Chapter 25: Madman Jiang Xianwu

The people from Baichuan shelter appeared just in time, allowing Zhou Baiyu to see hope.

He immediately paid the pioneer value and became friends with Xueyao and Zhang Laoxi.

It's worth noting that apparently all social interaction seeks to extract pioneer value by any means necessary.

The person who sends the friend request will consume pioneer value.

However, if the request is rejected, the pioneer value is not refunded.

At the same time, if the request is accepted, the other party will also deduct pioneer value.

This is just like paying money for both accessing and providing strategies.

Zhou Baiyu realized...

"We" seem to greatly resist human interaction, with all "our" measures increasing the cost of social interactions for humans.

It inevitably reminded him of the Tower of Babel.

God, to prevent humans from building a tower reaching to heaven, created language barriers among them.

And "we" seem to have heightened the cost of human interactions in every edition, by implementing a pioneer value fee.

No doubt, all this has already succeeded—the humans have been successfully divided.

In the apocalypse, humans should have united to share information. But since sharing information could reduce their own survival resources...

Human nature opted for silence instead.

The impact didn't stop there.

Watching those on the screen of Pioneer Voices who frenziedly mocked him, Zhou Baiyu thought they looked like a bunch of dumbasses with reduced intelligence.

Anyone seeing this scenario for the first time, witnessing humans fighting among themselves, would think it dumb—apocalypse has arrived, yet these people are busy infighting.

But in fact... this is reality, this is human nature.

Perhaps all this is the result of "our" step-by-step guidance. But essentially, human history has proven countless times—

Once there are barriers among humans, be it class, language, national, ideological, or racial barriers... they all form different factions.

Version 1.0 even had gender barriers. Men and women despised each other.

The things I am doing are opposed to these people's ideals; they think my survival attempts are doomed, my efforts to survive seem wrong to them.

As if I should be crying and begging them for help...

Zhou Baiwu silently smirked and shook his head, quickly dismissing these distractions.

Now, his opinion of the Baichuan shelter had slightly improved.

He no longer looked at the numerous mocking and grieving posts, but privately messaged:

"It seems like to everyone out there, I am certainly doomed. At such a time, you actually chose to spend pioneer value on someone who's practically dead... I accept your friendship."

Zhang Laoxi:

"Don't mention that, if you survive and return, would you join our Baichuan shelter?"

"If I don't join... are you not going to share the intel?"

"No, not at all. Saving a life is still saving a life, and we may still have opportunities to cooperate in the future. Let's not waste time, brother. The so-called Blood Hunting Mode..."

Zhang Laoxi said:

"Simply put, there will be a pioneer... forcibly assigned to enter as the Hunter. His abilities are far superior to yours."

"He won't be attacked by the monsters in the version; his acquired identity is one of those monsters, but he can still use some of his own abilities."

"He might also disguise himself as someone you think is an ally. At a critical moment, he might deal you a fatal blow or provide you with false information."

"That is his mission—to play... the part of the hunter on the monsters' side, hunting you down."

"In other words, in addition to the original survival test, you also have to face a powerful pioneer."

"Of course, if the pioneer doesn't use all his efforts to hunt you down, or if his actions intentionally go easy on you instead of plotting against you... he will be eliminated."

"We don't know who will be assigned in advance, even that person will only know he has become the Hunter when your countdown begins."

"And he must try his utmost to kill you, and he wants to kill you on his own volition. Successfully killing you allows him to take all your possessions except for your unique personal traits."

Damn.

Zhou Baiyu roughly understood.

Blood Hunting Mode is essentially an enhanced version with an additional powerful "deceiver," an assassin.

This assassin won't be attacked by the monsters, may possess either a monster identity or a human one.

I might not even be able to recognize him; he might walk right up to me, just like an "NPC" in the version.

If the original version was PvE, then Blood Hunting Mode had added PvP.

This was very troublesome.

Moreover, the strength of this Hunter was far greater than Ling Hansu's.

"On one hand, I might need to gather information, get intel from some friendly folks, on the other hand, I also have to discern the truth of this intel while being careful of backstabbers…"

Zhou Baiyu wasn't actually worried about himself.

"Old Xi, does Blood Hunting end when all of us are killed, or is it over if just one of us is killed?"

"According to the task, you must complete one killing to avoid being erased. So, you only need to kill one among you," Old Xi responded quickly.

Clearly, he was also worried about whether Jiang Xianwu could acquire sufficient useful information in such a short time.

Zhou Baiyu closed his eyes and began formulating a plan.

He was more worried about Ling Hansu.

"Xue Yao, are the intel ready?"

"It's ready, but I'm sorry, I died not long after I entered, so my information isn't very valuable."

Ling Hansu was very self-critical, as her performance in "Haunted Gu Mansion Night" was really poor.

As a result, the valuable intel she could provide was not much.

But she had still spent prelude points to produce it.

Zhou Baiyu also quickly read it in the last few minutes.

Meanwhile, Old Xi said:

"Keep it up, buddy. I think you have already done something quite remarkable. Our guild leader once said, 'Many things in this world aren't about finishing the journey, but about taking the first step.'"

"If you have any problems, be sure to contact us. We will provide you with walkthrough info at the lowest release price. But unfortunately, the brothers who participated in Haunted Gu Mansion Night… are all dead."

"That place is not for newcomers, yet only support roles and newcomers might be drafted there."

"Perhaps there are extremely valuable clues hidden there."

Old Xi kept sending messages.

Zhou Baiyu was multitasking, politely responding while absorbing the intel from Xue Yao.

"So the so-called Gu Mansion is actually Building 92; when we went, it was daytime…"

"During the day, everything was normal. Xue Yao hadn't encountered any issues during the day. But there definitely is a lot of strange stuff in Building 92."

"To resolve all of this… it has to be investigated thoroughly within the limited time during the daytime."

"Because at night, many monsters seem to emerge in this building."

"Xue Yao died within the first hour after nightfall."

All the messages back and forth cost Zhou Baiyu twenty-eight prelude points.

Xue Yao, as the provider, had spent sixty-eight prelude points.

But the value was indeed very limited.

Zhou Baiyu guessed that such walkthroughs were probably many, which led to people no longer wanting to share walkthroughs.

Prelude points were saved to improve oneself.

This wasn't wrong, but Zhou Baiyu believed that walkthroughs must be valuable.

"We" are always increasing the difficulty of human interaction, which indicates that humans should piece together various information to create a complete picture.

But, at this stage, these things were obviously unrealistic.

"With the information from Ling Hansu, perhaps some clues can be found before night falls…"

"I actually won't die, but Ling can die… Ling Hansu doesn't have to enter that building, but even so, she might still be killed by a Blood Hunter."

"I can't let her die, I need to make the Blood Hunter give up on killing Ling Hansu."

"Not sure if it will work, but I have to try first."

For the sake of protecting Ling Hansu, Zhou Baiyu couldn't care less about other things.

He exited the private communication channel and posted this message in a public area:

"Oh, thanks to the kind soul for the guidance, I now know what Blood Hunting Mode is."

"Haha, I thought it was something serious; isn't it just that some noob sneaked in, planning to hunt me? That's it? You guys don't really think this noob could actually kill me, do you?"

Perhaps Zhou Baiyu's reaction was too far from what others had anticipated…

Immediately, the whole board went silent.