【Game Name: “Happiness Community”
Role: None
Clear Requirement: You must make them feel happy (0/3)
Side Mission: Perhaps you can make them feel happy too?】
As expected of a rookie instance, there was no role-playing mission to complete.
That was both a good thing and a bad thing.
Without a predetermined role, Song Zang naturally had much greater freedom to explore during the early stage of the game.
His behavior would not be constrained from multiple directions. There was no risk of being “exposed” by NPCs, nor did he need to deliberately infiltrate their circles and form completely unnecessary bonds and entanglements.
But the disadvantages seemed even more serious.
The price of that freedom was that he would receive no advance background information about the instance. Everyone was entering completely blind, with no rough investigative direction at all.
If their luck was bad enough, they might step straight into a dead end the very second they spawned.
Be careful.
Yin Chen was not here, which meant he needed to be even more careful. Only by clearing the instance safely and in one piece could he soothe Yin Chen sooner.
He knew Yin Chen was definitely going to be furious. But no matter how much Song Zang wanted to be angry too, there was nothing he could do now.
His mood was genuinely poor, so Song Zang forced himself to maintain a state of alert tension and focus his attention on the instance ahead.
To avoid trouble, he decided to establish himself in front of these rookie players as a listless, sickly, gloomy veteran.
Mm. Better emphasize the gloomy part.
The darkness in his vision rapidly receded, and the instance finished loading.
A gentle wind chime sounded beside his ears as a breeze drifted through.
Song Zang slowly opened his eyes and saw an utterly ordinary bedroom ceiling.
The white putty was no longer new and had yellowed faintly with age, but it was clean.
Near the corner by the balcony, small cracks showed where water seepage had damaged the wall.
Song Zang was lying on a soft double bed.
He waited quietly for five minutes with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, but no monster came to attack him.
After being harassed at the opening of so many instances, he had unexpectedly landed somewhere relatively safe this time. His luck was not bad.
Song Zang sat up, lifted the quilt, and carefully pressed his fingertips into the fairly good mattress.
Good. One side of the mattress was slightly sunken, while the side near the wall still had almost-new elasticity. Even the pillow on that side looked plumper and softer.
That indicated that the bedroom had only one long-term occupant: Song Zang. For the moment, he found no traces suggesting a live-in partner.
There were no ghosts, monsters, or human corpses hidden inside the mattress. Beneath the bed were men’s out-of-season clothes. Very safe.
The bedding was a neat coffee-brown four-piece set that matched the cool early-autumn weather, carrying a faint sun-dried scent.
On the bedside table to his left sat a cream-colored wind-up alarm clock and an ordinary little succulent. Both were round and cute, gradually smoothing away Song Zang’s irritated mood.
Song Zang slipped his feet into soft blue-and-white cloth slippers and slowly wandered around the room, doing his best not to touch anything unnecessarily.
The bedroom was small but had everything it needed.
Clothes hung outside on the balcony, along with a string of fresh-colored wind chimes, two nearly indestructible pothos plants, and a folding ironing board with a thin layer of dust.
The washing machine beneath the ironing board was probably the most expensive large appliance in the apartment. It had a smart control panel and built-in washing and drying functions.
At the clean, simple desk sat a raised laptop and two mechanical keyboards beneath transparent dust covers. Their keycaps were soft grass green and dark green, both very pretty.
Inside the desk drawers were all kinds of sticky notes and notebooks, a bundle of cheap black pens, an old calculator that had been used since his school days, and a daily planner almost completely filled with black handwriting.
A warm atmosphere of relaxed everyday life slowly wrapped around Song Zang.
It seemed this was an ordinary residential building.
He lived on a relatively high floor, and the developer’s waterproofing had not been done particularly well, but the owner appeared to be a normal person seriously trying to live his life.
Song Zang pushed open the bedroom door and continued exploring outside.
The apartment had one bedroom and two living areas. It was not large, and this was the only bedroom.
The wall of the neighboring room had been opened directly into the living room, leaving only two structural support columns.
The space had originally been somewhat cramped and oppressive, but the open wall now made it look much broader and more spacious. Sunlight could enter for long stretches of the day, and the air circulated better too.
A small dining table stood in the opened-up area, along with a projector whose screen was rolled into the ceiling. In the corner sat a folding sofa bed that could accommodate visiting friends.
