This mouse had really pampered itself.
Four rows of head-high shelves lined the walls, piled high with old equipment, expired samples, discarded background boards, and express delivery boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling.
The items stored here had been accumulating for who knew how many years, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
In the innermost corner, three large express delivery boxes had been hollowed out, with a perfectly round mouse hole carved into the side.
The nest was lined with cotton and shredded cloth of unknown origin, and most absurdly, there was even a small portion of a bamboo cooling mat.
There wasn't a single mouse dropping in sight, and food was stacked neatly around the nest.
It was practically tidier than many human rental apartments.
...
...
“Squeak! Squeak, squeak, squeak!”
The fat mouse let out a short, sharp squeak, then forced itself to hold the rest back.
After all, from its perspective, it had been hoisted into the air by an invisible force.
Song Mo held the creature by the scruff of its neck, lifting it into the air to inspect it closely.
It was indeed a mouse.
But it was definitely no ordinary sewer rat.
It was so incredibly fat that it looked like a round, fluffy ball.
Its black fur was sleek and shiny, gleaming like satin, and its four pink paws were impeccably clean without a speck of dirt.
Perhaps sensing danger, it suddenly kicked its four short legs, tilted its head, flipped its belly upward, and let its tail go limp.
Its body went completely stiff, looking more like a dead mouse than an actual dead mouse.
“Pfft.”
A'yan couldn't help but chuckle from the side. “Master, this little mouse is playing dead! I saw its whiskers twitch!”
The mouse remained dead still, even deliberately sticking out the tip of its tongue to fully commit to the performance.
The phone screen on the floor emitted a faint glow.
Song Mo gave the mouse a gentle shake and fell into deep thought.
Could an ordinary mouse be this smart?
Knowing how to decorate its nest, play on a phone, and even watch livestreams and send comments.
So outside of the Instances, in places she didn't know about, did naturally born monsters and ghosts actually exist?
The familiar ink-wash text floated before her eyes once more:
【High-Grade Material detected (Can be captured by consuming 50 Screenwriter Points)】
【Material Assessment: Spiritual Mouse on the Verge of Awakening】
【Special Note: This is a large mouse that has lived for thirty years.】
Familiar with the process, Song Mo cast it into her drafts to begin creating:
【1. Human Comprehension: Understands human language, with intelligence elevated to the level of a twelve-year-old human (20 Screenwriter Points)
2. Absolute Loyalty: Soul-bound to the host, will never betray (50 Screenwriter Points)
3. Size Enhancement: Can freely change its size, with its default state being the size of a calf; physical strength and combat power are slightly increased (50 Screenwriter Points)
4. Leader Effect: King of Mice, the mouse of all mice, capable of summoning rat swarms to gather information (100 Screenwriter Points)】
【Assessing—】
【Supernatural Creature No. 003: Mouse Servant (Loyalty: 100%)】
【Additional Settings: Human Speech, Absolute Loyalty, Size Enhancement, King of Mice】
【Total Consumption: 270 Screenwriter Points】
【Creation Successful.】
...
...
Having spent nearly three hundred Screenwriter Points in one go, Song Mo, ever the miser, took a sharp, pained breath.
But fortunately, she got exactly what she wanted.
A Mouse Servant that understood human language and could gather information was far more cost-effective than creating an NPC out of thin air.
The moment the text settled, fine black ink-wash words drifted from Song Mo's fingertips.
As if possessed of life, the words stretched and entwined in the air, finally merging into a small stream that wrapped around the fat mouse in her hand.
“Squeak—!”
The mouse couldn't see the transformation, but it keenly sensed that something was wrong and began to struggle desperately.
Yet the ink-wash words were all-penetrating.
The words slipped into its flesh and blood. The mouse's bones popped and cracked, its muscles gradually firmed, and its fur grew denser and glossier...
Something seemed to dissolve at the root of its tongue, and its throat slowly softened.
A'yan watched Song Mo with a fanatical, utterly infatuated gaze.
The mouse fell to the ground, its body continuing to expand.
——From the size of a cat, it grew to the size of a dog, then to half a person's height, and finally stopped at the size of a calf.
Its black fur looked as though it had been drenched in thick ink, each strand gleaming.
Its claws became sharp and hard, glinting with a faint metallic sheen, while its long, thin tail grew thick and powerful.
The strangest part was its eyes.
Its originally bead-like black mouse eyes elongated and reshaped. Though it clearly had the face of a mouse, it now possessed a pair of human eyeballs.
Most terrifying of all, those eyes darted around with unmistakable human intelligence!
A mouse with highly expressive human eyes looked both comical and indescribably eerie.
The uncanny valley effect was instantly dialed to the max.
The entire transformation lasted for four minutes.
Only when the last trace of the ink-wash text vanished did the warehouse return to silence.
The calf-sized black mouse stood in place and shook its coat, its black fur so smooth that not a single crease remained.
It looked down at its enlarged claws, then wagged its thick, long tail, its human eyes filled with wonder.
Then, the mouse bent its front legs and knelt heavily on the ground with a thud. Opening its mouth, it blurted out a rapid stream of words:
“Oh my god, who even gets it, fam? Thanks to our top female donor for gifting the Transformation Megapack! I'm gonna perform 'inhaling a whole pig in three bites' for the babies in the stream—babies who like this, don't forget to hit that follow button so you don't get lost, ooh!”
