I Play the Horror World as a Simulation Game

"Dad?"

This kind of question usually indicates a poor father-son relationship, and indeed, the messy environment inside the house and the things Qin Feng ate all pointed to this.

Qin Feng's parents hadn't fulfilled their responsibilities as parents.

"Maybe he came back when I wasn't home," Qin Nuo replied vaguely.

Li Qianqian nodded, looked around the house, and said, "If you need anything, you can come to me."

"I can't help you much, but at least you can hide at my place for a while."

"Got it."

Qin Nuo went into the bathroom, changed his clothes, and returned them to Li Qianqian.

Li Qianqian took the clothes, patted Qin Nuo's head, and smiled slightly, "Remember this: no matter what, never lose the joy of life. A teacher taught me that."

Once the door closed, the room became dark again, and a cold atmosphere filled every damp corner.

Qin Nuo glanced at the kitchen. The pot hadn't been used in who knows how long, covered in cobwebs and a layer of rust.

Chopsticks and dishes were piled in the cupboard, crawling with cockroaches, and rat droppings were everywhere. A skinny rat scurried back and forth on the greasy vent pipe.

In the living room, a photo frame on the wall was smashed to pieces, and the faces of the three people in the family photo were unrecognizable.

"In the Horror World, it seems like there are never any happy families. Domestic violence, isolation, and perversion are the hallmarks of this world." Despite saying this, Qin Nuo couldn't help but wonder, if they didn't want the responsibility, why have children? Are they just toys?

Smelling himself, Qin Nuo went to the bathroom to take a shower. It was already 2 a.m. according to the clock on the wall.

"Getting up at 6:30 to go to school, this amount of sleep isn't good for a child's development. The daily routine needs to change."

Qin Ming dried his hair, returned to the room, wound up a broken alarm clock, set the time, placed it by the bed, and lay down to sleep.

The new environment didn't affect Qin Nuo's sleep quality because he could feel the character's exhaustion and drowsiness.

His eyelids grew heavy, and in a half-asleep state, Qin Nuo seemed to hear some noises.

But he ignored it, thinking it might be a rat in the kitchen looking for food. In this poor household, even the rats would shake their heads at the lack of food.

Qin Nuo continued to sleep until a sudden loud crash startled him awake.

Rubbing his eyes, he cautiously left the room and entered the living room, where he saw a woman lying on the sofa, her head tilted back, half-asleep.

In the corner, a glass bottle had shattered, and liquor was spilling everywhere.

The woman's hair was dry, her body thin, wearing simple shorts and a shirt. Her face was sallow, with sunken eyes and wrinkles, looking around thirty or forty.

Noticing Qin Nuo, the woman mumbled, sat up unsteadily, and the smell of alcohol was overpowering.

She grabbed a bottle of yellow beer from the table, smashed the neck on the table corner, and drank deeply, not caring about cutting her mouth or any glass shards.

After drinking half the bottle, she leaned back on the sofa, smiled at Qin Nuo, and pointed to the corner, drunkenly saying, "I saw a rat and tried to smash it with the bottle. Haha, didn't kill it, but woke you up."

"Sorry, son?"

She spat out some glass shards, her lips slightly red.

Qin Nuo felt a bit strange inside but remained calm on the surface, saying indifferently, "If there's nothing else, I'll go back to sleep."

"You seem to be sleeping early tonight?"

The woman fished a lighter from her pocket, took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, lit one, and lay back on the sofa, enjoying the smoke.

Bruises were visible on her neck and thighs, making her look like a fallen girl.

She seemed like someone who frequented nightclubs, decadence being the first impression she gave Qin Ming.

Even though he was her son, the way she spoke felt more like talking to a peer.

"Tired," Qin Nuo replied.

"Pour me a glass of water, don't just stand there. I went through the trouble of giving birth to you, you should be useful."

The woman smoked, her gaze wandering over Qin Nuo.

Hesitating, Qin Nuo went to the kitchen, filled a glass with tap water, and placed it on the table.

The woman took a sip, seemed to sober up a bit, and pulled out another bottle of beer from somewhere, lighting her cigarette with it, and said with a smile, "You're such a good son. Thirsty? Have some beer? But no cigarettes, I'm down to my last couple."

Qin Nuo: "..."

Is this really my biological mother?

What an excellent upbringing!

"Sit down, you're not going to school anyway. It's been a while since we had a mother-son chat."

"Let's talk and help me sober up." The woman crossed her legs, holding a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, her gaze inexplicably oppressive.

Ignoring her sloppy appearance, she gave off the impression of a strong woman.

"What do you mean by not going to school? Dropped out?"

