A workstation was filled with various merchandise, blind boxes, and mini cards, resembling an exhibition of all the merchandise related to Fish Soup Noodles’ novels. It often made people wonder if the owner had spent their entire salary on these items.
“Hey hey hey, everyone, work hard these days! Teacher Fish Soup Noodles is planning to visit us soon!”
The moment the elf named Lina finished speaking, the atmosphere in the office changed dramatically.
“I knew it! The probability of meeting Teacher Fish Soup Noodles in person would significantly increase after joining Taoyuan!”
“I have to ask about Si Yao and this world. The suspense is killing me!”
While cheering, everyone naturally began discussing Fish Soup Noodles’ latest serialized novel.
“Yin, your artwork is amazing! Teacher Fish Soup Noodles even said your style is spot on!”
Lina patted the young illustrator with long braided hair. No one had expected that someone who looked so young would have such hidden talents.
Although Yin couldn’t use an intelligent drawing board, the black-and-white illustrations drawn with just a black pen had a unique style that left a deep impression at first glance.
Moreover, Yin was extremely familiar with Fish Soup Noodles’ books. After repeatedly confirming that Yin was indeed an adult, Lina decisively hired this mysterious applicant.
‘Since giving seashells didn’t work, perhaps working here would increase the chances of success.’
This was Yin’s thought process.
As for the unexpected salary and bonus, Yin planned to head straight to the Food Research Institute’s physical store after work to buy a whole box of his favorite sea urchins, and then hit the merchandise counter to haul back three boxes of blind boxes.
He was determined to get that limited-edition hidden item!
Sure enough, the joys of life on land were incomparable to those underwater. Ever since discovering the thrill of blind boxes, Yin had been completely unable to turn back.
However, Yin’s speed and quantity of purchasing blind boxes and mini cards were so fast and large, almost all piled up in the office. This made Lina and the others couldn’t help but worry as they watched the young illustrator step into what looked like a financial black hole.
Could it be that this person was living paycheck to paycheck every month?
It was practically an automatic salary recycling plan: earning money by illustrating for Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ new book, then immediately spending it on blind boxes, mini cards and other merchandise for Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ books.
“Yin, don’t you save some money each month? Like, maybe consider buying a house?”
“Not considering it.”
Why give up the joy of buying blind boxes when living underwater was always an option?
Worst case scenario, he could always sneak into an aquarium, get a meal, and slip away afterward.
Yin’s instinctive reply to Lina and the others’ well-meaning advice made them feel like they were dealing with a rebellious teenager.
Everyone was shocked and couldn’t quite understand, but there seemed to be no way to stop it.
Was Teacher Fish Soup Noodles’ influence really this terrifying?
Meanwhile, during this period of serialization, the plot of “I Picked Up a Traveling Light Brain” gradually unfolded. As predicted by the Huanyu editorial department, apart from slight fluctuations at the beginning, the book’s click-through rate remained very stable.
After all, the new subject matter was simply too unique, there wasn’t a second book like it across the entire star network.
The mysterious players who appeared in the plot were indeed not simple. They had all been captured and gathered here by the strange light brain.
They came from various worlds and dimensions, each receiving vastly different initial identities upon entering the “Nest”.
But they all shared the same goal: to uncover the true secret of the “Nest” under its spatial death rules and eventually escape from it.
Unsurprisingly, the first two intruders died on the spot. Their bodies were immediately locked onto by red lasers and pierced. As a result, Si Yao also faced interrogation.
However, when Si Yao was taken away and looked back, he noticed that Experiment Subject 114 in the incubation pod had once again closed his eyes, as if the scene he had witnessed earlier had been nothing but an illusion.
Even the surveillance footage showed nothing.
Had Subject 114 and the other backup experimental subjects truly awakened, or had it all been his imagination?
Moreover, this sudden interrogation significantly increased the risk of exposing Si Yao’s unauthorized chip modifications. Countless interstellar readers watched with bated breath as Si Yao narrowly escaped a second inspection and was ultimately deemed innocent.
Returning to the assistant researcher’s dormitory, Si Yao wasn’t surprised to find that his room had been thoroughly searched.
Strangely, though, the moment he opened his wardrobe, the darkened light brain had not only remained undiscovered, it had also powered on automatically.
On its screen, the neon green number “98” glowed glaringly.
With an omniscient perspective, readers outside the book quickly connected the dots. The number, which was originally “100”, had dropped to “98”, obviously correlating with the two players who had died as soon as they appeared.
Could it be that this light brain has such a bad taste that it could report the number of survivors in real time?
And if those two had disguised themselves as scientists, where were the remaining 98 players?
Would the number eventually drop to zero?
Fueled by tense and thrilling questions, readers kept following the updates. Soon, the number “98” fluctuated wildly once again, while Si Yao continued to record the major events of the Nest in his diary.
[[When Si Yao witnessed yet another player being executed by the overseers and saw the number on the light brain drop from “23” to “22”, he finally confirmed the number represented the count of surviving players.
This bloody elimination game finally stabilized at 22, suggesting that those remaining had become seasoned veterans, lurking in the bizarre, absurd Nest as they waited for the next opportunity.
But the light brain clearly wasn’t satisfied with this temporary calm.
