The corpse at the door disappeared on its own.
Mu Anqi felt a bit regretful when she saw the big green python just vanish like that. The giant lizard, however, let out a sigh of relief—only the sigh was so obvious that Mu Anqi shot him a look, scaring the giant lizard into playing dead on the spot.
Mu Anqi observed that monster in the group chat called "Get Rich" for quite a while, found his livestream, and discovered that he was streaming players being forced to perform various acts. Singing, dancing, imitating animal sounds, striking poses, even making players jump through flaming hoops. This guy was a wild boar demon, and his original form was also very burly. The player he had adopted was a male, who squeezed out a forced business smile on his face and kept cooperating. Mu Anqi couldn't tell whether this player had any ability to escape, after all, surviving seven days… some players might force themselves to endure two days.
Mu Anqi scrolled through the replays of this guy's previous streams and found that the content mostly targeted small animals. For example, feeding certain animals chili peppers, mustard, or other strange things to watch their reactions—the bigger the reaction, the more "funny" it was considered. Or training animals to do actions they normally couldn't, or forcing water-fearing animals to swim. Or even pranking weak unfamiliar demons, pretending to "rob" them and such malicious tricks, just to capture the little demons' reactions.
Its nature… was not as vile as the python's or the giant lizard's. Mu Anqi watched the livestream for a while and realized this demon just seemed to want to use the players to gain followers and make some money during these seven days. The difficulty of luring him out… was a bit high. And besides, with this kind of livestream, going to directly kill him at his place didn't seem very feasible either. Mu Anqi observed the male player in the livestream and noticed that his expression sometimes showed restraint, as if he was trying hard to gather some intel before making any moves.
Mm, then this one should just be left to that player who was being forced to perform. Mu Anqi removed the boar demon from the assassination list, then turned to look at the giant lizard. "Do you not want dinner anymore? Treating your job with such negativity?!"
Giant Lizard: ???
"Didn't you say one demon covers a whole day's worth of food and water?!"
"When did I ever say that? What I said was that you'd get one serving of food and water on the same day!" Mu Anqi glared furiously, raising her handgun directly. If she hadn't remembered that each bullet cost 2 points, she probably would've fired already. "Are you deliberately twisting my words?"
The giant lizard was furious but didn't dare to speak. He shrank his neck, carefully recalled, and realized that what this tyrant said seemed to be true.
"But there are only eight demons total that can be lured out…" The giant lizard wanted to roar in anger, but under the gun's muzzle it turned into a choked sob of grievance and unwillingness.
"Don't do that, it's disgusting. I still plan to eat cupcakes later." Mu Anqi ridiculed, then retorted, "Eight meals. Isn't it normal to feed you for seven days? Will missing a few meals make you starve to death?"
Giant Lizard: "…"
The giant lizard held the phone, staring at the group chat inside. His joyful monster life was already gone. When Mu Anqi was watching the livestream just now, he had also listened for a bit. That fellow obsessed with getting rich was clearly not easy to lure. As for the remaining seven, he wasn't familiar with them…
"I—I also know some like-minded fellows." The giant lizard pinched the phone, looking at his contacts, hesitated for a long time, and finally spoke up. He asked, "If I lure them over too… does that count?"
Mu Anqi stared at the giant lizard, never expecting this guy to actually come up with such an idea. Wasn't he afraid that after resurrection they'd come to settle accounts with him? But this was fine too—the more demons this guy offended, the more miserable his fate would be after the game.
Those "like-minded fellows" naturally weren't any good either; it was just that they hadn't taken part in this game. Mu Anqi didn't have much of a sense of justice, but… since the giant lizard brought it up, and since she had the chance and enough bullets, cleaning up a bit of the Underworld's trash didn't seem like such a hard task.
"Fine." Mu Anqi said, "Every time you bring in five fellow demons, you can choose one meal within 50 guansi. Before that, it's only plain rice and cold water."
The giant lizard froze, then looked at Mu Anqi's pile of fried chicken boxes, visibly excited. "Okay, okay!"
"Before that…" Mu Anqi offered up a guansi to trigger an ability. "During the seven days of the game, you cannot have any thought or action of harming me."
The giant lizard looked at the red envelope in front of him, then glanced at Mu Anqi's gun, and took it.
[Ding! Skill activated successfully.]
But Mu Anqi didn't stop there. She took out another guansi red envelope. "During the seven days of the game, you cannot leave this house."
"During the seven days of the game, you cannot reveal my whereabouts to anyone."
"After the game ends, you must not tell anyone my information."
A series of "Skill activated successfully" prompts rang out. But when Mu Anqi said, "From now on, respect every life, and no longer treat killing life cruelly as an art," even though the giant lizard accepted the red envelope and even swore sincerely, Mu Anqi never received the success prompt.
