At some point, a thin veil of mist had blanketed the barren hills outside the window. The dampness carried by the wind clung to the walls, condensing into tiny droplets of water.
Song Mo leaned back in her peeling wooden chair, her fingers unconsciously tapping against the desk.
【The real-time replay of the Route 404 Yin-Yang Bus Instance has ended.】
【A total of 172 valid plot nodes and 6 hidden trigger events were recorded in this replay.】
【First clear of 《Taiping Cemetery》 achieved. Exploration progress: 3.7%. New rule modules added: Obsession Manifestation, Autonomous NPC Generation, Dynamic Instance Difficulty Adjustment.】
The ink-wash text drifted and faded. Song Mo stopped tapping and raised an eyebrow.
She had watched the entire four-hour Instance frame by frame.
Every expression and every choice made by each participant was clearly etched into her mind.
Compared to the rehearsal script Song Mo had run in the system three days ago, the real-time Instance was like a wild horse that had broken its reins, veering into countless paths she had never anticipated.
For example:
The rehearsal script was dead, merely an outline she had written on paper.
She could easily modify Lin Hao's ending to prevent him from being killed by the infant spirit, or rewrite Wang Lei's fate to let him clear the Instance safely.
Everything would be under her absolute control, free of any surprises.
But the real-time Instance was alive, and so were the players.
Because Su Ya was kind-hearted, she encountered a gravekeeper in need of help.
Because Old Zhang felt guilty, he ran into his deceased father's ghost.
Because Wang Lei was greedy, golden paper sycees sprouted beneath his feet.
As for the umbilical cord growing from Lin Hao's neck, and the infant spirit that followed him out of the Instance, constantly calling him “Daddy”—those were likely related to his own life experiences as well.
...
“So, I didn't write their fates; they chose their own scripts.”
Song Mo murmured softly. Dipping her finger into a water droplet on the wall, she lightly drew a circle.
“This is getting truly interesting.”
She navy written the Route 404 script, she had only designed the general layout of the mass grave and the main task of wiping the tombstones.
All the remaining details—the gravekeeper's identity, the origin of the infant spirit, the illusion of the gold sycees, and even the hint of survival she had intentionally left behind...
...had been automatically generated and fleshed out during the execution of the Instance.
After all, this was the first contact between the humans of this parallel world and a supernatural Instance, so Song Mo had intentionally lowered the difficulty to the absolute minimum.
Before leaving the Route 404 Bus, every participant had received a prompt:
【Passengers who have not purchased a ticket, please remain where you are.】
In other words, as long as the players stayed obediently on the bus and didn't set foot in the mass grave, they would have ended up like Lao Hei—waking up in People's Park forty kilometers away.
Aside from a good scare, they wouldn't have sustained a single scratch.
Unfortunately, not a single participant had noticed this.
Or rather, even if they heard it, they wouldn't have believed it.
Scrambling to escape the “creepy ghost bus,” they rushed off only to plunge headfirst into a true game of life and death.
...
As Song Mo reviewed the concluded script, she felt neither sympathy nor mockery.
She was no savior. At best, she was merely an observing recorder, a scriptwriter who established the rules.
Song Mo's own life was held in the system's grasp. To her, these participants and their stories were nothing more than bargaining chips to exchange for lifespan and materials.
Even now, she didn't quite know what she had become.
Her emotions were fading, forcing her to measure everything with cold, objective equality.
Watching the participants struggle for survival felt like looking at flowers through a thick fog.
It was as if human lives, to her, were no different from a flower, a blade of grass, or a tree.
If she had to make an analogy, it was like she had opened a game's creative mode.
Would a player feel sorry for a dead in-game NPC?
Of course not.
...
The next moment, the ink-wash text suddenly began to churn, bringing with it massive plumes of smoke.
【First clear of the Taiping Cemetery Instance completed. Calculating all rewards for this script...】
【Calculation complete. Abundant rewards have been sent to the system inventory. Screenwriter, please check!】
【Basic Rewards:
Low-Grade Spiritual Material × 150 (Shadows drifting in the mortal realm; can be used to generate low-level NPCs and set up Tier 1 illusions. Single unit value: 0.5 Screenwriter Points.)
