At this moment, Chu Changge, who was beside him, spoke up, "Gu Mian, you just mentioned that the Number Two Host cannot directly intervene in instance affairs but could secretly cause instances to mutate... I guess that by now, Fairy Tale City isn't the only instance that has mutated."

Fatty shrank back a bit.

The mutated instances had developed souls. This made them unrestrained by the game, allowing them to freely slaughter players who entered them.

These mutated instances were silently devouring players, carefully concealing themselves.

Chu Changge continued, "Although there isn't just one, there won't be too many either. Theoretically speaking, souls should be exceptionally rare right now."

Gu Mian precisely caught the words "right now" in Chu Changge's statement.

If they're exceptionally rare right now... does that mean they won't be so rare in the future?

"In a nutshell," Fatty took a small sip of the ginger sugar water from his thermos, "Doctor, we did get some information in the Fairy Tale Town instance. To get more useful information, I'm afraid we'll have to enter instances a few more times."

They couldn't guarantee that every instance would yield information useful to Gu Mian.

They would have to slowly gather clues.

All Fatty could do now was pray that the other players in the game evolved more slowly; otherwise, Gu Mian would soon face the awkward predicament of being stabbed to death by other players.

The cold wind still whirled outside the dark garage.

Scraping against every crevice, it produced a horrifying, chilling howl.

Fatty's attention was already drawn to the wind outside; he remembered that every time a storm was about to arrive, such terrifying and unsettling wind sounds would precede it.

Gu Mian glanced at the thermometer.

Minus nineteen degrees Celsius.

Too cold.

No electricity, no air conditioning, no underfloor heating.

Electricity cards were sold in the supermarket, but who knew how many people could afford them.

It would be extremely difficult for people to survive in this kind of temperature.

Indoors, it was slightly better. Even if a house was bare, its four walls could still block the howling cold wind.

But if one went outdoors wrapped in two quilts, they would instantly be chilled to the bone by the biting winter wind. The cold infiltrated every nook and cranny.

Luckily, some players had enhanced their bodies, but that was far from enough. They could only hide inside buildings and wait for the cold snap to pass.

But would winter really leave?

At this moment, Fatty had a somewhat dazed expression. He remembered it was already March; strictly speaking, March was no longer considered winter.

In the distance, people in a few idling cars were huddled together for warmth. Even with the heaters on, the temperature inside the cars was grim. They could only press close to one another to feel even a little warmer.

Under the light, Gu Mian watched the people huddled together in those cars.

He saw someone inside sneeze heavily.

If the temperature continued to fall, the saying "frozen bodies will litter the roadsides" would become more than just words.

Fatty also looked very worried. "I'm really afraid I'll suddenly freeze to death in my sleep one day."

He didn't want to become an ice sculpture.

Hearing this, Gu Mian grabbed another quilt and wrapped Fatty up tightly. "Don't die, Fatty..."

Fatty was a bit moved.

But this feeling quickly vanished.

Gu Mian's voice continued, "If you die, your body will be difficult to dispose of."

Fatty silently swallowed his tears and pulled his small quilt tighter.

For the next few days, the temperature neither continued to drop nor did it rise.

Blizzards came and went intermittently. The sun didn't show itself at all during this time, remaining hidden behind layers of dense clouds.

The snow was already thigh-deep, and even vehicles with fuel couldn't get through.

Gu Mian's Spirit Car could barely push forward, and only with extreme difficulty.

So, the three of them temporarily holed up in this small town. Gu Mian found an abandoned, dilapidated building with no windows left and parked the Spirit Car inside it.

Its first floor had originally been all shops; a "Blue Sky Appliances" sign still hung over one of the storefronts.

This dilapidated building stood right across from a shopping mall, looking starkly out of place amid the otherwise bustling surroundings.

Fatty speculated, "This building was probably a 'nail house.' When the mall next door was being built, they must have already notified all the surrounding property owners. The holdout owner here probably waited until the developers bought up all the other land, then pulled a fast one by turning hostile and jacking up the price, thinking the mall would have no choice but to buy them out, no matter the cost."

Gu Mian looked at the small, dilapidated building before him, which already seemed structurally unsound.

But unexpectedly, the mall developers were so unyielding that they simply let this eyesore remain, showing no intention of compromise.

Chu Changge glanced at Fatty. "You seem to know a bit about everything."

Fatty gave an embarrassed smile. "It's because I, Fatty, have drifted around a lot, so I've tried my hand at quite a few professions..."

The temperature inside their Spirit Car was consistently maintained between minus eighteen and minus nineteen degrees Celsius, a temperature at which it was extremely difficult for humans to survive.

Even so, many players braved the blizzards, leaving their homes and painstakingly making their way to the ticket office.

On their way to the supermarket, Gu Mian and the others even came across a frozen young man.

His eyes were wide open, his gaze shifting faintly as if he were still conscious, but his body was rigid. It looked as if he had frozen solid on the path before collapsing.

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