Chapter 3: A Clumsy Prank

Chapter 3: A Clumsy Prank

Pei Ye looked at the prompt that had appeared and fell into a long silence.

[O(￣︶￣)O]

[Continue] [Leave]

Through that smug emoticon, Pei Ye could practically imagine her friend’s half-smiling, thoroughly confident expression.

Though that bastard was a huge scammer, it had indeed seized hold of Pei Ye’s lifeline, forcing her to continue this game.

Pei Ye, once the person who commanded the Federation’s strongest frontline combat legion.

Three years ago, she retired.

When the announcement was made, both allies and enemies were shocked.

No one knew why she had left while still at the peak of her career. Uninformed netizens angrily denounced her as a coward, while her enemies were so delighted they could laugh themselves awake from dreams.

Faced with all the outside speculation, whether well-intentioned or malicious, Pei Ye never stepped forward to explain. The Federal Military Department likewise maintained a tacit silence.

It was not because they didn’t want to clear her name, but because, after considering many factors, Pei Ye had personally requested that the real reason not be disclosed to the public.

She had been struck by a terrible illness in the prime of her life.

Her spiritual domain had inexplicably collapsed. To this day, the cause remained unknown, and no method had been found to treat or even suppress the condition.

When Pei Ye learned that treatment was ineffective, she decided to retire and handed the Seventh Legion over to a reliable junior surnamed Jiang.

And now, her friend was using this game to tell her that there was a clue related to her terminal illness.

Pei Ye nearly glared holes through those few words.

“If you’re lying to me, I’m really going to tear apart your headquarters!”

Pei Ye decisively pressed [Continue].

[Welcome, player, to continue the game O(￣︶￣)O. This game will not disappoint your expectations.]

[Please work together closely with your child and complete this mission.]

[Would the player like to receive the mission storyline?]

[Yes yes yes, anyone who refuses isn’t human]

[I am the King of Show-Offs, no cheats required]

“Work together? What can a paper character possibly do for me?”

[Player, your child can help by shouting 666 for you (^▽^)]

Pei Ye: “...”

When other people acted mischievously, it was cute. When this thing acted mischievously, it was disgusting!

The moment she thought about how her friend had written all the game’s text and planning, Pei Ye felt physically uncomfortable.

“Receive storyline!”

The instant the words left her mouth, a huge stream of images flashed rapidly through her mind.

This world was a novel, and it had quite a long title:

The Stunning Good-for-Nothing Celestial Master Has a Red Packet Group.

The heroine who possessed the Red Packet Group was called Lei Yating. Not only did she possess the cheat-like Red Packet Group, she was also a genuine “reborn person.”

Why put quotation marks around “reborn person”?

Because the rebirth was only what Lei Yating believed it to be. In reality, it was an enormous conspiracy and trap.

The exact nature of the conspiracy was not explained. Only vague clues and hints were provided.

Setting the conspiracy aside, the story itself followed a fairly standard rebirth-and-revenge formula.

In her previous life, the nearsighted saintly heroine Lei Yating had been bullied to death by a scumbag man and a scumbag woman. The other woman interfered in her marriage, and Lei Yating herself was murdered by the scumbag and his mother. Filled with rage, Lei Yating was reborn and accidentally joined a chuunibyou chat group called Heavenly Court Immortals Group. From that point onward, she soared to the pinnacle of life.

Cultivation, alchemy, subduing demons and catching ghosts, singing, dancing, acting her way to becoming a movie queen, writing novels and songs, dominating esports, winning Olympic championships in sprints, long-distance races, and hurdles, and even promoting dubious unbranded online-sales products across the entire world...

In short, the farther her ambitions stretched and the greater her dreams became, the more overpowered her cheat abilities were.

The identity Pei Ye currently possessed was naturally not Lei Yating.

Her current name was Xiao Hong, an orphan from a remote mountain village with no parents.

Although she had only been admitted to a vocational college through the university entrance examination, the villagers still considered her a university student and pooled together money for her tuition.

Coming from a remote mountain village, Xiao Hong was immediately dazzled by the prosperity of the big city.

In order to integrate into the so-called big city as quickly as possible and wash away her rustic image, she imitated the delinquent girls around the college, smoking, drinking, getting tattoos, and fighting...

