The moment she returned home after the funeral, the system's electronic chime rang in her ears, and Bai Ci realized it was time to leave.
Her consciousness felt as though it were being gently lifted by a soft hand. When she landed again, Bai Ci had already departed from Aether Town and returned to her personal independent space.
She kicked off her shoes, threw herself straight onto the bed, and buried her face in the soft bedding.
The bedding carried a faint scent of soapberry, a scent she loved. It smelled very much like the soap powder her mother used to wash the sheets at home, which always brought her a sense of peace.
Her nerves had been taut for the past few days. Now that she was back in her own space, she no longer had to put on a disguise or remain vigilant. She could temporarily lay down all her emotions, leaving behind only a bone-deep weariness.
Setting no alarms and letting go of all thoughts about the instance, Bai Ci fell into a deep sleep.
She slept heavily without dreaming, as if she were making up for all the sleep she had lost over the past few days.
When she woke up, her mind was still a bit groggy. Bai Ci blinked and took a good while to fully wake up. Her gaze subconsciously swept across the empty air in front of her, confirming from the system panel that she had slept for about four hours.
As she checked the time, the settlement panel finally found its chance to pop up.
【Instance Settlement
[Instance Name: Withered Wood Post Office]
[Basic Information]
Player: Bai Ci
Time Spent in Instance: 9 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes
Comprehensive Evaluation: A
Excellent plot exploration completion rate, full recovery of all clues across the domain, and ultimately succeeded in resolving the crisis, though the ending is still accompanied by helpless sacrifices and regrets.
[Basic Rewards]
Experience: 50
Points: 200
[Special Reward]
Gift: Grow with Time (Bound)
An unfinished companionship, an unspoken longing. The wind will remember; the letters will remember.
(Effect: Placing an item that causes negative/anomalous effects onto this item will automatically generate one dose of antidote to cure the corresponding effect. For the same type of negative/anomalous effect, an antidote can only be generated once and cannot be triggered repeatedly.)】
Bai Ci's gaze slowly swept over the contents of the panel. An A-rank evaluation, just as she had expected.
"Grow with Time"—just looking at the name, she really couldn't tell what it was. She tried retrieving the gift, and a letter appeared in her hand.
The letter was in a brown kraft paper envelope common for mail, with no postage stamp or detailed address. It only read "Recipient: Bai Ci" and "Sender: Hugo Durom" in Hugo's handwriting.
It wasn't written by Hugo to Lora Chaos, but to Bai Ci.
This wasn't a mock letter. Bai Ci opened the envelope and found a genuinely folded letter inside. Unfolding it, she saw a sonnet written on it.
The letter Bai Ci had once written to Hugo had also been a copied sonnet.
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.”
What had Hugo been feeling when he copied down this poem? Perhaps gentleness, perhaps shyness, or perhaps anticipation for the future.
Unfortunately, this anticipation was destined never to be realized. He would remain forever in that cemetery, backed by green hills and facing the fields.
Bai Ci smoothed out the letter, refolded it, and put it back into the envelope.
After reading the settlement panel, Bai Ci sat up and opened her player information panel.
【Player Information
Name: Bai Ci / Lora
Level: 1
Current Experience: 90/100
Held Points: 230 points
Core Attributes: Stamina 10 (HP 100/100), Spirit 10 (Sanity 10/10), Agility 10
Allocatable Attribute Points: 0 (obtained after leveling up)
Current Status: Mentally Stable
Current Class: Ghost Bride (expand to view details)
Next Unified Instance Opening Time: 91 hours, 42 minutes
Instance History: 《The Diary》 (D-rank evaluation, settled); 《Chaosheng Apartments》 (B-rank evaluation, settled); 《Withered Wood Post Office》 (A-rank evaluation, settled)】
After reviewing the panel, Bai Ci tapped lightly in the empty air, closing the information interface.
She was only 10 experience points away from reaching Level 2.
After a brief thought, she already had a plan: once she leveled up and obtained attribute points, she would invest them in agility.
Stamina determined the depth of her health bar, and spirit was related to resistance and handling anomalies. However, she had no combat skills and was not suited for direct confrontation. Only agility could allow her to react faster and escape more quickly before danger struck, giving her a bit more confidence to protect herself in instances.
As for points, they were somewhat of a white elephant for Bai Ci after her class was hatched.
Due to class restrictions, she could not use any of the items sold in the shop. For her, points were almost equivalent to living currency within her space.
Rather than holding onto them without using them, she might as well make this small world of her own a bit more comfortable.
After a brief consideration, Bai Ci directly spent 100 points to replenish her food supply and exchanged for a few simple and practical spatial furnishings in the shop.
In her originally somewhat empty room, there was now a softer mattress, a non-slip and wear-resistant exercise mat, and a floor lamp with soft, adjustable light. Even the corner was adorned with a small pot of evergreen plants that would never wither.
The entire space remained clean and refreshing, but whether it was for resting and recovering or daily exercise, it was much more comfortable than before.
She left the remaining points untouched for now, keeping them for future space adjustments or emergencies.
With over ninety hours left until the next unified instance opened, she had plenty of time to rest well and adjust her state to its best.
Bai Ci got out of bed. Just as she was about to do some exercise, she suddenly remembered that back in Aether Town, Lin Wan had mentioned a massive swarm of flies appearing when Isabella lost control.
At the time, she had faintly associated this with Beelzebub from real-world mythologies. A question arose in her mind: could the instances of Anomalous Infection be connected to real-world mythological systems?
She finally had the time to investigate this question now.
Bai Ci opened the forum, a place where players of the Anomalous Infection instances exchanged information and shared experiences. It was filled with various posts covering instance analyses, class guides, hazard warnings, and more.
Humans could not live independently of society, not just because of material needs, but also because of spiritual ones.
In Anomalous Infection, aside from the team space, there was no place left for players to socialize offline. Consequently, the players' desire to express themselves could only be vented online.
Because of this, clues for almost any problem a player encountered could be found on the forum.
When Bai Ci logged into the forum and saw the nickname randomly generated by the system, she couldn't help but daze for a moment.
Jinxed 24 Exes to Death...
Surely, it wouldn't go that far, right?
Although so far, after passing three instances, two of her fiancés had already died.
Which meant there were still twenty-two empty slots left?
Rate on N.U.
