Chapter 38: For some reason, Tang Mo looked at this guy for two seconds longer.

After a malicious "Merry Christmas" wish, the sun sets completely below the horizon in the far west, the last rays of light disappearing into the sky.

Christmas Eve, it begins.

Tang Mo immediately started checking his belongings, making sure he had the small parasol and the large matches on him. Then he quickly ran to a convenience store 50 metres away. The shop had already been torn apart, the shelves of food and water had all been looted, and Tang Mo found a pencil sharpener in the clerk's drawer and two batteries.

The torch he had received from Li Bin had been in use for a long time and there was no telling when it would run out of power. It was important to have a power source ready to go in case the rest of the trail was as dark and gloomy as the big mole's burrow.

When all this is ready, Tang Mo looks at the clock hanging on the wall of the convenience store.

The second hand clatters along, slipping a little towards the '12' mark. As the three minutes tick down, Tang Mo holds his breath, ready to be pulled into the copy. The next moment, however, the second hand clicked to the next position.

Tang Mo's heart lurched. He stood in the dark, deserted convenience store, his gaze focused on the clock on the wall.

The seconds are still ticking away.

Tang Mo counts the minutes in his mind. He had been counting down the minutes since The black tower had announced that players from China would be entering the copy in three minutes. It took him a minute and a half to enter the convenience store, and another minute and a half to find something.

Until now, four minutes had passed.

He was not pulled into a copy of the game.

Tang Mo stood in place for a while and waited. Another minute had passed and he still hadn't been pulled into the copy. He took the small parasol out of his backpack and walked out of the convenience store.

Tang Mo starts walking back. It was only two kilometres from the mall where the Atak organisation was located. He wondered if everyone was like him, not pulled into the copy, or if he was the only one, left outside.

Tang Mo walks quickly, his hand clutching his small parasol, always on the lookout for any enemies that might appear around him.

Just as he reached the same intersection as before, suddenly, the sound of a firework explosion came from the sky and Tang Mo looked up.

A large coloured firework explodes in the black night sky.

The firework seemed to consist of five different small salute bombs which leapt to the highest part of the sky like five shooting stars flying from the ground into the sky. They flew slower and slower, and when they reached a position nearly a kilometre above the ground, the five salute bombs suddenly exploded.

Glorious fireworks burst forth from a salvo of bombs, sketching a large-headed portrait with the darkness of night as a painted screen.

A large thick white beard, a red cashmere pointed hat and a small white ball nestled at the top of the hat. The fireworks painted a large image of Santa's head in the sky. The scene was reflected in the eyes of every player in the Shanghai range, and as the firework picture of Father Christmas faded away, a loud, hearty laugh came out of the sky.

Tang Mo's heart thudded.

Suddenly he understood exactly what the sound meant.

Four reindeer were seen speeding up from behind Santa's firework head and crashing headlong into the soon-to-be-dissipated fireworks.

"Ha ha ha ha ha, kids, Merry Christmas!"

Four reindeer pulling a golden red carriage, spreading their hooves and running through the night sky. As they run over the city, an old man with a white beard in a red Christmas suit stands on the carriage, pulling the reins with both hands and letting out a loud laugh. He laughed loudly as he waved his arms and poured many stars of dazzling light onto the ground.

Santa's carriage was so fast that in no time it was crossing the whole of Pudong, crossing the Nanpu Bridge and heading for Puxi.

In the sky, tens of thousands of star-like rays resembled snowflakes, falling towards the ground. The moment they fell to the ground, the stars shone brightly, a dazzling light pierced the sky, and a beam of white light rose from the plucked ground and connected to the sky.

At the same time, a clear child's voice rang out across Shanghai -

"Dingdong! Trigger side quest one: find the Christmas tree branch left by Father Christmas, and within thirty minutes, enter the Christmas Eve surprise copy."

The sound was heard simultaneously throughout China, before a Father Christmas appeared near each of The black tower in China, showering the earth with white starlight.

Almost as soon as he heard the task prompt, Tang Mo turned quickly and ran towards the nearest point where the starlight had fallen. But as fast as he was, he was still a beat too slow. As he arrived at the scene, a boy of 17 or 18 with glasses picked up the small white star that had fallen to the ground as soon as he could.

As his hand touches the little star, the white light dissipates and turns into a tiny trunk branch.

The boy saw Tang Mo and looked at him warily. He didn't need to do anything at all though, as he got the branch and his body faded and finally slowly disappeared into the air.

This may be the successful entry into the copy.

Without a second glance, Tang Mo turned and ran to where another star had fallen.

It was still preempted.

He ran a dozen places in a row, sometimes only getting halfway there when the rushing white light disappeared - a sign that someone had picked up the branch and managed to enter the copy. Sometimes just as he ran, he watched as another player entered the copy.

The minutes ticked by and only the last five minutes remained.

Tang Mo runs into a factory. On the ground in front of this factory, a small star lies quietly on the ground, with no other players around.

His eyes lit up and he sped over to it. Just as Tang Mo's hand was about to touch the star, he jerked it back. A sharp iron boomerang appeared where he had reached. If Tang Mo had not withdrawn his hand, it would have been severed by now.

He turned his head to look to his left.

All he could see was a young woman in a camel-coloured trench coat staring coldly at him. With a lift of her right hand, the boomerang embedded in the ground floated up and returned to the woman's hand with a whoosh.

