Warning: This chapter contains scenes of violence that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

[The developer of this game must be a pervert]

[“Smart people’s brains are chewier”? Is that even human language?!]

[Dude, you still consider him human? He’s less human than the Ghost Bride!]

[The Ghost Bride was never human to begin with.]

[Is the drill coming out now? Are they going to drill brains?]

[Hey, don’t remind Hannibal!]

[If we don’t remind him, will he not eat brains then?]

[Mom, I’m not studying anymore starting today! I’ll become a premium ingredient!]

[What the hell is a ‘premium ingredient’!!]

[The butler is chasing them now!]

Inside the escape room, the butler and his servants had reached the door and were pounding on it.

“Esteemed guests, dinner is ready. Please join me at the table,” the butler’s voice was still gentle and polite, but to those inside the room, it sounded extraordinarily terrifying.

[What’s for dinner? That guy’s brain, or Professor Zhang’s brain?]

[Professor Zhang isn’t dead yet, his energy value is still dropping!]

[If it keeps dropping like this, he’s going to go offline, right?]

[If I were him, I’d rip off the helmet right now!]

“What do we do?” The sudden turn of events panicked the players in the room.

“We definitely can’t go out. If we go out, we’ll all become dinner.”

“Then we still have to solve the Rubik’s Cube.”

The seven players looked at the Rubik’s Cube again, furrowing their brows, trying to figure out how to restore it.

“Esteemed guests, the food is getting cold. Please come out quickly.”

[What the hell do you mean ‘cold’? Did you even heat it up?]

Every time the butler spoke, an unyielding netizen would chime in with a response in the comments, making it quite lively.

Perhaps knowing that the people inside wouldn’t come out, the butler calmly said to a nearby servant, “Go fetch the key.”

[Male god, run! He’s going to get the key, ahhhhhh!]

[How do we run? We can’t solve the Rubik’s Cube!]

[Damn it, what are we waiting for? Let’s fight our way out and die together!]

“How about we just fight our way out?” Elena instantly aligned with the hot-blooded netizens in the live stream. She was best at fighting, and a brawl was clearly simpler than dealing with this unfamiliar Rubik’s Cube.

“Don’t be impulsive,” Xia Zheng said calmly. “This is only the first stage. Usually, the first stage of a game isn’t designed to be too difficult. There should be a way to solve it.”

Outside the screen, Tong Yu nodded frantically. ‘Right, right, my design isn’t difficult at all.’

Zhang Xin couldn’t help but turn to Tong Yu and ask, “Does this Rubik’s Cube have any hints?”

Tong Yu shook his head. “No.”

Zhang Xin’s eyes widened. “No? Pure puzzle?”

Tong Yu: “No hints, pure puzzle.”

Zhang Xin went crazy. “Who the hell can solve this in thirty seconds?! Are you trying to kill everyone in the first stage? How are they supposed to play later?”

Tong Yu silently pulled out a Rubik’s Cube from a cabinet. Then, in front of Zhang Xin, he deftly solved it in less than ten seconds.

“…” Zhang Xin was silent for a few seconds, then said earnestly, “Not everyone in this world is a genius.”

Tong Yu was exasperated. “Anyone with a bit of sense can solve this. They’re just too nervous.”

Finally, Xia Zheng stepped forward. “I’ll give it a try.”

With that, Xia Zheng reached for the Rubik’s Cube, and at the same time, the countdown on the cube began to tick, though this time it was sixty seconds instead of thirty.

[The time has increased.]

[Is it because Professor Zhang was caught, so they got an extra thirty seconds?]

[So, solving this Rubik’s Cube requires time? As long as there’s enough time, it can definitely be solved?]

[I know how to solve it! Turn the blue one down, then twist left, twist right, then the pink one…]

[Is the guy above an idiot? They can’t see your comments inside!]

[Ahhh, I’m so anxious! I wish I could call actor Xia!]

Xia Zheng naturally couldn’t answer the phone. He could only rely on instinct to continue solving the Rubik’s Cube based on Professor Zhang’s half-finished attempt. As he worked, the knocking at the door outside never stopped, the *bang bang bang* growing more frantic, as if it could break through at any moment.

“What do we do? They’re coming in!” someone cried out in fear.

“Don’t be afraid.” Elena looked left and right, then suddenly grabbed a chair and stood guard at the door.

[Elena, you’ve finally returned to your tomboyish self!]

