Gu Mian had never imagined he would receive the treatment of a web novel protagonist.

But the current situation was truly bizarre.

The Earth had always seemed bent on his demise, so its sudden change of heart was highly unlikely.

At that moment, another gust of wind swept past. Chu Changge turned his head again, looking in the direction it came from.

The wind tonight seemed unusually mischievous.

The strip of cloth on his wrist rustled, and the wind caught his clothes, puffing them into a sphere before whistling out through the gaps.

The moon hung high in the night sky, as if all moons in fairy-tale worlds ought to be this colossal and bright.

Clusters of craters on the lunar surface cast patches of shadow, like strokes of ink on a luminous canvas, their interplay creating a strange beauty.

Then, Chu Changge spoke slowly, "In this instance, there is at least one Origin NPC. It's the culprit responsible for the assimilation of players."

Perhaps 'culprit' wasn't the most accurate term. After all, it was just the NPC's designated role.

"Do you still want to stay here?" Chu Changge suddenly uttered, a seemingly random question.

Fatty looked at him, puzzled. "Whether we stay in this instance isn't up to us, is it?"

Fatty glanced at Chu Changge, but his attention was immediately captured by the colossal moon behind him. Earlier in the night, thick clouds had obscured the moon, and not a sliver of its light had reached them.

But now, in the latter half of the night, the moon had fully emerged from the dark clouds. It blazed with a fierce radiance, illuminating even the forest—once a swathe of oppressive darkness—and making it appear as dreamlike as a fairy-tale world.

No, this *was* a fairy-tale world... just not the kind they were familiar with. This was a bizarre fairy-tale world...

Gu Mian looked up at the moon.

The little match girl's basket was still slung over his shoulder. However, the journey had been so rough while carrying 007 that the three lighters inside had long since fallen out, lost somewhere along the way. They would have fetched a good price, too.

The clothes he'd snatched from the girl were still there, now a crumpled mess stuffed into the basket that had once held the lighters—a truly pathetic sight.

Thanks to this tattered basket, Gu Mian still had some connection to this instance, preventing him from being summarily ejected.

Still, he sensed something approaching.

It wasn't the intermittent, chilling wind, but something more intimately connected, more attuned to this instance.

Such a strange feeling.

Years of being singled out by life's hardships had honed Gu Mian's sixth sense to an extraordinary degree. His perception of danger was exceptionally acute, so he knew that what approached them now wasn't 'danger,' but something else, something peculiar.

This was a sensation Gu Mian had never experienced before, yet it felt somehow familiar.

Just then, the others also seemed to sense something.

The howling wind had abruptly, almost imperceptibly, died down. The swaying branches and leaves had fallen still. Beneath the pitch-black sky, it seemed as if nothing moved.

A glance revealed a scene of absolute beauty: the round moon, the silvery frost, the silent forest. Yet, an incredibly ominous air pervaded it all.

Soon, they heard an unusual sound.

Chu Changge narrowed his eyes, staring in the direction of the sound. "It's here."

The sound of footsteps came from the distant, dense forest.

The steps were unhurried, accompanied by the continuous CRUNCH of dry branches underfoot. Fatty strained his eyes, peering into the forest whence the sound came, but he saw nothing.

Before long, the footsteps drew nearer, until they were almost upon them.

Gu Mian finally saw the visitor clearly. Or perhaps, it wasn't human at all.

No life, no aura... and no face.

Only the pen clutched tightly in its right hand lent it a vaguely human air.

The colossal moon at its back seemed to complement its featureless face perfectly.

Fatty murmured, "Is this the... Origin NPC Brother Chu mentioned?"

Why would it suddenly appear?

Just then, Xiao Qiao's voice reached his ears, her tone utterly certain. "Yes."

Fatty glanced at her instinctively. Xiao Qiao, an actress who usually paid little heed to her expressions, had now completely abandoned all facial control. Her face looked as if it might detach from her skull and SLAP onto the ground at any moment.

The newcomer finally spoke.

"I am An Tusheng, the 'Tu' as in 'butcher'."

It had no mouth, yet it produced sound.

The voice emanated from all directions, as if every tree in the forest had come alive, each vying to speak for it. The ethereal, omnipresent sound made 007, who sat by a tree, feel a wave of dizziness.

She frowned and looked up. Even the moon in the sky seemed to have sprouted a mouth, echoing, "I am An Tusheng."

No one spoke. An Tusheng continued.

Of course, that it could speak was only Gu Mian's assumption, considering that the pancake-flat round face had no facial features, let alone a mouth that could open.

"I am not the fairy-tale author you are familiar with, Hans Christian Andersen. I am a different kind of existence, one that was forced to develop into what I am now."

Hearing this, Fatty shuddered violently for no apparent reason.

Gu Mian stared at the almost flat face before him.

All I need to do now is rush forward and saw this 'Butcher Tu' in half, Gu Mian thought. Then everyone here can leave this instance immediately. But a strange feeling in his heart stopped him.

