Chapter 45
Lu Chuan had always hated being called poor.
Because it was true—and he couldn’t refute it.
But ever since entering the Infinite World, that situation had improved. Now, “poor” was the last word anyone would associate with him.
His face turned green.
#888 nearly burst out laughing.
To avoid being discovered, #888 immediately muted itself. If it dared laugh now, its host would definitely beat it to death.
Lu Chuan rarely found himself speechless after being insulted.
But today was one such day.
To outsiders, Lu Chuan and Lilus were undisputed prodigies—young, capable, and never arrogant in the face of dungeons, always cautious instead. However you looked at it, they were geniuses among geniuses. Yet in the lender’s eyes, these two weren’t quality customers at all.
And what was the point of lending? To make money.
But these two players’ sanity values were so low—one of them barely looked human anymore, his sanity even lower than the lender’s. If he loaned them anything, they might not even survive this dungeon, turning the loan into bad debt.
“Don’t waste my time. Scram.” The lender’s tone was still mild—after all, players with low sanity often had volatile tempers, and he wasn’t interested in arguing with the nearly dead.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lilus bristled. It was one thing if he chose not to borrow, but being instantly dismissed as a “broke brat”?
He had never been looked down on so badly before.
“You, I might lend to. Him—absolutely not.” The lender said firmly, looking at Lilus. “Your sanity may be low, but at least you still have some. Looks like you’ll survive a while longer. Plus, you probably have special bloodlines—your flesh is worth something. I’d consider lending to you. But this guy? No way. No loan shark in their right mind would lend to someone already on death’s door.”
Lilus sighed. So it was his bloodline that was valuable after all?
That sting of being judged for something he could never change—it was a familiar pain.
But then he looked at Lu Chuan in shock, even with a twinge of envy.
Because if Lu Chuan’s sanity was that low, yet he could still clear dungeons, it meant his willpower was monstrously strong. He must have extraordinary talent in certain areas to manage that.
“That’s a nasty thing to say.” Lu Chuan didn’t agree. “If my sanity were full, would I even need to borrow? Do you even know how to do business?”
“The truth is, people with low sanity can still take out loans, but in your case… honestly, I’m amazed you can even keep a human form.” The loan shark adjusted his sunglasses. “Don’t bother denying it. These glasses are a special tool—I can see your sanity values with them. That’s to stop you travelers from lying. You lot never like to keep your word.”
“Anyone who can make it into this zone isn’t weak. If we’ve managed to track you down, that means we also have the ability to pay you back,” Lilus argued. “You’re being too absolute.”
“Mm, sure, you’re not weak. But once your sanity dips below 60, you’re bound to mutate. When that happens, this place gets ruined. And if we’ve got a bunch of clients here paying with flesh and sanity, they’ll all go down with it. Once bad debt spreads, it spreads in piles…” The loan shark flatly refused to lend them anything.
Lu Chuan and Lilus just stared, then reluctantly looked for a chance to leave.
“What the hell? I’ve never been humiliated like this!” Lu Chuan fumed to #888 in his mind. It had been ages since anyone called him a broke bum to his face.
And he couldn’t even argue back.
That only made him angrier.
[Host, host, calm down. Some little NPC doesn’t know anything.] #888 hurried to soothe him. [How about this: later, when you’ve gathered more items that restore sanity, you can push your value higher. That’ll fix it.]
“I never thought having low sanity was that bad, but now… maybe I should raise it.” It really was a weakness.
And the loan shark had said this wasn’t the only branch of their business. If he ran into other lenders in another dungeon and couldn’t get a loan, that could be disastrous.
[You’ll be fine, host.] #888 was full of confidence in him.
Besides, #888 was curious: if the host recovered more sanity, what kind of person would he become?
Would he still love money as much?
“Looks like we’ll have to let Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an take the loans. If not, we’ll rope in their underlings.” Lu Chuan quickly steadied himself. He’d only ever complain to #888—never expose weakness in front of Lilus.
Right now, he was grateful that Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an had signed a binding contract with him. If they found out he couldn’t even qualify for a loan, they’d definitely try to back out.
Good thing, good thing—they’d already signed. Once on this pirate ship, there’s no escape.
“Did you burn through your sanity for those high ratings in the last dungeon? Even if recovery’s tough, surely the Star Guild isn’t leaving you high and dry,” Lilus asked, puzzled. His own sanity was low enough that his guild’s vice-guildmaster was constantly shoving recovery items his way.
