Ding Xun sensed that Ye Pingjun truly had no hostility. Her super intuition also told her he wouldn't attack them now, and that he was temporarily trustworthy. She leaned forward beside Mo Bai and asked, "So what's the good news?"

Mo Bai was holding an arm. She handed it to Ding Xun and said, "Don't you think this arm looks a little too realistic?"

"Of course. My eyesight is great; if these mannequins weren't so realistic, I wouldn't have missed seeing Ye Pingjun hiding here," Ding Xun said as she squeezed the arm.

Mo Bai sighed helplessly. "I'm not blaming you for not spotting him. I mean… this might be a real human arm."

"What!?" Ding Xun dropped the arm instantly as if it burned her.

Ye Pingjun leaned over from behind her, posing as though seeking protection, yet looking delighted. "Oh no, I've been lying in a pile of corpses. Such bad luck, so something good should be coming next, right?"

"Is your ability triggered passively?" Mo Bai asked. "Isn't that basically the same as the 'Observation Group' title effect? But you don't look like you're from the group."

Ye Pingjun, living up to his name, looked extremely average. Average looks, average height, average presence. Nothing about him stood out. He didn't look like someone from the Observation Group at all.

"I'm from the Combat Group. My ability isn't passive; rather, it accumulates," Ye Pingjun explained. "I can always see my current luck value. Normally, it's zero. When I encounter something good, it goes positive. When I encounter something bad, it goes negative. My threshold for negative luck is around 50. As long as it's within those 50 points, I can freely manage it."

Ding Xun tried doing the math in her head for a long time, nearly giving herself a cramp, yet she still couldn't figure out how his ability actually worked.

She said, "Can you give an example?"

Ye Pingjun said, "Say we're playing cards. If I win twenty thousand points from you, I'd accumulate around ten points of good luck. Then, afterward, I must lose that full twenty thousand points back to you for the number to return to zero; otherwise, something unlucky will happen to me.

"If I only lose ten thousand to you, dropping my luck to -10, then I can keep that -10 negativity and save it up for when I need it."

"Then what if I punch you?" Ding Xun asked. "If I beat you up, does that count as accumulating bad luck?"

Ye Pingjun grimaced. "Anything we agree on beforehand doesn't count. I don't actually know what standard my ability uses to calculate lucky or unlucky events. But before a good or bad event happens, I can feel it coming.

Though sometimes, luck can be ridiculously bad.

For example, this forced dungeon. When I signed up, I felt it was difficult, but if I could survive, my luck value would be at a normal level. But once the player slots filled and the dungeon was activated, I suddenly felt something was horribly wrong. I had a bad feeling that I would die in it.

I wanted to avoid it, but I couldn't. It's a forced dungeon after all."

Hearing this, Mo Bai quietly rolled her wheelchair backward a few steps and repeated silently in her mind: It's not my fault. I didn't increase the dungeon's difficulty. I didn't ruin his luck. Totally not my fault.

"You didn't consider any countermeasures? Like going to the underground casino to lose points?" Ding Xun asked.

There was a player-run underground casino in Peach Blossom Land. As long as there wasn't cheating, using abilities to cheat, loan sharks, or violent debt collection, the system wouldn't interfere.

Some opportunistic players tried to win points there. Most people would quit after losing 1,000 points. Some gambled their entire assets, and if they lost everything, the system would immediately send them into a forced dungeon.

At the mention of casinos, Ye Pingjun's face soured. He looked like he didn't want to talk about it, but finally said, "You think I didn't try? No matter how many times I went during the preparation phase, I always won. Before the dungeon started, I had already won 100,000 points. My luck was off the charts."

Upon hearing "100,000 points," Mo Bai quietly shifted closer to Ye Pingjun, trying to sponge off his fortune.

"So you entered the dungeon while your luck was maxed out?" Ding Xun stepped beside Mo Bai, placing her hand on the wheelchair and preparing to run at the first sign of danger.

Ye Pingjun saw through her intention and hurriedly explained, "After that, I went out to seek misfortune. I was unlucky for seven days in a row, but my luck stayed high at around +15. Only after I spent twenty thousand points on dungeon intel and another ten thousand on the Nightingale's Voice did my luck finally return to zero."

Mo Bai, who was extremely sensitive about money, asked, "So when you bought the intel, you already suspected it was fake, considered that as 'bad luck,' and still bought the Nightingale's Voice to bring your luck back down? Choosing to lose money to avoid disaster?"

Ye Pingjun: "Correct."

Mo Bai felt that Ye Pingjun's ability seemed to have a tendency to foresee things, and wondered what it would evolve into if it continued to level up.

"What's your luck now? Positive or negative?" Ding Xun asked.

Ye Pingjun said, "Negative ten. Lying among corpses dropped it further. But honestly, -10 isn't enough for me to survive the dungeon's lethal threat."

Ding Xun finally shifted her thinking. "So you want to accumulate negative luck. That is, accumulate misfortune, so when necessary, you can reset the negativity to zero. During the reset, you'll encounter good things. Is that right?"

