### Chapter 30: Sea Without Light 30
Su Rong truly had no foundation in high school mathematics; she could manage the first two multiple-choice questions, and even those were not guaranteed to be correct. For the big problems, she was clueless and would simply write “Solution” at the top.
Kui Xin asked her how well she grasped functions, and she admitted she barely understood them. When asked if she could solve triangles, she replied no, and she was completely at a loss when it came to conic sections. The more Kui Xin probed, the more Su Rong felt like a fool, embarrassed to the point of wishing she could bury her head in the ground.
Kui Xin pulled out a relatively easy paper from her summer homework for Su Rong to work on. She finished it in fifteen minutes because there were only a few types of problems she could solve, allowing her to write really fast.
Kui Xin had to open Su Rong’s first-year high school textbook, breaking it down and explaining it to her, starting from the first unit.
After three hours of tutoring, Su Rong felt exceptionally defeated.
“You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about not knowing these things,” Kui Xin said straightforwardly. “What’s really scary is not that you don’t know; it’s that you’re so discouraged that you don’t want to learn. Your Chinese and English scores are pretty good, which makes up for your weaknesses. Learning is a long process, and you can’t expect results in just a day.”
Su Rong sighed tiredly. “I know, Sister Xin. I have to grit my teeth and keep learning.”
Kui Xin replied, “Do you still have the test papers and study materials that have been distributed since your first year of high school? Find them.”
Su Rong rummaged through the bottom of her bookshelf and found a thick stack of math papers, most of which were blank.
Kui Xin flipped through the papers, circling a few simple fill-in-the-blank questions on each one; based on Su Rong’s current math level, those were all she could handle.
“Before I come to teach tomorrow, finish these questions without looking at the answers. If you get any wrong, I’ll explain them to you,” Kui Xin said. “It’s unrealistic to expect you to study the whole math textbook from start to finish. We should mainly focus on scoring points based on question types; give up on the difficult questions, but make sure to score on the easier ones.”
“Okay.” Su Rong responded humbly.
At six in the evening, Kui Xin declined Su Rong’s mother’s invitation for dinner and headed home alone.
On the way, her phone buzzed with a text message from the meteorological bureau announcing a heavy rain warning. Kui Xin looked up and saw that dark clouds were covering the evening sky; it was likely to rain soon.
She hurried into the subway station, wanting to get home before the rain started.
It happened to be rush hour, and the subway was crowded. Kui Xin was jostled left and right by the throngs of commuters and finally squeezed into a train car.
“Oh my god, it’s terrifying. Look at this news,” two young people chatted quietly in the subway. “The whole family is dead… a cult killed them.”
Ever since Kui Xin’s physical abilities from the two worlds inexplicably started to converge, her physique, strength, agility, and sensory acuity had seen tremendous improvements compared to before. She could easily hear the conversation between the two young men over the noise of the crowded subway.
“Wait… he killed his whole family? Is he insane? I thought he looked perfectly normal.”
“If he weren’t insane, how could he believe in a cult? The police have issued a wanted poster, offering a reward of one hundred thousand…”
Kui Xin caught the key words and, feeling anxious, opened her phone to search for news.
She had heard from Xueyao Shu that the secret cults in the Second World not only engaged in superstitions and used divine blood but also committed particularly cruel acts, such as live sacrifices. Consequently, the federal government had been intensifying its crackdown on religious groups.
People who consumed divine blood experienced physical mutations and gradually lost their sanity, becoming mad under its corruption.
This was Kui Xin’s first day back, and she couldn’t help but overthink.
As soon as she opened her phone, a news alert popped up: a blue-walled wanted poster came into view, clearly detailing the suspect’s basic appearance, home address, and the reasons and charges for the wanted notice. According to the description, the suspect had killed his whole family due to mental issues stemming from his belief in a cult.
The suspect had committed the murders last night and fled directly afterward. The crime scene was remarkably close to Kui Xin’s city, just in the neighboring city—only thirty minutes away by high-speed train.
“Regional task triggered.”
A light curtain flashed before Kui Xin’s eyes, her pupils constricted, and her mood sank to an all-time low.
Why… why can a task be triggered in the real world?!
Up until now, she had only triggered one task when she first entered the Second World: “Investigate the Port Bombing Incident,” and she hadn’t completed it.
But she never expected a task could also be triggered in the First World, especially a “regional task”—a type she had never encountered before.
“[Task Description]: An unknown change has occurred in your hometown, in an area you are familiar with. The once peaceful city is no longer peaceful, and the stable life is no longer stable. Mysterious shadows and extraordinary powers have invaded your life. To maintain peace and stability in your hometown, you may have the obligation to investigate this terrifying event clearly.”
“As a regional task, you are not the only one to receive this task invitation; other players living in the same area as you have also received task notifications. You can choose to cooperate with them or investigate alone.”
“You can choose to accept or reject the task.”
“Accepting will of course carry certain risks, while rejecting will provide temporary peace, after all, trouble knocking on your door is only a small probability event.”
“[Task Content]: Investigate the Case of the Cultist Murder.”
