After leaving the library, Jiang Qi and the others spent twenty minutes crossing two streets before finally arriving at the four-star hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was built on relatively high ground, so the floodwater on the first floor had only risen to knee level.
Since taking the elevator was no longer safe, the group had no choice but to climb the stairs all the way to the tenth floor.
Room 1032.
Jiang Qi swiped her keycard to enter, then took several cans of eight-treasure porridge from a supply crate she had prepared in advance to treat the green-haired girl, the red-haired guy, and the hoverboard guy.
“Let’s all introduce ourselves.”
The green-haired girl enthusiastically raised her hand first. “My name is Wu Shu. I’m twenty-four years old, unemployed, and I like traveling, dyeing my hair, anime, otome games, handsome guys, beautiful women, and enjoying life. I’m a pure optimist!”
That was probably more information than necessary…
The red-haired guy waited two seconds to make sure Wu Shu was actually done speaking before opening his mouth. “My turn? My name is Liu Yusheng. Just like my name suggests, I’m a refined and elegant handsome man.”
He didn’t really seem refined…
But he definitely wasn’t bad-looking.
Jiang Qi blinked and asked in a strange tone, “You two… aren’t a couple?”
Wu Shu looked shocked. “What are you talking about? We only met yesterday! How could we possibly be a couple?!”
Huh?
You only met yesterday, yet you act like you’ve known each other for years?!
The hoverboard guy, seated on the room’s only single sofa chair, coolly explained, “Fang Huai. The three of us aren’t close. We only met yesterday at a hotpot restaurant.”
Sixty-year-old Yan Mei wore an expression that clearly said she did not understand modern young people. “And then you formed a team?”
“Yep!”
Wu Shu grinned happily. “What an incredible coincidence, right? Most people enter an instance and immediately start hoarding supplies, but the first thing the three of us did after entering was eat hotpot together, hahaha.”
“With fate bringing us together like that, not teaming up would make no sense!”
Jiang Qi: “……”
Yan Mei: “……”
Duan Xue: “……”
They didn’t understand it, but they respected it.
As long as the three of them were happy.
Jiang Qi followed up with a brief introduction of herself, Grandma Yan, and Duan Xue, then also explained each of their abilities.
“Photo Materialization?!”
After hearing that, Wu Shu excitedly grabbed Jiang Qi’s arm and shook it nonstop. “What would happen if you took a picture of a nuclear bomb? Would the nuclear bomb materialize too? If it works, we could just throw a nuclear bomb and flatten Yu City! Then we wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of finding some parasite mother!”
Jiang Qi forced a smile. “Great idea, but… do you know how to launch a nuclear bomb?”
“Uh…”
Wu Shu awkwardly let go of her hand. “Right… how do you launch a nuclear bomb?”
It couldn’t possibly work like a grenade, where you just pull the pin and throw it, right?
Liu Yusheng stared at Jiang Qi with shining eyes. “An RPG! Sis, can you give me an RPG?”
Fang Huai finally snapped and smacked Liu Yusheng on the back of the head. “Can you people actually listen when someone’s talking? She literally just said photo materialization can only be used three times a day!”
“How could she waste one of those chances just pulling out an RPG for you to play with?!”
“Oh…”
“So that means you can’t give me an RPG?”
Liu Yusheng looked at Jiang Qi pitifully, like a puppy wagging its tail, clearly not ready to give up yet.
Fang Huai shoved aside the pouting, clingy Liu Yusheng and brought the topic back on track. “You already saw my ability earlier. It’s a bound item called the Anti-Gravity Light-Powered Hoverboard. Originally, I could only use it for five minutes a day, but after upgrading it, I can now use it for ten.”
“Besides that, I’m good at shooting, and my stamina and hand-to-hand combat skills are decent too.”
“That’s it.”
“As for the other two, they can explain their own abilities.”
Fang Huai was the genuinely cool one among the trendy trio. He had a pair of striking phoenix eyes, and unlike Wu Shu and Liu Yusheng, whose outfits from head to toe contained no fewer than six different colors, he simply wore a tactical jacket and cargo pants.
Mm… And his temper was a little explosive too.
Wu Shu was completely unaffected by Fang Huai’s cold demeanor and enthusiastically described her own ability in detail. “My ability is Flame Control, but it’s nowhere near as exaggerated as in the movies. I can barely condense flames into fireballs and throw them, and I can’t create fire out of thin air either. I need some kind of medium first.”
“In one day…”
“I can make five… seven… no, no, probably ten fireballs.”
“But after throwing ten fireballs, I’ll probably be completely spent.”
Jiang Qi remembered how Wu Shu had used a lighter while manipulating flames earlier and figured she probably wasn’t lying. She nodded, then looked at Liu Yusheng. “What about you?”
Liu Yusheng curled his lips into what he clearly thought was a charmingly handsome smile. “My ability is Demolitions Expert. Sounds awesome, right?”
This time, it was Wu Shu who couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Isn’t it just ten grenades a day? What Demolitions Expert? You don’t even rehearse your bragging.”
“Sis, can’t you see I’m trying to look cool? Could you at least give me some face? Aren’t you my adorable teammate?” Liu Yusheng complained bitterly that his cool act in front of Jiang Qi had been interrupted.
Wu Shu covered her mouth, trying not to laugh. “Pfft, adorable little teammate. If you keep saying things like that, Brother Huai’s gonna hit someone.”
Fang Huai said coldly, “Can you two stop dragging me into your nonsense?”
“Aiya, you guys are so mean~”
Liu Yusheng pouted with his hands on his hips, genuinely sulking now.
Jiang Qi: “……”
Yan Mei: “……”
Duan Xue: “……”
They were in an apocalypse instance right now, weren’t they? Right? So why did these people seem like they were actually enjoying themselves?