High-Grade Spiritual Material: Painted Skin Ghost × 1
Thousand-Mile Hunger-Free Pill × 50 (After consumption, grants immunity to hunger and thirst for seven days, leaving the user full of energy; grants immunity to common colds and low-level fatigue.)
Mid-Grade Supernatural Material: Red-Clothed Twin Ghost Children × 1 (Conjoined twin specters with an obsession depth of 97%.)
Class Identity Card: Butcher (Grey) × 1 (Can be used to awaken the basic Butcher class in an individual without talent.), Class Identity Card: Physician (Green) × 1 (Can be used to awaken the basic Physician class in an individual without talent.)
Bone-Grown Flower × 50 (A spiritual flower born on the withered bones of those who died unjust deaths; core material for refining evil-expelling pills and bone-growth pills.)
Incense and Candles × 50, Sycee × 50】
【Script Rating Rewards:
Script Excitement Rating: C++ (Complete plot, self-consistent rules, triggered system self-perfection, gave birth to the first official player.)
Screenwriter Points Obtained: 300 (Current remaining Screenwriter Points: 330)
Lifespan Obtained: 100 days (Current remaining lifespan: 124 days, 5 hours...)】
【Special Viewer Rewards:
Detected that special viewer Su Ya has obtained 【Su Ningxiu's Burial Item】 and successfully awakened the class 【Architect (Novice)】. The Screenwriter randomly obtains one 【Architect】 talent skill.
Skill Name: High-Rise from Flat Ground (Novice)
Skill Effect: Adapts to local conditions to generate a temporary shelter capable of accommodating up to 12 people. The shelter is immune to all low-level spiritual attacks and yin energy erosion, comes with a constant temperature effect, and lasts for 24 hours.
(Upgrade Note: Consuming 500 Screenwriter Points can upgrade this skill to Intermediate, increasing the shelter's capacity to 50 people and allowing it to withstand mid-level spiritual attacks.)】
The moment she saw the final reward, Song Mo leaped to her feet, her eyes filled with pleasant surprise.
“Is it because Su Ya awakened a class? So 'special viewers' are actually players capable of awakening classes?”
An uncontrollable wave of excitement broke through her otherwise indifferent expression.
“Randomly obtaining one player talent skill...”
Song Mo murmured to herself, her fingertips quickly tracing over the text prompts as she repeatedly verified the reward description.
“Does this mean that whatever skills special viewers awaken, I have a chance to obtain the exact same ones?”
This time, the ink-wash text, which usually offered no feedback, actually hesitated. Only after a long pause did it produce a detailed prompt:
【Special viewers are unique individuals possessing exceptionally high talent. When players awaken class skills within an Instance, the Screenwriter has the right to draw and replicate them.】
!!
To Song Mo, these words were as delightful to look at as a skyrocketing bank account balance.
A wild, audacious idea instantly struck her mind.
“This means I don't have to set foot inside an Instance at all to obtain skills, materials, and items.”
Song Mo's voice trembled slightly, not from fear, but from a deeply suppressed excitement.
Instances were things she only wrote; she would never enter them!
When players cleared an Instance, she, the Screenwriter, would receive rewards simultaneously.
This meant she only needed to write scripts behind the scenes, facilitate the opening of Instances, and let players enter to clear them.
While players fought monsters, completed quests, and gathered materials inside, she would harvest the same rewards, or even more!
And whenever players awakened skills, Song Mo would have a chance to obtain them as well. What was even more overpowered was that she wouldn't be restricted to a single class.
The more Instances the players cleared, and the more thrilling their completed tasks were, the more Screenwriter Points and lifespan she would gain!
“This is practically like... being a farmer!”
Song Mo paced back and forth in her cramped rental apartment, her steps light and breezy.
“Instances are like my farms, and the players are the chives I grow.
