DSMC Chapter 45

“Changing the rules? I wouldn’t have noticed if someone above hadn’t pointed it out. Could it be that our little kitty performed too well last round, so the game adjusted things on the fly to balance player strength?”

“Definitely. [Destiny] has a very high level of freedom, and the system itself has even more. If a bug appears, it immediately self-corrects.”

“Our little kitty is amazing! He actually single-pawed-ly upped the game’s difficulty! This is the first time I’ve seen a dungeon suddenly ramp up like that. Interesting, I’m totally looking forward to this round!”

“Oh boy, looks like this cat won’t have it so easy this time. Team F is playing as the Hiders now. Will the upgraded difficulty even affect our little kitty-cat?”

“Good question. As long as the cat stays hidden and doesn’t come out to look for props, it won’t affect him much. The difficulty rise actually impacts the other players more. What’s it got to do with him?”

“I believe the game is always above the players. No one can hide from its tracking. Not even that black cat! I just want to see how long he can survive.”

In the third round, Team F played the role of Hiders. They had only three minutes to find a hiding spot.

Their scene card revealed the setting: a hotel. Though, its size was unknown.

This round didn’t require a draw to determine opponents; the “director” assigned them directly. Each team’s role pairing couldn’t repeat. PvP battles were limited to three rounds. The mechanism wasn’t exactly fair: three groups had already played twice as Hiders and once as Seekers, while three others had the reverse. Ideally, they’d need three more rounds for balance, but the game was shameless. After these three rounds, the format would change again — they’d be transported into a new, unknown scene.

Their opponents this round were Team C, a strong team that had won both the first and second rounds without losing a single member.

Team C was the most disciplined among the six, and the most taciturn. Yan Jiyun had only heard them whisper a few cautious exchanges, revealing little about their in-scene actions. Like him, they were observant types. Still, Yan Jiyun was sure they’d entered the game as a pre-made team — three of them had stood together from the very beginning, with the other two clearly chosen as reliable partners.

He suspected Team C’s members were new players recruited from a guild. Aside from following the instance’s rules, they were also clearly adhering to their guild’s. That meant they’d likely received training beforehand on how the instance worked. It was obvious, especially since they were far more cautious than the average player.

There were many new players, and plenty of guilds within the game. With so many fresh faces, no one really knew anyone else. The only thing Yan Jiyun could conclude was that they were guild players, but he couldn’t tell which guild.

While they waited, Gu Wenzhu whispered to the two of them, “Don’t underestimate Team C. They’re the strongest players here. I know which guild they’re from.”

It felt like getting a pillow sent just when he felt drowsy. Gu Wenzhu might have looked uninterested in the game, but he’d gathered plenty of intel. The classic top-student type who naps through class but still scores full marks; he’d clearly put in the effort behind the scenes but deliberately didn’t show it.

Yan Jiyun waited for him to continue.

Gu Wenzhu didn’t disappoint. “They’re players from a sub-guild under Mingmen Guild¹. You guys know about guilds, right?”

Both Yan Jiyun and Qiu Xi nodded. It was obvious the three of them weren’t affiliated with any guild.

Gu Wenzhu said, “Guilds constantly recruit capable players. The stronger you are, the higher you climb, and eventually you can become the guild’s backbone. Mingmen Guild ranks in the top ten among all guilds. It’s a massive organization, with branches for every stage of difficulty level. Most major guilds work the same way, building upward layer by layer.”

Yan Jiyun concluded, “So it’s a merit-based system.”

Gu Wenzhu nodded. “Yeah. It has pros and cons. Guilds have more resources and share them among members. Freelancers just have to work harder.”

Yan Jiyun steered back to the main point. “Does their guild have any particular traits?”

Gu Wenzhu said, “They’ve got specific preferences. They like recruiting players with strong search and tracking abilities. You can think of them as the ‘three teachings and nine professions’ type.”

