Night had fallen deeply, yet Mu Shan didn’t dare turn off the lights to sleep. Lying on the bed, she looked at the cold, pale glow emanating from the overhead lamp.
Compared to other dungeons, the first day of the Skyscraper’s main quest could be called extremely peaceful, with no physical labor or massive death matches.
But even though her body was fine, her mind was utterly exhausted.
During non-supply times, the elevator had stopped on the 24th Floor three times in a single day. The high-intensity tension had worn down every surviving player in the building.
Mu Shan had given the zombie worker outside the door an order to alert her at any time.
There was clearly no danger, yet the zombie kept making “hurr hurr” and “heh heh haha” noises. Amid these strange sounds, she gradually drifted into a light sleep with her eyes closed.
Main Quest (Day 2)
Mu Shan used an electric card to fully recharge the Safe House’s power.
Today’s Card Album yielded three new cards.
【Item Card: One Toy Basketball, One Toy Balloon】
【Environment Card: Sunny Window View 10 Minutes】
The sunny day card had a pretty good effect, but the two item cards were still puzzling gimmicks. Mu Shan shook her head in resignation. It seemed the system was dead set on not giving her any cards related to 【floors】 or 【elevators】.
She had planned to have the leftover watery oatmeal porridge from last night for breakfast, but as soon as she lifted the lid, Mu Shan smelled a sour, spoiled stench.
In just one night, the surface of the porridge had grown patches of black mold.
The room temperature in the Safe House was under 23 degrees. It was just that she hadn’t put it in the fridge in time. Logically, at this temperature, it shouldn’t have spoiled so quickly.
Mu Shan disposed of the spoiled porridge and scrubbed the pot clean. While rinsing it, she had a vague suspicion: Perhaps there was a setting in the building that accelerated food spoilage…
She quickly dried her hands and opened the system mall.
The mall had completely banned trading of electric cards, gas cards, and water cards, but food, water sources, and daily necessities could still be purchased without quantity limits.
[Pure Cotton Sanitary Pads Day Use x1 Pack: 50 Gold Coins]
[Spicy Beef Instant Noodles x1 Bowl: 40 Gold Coins]
[Pure Water x1 Bottle: 10 Gold Coins]
But the prices were outrageously high, with inflation changing according to the dungeon’s settings.
From what she could see so far, there was no way to earn gold coins in the building. The system was forcing players to deplete their stockpiles or fight each other for them.
Mu Shan had no appetite for cooking. She mixed a cup of milk powder and munched on a few biscuits to fill her stomach. She cleaned up the trash and tossed it over the courtyard wall. A moment later, the flower gardener in the opposite room finally opened his door and dragged himself out slowly.
His clothes were still as sloppy and greasy as before, but he clearly looked much more spirited, with color returning to his face.
Lin Kuan grinned and waved at her. “Miss, good morning!”
Mu Shan nodded to him. Seeing him lay out yesterday’s grimy plastic sheet meticulously at the elevator entrance, he looked just like a diligent worker bee.
“Doesn’t the building have ghosts? Can you sleep?”
The man gave an awkward smile. “I was low on power, so I had to turn off the lights. Staying in the Safe House means you won’t run into the nasty ones. The light-fearing things only pull pranks.”
Lin Kuan tugged at his hair. “Like yanking players’ hair, slapping faces, poking hearts, twisting faucets, that sort of thing. I’m used to it.”
Mu Shan: …What a tough guy.
She reappraised the seemingly pathetic, ordinary man before her, her expression complicated.
In a certain sense, Lin Kuan’s tolerance was far greater than hers.
The two chatted for a bit more.
Soon, the familiar bell tolling echoed from downstairs again. Lin Kuan immediately adjusted his posture, kneeling at the elevator door and rubbing his hands anxiously.
As the “clang clang clang” grew louder floor by floor, Mu Shan watched the player who maintained his kneeling pose the whole time and suddenly felt it was utterly ridiculous.
—The way the building delivered food felt just like feeding pigs.
After the elevator reached the 20th floor, the noises became clearer. Mu Shan pressed her ear to the elevator door and listened carefully.
Lin Kuan watched her cautiously and saw her expression change. “Did something happen downstairs?”
“Shh—”
Unlike yesterday, the sounds from below weren’t just pure scrambling for supplies. Starting from the 20th floor, arguments and fights grew increasingly obvious.
“Bang bang” noises rose from the 23rd Floor. Mu Shan jerked back, raising her laser sword horizontally in front of her. She lowered her voice. “Be careful.”
Lin Kuan hadn’t reacted yet, but there was no time to think. The supply elevator reached the 24th Floor. As blinding light spilled from the elevator seams, he instinctively leaned forward and reached out.
