Chapter 525: Worth a Hundred Points

In layman's terms, a notion was simply a thought, but there seemed to be a slight difference between the two.

According to Chu Men, the human head in the room was an abandoned notion. As for how it had formed or why it had been abandoned, I still had no idea.

The only way to figure it all out was to go inside and examine it up close.

"A notion locked within the Deep Dream Layer? It looks terrifying, but it's ultimately just a lingering wisp of a thought. It shouldn't pose much of a threat to us." I returned to the door, preparing to go in and take a look, but I needed to ask Chu Men's opinion first. After all, the two of us were grasshoppers on the same rope; acting recklessly would be irresponsible with both our lives.

"Streamer, I think it's better if we don't provoke it." Chu Men had many misgivings. "Notions are born when the mind interacts with the world. We produce all kinds of notions constantly in our daily lives—good and bad—and it's no big deal. But the notion in that room was forcefully suppressed into the deepest depths of its master's heart and deliberately forgotten. That alone shows how terrifying it is. It might even be a brutal urge to kill."

"There are many real-world examples of crimes of passion. When people commit murder, the very first notion that strikes their minds is the urge to kill."

"It's just that most people suppress those murderous thoughts and gradually ignore them. In nature, the strong prey on the weak, so killing is perfectly normal. For humans, however, morality and civilization bind our thinking, which is why murderous and evil thoughts are discarded by the main consciousness as soon as they arise." Chu Men paused and pointed into the room. "What I'm trying to say is that every notion abandoned in the Deep Dream Layer is likely related to murder and cruelty. These floating heads are the bottomless, wicked thoughts that humans produce in a split second."

After hearing Chu Men's explanation, I felt like I somewhat understood why this bizarre building looked like a prison, and why there wasn't a single humanoid shadow to be seen within dozens of meters of it.

This place was incredibly dangerous. One careless mistake, and we would be doomed beyond redemption.

I looked at the tightly connected yet isolated rooms, not daring to imagine if every single one of them hid an abandoned notion.

"Let's stick to the original plan. We'll climb to the roof first and look down at the city to see if we can find a way out."

The interior of the building was entirely composed of individual compartments. The corridor was narrow, only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. It spiraled upward, ending at the stairs leading to the next floor.

There were no signs in the stairwell. We had reached roughly the seventh floor when I touched the wall, stopped suddenly, and turned my ear to listen. "There seem to be footsteps in the stairwell."

"Why didn't I hear anything?" Chu Men mimicked my posture. After a few seconds, he faintly heard the soft sound. "It's coming from behind us!"

"Notions don't have legs, so naturally, they wouldn't make footsteps. Something else is coming? Could it be a nightmare?" This "person" suddenly tailing us from behind was technically the first living entity Chu Men and I had encountered in the Deep Dream Layer. With no way of knowing whether they were friend or foe, I naturally didn't dare lower my guard.

"Should we keep going up, or find a room to hide in first?" Chu Men turned to look back the way we had come. The spiraled corridor obstructed our line of sight, only allowing us to see a few meters away.

"Let's hide first. Better safe than sorry." Chu Men and I randomly picked a room and went inside. The door didn't have a lock, so we had to block the door frame with our bodies. "Our biggest advantage is that we're hidden in the dark. Don't rush out. We'll figure out what they are before we make a move."

The footsteps outside the door gradually drew closer. Chu Men and I didn't dare breathe as we waited in silence.

Holding my breath, I used my Judging Eye and crouched to peek through the crack in the door. Separated by only a single door, the footsteps echoed clearer and clearer down the curved corridor.

"They're here!"

Blood-red high heels. A mottled long dress covering her ankles. But neither of these things caught my attention the most.

My gaze moved up, and when I saw the face resting upon her snow-white neck, I almost screamed.

Eerie patterns were painted on mourning paper. It was a Paper Doll Mask that I couldn't be any more familiar with!

'Underworld Live Show!' These words surfaced in my mind almost instantly. 'That's right, this Paper Doll Mask is exactly the same as the one worn by the Live Show Examiner!'