Different guilds valued different kinds of talent: some sought all-rounders, some prioritized physical strength, while others recruited unconventional specialists — people from every walk of life.

Yan Jiyun said, “Then we might not be able to beat them at item searching this round.”

Gu Wenzhu smiled. “Maybe others can’t, but you might.”

That explained Team C’s back-to-back victories. Gu Wenzhu’s reasoning made perfect sense, they definitely had something special.

The fact that he was voluntarily sharing information also meant he’d begun to trust both Yan Jiyun and Qiu Xi.

They didn’t bother forming any fancy tactics. Just like in the first round, Yan Jiyun would find good hiding spots once they entered the scene, while Qiu Xi carried Gu Wenzhu on his back.

[Welcome to Yunxiao Hotel². Three-minute hiding countdown begins.]

This time, they were dropped directly inside the hotel, rather than outside where they could view the entire fake castle.

The hotel was lit only by candles, with no electric lights. This was the first setting with actual illumination, faint though it was. That small advantage, however, worked in the Seekers’ favor.

When Yan Jiyun heard “Yunxiao Hotel,” his mind immediately connected it to the other two scene names.

Xiaoyun Street, Siyun Castle, Yunxiao Hotel — every scene had the word “yun (cloud)”.

Could they all belong to the same world?

The hotel had four floors. Finding suitable hiding spots for two people within three minutes was no easy task.

Yunxiao Hotel was large but lacked an elevator. Like Xiaoyun Street, it had a retro style, with wooden stairs that creaked loudly underfoot, sounding as if they could collapse at any moment. They had to tread carefully.

“Don’t hide on the first floor. Go up to the second. I’ll check where it’s best for you two to stay.”

There was no time to explore the layout. They could only pick a floor in advance. Yan Jiyun darted off and left in the blink of an eye.

Gu Wenzhu said, “This time the map is smaller. I can hide somewhere myself. If one of us makes it through, that’s good enough.” For some reason, a flicker of fighting spirit sparked in him. “Yan Jiyun, Qiu Xi, I don’t want to lose.”

From upstairs came Yan Jiyun’s voice: “We won’t lose!”

Qiu Xi clenched his fist at Gu Wenzhu, making an encouraging gesture: Let’s do this!

Gu Wenzhu felt that their little team didn’t seem like participants in a survival game at all. The peace and warmth felt unreal. He hadn’t experienced this kind of care and encouragement even in real life. Honestly, the other two didn’t have to look out for him.

But effort begets reward.

Gu Wenzhu said to Qiu Xi, “Qiu Xi, later you go to the third floor. I’ll probably stay in one of the rooms on the second. I’ll do my best not to get caught.”

No sooner had he said that than Yan Jiyun’s voice came again from above: “Qiu Xi, carry Gu Wenzhu up! I’ve found the perfect spot!”

Qiu Xi immediately hoisted Gu Wenzhu onto his back and bounded upstairs. He really was strong, as it took him no effort at all.

Gu Wenzhu thought Yan Jiyun had found him a wardrobe or a dark corner to hide in.

Instead, when they arrived, it was a storage room. In front of Yan Jiyun stood a large blue plastic barrel piled high with bed sheets and duvet covers waiting to be washed.

Yan Jiyun pulled all the linens out. “Quick, get in. I’ll cover you with a black cloth later. With the dim lighting and a layer of dark fabric on top, no one will notice a person underneath.” It was advice born from experience.

Qiu Xi thought the idea was great. Gu Wenzhu had no right to refuse anyway. He climbed into the blue barrel, lay flat at the bottom, and let the two of them cover him with black fabric and bedsheets.

Qiu Xi tapped the barrel. Yan Jiyun said, “After fifteen minutes, the system will warn inactive players. When that happens, Qiu Xi, come find him and move him somewhere new. You two don’t need to collect any props this round. Leave that to me. Just stay adaptable.”

Gu Wenzhu muffled a “got it,” and soon after, the two hurried away.

