At dinner, perhaps because of the new King’s arrival, the cafeteria offered quite a few fine wines alongside the regular meal.

Everyone ate and drank together, chatting about the new King — word was that the man’s name was Ye Chong, and his territory lay around the Lianyungang area. After Bai Youwei’s territory expanded, it bordered on his, and he had come over to gather intelligence. Chu Huaijin had long been dedicated to drawing in all kinds of talent, and was eager to funnel every King and subject he could find to the headquarters for centralized training, to maximize humanity’s chances of survival.

So Chu Huaijin had extended an invitation on the spot, and Ye Chong had accepted readily.

Though territories had Kings of their own, in truth all of this was land humanity had reclaimed from the Doll Game — there was no need to treat someone differently simply because they were a King or subject of another territory.

Chu Huaijin personally led Ye Chong on a tour of the headquarters, introducing every part of the building inside and out, before finally bringing him to the cafeteria on the middle floors.

The cafeteria operated as a buffet. Thanks to Chu Huaijin and Professor Song’s dedicated management, the base’s food supply — with the exception of fresh meat — was essentially stable. Fish, shrimp, crab, and shellfish temporarily replaced chicken, duck, pork, and mutton. For those desperate for meat, canned goods were also available.

Bai Youwei overheard two servers chatting:

“That pair of white gloves he’s wearing must be an item, right? Powerful ones?”

“Not sure… but I heard that in the preliminary rounds, every player in his arena died — not a single one made it out. So he must be pretty formidable…”

A player nearby who was collecting their food cut in: “You two must be new here, right? There used to be quite a few people wearing white gloves around — they came over from Guangzhou. Very capable fighters. Something happened and they ran off afterward. Just not sure whether this White Gloves has anything to do with that group.”

“Something happened? What happened?”

The base had been built up over these past several months, taking in many new residents, and the internal structure had also been reorganized — so not everyone knew about the incident with “Hide and Seek.”

And even among those who knew, some didn’t consider it a particularly big deal.

In this new world where strength was supreme, striking down your companions in a game to seize their puzzle pieces and items — in order to raise your own odds of survival — was certainly ruthless and underhanded. But if you’d grown accustomed to the bloodshed inside games, the baselines people maintained in their hearts for justice and morality seemed to be continuously slipping lower.

Seen in that light, the small society that Chu Huaijin and Professor Song maintained at least preserved the most basic order. Criminal behavior — killing, robbery, theft — was being kept in check to some degree.

“You all think — among these Kings, who’ll be left standing at the end?”

“Hiss… are you tired of living? Be careful someone hears you. Regardless of which King’s ears that reaches, you’ll have made an enemy.”

“It’s not that serious, is it…”

“Don’t you know — those people have been through the Labyrinth several times. Their hearing is sharper than an ordinary person’s.”

“Ah… then let’s not talk about it. Back to work, back to work…”

Bai Youwei listened for a while, but the conversation petered out without going anywhere interesting — so she lost interest.

She grabbed some fruit salad and prepared to return to her seat.

Zhu Shu drifted over beside her, smiling and asking, “You heard all that too?”

“Yes — everyone’s gossiping about the new King who just arrived.” Bai Youwei said coolly, “Who knows when he’ll be eliminated. What’s there to talk about.”

She had a poor impression of White Gloves.

Zhu Shu turned to glance toward Chu Huaijin’s side and said quietly, “If those people’s deaths in the preliminary rounds really were connected to him — a King like that winning the competition would genuinely not be good news.”

On that point, there were conflicting accounts.

Some said a massive monster had appeared in the preliminary arena, killing everyone, and only White Gloves managed to escape alive. Others said the preliminary rounds had been a free-for-all, and White Gloves had simply broken through the chaos to claim final victory.

Whatever version you believed, one thing was clear: White Gloves was formidable.

—