Player Reload
Chapter 477 - 442: Director_2

Chapter 477: Chapter 442: Director_2

"Red Star Orphanage."

Li Cheng was still thinking about the clue Mikazuki had mentioned and, following the Yin City phone map, found the orphanage.

Contrary to the imagined old and harsh facilities, the Red Star Orphanage’s buildings were quite new and complete.

The children playing and running on the playground also had sunny smiles on their faces. "Cai Anjie, slow down a bit!"

"Hah~ Catch me if you can, dummy."

Li Cheng found a deserted public restroom nearby, took out a full set of disguise tools, and transformed into a middle-aged man in a suit, looking every bit the successful person.

And let Gray Rain mimic the form of a rich lady.

Having encountered a task failure for the first time, Li Cheng was eager to know the reason behind it, with the key node being this orphanage.

Apart from using the temporary skill [Extracting Brain Entropy] to forcibly read memories, the best way to gather information was naturally to disguise themselves as a couple wishing to adopt children from the orphanage and investigate on-site.

"A beautiful rich lady, huh?"

Rare for getting a task in the real world, Gray Rain was extremely excited, kneading the liquid metal face, adjusting the features, "How about this?"

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched, the face Gray Rain morphed into was... Sophie Marceau, "No, no foreigners."

"How about this one?" Gray Rain kneaded the face again, switching to... Yui Aragaki.

Li Cheng’s eyelid twitched again, "Isn’t Yui Aragaki still a foreigner?"

"Isn’t she from Ryukyu? Historically, Ryukyu belonged to China."

The mentally self-claimed Chinese patriot Gray Rain muttered and rebutted, still obediently kneading the face and switching face after face.

Even Jia Jingwen, Chiu Shuzhen, Tong Liya... Even a certain unnamed professional Go second-dan female player appeared.

"Are you cosplaying the Tiger Po Goddesses here? The staff at the orphanage aren’t fools."

Li Cheng rolled his eyes heavily and flicked Gray Rain’s forehead lightly, "Any face will do."

"Oh."

Gray Rain kneaded the face, honestly transforming into a rich madam, holding Li Cheng’s arm as they left the public restroom and walked into the Red Star Orphanage.

They adopted the identities of a successful couple with physical issues preventing childbirth,

and met the head of the orphanage in the office, a compassionate old man in his seventies or eighties with a hint of Wenzhou accent.

"Welcome to our facility. First of all, thank you very much for your interest in adoption—choosing to adopt means being willing to rebuild a family with love for a child, which is an incredible decision..."

While the headmaster was still eloquently speaking, Gray Rain raised her hand, "Give us five first!"

You’re buying buns now, asking for five at once.

From an unseen corner, Li Cheng nudged Gray Rain with his elbow, coughing lightly and saying, "My wife meant that we both have physical issues and, given our favorable financial situation, we’re considering adopting two children at once, so they can have a companion."

"I see..."

Adopting two at once is quite rare; the headmaster hesitated for a moment but continued introducing.

While his attention was diverted, Li Cheng stealthily connected a data cable to the computer host in the office and quickly read the orphanage’s records.

Searching for personnel records from the past decades of the orphanage, including adopted, unadopted, deceased, and children who have entered society.

Couldn’t find...

Li Cheng frowned unconsciously; in all the data, there was no orphan matching the so-called "Cha Yuji" corpse from the secret realm.

Even though Li Cheng used human anatomy to reverse-calculate what "Cha Yuji" might’ve looked like as a child, there were no matches.

After a moment of contemplation, he came up with a random excuse, dragged away the excited Gray Rain who wanted to adopt a dozen twins just to play matching games, bid farewell to the headmaster, and left the orphanage.

"... So, no clue about ’Cha Yuji’?"

Back home, Gray Rain scratched her head in confusion, "Why not just use [Extracting Brain Entropy] on the headmaster directly?"

"Possible but unnecessary,"

Li Cheng shook his head, considering the headmaster seemed to be a good person, and the [Extracting Brain Entropy] skill only reads the most recent and vivid memories, not being able to conduct a targeted search.

