The man in the leather jacket thought for a moment, suddenly stubbed out the cigarette in his hand, then turned to his thirteen lackeys and said, “Bring your gear. Let’s follow them and take a look!”
He had a feeling.
If they made it in time, maybe they’d get to share a little of the spoils.
The sound of the helicopter flying low through the air not only caught the attention of the players in Yu City, but also the countless parasite monsters throughout the city. They climbed onto tall buildings, stood atop rooftops, and all looked up at the sky.
But their fully parasitized brains were clearly incapable of understanding what the “thing” flying through the air actually was.
Normally, driving from the top-tier hospital to Lingbo Lake would take half an hour, but by helicopter, it didn’t even take ten minutes. In just six minutes, they were already above the lake.
Splash—
Jiang Qi pushed open the left-side cabin door of the helicopter. The roaring wind whipped her long hair into disarray as she looked down at the enormous Lingbo Lake below. This place had once been one of Yu City’s famous scenic attractions, but now it had become the nest of the parasite mothers.
“Time to say goodbye.”
A photograph was pinched between Jiang Qi’s fingers. The moment she finished speaking, she materialized the contents of the photo.
In an instant, hundreds of tons of quicklime stones crashed from the sky into Lingbo Lake, the resulting splash nearly reaching the helicopter itself.
Anyone who had ever raised fish knew that quicklime was used to disinfect fish ponds.
A single acre of fish pond required about 830–1,650 pounds of quicklime. Lingbo Lake covered roughly 3 square kilometers (about 740 acres). After doing the math, Jiang Qi would need at least 360,000 pounds of quicklime to disinfect the entire lake.
But no matter how much she searched through books, she couldn’t find any photos capable of containing that much quicklime. The only thing she found was pictures of mountain-sized piles of quicklime stones.
After thinking it over, the effect should be the same anyway.
Using quicklime stones might even work better.
After hundreds of tons of quicklime stones plunged into the lake, the waters beneath the helicopter quickly began boiling and churning violently. More than a dozen soft appendages resembling octopus tentacles struggled their way out of the water.
“SHRIEEEEK—!!!”
Piercing screams rose one after another.
Jiang Qi, Yan Mei, and Duan Xue—none of whom had ever seen a parasite mother before—watched as dozens of monsters roughly three to four meters tall crawled desperately out of Lingbo Lake. Their bellies were grotesquely swollen, and their skin was covered in pus-filled growths resembling tumors. They moved on all fours, scrambling over each other to escape.
“So disgusting…”
Jiang Qi couldn’t hide her distaste.
The parasite mothers looked like humans that had grotesquely mutated into gigantic white praying mantises. The difference was that a mantis’s limbs were rigid and angular, while the parasite mothers’ limbs were limp and slimy. Their appearance went beyond terrifying. “Disgusting” was the only fitting word.
After one look, Duan Xue immediately covered her eyes in nausea.
She felt like she would never forget what those things looked like for the rest of her life.
Yan Mei muttered to herself, “Why did these monsters end up looking like this?”
They were horribly twisted.
Compared to the disgusted expressions of the three who had never seen a parasite mother before, the other three—who had seen them already—looked far more excited.
Especially Wu Shu. She clenched her fists excitedly and shouted, “Hahahaha, this is awesome! Sister Jiang! From now on, you’re my idol!”
Liu Yusheng also looked completely starstruck.
“I’ve decided!”
“I don’t want to be Sis’s boyfriend anymore—I want to be her loyal little brother instead!”
As if you could become her boyfriend just because you wanted to…
Fang Huai couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Enough already. Time to move.”
He took out his Anti-Gravity Light-Powered Hoverboard, stepped onto it, and extended a hand.
“Give me the grenades.”
“Okay, okay!”
Suppressing his excitement, Liu Yusheng handed over twenty of the forty grenades they had stockpiled over the past four days and reminded him, “Use them sparingly. I only have forty. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“I know.”
Fang Huai slung the bag containing twenty grenades over his shoulder, then flew straight out of the helicopter on the hoverboard.
He didn’t need the grenades to kill the parasite mothers.
He needed them to make sure that at least six parasite mothers crawled toward the target location.
Because Lingbo Lake had suddenly been “disinfected” with hundreds of tons of quicklime, the parasite mothers hiding in the lake all emerged, desperate to find a new place to build a nest. But they quickly discovered that even the escape routes had been affected by the quicklime.
Even though the effects of the quicklime had already weakened over time, they still hated passing through contaminated water sources.
Especially such a long stretch of water.
At that moment, Jiang Qi narrowed her eyes slightly. She noticed that among the parasite mothers crawling out of Lingbo Lake, some had huge stomachs while others had smaller ones.
