She Was Sentenced to Life Imprisonment [Unlimited] - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Exchange Area

You’re Broken

“Dear player, congratulations on earning 100 points and officially becoming a player of the City of Desire. Do you want to enter the player exchange area?”

The moment she was surrounded by the scorching flames, a blinding white light suddenly appeared before Jiang Nan’s eyes. All pain was isolated from her.

A soft chuckle, as if someone was right next to her ear, felt like a cold venomous snake climbing up her, making her shiver. She only heard a clear voice filled with intense interest.

“I look forward to our next meeting.”

Jiang Nan recognized the voice. It was Luo Ning. Her heart was beating a little fast in her chest, but it wasn’t because she was fond of her. It was because she found the person extremely terrifying.

The white light was so dazzling that she couldn’t open her eyes from the pain. After a moment of adjustment, when she opened her eyes again, all she saw was a vast expanse of white. The absurd village and Luo Ning had both disappeared.

If it weren’t for the translucent screen in front of her, Jiang Nan would have thought she was blind.

After she collected her thoughts and remembered the system’s voice from before, she looked at the screen in front of her. There was a paragraph of text and two options below it.

Her gaze lingered on the words “exchange area,” and she finally raised her hand and clicked “confirm.”

The next moment, she was surrounded by white light again, and in the blink of an eye, she left the vast white space.

Her ears were filled with a cacophony of sounds, which made her frown. A trace of an imperceptible emotion flashed in her beautiful, amber-like eyes.

Many people appeared around her. She clenched her fists, enduring the uncomfortable feeling, and quickened her pace, wanting to get away from here.

A gasp made her stop. Following the gazes of those people, she saw a large screen in mid-air with ten names on it, followed by their corresponding points.

The person they were gasping about was at the very top. To be precise, there were only three question marks. The points behind it moved, and in the end, it only increased by fifty points, but it was enough for it to firmly hold the first place.

“That crazy woman went to a low-level instance to bully noobs again.” A man spat and cursed.

But he didn’t dare to say these things in front of the real person, only here.

They didn’t even know what that woman’s name was. Ever since she appeared, when people asked her name, she would just smile and say she didn’t know.

Later, she climbed to the ninth floor at an extremely fast speed, just one step away from the tenth floor.

“I had the chance to meet her once. She’s crazy. She got poisoned by the boss and just swung her axe and cut off her own hand after just one look.” The person said, and as he recalled the bloody scene, he unconsciously shivered.

When Jiang Nan’s gaze landed on the three question marks, her eyes became filled with scrutiny, and she lowered them in thought.

So the person in first place was a one-armed woman who was also crazy.

From their back-and-forth chatter, Jiang Nan extracted useful information. She roughly understood the rules for calculating points here. Only by climbing the Stairway to Heaven would the points earned in an instance be given in full. But if you went down, the system would automatically take 50% of the points.

For each step of the ladder, the points increased exponentially, and points were the key to getting on the ladder.

Jiang Nan’s gaze went from the first place on the screen downward, but she didn’t see that familiar name, as only the top ten players were ranked.

A trace of disappointment flashed in her eyes, then she focused her attention on the Stairway to Heaven that the other players were talking about.

She looked around. Besides the dense crowd, the most eye-catching thing was a pyramid in the distance with the numbers “1” and “0” flowing on it.

As Jiang Nan was thinking, the surroundings became noisy again, accompanied by sounds of kicking and whimpering.

Jiang Nan, who was often beaten and scolded in her original instance, immediately recognized that someone was fighting here.

She didn’t care about this. When her gaze swept over, the sound of the beating had already stopped. Someone cursed under their breath about the bad luck.

“Just this much.”

The crowd that had gathered there gradually dispersed, leaving only a half-dead man lying on the ground in a twisted posture.

From his bruised and swollen face, Jiang Nan recognized that it was Li Tao from her instance.

His bloodshot eyes were clouded with resentment and hatred. His slightly heaving chest was the only sign that he wasn’t dead yet.

Li Tao saw her. His clouded eyes seemed to light up for a moment. He whimpered as if he wanted to crawl over to her for help, but someone, seeing that he wasn’t completely dead, kicked him hard again.

The sound of bones breaking made her scalp tingle. The person on the ground took his last breath at that moment, his wide-open pupils reflecting the indifferent girl in the distance, as if questioning her why she didn’t save him.

However, his actions just now did attract the attention of others. Following Li Tao’s eyes, dozens of scrutinizing gazes looked at her. The sickly, frail-looking Jiang Nan looked like a lamb who had strayed into a wolf’s den among these people, ready to be slaughtered at any moment.

Their gazes made Jiang Nan uncomfortable, even a little nauseous. As she watched them about to approach, a hint of coldness flashed in the depths of her eyes, with a faint malevolence.

Just as she was about to take out her blade, a faint fragrance filled the air, and a figure brushed past her. When she turned back to look, the person had already disappeared into the crowd.

Those people seemed to have been frightened by something and shivered, no longer daring to approach her. She didn’t know why she had to chase after that person. The crowd around her became smaller and smaller, and she got closer and closer to the pyramid, but her arm was suddenly pulled, which made her snap back to reality.

She looked at the pyramid that was so close, her expression momentarily blank.

“Are you going to enter the first floor right after coming out?”

A voice came from behind her, strange but pleasant, with a hint of a warning.

Hearing the voice, Jiang Nan turned her head and met a refined face. The person was wearing a white coat and looked like a doctor.

Jiang Nan then glanced at the hand holding her wrist and said flatly.

