Three days later—
The torrential rain in Yu City still hadn’t stopped. It had been pouring nonstop ever since the players entered the instance. By now, the four-star hotel where Jiang Qi’s six-person team was staying had already been flooded up to the third floor. Yet during this entire period, not a trace of panic could be seen among them. Instead, they methodically carried out preparations for their plan to kill the parasite mother.
First, they randomly located several monsters that had already reached the third stage and installed tracking locators on them to determine the whereabouts of the parasite mother.
This task was handled by Jiang Qi and Fang Huai.
Before setting out to install the trackers, Fang Huai had even specially reminded everyone, “Third-stage parasite monsters are extremely adept in water. If the fight takes place underwater, catching them won’t be easy. So I think we should use a ‘lure the tiger away from the mountain’ strategy first. Draw one or two monsters away from the group, then…”
The more Jiang Qi listened, the more her head hurt.
“Stop, stop, stop. Who said we’re going to fight the monsters?”
For perhaps the first time ever, the usually cool and composed Fang Huai showed a bewildered expression.
“If we don’t fight them, how are we supposed to install the trackers?”
Jiang Qi found it amusing.
“Have you ever heard of fishing?”
“Fishing?!”
“Exactly. Those white monsters behave pretty much like fish. We can just place the miniature locators inside pork, then throw the pork into the water as bait. In the end, those monsters will willingly swallow the trackers themselves.”
Why fight? That was way too troublesome.
The locators Jiang Qi created through photo materialization were the newest model of military-grade miniature tracking devices—powerful and convenient. There was no need for them to go through so many complicated steps.
Fang Huai opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“…”
Alright. His assumptions had been too rigid. He’d thought missions could only be completed through violence.
***
Secondly, on the day they carried out the operation to kill the parasite mother, at least three people on the six-person team needed to know how to operate a yacht.
Yan Mei didn’t need lessons—she had a Universal Driver’s License. The remaining two pilots would be Wu Shu and Liu Yusheng.
Learning how to drive a yacht within three days sounded neither particularly hard nor particularly easy.
At first, Yan Mei worried that, as an elderly woman teaching young people how to drive a yacht, they might not take her seriously.
But then…
“Hah, want to compete and see who learns to drive the yacht first?”
Wu Shu was the first to provoke Liu Yusheng.
Hearing this, Liu Yusheng raised his head with a disdainful look.
“Fine by me. Who’s afraid of who?”
And just like that, the two inexplicably turned it into a competition. They became so obsessed that even when Duan Xue brought them food, they replied in perfect unison,
“Just leave it there! I’ll eat after I learn this!”
“But instant noodles will get soggy if you don’t eat them…”
Duan Xue kindly reminded them, but no one responded. She could only turn to her grandmother in confusion.
“Grandma, what’s wrong with them?”
Yan Mei gently stroked her granddaughter’s hair.
“Mmm… probably because they’re taking it too seriously.”
Having an optimistic mindset was actually pretty good. At least it made people less likely to become depressed.
Still, it was probably best if her granddaughter didn’t learn from those two young people.
If she had to learn from someone…
Then Jiang Qi and Fang Huai would be much better role models.
One had both intelligence and emotional intelligence, while the other could back things up with strength and win people over through action.
During these past two days, whenever monsters attacked the four-star hotel, it had always been the two of them who drove them back.
***
Lastly, there was the rehearsal and final confirmation before the official operation.
The bait Jiang Qi had prepared on the third day of the instance had long since been swallowed by different monsters. It was now the evening of the fifth day of the instance, and the computer screen in front of her displayed the trackers’ movement paths.
“Here, here, and here.”
Jiang Qi pointed at three locations circled with red dots on the screen.
“From yesterday until this morning, monsters implanted with trackers have continuously been heading to these three places. Fang Huai has repeatedly confirmed from the air that whenever these monsters go there, they drag ordinary NPCs along with them.”
Wu Shu stretched her neck as far as possible to look at the three addresses on the screen, softly reading them aloud, “Lingbo Lake, Xiangyang Garden, and an underground parking lot beneath a large shopping mall.”
She counted silently in her head.
“Three locations, three parasite mother. We only have six people. It’s not enough to split up. What do we do?”
Jiang Qi turned back to explain,
“Lingbo Lake is enormous. There’s probably more than one parasite mother there. I even suspect there are over a dozen.”
Fang Huai asked curiously,
“How are you so sure?”
“Intuition.”
“Second-stage monsters actively prey on humans in order to evolve into third-stage monsters. So after fourth-stage parasite mothers infect enough humans, it’s possible for them to evolve into fifth-stage monsters.”
This was Jiang Qi’s speculation. Because the later the instance progressed, the more dangerous it became. If the seven days represented the flood, then what would the danger after those seven days be?
Fang Huai immediately understood.
“So you suspect there’s a reason these parasite mothers are gathering together?”
“It’s only a suspicion because I don’t have proof. But the tracked parasite monsters really do travel to Lingbo Lake the most—more than twice as often as the other two locations.”
Jiang Qi answered calmly.
And this was only a suspicion?
Liu Yusheng couldn’t help but complain, “Boss, you’re way too modest.”
Jiang Qi sighed helplessly.
“It’s just caution.”
“Understood!”
Sure enough, truly powerful people were all humble!
Should he start acting like that next time too?
***
It was now dawn on the sixth day of the instance.
Having completed every preparatory step of their plan, Jiang Qi’s team split into three groups of two and set out in three yachts loaded with quicklime powder.
