“Holy sh*t, both the difficulty and rewards are all question marks—this Shen Junxing has to be a high-level NPC!”
“He’s the one who boosted the Ghost Bus quest difficulty from E to B-rank, isn’t he?! Either he’s a boss or the main character of the game!”
“Where’s Shen Junxing?! Take me to him now!”
Tang Yu stared blankly at the players, listening as they used terms like “high-level NPC,” “game protagonist,” and “boss” to describe Shen Junxing.
As expected—Shen Junxing was Shen Junxing.
Even if the world turned into a game and everyone else was reduced to NPCs, Shen Junxing would still be a high-level NPC.
“Tang Yu, your friend’s lunchbox was truly delicious. We’d really love to taste it again. May I ask for Shen Junxing’s contact information?” She Qulin asked with a smile. Compared to the other players, his courtesy and politeness stood out.
For the few seconds that Tang Yu hesitated to answer, the other players all fell silent too, unwilling to miss even a single word related to Shen Junxing.
If Shen Junxing was the protagonist of the game, then these players would probably become his allies, helping him save the world. That must be how it would go, right?
But if Shen Junxing was the boss…?
Tang Yu lowered his head without replying. Just then, the bell rang for class. Tang Yu immediately said, “Sorry, I have class now.”
With that, he tried to squeeze out of the players’ encirclement. He targeted the gap near She Qulin—sure enough, She Qulin immediately stepped aside, leaving a path for him.
Yan Lang, standing next to She Qulin, reached out as though to block Tang Yu’s way. But suddenly—his shadow on the ground rose with his hand and fell with it, and Yan Lang, startled, dropped his hand back down.
…What the h*ll? Just now, some inexplicable force had controlled his body?! Did the game bug out?!
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t leave!” A player tried to chase Tang Yu, but Yan Lang blocked him with one arm. “The h*ll are you stopping me for?!”
Another player shouted Tang Yu’s name, but Yan Lang seized him too.
“Yan Lang, are you insane? You already hogged the food!”
Amid the players’ noisy bickering, Tang Yu found his usual seat and sat down.
His classmates also took their seats.
The players kept shoving each other.
The teacher entered the classroom.
The players kept shoving each other.
The teacher angrily called their names.
The players kept shoving each other.
Sitting in the corner, Tang Yu stared blankly at the chaotic classroom.
The furious teacher strode up to the players—only to have his wig yanked off by them. Enraged, the teacher stormed out, leaving behind bewildered classmates and still-squabbling players.
How strange.
Whether it was the teachers or the students, they all seemed to recognize the eight players who had suddenly appeared—as if these eight were just their usual classmates, only a little too mischievous, a little too eccentric, a little too neurotic.
Was it the world that had gone mad, or had he?
Tang Yu didn’t know.
He merely took a notebook out of his drawer, picked up a pen, and wrote on the paper:
“A Survival Guide for Being a Background NPC in a Horror Game.”
He wasn’t a smart person. To learn the same concept, he had to do many more problems than others and constantly review his thought process just to understand the same material.
It was like that in academics, and in many other aspects of life too.
Tang Yu wasn’t worried about others seeing what he wrote—because long ago he had discovered that whenever he wrote something that touched upon the truth of this world, others simply couldn’t see it.
“1. Don’t become the players’ enemy, because players are truly terrifying. Even when Head Teacher Liu merely scolded them a little, they pulled off his wig. (Though everyone disliked Head Teacher Liu, no one else would go that far. Such chaos, madness… yet the players are so free.)”
…
“It must be due to the Shadow Protection,” She Qulin said, watching the players who were behaving erratically. His expression was unreadable. “Did the system explain what Shadow Protection does?”
Yan Lang shook his head. “Everything’s just question marks.”
“I have a theory…” She Qulin said slowly. “You gained the Shadow Protection status because you ate Tang Yu’s porridge—but you were the one who asked for it. Tang Yu didn’t offer it to you.”
Yan Lang frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“I mean, what if Shadow Protection only protects Tang Yu?”
The other players were drawn in by She Qulin’s theory and temporarily stopped arguing.
“During the ghost bus mission, I was tasked with watching Tang Yu. When I questioned him, he resisted. Suddenly, my body moved on its own—I left my seat and voluntarily put my neck in the hands of a ghost passenger who had appeared.”
“When the school mission was triggered, I didn’t act right away. I tried to approach Tang Yu more gently, but when I asked for his contact info, my body moved away on its own again.”
“At the time, I thought maybe this was a special ability of Tang Yu’s, but now I think it might be related to Shen Junxing’s Shadow Protection.”
The players loudly conspired in front of Tang Yu and his NPC classmates:
“Is this buff really only for protecting Tang Yu? I don’t buy it! Shadow Protection sounds like it’s perfect for stealth. Yan Lang, test it out later.”
