Chapter 66: Testing Luck

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Like h*ll I trust him!

Still, at the moment, Jiang Ye’s attention was mainly on his main body’s side.

So he didn’t argue further with Wang Chengjin.

Once the trade was complete, he went back to his room and exchanged the 30 million for six Silver Attribute Fruits.

Then, using the Shared Space feature,

he had No. 3 Replica—who was with his main body—consume all six in one go.

At this point—

from Black Iron to Silver, all three tiers of Attribute Fruits had been maxed out for No. 3 Replica!

And his new stats were completely refreshed:

【Jiang Ye】

【Level: 3】

【Stamina: 28.3】

【Energy: 29.7】

【Combat Power: 249】

So now, No. 3 Replica’s Stamina and Energy had increased by 22.5 points each compared to when he was first created!

Of that, 19.5 points came from eating Attribute Fruits.

The other 3 came from leveling up.

And now, his Combat Power had skyrocketed to 249!

He was already halfway to Jiang Ye’s dream target of 500 Combat Power.

But… Jiang Ye didn’t feel especially excited.

Because No. 3 had already maxed out on Attribute Fruits.

From here on, his only way to increase stats was leveling.

But each level only gave 1 stat point...

At that rate, even if No. 3 reached Level 10, his Combat Power would only hit a bit above 300.

The goal of 500 seemed totally out of reach!

Unless…

He managed to get his hands on Gold-tier Attribute Fruits?

Or found some other way to boost stats?

Jiang Ye’s main body was worrying about how to raise No. 3’s stats,

but also keeping a close eye on the safety of No. 1 Replica.

Right then—

30 seconds passed.

Sure enough, the white-robed woman emerged from the TV screen!

No. 1 Replica instantly tensed up.

The white-robed woman flicked her hair, her expression calm, but her eyes scanned the apartment without a word,

finally settling on Jiang Ye, seated on the sofa.

She flashed forward and sat beside him, opening with:

“Kid, you’ve picked up something dirty.”

“…Huh?” Jiang Ye blinked.

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing at him sideways.

“You’re not that dull, are you? Show me.”

Show her? Show what?

Dirty… thing?

Jiang Ye’s first thought was the Replica Reflection Mirror that had been acting up.

But that mirror matched his Infinite Replication ability way too well!

No way he was risking putting it on her radar.

So…

After a brief pause, he flipped his hand and took out something from Shared Space—

that creepy wooden ornament with the twin baby carvings curled up asleep,

which even his D-tier Detection couldn’t identify.

It definitely gave off weird vibes.

Maybe that’s the “dirty” thing she meant?

“This one?” he asked tentatively.

She glanced at it—and her expression shifted slightly with surprise.

“Where’d you get this thing?”

Jiang Ye hesitated but still answered honestly: “Snatched it from a cross-apartment player. Is it dirty?”

“Cross-apartment… player… snatched??”

She seemed stunned by the combo of those three words, and instinctively followed up,

“You killed that guy?”

Huh?

Jiang Ye couldn’t help but feel there was something off in how she called the cross-apartment player “that guy.”

He remembered an episode of Detective Conan where Conan figured out the suspect knew the victim

just from how they said “that guy.”

So…

Could he infer from this that she knew Huang Qi?

But with Huang Qi’s shady vibe…

How would he know this white-robed woman?

And if she really knew him, why didn’t she just say “Huang Qi” by name?

The whole thing gave Jiang Ye a weird, unsettled feeling.

But being the totally “honest” guy he was, he straight-up asked her:

“You know ‘that guy’?”

Her expression visibly changed.

She frowned slightly and shook her head: “No.”

She said it so fast and naturally—it didn’t sound like a lie.

So maybe she didn’t know Huang Qi, but she did know the original owner of that wooden ornament?

Jiang Ye kept thinking about it.

The white-robed woman was acting weird.

But she, too, seemed to think he was weird—the way she looked at him was oddly complicated.

Jiang Ye swallowed and was just about to dig deeper—

when she suddenly asked: “You ever use a luck-based item?”

Jiang Ye hesitated, then nodded: “Yeah.”

“You didn’t toss it after, right?”

“Nope.”

“Show me.”

Jiang Ye thought for a second, then pulled out the earliest one he got:

the non-rechargeable 【Lucky Lantern】.

She glanced at it, then ordered:

“Drop some blood on it.”