“Let go.”

The other person also realized their rudeness. After letting go of her hand, she said apologetically.

“Sorry.”

Jiang Nan saw that there were only a few people near the pyramid, while the others were gathered far away, as if they were wary of this place, or perhaps afraid of being forcibly pulled in to clear an instance.

“How do you know I just came out?” Jiang Nan asked cautiously, stepping back a few steps and looking at the other person coldly.

The woman then sized up Jiang Nan for a moment. After meeting her wary gaze, she explained.

“You’re a new player who was pulled in. You don’t know that players with a higher rank than you can see the points of players with a lower rank, do you?”

Only after entering an instance would a player’s points be hidden, so no one could know what floor their teammates were on.

But here, it was a den of wolves and tigers, where players could attack others to seize their points.

Jiang Nan’s wariness did not decrease at all in response to her answer.

The woman sighed, knowing she had been too rash. She could only continue to explain.

“My name is Bai Lai. I’m a doctor. From the looks of it, you must have come here for your illness, but it’s very dangerous here. Entering the first floor requires deducting 90 points. Once you go in, you won’t be able to buy weapons to defend yourself.”

Jiang Nan looked like a student. Her pale hair made her face look delicate, but also very frail and pale. There were still bloodstains on her school uniform, which immediately made Bai Lai, as a doctor, feel a bit of pity.

Hearing what the other person said, Jiang Nan did not deny her guess about why she was here.

She was an NPC who had escaped from an instance. If people found out, she would probably be treated as an outcast.

Jiang Nan’s eyes drooped as she pondered the information in the other’s words.

A beginner’s instance only yielded 100 points. To enter the pyramid-like Stairway to Heaven, the first floor would deduct 90 points. If she bought anything that caused her points to be insufficient, she would not be qualified to enter the Stairway to Heaven to clear the game. She could only continue to wander in beginner instances to accumulate points.

So, that’s why Zhang Zheng had been lingering in beginner instances. He probably had the delusion that no one could die in beginner instances and wanted more points to exchange for life-saving weapons.

Unfortunately, he miscalculated. He was killed by the instance’s boss before he could accumulate enough points.

Jiang Nan provisionally believed Bai Lai. She followed her unhurriedly, keeping a distance of over a meter.

She looked at the other person’s back and sized her up. Although this person seemed like a good-natured, easygoing person, Jiang Nan could feel the presence of bloodshed on her. If she hadn’t killed someone, she must have killed ghosts and monsters in instances.

As they passed by, others automatically made way for them. Jiang Nan glanced over. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but since earlier, these people hadn’t dared to approach her much.

Was it because of Bai Lai’s appearance, or did someone else do something?

Before Jiang Nan could figure it out, Bai Lai in front of her stopped. Jiang Nan also stopped and looked at her in confusion, only to see that she had stopped at a place that looked like a shop.

This place was more of a junk shop than a store. It had all sorts of strange things, and the best-selling items seemed to be the yellow talismans for warding off evil spirits. So there were many of them, making it look more like a charlatan fortune teller’s stall, just a bit more high-end.

Jiang Nan frowned and walked over, sweeping her eyes over the things in the shop.

The items were priced not in currency, but in points.

A single yellow talisman was priced at a steep 200 points.

Jiang Nan: … A piece of waste paper.

Her gaze then turned to other items, and she saw a few dusty knives in a corner.

10 points. It was just as Luo Ning had said, the lowest-grade weapon that could only stab people, but not harm ghosts or monsters.

Jiang Nan: … A broken knife.

But it was too far away, and the light in the corner was too dim, so Jiang Nan didn’t see the difference between those knives and the one in her hand.

As for other items, even a single makeup mirror that could trap a ghost cost more than 10,000 points.

Bai Lai saw her looking at these items, but her lazy, indifferent expression seemed to indicate that she wasn’t interested in buying anything. So, Bai Lai kindly advised her.

“For you, a yellow talisman can block one attack from a ghost. It’s the best thing for you. You can go to a beginner’s instance again to get some points.”

Jiang Nan’s gaze returned. She said flatly.

“No need. I have a way.”

Her existence was already a bug for the instance, and besides, she had a secret.

Bai Lai wanted to persuade her a little more, but Jiang Nan’s gaze landed on her. There was no emotion in the depths of her beautiful eyes. Although she was half a head shorter, when she looked at her, it was as if she was looking down from above, a condescending gaze. Her lips parted, and her voice was faint.

“What floor are you on?”

The pyramid had ten floors. Above the tenth floor was what the system promised them.

With each floor they cleared, their strength should not be underestimated. Otherwise, why were those people so afraid of the top ten on the leaderboard?

Bai Lai seemed surprised that Jiang Nan would ask that. She looked at Jiang Nan, who had completely lost her pitiful appearance. Something flashed in her eyes. She then returned to her gentle self and said.

“Fifth floor.” Not too high, not too low.

Jiang Nan’s eyes narrowed slightly. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t completely believe her.

She turned and left, passing through the crowd and standing at the base of the pyramid made of massive data. She looked particularly small, like a grain of sand in the universe, insignificant.

The system’s voice rang in her mind. It was that frantic female voice.

“Looks like you’re ready.”

Jiang Nan felt that this voice was a little familiar, but the next second, the system made a “shasha” sound as if it was malfunctioning, and it reverted to its cold, mechanical voice.

“Player, do you want to deduct 90 points to start a new instance and enter the first floor of the Stairway to Heaven to begin clearing?”