"Exactly! You understood it. It's impressive that you can think of something so complicated, even I struggle with it," Ye Pingjun said.

Ding Xun asked, "Then meeting us is supposed to be a 'good thing.' Does that 'good thing' mean we help you accumulate misfortune so you survive this dungeon? Or is it the kind of 'good thing' that increases your luck value?"

Ye Pingjun: "……"

Ding Xun stepped closer. "Which one?"

Ye Pingjun knocked his own head, confused. "Yeah… I just sensed a 'good thing,' but what kind of good thing is it specifically?"

Mo Bai finally found a chance to interrupt. She pointed to the mannequins all over the floor. "If you two keep talking, I guarantee it'll be the kind of 'good thing' that accumulates bad luck value."

"Oh, right, right! You said you discovered something." Ding Xun turned to Mo Bai.

Mo Bai said, "Not much. I just figured out what those two hidden monsters might be."

She pointed to a relatively complete mannequin. "Ding Xun, can you bring me that one?"

"Call me Xiao Xun," Ding Xun corrected her while handing over the mannequin.

"This thing is heavy. At least a hundred jin. Are you sure you can lift it?" Ding Xun asked with concern.

Mo Bai took the mannequin with one hand, answering through action.

She flipped the headless but otherwise intact mannequin face-up. After feeling around the abdomen, a flash of cold light appeared. Her right hand had grown five steel-blade-like claws: the Corrosive Claws.

The Corrosive Claws sliced open the mannequin's skin with ease, revealing the abdominal muscles beneath. The muscle texture looked incredibly realistic, but there was no bleeding.

Mo Bai cut open the muscles again, exposing the empty abdominal cavity.

"No internal organs," Ye Pingjun noted.

Mo Bai reached back with her left hand, touching the spine and gently pressing on the thoracic vertebrae. With a slight pressure, from the tenth to the twelfth thoracic vertebrae, these three vertebrae, along with the skin and flesh behind them, opened up, as if opening a door for the anatomical model.

Mo Bai quickly sliced open the chest next. The sensation of her claws cutting through the sternum was disturbingly real, almost like an autopsy.

Inside the chest cavity, there were no lungs or trachea. Only the esophagus was intact, stretching down into the empty abdomen.

"Our lunch was wasted like this," Mo Bai sighed.

Ye Pingjun's eyes sharpened. "Out of twelve guests, two were mannequins like this. They didn't need food, yet they ate lunch. Then, after the meal, they dumped the food out through their backs like this. They wasted one-sixth of the meal, which is over 10%!"

"This is one of the death threats in the dungeon." Ding Xun said. "If we don't eliminate the two hidden monsters, someone will die at every meal. Ten players, three days, and nine meals. Everyone will be dead before the dungeon ends."

"This mannequin isn't complete, so I can't figure out the two monsters' weaknesses from it," Mo Bai said. "But my Corrosive Claws can definitely cause significant damage to these monsters."

"I can chop off an arm too—hmm?"

Ding Xun squeezed the mannequin's skin, then pulled out a dagger and slashed it. Only a shallow cut appeared.

"Reinforced skin," Ye Pingjun added.

"Stronger defense than the maids," Ding Xun said.

"My Corrosive Claws can be used twice. I've equipped one. The second can be equipped by someone else. We'll divide the work, find the hidden monsters, and kill them before dinner. Otherwise, someone else will die at dinner," Mo Bai said firmly.

"I don't need it." Ding Xun gripped her dagger and chopped downward with more force, cleanly severing the mannequin's arm.

Mo Bai looked at Ye Pingjun.

She'd originally wanted to save the second use for Gu Tiandong, but right now, they couldn't find him, and his frilly dress wasn't suited for combat. The most suitable person now was Ye Pingjun.

Ye Pingjun's gaze drifted forward, as though reading something only he could see on a virtual screen.

He sighed. "My luck dropped again. It's -20 now."

"That's great! You can summon good luck worth 20 points!" Ding Xun said happily.

Ye Pingjun said, "It's a good thing. I think I know which kind of 'good thing' meeting you was."

Mo Bai asked, confused, "Because I invited you to fight the hidden monsters with us, your luck dropped? You consider that a misfortune? But discovering and eliminating the hidden monsters together and preventing deaths at meals, these are genuinely good things, though?"

Ye Pingjun said, "Isn't it possible that even if I hadn't met you, you would still have killed the hidden monsters?"

"We were already planning to kill them," Ding Xun said.

Ye Pingjun nodded. "Exactly. If I had found another place to hide, avoiding you two, I could have just waited for you to kill them, reaping the benefits without doing anything. A true 'lie down and win.' But because I met you, I now have to personally take action. That makes it the misfortune type of 'good thing.'"

"But by suffering this misfortune, you can store even more negative luck. Isn't that actually a good thing on top of a good thing?" Mo Bai asked.

Ye Pingjun thought for a moment, then surprisingly agreed. "That's true. Honestly, based on your logic, my ability should be called 'Arrival of Double Happiness.'"

The three exchanged smiles.

Just like that, a temporary monster-hunting team was formed.