“…Huh?” Jiang Ye clearly hesitated and looked reluctant.

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Relax. I just want to see your ‘luck’.”

Drop blood on a lucky item… to check luck?

Jiang Ye, still half-suspicious, eventually gave in.

He pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the now-useless 【Lucky Lantern】.

At the same time, a thought crossed his mind—

Could different replicas have different “luck”?

Would the “luck” of No. 1 Replica represent his main body’s luck?

And if he was ridiculously lucky…

Could he charge up a lucky item with blood, like some kind of chosen one?

Might be worth a shot, right?

Just as he was thinking that—

Crack!

A sharp sound split the air.

The 【Lucky Lantern】—the one he’d just bled on—suddenly cracked down the middle!

Then, his blood seeped into the crack, and the whole lantern

crack-crack-CRACK!

shattered into pieces in seconds—

Into complete dust.

(⊙o⊙)…

Jiang Ye stood there, frozen.

For a long while, he turned to glance at the white-robed woman beside him—

and realized she, too, was stunned.

In fact… she looked even more stunned than he was.

Trying to break the silence, he cautiously asked,

“So uh… what do you think of my ‘luck’?”

“……”

It took a moment for the white-robed woman to snap out of it, stiffly.

Her gaze toward him grew even more complex.

So much so that Jiang Ye felt his scalp start to tingle.

Still trying to think positive, he offered a guess:

“Could it be that I have god-tier luck? Like one of those legendary ‘Chosen Ones’?”

“……”

Her eyes stayed complicated. The corner of her mouth twitched.

After a long pause, she seemed to regain composure and asked,

“This one’s a replica, right?”

That caught Jiang Ye off guard—but he wasn’t too surprised.

After all, when he showed up at Apartment 9999 using the bald-headed persona,

he’d already exposed his real name: Jiang Ye.

And the white-robed woman had been to Apartment 9999.

She’d even issued the SSS-tier Confidential Quest to Bald Jiang Ye.

So it wasn’t weird for her to realize the bald guy was just a replica.

Still, she probably didn’t know his ability was X-tier Infinite Replication, right?

Jiang Ye stayed on guard.

But the white-robed woman didn’t press the issue.

Instead, her tone suddenly turned serious as she warned:

“My advice—don’t ever use luck-type items again.”

“Huh?” Jiang Ye blinked. “Why?”

“Because... they’ll make you unlucky.”

Her gaze stayed just as complicated.

Then she stretched out her hand toward him, face emotionless:

“Give me your work badge.”

What?

Jiang Ye was confused for a moment but handed over No. 1 Replica’s Cleaner Badge.

She took it and tapped around on it.

In Jiang Ye’s mind, a notification popped up:

【Ding! Your cleaning job at Apartment 2064 has been confirmed complete! Service Fee received: 6000!】

【Ding! You’ve received a five-star rating for your cleaning work! Badge Points +10!】

Huh?

She just… closed out his cleaner job?

Did this white-robed woman actually show up just to pay him?

As he was still processing, she tossed the badge back to him.

Then turned as if she were about to leave.

Jiang Ye was completely lost. He quickly called after her:

“Wait, hang on!”

“So this wooden ornament… it really is cursed or whatever?”

“……”

The white-robed woman looked at him, nodded, and said,

“Yes.”

“But not as cursed as you.”

...Huh?!

Not as cursed as me?!

So I’M the dirty one? More cursed than this weird twin-baby ornament?!

Jiang Ye was completely stunned.

So that blood-luck test didn’t reveal he was some “Child of Fate”…

but instead confirmed he’s a walking disaster?!

And now this white-robed woman settled his pay and bounced—

was she afraid of being contaminated by him or something?!

Seriously, was it that bad?!

Jiang Ye’s mind was in chaos.

He stared at the woman’s disappearing figure and quickly blurted out a question that had bugged him for a while:

“Wait! About your hair—”

“If it was precious enough that you chased it across apartments to get it back…”

“Then why’d you call a cleaner to handle it in the first place?”

“Did you plan the ‘quest’ from the start?”

At that, the white-robed woman paused mid-disappearance.

She turned back and looked at him.

Then she shook her head.

“No. I never intended to create a ‘quest’ from the start.”

“The only reason I hired a cleaner back then…”

“Was because the game had just started.”

And as she said those six words—

The game had just started—

her figure completely vanished.