I felt my heart leap into my throat. "Could she be from the Underworld Live Show? No, that's not right. I'm an Underworld Live Show Streamer, and entering this dream is a Live Show Mission. If this was the Underworld Live Show's territory, my coming here would be completely redundant."

At that exact same moment, the Underworld Live Show Phone let out a soft chime, seemingly having received a message.

The sudden noise made both Chu Men's and my expressions change. The room was so quiet that the soft sound was infinitely amplified. Even from outside the door, it would have been clearly audible!

The footsteps stopped. Those bright red heels came to a halt right outside our door.

"Did she notice?" My palm gripping the phone was slick with sweat. Outside, the woman wearing the Paper Doll Mask slowly turned to face our room.

Separated by a single wooden door, this mysterious woman and I stood facing each other. I didn't know if she had seen me, nor did I know what she would do next.

All I could do right now was memorize every single detail about her and try to deduce her identity.

'Prominent collarbones, taller than Ye Bing, no shadow behind her. Could this be another dreamer?'

As my mind raced with these wild thoughts, the woman had already turned around and walked away, her footsteps moving toward the roof at a steady, unhurried pace.

"Who is she? Why is she wearing the same mask as the Live Show Examiner?" Only when the woman had gone far away did I let out a sigh of relief. I hurriedly pulled out the Live Show Phone to check.

I unlocked the screen. There was a new message in my inbox, and its contents were very simple.

When the livestream had first begun, the final optional mission had been nothing but question marks. But after encountering this strange woman, those question marks vanished, and this last optional mission was finally revealed.

"Optional Mission Five: Use any means necessary to kill her! Mission success rewards one hundred points, one Live Broadcast Immunity, one chance to ask a question, and two random items drawn from the unlocked merchandise!"

Seeing the text on the phone screen, my Adam's apple bobbed. I rubbed my eyes and read it over several times to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

"A hundred-point mission?!" I suppressed the excitement in my heart and pressed against the door panel, forcing myself to calm down. "The fifth optional mission only appeared when that woman walked past just now. Even though the message didn't give a name, I can be certain that the Underworld Live Show's mission target is her."

Now I could be absolutely sure that the woman wearing the same mask as the Live Show Examiner had nothing to do with the Live Show. In order to kill her, the Live Show had actually offered a bounty of a hundred points!

It was unprecedented. Killing a nightmare only rewarded ten points, and even killing Lu Xing back then had only rewarded thirty points.

'Who exactly is this woman? She has the same Paper Doll Mask as the Live Show, yet the Live Show has put a massive bounty on her head. Could she be the Traitor that the Live Show mentioned?' Looking at the inbox, I realized that line of thought was wrong, too. Optional Mission Four clearly stated that killing a member of the Traitors rewarded twenty points. This woman's bounty was five times that of a Traitor!

There was one other thing to consider. Optional Mission Five hadn't been issued to me from the very start. Instead, it was kept hidden, only triggering after a specific encounter. Drawing on my past experience from the Death Train Live Broadcast, this kind of mission usually carried enormous variables, and the target was often something that even the Underworld Live Show genuinely coveted! Things like the Double-Faced Buddha's Good and Evil Relic, or the Dream Wing Gu.

"The Live Show Mission didn't tell me anything about that woman. It didn't even give a name, only referring to her with a pronoun. Are they afraid I might figure something out?" I slowly calmed down. The Live Show wasn't a charity. Since it was offering a hundred points, this mission had to be extremely dangerous. It was worth every bit of that price.

"Don't let the huge point reward go to your head. Stay rational. Surviving is the number one priority." The footsteps in the corridor were already completely inaudible. That woman had gone far away.

"The Deep Dream Layer really is terrifying. A random person we encounter is worth a hundred points. If I added up my entire net worth, it probably wouldn't even amount to that much." I put the phone away. Just as I was about to open the door, I suddenly noticed that Chu Men's expression had turned extremely grim.