Beside the folding bed was an enormous, extremely soft beanbag chair. The moment someone sat down, they sank deep into its soft belly. It looked ridiculously fun.
Exactly the cozy dream home for a single man living alone!
Song Zang relaxed even further.
He curved his lips, opened the refrigerator, carefully confirmed that it contained no animal or human body parts, then took out a fresh bottle of sweet-orange soda.
Tss. Transparent bubbles carrying a sweet orange fragrance bounced cheerfully around the mouth of the glass bottle.
Song Zang slowly drank while burying himself in the beanbag chair, sinking deeper and deeper.
Until his lower back pressed against something hard and unfamiliar.
Song Zang paused and sniffed. The familiar smell of blood quietly seeped from beneath the sofa.
The blood smelled old, probably ten days to half a month. Because the weather was cool and very dry, the unknown victim’s body part had not rapidly begun to stink and rot, but had gradually shriveled and dried instead.
Song Zang cautiously felt around through the beanbag for a moment and discovered that the bloody smell did not actually come from a human limb.
Judging from the bone structure, a small headless cat that had been dead for quite some time was hidden inside the beanbag chair.
The probability that the homeowner had done it was close to ninety-nine percent… Apparently he might not be a normal person seriously trying to live at all. He was more likely a respectable-looking bastard who tortured and killed small animals, perhaps even a potential murderer who simply had not found the opportunity yet.
Song Zang did not know whether to laugh or cry. Lowering his eyes, he considered where he should begin investigating the mission.
It would be best to check the daily planner first, then go online and look through the man’s social-media accounts. Maybe he could uncover some animal-abuse group hiding among ordinary people.
Just then, several urgent knocks suddenly sounded at the door.
The visitor seemed to be an enthusiastic auntie from next door who knew him well. She shouted loudly, “Xiao Song, Xiao Song! The police officers are here! Get ready!”
“Get ready?”
Song Zang muttered in confusion and carried his drink over to open the door. In the blink of an eye, a huge bowl of steaming potato-braised ribs was shoved into his hands. A rich savory fragrance rushed over him, with fresh chopped scallions scattered across the soft potatoes and tender little ribs, irresistibly appetizing.
The large bowl, decorated with a golden carp, was filled at the bottom with braising sauce. The dish had just come off the stove and was scalding hot to the touch.
Anyone else receiving it barehanded would probably have had their face twist in pain.
But Song Zang still needed to establish an even less likable persona.
Without making it obvious, he glanced at the thick calluses caked across the woman’s hands. Then he tugged at the corner of his mouth and lightly hissed, smiling without quite smiling. “Hot. Are you trying to scald your neighbor to death with potato-braised ribs? Caught red-handed. No wonder the police are coming to investigate.”
“You little brat, what are you talking about?”
The auntie was amused and exasperated. She snatched the bowl back and bustled straight into Song Zang’s apartment as though she owned the place, walking familiarly into the kitchen. She put the fragrant dish into the steamer on the stove and covered it.
Her hands kept moving, and so did her loud voice. Without even turning around, she continued, “I only made this because you’ve been so busy lately, locking yourself inside and writing novels all day without eating or drinking. You’re skinny enough to turn into a spare rib yourself. Tch, get any thinner and let’s see what nice girl will still want you.”
“I was afraid you’d starve to death at home, so I specially braised ribs to build you back up. And you’re still complaining? From now on, don’t call me Auntie Li. Call me Sister Li!”
After that, she started criticizing the dust that had not been cleaned from the corner of the stove. She picked up a rag and scrubbed furiously. “You careless young man. You look all polished on the outside, but how many days has it been since you even turned on the stove?”
“Hurry up and learn to cook. Don’t wait until you’re married and can’t even make egg fried rice, sitting on the sofa while your partner serves you tea and water. Times have changed. Men can’t keep acting this useless!”
The whole sequence of bustling around and nagging came so naturally that Song Zang could tell Auntie Li must be quite close to him. She clearly visited often and even helped him cook.
Such friendly, harmonious neighborly relations really did suit the name 【Happiness Community】.
From Auntie Li’s nagging, Song Zang also gained a rough understanding of his occupation.
He was an introverted, gloomy homebody who wrote novels, and he was working on two fronts at once.
He serialized long-form fiction online while also submitting pieces to newspapers and magazines, struggling through two writing jobs at the same time. Most of his income went toward the mortgage.
