[Phase One mission objective completed]

[Phase Two mission objective: Explore the first floor of the house, find a way to get to the second floor, and stay alive]

Only after a beat did the System’s notification chime ring in his ears.

Li Ang’s eyelid twitched. "Explore the house and stay alive—so that means there are lethal hazards inside this place, and very likely more than one, huh?"

"Now that my hands are free, and I’m holding a heavy chunk of metal, your average serial killer or whatever is no longer a fatal threat.

If the System is specially reminding me to pay attention to staying alive,

there are really only two possibilities.

A more realistic type of homicidal maniac,

and a more supernatural type of vengeful Evil Spirit.

The former would be people like Jason or Michael Myers,

the latter like Freddy, Kayako, Annabel—

of course it could also be that the house itself is a trap..."

Li Ang thought in fits and starts as he walked forward, and discovered on the metal door handle of the wooden door ahead faint residue marks left by dried water droplets, formed quite some time ago,

and in the room there was a faint scent of modern cleaning product.

This should be the bathroom.

Li Ang wrapped his left hand around the heavy metal lock body, and with his right hand lightly gripped the handle and pressed down.

The handle moved down, but the door did not open.

Locked from the inside?

Li Ang’s heart sank. Without a sound, he took Key A from his pocket and slid it into the wooden door’s keyhole.

The wooden door’s lock core was also a straight-slot type, but its size and tooth pattern differed somewhat from Key A, and the key wouldn’t turn inside.

"Meow~"

A lazy, contented cat’s meow came from inside the bathroom, muffled through the wood.

Right after that came a muffled sound like chewing and swallowing.

A cat?

Eating in the bathroom?

In the memory palace of Li Ang’s mind, a pile of random images immediately popped up.

Some guy yelling "Oli give, bottoms up!" in the bathroom,

the Black director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury, wearing an eye patch and cursing, "You Fury-obsessed or what?",

and a shut-in shouting "Transform for me!"...

Wait, what kind of crap have I been storing in my head?

Li Ang shook his head, tossed the clutter aside, and pushed the bathroom door ever so slightly; it didn’t budge.

Confirming that there was no way to open the door quietly, Li Ang chose not to disturb the cat inside, pulled out Key A, and stepped back half a pace.

While examining the bathroom door, he had been paying constant attention to the sounds coming from the direction of the dining room and living room.

The TV over there seemed to be malfunctioning, continuously making a "shhhhhh" static sound,

and that static kept cutting in and out,

as if someone were repeatedly pressing the remote buttons,

apparently trying to fix the TV by changing channels.

So there was definitely someone in the living room.

Top priority now was figuring out where this place was, and finding some kind of weapon for self-defense.

Moving without a sound, Li Ang stepped along the left side of the hallway. At the corner sat a decorative pothos; it was in decent shape, the top layer of soil was moist, at least misted today.

Rounding the corner, Li Ang saw the back door of the house and a side lounge.

The back door was wooden, white, with a round handle,

and it was locked; Key A wouldn’t open it.

The lower half of the wooden door had a square pet door with a half-transparent hard plastic flap hanging over it—some Western households deliberately cut a little door so pets can come back in on their own after a walk.

Li Ang crouched down to inspect it.

The pet door was small, only big enough for cats and small to medium-sized dogs,

and at the bottom edge of the opening there were some black-over-white cat hairs stuck, probably from the one in the bathroom.

He reached out to touch the hard plastic flap of the pet door, only to find that the flap felt welded to space itself, completely immobile.

At the same time, a prompt from the System appeared in his vision: [Cannot be opened]

"No passing through?"

Li Ang raised an eyebrow. He didn’t have Body Shrinking Skills, so there was no way he could crawl through such a tiny opening anyway.

The System’s "cannot be opened" meant it wouldn’t let him use a wire or something to reach through the pet door, pull the main door open from outside, and escape the house directly.

"Fine."

Li Ang stood up from the floor and looked toward the side lounge next to the back door.

The lounge floor was carpeted, with several low, fabric-covered chairs of different colors arranged facing a floor-to-ceiling window draped with white curtains.

Li Ang walked forward and gently lifted a corner of the white curtain, only to see the glass floor-to-ceiling window sealed tight,

and beyond it a full moon hanging high in the sky, with scattered stars.

Outside was a standard United States mid-to-high-end suburban backyard, with a well-kept lawn and trees, and a shrub fence bordering the neighbor’s property.

A hand-made swing hung from the branches of the big tree in the yard.

It was deep in the night.

Whether because the window’s soundproofing was too good or for some other reason, Li Ang couldn’t hear any sounds from outside—not insect chirps or bird calls, nor the distant noise of passing cars.

Most of the other houses in the neighborhood beyond the window were dark, with only a few still lit.

SUVs or sedans were parked in front of some of the homes, including a few luxury cars.

It all looked like a perfectly ordinary mid-to-high-end American subdivision.

Li Ang lightly rapped his knuckles against the floor-to-ceiling window; it felt like knocking on steel. The [Cannot be opened] message appeared again in his vision, telling him this exit was off-limits.

Okay then, what about elsewhere?

Li Ang turned around to survey the lounge.

This space was clearly for the homeowners to relax in. A clock hung on the wall, showing the current time as 1:02 a.m.,

and along the wall stood a massive bookcase,

filled with all sorts of books, including but not limited to The Bible, economics, philosophy, psychology, and popular fiction.

The fabric chairs were slightly pilled, showing signs of frequent use,

and on the seat of one of them lay an English collection of Hanshan’s poetry; when opened, only the first few pages had content, everything after that was blank.

Many of the books on the bookshelf were like this as well.

Only a few popular novels and comic books had more than a couple of pages with actual content.