Last night had been one of her “sisters’” birthdays, and Xiao Hong had accompanied them to a bar to celebrate. Little did she know that this so-called sister had ulterior motives and secretly sold Xiao Hong at a low price to a wealthy second-generation heir.

Xiao Hong refused. She struggled free and jumped from the second floor. Her head struck the ground, and she died on the spot.

Fearing a murder charge, the wealthy heir abandoned her in a remote alley with no surveillance cameras. In the end, a kind-hearted passerby sent her to the hospital.

Xiao Hong and Lei Yating were roommates.

According to the clues, the dungeon mission was related to Lei Yating. As long as she followed Lei Yating’s actions, she could easily complete all six investigation missions.

“As expected, beginner-level difficulty.”

The mission only required investigating several mysteries rather than preventing Lei Yating from being deceived or defeating the mastermind behind everything, and it instantly became dull.

She turned on the tap and planned to wash her face.

The eye discharge at the corners of her eyes was really uncomfortable!

Clean tap water flowed from the faucet. Just as she was about to cup some water and splash it onto her face, the water in the sink changed.

“What is that smell?”

The bathroom had originally only smelled somewhat unpleasant, but now it carried the stench of a rotting corpse.

Her expression remained calm as she looked at the hand she had been using to scoop water. The water flowing from the faucet was no longer clear and transparent. Instead, it turned yellow, like rusty wastewater that came out after a faucet had not been used for an entire day.

Yet even as the faucet continued pouring, the water did not become clear again. The putrid smell entering her nose only grew stronger.

In less than three seconds, the flowing tap water transformed into thick, foul-smelling yellow pus.

Thanks to her ridiculously powerful eyesight, Pei Ye even spotted maggots mixed in with the pus. Their pale yellow-white bodies twisted left and right.

The yellow pus filled the sink at an unscientific speed, and the maggots wriggled even more cheerfully.

Plop

A huge blood clot the size of a baby’s fist squeezed out of the faucet and splashed into the yellow pus, sending up a flower-like spray.

The smell reaching her nose was no longer merely the stench of decay.

If Pei Ye had to describe it, it was more like socks that had been left to rot for two years, then soaked in a pile of stinky tofu for another two years before being sprinkled with corpse fluid from rotten meat...

Pei Ye’s face darkened.

For someone with a sensitive sense of smell, this was simply a disaster!!!

At that moment, another hand entered her field of vision, a pale right hand so thin that it was little more than skin stretched over bone. Its fingernails were stained with an ominous purplish-black color.

Pei Ye followed that hand upward and happened to meet the gaze of a woman slowly crawling out of the mirror.

After one look, she confirmed that this was not someone who matched her aesthetic standards.

“A prank?”

Pei Ye raised an eyebrow and asked.

The woman responded only with a ferocious grin. Her mouth split open, revealing a tongue-less oral cavity from which ugly black pus and blood flowed. The flesh around her eye sockets writhed, leaving them hollow and empty, while protein-rich maggots happily twisted within them. Despite lacking eyes, she stared directly at Pei Ye.

Her long, disheveled hair seemed to come alive like black snakes, baring fangs and claws as it tried to climb onto Pei Ye’s arm...

Slowly, slowly, she crawled out of the mirror.

The woman’s nails scraped ten long black lines across the marble countertop of the washbasin.

She let out a sinister cackling laugh, and the yin energy surrounding her surged wildly.

Pei Ye lowered her eyelids and coldly glanced at the woman’s hand.

Those fingernails were a full ten centimetres long, approximately four inches. Their tips tapered into unhealthy cone-like points. If she were caught by them, one swipe would definitely leave five holes.

Just as the woman’s ten fingers were about to seize Pei Ye’s throat, Pei Ye made her move.

Her action was extremely simple.

Right in front of the woman, she grabbed the top of her head and viciously forced it downward, shoving the woman’s face into the sink full of yellow pus.

The woman released a sharp, shrill ghostly scream, similar to the sound of fingernails scraping across a blackboard, making one’s scalp feel as though it were about to explode.

Pei Ye’s expression became even colder.

Like carrying a chicken, she grabbed the woman by the hair, lifted her out of the sink, threw her into the toilet, and flushed.