Chapter 697

Ning Chen didn't expect the system to be so articulate; he was stunned for a moment, unable to react, but quickly retorted: "So, the restriction on daily skill usage is your order, or a requirement attached when I complete the task?"

The system choked up for a moment, clearly hesitating.

Ning Chen snorted: "You are abusing your authority."

This time, the system replied quite quickly, as if it could tolerate no one saying anything bad about it: "It is an additional requirement of the skill! However, it can be upgraded later; after upgrading, the daily usage count can be increased."

Ning Chen still didn't quite believe it, but both skills had already been tested, so there was really no need to stay any longer. Remembering he had to travel tomorrow, Ning Chen felt a wave of fatigue and didn't want to argue with the system anymore.

The system was also happy to be at ease; it didn't like the host arguing with it about something, even though both sides had their own reasons.

Ning Chen strolled home leisurely. The reason he dared to go out so late was that he was certain Jia Yi still had no way to find them within two days.

Ning Chen turned the key and twisted open the door lock. After entering, he indeed saw a pitch-black room. Ning Chen kept his nerves taut at all times, so the moment he saw his own home, he confirmed it was safe inside.

Ning Chen threw himself onto the bed and closed his eyes to rest. Even though resting now was no longer very important to Ning Chen, daily rest was still key to maintaining physical strength.

When the sun just rose the next day, Ning Chen opened his eyes on time. He glanced at the living room; everyone else was still asleep.

It was just the right time to go out.

Every time a check-in task was performed, the system would help Ning Chen find suitable transportation. Ning Chen was quite satisfied with this point; usually, the transportation the system found was a helicopter, because the system determined this tool would be much faster than ordinary transportation.

So when Ning Chen arrived at the destination agreed upon with the system, he saw a helicopter parked on the open ground.

This check-in location was in the tropics, and the journey would take quite a lot of time. Therefore, Ning Chen relaxed his task completion time, deciding that finishing the task within ten days would be fine.

The pilot this time was still the same one as before; the two knew each other, so the pilot glanced at him and instinctively said hello.

Ning Chen boarded the helicopter and nodded to him. At the same time he got on the plane, because the system automatically detected Ning Chen had started executing the task, it turned on the live broadcast for him.

Ning Chen glanced at the live broadcast room, then withdrew his gaze; he really had no energy to deal with live broadcast matters now.

But his fans were extremely delighted that Ning Chen was live again; in less than three minutes, a huge number of viewers flooded into the live broadcast room.

"Let me think, how long has it been since the streamer last went live... seems like three months!"

"Does the streamer really not make a living from this? Your live broadcast room has such high traffic; it's a pity not to make money from it."

"Finally seeing you. Do you know how I've spent these three months?"

"The streamer seems thinner... not sure, let me look again."

"The streamer is still as talkative as ever. Let's just say, since you haven't gone live for so long, do you really have nothing you want to say?"

Ning Chen ignored the barrage of comments filling the entire screen in the live broadcast room, sat on the seat with an air of self-satisfaction, comfortably crossed his legs, and tilted his head to look down at the scenery below.

He occasionally said a few words to the pilot beside him, paying no attention to the live broadcast room throughout the entire journey.

If it were any other streamer, fans and viewers would have stopped buying it long ago. But Ning Chen simply didn't buy into that; he didn't rely on live streaming to make money, so whether he went live or not didn't matter to him, and he was too lazy to change his attitude because of a few words from fans.

Occasionally, when he remembered, Ning Chen would glance at the barrage; someone asked where this check-in location was, and Ning Chen lazily replied with one sentence.

"This time, it's the Fantasy Rainforest."

For a moment, the live broadcast room became even more lively.

"Does the streamer really plan to check in at such a place? If I remember correctly, three people went missing mysteriously after entering the forest last month."

"Fantasy Rainforest? Isn't that a forest with absolutely no jurisdiction? It seems someone listed it as a tourism forbidden zone?"

"This time there will be something good to watch."

Ning Chen wasn't very familiar with the Fantasy Rainforest; he had only heard Si Shiya mention it once before, and he never expected it to be associated with the word "forbidden zone."

So when he saw the barrage, he was stunned for a moment and his body straightened involuntarily: "It is a forbidden zone?"

The sender of that barrage immediately replied: "It's not an officially designated forbidden zone... it's defined by these tourists. The Fantasy Forest is quite eerie; the streamer had better change the check-in location."

As soon as this barrage was sent, other barrages immediately retorted: "No way, the streamer is checking in for his girlfriend. If you tell the streamer not to go to the Fantasy Forest, how will he find a girlfriend?"

Ning Chen glanced over and saw this barrage again; the corner of his mouth curled slightly: "That's not entirely the reason."

After arousing the audience's curiosity, Ning Chen suddenly shut his mouth and said no more. He even watched the barrage with an air of self-satisfaction but had no intention of opening his mouth to say anything more.

A large portion of the viewers in the live broadcast room were new fans who had only watched the live stream once or twice and didn't know Ning Chen had this kind of bad taste; for a moment, some were dissatisfied, while others were joking.

Ning Chen, however, shifted his gaze and stopped staring at the barrage in the live broadcast room. For him, whether the audience was satisfied or not was actually unimportant; he had no need to change his words or actions because of a few words from the audience.

After this, Ning Chen simply closed his eyes to rest, ignoring the barrage arguing heatedly, closed his eyes, and fell directly into a light sleep.