But since he and his sister were only half human, their sanity never went past 80 anyway, usually hovering in the 70s. Aside from being antisocial, preferring dungeons to real life, disliking human contact, and the occasional violent impulse—small quirks, really—there wasn’t much else to worry about. They were considered low maintenance.
So what was Lu Chuan’s excuse?
Was the Star Guild only interested in exploiting him, never investing?
“I don’t think my sanity’s low. I think the system’s judgment is broken.” Lu Chuan said sincerely. “I follow laws, respect rules, work hard—nobody’s more honest than me.”
Lilus wasn’t buying it.
“So what now? If Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an find out we can’t get loans, they’ll want to bail.”
“They signed a contract,” Lu Chuan replied.
“But the problem is, we can’t fulfill our part. No, correction—you can’t. My flesh is still valuable.” Lilus was smug about that. “If my sister were here, she could borrow even more. High-level dungeon NPCs have specifically asked for her flesh before.”
Was that… really something to be proud of?
Lu Chuan didn’t get it.
“As long as neither of us says anything, how would they know we can’t uphold the contract? When the time comes, we just drag them to this loan shark. Like it or not, they’ll borrow. But first, we need to figure out what’s inside that pipe. If we get everything prepared, they’ll be forced to take the loan.”
“…You’ll end up offending both the Noah Guild and the Abyss Guild.”
“You’re an accomplice,” Lu Chuan sneered. “You yandere siscon—betray me, and I’ll spill all your dirt to your sister. I’ve been curious to meet ‘Eye of Rebirth’ anyway.”
“You… How do you know I like my sister?” Lilus bristled, claws flexing.
“Heh.” Lu Chuan rolled his eyes.
Sure enough, Lilus wasn’t as sane as he looked. He’d mentioned his sister so many times without even noticing.
If that wasn’t a siscon yandere, Lu Chuan would eat his own head.
What was supposed to be a four-man alliance had already shrunk back into two.
Forced to stay in the same boat as Lu Chuan, Lilus had no choice but to help conceal the truth from Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an, tricking them into taking the loan later.
To make everything perfect, they had to act casual and head back to the Flesh Apartment.
Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an weren’t in the lobby—likely upstairs.
That smoking pipe the landlord and his wife always carried wasn’t easy to get hold of. The best chance was after rent collection, when the landlady would snatch it from her husband.
That was when they were most relaxed, and easiest to catch off guard.
Lu Chuan and Lilus pretended to head back to their room.
The monsters in the halls and stairways made all kinds of gestures at them, but they ignored it.
Lilus kept the room card clutched in his claw, so none of the monsters could steal it.
“These rooms used to have people,” Lu Chuan suddenly said, pointing at a few open doors.
“Players who switched to single rooms used to live here.” Lilus glanced quickly. “Those players are just skeletons now—their flesh devoured by the apartment.”
Here, as long as you followed the rules, you could barely survive. Break them, and you were done.
And the players who’d switched rooms never came back to this floor, staying on the first instead—alongside Gu Quan’an and the others.
The third floor was probably just as bad as the second.
Lu Chuan and Lilus unlocked their room, ready for a rest.
They ate skewered grilled gluten—better than the ones who only had dumplings.
Lilus climbed to the top bunk to nap… only to find the bed scattered with little cards.
Lilus: …
They weren’t there before.
“Lu Chuan, what’s with these cards?”
“No idea. Maybe someone slipped them in.”
“And they just flew up here?” Lilus angrily shredded them and dumped them in the trash. “If you dare put more on my bed, I’ll shove them in your mouth.”
Lu Chuan rolled over, bored.
Hmph. Try me.
The next morning, both of them woke up starving.
The landlord didn’t provide daytime meals, and the food stalls outside were gone again, the apartment wrapped once more in mist. The only option was buying overpriced meals from the landlord, even costlier than the street vendors.
All the players had gathered downstairs.
Even Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an were waiting there.
“Mm, almost noon, everyone’s nearly here.” The landlady checked the lobby clock, which now showed just before twelve.
But no one trusted it anymore, keeping their own rough count instead.
“Just waiting on you two. All right, everyone’s here.”
As Lu Chuan and Lilus entered the hall, the landlord declared the group complete.