He casually responded to Auntie Li while slowly opening the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of yogurt, then found several milk ice pops in the freezer, packed them all into a plastic bag, and handed it to her. “All right, all right. Go home. These are for your granddaughter.”
“Have you even looked at the temperature today? Are you trying to give my precious granddaughter diarrhea?” Auntie Li scolded him with an exasperated smile, but did not stand on ceremony. She grabbed the bag and bustled away. “When you’ve eaten the potatoes, wash the bowl before bringing it back, brat!”
Song Zang watched her retreating back thoughtfully and could not help wondering… Why had the police still not arrived? What exactly was he supposed to prepare for?
Just in case, he picked up the phone charging beside the sofa. He did not know the password, but facial recognition unlocked it without difficulty.
Song Zang flipped through the photo album. There were no cats or dogs, only warm little records of ordinary life. He raised a brow, then began searching recent local news while standing before the floor-to-ceiling living-room window and looking down.
Happiness Community consisted of three buildings of identical height and structure, each designed with one elevator serving three apartments per floor. The buildings rose twenty-five stories, plus shared rooftop terraces, and surrounded the community garden at the center.
Song Zang’s home was on the twenty-fourth floor. From this height, the people below looked like soybeans in assorted colors, while the police cars parked downstairs resembled two plump little buns.
The garden was fairly spacious and the basic landscaping was decent. It even had a loop reserved for cycling and jogging.
If he were not currently inside an instance… living in Happiness Community with a little chubby dog would be almost exactly Song Zang’s ideal single life.
The browser loaded an endless news page. There was a blue-and-white police notice about a vicious assault, a widely discussed case of middle-school bullying, multiple hidden cameras discovered in a university bathhouse, and a retired weightlifting champion killed in a factory explosion…
This world was extremely similar to reality: heavily populated, highly connected, and flooded every day with an overwhelming number of new incidents and pieces of information.
Song Zang sighed and gradually narrowed the search to Xinjiang City, where Happiness Community was located, then to Anning District.
Public security was good there. Aside from telecom fraud, most incidents handled by Anning Police Station were trivial matters such as stolen electric-bike batteries.
During the past month, however, they had been concentrating on two cases.
Half a month ago, an unknown person had poisoned large numbers of stray cats and dogs in Anning District. A young child accidentally ingested the poison and remained unconscious in intensive care.
Last night, someone had died after an object was thrown from height on the south side of Building A in Happiness Community. The suspect had not yet been identified, but investigators had already narrowed the scope of inquiry.
Song Zang silently rubbed his temple. Both cases seemed as though they might somehow involve him.
Never mind the headless cat hidden inside his beanbag chair… His home was in Building A, and most of the apartment faced south. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling window and bedroom balcony lay the community garden.
If he harbored malicious intent, he could start hurling garbage outside at any moment and smash everyone in the world to death.
But could things really be that simple and straightforward?
Song Zang opened the notes app on the phone. It contained dense little entries about writing techniques, snippets of daily inspiration, money-saving tips for groceries and household life, and quick ways for someone with mild social anxiety to escape social situations.
At the bottom of every note were the same two deliberately bolded and underlined characters: “Keep going!”
He was obviously just a homebody working hard to live his life. Even if he really wanted to poison animals, he could not afford that much poison, much less have the time to carry it out.
Song Zang muttered softly to himself, “Why is this game still targeting me? Yin Chen, I’m being bullied again…”
The room was completely quiet except for the faint ticking of the mechanical alarm clock.
The most important thing now was to clear himself of suspicion as quickly as possible during the police investigation.
Ding-dong.
By the time the doorbell rang again, Song Zang had already adjusted his state.
He opened the security door, lazily lifted his eyelids, and said listlessly, “Hello?”
Two criminal investigators stood outside, one man and one woman, both fairly tall. Song Zang could tell at a glance that they had undergone professional training. Beneath their taut clothing, their strength and muscle were visibly obvious.
Put them among ordinary people and they could basically overpower anyone they liked.
All this for a high-rise falling-object investigation, and they had actually sent the police officers who looked best at fighting?
Song Zang thought about it as both officers simultaneously showed their identification. Their attitude was reasonably friendly.
A [Player] marker floated above the young male officer’s head. He voluntarily nodded at Song Zang, some of the tension in his eyes easing as he spoke first. “Hello. Police. Please show us your identification.”