The two men were positioned ten metres apart, staring at each other with deadly intensity.

In the next second, the two move together. Tang Mo shouted the incantation and snapped open her small parasol to block herself. The woman swung her sharp boomerang in a wide 180° arc through the air and attacked from Tang Mo's back.

Tang Mo throws away the parasol and blocks it behind him. The boomerang hit hard and Tang Mo stumbled backwards, further away from the Christmas branch.

The woman swung her boomerang with one hand and ran quickly towards the little star all at once.

Tang Mo grips the umbrella handle and keeps blocking the boomerang's attacks. The small pink umbrella clashes with the iron boomerang with a thumping sound. With one hand on the ground, Tang Mo sidesteps the boomerang attack, while snapping the umbrella away and stabbing backwards without looking back.

The woman was on the verge of getting her little star when she didn't expect Tang Mo to be able to spare the energy to attack her while dealing with the boomerang. She dodged for a moment and was cut by the sharp tip of the umbrella, which caused a bloody gash on her shoulder. Enraged, she focused on her powers and directed the boomerang to attack Tang Mo again.

Tang Mo rolled straight to the ground in defiance of his image and grabbed the little star as soon as he could.

The woman said sharply, "You ......!"

Bang!

Tang Mo opened his little parasol and blocked the boomerang that was flying towards him. He calmly put away the umbrella and looked at the woman in the trench coat who was standing a short distance away. The woman's face was red with anger, but time was running out, so she gave Tang Mo a stern look and turned to run to the next star fall.

Tang Mo's form faded away and he heard The black tower prompting in his head -

"Dingdong! Side quest one has been completed and you have successfully entered the Christmas Eve Surprise Copy No. 419 in China Zone 2."

"Player data loading complete ......"

"Copy information loaded ......

A blinding white light flashed past his eyes and Tang Mo opened them, the whole world surrounded by a white glow. As soon as he opened his eyes, he gripped the handle of his parasol, wary of monsters like the Great Mole that would suddenly come out of nowhere to kill him. But gradually, as the white light dissipated, Tang Mo could see what the replica world looked like.

It is a white world about ten metres long and five metres wide. The floor is divided evenly into four pieces, forming four blank compartments five metres long and 2.5 metres wide. Tang Mo is standing in the rightmost white compartment. He looks around and in the three compartments to his left, there are also three people standing.

The four of them stand in a row, Tang Mo on the far right, a young man about his age to his left, and a high school-looking woman to his further left. To the far left, in the leftmost compartment, stands a middle-aged man.

Upon seeing each other, all four men stared warily at the other three, gripping their respective weapons tightly.

It was at this point that a rumbling sound was heard. All four men looked towards the sounding place.

It was as if a white wall was rising up in front of them, revealing the opposite side. Tang Mo stared carefully at this rising white wall and thought to himself, "So it's not a white world, it's a world that's split apart. Then the opposite side of this wall ......"

He cried out and looked across again.

As it happens, on the opposite side of the white wall, there are four men also standing in four other compartments, opposite the four Tang Mo men.

This white world finally unfolds in the view of eight players.

It is a white map ten metres long and fifteen metres wide. Every four players stand on the same side, dividing four squares. In the middle of the players on either side is an area five metres wide. In the middle of the area, a large golden star hovers in mid-air, a little bit of golden starlight slowly spilling down from its body.

Tang Mo looked across to the four men. But before he could get a good look, he only heard -

"Rumble-"

The whole world trembled as if an earthquake had broken out in the white world. Tang Mo hurriedly braced himself on the ground with his small parasol to steady himself. When he looked up, he saw eight huge iron tiles descending from the sky and smashing in front of each player with a loud boom, jamming just at the edge of the white grid.

The big silvery-white iron plates hit the ground and caused an earthquake, and it took a while before all eight were on their feet.

Tang Mo had already looked up at the large iron plate placed in front of him. He looked carefully at every corner of the iron plate before turning his head to look at the iron plate of the man standing beside him.

The picture on this iron plate is not the same as your own!

Having come to this conclusion, before the others can react, Tang Mo looks at the next person's iron tile without moving. After looking at all three players on his side of the table, he lifts his head and looks across the table.

Across the room are also four people. Standing directly opposite Tang Mo is a middle-aged woman and, counting to the left, a young woman and an older man with white hair.

The contents of their iron plates are not visible from Tang Mo's perspective, only the identical pattern on the back of the plates. Father Christmas drives a reindeer carriage, waving a large red pocket, and sails happily from the clouds to the earth.

The three men on the opposite side of the room were also looking at what was on the iron plate, and Tang Mo watched them for a moment before his eyes turned to the last man standing in that diagonal line with himself.

He looked at the other man in silence.

There was a distance of about ten metres between the two men, and the man looked up at the contents of the iron sign. From a distance, half of the man's body was blocked by the iron plate, and Tang Mo could only see that the other man was wearing a black overcoat. He was clearly standing there quietly, but his posture was incredibly straight, standing up straight as a peak.

For some reason, Tang Mo looked at this man for two seconds longer.

The next moment, a hawk-like gaze stabbed straight at Tang Mo.

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The author has something to say.

Tangtang: Good ...... so mean! Why are you staring at me T^T!

Mr. Fu: ......[God damn I didn't know this was my daughter-in-law ！！！！