134: Chapter 134 Honey, you had another nightmare?

Time passed.

Darkness. Before his eyes was still boundless darkness.

In the cramped rental house shelter, only a single candle burned quietly on the corner of the table,

its dim yellow halo barely dispelled the shadows in the corners, yet it also caused the shadows on the wall to twist like ghosts.

Li Taiping leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the flickering flame.

Time.

This concept, once just a number to him, now felt like an invisible mountain, weighing heavily on his heart.

"Has it not been 24 hours yet?"

He murmured to himself, his voice raspy.

Something was wrong.

This was very wrong!

On that Abandoned City instance entry ticket, it was written clearly in black and white: trial duration, 24 hours.

According to the convention of the Survival Game System, once time was up, you would be forcibly teleported out regardless of whether you had cleared it.

But now?

Li Taiping calculated silently.

Ever since he dragged those blind fools out to "clean up the trash" in that damn shop, it had turned dark.

And it had stayed that way until now.

He remembered clearly that he had slept three full times in this small shelter.

Roughly three days had passed.

Even if he was a mortal now with a disrupted schedule and a blurred perception of time,

there was no way three complete sleep cycles could still fall within 24 hours, no matter how he calculated it.

Three days! At least three days! Seventy-two hours had passed!

Why hadn't that dog of a system kicked him out yet?

Could it be...

A thought that made his scalp tingle uncontrollably bubbled up from the depths of his heart.

Was he trapped to death in this dungeon world?

Li Taiping's heart sank abruptly.

It wasn't that he was afraid of death.

In the Seafaring World, he had long lived with his life on the line.

He was just... unwilling to accept it.

Dammit, he had crushed a unique special dungeon card to get in here!

So far, aside from a few pieces of junk scavenged from those unlucky bastards, a broken compass suspected to be a High-Precision Nautical Compass, and those two incomplete excellent grade item upgrade scrolls, he had gained almost nothing.

To be trapped here until death empty-handed?

That was just too frustrating!

If The girls on the Many Children, Many Blessings knew that their omnipotent Captain Brother had messed up in an dungeon that was like a starter village and starved to death, what would become of Li Taiping's lifelong reputation?

At the thought of starving to death, the corner of Li Taiping's mouth couldn't help but twitch.

He turned his head and glanced at the supplies piled in the corner.

The stuffed hiking backpack and those three rings with pitifully small storage space.

The food and water inside were enough for him and Su Jie to squander until the next Peaceful Period.

Fortunately, he hadn't truly been cold-hearted enough to treat this "NPC," who looked exactly like Su Mei, as a pure tool.

Otherwise, watching her die of hunger and thirst before his eyes... that feeling would probably be pretty shitty.

Would he also become the first player in history to starve to death in an dungeon?

Li Taiping shook his head, trying to drive these messy thoughts out of his mind.

Now was not the time for this.

He had to find a way to figure out what exactly went wrong with this dungeon.

Why did the time rules fail?

Why had the system completely lost contact?

Just as he was deep in thought, the only light source in the room, a small oil lamp, was turned up.

Warm light instantly filled the entire room.

A pair of soft arms wrapped around his neck from behind, and a warm body pressed against him.

"Hubby, are you having nightmares again?"

Su Jie's voice sounded in his ear, thick with sleepiness and a hint of imperceptible heartache.

"Wifey is here, don't be afraid, don't be afraid."

She was like coaxing a frightened child, her chin gently rubbing against his shoulder.

Li Taiping's body stiffened.

It was that feeling again.

This damn feeling that made him unable to distinguish between reality and illusion.

For a moment, he even began to doubt himself.

Doubting that the so-called seafaring survival, the so-called Many Children, Many Blessings, and the so-called number one on both rankings were all just a dream.

A ridiculous, nonsensical hero's dream fantasized because of too much real-world pressure.

And this world before him, this apocalyptic wasteland full of zombies and Ghouls, and this woman acting spoiled in his arms, Su Jie, were his true reality?

As soon as this thought arose, a memory he had deliberately forgotten emerged from the depths of his mind like a ghost.

He remembered.

In the memories of this world, after he and Su Jie had sex for the first time, in the early hours of that morning, he had suddenly fainted.

That feeling was like an invisible giant hand roughly tearing the connection between him and the real world.

His consciousness was instantly pulled away, and the entire world fell into a dead silence.

During the time he was "unconscious," the terrifying virus codenamed "004" swept across the globe, the game invaded, and the whole world turned into a living hell overnight.

And his "sweet dream" about the Many Children, Many Blessings just happened to be startled awake after dreaming of this City Ruins.

As for those heaven-defying Talents, those powerful items...

Could it be that they didn't come from any many children, many blessings at all, but were rewards he obtained from the game system as a survivor of this apocalyptic world?

Was it just that because of the sudden catastrophe, he... lost his memory?

"Fuck..."

Li Taiping cursed under his breath and shook his head vigorously.

No, impossible.

That sense of reality from holding power, that emotion of sharing life and death with The girls—how could that be fake!

"I'm fine," he responded, suppressing the irritability in his heart, his voice somewhat stiff. "I just have a bit of a headache."

"Headache?"

Su Jie moved from behind him to the front, squatted down, and looked up at him with a worried face that was identical to Su Mei's.

"Is the pressure too much?"

Her hand gently touched his forehead.

"Hubby, we have food and drink now, we're very safe. Don't think so much, okay?"

The room fell into silence once again.

Only the wick in the oil lamp burned quietly, making a faint crackling sound.

Su Jie silently dimmed the light, leaving only a halo of dim yellow light.

Darkness always seemed to breed different kinds of emotions.

"Hubby..."

Su Jie's voice sounded again, carrying a laziness and flirtatiousness that made one's bones go soft.

"Since there's nothing to do anyway, how about... we release some tension?"

Her body pressed against him again.

Those beautiful peach blossom eyes were startlingly bright in the dim light.

"Hubby~"

"Hubby..."

"I want it..."

...