But just as he touched a vegetable leaf, a foot kicked him viciously in the back, sending Lin Kuan sprawling face-up on the ground.
Mu Shan looked up at the burly bald man standing in the center of the elevator shelf’s open space. He spat viciously on the ground. “Did I, your father, let you touch it?! Get lost!”
The kicked Lin Kuan was both shocked and terrified, yet he didn’t dare rush into the elevator. “Y-y-you…”
The bald man was probably in his thirties, with a buzz cut. He wore a black tank top that exposed his muscular arms and shoulders, tattooed with a massive dragon-tiger brawl design. He looked extremely intimidating.
【Ordinary Player 612071
ID: Sun Jun
Profession: Walking Dead】
The supply elevator door stayed open for only a brief three seconds. The bald man saw the wary, hateful glares from Mu Shan and Lin Kuan, sneered contemptuously, bared his teeth, and leisurely rode the elevator upward.
Once the elevator doors fully closed and the light vanished, Lin Kuan sat on the ground and burst into tears with a “wah.”
He pounded the floor hard, breaking down. “How could this happen! Why was someone inside? What am I supposed to do!”
Mu Shan ignored him. She leaned against the door, listening carefully to the noises upstairs.
The same thing happened on the 25th floor, but the players there weren’t the type to swallow their anger. The bald man got into a quick fight with them, ending with a muffled grunt from one side.
Then the 26th floor: arguments.
27th floor: insults and brawling.
28th floor: silence.
Only when the sounds faded completely did Mu Shan look down at the emotionally collapsed flower gardener on the ground. “This guy went down early this morning and waited on a certain floor. After the 9 a.m. supply elevator started running, he rode it up floor by floor, grabbing the most supplies. From the current intel, his Safe House is on or above the 28th floor, but I doubt it’s too high. He seems average in strength. If he runs into a real powerhouse, he’s done for.”
Mu Shan guessed the bald man’s floor was between the 28th and 30th. The 28th floor was silent, so it could be vacant or his actual floor.
But that wasn’t the point.
The point was which floor he had hidden on during his descent—that floor had to be safe.
Lin Kuan looked dazed, his face ugly and pitiful. “Then… will we starve to death?”
Mu Shan glanced at the time. “If the bald guy keeps this up tomorrow, we’ll have two choices.”
“What?”
“1. Ride the elevator up. 2. Ride the elevator down.”
Lin Kuan: ……
“The system is forcing players out of their Safe Houses. Since there are vacant floors in the building, there must be hidden supplies and plotlines. These elevator scraps won’t sustain everyone.”
Mu Shan sheathed her laser sword at her waist. “What’s your take?”
Lin Kuan climbed to his feet, hesitated for a long time, then gritted his teeth. “I’ll pass. I’m too weak; I’d just drag you down, miss. I’ll wait and see… He might not be here tomorrow. I can hold out for now.”
“Got it.”
The flower gardener bowed to her, rolled up the plastic sheet from the ground, and slowly returned to his own Safe House.
Mu Shan watched his back. She had already given him the choice.
About half an hour later, the supply elevator reached the top floor, then plummeted back down to the first floor at high speed.
Mu Shan equipped everything she could carry, then pressed the “△” button by the door.
No one called the elevator at this hour. With a crisp “ding,” the elevator car soon stopped at the 24th floor.
But Mu Shan didn’t move, because the interior wasn’t empty—it held a flyer.
It was garish and colorful, just like the roadside ads you used to see everywhere.
After three seconds with no sign of the doors closing, she stepped in, picked up the single-sheet flyer, and retreated.
The flyer was ordinary paper, drawn in crude, kindergarten-child scribbles: a gray skyscraper, with an explosion-like pattern in front and cartoonish text reading: [Skyscraper 18th Floor Hot Recruitment!]
Gray building, black ground, blood-red sky, yellow font.
The entire flyer oozed oppression and distortion.
The instant Mu Shan picked up the flyer, a system prompt popped up before her eyes.
【Ordinary Player 537099, you have triggered the [Skyscraper] side quest.
Quest 1: Recruit for the 18th Floor (0/10)
“Our building has no ghosts, no ghosts!”
Quest success: Receive rewards. Quest failure: Deduct 1000 gold coins.】
Mu Shan studied the flyer carefully again. There was no other text on either side. Recruiting for the 18th floor—the key was where the 18th floor was, what made it special, and what kind of recruitment method it entailed.
Though the gold coin penalty for failure was within Mu Shan’s tolerance, she wouldn’t give up easily.
Moreover, she didn’t yet know the sources of gold coins in the dungeon. If things got truly desperate, every coin would have to be split in half to spend.