Tang Yu heard the student in front of him mutter: “They’re saying Yan Lang is completely useless and wants to become a thief after graduation.”
Tang Yu: “…”
He’d heard before that if players said certain things, the system would “harmonize” or censor them—but he hadn’t expected this kind of censorship.
“Makes sense, Yan Lang did eat the most just now. So now you’re Tang Yu’s dog?”
Tang Yu heard the student behind him mutter: “Hey, did you hear? They said Yan Lang is Tang Yu’s dog!”
Tang Yu: “…” Maybe random censorship would be better.
Then someone behind that student muttered: “Why are you so worked up? Everyone knows you want to be Tang Yu’s dog.”
Tang Yu: “…………” Enough already.
He pressed his fingers against his temples. Ever since She Qulin started analyzing things, his thoughts had been in complete disarray.
He had known about Shen Junxing’s intervention on the ghost bus last night. But She Qulin’s sudden exit, the porridge this morning…
“What if Shadow Protection only protects Tang Yu?”
“Did Little Yu like the breakfast I brought?”
“No.”
Different voices overlapped in his mind into a single, buzzing tone, making his temples throb with pain. Worse than facing Shen Junxing’s malice—was the realization that he might have let down Shen Junxing’s kindness.
His chest felt heavy, a warm yet bitter emotion spreading through him, making it hard to breathe.
Memories he thought long forgotten surged back.
After his parents passed away, he once had a high fever and lay curled up in bed, calling for “Mom” and “Dad.”
A hand gently wiped away the tears on his face. Through his blurred vision, he vaguely saw a figure. He clutched that hand tightly, mumbling, “Mom… Little Yu feels awful…”
But the hand still slipped away.
Tang Yu cried bitterly, murmuring with eyes shut, “Don’t leave me.”
A spoonful of porridge silenced his sobs. The person feeding him wasn’t very skilled, spilling food more than once. Eventually, he was lifted into their arms.
That embrace wasn’t as gentle as Mom’s, nor as sturdy as Dad’s. Tang Yu forced his eyes open and saw the silhouette of a teenage boy.
Maybe it was a dream, but he suddenly remembered—his mother had once touched her belly and told him sadly that before having him, she had carried another child.
“If only that baby had been born… then even if something happened to us, Little Yu wouldn’t be alone.”
Just before the spoon reached his lips, he mumbled, “…Big brother?”
…
Tang Yu sat motionless for a long time before picking up his phone and sending Shen Junxing a message: “It’s not that I didn’t like it.”
Shen Junxing replied almost instantly: “?”
Just a question mark.
No greeting, no tone, no emoji.
Colder than Tang Yu had ever seen him.
That unfamiliar coldness made Tang Yu want to cry. He hunched over the table, curling up, unable to bear it. If they hadn’t been texting, he might have choked out a sob.
“I didn’t dislike the breakfast you brought.”
This time, Shen Junxing didn’t reply immediately.
“Didn’t dislike…” Tang Yu paused while typing. He deleted the word “you” and replaced it with a name from deep in his memory: “Big brother.”
Ever since he grew older, he hadn’t called him that—too intimate, and they weren’t related by blood. Both were boys. It felt strange to keep calling someone “big brother.”
But Tang Yu knew—Shen Junxing liked being called “big brother.”
The first time Tang Yu stopped using it and started calling him by name, Shen Junxing’s smile had noticeably faded.
Madman, freak, monster—those were Shen Junxing.
Gentle, reliable, a hero—that was “Big brother.”
“Big brother, don’t be mad at me, okay?”
…
A massive shadow engulfed the entire dorm building. Even the sun-facing side was eerily dark, with no light piercing the windows—except one balcony on the sixth floor where a silver bedsheet was hung out to dry.
Sunlight illuminated the sheet, water dripping from it steadily. The rest of the balcony remained in shadow, as if a spotlight shone only on the sheet.
The dorm manager, seated at the building’s entrance in a lounge chair, glanced at the sun above, then at the bright light just two meters away. She mumbled: “That’s weird… This place always gets sun. Why not today?”
She rubbed her shoulder and shivered.
Just as she was about to move her chair, the shadow over the dorm receded like a tide, flowing across the ground and coalescing into a human figure.
White sneakers stepped silently on the shadow. Above them, brown slacks. Sunlight traced a golden outline along a white shirt. A handsome young man walked while looking at his phone, a helpless, indulgent smile blooming on his once expressionless face—like ice melting in an instant.
“That’s what I should be saying, Little Yu. Don’t be mad at me anymore, okay?”
Shen Junxing was a monster wearing human skin—and also the gentlest, most considerate “big brother” in the world.
And Tang Yu had discovered the temporary spell to turn the monster into a brother.