The curious fierce ghost, A'yan: “...”
Song Mo: “...”
Oh, this was bad. Very bad. It turned out to be a livestreaming mouse thoroughly marinated in streamer lingo.
...
...
...
【Instance: Campus Ghost Stories】
【Status: Active (Hour 1)】
【Remaining Surviving Players: 10/10】
【Unlocked Classes: Constable (Gold), Shepherd (Green), Pill Master (Yellow)】
【Estimated Screenwriter Points obtainable from this Instance: 500】
【Current Number of Ghosts in Instance: 5 (Water Ghost, The Jumping Ghost, The Toilet Ghost, Skin-Peeling Ghost · Luo Yiming, Drowned Ghost · Fang Wei)】
When she received the Instance notifications, Song Mo was already riding the Route 404 Bus Ghost, heading toward another province.
If the mountain would not come to her, she would go to the mountain.
She had absolutely no intention of clashing with the authorities at this stage.
Wasn't it just ghost stories?
It wasn't as if the neighboring provinces didn't have them.
Song Mo even uttered the classic line of a typical villain: “I'll be back.”
And when she did, she would harvest a random class skill from the currently unique Gold-Tier class, Constable.
——Though Song Mo quite liked Chen Xi, she had little interest in how she performed in the Instance.
Zhao Weilai and the others had already laid out the Instance rules, potential traps, and even the ghosts' attack patterns. If the people sent by the authorities still couldn't clear it...
Then Song Mo would really have to start questioning their professionalism.
Of course, she had more important things to attend to.
The ink-wash text drifted across her vision, with two completed scripts waiting to be filled with materials floating in the air:
【Script: The Wishing Livestream Room.】
【Instance: The Cat-Faced Old Lady's Birthday Feast.】
Yes, as industrious as a busy bee, Screenwriter Song Mo was preparing to work on two projects simultaneously and make a big splash.
...
...
Updating one script and one Instance all at once meant Song Mo had to spend her newly acquired Screenwriter Points before they could even warm up in her pocket.
“With over a year of lifespan left, I finally don't have to feel so rushed.”
Song Mo pressed down on the loose piece of skull at the back of her head and casually spent ten Screenwriter Points to repair it.
——Under the power of the text, the wound healed, and her lost hair grew back.
In almost the blink of an eye, the terrifyingly large hole at the back of her head was restored to normal.
Although Song Mo looked no different from a normal person on the outside now.
But only she knew what it felt like to have a heart that didn't beat.
It was an incredibly "empty" state of being.
Her pulse was stopped, her blood did not circulate, and her hair and nails had ceased to grow.
It was as if time had been permanently paused for this body.
In the next second, before Song Mo could fully process the changes in her body, an anatomical diagram of the human body composed of ink-wash characters suddenly appeared before her.
The ink swirled, leaving only black and white.
Looking closely, every line of the human body in the diagram was composed of microscopic words shrunk down countless times.
And on the diagram, three hundred and sixty-five dim nodes were evenly distributed. The only one lit up was the "Fengfu Acupoint" at the back of the head.
Behind the other three hundred and sixty-four acupoints was a blood-red label: 【To Be Repaired】. Furthermore, certain key nodes were bound by black and white chains.
The one directly following the Fengfu Acupoint was the 【Naohu Acupoint】, which was waiting to be lit up. Repairing it required 100 Screenwriter Points.
As if sensing Song Mo's confusion, the ink-wash text slowly materialized:
【Repair this meridian, and life shall return.】
【Repaired Acupoint: Fengfu Acupoint (Soul Protection)】
【Current Acupoint Repair Progress: 0.01%】
【Maximum HP +100】
【Resurrection Progress: 0.0002%】
——The Screenwriter Points required for the rest of the acupoints to be repaired were all astronomical figures.
The sheer number of zeroes felt like a blatant mockery of Song Mo.
...
...
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Even though Song Mo's emotions had been dull for a long time, she couldn't help but cry out in shock upon seeing this diagram:
“Over three hundred acupoints waiting to be repaired?! And the Screenwriter Points required just keep getting higher. Are these even stats a human body can have???”
She didn't even need to guess to know that the further she went, the higher the cost of repairs would be.
To fully resurrect, she would probably need tens of millions of Screenwriter Points.
There was definitely something fishy about this body!
She refused to believe that Wang Dazhi, an out-of-shape ordinary guy, could have bashed out three hundred and fifty-six damaged areas needing repair with a single hammer blow.
Song Mo had always wondered why the cheat she received upon her resurrection was so generous.
As it turned out, the trap had been waiting for her right here.
——It was like playing three matches of a game before the system suddenly informed you that the main quest was a massive, virtually impossible pit!
——It was like she had already written three Instances and fully embraced her role as the ultimate boss, only to be told she had her own main quest to complete!
“...Ahem, well, I mean, what happens if I choose not to repair them?”
Song Mo forced herself to look away from the acupoint diagram and asked tentatively.
But the ink-wash characters remained emotionless, like a pre-programmed system, offering no answer whatsoever.
Yet that feeling of anxiety and urgency washed over her once more.
Indescribable and inexplicable, it felt as though something was coming.
——Song Mo's sixth sense told her that she had to keep writing. She couldn't stop, or else something truly terrifying would happen.
Rate on N.U.