Qiu Xi followed Yan Jiyun up to the third floor. They entered a room under maintenance. There was a ventilation shaft above the bathroom. Using a chair Yan Jiyun handed him, Qiu Xi climbed inside, and then Yan Jiyun quietly moved the chair away. He even wiped the shoe prints off and returned the chair neatly to its place, like nothing had ever happened.

After fifteen minutes, it would all depend on their own adaptability. Yan Jiyun trusted that neither Gu Wenzhu nor Qiu Xi were overly reliant on teammates.

Leaving Qiu Xi’s hiding room, Yan Jiyun glanced at the hiding countdown timer.

[Hiding countdown: 32 seconds remaining.]

[Human From Time Card countdown: 2 minutes 2 seconds]

From a human perspective, he could see the scene from a completely different angle. As a cat, his field of view was usually low to the ground; only by jumping to a high place could he see more. In this round, he had to be even more cautious. Team C had clearly come prepared.

And there was another thing: the round’s difficulty had increased. That alone was the first step to make things harder for them; more new rules might follow later.

The hotel had four floors. The second, third, and fourth floors each contained several identical rooms, all separated from one another. Each room had a small balcony that could fit only two adults. Unlike modern hotels, this one didn’t have air-conditioning units outside every room.

From one of the fourth-floor rooms, Yan Jiyun looked down. Only three to five rooms per floor had air conditioners, and their outdoor units were easy to recognize. The other rooms only had fans. Rooms with air conditioners were probably the pricier ones.

Yan Jiyun compared the distances, then tested if there was an invisible wall outside.

There wasn’t. That meant he could, in theory, escape via the balcony—but that was only a last resort.

[Hiding countdown: 3 seconds remaining]

2 seconds—

1 second—

[Seekers incoming! Hiders, hide well~]

Yan Jiyun’s human form still had two minutes left. He assumed the seekers would start from the first floor and work their way up.

But the moment the system prompt ended, he heard footsteps at the entrance to the fourth floor.

So the game really had gotten harder. Seekers were no longer entering from the main entrance but were being dropped directly at each staircase!

That saved the Seekers a great deal of time, creating an extremely unfair experience for the Hiders.

Yan Jiyun hadn’t yet reverted to his cat form. The player stationed at the fourth-floor staircase moved swiftly. There was no need for communication with teammates, just straight to searching. They must have coordinated their tactics in advance.

That Team C player’s search efficiency was astonishing. He didn’t waste time on props. He was focused solely on finding players.

Truly guild-trained talent, every member cooperated seamlessly, wasting not even a second.

Yan Jiyun checked the timer on his Human Form Time Card, comparing it to the opponent’s pace — fifteen seconds per room — and felt his nerves tighten.

The player had already searched the first three rooms. The next was his.

[Human From Time Card countdown: 17 seconds]

The hotel’s cheap wooden beds couldn’t fit an adult underneath.

He hadn’t expected the game to be this shameless, and the opponent was so fast too.

Yan Jiyun hid out on the balcony, calculating the distance between this room and the air-conditioning unit one floor below. If he jumped, would he be seen?

[Want to be Human] livestream channel:

“Now what can he do?! He hasn’t turned back into a cat yet, but the opponent is right there!”

“Ahhh I’m so nervous! Don’t get caught! Not at the start of the round, please!”

“First time I’ve ever thought the game was evil! They actually upped the difficulty just for our kitten! Hurry up and change back! Hurry!”

“What’s he doing?! The player’s already in the room, and he’s not moving?!”

“Aaaaahhh I can’t look but I can’t close the stream either! Mimi, don’t get caught! If you’re eliminated this round, you might not even get sent to the Black Room! It could be a straight-up game over!”

The audience’s fears were, of course, also his own.

He desperately wanted to revert to his cat form, but the card couldn’t be ended early. He could only wait it out. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

The Team C player rummaged through the bathroom, checked the closet and under the bed, leaving no spot untouched. Then he turned toward the balcony, its curtains drawn tight.