Compared with the officer’s initiative, Song Zang merely tugged casually at the corner of his mouth and turned away. “All right. One moment. Come in and sit.”
Song Zang let them sit on the sofa, then returned to the bedroom and rummaged around for quite a while before finally finding the paper-thin ID card tucked into a dusty corner beneath the desk.
He stood up holding the ID, brushed off the dust, and deliberately glanced at the photograph on it. His movements suddenly froze.
It looked familiar. Far too familiar.
The portrait used on the ID card was actually the high-resolution headshot Song Zang had taken inside Cupid’s Kiss.
Logically, every trace players left behind inside a game should reset and be erased the instant they cleared an instance, unless something had been deliberately carried out.
Thinking back, the only person who had both the ability and the desire to preserve an old photograph of Song Zang was clearly Yin Chen.
“Yin Chen, where are you? Make a sound?”
No one answered.
Song Zang bit his lip, his fingertips unconsciously curling. He almost failed to control himself and crush the chair back into splinters.
Only when a soft crack sounded and bits of wood stuck to his hand did he snap back to awareness. He took two deep breaths and forced himself to stay calm.
If Yin Chen were really somewhere inside his apartment, how could he possibly have gone this long without coming out on his own?
He should not keep thinking about Yin Chen. Better to deal with the problem already standing in front of him first.
Song Zang returned to the living room with his ID, poured warm water for the two officers, then brought out the potato-braised ribs kept warm in the steamer. He picked up his chopsticks on his own, prodded a soft golden piece of potato, and narrowed his eyes as he took a bite.
A little polite, but not much.
The female officer watched him with faint scrutiny. She did not touch the plastic cup on the coffee table and began questioning Song Zang about what he had done the previous day.
“I didn’t go out. I stayed home and wrote.
“Mm. On the computer. The software has real-time word-count sync records. You can check them yourselves.
“I never left. I wrote for three hours. No one can verify it, but the computer can.”
Song Zang answered in a lazy, unhurried tone. He was actually quite cooperative and responded to whatever the police asked, but his attention was nowhere near the investigation.
After taking one bite of potato, Song Zang did not continue eating. He lowered his eyes to observe the fine sheen of oil on his chopsticks, feeling that something about the taste was wrong.
A moment later, he pierced every piece of potato, then slowly pulled apart the tender little ribs with his chopsticks. The wooden tips pressed and pressed into marrow soaked with sauce, almost as though he were deliberately playing with the food in a nasty way.
The female officer quickly lost patience and warned coldly, “Mr. Song, this is a serious homicide. Please correct your attitude and cooperate with our investigation.”
At that, Song Zang lifted his eyes. His ink-dark pupils shifted slightly and suddenly met the female officer’s gaze.
“I didn’t do it. I only know Auntie Li. I don’t know any clues.
“You’re wasting your time on me. It means nothing.”
Song Zang’s voice was calm. His dark eyes were heavy and lightless, carrying something close to lifeless stillness.
He resembled a meticulously crafted porcelain-white doll, carefully dressed until clean and beautiful, then placed quietly at the dining table.
It was extraordinarily lifelike, exquisite and eye-catching, yet utterly devoid of vitality. Beneath that beautifully contoured mask of human skin was nothing but a rigid, inorganic emptiness.
It was almost as if the Song Zang who had just been “playing with his food” were merely… a mischievous wandering spirit living inside the doll.
The female officer’s gaze trembled. Unusually, she chose to look away first, instinctively avoiding the illusion that sent a chill through her.
Song Zang’s beautiful lips curved in the faintest hint of a smile, but the slightly drooping corners of his eyes did not bend at all. They still carried a suffocating, deathlike stillness.
That vaguely sinister, stiff smile made the female officer increasingly tense and uneasy. She did not even understand what exactly she was afraid of.
But Song Zang’s words did make sense… she thought hazily through her muddled mind.
She turned and gave the male officer a look. The two moved one in front and one behind, boxing Song Zang between them as they headed toward the bedroom.
Unfortunately, such a cozy, everyday, almost cute bedroom was probably far outside what the police had expected.
They found nothing. There were no suspicious objects in the wardrobe or beneath the bed.
Besides, Song Zang’s body language had remained relaxed the entire time.
Even when he occasionally seemed strange and unsettling, he showed not the slightest trace of guilt. The officers could criticize his casual attitude, but there was nothing else to fault.