Was it because it was too broad, or because the giant lizard couldn't do it? Mu Anqi stared at the lizard—this ugly thing's eyes were full of fear and dread. He swore with all his might, yet the skill still wouldn't register as successful. Mu Anqi thought for a moment, then tried limiting the restriction of not killing life cruelly to a time period of one year. Sure enough, she received the success prompt. Encouraged, she took out another guansi and tried to extend the time to two years, but no matter what, it wouldn't work. Did this mean that enduring for a year was his limit? Mu Anqi's gaze grew more dangerous, yet she had no choice. Looking on the bright side, what if this demon didn't live past a year anyway?
The giant lizard had no idea what Mu Anqi was thinking; he only looked at this female tyrant with a pleading gaze, hoping to be spared some unnecessary pain. Perhaps it was his sincerity that moved her, because she didn't fire at him again. The giant lizard let out a sigh of relief, but without daring to relax for even a moment, he began using his phone to contact those "like-minded fellows." He even sent messages to those demons who always wanted first-hand videos. Anyway, it was a wide net—catching one was one, catching five would be a profit.
He didn't act too eager, after all he couldn't expose himself. If exposed, there was no way he could survive the remaining six days. Forcing himself to stay calm, the giant lizard brought up—in the same tone he usually used with them—that he had gotten a new "pet," and was going to produce some works of art completely different from his past videos. Because the opportunity was rare, he was willing to let some art-obsessed fellows witness the birth of the latest work, but they would need to pay some guansi to gain that qualification.
"Doesn't that sound exactly like a scammer?" Mu Anqi questioned. "Only an idiot would fall for that!"
"You—" The giant lizard originally wanted to snap back at her, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he couldn't. "What you say makes a lot of sense, but we demons can't be judged by ordinary demons' thinking. It's only a bit of guansi, but art is priceless."
Mu Anqi simply couldn't understand it. If someone had sent her such a message while she was alive, she would've immediately reported it as a scam and blocked them, never bothering to respond.
And yet…
Mu Anqi looked at the giant lizard's phone, where transfer notifications kept popping up one after another, and she could only feel that the demons of the Underworld were probably all insane.
Escape world, escape world… it really couldn't be viewed through the lens of ordinary people. Mu Anqi comforted herself this way, then continued to watch the giant lizard "scam-bait demons."
…
The playstyles of the other players were completely different from Mu Anqi's.
As for the male player who endured humiliation and was forced to perform, he didn't need to be mentioned—his plan was to lie low for two days, wait until he figured out the situation, understood the rules of this game and the wild boar demon's weaknesses, and then take action. As for the female player whose demon buyer vanished without a trace on the very first day of the game—her mood was especially complicated. After all, in so many games, it was the very first time she'd encountered a situation where the demon had gotten rid of itself and abandoned the player entirely.
She waited and waited, but the demon never returned, and the sky gradually darkened. Having gone without food or water the entire day, the female player finally couldn't endure it anymore. No longer caring about intel or not, she used an item to undo her bindings. Searching through the demon's house, she found a whole box of knives and some filming equipment. Her expression changed slightly, but after putting everything back in place, she used the ingredients the demon had stored in the fridge to cook herself a meal, then continued keeping watch…
Mm, of course, that green python demon never returned even on the very last day of the game. And just like that, the female player inexplicably cleared the round. Truly… an experience with no sense of gameplay at all.
Of course, some players had equally terrible experiences.
The demon that adopted this player was a climbing-vine spirit. From the moment the player entered the demon's residence, he instinctively felt something was wrong—the place was decorated with all kinds of animal hides, covering the floors, the wall ornaments, and other furnishings. Even more terrifying, the wardrobe was filled with all sorts of fur coats. At first, the player only felt uneasy and thought the demon simply had strange tastes. But come midnight, when the demon didn't sleep and instead crouched in front of him, the player pretended to be asleep—only to see the demon take out a set of surgical instruments, intending to skin him alive!
The demon, while counting its tools, hummed, "A black human-skin coat~ I wonder how it would look when worn~"
Frightened, the player no longer dared to lie low and immediately activated his ability to break free from his bindings, directly fighting the climbing-vine demon. This player's supernatural power was also interesting, called [Grandpa, Return My Grandpa], which allowed him to extract skills and gain seven Huluwas'[ https://share.google/yCwnUK0kLglhZ2Ao4 ] abilities, upgrading them continuously. At present, the only combat-ready skills he had unlocked were fire-breathing and water-spraying. Since this demon was a plant spirit, he simply burned down the demon's house and escaped in the chaos. Destitute and wandering the streets, he survived seven days by relying on his own skills to scavenge and feed himself.
Of course, some players were restrained by powerful demons, using all their abilities and items but still unable to resist or escape, being bled and eaten by the monsters, and only dying completely on the seventh day. Others, with strong abilities, successfully counterattacked and survived the full seven days safely.
Within the same game, players' experiences varied greatly. Only Mu Anqi, alone, showed off in a way that made even the demons' heads tingle.