[I still prefer the shy Elena.]

[Would a shy brain be pink?]

[Upstairs, has Hannibal possessed you?]

Xia Zheng rapidly spun the components of the Rubik’s Cube. As he twisted, he suddenly noticed some patterns, and his eyes lit up. “I know how to solve it!”

Everyone looked over in surprise. Derek then glanced at the time. “Quick, only ten seconds left!”

Xia Zheng spun it furiously. At this moment, the servants outside the door were also approaching with the key.

For those ten seconds, inside and outside the game, almost everyone—except Tong Yu himself—held their breath, silently screaming in their minds: “Faster, faster, a little faster!”

In the live stream, the energy levels of the seven players plummeted.

The instant the butler got the key, the Rubik’s Cube was solved simultaneously. With a *click,* the cube split open, revealing a silver key inside.

“The key! It’s the key!” Everyone cheered. Their shouts of joy were so loud that they drowned out the sound of the butler turning the key.

[Run! The butler is opening the door!]

[Stop shouting, just run, ahhhhhh!]

This drove the audience crazy. They flooded the comments with [Run, ahhhh] messages, generating a hundred thousand in a minute.

Elena, being closest to the door, reacted first: “They’re opening the door! Quick, open the back door!”

With that, Elena used her body to block the door. Almost immediately as she blocked it, the butler had already pushed it open a crack.

“My beautiful lady…”

“My beautiful ass!!” Elena exploded, pushing the door back and locking it with a forceful shove.

Derek reacted the fastest, grabbed the key from the Rubik’s Cube, and quickly unlocked the door. “Quick, run through here!”

The seven players rushed out one by one, but only three had escaped when the butler kicked the door open and led the servants in pursuit.

“Esteemed guests, it’s time for dinner!”

“Go to hell!” Elena couldn’t hold back anymore. She grabbed a chair and swung it at the butler’s handsome face.

“Hannibal’s castle does not welcome impolite guests.” The butler was angered. With a wave of his hand, the servants swarmed towards Elena.

The players and the butler once again began a chase of life and death. However, the castle was the butler’s home turf, and every corridor the players ran down could potentially reveal handsome, suit-clad servants.

Tong Yu had designed the escape route: as long as players avoided all populated corridors, they could smoothly enter the next checkpoint.

But unfortunately, their interstellar compatriots had played too many war games. While they did run down empty paths, they also ran down paths where they could overpower the few people present. So, you saw seven people, either bare-handed or wielding chairs and tables, battling the servants who appeared in the corridors. The escape room instantly turned into a bloody fighting game.

Tong Yu spat out a mouthful of milk tea.

[Quick, fight your way out!]

[Don’t use stools! Go to the kitchen, get knives, get the drill! Drill their brains too!]

[Kill them! Kill them!]

[Don’t get bogged down in fighting, the butler is coming!]

Although the combat scene wasn’t designed by Tong Yu, every NPC in the game had their own mission parameters. For instance, the servants’ goal was to impede and capture players, while the butler’s role was to escort captured players to the dining room.

So, while the players’ fighting was intense, their prolonged engagement meant they failed to evade the NPCs’ sight within the allotted time, causing all the surrounding NPCs to converge on them.

Xia Zheng sensed something was wrong: “No, there are too many of them. We’ll get caught this way.”

Derek looked around and pointed to a room door ahead: “Get into that room.”

They were already moving fast, but the fight had taken too long. The butler had arrived, and the last person running was pinned down by the butler: “Esteemed guest, it’s time for dinner!”

The captured player was a tough guy, who immediately shouted bravely, “If you’ve got the guts, kill me now!”

Except for the captured player, the other six managed to hide in the room. They closed the door and listened against it for a while, and slowly, the hallway grew silent.

“The people outside seem to have left,” Elena said.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“There are so many people in the castle; we can’t possibly fight them all.”

“Exactly, and they have weapons, while we have nothing.”

“This game is impossible to clear.”

Derek, being a game streamer, had done some research before playing this game and immediately offered a different perspective: “I think we’re playing the game wrong.”

Tong Yu’s eyes immediately welled up with tears: ‘Finally, someone gets it!’

Xia Zheng asked, “How so?”

Derek: “I’ve read the game description; this isn’t a combat game, it’s a puzzle game. Escape rooms, in short, are about escaping a confined space by solving puzzles.”

