The Earth is Online

Once the black tower’s words ended, the four people in the room stood in place and stared at each other with amazement. The four people had just been about to go out. It was dawn and Lin Yi was still lurking around the circus, staring at any movements inside. The other four people were divided into groups and they were going to search carefully around the place where Mr. B disappeared yesterday. They hadn’t yet left when they received the hint from the black tower.

The man in glasses calmed down and looked at his teammates. “Did you hear the black tower’s prompt just now?”

The three men nodded.

The glasses man said, “Today is the second day and the Strange Circus’ surprise night will take place six days later. The black tower said that we triggered the ‘Detectives’ Contempt’. The position of the monster will be announced every three days, which means it will announce the location twice in the next six days.”

Old Li immediately asked, “Captain, does this mean we don’t need to search for the monster today?”

The glasses man thought for a long time before replying, “No. The black tower giving us this clue actually points to three things. First, we triggered this effect because the players are currently at a disadvantage and can’t compete with the two black tower bosses. It gave players preferential treatment in order to make the game fair. Secondly, the black tower will give the location of the monster, which means...”

The glasses man walked to the sand table in the middle of the room. His three teammates followed him. They saw the glasses man reach out towards the circle he drew himself last night. When the five of them were discussing countermeasures, he drew two circles in the place where Mr. B disappeared. The first circle was relatively small. Then after taking into consideration Mr. B’s exceptional abilities, the glasses man deleted the circle and drew a second larger one.

Today, the four of them were planning to look for Mr. A and Mr. B in this circle.

The glasses man speculated, “Since the black tower took the initiative to tell us the location of the monster, it shows one thing. There is a 80% chance that we can’t find the location of the monster on our own.” He smashed the circle that he drew. “The monster isn’t in here at all. Mr. B’s strength is beyond my wildest imagination. He didn’t disappear here because he hid the monster nearby, but because the location allowed him to disappear.”

His teammates looked at him blankly. “Captain, what does this mean?”

The glasses man explained, “Old Li, yesterday you and Xiao Yi tracked Mr. B. On the dock, we all saw that the monster’s carriage was very heavy. Every one of Mr. B’s steps left deep footprints and the carriage’s tracks were left in the ground. It could be found in an instant. Right?”

Old Li nodded. “Yes. The monster is really big and heavy. Everyone on the dock was watching.”

The glasses man pointed to the pile of sand that had just been smashed into the ground. “Mr. B was pulling the heavy carriage, causing him to leave footprints. The footprints and tracks on the ground didn’t disappear no matter how fast he runs. So from the pier to here...” He drew the spot with a bit of sand. “He didn’t run all the way. In addition, the street where he disappeared is one of the rare stone streets in the Underground Kingdom, not a dirt one.”

Old Li reacted at once. “He suddenly disappeared here because he didn’t want to leave any footprints for us to follow.”

In fact, they should’ve thought of it before. It was because they thought that Mr. B’s hiding place was nearby that they ignored this key information.

“I underestimated Mr. B’s strength.” The glasses man blamed himself. “If I guess correctly, he could pull the monster’s carriage to any place in the Underground capital and the black tower thinks we won’t be able to find it in three days. Of course, this point is actually beneficial. Mr. B’s present hiding place must be a place that is near a stone road. He can’t go down any dirt road otherwise he would leave footprints and the carriage tracks. Old Li, Xiao Chen, Brother Hao, in the next three days, we will follow every stone road in the capital. Perhaps we might be able to find Mr. A, Mr. B and the monster.”

“Okay!”

After the task for the next few days was explained, Xiao Chen asked curiously, “Captain, you said that the Detectives’ Contempt points to three things. You said two things. The black tower believes that the players are at a disadvantage and Mr. B hid the monster in the place accessible by stone roads. Then what is the third thing?”

The man pushed his glasses up and asked, “You didn’t hear the black tower say that Mr. A and Mr. B is playing around with 21 players?”

The other three players were stunned.