As an introvert, Jiang Qi found it very hard to understand extroverts’ world, so she tapped the table and forcibly dragged the conversation back on topic. “Do you know why the dam was blown up?”
The moment Fang Huai thought about that incident, his expression immediately darkened, as if he were suppressing anger with nowhere to vent it. Even the normally playful Liu Yusheng and Wu Shu turned serious.
Wu Shu sighed and answered, “Actually, when the three of us first met at the hotpot restaurant, there were four of us, not three.”
***
The whole story was actually pretty simple. The trendy trio met because they were all craving hotpot. After deciding to temporarily team up and cooperate to clear the instance, a man named “Li Er” from the next table overheard their conversation and came over to talk to them, saying he was also a player and wanted to travel with them.
Because Li Er gave off a very good impression and spoke politely, the trio didn’t suspect him of being a bad person and agreed to let him join the team.
At first, the four of them worked together smoothly.
On the very first day, they found the nest of the parasite mother. On the second day, they decided to kill it.
Jiang Qi asked curiously, “And then this guy named Li Er blew up the dam ahead of time?”
Fang Huai shook his head. “No. He only went to blow up the dam after stealing the parasite mother.”
“Huh?”
She didn’t understand.
Liu Yusheng continued, “Isn’t my ability ten grenades a day? So after we found the parasite mother, our original plan was to use grenades to force it out of the water first. Once it came out, Wu Shu would burn it to death.”
“The first part of the plan went smoothly, right up until the parasite mother emerged from the water.”
Wu Shu clenched her fists indignantly. “That Li Er actually used the same ability as me!”
“He set the parasite mother on fire before I could!”
Jiang Qi stared at her in surprise. “What?”
By now, Fang Huai had already calmed down. “Not only that. After setting it on fire, he used an Anti-Gravity Light-Powered Hoverboard to fly into the air. Then he threw five grenades at the dam and another five at the parasite mother. In the end, he cleared the Parasite Instance before we did.”
“So I suspect Li Er isn’t even his real name.”
Jiang Qi frowned thoughtfully. “Li Er… Er… two? Li Two?”
Could it be…
That this Li Er was actually the same person as the man in the black hoodie Qi Zhaozhao met in the previous City Instance?
“From the way you describe it… his ability sounds like copying other players’ abilities?”
Fang Huai nodded. “That’s what I think too.”
Then his tone changed.
“He’d better pray I never run into him again. Otherwise, I’ll make him pay for this.”
In all his life, Fang Huai had never been toyed with like this before. If he didn’t get revenge, he’d remember this grudge forever.
Wu Shu and Liu Yusheng immediately echoed Fang Huai’s desire for revenge.
“Same here! If we meet him again, we’re definitely getting payback!”
Jiang Qi had no intention of involving herself in the trendy trio’s “love-and-hate drama,” but she did make a mental note of everything related to “Li Er,” just in case she ran into him in the future and got tricked too.
“Alright, let’s talk about how we’re going to clear this instance now.”
After listening quietly for so long, Yan Mei finally spoke up. “At this point, killing the parasite mother probably won’t be easy.”
Duan Xue nodded seriously with a solemn little face. “I saw those monsters swimming super fast in the water. Won’t the parasite mother swim just as fast too?”
Now that the entire city had been flooded, finding the parasite mother again would be extremely difficult.
The atmosphere in the room grew heavy. Everyone looked worried and frustrated. Wu Shu couldn’t help gritting her teeth. “Damn that Li Er. He blew up the dam on purpose just to stop us from clearing the instance!”
They had been so close to clearing it quickly!
Just then, Jiang Qi’s eyes lit up, and a smile spread across her face. “Actually… there’s no need to be too pessimistic.”
Duan Xue asked curiously, “Sister, do you have an idea?”
Jiang Qi nodded firmly. “Yeah.”
“There can’t be just one or two parasite mothers in Yu City. There have to be at least hundreds of them. After all, we’ve already encountered over a hundred players ourselves. There’s no way the instance would throw this many players into the map without providing enough parasite mothers for them to clear it early.”
From her experience clearing the first instance, she had concluded that the Survival Apartment preferred players who actively took risks and challenged their limits.
If that was the case, then there absolutely had to be enough parasite mothers in Yu City for players to clear the instance.
“Also, finding the parasite mother won’t actually be that hard. Those white monsters bring normal humans, the ordinary NPCs in the instance, to the parasite mother for parasitization. We just need to attach trackers to a few white monsters, and we’ll be able to locate it. If we want to be even more ruthless, we can attach trackers directly to the NPCs instead.”
After thinking it over, Fang Huai felt the plan was workable. “And after we find the parasite mother?”
Jiang Qi smiled brightly. “We can try driving the parasite mothers toward a place we choose. Then we can kill six of them all at once.”
Wu Shu looked stunned after hearing this. “Whoa, is this what a top-tier player is like? That’s so cool.”
Liu Yusheng also looked completely captivated. He raised a hand to his pounding chest. “Oh my god, my heart’s racing. Is this what falling in love feels like?”
Fang Huai completely ignored his two clowning teammates and asked, “You have a way to force the parasite mothers to where we want them to go?”
Jiang Qi nodded. “Yes.”
“We can do it with quicklime powder.”
If 200 pounds of quicklime powder couldn’t kill a parasite mother, then she’d use 200 tons.
And if that still didn’t work, she’d figure out a way to disinfect and sterilize the floodwaters covering the entire city.
Anyway, there was no time limit on killing the parasite mothers as long as it was done within thirty days. With her three daily materialization chances, she could stockpile huge amounts of quicklime powder over time.
Jiang Qi refused to believe that wouldn’t kill them.