Every other room had its curtains open. Only this one was closed. So clearly, someone from Team F was hiding there. Excited, the Team C player grabbed the curtains and yanked them open. With a swish, the faint candlelight spilled into the room.

No one was there.

But then he heard a thump. A faint, soft sound.

He slid open the glass door and stepped onto the balcony. Looking down over the railing, he saw nothing. There was an air-conditioning unit on the third floor, but it couldn’t possibly withstand an adult’s landing. And the balcony door of that room was closed. If someone had entered, he would’ve heard it.

Seeing nothing, the Team C player turned back inside and moved on to the next room.

Meanwhile, Yan Jiyun was balanced on his hind legs in the narrow corner of the third-floor balcony, pressed flat against the wall.

From the other’s angle, he was invisible.

His heart was pounding out of his chest. But at the very last second, he’d transformed back into a cat.

[Want to be Human] livestream channel:

“AAAAAAHH!!!!!! Meowmeow had just transformed midair! My brain short-circuited!”

“That pose though! Standing like he’s being punished, little paws tucked in, hind legs tiptoeing. Too cute I could die.”

“Damn it! I just took a sip of water and missed it! Why doesn’t the game have replay?! Unforgivable!”

“I’m actually crying! This was more thrilling than any beautiful battle scene I’ve ever seen!”

Yan Jiyun had timed it perfectly. Just as the curtains were pulled open, his Human Form TIme Card expired. In that instant, he jumped, still human, onto the air-conditioning unit below.

Thanks to the previous dungeon, he was already skilled at balcony maneuvers. From the unit, he leapt lightly into the adjacent balcony, right as the Seeker inspected the upper one. He’d landed neatly in the player’s blind spot.

He’d chosen to use human form not to dodge Team C’s players but to study the environment from a human perspective, to locate blind spots. Those blind spots were his safe zones, his tactical advantage for movement.

For him, the human form wasn’t for looks or convenience. It was a strategic tool, something to be used to its fullest.

Once the player moved on and no footsteps returned, he finally left the balcony. The glass door of this room wasn’t fully shut. The Team C player had already checked it, so it was safe for now.

Every floor now had Team C players, so he couldn’t just rush out. Judging by their pace, they’d soon change tactics. First a quick sweep, then a focused search of key areas. That was the logical plan.

He crawled under the bed, ears perked, listening carefully for movements from the Team C players searching the third floor.

Qiu Xi was also on the third floor, though not in the same room. He’s about three rooms away, on the opposite side of the stairs.

Team C was too coordinated. They probably had people stationed at key points, while one or two searched for props. Once the 15 minute inactivity penalty kicked in, it’d be troublesome for Qiuxi to move.

Which meant he couldn’t just wait. He had to act first.

There were rooms on every floor, but not all would spawn props. He needed to find one that did, perhaps with a bit of storyline to go with it.

Just as he was thinking that, the system finally announced a new rule for the first time.

[In this scene, an NPC will enter every 10 minutes. Seekers and Hiders must not let the NPC discover their true identities, or they will be eliminated.]

[During the game, if no member of the Seekers triggers the NPC discovery mechanism and they win this round, the score reward will be doubled.]

[At the end of the game, if no member of the Hiders triggers the NPC discovery mechanism and they win this round, the score reward will be doubled.]

It seemed like the rule made things harder for both sides, but in truth, it only made things harder for the Hiders.

The Seekers could still meet NPCs face to face. As long as their identities seemed reasonable, the NPC discovery mechanism wouldn’t trigger. The Hiders, however, not only had to avoid being found by the Seekers but also couldn’t trigger the NPC discovery condition.

If this had been the first round and the Seekers didn’t yet know what the Hiders looked like, it wouldn’t be so bad. But this was already the third round. After the first two, so few players remained that it was impossible not to recognize each other’s faces. What’s more, every one of the three players in Team F had very distinct traits.