The glasses man sighed. “23 players became 21 overnight. It has decreased by two people. What does this mean? It means... the man on the dock yesterday had a teammate and he and his teammate were killed by Mr. A and Mr. B.”

The second floor of an abandoned building.

When Wang Yinggui woke up, he opened his eyes to darkness. Wang Yinggui was so frightened that he wanted to stand up and run away. However, he just placed his hand on the ground to stand up when he bumped into something. He cried out and fell back. He soon remembered what happened before he fell unconscious.

He was caught by Mr. A!

Yesterday at the dock, Mr. B had suddenly looked at him. Wang Yinggui was scared and turned to run. He walked around the dock for five minutes before finding his teammate. He thought that Mr. B had forgotten about him, only to be caught by Mr. A when he just met his teammates.

Wang Yinggui couldn’t understand it. He hadn’t done anything special yet Mr. A and Mr. B discovered his identity with one glance. Could he have an identifying marker about his head like Mr. A and Mr. B? But he didn’t have anything about his head.

Wang Yinggui was puzzled. After being discovered by Mr. A, he and his teammate didn’t have the power to fight back. In less than a minute, they were overpowered by Mr. A.

“No, the Old Niao and I pretended not to know who they are and pretended not to see the letters above their heads. How are they so sure that we are players, that we are thieves?” Wang Yinggui thought for a long time before suddenly realizing, “Wait, where is this place? Am I dead? No, I’m not dead. I’m still alive!”

Wang Yinggui reached around in the darkness and soon touched the end of this space. It was a small cage, so small that he couldn’t stand up or he would hit his head. He was imprisoned here and couldn’t act at all. He hesitated before whispering, “Old Niao?

Silence answered him.

Wang Yinggui again asked, “Old Niao, Old Niao, are you there? Old Niao..”

After shouting for a long time, a dull snoring was heard beside him. Wang Yinggui tried to rush over but was blocked by the cage. He shouted “Old Niao” several times and his teammate finally woke up. Wang Yinggui told his teammate about the current situation. Old Niao moved around for a long time before saying, “I am also locked in a small cage that I can’t stand up in.”

Wang Yinggui replied, “You say that but where the hell are we? Why didn’t Mr. A and Mr. B kill us?”

“...He didn’t kill us because he probably still has some use for us!” Old Niao racked his brain before analyzing, “Right, the underground people don’t like to eat players like the monsters do. They must be selling us for money! In the Banana Pub’s assembly instance last month, the banana wine was brewed from bodies. They must’ve sold us there. This is a mess, Old Ying.”

Wang Yinggui was worried about death and was going to comfort his teammate. Then he heard a strange sound. There seemed to be something banging on the ground and moving towards them. Listening to the sound, it was definitely a monster. Its footsteps hit the ground, causing the two people’s cage to slightly shake.

Old Ying gulped and asked, “Did you hear that?”

“Yes, I heard it.”

“What is it?”

Old Niao replied, “I don’t know, this is...”

“Chirp!”

A surprise sound was heard in front of the two men. The sound was so close it was as if the monster was standing before them. Wang Yinggui and his teammate were in the dark and their vision hadn’t evolved to seeing things without a light source. The two men screamed in horror, their voices making the thing even more excited. It started to use their cages as play toys, throwing them into the air before catching them.

In the monsters’ cage, the screams of Wang Yinggui and his teammate endlessly rang out.

Outside the cage, a strange expression crossed his face when Tang Mo heard Old Niao saying, “Mr. B and Mr. A didn’t kill us in order to sell us for money.” He shook his head helplessly when he heard the screams of the two men being toyed with by the monster.

“So stupid even after the earth went online... they are stupid yet managed to clear the black tower’s first floor. Their luck must be really good.”

The luck of these two players really was very good.

Tang Mo listened when Fu Wenduo said that the two men weren’t very strong and they were only at the average level in the Attack organization. Attack currently only had only player who cleared the black tower’s first floor, Chen Shanshan. The other players (including Jack and Tang Qiao) were under strict orders from Luo Fengcheng to only challenge the black tower in two months in order to prevent any accidents.