Liu Mingjie: “But there are so many people chasing us outside; we’ll eventually get caught.”

Derek: “There must be a pattern, we just haven’t found it yet. For example, with the Rubik’s Cube earlier, the butler quickly found our room, but he didn’t rush in immediately; he gave us time to solve the cube.”

Xia Zheng also nodded: “I agree. Just like the ‘Ghost Bride’ earlier, after the wedding ceremony, the Ghost Bride would definitely go to the bridal chamber, so there must be some kind of pattern.”

Elena asked: “Marriage leads to the bridal chamber, and we’re here for dinner, so could the exit be in the dining room?!”

At her speculation, several faces paled.

Liu Mingjie suddenly spoke weakly, “Do you think Professor Zhang’s and Little Ma’s brains might already be on the dinner plates?”

Little Ma was the tough guy who had just been dragged away.

Liu Mingjie’s statement conjured an image that was too impactful, making everyone’s faces turn even whiter.

[No, dead people’s brains aren’t fresh.]

[No, dead people’s brains aren’t fresh.]

…

This rapidly scrolling comment was a reference to what was currently happening to “Little Ma.”

Little Ma was dragged by the butler all the way to the dining room and placed in the chair directly opposite Professor Zhang. Both their bodies were tightly locked, and their heads were confined by large metal frames, unable to move.

“Professor Zhang, where’s your hair?” Little Ma asked, immediately noticing Professor Zhang’s shiny bald head.

Professor Zhang’s old face flushed, unsure if it was from embarrassment or anger: “You’ll find out in a bit.”

“Master, the guests have taken their seats,” the butler bowed to Hannibal.

Hannibal waved his hand to the side, and a beautiful maid immediately came over with shaving tools, saying gently, “Esteemed guest, I will be very gentle.”

“What are you doing? What are you doing?!” Little Ma couldn’t see the maid’s actions, but he felt something cold moving on his head. “If you have the guts, just kill me directly!”

Little Ma roared at Hannibal, his eyes bloodshot.

Hannibal gazed at Comrade Ma with his eyes that held an unnervingly deep affection even for dogs: “How could I do that? If a person dies, their brain isn’t fresh anymore. It affects the taste.”

“Ahhh… you sick pervert, kill me, kill me!!”

Tong Yu looked at Little Ma’s rapidly plummeting energy value, feeling speechless. ‘Are these guys too deep into character? It’s just a game.’

Hannibal paid him no mind. Instead, he began to eat from the plate in front of the two men.

Little Ma and Professor Zhang both recognized the contents: it was the brain they had watched being removed.

“Ugh!” Both of them simultaneously vomited.

Hannibal savored it, then took a sip of blood-red wine, and evaluated, “A brain from someone who died in terror has an almond-like bitterness.”

“You pervert!!!” Little Ma cursed loudly.

Hannibal looked at him, then suddenly smiled, carrying the plate towards him: “Would you like a taste?”

Little Ma tightly shut his mouth, daring not to say another word, as if opening it would allow that thing to slip in.

Hannibal then pointed at Professor Zhang, who sat directly opposite him: “Or, perhaps you’d like to taste his brain?”

Professor Zhang, whose nerves were already stretched to their limit, could no longer endure. His eyes rolled back, a flash of white light, and he went offline.

“Professor Zhang!” Little Ma wailed.

“Scared to death?” According to the game’s setting, if a player disconnects, the NPC assumes the player has died. So, in Hannibal’s eyes, Professor Zhang was dead. “Unfresh ingredients can’t be eaten. What a pity.”

With that, he patted Little Ma’s now bald head and instructed the maid, “Clean him up. I’ll be eating from his head in a moment.”

[Eating… from his head?]

[Does that mean using his head as a bowl?]

[Mom, why does my scalp feel cold?]

[You’re not alone, upstairs.]

[My mom asked me why I’m wearing a hat in the middle of summer.]

[I disconnected!!! I actually disconnected just watching a live stream.]

[I disconnected two minutes ago. My Awakened asked if I was in danger, and I told him I was watching a live stream. He didn’t believe me and is already on his way home.]

[The developer of this game must be a pervert! How could they come up with such a malicious plot!]

[+1]

Tong Yu was caught between laughter and tears. ‘Why is the scriptwriting getting personal now?’

Zhang Xin turned his head, looking at Tong Yu: “Pervert!”

Tong Yu: “!!”