Qin Nuo wondered, hesitated symbolically, then sat down, hoping to learn more about this character and his relationships through conversation.

Qin Nuo sat down, maintaining an indifferent expression, showing no respect or recognition for his mother.

In a broken family, the relationship between children and parents is usually strained.

Especially with a mother like this, who doesn't care about her son's life, Qin Feng's attitude was bound to be negative. Qin Nuo didn't need to guess from the surroundings to be sure of this.

The woman saw the coldness in Qin Nuo's eyes, not showing any sadness or disappointment, instead smiling, "If you want to blame someone for dropping out, blame your damn father."

"You know what he's like. Right now, he's probably lying in some woman's bed or at some bar, living in a drunken stupor."

"The money set aside for you, he took it. It's strange, he couldn't beat it out of me, but somehow sniffed it out like a dog."

"If you want to go back to school, try getting it from him, though it's probably all squandered by now."

The woman took a drag, exhaled a puff of smoke, speaking casually, like a madwoman, yet with a touch of elegance.

Qin Nuo noticed her split lip, as if cut by something sharp, staining the cigarette red.

He had expected the family to be bad, but not this bad.

Both adults were immersed in the nightlife, living decadently?

Li Xiaoming's family was also broken, but at least he had a mother who loved him dearly.

Qin Feng seemed more like discarded trash, left to fend for himself...

The woman suddenly became excited, sat up, placed a fruit knife on the table, and said, "Why don't we kill him? Use an axe and a grinder, chop up the body, and flush it down the toilet?"

Qin Nuo looked at her, not joking, and asked, "Is the success rate high?"

"How would you know if you don't try?"

The woman laughed, "Are you scared? If I had the chance, I'd cut his head off without hesitation!"

She picked up the fruit knife, trimming her nails, "If you don't want to, just pretend I didn't say anything."

"I admit, I'm not a good mother, a rotten person, but your father made me this way."

"I've done a lot of bad things in my life, the only regret is having you. My mom, your grandma, tried to kill me in my sleep countless times, but she should've been more ruthless."

"She said I was so cheap, how could I live in this world? The funniest thing now is, someone as cheap as me has a son."

"Don't you think so, my good son?"

The woman stubbed out her cigarette, smiling at Qin Nuo, her eyes devoid of any maternal love, only a bland emotion.

"How pathetic, I mean me," Qin Nuo said coldly.

The woman didn't mind, continued smiling, "Now that you've dropped out, you're still young, but you need to learn to earn money yourself. I can't give you any more money, and if I did, that guy would find a way to take it."

"So from now on, you have to fend for yourself. Maybe sometimes I can bring some food back."

Qin Nuo didn't respond.

The woman reached for the beer, but Qin Nuo snatched it away, threw it out the window, and stood up coldly, "If you want to drink, do it outside, don't disturb me here. If it's still these boring topics, I'm going back to sleep."

Without waiting for her response, Qin Nuo returned to his room.

The woman watched the door slam shut, yawned, and headed to her room, collapsing onto the bed.

Inside, Qin Nuo's cold expression faded, shaking his head, thinking how different this third character's mother was from the first.

After the disturbance, he couldn't sleep, so he returned to the desk, opened the drawer, and searched for anything useful.

To his surprise, he found a photo in an old book.

In the photo, a few kids stood on a step, smiling brightly for the camera.

What surprised Qin Nuo was that these kids were familiar; they were the same ones from Tang Rou!

Each wore a performance costume, smiling innocently at the camera.

"Qin Feng is connected to these kids? Also part of the performance guild?" Qin Nuo focused on the smallest figure in the corner, Qin Feng, holding a lion dance head, grinning.

His eyes were crescent-shaped with joy.

Qin Nuo tried to find the child named Yanan, whom he had never seen, but aside from Tang Rou and the others, there were many unfamiliar faces, likely new guild members at the time.

He didn't know which one was Yanan.

Closing the book, Qin Nuo murmured, "Since Qin Feng is also in the performance department, he must be familiar with those kids."

"Using this identity, I might be able to extract more main storyline clues from those kids."

Dropping out is fine, it's not like he can't go back to school.

There might be more valuable things to find in the room, but Qin Nuo had no energy left. The child's body was still growing, and sleepiness returned.

He went back to bed and fell asleep quickly.

He slept well, waking up to bright light streaming through the window onto his face.

Qin Nuo groggily sat up, got out of bed, and instinctively went to the wardrobe to find a suit, adjusting his attire in the full-length mirror.

The simple room and attire saved a lot of effort.

