Nine-year-old Duan Xue had only just started fourth grade, but she had always been much smarter than children her age. That was why she wouldn’t just ask anyone she met for help.
When her grandmother sacrificed herself so Duan Xue could escape, she really had intended to run. She never planned to go back and save her grandmother because she knew she couldn’t.
Rather than betray her grandmother’s wishes, it was better to focus on clearing the instance and surviving.
Because for elderly people and children like them, points were simply too important.
Their starting stats were already far weaker than those of ordinary players. If they didn’t work hard to clear instances early on, then by the mid and late stages, the only thing waiting for them would be death. So even a single failed clear could have an enormous impact.
When Duan Xue finally escaped the residential complex, she had even considered waiting until daytime to find a player who looked kindhearted, act pitiful, and then rely on her healing ability to join a team and coast along until surviving the full thirty days to clear the instance.
A thousand points was still a thousand points. It covered a month of living expenses for her and her grandmother.
So meeting Jiang Qi had been completely unexpected.
Riding an electric scooter around in the middle of the night meant one of two things. Either she wasn’t afraid of the monsters, or she was capable of dealing with them.
Female = fifty percent safety = at least she wouldn’t be assaulted.
Fully armed = strong enough = mentally sound.
And so Duan Xue rushed over without caring about anything else, even offering up the only “bargaining chip” she had.
Fortunately, her impulsiveness paid off.
Sitting on the back seat of the electric scooter, Duan Xue gratefully thanked Jiang Qi. “Big sister, thank you. Once Grandma’s safe, I’ll definitely find a way to repay you.”
“No need. This is an equal exchange.”
There was kindness in Jiang Qi’s personality, but her rationality would always come before her kindness. If helping someone was within her ability, she didn’t mind lending a hand, for example, saving Qi Zhaozhao in the City Instance. But if it was beyond her capabilities, she absolutely would not interfere, like with the skinny man in the parking garage.
She still didn’t know whether that skinny man had actually been a player, but even if he was, it didn’t matter.
If helping someone was within her ability and could also benefit her at the same time, then Jiang Qi would definitely choose to save them. Because she believed reliable teammates were far better than facing everything alone, especially when she herself wasn’t strong enough to overcome every difficulty.
“See the plastic bucket behind me?”
Duan Xue, who had been guiding Jiang Qi along the way, instinctively lowered her head. “I see it. What about it?”
Actually, she had already noticed the bucket after getting on the scooter because it was pressing awkwardly against her chest and making her uncomfortable. But saving her Grandma was more important, so she hadn’t said anything.
Jiang Qi explained, “Open the lid. There’s a cup inside. If you see monsters getting close, use the cup to scoop up the quicklime powder and throw it at them. They won’t dare approach us anymore.”
“Huh? Quicklime powder?”
Duan Xue looked confused.
“There’s no time to explain right now. If you want to save your grandma, just listen to me.”
“O-Okay!”
The cup was something Jiang Qi had casually grabbed during her zero-cost shopping spree at the supermarket. It was much more convenient than scooping quicklime powder with her bare hands. Otherwise, how did they think she had managed to make it all the way near the police station without incident?
The sound of the electric scooter entering the residential complex was drowned out by the pounding rain, but while human ears couldn’t hear it clearly, it was unmistakable to the monsters.
Watching monsters rush out from every direction, Jiang Qi calmly reminded her, “Get ready to throw the quicklime powder.”
“Got it!”
Duan Xue tightly gripped the cup already filled with quicklime powder. The moment the first monster shot its tongue toward them, she hurled the powder with all her strength.
Sizzle—!
A sound like sulfuric acid corroding something, or water splattering into burning oil, filled the air. She watched with her own eyes as the monster’s long tongue violently curled up the instant it touched the quicklime powder. The creature let out a shriek ten times more awful than a cat in heat.
“SKREEEE!!!”
As shock filled Duan Xue, so did a burning desire for revenge.
These monsters were the reason Grandma got hurt!
Kill them! Kill every last one of them!
Duan Xue scooped quicklime powder out of the bucket and flung it at the monsters like it cost nothing. If she hadn’t been stuck on the scooter, she probably would’ve chased after the fleeing monsters while continuing to throw it at them.
Seeing her get carried away, Jiang Qi quickly stopped her. “Take it easy! Don’t use up all the quicklime powder!”
“Sorry, big sister…”
Duan Xue immediately stopped. “I got a little too excited.”
“It’s fine. Kids are impulsive sometimes.”
As long as they weren’t the kind of children who screamed and caused scenes in public while running around everywhere, Jiang Qi was actually fairly tolerant toward kids.
With the quicklime powder serving as their secret weapon, the two of them smoothly made their way downstairs to the apartment building, then efficiently dealt with the seven or eight monsters gathered in the stairwell.
By then, the door connecting the balcony and stairwell had already been smashed open. Only the pile of furniture blocking the entrance was barely holding out.
Duan Xue hurriedly shouted, “Grandma! Grandma, I’m here to save you!”
Behind the door, Yan Mei had already been exhausted to the brink. Judging by how much time had passed since her granddaughter escaped, she had been preparing to give up resisting altogether when she suddenly heard Duan Xue’s voice. For a moment, she thought she was hallucinating.
“Xiao Xue?”
“It’s me! Grandma, I brought someone to save you!” Duan Xue quickly started moving the barricade aside while reminding her grandmother that she had brought help.
The expression on Yan Mei’s face instantly turned wary, but after seeing that Jiang Qi was a young woman, much of that vigilance faded. Trembling, she slowly climbed to her feet from the ground and said in a hoarse but deeply grateful voice, “Miss… thank you. Thank you for saving me and my granddaughter.”
