon too! Let’s team up!”

Ling Mo: “…”

Did this girl completely lack the notion of modesty?

Even her boyfriend looked a bit off at that moment.

Even Ling Mo understood that such behavior from this girl was inappropriate for her boyfriend, but he couldn’t possibly blame his girlfriend, so naturally, they’d bear the brunt of it instead.

He could feel the disapproving glare from her boyfriend.

Though he felt helpless, he still understood where the guy was coming from.

In comparison, Xia Xinyan was indeed lovely; she was gentle and understanding, definitely wouldn’t pull something like this to embarrass him.

—Xia Xinyan, completely unaware that her unintentional behavior had just increased her favorability in Ling Mo’s mind, smiled at the girl and nodded: “Sure, let’s team up.”

Setting aside whether or not they’d create opportunities in the dungeon, just teaming up with those of lesser skill would naturally lower the dungeon’s overall difficulty—a solid enough setup for her to take advantage of. It wasn’t purely exploitative; if there was a place where she could help during the dungeon, she’d definitely lend a hand. But if these people insisted on dragging her down, then there was nothing she could do.

Help them a little, then let them rely on their own capabilities; that’s always been Xia Xinyan’s modus operandi.

Call her a good person… well, that’s debatable.

After all, if these people teamed up with them… the dungeon they’d face would likely be hellish difficulty for them…

Of course, she certainly wouldn’t say this out loud.

Because if she did, it would only make these people think she didn’t want to play with them, or would come off as looking down on them, gaining nothing but resentment in return.

Perhaps this is the subtle art of socializing.

Seeing Xia Xinyan agree, Ling Mo nodded: “I’ll add you guys to the team.”

Teaming up for a dungeon didn’t bother him at all; they wouldn’t be able to cling to him and Xia Xinyan throughout the dungeon anyway. If it became too much, he could easily sneak off with Xia Xinyan; their lovely little world together would remain intact.

Though it wouldn’t be quite as leisurely as wandering around the community…

Fat dog.

—Meanwhile, an overweight player facing life and death in the dungeon suddenly sneezed.

Then he rubbed his nose and smiled: “Aha, it must be a female fan thinking of me.”

Beside him, Bai Yu: “…”

Speaking of which, while the two of them appeared accommodating, not everyone seized the chance to experience the hell-level dungeon. Besides Su Xiaobai and Sun Yang joining their team, the others backed out, saying they had a meeting to attend and no time to play games—probably also college students who’d pulled all-nighters.

Xia Xinyan thought that was quite wise of them.

As Ling Mo prepared to match up, one of his friends messaged him—

【Yang Haonan: Wanna do a dungeon? Want to team up?】

Ling Mo paused and casually invited Haonan into the group.

Then, Haonan promptly pulled in someone named Wen.

“Anyone else?” Ling Mo asked in the team channel.

“Nope, let’s go.” Haonan noticed the two new names in the team, “Are they your friends?”

Ling Mo noncommittally replied: “Yeah.”

The matching process was quick. After they were matched, a ten-second countdown appeared before them, something new and unexpected, causing Ling Mo to frown slightly.

Once the countdown ended, they were all teleported away from the community.

When they opened their eyes again, they found themselves in front of the door of a pitch-black castle.

A blood moon hung in the sky, the surrounding forest was dark as pitch, with the moonlight barely illuminating a small area in front of the castle where ten players stood.

Ling Mo quickly spotted Xia Xinyan, moved closer to her, and whispered, “This is… the preparation hall?”

“No,” Xia Xinyan shook her head, “We’re already in the dungeon.”

“Why isn’t there a preparation hall?”

“Today’s hot update removed the preparation hall and increased the safety time at the start of the dungeon.”

“… Is that so?” Ling Mo pondered.

This game had a unique way of updating; apart from the initial major update that had once taken the servers down, all subsequent updates were hot updates, and the content changes were kept under wraps, to the point where he hadn’t even seen an announcement about this one.

However, opening the game’s announcements revealed the hot update information from this morning. The changes were few, the most obvious being the removal of the preparation hall—the reasoning was simple, as the officials deemed the preparation hall pointless.

But only Xia Xinyan knew this hot update involved far more than just these changes.

The slow boiling frog technique had stepped into its second phase, getting players accustomed to the update style; interested players could check the game announcements for update details, but the game wouldn’t actively inform them of future updates anymore, and even if players did check, they wouldn’t receive complete information.

For instance, this time, if she recalled correctly, in addition to removing the preparation hall, they had also increased… some elements of realism.

“Wow! Yanda Shao!” The familiar voice of a girl suddenly erupted, this time not directed at the two of them.

Xia Xinyan turned to look, spotting a man in the center of the crowd… whose face was as pale as paper.

She paused slightly.

Ugh, today was really not a good day to leave the house without consulting the almanac.

Noticing her gaze, Ling Mo followed suit and sized up the man, quietly asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Xia Xinyan concealed her emotions, “Just try to keep your distance from him.”

In her previous life, she was quite familiar with that guy.

His name was Yan Zi Gui, a name that gave off an air of literary finesse, but in reality was nothing but an absolute lecher disguised as an intellectual. He was one of the leading figures in the wealthy young master circle, and quite powerful himself, consistently ranking in the top ten.

His greatest delight was to pull in those halfway decent players into his circle, using any means necessary—which was why she labeled him a scoundrel.

In her last life, he had set his sights on her too, but she found him too showy and not to her taste, so she rebuffed his advances. Consequently, he began to make her life difficult both openly and covertly. In the end, she lost her temper and beat him up—after which the rift between them never healed, not until now.