At that moment, Kui Xin could no longer hear the chatter of people in the subway car.
She pressed her lips together, gripping the handrail as she stood still, and didn’t come to her senses until the subway reached her stop, before following the crowd off the train.
The difference between the First World and the Second World was shrinking, which made Kui Xin uneasy.
Two worlds, two game fields—Cyberspace Online and Earth Online.
The reality that Kui Xin inhabited was changing, becoming strange to her.
It felt as if while her physical capabilities in both worlds were approaching convergence, the First World and the Second World were also moving towards convergence.
She realized that this physical convergence might not just be a phenomenon occurring only in her body, but a common phenomenon happening to all players. However, most other players were ordinary people whose physical attributes had not seen the same exponential growth as Kui Xin’s.
But if a player happened to cross over as a member of a secret cult, having consumed divine blood, and then returned to the First World, would their physical form in the First World also undergo similar mutations?
Would their minds, like those of the secret cultists, also fall into madness?
Could the murderer who killed his whole family and fled last night be a player?
As Kui Xin exited the subway, it started to rain. She ran home through the downpour.
Such heavy rain reminded her of the first few days after she crossed into the Second World when it rained incessantly in Hei Hai City.
As soon as she entered her house, she pulled out her phone to check the forum.
“Let’s use a code word, Jingchu area, regional task.”
1L: Matched. I’m in the southern part of the province, several cities away from where the incident happened, yet I still received the task trigger notification. How broad is the coverage of this regional task? Did players across the entire province get it?
2L: It’s probably provincial; I got it too. Will anyone choose to accept the task? It’s too dangerous.
3L: Does anyone know how many players there are in Jingchu province?
4L replies to 3L: Based on population ratios, there should be about seventy players.
5L: What are you all talking about? What regional task?
6L: This is terrifying… is this really the hometown we know? I’m so scared, everyone. The danger is too close to us. For the first time in my life, my hometown feels so strange to me. Returning to the First World hasn’t removed us from danger; instead, danger has approached our lives with the players’ return—this is not what our world should be like.
Kui Xin turned off her phone, changed her clothes and shoes, and stood by the window, gazing at her city.
Amidst the hazy rain, the neon lights shone brightly. The cross-river bridge was adorned with colorful lights, and cars on the road turned on their headlights, moving in a congested line… yet she stood in a dark and dilapidated old community, below her were broken stone pavements and malfunctioning streetlights, separated from the bustling urban area.
This era was developing too rapidly, with a city displaying two faces—one glamorous and one decayed, existing simultaneously.
At that moment, Kui Xin felt a serious illusion, as if she was still in Hei Hai City rather than her own hometown.
Kui Xin disliked the Second World; she didn’t want her reality to be tainted by the things of the Second World.
Awakened, heterogeneous blooded, secret cults, cultists… these things should not exist.
And these things were turning her world upside down, including the fact that she herself had also changed beyond recognition.
The world was out of control, life trajectories were out of control, and peaceful living was out of control. Kui Xin was a person who excelled at planning her studies and life; she needed to have time and arrangements under control to feel at peace.
But fate was like a runaway wild horse, slipping from Kui Xin’s grasp.
Just as the task description said, the once peaceful city was no longer peaceful, and stable lives were no longer stable. The ordinary daily life had drifted far from her; after experiencing swords, killing, and the razor-thin line between life and death, it was difficult for her to return to her former state of living.
Yet even so, Kui Xin still wanted to do her best to protect this piece of pure land, not for the sake of the task, nor for others, but just for herself.
To that end, she would clear away the things that polluted her life, one by one.
“I accept the task,” Kui Xin silently said in her heart.
“You have accepted the task.”
“[Task Progress]: 0%.”
Kui Xin discovered a characteristic of the tasks issued by the game system: they did not provide clear directives.
It stated “investigate” but did not say “handle.” In simple terms, all tasks issued by the game system merely provided a direction for the task executor. As for whether the task completion involved killing a target or taking additional action, the game system placed no restrictions whatsoever.
This greatly enhanced freedom; Kui Xin could do anything she wanted.
The task issued by the game system served as a reminder, a warning, a bell indicating that life had already changed.
Thus, this time Kui Xin accepted the task with a completely different mindset.
When she took on the task to investigate the bombing incident, she genuinely only wanted to clarify the cause and effect. But now, as she took on the task to investigate the cultist murder, her purpose was not just to investigate.
She aimed to “cleanse.”
Just as the Investigation Bureau cleared xenomorphs and captured the heterogeneous blooded, Kui Xin would sweep away all the polluting factors and instabilities around her, removing them entirely, leaving no future troubles.
Kui Xin gazed out at the neon-lit city, falling into a long contemplation.
Ten minutes later, she opened her phone and saw that the forum posts asking for information about xenomorphs still had no replies, and related threads were sparse.
So Kui Xin posted her first thread since logging onto the forum.
“Let me explain what xenomorphs are, what secret cults are, and what heterogeneous blooded means.”
Less than a minute after the post was made, the forum exploded.