The two players’ strength wasn’t too high and based on their conversation just now, they weren’t too smart. It was likely that they passed the black tower due to luck. For example, after entering the game, they met a good teammate. If they were lucky enough not to die, they would be able to follow the teammate to clear the floor.

In addition, they were even more fortunate in this game that the real Mr. A and Mr. B were Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo, not the underground people. The real underground people would kill them directly instead of locking them up.

In fact, killing the two people was the best situation. If they were killed, there would be two less enemies and fewer worries. However, Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo didn’t choose this way. Instead, they locked the two unconscious people into cages and now had to waste energy guarding them.

Their miserable cries were still heard from the cage. Tang Mo leaned against a pillar and pondered, “It will be quiet if we kill them.” His mouth said so but Tang Mo remained still, not taking any actions.

At noon, Fu Wenduo came back from the outside and Tang Mo immediately went up to him.

“How is it?”

Fu Wenduo’s voice came from under the heavy helmet. “There are around three people.” Two are well hidden and I couldn’t see their specific number and location. One is a middle-aged man.” He picked up a stone from the ground and quickly drew a map on the wall. He drew quickly. It might be a simple map but he marked each position clearly.

It was a map of the area around the Strange Circus.

“Here and here, there are two people hiding.” Fu Wenduo used the stone to make a small three-storey building behind the circus. “Here, the middle-aged man is hiding on the third floor.”

Tang Mo asked, “Did they see you?”

“The person hiding in this location likely saw me.” He pointed to a bush next to the square. “When I left the circus, she wanted to follow me but I lost her.”

Originally, Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo would settle down for the first six days before sending the large earthworm to the circus on the seventh day. However, the heavens wasn’t good to them and the black tower gave the Detectives’ Contempt effect. This disrupted Tang Mo’s plan. Therefore, Tang Mo changed the plan and had Fu Wenduo look around the circus. There must be players hiding there, watching the circus’ every move.

“There are only three people. Except for these two players, there are 19 players left.” Tang Mo spoke in a light voice so that Wang Yinggui and Old Niao couldn’t hear from where they were being kicked away by the monster in the cage. “Assuming that these three people have an average of 3~4 people on their team, they have around 10 people. There are still nin people left who aren’t monitoring the circus. What are they thinking?”

Fu Wenduo answered, “Perhaps there is a team with more than four people, reaching five or six people.

“Five people is possible but six is a bit hard. Those who can enter this instance are all players who cleared the first floor of the black tower. It is too hard to form a team of six players who have all cleared the first floor.” Tang Mo said, “Maybe there is a team of five people and maybe two teams gave up on monitoring the circus.”

Tang Mo picked up a stone and drew on the wall.

“These three people can be counted as 11 people. There are still 8 people left. There should be two or three teams who aren’t monitoring the circus.” Tang Mo looked at the numbers on the wall and fell into deep thought. He slowly turned his head and looked at Fu Wenduo.

Fu Wenduo was wearing thick armour and a silver helmet. Tang Mo couldn’t see his face but he felt like Fu Wenduo was looking at him right now. They stared at each other for a moment before Tang Mo asked, “What circumstances would make them give up monitoring such an obvious place?”

Fu Wenduo replied calmly, “They are unable to move freely or they are dead.”

Tang Mo was silent.

“It is really too much for two or three teams to give up on monitoring the circus. If it was me, I would arrange for people to go there early and lurk in the night.” Fu Wenduo drew a circle one kilometre around the circus. “It might be possible with one or two people, but for seven or eight people to not do it, this isn’t normal.”

Tang Mo wondered, “Do you think they are imprisoned or dead?”

Under the helmet, there was no fluctuation in Fu Wenduo’s expression.

His voice was low and certain. “They are dead.”

