Chapter 162: Chapter 162
Players like Wu Ying, who had joined top-tier factions, would all be given an organization Work Badge.
And this type of badge came with a built-in tracking system.
Which meant Wu Ying’s whereabouts were basically impossible to hide from the Duoe Organization.
Luckily, Wu Ying didn’t have masochistic tendencies and didn’t wear the badge 24/7.
For example, just earlier in the dorm, he wasn’t wearing it.
So when Jiang Ye did the Replica Swap with him, the badge didn’t transfer over.
This badge was primarily used to scan for access to Duel Machines, showers, entertainment facilities…
and most importantly, to access elevators.
So wherever Wu Ying showed up, there was no way to hide it from Duoe’s surveillance.
He swiped the badge at the elevator and selected Floor 20.
Floor 20 of the Doomsday Apartment was the working and living area for all low-tier players residing in Hive rooms on Floors 1–19.
It was also where Wu Ying had once struggled to survive after being crippled.
Even after he joined the Duoe Organization, he would still occasionally drop by Floor 20.
So this move from Jiang Ye didn’t look suspicious.
After stepping out of the elevator on Floor 20, his expression remained perfectly normal.
But deep down, he was actually quite excited.
Wu Ying’s memories were one thing.
Experiencing it in person—naturally, it felt totally different.
Each floor in the Doomsday Apartment was massive, practically the size of a city.
And Floor 20 was further divided into Zones A to Z, twenty-six areas in total.
Each zone corresponded to a different type of daily service.
In the elevator lobby sat a terminal that could teleport people directly to any zone.
Of course, using that device also required scanning the Work Badge—no hiding from Duoe’s surveillance there either.
Wu Ying had an old friend in Zone T.
This bit of info had been extracted during his soul search when he joined Duoe.
It was known to Duoe that even after joining, he would occasionally go visit that friend.
Jiang Ye kept his expression steady and calmly swiped the badge at the teleport terminal.
Then, the system directly teleported him to Zone T.
The teleport spot looked like an old-fashioned phone booth.
Jiang Ye stepped out into a dim corridor.
On the “phone booth,” there was a map of Zone T.
But with Wu Ying’s memories, Jiang Ye didn’t need to look at any maps.
The corridor was as dim as the deep hallways of the Beginner Apartment.
However, unlike the Beginner Apartment’s straight and simple corridors,
Zone T’s hallways branched off constantly—like a damn maze.
If a new player unfamiliar with the area came here, they could get lost at any moment.
But Wu Ying had been an Eerie Player, and he was naturally adapted to dark environments.
With his memories, Jiang Ye wasn’t worried about getting lost.
He followed the path east of the “phone booth,” twisting and turning.
Along the way, he passed by many rooms with bizarre-looking doors.
From time to time, he brushed past other players.
Most of the players here wore strange expressions and walked in a rush.
Sometimes a nearby door would creak open, revealing glimpses of bloody, horrific scenes, with even a foul stench wafting out.
It looked exactly like one of those horror movie ghost alleys.
But according to Wu Ying’s memory—
not all of Floor 20 had this dark, eerie aesthetic.
It was just that Zone T was a hub for Independent Eerie Nurturers.
Since Glyph Pattern Abilities were the mainstream in the Doomsday Apartment,
Eerie Nurturers naturally held a special status.
So many players at the bottom who couldn’t improve their strength pinned their hopes on becoming Eerie Nurturers.
Of course, low-tier players had no connections and no resources.
Their path as Eerie Nurturers was usually just blindly fumbling their way forward.
So relying on these “independent” Eerie Nurturers for Glyphs was basically gambling with your life.
Even calling them “Independent Eerie Nurturers” was a form of respect from bottom-tier players.
In reality, players living above Floor 20 like Wu Ying had no respect for them.
Nicely, they’d call them “Bootleg Nurturers”.
More bluntly, they were called “Trash Fish”.
Apparently, the term “Trash Fish” had a story behind it.
“Fish” referred to “dreaming salted fish” (slang for hopeless dreamers).
The term was a mockery from the successful toward bottom-tier dreamers…
In the Doomsday Apartment, those below Floor 20 and those above it belonged to entirely different classes.
Wu Ying, upon first arriving at the Doomsday Apartment, had been assigned to live above Floor 20.
So back then, he looked down on everyone below.
Following veteran players from the Asura Organization, he would often join in mocking the bottom-tier players.
He’d heard of players awakening Glyph Abilities through Bootleg Nurturers, only to immediately undergo Eerie Transformation, losing all self-awareness.
The old-timers would laugh loudly, mocking them as brainless trash—
“Why the hell would anyone trust that kind of garbage nurturer with a Glyph awakening?”
Wu Ying used to laugh along with them.
Because in his past life, he had been trash too.
Injecting himself to death just for a bit of money.
So he completely understood why bottom-tier players would bet their lives on some Bootleg Nurturer to get Glyphs.
Back then, Wu Ying should have realized—
he wasn’t the same kind of person as those veterans in Asura.
In theory, “different paths mean no shared plans.”
But Wu Ying still chose to go along with them, to blend in.
Because he didn’t want to live like the bottom-tier. He wanted to be like those who laughed at the bottom-tier.
Once he was crippled, the Asura Organization abandoned him.
He lost his above-20-floor residence.
After becoming trash, he was forced to live below Floor 20.
Out of unwillingness to give up, he pinned all his hope on one of those Bootleg Nurturers.
While in Asura, he had looked down on them.
But after rising again thanks to one, he naturally no longer thought that way.
Bootleg Nurturers may not have followed the “professional Eerie Nurturer path,”
but some had carved out their own specialties.
And some of those specialties… actually turned into their strengths.
Like the nurturer who helped Wu Ying rise.
According to Wu Ying’s memory—
after he was soul-searched, Duoe had specially sent people to look into that nurturer.
After all, to help an Eerie Player erase and reawaken a Glyph Pattern Ability…
that was something even professional nurturers had never achieved.
Yet a Bootleg Nurturer did it!
Of course Duoe would take it seriously.
But Wu Ying didn’t know how the discussion between Duoe and that nurturer went.
All he knew was, that nurturer still lived in Zone T of Floor 20.
He hadn’t used Wu Ying’s case to shoot to fame or change his fate.
And Duoe never seemed to contact him again.
Of course, Duoe wouldn’t report their actions to Wu Ying.
Wu Ying only knew the nurturer was still there, and thus assumed Duoe hadn’t found him useful.
But Jiang Ye, now wearing Wu Ying’s identity, felt differently—
That nurturer was probably not so simple.
Maybe he hadn’t been dismissed by Duoe… maybe he had dismissed them.
To be honest, Jiang Ye was a little nervous about going to him directly .
He didn’t know whether the nurturer could tell the difference between him and the real Wu Ying…
Logically, he shouldn’t be able to.
Because right now, he was Wu Ying!
Even the Doomsday Apartment’s system probably recognized him as Wu Ying!
But after encountering the Observer, Jiang Ye knew—
in this world, nothing was impossible.
He adjusted his mindset before pressing the doorbell labeled with ornate lettering: “T-2025.”
The door was creepy, covered in dark graffiti. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel⦿fire.net
At about eye level, two fist-sized skulls were embedded in it.
The doorbell? It was the third tooth on the lower jaw of the second skull.
Funny thing—the room number was also 2025…
Jiang Ye held his breath, and just as in Wu Ying’s memory, rang the doorbell twice, then waited quietly.
Just like in the memory, about ten seconds passed.
Then, the left skull on the door slowly opened its mouth and spoke.
But this time, unlike the memory—