A new wave of crisis loomed in the shadows.
The player alliance that had found a glimmer of hope in the cracks was rejoicing at having found some breathing space, only for a player to suddenly and incredulously get stabbed in the chest by his closest teammate with a dagger.
The reason?
Because the newly generated rule no longer called for survival…but for confrontation.
After realizing that the personnel had been contaminated, the intelligent system initiated a new round of the “self-purification” protocol.
Each report or elimination of a contaminated personnel would now grant a 10-point credit bonus.
Under the new round of bloody reshuffling, the originally stable number 32 quickly dropped to 3.
No matter how the intelligent system within the Nest tried to purge them, these three data remained stable.
With no other choice, the Nest’s intelligent system had to temporarily tolerate the existence of these three contaminants while it continued to explore the truth behind the mystery.
Only Si Yao, who had unintentionally glimpsed the secret, kept observing everything, meticulously recording all the death conditions triggered by the 100 players from the beginning until now.
If these three people eventually achieved their goal, what would happen to this world?]]
However, for the interstellar readers who had been following all the updates during this period, their understanding of fear had gradually become distorted.
[I don’t know why, but compared to those terrifying robots, experimental subjects, and the eerie atmosphere inside the Nest, the completely unstable relationships between people in such extreme environments feel even more terrifying. QWQ, this totally forces everyone to betray each other, right?]
[Same here, raising my hand weakly. I can’t imagine how broken and desperate I’d be if I were suddenly dragged into such a terrifying game. Honestly, those players who died were already amazing!]
[The key is that the pacing of this new book is so fast. I almost forgot to breathe reading it in one go. Every time the survival number suddenly dropped, I felt chills running down my spine.]
If the beginning of the new book merely shocked readers, as the plot deepened, this bizarre and suspenseful story emerged in a form that captivated readers even more.
The more tense and frightening it became, the stronger the desire to know what would happen next.
Was there a way to unlock the true function of the light brain? Or could it only display the number of survivors?
[Also, if Si Yao has been recording all the death conditions, doesn’t that notebook count as a guide for clearing the dungeon? If someone got it, maybe they could get to the final ending of this dungeon?]
The notebook Fish Soup Noodles mentioned multiple times in the story had also become an object of great interest.
Everyone felt the direction of this story was unknown, yet it successfully hooked them into frantically refreshing the page every day, anxiously checking if their favorite player had “received a lunchbox” today.
Teacher Fish Soup didn’t detail the deaths of the players during the reduction from 98 to 22. However, in the part where the number eventually dropped from 22 to 3, many side characters’ stories left a deep impression on readers.
Among them, one pair of players even came from ancient times.
Theoretically, players with an ancient background would find it harder to understand the technological context of the dungeon, but this pair managed to survive until the end with their terrifying powers of observation and adaptability.
In the end, they didn’t die due to external forces but fell to internal betrayal.
[I swear, the knives in “Rebirth of the Interstellar Soldier King” weren’t even this dense. I don’t believe it! There has to be some sweetness later, right? Right!?]
Many readers clutched their chests, still chasing updates daily, driven purely by stubbornness and disbelief.
Especially that fleeting appearance of experimental subject 114 in the first three chapters…why hadn’t Teacher Fish Soup Noodles brought him out again yet?
Where was the romantic subplot everyone had been waiting for?!
“There will be, there will be. If you hold on, you will get what you want. You will get candy and you will get a knife.”
Yu Mian typed rapidly while glancing at the calendar.
Ever since he tried adding a knife in “Rebirth Of The Interstellar Soldier King”, Yu Mian had discovered that writing knives was surprisingly addictive.
The feeling was quite good.
However, after uploading the backlog of drafts ahead of schedule today, Yu Mian prepared to return to the old residence with Huo Ting. Huo Yan’s parents were reportedly coming back soon, and they also planned to take some of their belongings with them.
Among those belongings was his own golden conch shell.
At Starry Sky Lake, Yu Mian had also ordered an ecological aquarium for his villa. The landscaping inside was beautiful and dreamy, and there was just enough space in the center to place his golden seashell.
“I’m coming!”
Yu Mian glanced at Huo Ting, already waiting downstairs, and hurriedly packed up before heading down.
Right before getting in the car, he glanced at the surveillance camera at the door.
“Speaking of which, that mysterious visitor who left the seashells never showed up again.”
Yu Mian had originally hoped to catch a glimpse of the mysterious visitor through it.
He still didn’t understand why that person had thrown a bunch of seashells at someone else’s front door.
Could it be that some neighbor from the water was just tossing out garbage?
But those seashells were quite pretty, not exactly the kind you’d call trash.
“Maybe the person left the area for now. There haven’t been any traces of biological activity nearby recently,” Huo Ting said.
He suspected it might be related to the disturbance in the lake that night when Yu Mian had been swimming, though for some unknown reason, the other party hadn’t returned.
Meanwhile, the long-absent Huo Dong couple had finally come back to the old residence.
“Hah, you actually managed to have a young mermaid show up?!”
The Huo Dong couple had been out on an expedition and had been disconnected from the Central Star for quite some time. When they finally returned and learned all the latest news in one breath, they were so shocked their eyes almost popped out.
