I Became a God in a Horror Game · Conversa

Bai Liu remembered it clearly: that morning, he had only one hundred and eighty-nine yuan and forty-seven cents left. He was squatting on the balcony of his rented room, gnawing on a plain steamed bun, when his phone screen lit up. A message with no sender: [Welcome to the Horror Game.] Thinking it was a scam, he was just about to swipe it away when the concrete floor beneath his feet abruptly turned into brackish seawater. Plunging into darkness, he opened his eyes again to find himself standing on a dilapidated pier. Before him lay a brightly lit town bearing a sign that read "Siren Town." A card had appeared in his hand: Player Bai Liu, Identity: Rich Second-Generation Heir, Mission: Survive for one night. There were five other people on the pier. A young man wearing a subway uniform jacket leaned against a wooden pillar, hands in his pockets, his gaze darting around as if looking for something to snatch. A man in a suit stood furthest away, mud splattered across his leather shoes; he frowned down at them without a word. A burly man with bandages wrapped around his arm silently inspected their surroundings. A man with glasses squatted down, touching a puddle of water on the ground as if calculating something. And there was a young girl, about fifteen or sixteen, crouched in a corner nibbling on a rice ball—looking exactly like she did when feeding stray cats in front of a convenience store. Bai Liu slipped the card into his pocket and began counting heads. Six in total. A broadcast echoed from the town, the voice faint and whispery, as though someone were speaking right into their ears: "Welcome to the Horror Game." The young man in the subway jacket was the first to chuckle. "Alright, dragging me to a place like this... you'd better make it worth my while." No one answered. The man in the suit pushed up his glasses, pulled a pen from his pocket, and scribbled something on his palm. The burly man unwrapped his bandage and wound it tight again. The girl swallowed the last bite of her rice ball, stood up, and brushed off her knees. Bai Liu glanced toward the town in the distance. The lights were bright—unnaturally so. Then the town bell tolled. The first chime.