“You’re welcome. It was just a small effort.”
Jiang Qi waved it off casually.
Afraid the elderly woman might overthink things, she proactively explained, “Besides, it’s not like I saved you for nothing in return. Your granddaughter said… you know where the parasite mother is?”
Yan Mei was being supported by Duan Xue as they walked from the balcony into the stairwell. Hearing this, she answered honestly, “I don’t know exactly. I just have a rough guess.”
“That’s still fine. Better than me running around investigating blindly without any leads.”
Jiang Qi smiled. “Come with me. I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
“Thank you for the trouble, miss.”
The stairwell clearly wasn’t a suitable place for a long conversation, and Jiang Qi could see that both the old woman and the child were shivering from being soaked by the rain. If this kept up, they would definitely get sick. So she decided to bring them back to the hotel first.
On the way back to the four-star hotel, Jiang Qi rode the borrowed electric scooter while Duan Xue and Yan Mei rode a shared electric scooter they had unlocked with an app. Along the way, they passed a pharmacy, and Jiang Qi deliberately stopped to “shop for free” and grab some medicine and supplies. If they didn’t take medicine, she was worried Duan Xue and Yan Mei would wake up the next morning with colds or fevers that would affect their mobility.
In any case, with the quicklime powder on hand, she wasn’t worried about being surrounded by monsters.
Because as long as one monster was killed by the quicklime powder, the others that witnessed it would flee in fear. Even if they didn’t leave, they only dared to trail far behind.
***
When Jiang Qi led Yan Mei and Duan Xue back into the four-star hotel lobby, the receptionist was still anxiously troubled by the fact that the police had never arrived.
“Hey, I brought your electric scooter back. Here’s the money for borrowing it.”
Ding. Two hundred yuan received.
The receptionist looked very young, probably only recently graduated. Seeing Yan Mei and Duan Xue soaked through and stained with blood, he panicked.
“W-What happened?! Why are they… how did they…?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Jiang Qi stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder. “Help them book a room. Preferably next to mine.”
“B-But…”
What the hell was going on here?!
Why had the police said they were coming, yet never arrived? Why wouldn’t the home phone connect? Why did the corpse at the entrance have an unnaturally long tongue hanging from its mouth? Why were strange figures occasionally sprinting past the hotel entrance?
Had he somehow wandered onto the set of a horror movie?
For the first time in his life, the receptionist felt completely lost and helpless, but he still dutifully arranged the rooms. Their room ended up being right next to Jiang Qi’s Room 1032, Room 1033.
“Here is your room card. We hope you enjoy your stay.”
Jiang Qi found it a little amusing how terrified the receptionist looked while still honestly doing his job. Before stepping into the elevator, she turned back and reminded him, “Close the hotel doors. No more guests are coming.”
“Huh?”
“And if you can, get yourself a room and hide.”
The receptionist stood there blankly, watching Jiang Qi disappear into the elevator after saying that.
A long while later…
He finally gathered the courage to shut the hotel’s front doors, sealing out all the abnormalities outside.
Inside the elevator, Yan Mei held the trembling Duan Xue in her arms, lowering her guard toward Jiang Qi a little more.
Anyone who could still show kindness to ordinary people inside an instance, even if they were a bad person, was the type to leave some room for mercy.
10th floor, Room 1032.
Before Yan Mei and Duan Xue came over after changing into clean clothes, Jiang Qi had already prepared hot water and instant noodles. Hearing the knock at the door, she got up to answer it.
“Want some instant noodles?” Jiang Qi asked. “If not, I also have bread and biscuits.”
“Yes!”
Duan Xue had long since been starving. Whether it was noodles or bread, she could eat all of it.
“Ahem.”
Yan Mei shot her granddaughter a disapproving look.
Duan Xue quickly bowed and thanked her. “Thank you, big sister. May I pay you for the food?”
“Sure. It’s not expensive anyway.”
Jiang Qi nodded and let them in.
Only after the three of them had eaten and drunk their fill did they officially get down to business.
Out of habit, Yan Mei raised a hand to adjust her glasses, only to realize they had been lost at some point. She showed no embarrassment and naturally began introducing herself and her granddaughter.
“My name is Yan Mei. I just turned sixty this year. I was also a soldier when I was younger.”
Jiang Qi froze for a moment. A former soldier? No wonder she’d felt this old lady was in much better shape than most elderly women. She had actually managed to hold off eight monsters slamming against the door for ten whole minutes by herself.
“I didn’t draw an ability, but I did get a bound item called the Universal Driver’s License.”
“The Universal Driver’s License allows me to operate a type of vehicle without any prior learning. But each time I enter an instance, I can only use it once. After clearing my first instance and upgrading it, it became usable twice.”
After a brief pause, Yan Mei continued, “Yachts, airplanes, trucks, any civilian vehicle you can think of, I can choose two of them in an instance and drive them.”
Worried Jiang Qi might think her grandmother’s ability was weak, Duan Xue hurriedly explained, “The Universal Driver’s License is really powerful! Even though it can’t attack, Grandma and I only survived our first instance because of this item.”
“Who says it can’t attack?”
Jiang Qi’s eyes lit up. “It absolutely can!”
“Huh?”
The grandmother and granddaughter exchanged confused looks. How could a driver’s license attack? They couldn’t understand it at all.
Looking at the puzzled expressions on Duan Xue and Yan Mei’s faces, Jiang Qi smiled like a true final boss villain.
“Because what I have here…”
“…is no shortage of weapons.”
Just imagine it. While everyone else struggled desperately to survive against monsters, she could sit comfortably in a yacht, dumping quicklime powder down on them from above.
How satisfying would that be?!