"If my guess is right, the Inverted Pyramid Secret Realm might be something similar to Yuan Zhixia’s cousin, Yuan Donglian’s situation."

Li Cheng paused and said, "Yuan Donglian disappeared from the real world three and a half years ago, plunged into the killing field entity, and arrived in a place called the [Room of Ten Thousand Eyes] a sealed hidden room.

She couldn’t get out of the hidden room; later found a way to contact the Special Affairs Bureau, eventually being incorporated by them,

using the [Room of Ten Thousand Eyes] to act as a killing field liaison officer for the Special Affairs Bureau."

"Hmm..."

Gray Rain gradually understood, "You mean this Cha Yuji, like Yuan Donglian, accidentally fell into a killing field entity and entered some hidden room? Why doesn’t it contact us then?"

"It probably isn’t human anymore."

Li Cheng said, "Remember those clues in the secret realm?

A biochemical laboratory with a ouroboros symbol, children’s graffiti in the basement, an English courthouse appearing in the commercial pedestrian street...

These clues likely correspond to Meat Mountain L, Gray Green Giant A, Black-clothed Woman H, Suits Baby E,

they were all living people in the real world and, like [Cha Yuji], fell into the secret room and became anomalous existences.

Maybe even [Cha Yuji] is the most special one—do you remember what Black-clothed Woman H said before? That after overcoming the last challenge, the person in the hood, F, the secret realm’s final level can be reached.

[Cha Yuji] might be the end-level boss after all.

As for why there are no clues about it in the real world, there’s also an explanation—some facilities in the killing field resemble the Power of Laws, like infinite energy, time reversal, causality manipulation,

maybe after entering the hidden room, all its traces in the real world got erased. Can’t be found anymore."

Upon saying this, Li Cheng logged onto the players’ forum, found a hacker in the black market interface for a private chat, and sent over the image of the black-clothed woman.

This hacker, likely an out-of-frame member of the Whale Song Guild, searched through citizen databases in major countries worldwide and still couldn’t find anyone perfectly matching the black-clothed woman’s appearance.

"...Tch."

Gray Rain clicked her tongue, "The clue breaks here, it’s really... frustrating."

She had followed along with Li Cheng adventuring north and south, teleporting from the Otherworld high tower back to Earth, and even indirectly saving an Lv40 peak powerhouse,

In a way, deeply changing the world’s structure, considered a hero in the Magic Pet World (?)

In the end, the secret realm exploration hit a wall, all clues broke, she didn’t even get to see the hidden room, nor knew its specific function.

"Things seldom go as one wishes in life; it’s good we survived. The White Horse Tombstone, Blood Lion Roar, Binary Tree, which of them weren’t outstanding prospects, yet all ended up failing and fading into obscurity."

Li Cheng shook his head and said, "Better cherish what’s in front..."

For some reason, his speech rate suddenly slowed, his face became extremely ugly.

"What’s wrong?" Gray Rain hurriedly asked.

"Mikazuki’s prophecy mentioned that F’s strength is infinite fear."

Li Cheng took a deep breath, looked at his own palm, "What I fear is precisely losing this hard-earned peaceful life.

I am afraid of losing control over my destiny. Afraid of not being able to bring you out alive.

Damn it! We are still in the secret realm!"

The next moment, the living room wall collapsed, the chandelier fell, the floor shattered, the surroundings abruptly changed, and Li Cheng with Gray Rain returned to the Inverted Pyramid Secret Realm.

That hooded figure, F, was slowly waving their index finger, pointing at Li Cheng’s hollow eye sockets.

Time seemed to slow by countless times, self-dug-eyed Zhangsun Yao, Binary Tree were still screaming miserably,

while on Li Cheng’s waist, the epic-quality [Vast Sea Soul-locking Bell] was desperately shaking automatically—this item’s special effect protects souls, increasing the user’s sanity value limit by two hundred points, greatly enhancing resistance to all types of illusions,

it’s precisely because of this item that Li Cheng wasn’t instantly controlled and brainwashed by the hooded figure, unlike Zhangsun Yao and Binary Tree.