Free Web NovelChapter 121: Chapter 116: A Besieged City
Yunhua City - Shelter 915.
Wu Yun opened his eyes and sat up in his bunk.
Today was November 2nd, the third day since the "Silent Moment" rule began.
It was only the third day, but he already had a very uncomfortable feeling.
As an extrovert, social interaction was his source of spiritual energy.
He loved face-to-face conversations where he could see the other person’s expression, hear their voice, and even catch their scent. Only then did socializing feel real.
If it was just online communication, he found it incredibly boring. People online could just be putting on a persona, their personalities completely different from their real-life selves, which felt artificial.
So, ever since the rule began, unable to speak, he could only use sleep to alleviate his frustration. He slept at night and slept during the day when he had nothing else to do. But after sleeping for more than ten hours a day, he couldn’t fall asleep anymore even if he wanted to.
Wu Yun looked at the other three people in his room. Two were at their desks playing games on their computers, and one was lying in bed playing on his phone.
He got out of bed, left the living quarters, and went to the recreation area outside.
The officially constructed shelter was divided into five main sections: residential, recreational, athletic, dining, and storage.
Aside from the residential section, which was divided into several small rooms, the other four were large, shared areas.
In the recreation area, for instance, there were large-screen TVs, pool tables, and plush leather sofas for people to relax.
Wu Yun saw someone sitting on a sofa, just staring into space. He walked over, sat down next to him, and typed on his phone: (Hello, what are you up to?)
The person saw the text, gave him a startled look, then shook their head, waved their hands dismissively, and got up to leave.
Wu Yun’s expression darkened. This wasn’t the first time he’d encountered such a reaction.
It seemed that after the rule was announced, everyone was trying their best to avoid any form of interaction, even just through text.
This made him extremely uncomfortable and at a loss for what to do.
The suffering this rule caused him was far more intense than that of the first rule, Sleep Deprivation, or the fourth, the blizzard.
The thought that there were still more than twenty days of this left made Wu Yun’s expression turn grim. After a moment, he returned to his room, sat at his desk, and logged into the "Ascender’s Home" website on his computer.
This forum, which he had only discovered the day before yesterday, had already become his new go-to place for communication.
It was the one place that made him feel like he was interacting with real, living people. Other social media sites had grown more and more lifeless after October 10th, the atmosphere a shadow of its former self.
He opened the general discussion board. Few people talked about the rules in this section; most were just trying to find some joy amidst the suffering, posting about entertainment and relaxation.
"Anyone up for a co-op shooter? Let’s start a match."
"Let’s play an idiom chain. I’ll start: ’As you wish’."
"Ever since we were forbidden to speak these last two days, I’ve started pondering philosophical questions. Anyone else have the same symptom?"
...
Wu Yun browsed for a while and saw a post that caught his interest.
"Check out the huge catch we just reeled in!"
He clicked on it and saw a photo of several people, who looked like they were out in the wilderness, collectively holding a large fish that was more than half the length of a person.
"Holy crap, that’s enough to eat for a week."
"If it weren’t for these goddamn rules, if I caught a fish like that, I’d be parading it around the streets for days."
"OP, are you guys camping out in the wild? So jealous! It’s so boring staying in the shelter!"
Wu Yun felt a sense of kinship with this commenter. He was one of the first to move into the shelter, and now, more than twenty days later, he was feeling increasingly suffocated. He was starting to regret it, thinking it would have been better to live outside Cheng City from the start.
He saw that the OP had replied to the comment: "You’re jealous of us? We’re jealous of you! It’s so safe in the shelters, who cares if it’s boring? Out here in the wild, we have to sleep with one eye open. There are so many gangs of bandits running around, robbing people of their supplies. It’s terrifying!"
Someone below summarized: "The shelter is a fortress besieged. Those inside want to get out, and those outside want to get in."
Wu Yun watched for a while, then posted a thread of his own on the board: "The Miserable Shelter Life of an Extrovert"
In the post, he poured out his frustrations. He didn’t get many replies, but the ones he did were from people in similar situations.
Meanwhile, in the Strategy Research Room, a new experiment had begun.
The test subjects were people transported from outside, ten in total. They refused to communicate, their faces revealing a kind of calm despair, as if they had long been prepared for their fate.
When the test specialists asked them via text if they were participating voluntarily, all ten refused to answer.
Even so, the experiment had to continue.
According to the plan, sensor-activated bombs were placed on the necks of the test subjects, who were then made to produce a sound.
The Sound Hunter teleported in seconds later. As it attacked a test subject, it also triggered the sensor-activated bomb, which immediately detonated. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
"BOOM!"
Because the experiment was conducted in a specialized blast-proof room, there wasn’t much smoke and dust. High-definition cameras managed to capture an image of the Sound Hunter.
The researchers discovered that this method of attack was viable. Furthermore, once the Sound Hunter was attacked, it would drop its Invisibility and reveal its body.
However, its slender, black, snake-like body was only visible for less than two seconds before it quickly turned transparent and vanished without a trace.
After some discussion, several analysts concluded that the Sound Hunter was likely similar to the previous "Screamers." Conventional weapons couldn’t kill this type of monster; weapons related to Psychic Power were necessary.
After the report was submitted, a batch of Psychic Power-based explosive devices was urgently dispatched.
The experiment was repeated with several more of the ten test subjects.
The Sound Hunter quickly appeared upon hearing their screams. This time, when the Psychic Power explosive detonated, it successfully blew off a section of the Sound Hunter’s body. However, it didn’t seem to kill it, as the remaining part still turned transparent and disappeared.
