Gu Mian went to great lengths to get the female ghost from outside into the house.
Now, the female ghost stood rigidly in the middle of the living room, while Fatty stared thoughtfully at the gaping hole in the screen door.
Will the owner ask us for compensation? he wondered.
Gu Mian's attention, however, was completely captivated by the female ghost.
It seemed she was here to deliver a letter this time.
This was because, in addition to the Mind Amplifier Gu Mian had put on her, a letter also hung around her neck.
The envelope looked very crude, but Gu Mian recognized it at a glance as Mr. Green's property.
A green seal marked the flap of the envelope.
This unlucky ghost really couldn't return to the instance as she wished… Gu Mian mumbled to himself as he reached out and took the envelope hanging from the female ghost's neck.
Fatty leaned over, curious as well.
This was a letter Mr. Green had written to Gu Mian. The content was simple, just eight words:
"Do not attend the next event."
"No sorrowful accusations, no heart-wrenching curses, but the letter seemed to scream 'man-eater' between the lines…" Fatty began his cryptic interpretation.
Gu Mian ignored him and looked at the female ghost standing there.
She hadn't moved at all, apparently with no intention of leaving.
This situation persisted until the next morning. The moment Gu Mian opened his eyes in bed, he saw the female ghost still standing in the living room.
It seemed she hadn't moved an inch all night.
Fatty was currently sitting in the living room, having a staring contest with her. However, since the female ghost's face was completely hidden by her hair, it was impossible to tell whose eyes were bigger.
Fatty's wok had been thrown out during the previous night's event, and he hadn't had time to retrieve it before leaving, so now he could only wield his chipped machete to keep up appearances.
"Alright," Chu Changge said, ignoring the female ghost in the living room. "Let's discuss yesterday's event. I've made a discovery."
Fatty's lips trembled. "Is it really okay for us to discuss this in front of this female ghost?"
"If my guess is correct," Chu Changge adjusted his glasses, "we'll likely be spending most of our time in her presence in the days to come."
"Can we throw her out?" Fatty asked.
Gu Mian shook his head. "She'll just climb back up on her own."
Fatty was silent for a moment, then said quietly, "I guess Mr. Green wanted to keep an eye on us himself, but this busy man doesn't seem to have any free time."
He had mysteriously vanished several times during the event, apparently busy with other things.
"Alright, enough about that," Chu Changge interrupted their conversation. "Let's first talk about what we discovered in the event."
Without giving Gu Mian or Fatty a chance to interject, he continued, "You all should have seen the game announcement. A mysterious game planner appeared in this announcement." Fınd the newest release on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵※𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮※𝓷𝓮𝓽
Fatty chimed in, "It's 'The Game Planner revered by the players.'"
Gu Mian scratched his chin. "Anyway, whatever the adjective is, he's a game planner. Speaking of which, I remember the comment sections under some official game blogs are usually filled with remarks about the planner's mother." Although, the planner for this global game might not even have a mother…
Chu Changge continued, "Since this game has a planner, it might have other things too. Yes, I'm referring to the organizers."
"During the event, I mentioned that this game might not have just one organizer. Different organizers have different objectives, which leads to the discrepancies between game instances and events. One faction prefers players to complete tasks and then evolve; this faction should control the instance resources."
"The other faction is more inclined to kill players and let the ghosts in the instances evolve; this faction controls the event resources."
"For now, I've only identified these two different objectives. Of course, this game might have more organizers, but I haven't noticed them yet."
Chu Changge paused. "However, on the whole, these organizers likely share common goals as well."
Fatty nodded with an air of importance. "I know: to kill the Doctor."
The Lantern Festival event went as far as to trigger a heart collapse just to crush Gu Mian, showing how deep their hatred for him ran.
"Moreover, if future events are all one… then I'm afraid the difficulty of future instances will become higher and higher." Chu Changge glanced at the female ghost beside them. "The purpose of events is to sacrifice players to strengthen the ghosts within the instances…"
Fatty suddenly interjected, "But it seems this strengthening task failed this time."
It even led to the suspension of dozens of instances.
"It can't exactly be called a failure; it's just that the event ultimately collapsed. In fact, many players died inside before the event collapsed, all becoming nourishment for those ghosts. Besides, the event must have made preparations before its heart self-destructed. It definitely transported most of the ghosts back to their instances. The remaining ones were those it didn't have time to send back."
Chu Changge said, "So, although dozens of instances collapsed this time, the difficulty of some other instances has increased."
Gu Mian recalled that not long ago, the difficulty levels of instances were no longer displayed. It turned out this was in preparation for secretly altering the difficulty.
"I predict that the game will soon release a new set of difficulty standards," Chu Changge said, tapping the table.
Shortly after he finished speaking, the three of them simultaneously noticed that the announcement board had been updated again.
It was quite something, several announcements released within ten hours.
Gu Mian looked at the announcement board on the game panel.
[Notice of Instance Difficulty Changes]
[The difficulty of some instances has been adjusted. Henceforth, all instances will no longer have clearly defined difficulty levels. Instance difficulty will fluctuate randomly. Players are advised to adapt flexibly.]
Looking further down, there was another one.
[Notice of Instance Reward Adjustments]
[Affected by the instance difficulty adjustments, instance rewards will no longer be distributed in a fixed manner. The game system has introduced a new 'Instance Evaluator' NPC. The Instance Evaluator will assess player performance within the instance, and rewards will be disbursed at their discretion based on this evaluation upon instance completion.]
[Note: Players who die within an instance will still lose some of their acquired items.]
Fatty looked at the announcement. "I'm increasingly feeling crappy game was released before it was properly completed. They even conjured up this 'Instance Evaluator' thing mid-stream. Seriously, didn't this game have a closed beta before release?"
"Perhaps not. But looking at how things are going, it's also possible that we *are* the closed beta testers," Gu Mian said, touching his chin.
Fatty chuckled. "Are you kidding? Don't game closed betas usually only grant a small number of slots for a few players to test? Now, everyone on Earth has become a player. The entire world population is in this; how could it possibly be a closed beta?"
As he said this, Fatty suddenly trailed off. Then, as if struck by a realization, a somewhat horrified expression appeared on his face. "Don't tell me… we're actually closed beta testers, are we?"