Bizarre Survival: Starting from the Fake Human Community

the next day.

Su Ming was woken up by the vibration of his Smartisan 17 Pro Max phone.

It wasn't the ringing of an alarm clock, but... that eerie interface with a black border popped up on its own, buzzing and vibrating like a mosquito.

"Who is it? So annoying!" Su Ming squinted, reached for his phone, and turned it on. He drowsily looked at the scrolling text, but once he did, all sleepiness vanished: "? Good grief, this stupid game just showed up uninvited!"

The first thing you see are several lines of large characters:

[Friends feature unlocked]

You can now add players who have completed the game as your friends.

Friends can view each other's status; some dungeons can be entered in teams.

Su Ming rubbed his eyes, stared at the screen for three seconds, then jumped out of bed, ran barefoot to Wen Wan's room, and banged on the door.

"Wenwan! Wenwan! Get up, get up, get up! The sun's about to shine on your bottom!"

A muffled thud came from inside the door, like a pillow hitting the wall. "Su Jianjian, are you crazy?! I was drawing in my sketchbook until 3 AM yesterday!"

Wen Wan stayed up all night painting to meet the deadline, and now she's incredibly sleepy! She's also in a bad mood right now.

"Stop thinking about your crappy notebook! The weird game has been updated with new features!"

The door clicked open. Wen Wan's hair was a mess, her eyes were half-open, and she was wearing a pink T-shirt with the neckline askew, revealing a section of her collarbone.

Su Ming was a gentleman, so his gaze only flickered for a moment before quickly shifting away.

"What are you looking at? Didn't you get enough of what you saw before?" Wen Wan pulled her collar up to cover her snow-white skin, yawning as she asked, "What update? How come I didn't know?"

"Your phone, where's your phone? Look at your phone!" Su Ming said anxiously, knowing that he had one and Wen Wan must have one too.

"Huh? My phone, where's my phone?" He groped around in a daze but couldn't find it. He probably forgot about it somewhere again.

"Ugh! I give up! No wonder that noise didn't wake you up! I meant the friend function." Su Ming shook his head and shoved his phone in her face. "Now we can add each other as friends."

Wen Wan snatched the phone, squinted at it for a moment, then said "Oh," and turned to go back into the room to get her own phone. The two sat facing each other on the sofa, heads down, engrossed in their work.

[Su Ming: Requesting to add you as a friend]

[Wen Wan: Your request has been approved]

[Friends List (1/1)]

[Wenwan...Online...Status: Exhausted, actually drawing a sketchbook]

As Su Ming read out the so-called status message, Wen Wan exploded: "Wow, how did it know I was drawing a doujinshi?! Is this game monitoring me?!"

"Wow, my privacy!" Wen Wan was getting anxious. Was this going to cause her social death in the game world as well?

"You just said it yourself."

"...Oh..." Wen Wan breathed a sigh of relief. So it was this guy who exaggerated!

They were silent for two seconds, then laughed simultaneously. Wen Wan kicked him, which Su Ming dodged, and casually tossed his phone onto the sofa next to the coffee table.

"Oh, right." Su Ming walked to the entrance, took something out of his coat pocket, and placed it on the coffee table.

The lighter, a familiar old actor, exudes a rustic charm and lies there quietly.

Wenwan's smile froze, revealing a look of confusion and shock: "It... how did it come out with us too?" She was very familiar with this little thing; it had followed them from beginning to end, and she had to admit it felt strangely familiar.

"I have no idea!" Su Ming nodded. "I found it next to my pillow when I woke up this morning. I thought I was dreaming, and I hit it three times to make sure it was real."

"You hit me three times?"

"Yeah. I almost burned myself." Su Ming pointed to a scorch mark on the coffee table. "Luckily, it only produced a few sparks."

Wen Wan stared at the lighter as if it were a dangerous king cobra. "Have you tried it?"

"I didn't dare use it properly. I just flicked the ignition wheel a little, and my throat started to itch." Su Ming rubbed his neck. "This thing has side effects in real life too."

"Wow, you actually brought it back?!"

"Uh, it followed me back on its own, is it my fault?"

The two women exchanged a glance. Wen Wan took a deep breath and pushed the lighter to the edge of the coffee table, as far away from her as possible. "Put it away. Put it in the drawer. No, put it in the safe. No, just throw it away!"

"I can't throw it away. I've tried." Su Ming shrugged. "I put it in the trash can, and the moment I turned around, it was in my pocket."

Wen Wan fell silent. After a while, she suddenly said, "Then could you stay away from me? I'm afraid you'll burn me in the middle of the night."

"What are you afraid of? I'll block your throat before I burn you; I'll die before you."

"That's even worse! You die next to me, and I still have to collect your corpse!"

"Split the bill for the body?" Su Ming raised an eyebrow.

"roll!!!"

The two argued for a while, and in the end, Wen Wan gave in. The lighter was locked in Su Ming's desk drawer, and they each got a key. Wen Wan insisted on having one, saying it was "in case you have a sudden urge to do something rash in the middle of the night."

Su Ming didn't tell her that the lighter couldn't actually be locked. Whenever it wanted to come out, it would just slip into its pocket from the backpack.

Lunch was takeout. Su Ming ordered two bowls of beef noodles, but Wen Wan complained that there wasn't enough meat and picked out all of her own.

"Are you a glutton?" Su Ming looked at the bowl that only contained noodles, his face expressionless.

"I am an artist. Artists need nourishment."

"You call that nutrition? You call that shamelessness."

Wen Wan, biting her chopsticks, suddenly looked at Su Ming seriously: "Su Jianjian, do you think we can be assigned to the same dungeon next time?"

Su Ming paused for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't know. The game says some dungeons can be played in teams, but it didn't say all of them can't."

"But maybe it's because some conditions need to be met? That's how it's written in novels! Something like a binding coupon... or a team invitation or something..." Su Ming said with relish, picking at the beef noodles that didn't have any beef.

"What if they break up?"

"Then let's each live our own lives."

Wen Wan lowered her head, stirring her chopsticks in the bowl like a restless child: "But I don't want to go in alone."

Su Ming put down his chopsticks and looked at her. He wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He was afraid too. In this fake neighborhood, every second Wen Wan was by his side, he knew he couldn't collapse. If it weren't for her…

"Then let's be together," Su Ming said firmly. Although he didn't know if they could actually be together.

Wenwan looked up, her eyes shining.

"I said, let's try to team up. If we can't..." Su Ming paused, still not saying the words that would ruin the mood, "then let's come out alive. And then brag to each other."

Wen Wan stared at him for three seconds, then suddenly smiled. "Okay. I'll brag about killing a hundred monsters, and you brag about killing one."

"Why should I kill one while you kill a hundred?"

"Because you're bad at it."

"...666, you win."

While Wen Wan was taking a shower, Su Ming secretly took a lighter from the drawer. He went to the balcony, closed the door, and took a deep breath.

I flicked the flint wheel. A green flame shot up, not as dramatic as a live wire, but the color was wrong. Normal lighters are blue or yellow, but this one was fluorescent green, like the green LED strip on a motorcycle.

"Not a buddy? Is that a beaver?"