Among the three in Team F: one was a good-looking “normal” person, one was lame, and one was mute. No matter which of them showed up, they were impossible to miss.

After reading the system prompt, all three sighed.

One hour meant that before the game ended, there would be multiple waves of NPCs. An idea sparked in Yan Jiyun’s mind.

He had just searched two rooms, but none of them contained any props, neither common ones or high-leveled ones. It wasn’t just him too, the players in Team C hadn’t found anything either.

Could it be that all the props were going to appear on the NPCs that were about to enter? If the NPCs were merely going to exist within the scene, then all they needed to do was avoid them. But now, the most important thing was the props. Every group already understood how crucial they were — not only for this current scene, but likely for future plotlines or rounds as well.

Yan Jiyun wasn’t in any hurry to leave the room. The round clearly wasn’t going to let them find props through simple observation this time; the difficulty had been raised.

He waited quietly for the first 10 minute mark to arrive, curious how many NPCs would appear in the first wave and what roles they would play within the scene.

Meanwhile, the players from Team C were still searching for the three of them, but with no success.

Though Team F looked like the weakest team, they had already won twice, and that wasn’t luck. They were genuinely good at hiding. In just three minutes, they could vanish into spots no one would think of.

A coordinated search by five people was normally quite efficient, but there were a lot of rooms in the hotel. It was possible the trio had switched hiding places midway, which wasn’t impossible either.

Yan Jiyun’s goal was to find props; the Seekers’ goal was both to find props and to find people. But they, too, were uncertain what would happen once the first NPC wave appeared.

[The first wave of NPCs has entered. All players, please try not to let others suspect your true identities.]

Originally, it was only the three of them hiding. But now Team C had also gone into hiding. They didn’t know whether the NPCs would suspect them right away, so it was safer not to show themselves.

For Yan Jiyun, however, the arrival of NPCs could actually work in his favor. He could choose to disguise himself as a cat NPC. Depending on the situation, of course. If the NPCs hated cats, then he’d be in trouble.

After all, hotels and inns usually had a rule of no pets allowed.

If the system harbored malice toward him, that rule would put him at a serious disadvantage. He had to be cautious.

Yan Jiyun knew there was a player from Team C hiding just next door.

He still didn’t know where the NPCs would appear from. Maybe they would materialize out of thin air, or maybe they’d enter properly through the front door.

After some thought, he decided to stay low and quiet. He crouched down and slid under the bed, just in case an NPC suddenly appeared inside the room.

From the NPC’s perspective, if they believed this room had always been empty, then suddenly seeing someone appear out of nowhere would make him the intruder. That was the last thing he wanted, and exactly the kind of trick the system loved to pull.

As he was thinking that, the thing he had imagined actually happened.

A pair of white leather shoes materialized beside the bed. Yan Jiyun shrank back toward the head of the bed, trying to stay as far away as possible.

Judging by the shoes and the style, this NPC was probably male. A vintage suitcase rested beside his leg, and the man muttered to himself, “What a shabby room. Everything in here looks so cheap.”

Suddenly, the room’s phone rang, its sharp tone piercing through the silence. The sound made Yan Jiyun’s heart nearly leap out of his chest.

The game hadn’t just increased in difficulty — it had also become scarier.

At the same time, a woman’s scream and a man’s helpless protest echoed from the next room.

“Ah! You pervert!”

“I’m not a pervert, miss—”

“You’re the one who’s a ‘miss’!”

Yan Jiyun sighed for his unfortunate neighbor. That poor man was done for.

Good thing he had the foresight to hide early.

The author had something to say:

The last “miss” refers to a worker in a certain… special line of business³.

1
名门公会; I’m keeping them in pinyin unlike other guilds because Mingmen means “famous”. Famous Guild just… sounds weird in English.
2
云霄旅馆; Cloud’s Peak Hotel
3
The “Miss” is 小姐 (xiao jie/little big sister). While it does mean that (you can use it to refer a young woman), it can be a euphemism for “prostitute”