CHAPTER 409: CHAPTER 408: WARDROBE

Considering the consistent nature of battlefield games, in this Shengnan King’s Dream, it may be impossible for players to teleport en masse, nor can they use methods to communicate remotely and ascertain each other’s locations.

However, this hasn’t dampened the players’ interest in discussing it on the forums.

In just a short time, some players are already gearing up, preparing to form alliances to pull off something big—they’ve decided if they encounter each other in the dream, they won’t compete and fight, but instead will establish temporary teams to work together and tackle the anomalies.

"Players can leave the mission at any time. The mechanism for entering and exiting the Shengnan King’s Dream is the same as that for scenario missions."

Miss Chai read the content of a post, word by word, "It means that players can choose to stay in the dream and keep resolving anomalies to earn rewards. If there is enough time, it might even be possible to level up directly from Lv5 to Lv50..."

"That’s impossible."

Li Ang shook his head and scoffed, "Never mind whether there are anomalies in the dream powerful enough to boost one to level fifty. Missions that seem to have no time restrictions actually do have a time limit. This limit is the end of the dream—perhaps the King of Shengnan will wake up at some point, or perhaps the battlefield game will deliberately lead the players to get closer to the King of Shengnan himself and kill him or interrupt his dream. If I’m not mistaken, the official statement should be coming out soon..."

Li Ang calmly refreshed the page and, sure enough, saw a new post.

The poster’s ID was quite famous on the forum. Because this account often published reliable and precise information, and its tone was rather formal, many believed it belonged to an official agency of the Global Occult Coalition.

The content of the post was essentially that the authorities considered the mission in the Shengnan King’s Dream to be very complex and dangerous. They urged players who wished to participate not to be blinded by the generous rewards, to withdraw in time, or better yet, to refuse the mission directly.

The official standpoint was straightforward: if the mission harbored danger and an extraordinarily high mortality rate, then the number of players might significantly decrease after its conclusion. From humanity’s perspective, each player is a resource to combat anomalous events. It’s better for them to die at the hands of ordinary people, passing on their player qualifications, than to die needlessly in the mission.

Li Ang was indifferent to the post’s content; he was waiting for news from the Special Affairs Bureau.

About ten minutes later, the Special Affairs Bureau finally made a statement. They agreed that the danger level of this mission was indeed very high, and even High-level Players could suffer a major setback, so they recommended against participation.

In addition, the Special Affairs Bureau also subtly threatened certain players or organizations, warning them not to promote information related to the King of Shengnan to the general public during this time. Those who actively spread anomalous memes to the public would face a direct manhunt by the Special Affairs Bureau—although through in-depth research, they believed that ordinary people were unlikely to be transported into the dream realm.

The Special Affairs Bureau’s conclusion came as a relief to Li Ang. Wang Congshan had previously drunk a portion of Blessed Spring Water, which should have eliminated the risk of anomalous meme infection. Now, the official assessment put him even more at ease.

Li Ang refreshed the page a few more times, but after finding no new content, he closed the forum and began to gather his equipment and items with Miss Chai.

「Five hours later」

An armed-to-the-teeth Li Ang lay on his bed, eyes open, quietly waiting for the time to come.

He was, of course, going to take part in this mission. Even if Wang Congshan’s anomalous meme infection posed no danger, exploring the Shengnan King’s Dream and experiencing the essence of the power of belief was worth it.

Suddenly, the bedroom ceiling changed color, and the scent of the air freshener—which Li Ang had purposely sprayed to confirm his transportation—immediately dissipated.

The transportation was complete; he had arrived in the dream world.

Blue wallpaper, a chandelier with toy airships hanging from it, a wooden single bed, a soft and warm cotton quilt.

This seems to be a child’s bedroom, Li Ang thought, lying on the child’s bed, head on the pillow, covered with a blanket, as if he were a child himself.

His Spiritual Sense, like radar, swept around him but to no avail—it was as if it had vanished.

Miss Chai’s somewhat panicked voice arose in Li Ang’s mind, "Has the transportation ended? Why is my Spiritual Sense not working?!"

"The transportation is complete. My Spiritual Sense is also non-functional."

Li Ang squinted, still lying in bed, and said to Miss Chai, "It’s probably like what happened in Dusheng Village before; our Spiritual Sense has been interfered with and rendered ineffective. However, items, equipment, and skill slots seem to be completely unrestricted. And I still have my original body; I haven’t turned into the owner of this child’s single bed. This means the mission this time probably involves both body and Soul entering synchronously... Tsk, such a setting actually suggests that the anomalous event we’ll encounter will be even more terrifying."

Miss Chai sounded somewhat nervous, "Should I come out? This room feels somewhat off..."

Before she could finish speaking, a clear, distinct knocking came from the bed planks underneath Li Ang.

THUD, THUD, THUD.

The intervals were clear, like knocking on a door.

Miss Chai instantly fell silent. Li Ang slowly clenched the scythe in his hand, not saying a word, his body tensing, ready to strike and shatter the bed planks below at any moment.

"Hey!" a muffled voice, like a busted gong, sounded from under Li Ang’s bed. "Hey! Kid, stop pretending to sleep."

Kid?

A thought crossed Li Ang’s mind. He glanced at the wardrobe’s glass door in the corner of the room. By the moonlight, he could clearly see he still had his teenage appearance.

Is the voice under the bed referring to my appearance? Or, in its eyes, do I look like the child who owns this bed?

Li Ang stayed silent for a while before speaking up, "Who are you?"

"Me?" the raspy voice answered. "I’m the monster under your bed. You can call me Frank."

"Frank?" Li Ang raised an eyebrow. "Then what’s your last name? Old Wang?"

"Old Wang?" the raspy voice echoed. "What ’Old Wang’? I’m a monster. Since when have you heard of monsters having last names? A monster is just a monster, get it? Hmm... although they all say I don’t really have the air of a monster."

"Who are ’they’?"

"My parents, and my colleagues at the company." Frank complained, "You know how it is, right? Our job as monsters is to scare people. The most basic tasks are making strange noises, creating disturbances, knocking over water glasses placed on the edge of a table, and so on. A slightly more advanced one is to leave handprints on glass, or to scratch a person’s back while they’re showering and washing their hair. They all say I’m not suited for this job, and I also feel I’m not very good at scaring people. To be honest, I’m thinking of taking a backseat, you know? Like working in logistics, giving advice to the real scarer-monsters—I’m better at that kind of thing."

Sounds a bit like the premise of that classic animated movie, *Monster Electrical Power Company*. Monsters scare children to collect energy, powering the monster world.

Li Ang was intrigued and continued, "If you don’t want to do it anymore, why come to this room?"

"Everything has to have a beginning and an end. Although I’ve already submitted my resignation, I still have to work my last day. Scare one last person."

"Are you planning to scare me?" Li Ang said noncommittally. "Then you might be disappointed. Besides being a provincial-level narcolepsy patient, a provincial-level champion of beating the retreat drum, the reigning champion of the stay-in-bed tournament, and the Asian Sour Lemon Promotion Ambassador, I’m also a top-class daredevil, the kind who believes that if you’re bold enough, even monsters will take maternity leave. Apart from math and my landlady, I’m not afraid of anything. Ordinary monsters, I’m afraid, won’t scare me."

"What’s all this nonsense?" the voice from under the bed said. "I didn’t come to this room to scare you."

"Then who are you planning to scare?"

"Scare that guy, the one hiding in your closet right now."