The glasses man and Old Li searched carefully along every stone road in the capital of the Underground Kingdom and didn’t find anything.

Most of the roads in the Underground Kingdom were dirt roads and there were only eight stone roads. But these roads were the main roads of the Underground Kingdom and were crowded. It was difficult to find any anomalies. The glasses man and his teammate returned to the cabin by the dock. They waited half an hour before Xiao Chen’s team returned. Then after another half an hour, a dusty young woman jumped through the window.

The five people exchanged information.

Old Li said, “The captain and I found three roads with no abnormalities. We are currently playing a game and the underground people don’t recognize us. But we didn’t dare to get too close to them and ask them for information. Thus, we couldn’t find anything. What about you?”

Xiao Chen shook his head. “Nothing.”

A young female voice was heard. “I saw Mr. A.”

The four men’s eyes snapped to her.

Lin Yi explained calmly, “Mr. A is wearing armour and a helmet over his face so I can’t see his appearance. He went to the circus early this morning, sneaking in through the back door. None of the players monitoring the place should’ve seen him. It was only through coincidence that I happened to see him. My ability is more inclined to stealth so I followed him to see where he is going. However, Mr. A found me and quickly threw me off his trail.”

The man in glasses asked, “What did he do at the circus. What about the monster?”

Lin Yi replied, “I didn’t see the monster. He was alone.”

The glasses man’s fingers tapped gently on the table.

Old Li thought for a moment before turning to ask, “Captain, why did Mr. A go to the circus if it wasn’t to send the monster? He has such an obvious letter above his head. Doesn’t he know that us players can see it? Why does he want to sneak into the circus?”

The glasses man said, “If he didn’t know about the letter, he wouldn’t sneak in the back to avoid being seen.”

“What does he want to do?”

The glasses man’s tapping on the table was getting faster and faster.

The sound echoed in the small room as the four players held their breaths, waiting for their captain’s answer. Three minutes later, the glasses man sighed heavily and he looked at the young woman. “Xiao Yi, don’t go there tomorrow. Mr. A has found you. He went to the circus today to see how many teams are trying to steal the monster. They are collecting information about the players.”

Lin Yi was shocked. “Captain, haven’t I already been exposed?”

The glasses man said, “Yes, that’s why you don’t need to go to the circus to monitor it. Tomorrow, we will continue to find every stone road to see if we can discover anything. The day after tomorrow, the black tower will tell the players the location of the monster. We must recharge our batteries in these two days. The day after tomorrow will be a big battle.”

Lin Yu said, “Mr. A is really strong. Once he discovered me following him, he threw me off with a very fast speed. He is a powerful enemy.”

“The enemy I am speaking of isn’t jut Mr. A and Mr. B.”

Everyone looked at the glasses man.

The glasses man suddenly stopped tapping on the table. “Including us, there were three groups watching the circus. This is too few. On the first day, four people tracked Mr. B and now there are only three people. At least 10 people didn’t go to watch the circus. This number is too high. Something must’ve happened so that only three groups are watching the circus.”

Xiao Chen asked nervously. “Captain, what happened?”

“I don’t know. But I feel... that it isn’t good.”

On the third day of the instance, when there were four days until the Strange Circus’ surprise night.

The glasses man and Old Li were searching the seventh stone road when they stopped and watched the crowd gathered in the distance. The two of them looked at each other before walking over to see what happened. They were surrounded by underground people and must hide their identities, pretending to be the same as these underground people. But this time, the two of them hadn’t started acting yet when they saw something.

The glasses man look up and saw the three humans hanging from the eaves.

Old Li also looked at the three bodies with disbelief. Once he saw that these three people had their bellies cut open and their internal organs hanging out, his face changed. Then he saw one of the men’s intestines fall to the ground, leaving only one piece connected to the stomach. The wind blew, causing the intestines to sway in the air.

Old Li felt a boiling in his stomach and he almost vomited, but he quickly resisted.

The underground people looked at the three bodies and gulped.