Besides the various books, there were also some children’s toys on the shelf,

toy trucks, Lego bricks, anime figurines, Barbie dolls, a child-sized baseball glove and a baseball cap.

"Looks like this family has at least one young son and daughter."

Li Ang swept his gaze over the toys and picked up a photo frame from the shelf.

Inside the frame was a photograph, a family of four standing in front of their house.

The wife looked dignified and elegant, the husband handsome and stylish, the boy and girl looked very cute; all four of them were blond.

Wait, blond?

Li Ang frowned, reached up, and lightly plucked one or two strands of hair from his head.

He was absolutely sure that, in his own field of vision, his bangs were black,

yet once the hair was plucked out, it instantly turned blond—proving that the character he was playing in this script mission was originally blond.

"Could ’I’ be the man of the house?

Wearing a high-end suit, earning good money, it does fit the profile of someone who could afford a place in this upscale neighborhood.

But why would ’I’ be locked up in the clutter room?

And where did ’my’ wife and kids go?"

Li Ang’s thoughts spun rapidly as he pondered, "Could it be that ’I’ got caught cheating and betraying my family? Or did some robber break into the house?"

He slipped the photo frame into the pocket of the suit as well and continued forward.

In front of the side hall was a white wooden door, likewise impossible to open,

and from observing the other houses in the neighborhood, Li Ang was sure that the white wooden door connected to the house’s garage,

and when he tried to open the garage door, there had been no System prompt in his field of vision—meaning the garage door could be opened; he just didn’t yet have the means.

"The garage door can’t be accessed for now..."

Li Ang thought for a moment. Standing here, he could faintly hear the TV in the living room still hissing with static, and there were no footsteps.

Using the clutter room he had come out of as the center,

on the left of the clutter room were the side hall, the bathroom, and the garage.

He had already explored all three; the bathroom and garage were temporarily inaccessible.

Li Ang crouched down, his back pressed against the wall at the corner of the side hall corridor. He took the photo frame from his pocket and slowly leaned out around the corner.

Using the reflection on the glass of the frame, Li Ang saw a corner of the living room—there was a large sofa, with a smaller sofa placed to its left.

Behind the living room, a corridor extended upward, seemingly leading to the second floor,

but to get there, he would definitely be seen by whoever was on the living room sofa.

"Doesn’t seem like there’s any other way..."

Li Ang frowned in thought for a moment, turned back into the side hall, and picked up a child’s baseball bat that was lying beside the bookshelf.

The bat was wooden and a bit light,

but it was still better than being unarmed.

He picked up the bat, returned to the corridor on the right side of the clutter room, crouched down, and slipped along the corridor wall into the open-plan kitchen.

He grabbed a meat cleaver from the kitchen.

Li Ang held the baseball bat in his left hand and the meat cleaver in his right,

slipping silently into the dining room, hugging the dining room wall as he peered toward the living room.

From this angle, he finally saw the scene inside the living room clearly.

There was a low coffee table and a set of three sofas, one large and two small,

a white blanket draped over the back of the large sofa, and beside each of the two smaller sofas stood a floor lamp.

Directly facing the sofa set stood a large floor-standing flat-screen TV, its screen filled with static snow.

"No one?"

Li Ang’s brow furrowed; he clenched the meat cleaver tightly in his palm, bent at the waist, and crept through the darkness toward the living room.

Bzzzt!

Almost at the exact moment Li Ang reached the back of the sofa and crouched down to hide, the TV suddenly returned to normal,

and on the screen appeared a black-haired white man in a suit and tie,

delivering a news broadcast in a deep, magnetic voice, "...the wildfire in Northern California Butte County Paradise Town has become the most destructive fire in California’s history...

So far, it has burned over 150,000 acres, with 85 confirmed dead and more than 1,500 missing, many of the missing being seniors over the age of 65.

More than 12,000 buildings have been destroyed.

Paradise Town, with a population of only 27,000 and closest to the source of the fire, has been almost completely reduced to rubble.

On the afternoon of November 9, the president declared a state of emergency in California and ordered federal agencies to assist local California authorities in responding to the wildfire. Any looting that occurs during the disaster will be dealt with strictly, and offenders will be arrested on the spot.

According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the wildfire was most likely caused by power lines in the forest..."

The sudden TV news broadcast made something flicker in Li Ang’s mind,

In the real world, in Northern California of the United States, there had indeed been a serious wildfire, and the time was November of 2018.

Could this script mission be set against the backdrop of the real world?

Or is this script mission actually taking place in the real world?

Li Ang silently spun the kitchen cleaver in his hand; the timing of the California wildfire more or less coincided with the start of this round of the killing game.

In theory, it could be connected to the killing game, though he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain yet.

He was about to listen more closely to the news broadcast on the TV when a clear, unmistakable clicking of buttons sounded from the sofa beside him,

and the TV channel immediately switched from the news to a singing-and-dancing talent show.

Huh?!

Li Ang’s pupils contracted. He hadn’t seen anyone on the sofa when he was in the dining room,

unless the person was very short and lying down on the sofa, making them invisible from the dining room’s angle.

Was it the son or daughter of this family?

Just as Li Ang hesitated in thought,

the sound of TV remote buttons being pressed came again from the sofa.

The TV screen switched from the talent show

to a local news program on another channel: "...Today, a serious traffic accident occurred in Carmel Town. A Chevrolet SUV unexpectedly lost control while driving and crashed into a motorcycle..."

Then, it quickly flipped to a cartoon—its distinctive voices made it obvious it was that long-running animated sitcom produced by Fox in the United States, The Simpsons, and it was playing Season 7, Episode 8.

Once it switched to the Simpsons family, the TV stopped changing channels and kept playing without further alteration.