The final target location had been confirmed as Lingbo Lake.
Before forcibly driving the parasite mothers out of the lake, they first needed to “seal the roads”—in other words, disinfect every possible escape route around Lingbo Lake with quicklime powder in advance.
Leaving behind only a single “safe” path.
It didn’t matter that the massive floodwaters would weaken the quicklime’s effectiveness. Their goal was merely to drive the parasite mothers toward the place they wanted them to go.
“Hahahahaha! Come at us if you’ve got the guts, you monsters!”
On the once-bustling streets, Wu Shu sped the yacht forward at lightning speed while Jiang Qi stood on the deck, dumping bag after bag of quicklime powder into the floodwaters.
Because the floodwater had been contaminated by the quicklime, the monsters trying to pursue them could only trail far behind. A few especially determined monsters even attempted to leap from the tall buildings lining the streets and land directly on the yacht.
Unfortunately for them, they missed the yacht entirely and instead crashed straight into floodwater that had just been treated with quicklime.
“SKREEEE—!”
Piercing screams rang out alongside Wu Shu’s delighted laughter.
“Hahahaha, idiots! Got yourselves boiled alive, huh?!”
Meanwhile, Yan Mei and Duan Xue, as well as Liu Yusheng and Fang Huai, were experiencing much the same situation.
Naturally, the strange behavior of Jiang Qi’s team also caught the attention of other players.
“Hey! Come look! Some players are actually provoking the monsters on purpose!”
Inside a nearby twenty-five-story commercial office building, three young players hurried to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Looking down below, they saw people driving yachts back and forth repeatedly along the streets, apparently doing something incomprehensible. Their faces were full of confusion.
“What are they doing?”
“No idea…”
“Ah, stop looking already. It’s not like we’re going to kill the parasite mother anyway. We should just stay here.”
“True…”
“Those monsters aren’t something people like us can kill.”
After dumping all the quicklime powder from the yachts, Jiang Qi’s team regrouped and headed to the only top-tier hospital in Yu City with a helicopter landing pad on the roof.
During the three days they spent preparing their plan—
On the first day, Jiang Qi used the camera to materialize tracking locators, matching monitoring screens, and walkie-talkies to make communication between teammates easier.
On the second day, Jiang Qi used the camera to materialize three faster yachts with larger carrying capacities.
On the third day, she spent all of her time taking photos of quicklime powder.
Now it was the fourth day of their preparations, which was also the sixth day of the instance. Jiang Qi still had one photo left containing 220 pounds of quicklime powder. She had already used up three earlier, and she still had three unused photo opportunities remaining for today.
Jiang Qi flipped to the page in the magazine with a picture of a helicopter on it and snapped a photo with the camera. Very quickly, an imposing black helicopter appeared on the helipad.
Liu Yusheng looked deeply moved. “My god, I never thought I’d actually get the chance to ride in a helicopter one day.”
And the most important thing was, this was a military model! A military model!
Did they even understand the value of a military model?!
“Grandma Yan, can you fly it?”
Jiang Qi looked at Yan Mei for one final confirmation.
“I can, I can. Grandma can fly it.”
Of Yan Mei’s two uses of the Universal Driver’s License, one had already been used on the yacht, leaving her with one remaining use. As for driving cars, that was something she already knew how to do.
Back then, she had specifically gotten a driver’s license so she could take her granddaughter to and from school.
“I never thought the dream I couldn’t achieve when I was young would finally come true now.” Yan Mei sat in the pilot’s seat, quietly sighing as she familiarized herself with the helicopter’s controls.
When she was young, she had admired the air force so much, but unfortunately, there had been no opportunity for her in that era.
“Not bad, not bad.”
After getting familiar with all the controls, Yan Mei turned and shouted to Jiang Qi’s group, who were still standing on the hospital rooftop, “Hurry up and get on! We can take off now!”
“Okay!”
Wu Shu impatiently rushed aboard first, followed by Liu Yusheng and Duan Xue. Jiang Qi and Fang Huai boarded last.
Even if this was an instance, for everyone riding in a helicopter for the first time, it was still incredibly exciting—except for Fang Huai, who remained as calm as ever.
“Aren’t you excited?” Jiang Qi asked curiously.
Fang Huai shrugged indifferently. “It’s alright. I have my own private plane in real life.”
Jiang Qi: “……”
Wu Shu: “……”
Duan Xue: “……”
After processing that, Liu Yusheng couldn’t help cursing, “Damn it! I refuse to coexist under the same sky as rich second-generations!”
Faced with Liu Yusheng’s resentful expression toward the rich, Fang Huai remained as cold and aloof as ever.
“No matter how rich I used to be, that’s all in the past.”
“Now I’m just an ordinary player, poor like the rest of you.”
That didn’t really sound comforting at all, did it?
Jiang Qi muttered inwardly.
***
The roaring sound of the helicopter starting up caught the attention of the players still holed up inside the library.
“Holy shit! A helicopter?! Where did that come from?!”
“Could it be some kind of item?”
“Damn it! This is so unfair! Why is my item just a fruit knife that never rusts, while other players get a flying helicopter?! I want to file a complaint!”
But no matter how jealous or resentful these players were, there was nothing they could do about the helicopter flying through the sky. Meanwhile, the man in the leather jacket suddenly remembered the unfamiliar six-person team he had encountered earlier.
“Could it be them?”
If it really was…
Then if they met again in another instance someday, he definitely wouldn’t mind building a good relationship with them.