“There are three human players. Unfortunately, they are dead and their meat isn’t fresh.”

“If it isn’t fresh then don’t eat. I saw it first and I want to eat them!”

After a long time, the three bodies were pulled down from the eaves by the underground people. They pulled apart the limbs of the three men and started biting on them. Old Li felt nauseous and looked away. The glasses man wanted to check the bodies. However, once he saw them being eat, his face whitened and he turned to leave.

Old Li asked in an uncomfortable manner, “Captain, don’t you want to vomit?”

The glasses man didn’t speak and continued to move forward. Once they turned into a remote alley, the glasses man started vomiting.

Old Li also vomited until he only spat out acid water. He cried out angrily, “Fuck, these underground people want to kill and eat, why did they need to cut the bellies and hang people for a show? These underground people look just like people but they aren’t people. They are monsters!”

“It isn’t the underground people.”

Old Li was stunned. “What?”

The man with glasses wiped his mouth and narrowed his eyes. “I have long discovered that the underground people like to eat humans as much as the monsters, but they seldom take the initiative to attack humans. Especially now that we are players in the game. The five of us have met many people in the Underground Kingdom but none have discovered our identity or tried to actively attack us.”

“Captain, what do you mean?”

“It was players who killed them.”

Noon on the fourth day in the Underground Kingdom.

The hot sun hung high in the air. Tang Mo stood at the window of a deserted building and looked up at the dazzling sun. A clear child’s voice rang in Tang Mo’s ear.

“Ding dong! The Detectives’ Contempt is opened.”

A green light shot out from the centre of the sun, splitting into 18 parts that flew towards the earth. The lights flew very fast and Tang Mo’s dynamic vision couldn’t see where the other 16 rays headed to. It was obvious that the black tower was hiding the location of the other players.

Tang Mo turned and asked, “Did you see it?”

Fu Wenduo replied, “No.”

The two people didn’t say anything else as two green lights shot into their abandoned building. The two rays of light headed towards the cage where the monster was contained. There were cries from inside. After two days, the two players were exhausted by the monster and couldn’t even shot. They could only painfully hum and had no strength to see the so-called Detectives’ Contempt.

The two lights hadn’t entered the cage when Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo grabbed them.

Tang Mo looked down at the green light in his palm. He carefully observed it for a moment before raising his head to meet Fu Wenduo’s eyes. The two of them opened the green light together.

Suddenly, the green light flew to the two people’s heads and covered them. Tang Mo’s heart jumped as he looked at Fu Wenduo surrounded by a green light, faintly detecting something wrong. He didn’t realize what was wrong as a map appeared before him. The centre of the map had a green love sign, pointing to the abandoned building where the two men currently were located.

Small lines of text slowly emerged on the map.

[Prop: Detectives’ Contempt]

[Owner: Wang Yinggui]

[Quality: None]

[Level: None]

[Attack: None]

[Function: Shows the location of the circus monster.]

[Restrictions: A one time item that only lasts for three seconds before the map disappears. Please remember the detailed location carefully.]

[Note: Want information without paying? Small child, if you want to live a good life, you will have a green light above your head.”

Three seconds later, the green light above Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo’s heads disappeared. Tang Mo looked at Fu Wenduo. “Are you ready?”

Fu Wenduo seemed immersed in the fact that he had been forced to be green and didn’t answer.

Tang Mo asked again. “Fu... Wenduo?”

Fu Wenduo looked at Tang Mo. “Good.”

Tang Mo clenched his fingers and his lips curved. He put his mask back on and smiled. “Then let’s follow our plan... Tang Ji, see you in three hours.”

The next moment, both people split up and disappeared from the room. In the middle of the room, a huge cage stood silently in place with no one around it.

The author has something to say:

Green Tang: ...

Green Fu: ...

# They haven’t talked about love, being green with each other is no problem #

TL: I’ve made a discord group to discuss all my novels, both BL and non-BL. Feel free to join if you want to chat about RS or anything else. Invitation link is below: