Clown Game
Chapter 319 - 306: Confusion (8)

Chapter 319: Chapter 306: Confusion (8)

In a pitch-black place, a gaunt man opened his eyes.

But he hadn’t fully awakened yet; his head was still spinning, as if his thoughts had just been thrown into a spin-dryer, swirling so intensely that he couldn’t think straight.

"Ughh..."

He groaned, instinctively trying to speak or shout something to affirm his existence, but he couldn’t control his tongue, and only vague, strange noises came out.

About a minute passed like this... finally, his thoughts began to coalesce once more.

Only then did he discover that he seemed to be lying in a small cave woven from a web-like substance. The cave was small, and he could only curl up inside it, unable to straighten his back.

After a while, he gradually adapted to the light here and seemed to regain control of his body.

So, he struggled to stick his head out of the cave.

Outside was a horizontal tunnel, about the height of a person, with no visible ends on either side. The air was filled with a pollen-like scent.

He slowly crawled out, trying to figure out where he was.

Suddenly, his hand touched something.

He lowered his head, and by the dim light, he saw a package that felt like cloth and appeared to be purple.

With curiosity, he pulled the package closer and then crouched at the mouth of the cave to unwrap it.

He discovered that it wasn’t a package at all, but a suit with its sleeves tied together, housing a knife, a gun, and a cell phone.

He frowned, picked up the knife, glanced at the gun, found them strangely familiar, yet recalled nothing.

In the end, he turned on the cell phone.

A sudden burst of light flared up in the dark tunnel.

The screen was still on the "Notes" app, with plenty of battery left, just no signal.

And there were lots of words written on it.

The first line read, "Don’t make a sound, turn off the phone, go back into the cave, and only after facing away from the entrance, turn it back on, fast!"

He furrowed his brow, utterly confused, but he could sense the urgency of whoever had typed these words through the screen; thus, he quickly snapped the phone shut, crawled back into the cave, and used his back to block the entrance, making sure the screen’s light couldn’t be seen from outside before turning the phone back on.

The second message... "Your name is Chen Xiao, you have escaped their control, do not let them capture you again."

"They?" the man known as Chen Xiao frowned, "Who are they?"

He still couldn’t remember, so he continued reading.

——————————————

"Recite ’Bai Xiong, Song Xuan’ to yourself, if you are controlled by them again, you must commit suicide or kill both of them."

"No matter what happens, don’t make a sound, don’t wander around aimlessly, your memory will return shortly, keep reading, finish this, and don’t get caught."

"They are ants."

"The sixth time escaping their control, do not shoot the ants; conserve your ammo, Bai Xiong is in the third cave on the right."

"The ants won’t kill you, but they will lock you up and control your thoughts again."

"Bai Xiong is strong, very tall, go find him. Or look for Song Xuan; she’s in the ninth cave on the left, a woman!"

"When you get caught, quickly think ’this world is fake,’ and remember this phrase."

"Song Xuan and Bai Xiong can help you escape, don’t try on your own,"

"As long as you stay in the cave, or follow others, the ants won’t discover that you’ve woken up."

"Delete useless text to save reading time."

...

——————————————

At this point, the text abruptly ends. Considering the tone before and after, it felt like the words had been recorded in bits and pieces over time.

Who wrote this? Was it myself?

Does it mean that I’ve woken up like this many times already?

"Ugh!!"

Suddenly, Chen Xiao experienced a severe pain in his head. He quickly covered his mouth to prevent making too much noise, thankfully, the pain passed quickly.

And it seemed Chen Xiao also remembered something.

...

...

...

Let’s go back 25 days.

In a café on Shell Street,

Chen Xiao was discussing with Bai Xiong the matter of seeking help from the "Splitters."

At that time, Song Xuan pushed open the door of the café. Thus, the two ended their conversation and started discussing the first B-level task with Song Xuan.

Honestly, with Bai Xiong’s ability at the moment, he was more than capable of handling most B-level tasks. And Song Xuan, being a "Supervisory Team member," although not usually involved in containment tasks, could rely on her combat experience and wasn’t inferior to Bai Xiong, even surpassing him by a margin.

So, these two didn’t need to discuss which tasks to take. They could choose any and just get it done.

But then, there was Chen Xiao in the team.

Well, of course, I’m not saying that Chen Xiao isn’t impressive; it’s just that his strength doesn’t lie in traditional combat prowess. It is a kind of... um... a category that’s hard to describe.

This guy is just... how should I put it? If one day he goes off the rails, in a whimsical turn, he could potentially mess up the entire world. But if a few thugs were to ambush him on his way home, he might be taken down by a sneak attack with a blunt object.

He’s just that sort of exasperating presence.

So Song Xuan and Bai Xiong decided to first select a relatively safe task to get through the promotion bottleneck period and once they truly reached B-level, they would arm themselves with the points earned from "Dark Realm" missions. That was the safest plan.

This was when Bai Xiong’s high-level privileges, like some kind of cheat code, came in handy. He directly overrode restrictions with his phone to access various B-level tasks and eventually found one that seemed safe... although during this, Chen Xiao kept emphasizing that tasks without danger paid too little. But the other two understood that he was just trying to stir up trouble out of boredom, thinking such tasks weren’t exciting.

Hence, after a whack on the back of the head from Bai Xiong, the three cheerfully accepted a B-level anomaly that had recently been discovered.

This anomaly was first detected six months ago, located on the edge of a jungle in the ███ region.

At that time, high-resolution satellite imagery revealed several dispersed villages in the area with few inhabitants.

Since the detection of the anomaly, no man-made or natural disasters occurred within its range. There was no significant damage or mutations observed in the plants, and villagers would occasionally appear under satellite surveillance, all displaying normal human features and showing no notable differences in behavior or appearance compared to before.

Therefore, this anomaly was temporarily deemed as non-dangerous. This also led to it being left unchecked, as no team specifically went to investigate, mainly because the initial rewards were too low.

Of course, this didn’t mean that the playful trio would carelessly assume there was no danger with the anomaly. It’s just that, compared to those already showing their claws with killing sprees and destroying cities, this one seemed relatively more suitable.