Guidelines for Role-Playing Rule-Based Strange Stories [Unlimited]

[The exploration of Haining Cat Island is complete. Check out my upcoming story: Those Who Leave Me]

[The cover is a special birthday illustration for Metal. See @Yuedu Hantang Bu Han Tang for the previous 16 covers.]

Bai Jinshu, a man consumed by obsession and incapable of feeling emotions, joined a strange foundation.

The foundation catalogued countless unknown spaces with bizarre rules. Their job was to enter these spaces and figure out the rules.

The foundation was full of talented people, and the unknown spaces were eerie and terrifying. But even stranger than his colleagues, and more bizarre than the rules, was the newly hired drama queen Bai Jinshu and the roles he played…

·

Recently, some explorers of mysterious identities began appearing in the foundation’s exploration livestreams

[A top-school graduate earning a million a year, a winner at life, and an uncanny young man hiding behind a smooth, lucky life.]

[A battle mage who swings his staff like a club in a crisis, whose “magic” is really just “physical attacks.”]

[A bold, nonmaterial inheritor of underground crafts who knows everything from astronomy to geography and dares to loot any boss.]

[A rich young master who throws money at every problem, hires a team of mercenaries, and overwhelms everything with heavy firepower.]

[A necromancer who is little more than a skeleton, with death always at his side, immortal and trapped in eternal reincarnation.]

[A supreme machine intelligence who believes flesh is weak and ascends through technology, abandoning the human body for the flood of data.]

[A legendary investigator, protected by divine favor, with exceptionally high sanity, who can come and go freely in an indescribable world.]

[A false god whose words become law, who crushes all opposition from a higher dimension and leaves only wails and corpses in his wake.]

Amid countless paranormal worlds, unknown spaces featuring these formidable newcomers stood out, quickly attracting the attention of every investor.

Investors: The foundation can actually recruit employees this awesome? I’m investing!

*

Just before the annual performance review, the top-ranked explorers were about to face their final battle. The person who took first place would have one wish granted unconditionally by the foundation.

Rumor had it that the several god-tier powerhouses who had recently appeared were all after this spot, but only one could emerge victorious.

Investors eagerly anticipated this battle to crown the strongest employee, placing their bets and shouting, “Fight! I want to see who wins!”

To which

Bai Jinshu: Wait… there’s a serious problem with this final battle.

#Why am I all over the top of the rankings? #

#Forget you guys, I don’t even know who’s going to win#

#Don’t panic. Maybe I can still keep a low profile… yeah, right. Help me, help me, help me#

Updates every other day when I can’t manage daily updates.

A brilliant, secret-identity-addled mess with questionable sanity (bottom) × a pure-hearted evil god, a heaven-sent tool who’s a lovesick fool online (top)

[Rights enforcement has been entrusted to a professional agency. Don’t pirate this work and risk the unpleasantness of legal action.]

Tips:

1. An epic multiple-personality situation. Combat strength and morality fluctuate depending on the identity card. The love interest is very much a background character, truly in the background.

2. The identity cards in the blurb aren’t all of them. The protagonist is an award-winning actor who doesn’t reveal his secret identities to others. The arcs are being written in the order of the outlines I’ve already planned. Some identities appear in a second run.

3. Rule-based horror survival story with secret identities. It focuses on strange rules, exploration, and solving mysteries. There isn’t much horror, but there are plenty of bizarre instances with unusual core mechanics.

4. Mystery-solving survival stories are a special genre. Some mysteries only become clear at the very end, so those rereading, please don’t spoil the specific rules in the early chapters. I’ll delete comments that spoil the mystery before the clues have been laid out, as they seriously affect the experience for first-time readers. If other comments get mistakenly deleted by moderation or an admin, you can appeal through the site.

5. The first comment to figure out the core mechanic before the reveal will get a big cash prize. Other correct theories will be pinned after the mystery is solved. If you don’t want spoilers on your first read, don’t open the pinned comments!

[The blurb was screenshotted on August 27.]

A recommendation for my dear wife’s new serial: an infinite-world story with a golden finger backed by the national team. Check it out if you’re interested: Infinite Worlds, Backed by the Nation. “Dad Nation, I’m bad at this, come save me.” By Lion Star System

★, ★, Up next: Xiao Chu’s solo story, ★, ★

Those Who Leave Me

A classified file is sealed away in the Chengchao City Archives.

Seven years ago, during Chengchao No. 1 High School’s graduation ceremony, a cult that had been plotting for a long time summoned the Serpent King in front of everyone. All 3,753 students and staff at the school died.

When members of the special investigation team arrived, a boy with slit pupils crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, in full view of everyone.

He slithered over the bodies of his companions like a snake, boneless and covered in blood.

When he looked up at the team member at the front, his not-yet-mature face looked almost inhuman in the dim light, like a beautiful serpent that took human lives.

No one who was there ever forgot that face.

*

Seven years later, a pair of long-fingered hands pulled the file from a bookshelf.

“She Mo Chu.” The owner of the hands placed it in front of the archivist, eyes lowered and voice languid. “I graduated from the Miskatonic University graduate program in esoteric studies.”

He said, “I’m here to retrieve my file.”

Then he would go find the people who had caused this bloodbath.

You actually scrolled all the way down to read this, you rascal (///w///)

Then… then I’ll give you a little kiss!

Theme: Love what you do, whatever you do