[Mm.]
999 felt quite helpless as well. The thing it dreaded most had finally happened: its naive host had run into a trashy teammate and gotten scammed.
If only it could tag along, it could have checked the rules of every single dungeon…
On the spot!
The reward for the Lucky Four-Leaf Clover dungeon was those very four-leaf clovers. Collecting a full 100 could be exchanged for a Lucky Pendant, which increased one’s luck stat between 8 and 100.
Even if you only rolled an 8, which was barely lucky, the Lucky Pendant could still help players avoid extreme weather when drawing the weather cards as much as possible. It was an extremely practical and point-saving item.
There was still quite a bit of extreme weather in this game, such as that vast ocean. That definitely wasn’t given as a water source for players, nor was it specifically opened up as a water route for them. At least two extreme weather events were directly tied to it: typhoons and tsunamis.
Normally, it could even trigger a high tide just to submerge players for fun.
Lin Zhaoyang sat dazedly on the wooden floor of the cabin, trying to recall the other person’s name and appearance.
After thinking for a long time, he only retained a slight impression of the face, but this faint impression wouldn’t last more than a few days before fading completely, and that name was entirely unrecallable.
Lin Zhaoyang finally understood why the other guy had chosen such a complicated name. It was purely designed to be hard to remember, and someone like Lin Zhaoyang couldn’t bring himself to glue his gaze onto others anyway, always feeling like it looked too much like harassment.
“Wuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwu.”
“Brother Mo from the first dungeon was still the best. He was level 88, didn’t look down on me, and even helped me get resources.”
“Wuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwuwu.”
Feeling completely lifeless, Lin Zhaoyang half-knelt inside the small wooden cabin, thrust his upper body out of the window, and let out a continuous wailing sound resembling a boiling kettle.
Today was a heavy rain day, and the wind occasionally carried raindrops onto Lin Zhaoyang, but because he felt too miserable inside, he hadn’t paid attention at all.
Searching for four-leaf clovers had left his eyes feeling permanently tinted green, and yet his teammate kept dropping by just to ask things for free without putting in any effort.
It was a fortunate thing he met Brother Mo in the first dungeon; otherwise, he wouldn’t even have entertained the thought of opening a second dungeon. Running into someone like this scammer had completely ruined his good mood for the day.
Lin Zhaoyang stopped wailing and simply began sighing heavily. Suddenly, he felt a lack of strength throughout his body. He didn’t want to play multiplayer explorations anymore, and single-player explorations felt too troublesome to bother with either.
“999, you really are the best, wuwuw.”
[Mm-hmm-hmm, you have me. Pat pat.]
999 stretched out a small hand to pet Lin Zhaoyang’s head back and forth. That was precisely why it had been so worried; after all, the game’s dungeons were bizarre, and being deceived or hurt by other players didn’t violate the rules.
The more Lin Zhaoyang thought about it, the more regretful he felt. He truly couldn’t guard against that kind of backstabbing treachery, nor could he possibly assume every person he met was a bad guy and keep his guard up against everyone.
It had wasted four hours of his time for absolutely zero return, and Lin Zhaoyang felt like his heart was close to acting up.
“Pfft pfft pfft, that’s bad luck.”
Lin Zhaoyang, who genuinely suffered from a heart condition in his past life, was suddenly startled and hurriedly spat out that ominous thought.
[What is it? What’s wrong?]
999 was a bit puzzled; Lin Zhaoyang’s sudden movement had almost shaken it right off.
“Nothing, just want to sleep. Wake me up at 8:00 PM tonight to draw tomorrow’s weather, alright?”
The main thing was that getting scammed by someone only grew more painful the more you replayed it in your head. Better to just go to sleep. He felt like there were many chances where he could have avoided being scammed, but reviewing it now was a bit too late. Not only had the guy cheated him, but he had already vanished without a trace.
[That’s only fixed for 8:00 PM, but drawing right now works just the same. It just gives you time to change your luck so you’ll have a chance to draw better weather later.]
Lin Zhaoyang nodded, opened the weather-drawing page, and pulled a “Sunny” card from several options.
Afterwards, he ate a meat bun and drank some mineral water before falling straight to sleep. He was already too depressed to even change out of his clothes, and he didn’t notice that his clothes had gotten somewhat damp from the rain.
999 also obediently retreated into its system space. Staying behind here wouldn’t help its poor host anyway.
In-game time was synchronized with reality, and time ticked by second by second.
Lin Zhaoyang, who had fallen asleep right on the wooden floor during the heavy rain day, felt his head growing increasingly muzzy, but he merely assumed he was genuinely exhausted, rolled over, and continued sleeping.
999 checked the time, sensing that something felt off. Lin Zhaoyang had gone to sleep very early last night; it made no sense for him not to be awake by 8:00 AM. It decided to go check on him.
[Zhaoyang, time to get up.]
[Zhaoyang, Zhaoyang.]
999 called out twice without getting a response, drifted closer to Lin Zhaoyang’s face, and saw that the other’s face was flushed an abnormal shade of red.
It had noted before that the primary advantage of Lin Zhaoyang’s physical body was likely its extremely pale skin, which made the flushed redness on his face stand out even more incorrectly.
[Oh crap, he’s running a fever, isn’t he? Ahhhhh, I told you that you shouldn’t just sleep on the floor!]
[Wake up! Get up and buy some medicine! Ahhhhh, you can’t possibly kick the bucket from a fever just because you didn’t take any meds, right?]
999 had no way to use a physical form inside the game; otherwise, it would have gone right up and shaken Lin Zhaoyang awake directly. The game mall’s medical section featured fever-reducing medication with immediate results.
The problem was that Lin Zhaoyang needed to wake up first to buy it.
Even though 999 wailed with its soft baby voice using “ahhh”, its sound manifested directly inside Lin Zhaoyang’s mind, which ultimately managed to jolt the person awake.
“What’s wrong? You’ve just been going ahhh this whole time.”
[You have a fever! Go buy some medicine in the mall and take it!]
Lin Zhaoyang woke up in a daze. After taking a moment to gather his bearings, he still felt his head muddled and heavy with exceptionally weighted eyelids. He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead; it was indeed scorching hot.
Mall, medical section, fever-reducing medicine, purchase successful.
Lin Zhaoyang skillfully washed the medicine down with mineral water.
“999, do normal players also need to swallow medicine when they get sick? This feels so strange.”
Lin Zhaoyang’s head was still muddled, but his questions came out smoothly. The medicine was as unpalatable as ever. Could playing a game really be this bitter?
[They don’t need to swallow it; they can just use it directly. The reason you have to swallow it is because this is your actual body, and you need to maintain it yourself.]
“Oh oh oh, I knew it. If playing a game were realistic enough to require taking actual medicine, that would be a bit too weird. But this only requires you to say it once, which is pretty advanced.”
“Huh? I forgot to eat something before taking the medicine.”
Lin Zhaoyang shook his head. He wasn’t in a clear state of mind at all right now; though he was awake, his soul felt like it was floating.
[It’s fine. In the game, you don’t need to cushion your stomach with food first. Even though you’ll be affected by the game just like other players, the degree of impact is relatively minor. Most minor illnesses take effect with a single dose.]