The helicopter's speed was already the fastest, but even at such a speed, it would take two days to reach the Fantasy Forest. The pilot seemed to have heard of that place as well; after Ning Chen got on the helicopter, his gaze always fell on him, vaguely or not.

564. Life and Death on a Thread (17)

Even with his eyes closed, Ning Chen felt the pilot's gaze. He helplessly opened his eyes and turned his head: "What do you want to say?"

The pilot was stunned; he shook his head and said: "Nothing... I was just looking around."

Ning Chen folded his hands and stopped resting; he just stared at him: "If you have something to say, just ask directly; it's fine."

The pilot looked straight ahead, still somewhat nervous. He continued to operate the helicopter familiarly, but spared a thread of his mind to converse with Ning Chen: "Don't you know what kind of place the Fantasy Forest is?"

Ning Chen nodded: "I just found out."

The pilot was stunned for a moment, not quite understanding the meaning of his sentence.

Ning Chen's expression was quite natural: "Just going to check in; it can also be treated as going to play. In any case, I won't stay there too long; I won't die."

The pilot seemed to realize he was going to say this, yet still had something to say but held back: "But people go missing there every month... no matter the reason, and no matter how people there try to dissuade them, people from all over the world always run over there to throw their lives away."

"Throw their lives away?" Ning Chen repeated the word, finding it somewhat laughable: "Just traveling to relax; how can that be called throwing one's life away?"

The pilot said: "Those missing cases are by no means isolated incidents. If it's not throwing one's life away..."

"Enough," Ning Chen interrupted him, but his tone remained gentle: "This isn't my decision alone; no matter what, I must go there."

Since he had said things to this extent, the pilot naturally couldn't refute anything. He said: "Places like Alice's Wonderland are very suitable for checking in. If you want to attract attention, you absolutely don't need to go to the Fantasy Forest... never mind, since you have already decided, I shouldn't refute; I won't say anything more."

Ning Chen breathed a sigh of relief.

With his eyes closed, he replied: "That's good too."

But he couldn't fall asleep no matter what.

Ning Chen indeed didn't understand the Fantasy Forest. Before Si Shiya went missing, he often saw her doing various travel research, saying she wanted to play all over the world with Ning Chen.

So, regarding the Fantasy Forest, Ning Chen had only ever heard of it.

And now, not only were the live-stream chat notifications warning him, but even the pilot knew the Fantasy Forest was an absolutely vicious place... Perhaps in that country, the Fantasy Forest was not just "fantasy"; it very likely hid many strange anomalies.

But Ning Chen was not worried in the slightest.

He would not blindly trust things that sounded like ghostly charades; a huge wave of people going missing could only mean there were organizations or beasts in that forest threatening human lives; in any case, it absolutely could not have any connection to ghosts or gods.

Although Ning Chen's curiosity was not intense, he was still interested in digging into such matters.

Thinking this, Ning Chen closed his eyes and asked the system within his divine sense: "You sending me to the Fantasy Forest this time, could it be there is a hidden mission?"

The system did not speak on the other end; Ning Chen waited three minutes, and as patience gradually faded, the system finally answered him slowly: "No."

"No?" Ning Chen found this hard to believe. "Then why did you inexplicably make me go to such a place? This is unlike your previous style."

In the past, the check-in locations the system sent Ning Chen to were all very safe; let alone missing person cases, one could hardly see a single person.

But since he accepted that Cangbei mission, Ning Chen increasingly felt that something was becoming more and more wrong, more and more deviating from the established track.

This made him somewhat uneasy, especially with the system deliberately concealing things.

But this time, the system stated firmly: "Impossible. The higher-ups would never issue a mission to you without prior notice; even if there were, they would announce it in advance. This time you going to the Fantasy Forest is merely a coincidence."

Ning Chen's eyes trembled slightly; he found this hard to believe.

But he still could not ask anything; this system was unyielding to both soft and hard approaches, its mouth was tight, and nothing could be squeezed out of it.

So, Ning Chen had to give up asking the system further; after all, nothing could be asked out.

But the system then asked Ning Chen a question: "Why did you ask this question?"

Ning Chen frowned briefly; something flashed through his mind, but he didn't catch it, only feeling a strange sensation in his heart.

The system's question was asked somewhat strangely.

Yet Ning Chen still answered normally: "Because someone told me the Fantasy Forest is unsafe; I wanted to know exactly what happened inside, so I thought to ask you."

The system's voice became somewhat cold and hard at this moment: "When you arrive at your destination, you will naturally know what once happened there."

Ning Chen frowned and asked: "You have to hide everything from me? The nature of this check-in location is different from the previous ones."

"No," the system explained, "these are the higher-ups' rules; they stipulate that these matters are none of your business."

Ning Chen secretly rolled his eyes.

The so-called rules are actually regulations made specifically targeting the host; not only are they useless, but these restrictions also limit their scope of activity.

This was a great restriction for Ning Chen; after all, he had no ability to foresee the future, and the system would not kindly tell him whether the Fantasy Forest was truly as full of fantasy as its name suggested.

Knowing the system would not answer him again, Ning Chen simply stopped asking; he looked at the sky outside; it was now nearly noon; if nothing unexpected happened, those three people should have already woken up.

What worried Ning Chen most at present was not what he would encounter after going to the Fantasy Forest, but Hearing Hearing Hearing Chu Muyu.

He knew Hearing Hearing Hearing Chu Muyu would go to Cangbei, and Ning Chen's thoughts were actually no different from Xiao Ling's; he also knew that Hearing Hearing Hearing Chu Muyu's move was no different from suicide.