The words seemed to linger in the empty room, echoing faintly through the air.

No. 1 Replica stood beside the sofa in the apartment’s living room, wearing a confused expression.

The game had just started…

What did she mean by that?

Was she implying that the NPC residents of the Beginner Apartment

appeared at the same time as the players?

Could it be that, just like the players,

the NPCs also received their own version of the system announcements,

and were playing their own “version” of the game?

And what about Huang Qi, the cross-apartment guy…

Did he really know the white-robed woman or not?

Jiang Ye had a bad feeling.

This kind of unknown—

it gnawed at him.

He had to get to the bottom of it.

—Back in Apartment 9999—

No. 2 Replica seized the chance to probe the group chat:

【You guys have played the game before—anyone know if the apartment NPCs are hiding any secrets?】

This time, the chat was still just the usual players outside the top 100 of the rankings.

But this time, it wasn’t Wan Xin who replied—

it was a different player.

【What kind of secret could there be? The NPC residents are just there to give players early jobs. It’s only in the last two or three days of the Beginner Apartment that they start attacking players.】

【By then, veteran players usually step in to handle any crises caused by NPCs. And new players who’ve grown stronger can try to cling to a veteran and survive.】

Other players responded with similar answers.

It seemed that the NPC residents of the Beginner Apartment only existed to fit the game’s progression.

But then—

a usually silent top-ranked player suddenly tagged him with a question.

Ke Peng:

【You suddenly asking this—did you find something? @Jiang Ye】

Jiang Ye thought for a moment and gave a vague reply:

【Nothing major. I just took an NPC quest earlier and it felt a bit... intense.】

He figured that would be the end of it. Probably wouldn’t get much more out of them.

But surprisingly, Ke Peng kept pressing:

【The cross-apartment player you killed—can you describe what he looked like?】

Huh? Why ask about physical appearance?

Jiang Ye found it strange.

Ke Peng followed up:

【It’s nothing. I just want to confirm it’s not someone I know.】

Someone he knows?

If Jiang Ye hadn’t just had that weird exchange with the white-robed woman, he might’ve just taken it as a concerned friend being overly cautious.

But after recently suspecting the white-robed woman might know Huang Qi...

And now this comment from Ke Peng...

Jiang Ye couldn’t help but wonder—

Was there some hidden connection between Ke Peng, the white-robed woman, and Huang Qi?

And it was exactly this line of suspicion that made Jiang Ye realize something else.

So, using that thought as a lever, he directly replied:

【His name was Huang Qi. Is he someone you know?】

Sure enough, Ke Peng still replied with:

【Did he have any specific physical features?】

Very strange.

Not interested in the name—only the appearance.

Just like the white-robed woman, who never referred to him by name, only as “that guy.”

That’s when a bold idea struck Jiang Ye—

What if this cross-apartment “Huang Qi”...

was no longer the real Huang Qi?!

What if... he’d been tainted by some kind of actual “dirty thing”?

With that in mind, Jiang Ye casually responded:

【He was skinny. Had a tattoo on his forehead—probably to cover a scar.】

He waited to see if Ke Peng would dig any further.

But after a long pause, the only response was:

【It’s fine. Not someone I know.】

Jiang Ye still felt something was off.

But right then, the group chat suddenly exploded with activity.

His question was quickly drowned out by the new hot topic:

“God Lin has started using the Quick Battle Card!”

Jiang Ye could only push aside his suspicions for now and quickly logged into the Golden-Tier Duel Machine.

He walked directly to the east-facing wall and once again faced the mode selection screen:

【1. Beginner Mode (Game Coins)】

【2. Standard Mode (Duel Points)】

【3. Survival Mode (Survival Points)】

It was easy to tell—

The three modes were based on the currency used for betting in duels.

Jiang Ye clicked on both 【2】 and 【3】.

Both gave the same prompt:

“Requires a ten-win streak to unlock this mode.”

No wonder when he said he was on a four-win streak earlier,

people laughed at him—saying “Four wins isn’t even enough for a Life-or-Death Duel.”

Now it made sense—

Four wins didn’t meet the threshold for unlocking anything.

Even the push to hit ten wins was probably because ten was the prerequisite to unlock the other two modes.

Since he didn’t meet the requirement, Jiang Ye didn’t dwell on it.

He just clicked straight into:

【1. Beginner Mode】.