It had to be said, this Origin NPC was quite verbose. Everyone present listened as it inexplicably began to narrate a story—or what could be considered a story, at least.

"I was born amidst fear, joy, and regret.

"When I was born, all around me was pitch darkness, yet I was enveloped by countless emotions. I began to explore slowly.

"Gradually, from these emotions, I learned many things: happiness, anger, regret, sorrow, and so much more. But I could never truly grasp them. Until later, I discovered something far more vibrant.

"Those were the stories of everyone."

When An Tusheng reached this point, the chill Fatty felt intensified.

The wind had long stopped, yet he felt an even more terrifying, bone-chilling cold.

Not far away, 007 also seemed to realize something, and her face began to pale.

"Each person is a bizarre, fantastic world. I explored their stories, constantly craving fresher, different experiences.

"But it wasn't enough. Far from enough...

"Perhaps because my longing was too intense, the heavens gifted me a pen. And so, I began to write my own stories."

Chu Changge listened in silence. Moonlight glinted off his glasses, a sharp, cold gleam.

This instance wasn't always like this, Chu Changge thought. In fact, it mutated long ago.

"I continually kept those vibrant people, making them characters in my tales. My story kept expanding. As you can see, it has become so... prosperous..."

Gu Mian also understood something. This instance, I'm afraid...

It's developed a spirit. A soul, Gu Mian realized.

Though inconceivable, the truth lay before them.

Before, it might have been a world teeming with zombies, or a hospital haunted by Evil Ghosts, but none of that mattered now.

This instance had developed a "spirit."

An Tusheng was the soul of this instance.

It forcefully erased everything that existed before and stubbornly began to write its own story.

It forcibly severed the game's control, attempting to keep all the players by its side.

This was unheard of, unprecedented, Fatty thought.

If it weren't for the throbbing pain in his back, Fatty would have almost thought he was dreaming.

The initial shock of learning that future instances might involve real death was already immense. Unexpectedly, an even more staggering revelation had followed.

An instance could develop a soul? What a joke!

This should just be a set of data, Fatty thought. A pitiful string of code that could be erased at any moment.

An Tusheng seemed to understand what Fatty was thinking. It laughed.

The faceless smile was deeply unsettling, as if one's own brain had suddenly started laughing for no reason.

"Anything can possess life, even a set of data, a string of numbers.

"The very meaning of life's existence is to bear the emotions of others.

"As long as someone bestows sincere emotions—be it hatred or anticipation, sadness or joy—and as long as someone remembers it, keeps it in their heart, and never forgets, that is existence. That is being alive.

"That is why I possess life.

"And I appear before you today because I was entrusted by another to tell you something..."

As An Tusheng spoke, it suddenly paused. Fatty's mind jolted; he had a feeling it was about to say something unpleasant.

And he was right. "You understand, some things are different from me. They can only carry a fragment of emotion. If that emotion is forgotten, then they will be eternally lost in darkness, until..."

"An Tusheng!"

Before it could finish, its speech was interrupted by a very loud voice, its pitch even changing slightly due to the urgency of the interruption.

The voice came from the forest; no one could see who was speaking.

007's forehead throbbed. She couldn't make sense of the current situation. Who was that speaking from the forest? And what on earth did An Tusheng mean?

Just as the altered syllables of "An Tusheng!" reached their ears, the scene before them began to distort.

Gu Mian had seen this many times; it was the precursor to exiting an instance.

But this time was very strange. They hadn't done anything to this instance, yet it was automatically ejecting the players?

Even the Instance Evaluator hadn't appeared.

Gu Mian hadn't quite understood An Tusheng's final words. The first few sentences were clear enough, but that last one, the one that was interrupted...

As he pondered, he looked up again, through the distorting space, at the faceless being still standing before him.

In that instant, he seemed to hear a voice seeping from An Tusheng's very core: "There's no time left."

What followed was an extreme distortion of space. It was as if everything was being twisted like taffy, then shattered into fragments.

Gu Mian suddenly felt his head go numb. When he came to his senses, he was already back in the ticket booth.

Beside him were Chu Changge and Fatty, who had exited with him.

This departure from the instance had been rather abrupt.

For some reason, the Instance Evaluator had never appeared, not even after they left the instance.

It was as if the Evaluator had no idea they had ever entered the Fairy Tale City instance.

Nearby, Chu Changge was still frowning. He, too, had noticed the unusual nature of the previous instance.

"No evaluator... was it because our instance data was erased?" he murmured, looking towards the ticket booth's entrance.

Outside, the blizzard raged on. The snow had accumulated to a terrifying depth; Gu Mian estimated it must be up to their knees by now.

Of course, this wasn't the time to be assessing snow depth.

He came back to his senses. The erasure of data also meant no rewards.

But that wasn't what concerned Gu Mian.

A "spirit" had emerged within the instance. This "spirit" had told them some incredible things and then secretly erased the data of their entry into that instance.

No matter how he looked at it, the whole thing was bizarre.

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