“Wait, we’re not complete—there are only thirteen people here,” one player blurted. “Seventeen are missing!”
“Yeah, they’re probably just oversleeping in their rooms. Someone should wake them up.” Another added.
Lu Chuan glanced at them. Both were players who had switched to single rooms.
Maybe they already suspected the truth, but didn’t dare say it.
“No, everyone’s here. And according to the rules, I need to announce something new.” At exactly noon, the landlord couple spoke to the tenants.
“Rule Four: Players who re-registered into new rooms will have their old rooms revoked. Those rooms will no longer be protected by the apartment.” The landlady smiled. “And if you’re not protected… of course you won’t be showing up.”
The remaining players—especially those who had re-registered—turned pale. Some of the more timid ones broke down crying on the spot.
“I didn’t mean to kill them.”
“I thought they’d be fine.”
“How could it end up like this?”
…
In this world, betraying teammates and sending them to their deaths was something everyone despised. Of course, many could do it without guilt, but there were also plenty who could never accept such a thing.
But in a dungeon like this, there was no time given for regrets.
Because as soon as midnight struck, a new rule would immediately appear.
This tense scene didn’t last long.
Around three in the afternoon, the landlord couple, guessing that the players were already starving, carried out a few bags of soup dumplings and stuck up a sign: “One jin of flesh for one dumpling; two points of sanity for two dumplings.”
The players, who had scoured the whole apartment without finding a single scrap of food, broke down a little.
“One dumpling for a whole jin of flesh—are you kidding me?”
“That’s the price. Take it or leave it,” the landlady said with a beaming smile. “Otherwise, just starve.”
After all, these tenants wouldn’t last long. Before long, they’d obediently buy the food the landlords provided.
They always did.
“I’m quitting this dungeon. I can’t take it anymore,” one player finally broke down. “What kind of hellhole is this? It’s only been a day and more than half are already dead. I want to terminate my lease. I want out of here!”
“Of course, dear guest. You can cancel with me,” the landlady’s eyes lit up. “If you don’t have enough flesh, I recommend paying with sanity instead. If I take twenty jin of flesh from you in one go, you might not survive it. Do you have a regenerative item, perhaps?”
She was pushing hard for the sale.
“None of your business! Just let me out!” The player was frantic. He couldn’t stand another minute here.
The landlady cheerfully pulled out her Barrel of Proliferation.
The player who had demanded to leave placed his hand on the barrel, and his body visibly withered.
He had already renewed his lease once and probably bought food yesterday too, so he was already on the thin side.
After twenty jin of flesh was drained, he looked like little more than skin and bones, terrifyingly gaunt.
“Next, sanity points,” the landlord said, producing his weighted scales to take the skeletal player’s sanity.
“AHHHHHH!” the player screamed.
“Transaction complete. You may leave,” the old man said, satisfied after taking twenty sanity points.
The player, emptied of flesh and sanity, grew numb after his agony. His expression was hollow. His condition looked dire.
“Why don’t you use a healing item?” another player couldn’t help but ask. “After losing that much flesh and sanity, why not recover?”
“…Healing item? Heh. What’s the point of me even living? Out there, I’ll still die. Hahaha…” The drained player seemed to have lost all hope, his mind clearly broken.
The next moment, he shoved open the apartment doors and ran straight into the surrounding fog.
“Hahaha! We’re all going to die! All of us!”
His figure vanished into the white mist, disappearing completely.
“Not our fault,” the landlord exhaled a smoke ring. “His willpower was too weak. Once sanity drops too much, he has no motivation to live.”
The players fell into heavy silence.
Indeed.
Even if they escaped this dungeon, how would they survive the next one?
It was only a question of dying sooner or later.
Everyone sank into a strange silence, the atmosphere unbearably oppressive.
A high-tier dungeon like this— They never should’ve come.
Finally, someone broke the silence.
“Ten dumplings for me.” The first to compromise was someone Lu Chuan recognized—one of Mei Xue’s recruits.
“Ten for me too.”
“I’ll take ten as well.”
…
The four players brought by Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an each decisively exchanged for dumplings, forty in total.
As the Barrel of Proliferation was nearly filled to the brim with flesh, the landlady reached toward the old man’s pipe.
But just then—Mei Xue and Gu Quan’an lunged at it.