Song Zang unlocked the laptop with his fingerprint and let the police inspect it themselves. Then he casually moved out of the way, leaned against the pillows at the head of the bed, and continued drinking his sweet carbonated soda.
He was observing the male player’s back.
Trained. Can fight. Knows how to control his facial expressions. Handles himself calmly enough. Useful.
Song Zang took all of it in and privately gave him an easy-to-remember nickname: Buzz Cut.
Buzz Cut had probably spawned either inside a police vehicle already out on duty or directly in the police station.
There had been no instance background briefing, and he had landed surrounded by large numbers of unfamiliar NPCs, yet Buzz Cut had never exposed a single flaw… His mental resilience and ability to improvise were slightly better than those of an ordinary person thrown into confusion.
With that thought, Song Zang took the initiative to exchange phone numbers with him and grandly declared that if the police had any further questions, they could call him at any time to continue the investigation. Buzz Cut.
The female officer subtly relaxed, then tugged the faintly smiling Buzz Cut along and quickly left.
Song Zang stood by the door and quietly listened in on their fading conversation.
“Xiao Chen, don’t you think there’s something a little creepy about that Song Zang?”
Buzz Cut vaguely tried to smooth things over. “Mm, maybe. So should we put him on the list of primary suspects?”
“No. Well, he does have an alibi. The dust pattern where the computer connects to the stand is completely intact. That means he hasn’t moved the computer away from the desk in a long time, and definitely didn’t last night.
“Combined with the writing software’s real-time usage records, we can rule him out directly.”
Buzz Cut scratched his head and continued dodging the real point. “Oh. Then should we head downstairs and keep checking? There are still twenty-three households. Looks like overtime again today.”
“Wait. You seriously don’t think there’s something off about him? He’s too pretty to look human, barely socializes, bought a secondhand apartment by himself while still young, sleeps during the day and stays up all night, never leaves home, and reacts strangely when authority figures show up at his door.
“If we find dangerous statements online or unusual browsing history too… his behavioral profile would be textbook.”
The female officer’s serious voice was finally cut off by the elevator.
From the look of things, she was not going to lower her guard around Song Zang anytime soon.
Good. The NPCs at the police station were not brainless antagonists. They reasoned calmly and would not act impulsively just because they felt suspicious.
Song Zang felt somewhat more reassured about Buzz Cut’s working environment.
At the same time, however, Song Zang knew perfectly well that the game was still targeting him. This rookie instance would not only be harder than Journey Through Tianhai, it was very likely to be exceptionally dangerous.
Happiness Community was far too calm and peaceful. That only meant more sharp, towering, terrifying pieces of deadly ice were waiting silently beneath the deep sea, impossible to see clearly.
Yin Chen was not here. If a false-god boss appeared, Song Zang would have to face it alone.
The thought was a little exciting.
Song Zang put on rubber dishwashing gloves and took the cat out of the beanbag chair. It was actually larger than he had expected and looked like an adult Maine Coon.
Drying and weathering had made the remains appear unusually shrunken and small.
He applied a little pressure with his fingers and carefully examined the dried fur around the chest.
As expected, the easily decayed organs had already been removed and the body had undergone crude preservation, so the odor was extremely faint, too subtle for an ordinary person to notice.
Song Zang thoughtfully held the cat toward the floor-to-ceiling window. Facing the cool autumn breeze, he lowered his pale nose close and took a careful sniff…
Song Zang swore he was not a pervert. Really.
But he genuinely caught a faint trace of the familiar smell of ribs.
The potato-braised ribs Auntie Li had brought over, those neat little pieces of tender meat… had all come from the dead cat.
Song Zang trusted his sense of smell. The ingredients Auntie Li had used definitely came from the headless Maine Coon in his hands, including its ribs.
Did she know? The answer was obvious.
She was a housewife who had spent half her life cooking. How could she possibly fail to tell the difference between pork and cat meat?
Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!
Knocking suddenly sounded outside the door.
“Xiao Song, are the police officers still there?”
Auntie Li’s enthusiastic voice sounded exactly the same as before.
Song Zang raised a brow and did not answer.
“I heard those two officers were too busy to eat, so I hurried over with two plates of stir-fried drinking snacks! These fried chicken gizzards smell amazing! Xiao Song, you have to try them too. Hurry and open the door!”
Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!