Wearing flip-flops, Qin Nuo left the room. The living room was empty, the main bedroom door open, the bed inside messy, and his mother nowhere to be found.

Qin Nuo slowly recalled the events of last night.

"I'm in a dropout state, no need to go to school now. They say poor kids grow up fast, but damn, how did I survive?"

In the large building, there was really nothing to eat, not even a piece of bread or a grain of rice, the kitchen ransacked by rats and cockroaches.

After a quick brush of his teeth and wash of his face, Qin Nuo looked at the empty room, loneliness filling every corner.

How did Qin Feng spend his days?

At this age, other kids were still playing and laughing at school, but he couldn't go, left alone at home, even having to find his own food.

In such an environment, a child could either become extremely introverted or extremely twisted.

Either direction was extreme!

The family's environment and the parents' upbringing directly influenced how a child grew up.

His stomach growled, and Qin Nuo glanced at the clock on the wall, nearing eleven.

"Let's take a walk. Parents don't care if I live or die, but I'm not crippled, I can manage a few meals."

Thinking this, Qin Nuo left the house. The building was in a remote part of the town, beyond which lay a hazy area shrouded in white mist, known to players as the map boundary.

"I remember Black Crow Ghost School, Nether Springs Restaurant, and Red Moon Convenience Store are all on the same bus line. After completing the instance, can I just take the bus back?"

Curious about how the Red Moon Convenience Store was doing, Qin Nuo mumbled to himself as he walked out of an alley. Younan Town wasn't large, and from a high point, he could see Black Crow Ghost School in the distance, the sound of the school bell ringing even from afar.

Without lingering, Qin Nuo followed the path down.

Even at noon, Younan Town felt eerie and cold, the white mist lingering. Under the big camphor tree, an old man packed up his chessboard, hunched over, and walked away with a cane.

As Qin Nuo descended, he smelled something fragrant and turned to see a bun stall steaming, the aroma of buns wafting into his nose, making him hungry.

Qin Nuo walked over with his hands in his pockets, pulling out the two ghost coins Li Qianqian had given him last night.

The bun stall owner, a young man with a white apron and headscarf, came out, looking displeased, "Why are you so late?"

Qin Nuo felt a bit strange. What did that mean? Was Qin Feng a regular here?

Looking at the freshly steamed buns, wondering about the filling, the owner directly placed three meat buns on a plate and handed it over.

Qin Nuo took it, about to pay, when the owner said sternly, "Eat up and get to work! Don't dawdle, I don't feed idlers!"

Qin Nuo was stunned, noticing the sign for hiring child labor, he understood.

So Qin Feng worked here as a child laborer in exchange for food and necessities.

"Ding! Player triggered a role-playing task: complete a day of child labor at the bun stall and receive an excellent evaluation from the owner to gain role-playing points and instance rating!" (Task contains hidden clues)

"Hidden clues? Related to the main storyline?" Qin Nuo wondered.

Since it was the character's choice and a role-playing task, he had to go along with it.

Putting away the ghost coins, Qin Nuo casually found a chair and sat down to eat.

He wanted to eat slowly, but soon found himself devouring the food.

The bun stall owner, though unfriendly in tone, was kind at heart, placing a cup of soy milk on the table, "Eat slower, if you choke to death at my stall, it's bad luck, but your deadbeat dad will definitely extort a fortune from me!"

"Eat slowly! Don't cause trouble!"

Qin Nuo nodded, took a sip of soy milk, and swallowed.

Biting into the last meat bun, he hit something hard, hurting his tooth.

Qin Nuo spat it out in pain, finding a ring.

Before he could react, the owner snatched the diamond ring, chuckling, "I wondered where my ring went, you're lucky you didn't swallow it, would've been a hassle to get it out!"

The words were chilling.

But more than that, disgusting!

Qin Nuo guessed the meat in the buns wasn't pork, but finding a ring made him feel uncomfortable.

In this day and age, it's not easy to find a meal in the Horror World!

"Finish eating and get to work, or don't expect dinner!" The owner left this message, pocketed the ring, and returned to the kitchen to chop meat.

Qin Nuo carried a bucket of minced meat to the back kitchen.

The iron bucket on the ground overflowed with blood, the minced meat containing several black eyeballs, connected by nerves, staring at Qin Nuo.

The owner picked up a piece of meat, placed it on the chopping board, and started chopping, muttering, "Today's stock is good, the buns should taste great, those brats love this stuff."

Qin Nuo saw a finger in the meat, complete with nail polish, and wanted to ask where the stock came from.

But he swallowed the words.

It's best not to discuss unrelated topics with game NPCs, lowering the role-playing score is a minor issue, but unexpected horrors could occur...