Chapter Five - 'Goodbye
As he slowly moved the flashlight up, the light in Su Ming'an's hand suddenly went out.
The ticking sound from the wall had stopped at some unknown time, and a chill began to creep over his body from all around.
He had thought that, as the strongest player in the current world, he shouldn't be hindered in such a rudimentary world. He wasn't expecting unparalleled success, but at least passing shouldn't be too difficult.
But now it seemed... was "decoding" also a vital part of this?
He heard a loud "bang!" behind him, and the door that had been open was suddenly shut by an unseen hand.
Then, there was a burst of laughter.
A child's laughter. It tinkled like silver bells, clear, pure, like a child romping and laughing in a park.
He slightly lowered his head and saw a little girl dressed in blood-red clothes staring at him, her eyes like swirling pools of blood, her lips carrying a cold smile.
"Big Brother."
The little girl's voice echoed by his ear, "Do you like picking mushrooms?"
As she spoke, she began to hum "The Little Girl Who Picked Mushrooms" nursery rhyme by herself, each note eerily chilling.
...
[The Little Girl Who Picked Mushrooms
Carrying a basket of bones
Barefoot at night~ wandering through graveyards and hills~]
...
"Pop!"
With a crisp sound, he punched the frail-looking little girl.
She looked so cute; he thought she would definitely cry for a long time.
But he soon found that his punch went straight through her, and then, the surroundings plunged into complete darkness.
He looked up and saw the office worker, rooted to the spot, her appearance screaming fear, her teeth chattering, wanting to escape the room but unable to move as if frozen.
She seemed to have triggered some abnormal mechanism, unable to move, and the health bar that represented her life points was gradually decreasing.
Barrages started swirling in:
[OMG, this scene is so underworldly]
[Lucky I died early, this kind of game is for those who dare to play, not for me]
[Aliens are truly not good stuff, this is too underworldly...]
[What travelers shuttling through otherworlds, just a bunch of humans driven to these places to die...]
Perhaps due to the lv.1 mentality resistance, Su Ming'an wasn't greatly affected.
He glanced at the dim room, then pressed his hand against a wall next to him.
"Click."
The laboratory lit up.
The eerie scene before his eyes vanished, and simultaneously, the office worker finally saw the wall graffitied with dark red palm marks and black fluid.
Blood tracks pulled from the top to the very bottom, as if dragging a body from one end to the other.
Thinking about how long she had stayed in such a room, her entire body shivered.
"Was that just now..."
"Not sure." Su Ming'an turned off the flashlight, "It seems that this light switch is the condition to avoid the death mechanism—you can go out now."
He pointed to the door on the other side of the laboratory which was open, with slanting sunlight falling through, indicating a direct exit from this spot.
"Me go out? What about you?" The woman hesitated.
"I still need to investigate for a while," Su Ming'an directly walked towards the gruesomely dead corpse in the corner.
The woman walked to the door, hesitated for a while.
[Player (Yu Ruohuo) requests to add you as a friend.]
Suddenly, a message prompt popped up in the corner of his vision.
"I'm not usually like this... I'm just more scared of ghosts and such, but I'm quite confident in combat," Yu Ruohuo said as she pinched her garment corner, "You just saved me once, if you want to team up with me later, I'm not opposed..."
She saw the young man crouching in the corner examining the corpse, who waved his hand at her without looking up.
...
[Goodbye.]
...
Yu Ruohuo grasped the meaning of this gesture.
With annoyance and embarrassment flashing across her face, she clutched her half-melted dagger and left without further delay.
...
Watching Yu Ruohuo finally leave, Su Ming'an lowered his head and began to examine the corpse.
[I kinda feel the streamer has a boss-like aura, seems fearless... I wonder what evaluation the streamer got in the newbie level.]
[The streamer is too straightforward, ignoring the girl who came knocking.] Comments floated in his vision.
"This isn't a galgame, there's no favorability setting—and she wasn't exactly thrown at me, so I don't have to like her," Su Ming'an examined the corpse.
The previously playful comments went briefly silent.
They seemed to sense that this player, who claimed to be "just an ordinary college student," might be rather extraordinary.
[You found an item (Corpse in Grisly Condition), would you like to start the investigation? (The clues gained from the investigation are linked to Mentality Points and Wisdom)]
[*You've discovered clues 1, 3, 6 (Dark Blood) (Fresh Mushrooms) (Red Mark on the Wrist)]
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[Clue One - Dark Blood: Blood of a strange color, better not to touch it with bare hands—unless you're really thirsty.]
[Clue Three - Fresh Mushrooms: Entirely snow-white with a thick cap. They look quite appetizing and are a good supplement in the apocalypse.]
[Clue Six - Crimson markings on the wrist: It doesn't seem painted on, could it be a special tattoo?]
[Clue has been recorded in the clue column and can be checked at any time. (Acquiring more clues in the future will link them and form conjectures. Conjectures can be used in "Final Guess".)]
…
[Hint: You are gradually approaching the truth.]
[Awarded 10*3 Exploration Points]
[Survival probability has slightly increased]
After the unexpected joy, Su Ming'an put the purple solution into his backpack, and then after a moment's thought, he temporarily turned off the live stream and used the recovered mana to create a clone.