Ordinary participants are standard chives. Their yield is average, but they make up for it in numbers. A casual harvest can still bring in a decent return.
But players with classes, like Su Ya and Chen Xi, are the thickest, sturdiest, high-yield chives in the garden. A single one of them is worth ten ordinary players!”
Su Ya had only awakened as a novice Architect, yet she had already brought her the highly practical skill “High-Rise from Flat Ground.”
What about Chen Xi?
Her Talent Class was Constable—a guardian of order, naturally suppressing spiritual entities.
Once she entered an Instance, became an official player, and awakened her Constable skills, what would Song Mo receive?
The more Song Mo thought about it, the more anticipated she became. She wished she could pick up her pen right now to write a new script and drag Chen Xi in, just to see what powerful skills she could harvest from her.
However, after the initial wave of excitement, she quickly calmed down.
The incident with Route 404 had caused too much of a stir.
Zhang Chao was dead, while Lin Hao and Wang Lei were crippled. Several survivors were firmly insisting that they had entered a game of death.
The pile of stone fragments containing Zhang Chao's DNA in Taiping Cemetery, along with the anomalies on Wang Lei and Lin Hao, served as concrete evidence of the Instance's existence.
The authorities would never sit idly by.
There was still a month before the Taiping Cemetery Instance would open again, but a month was more than enough time for the authorities to make some major moves.
No matter the world, Song Mo would never underestimate the sheer power of a fully mobilized state apparatus.
...
“Could there really be organizations like a Dragon Group or a Special Affairs Administration in this parallel world?”
Song Mo frowned, unconsciously scratching the back of her head.
“If they exist, they will definitely notice the anomalies in Jiangcheng.”
Her current strength was still too weak.
Currently, the only card in her hand was the Bus Ghost—a support-type spiritual entity that could only drive and run Instances, possessing virtually no offensive capabilities.
If she were targeted by the authorities, she would have absolutely no power to resist.
“I must increase my strength as quickly as possible and build a faction of my own. Only by muddying the waters can I better conceal my unique existence.”
Song Mo quickly made her decision. “I must possess sufficient self-preservation capabilities before the authorities can react.”
With that in mind, her gaze fell upon the two Class Identity Cards glowing with a faint light.
...
The two cards hovered quietly in midair, emitting halos of different colors.
The one on the left was grey, made of a material resembling coarse kraft paper, with a cleaver drawn on it.
The one on the right was green, with a texture like warm Hetian jade. Carved in silver lines at its center were a pestle and mortar, adorned with a few herbs on the side.
【Unused Class Identity Cards detected. Would you like to view the class grade descriptions?】
“View.”
Song Mo muttered in her mind. She noticed that the system bound to her seemed to have become more intelligent.
【Class Identity Card grades, from lowest to highest, are: Grey, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Red, Black, and Dazzling White.
Grey: Novice Class. Unlocks only basic skills; no special talent.
Blue: Intermediate Class. Unlocks 1 exclusive skill; skill power increased by 50%.
Green: Advanced Class. Unlocks 2 exclusive skills.
Yellow: Elite Class. Unlocks 3 exclusive skills.
Gold: Legendary Class.
Red: Epic Class.
Black: Mythical Class. Reaches the level of rules, capable of rewriting local reality.
Dazzling White: Genesis Class. Exists only in theory.】
...
The class grades, which players would normally have to figure out on their own, were laid bare to Song Mo without reservation.
It felt exactly like opening a game's creative mode.
Song Mo stroked her chin and tried to use a Class Identity Card, but failed as expected.
【The Screenwriter cannot use Class Identity Cards.】
【Class Identity Cards can only be used on ordinary humans who are not bound to any class. (Once used, the target will be permanently bound to the corresponding class and cannot change it.)】
As expected, she couldn't.
Song Mo was not discouraged.
She positioned herself as the mastermind behind the scenes, a scriptwriter hiding in the shadows. There was absolutely no need for her to charge into battle herself.
In that case, these two identity cards could be used to cultivate her own faction.
But who should she use them on?
Rate on N.U.