He had thought that releasing the clone was like operating a remote-controlled car, where his original body only needed to give an instruction.
However, he discovered that the five senses were shared between them, and the field of vision also required willpower to control the switch, or they would appear simultaneously before him, managing this felt like having two of him, which momentarily confused him.
When the clone felt pain, he felt pain; what the clone heard, he could also hear, just the intensity would decrease depending on where his attention was focused.
It seemed that having both himself and his clone attack the same target could not happen at this stage.
He turned on the live stream again, followed the door out, and was met with sunlight showering over his head and face.
Today was the first day of survival, the apocalypse had not yet erupted, and judging by the shadows, it was now noon.
This was the periphery of the lab, he saw high gray-white walls around him and iron bars standing upright, with several security guards' bodies lying on the ground, necks bearing clear wounds—apparently the work of Yu Ruohuo, that woman had hidden skills, she also had a dagger and obviously good at handling it.
It was best not to clear these if it wasn't necessary, so Su Ming'an followed the road out.
He stood by the bus stop next to a city supermarket, pretending to be a local waiting for the bus, listening to conversations from people who were clearly players.
"Damn it, the system didn't distribute this city's common currency, can't buy food…"
"I'm so hungry, I missed a meal because of the project, then got dragged into this damn game… I don't even know how my parents are doing, where they are now, whether they've been selected to come..."
"And my sister, just last night I had told her I'd take her to the amusement park, never thought I'd suddenly not be able to see her… wonder if I can add friends remotely in this game."
"Might as well, we're here already."
"Indeed, I heard from that Organizers' rabbit, completing tasks fetches you points, maybe it will turn me into Superman—then when I return to Zhai Xing a year later, I'll beat up that blasted sponsor."
"Hehe, although this world replica is apocalyptic, who knows if the next world replica could be the legendary magical Otherworld? If I could see beautiful elf girls, the Dragon Clan, and Brave, along with a future world in the stars… As long as I survive, I get to see all these new worlds, way more exciting than the everyday office routine at Zhai Xing, can't wait…"
"Alright, stop daydreaming, first fill our stomachs. Let's buy some food and leave this city soon, just in case it's a zombie crisis that erupts, crowded places will be most dangerous, let's find somewhere in the wilderness to hide before the crisis erupts…"
Su Ming'an stood at the bus stop, listening to the passersby chatting.
He noticed quite a few, evidently players, due to lack of the city's currency, they could only resort to buying mushroom food—for the mushroom items were inexplicably cheap.
Logically, this shouldn't be the case, because recent news told him that mushrooms were the only cure for special diseases. Judging by how people hoarded salt during pandemics, mushroom food should have been sold out.
However, here, they were the cheapest items.
The current problem for players should be a food crisis... because they didn't have enough money, only a little starting fund from the system which didn't sell local currency and food.
Su Ming'an spent all his initial funds to buy enough bread for two meals, utterly avoiding mushroom food.
[You have acquired items (Sealed Meal Pack)*2]
[(Sealed Meal Pack): Poor-quality meal pack, perhaps only chosen by the impoverished and students.]
Su Ming'an felt he was acting very appropriately as a student.
He went with the flow to the job market but soon discovered that it only hired locals—meaning players here had no way to earn money through legitimate means.
…
[System: You have a video call request.]
Su Ming'an accepted, and suddenly a display panel appeared before him, with Yu Ruohuo, dressed as a white-collar worker, watching him through the video.
"I presume you've also noticed the present issues." she said, "What's your plan?"
"As you can see." Su Ming'an bit into his meal pack, sitting on a park bench.
"Eating bread, sleeping in the park?" Yu Ruohuo frowned, "Is that all you've got?"
"You seem to think too highly of me." Su Ming'an, "I'm just a student."
Yu Ruohuo looked somewhat incredulous with a sidelong glance, "The park is unsafe, I've already seen several raiding gangs, they are player groups of six who gathered right from the start, specifically targeting individuals to rob their food and money."
"As expected." Su Ming'an said, "With crisis looming, the collapse of law, supremacy of violence, I can imagine people making such decisions. After all, in their view, the upper limit they were locked to no longer exists, everything is within reach."
"… Aren't you going to move?"
"Very realistically, I have no money."
"Ding dong!"
Su Ming'an heard a notification sound.
[Friend (Yu Ruohuo), requesting your current coordinates.]
"I've just sold my dagger, got some spare change. Where are you? I'll bring some money to you, as a return for you saving me once." Yu Ruohuo said.
"No need." Su Ming'an waved his hand—this person really knew how to repay debts, even if she had been angered by him previously.
But he didn't want to team up with this woman, her Mentality Resistance virtually made her a crisis trigger.
"I've already found a place nearby where I can stay safely."
"What?" Yu Ruohuo didn't catch on.
The next moment, through the video chat, she saw behind the youth, several figures wielding weapons appeared. The clubs in their hands, swung directly towards Su Ming'an's head!
In her stunned gaze, bright red numbers suddenly jumped out above Su Ming'an's head.
[—HP-300! (Weakness Strike, Full Force Strike!)]
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