Could it be…
Were they gathering here to reproduce?
What kind of “monster” would be born from a parasite mother mating with another parasite mother?
Just imagining what the offspring might look like made Jiang Qi shudder.
No, they needed to leave this Parasite Instance as quickly as possible.
She seriously didn’t want those disgusting monsters contaminating her eyesight any longer.
Among the dozens of parasite mothers, some naturally didn’t follow the planned route, but there were also some that did—and there were even more of them than they had originally expected.
A total of nine parasite mothers gradually fled toward areas where the water level was getting lower, driven along by the occasional grenade Fang Huai threw.
***
Standing on the yacht, the leather-jacketed man and his lackeys could hear constant explosions coming from two streets away. Quite a few of them nervously swallowed.
What kind of monsters were those people?
This was supposed to be the second instance, not the tenth, right?
“Zhou Ye, should we head over?”
A mature woman wearing gold-rimmed glasses stepped out from the crowd and approached the leather-jacketed man—Zhou Ye—as she asked. She had a particularly refined temperament, the kind that made anyone who looked at her feel she was highly educated and full of wisdom.
“No rush. We can wait and reap the benefits afterward.”
The mature woman pressed her lips together and said, “But I think we should go ov—”
Before she could finish, a soft tentacle suddenly lashed out from the water and slammed into the side of the yacht.
The parasite mothers that had just escaped from Lingbo Lake had arrived!
Zhou Ye immediately pulled the woman behind him. A silver shield appeared out of thin air in his hand.
“It’s the parasite mothers! Get ready to fight! Whoever kills one first gets it!”
The lackeys on the yacht, who had been terrified by the sudden appearance of the parasite mothers, instantly lost all fear after hearing their boss shout.
They howled as they charged forward.
“CHARGE!!! That’s 10,000 points!!!”
***
Completely unaware that another fierce battle was taking place two streets away, Jiang Qi’s team was doing everything they could to deal with the nine parasite mothers they had driven over here.
This was the moment to race against time. Everyone had to contribute.
They attacked from different directions, tightly surrounding the parasite mothers in the center.
Duan Xue and Liu Yusheng stood together, continuously pulling the pins from the remaining twenty grenades and hurling them at the parasite mothers.
Wu Shu struggled to create even larger fireballs, intending to burn the parasite mothers to death.
Jiang Qi and Yan Mei hid behind cover, the two of them jointly carrying an RPG launcher as they prepared to fire.
There were only three minutes of flight time left on Fang Huai’s hoverboard. He had no intention of wasting a single second. After throwing every last grenade he had, he continued attacking with his crossbow.
“Move aside!”
Jiang Qi, who had already prepared herself, shouted loudly.
Wu Shu and Fang Huai, who were closest to the parasite mother body, immediately retreated.
Boom!
The grenade launched from the RPG successfully struck the parasite mothers’ body, which was already at the end of its rope.
[Ding!]
An incomparably beautiful system notification sounded simultaneously in all six people’s minds.
[System: “Congratulations to player “QiQiQi” for killing two Parasite Host Mothers and earning 11,000 points.”]
[System: “As you are among the first 1,000 players to clear the Yu City Instance, you have received the special Yu City reward. You may choose one item you came into contact with in the Yu City Instance and bring it back to the Survival Apartment as a special souvenir.”]
11,000 points?
Was it because clearing the instance only required killing one parasite mother body, but she had killed an extra one and therefore received an additional 1,000 points?
Coincidentally, 1,000 points was the reward for surviving thirty days.
Just like last time, Jiang Qi was quickly sent back to the Survival Apartment by the system.
[System: “Player is returning to the Survival Apartment…”]
[1]
[2]
[3]
When she regained consciousness, she was already standing inside the shabby fifty-square-meter apartment.
“What should I choose as my souvenir this time?”
“The computer?”
The computer had been created using her Photo Materialization Camera ability, but even if she successfully brought it back to the Survival Apartment, there wasn’t any Wi-Fi here anyway.
Jiang Qi shook her head. “Forget it. I’ll just choose between the hotel bed and the hotel bathtub.”
The hotel bed had been incredibly comfortable to sleep on, but her apartment already had a bed…
“System, can extra furniture in the apartment be sold?”
[System: “The trading interface has not yet been unlocked. Players are currently unable to sell excess furniture.”]
Jiang Qi’s eyes lit up. “Trading interface? What’s that?”
Could it be another hidden rule?!
[System: “The trading interface is a free trade platform provided by the Survival Apartment for players. It will unlock once the players’ instance clear rate reaches a certain target.”]
“Players’ clear rate?”
Jiang Qi fell into thought upon hearing that.
It sounded like the Survival Apartment had a very specific development plan for its players.
What ultimate goal was it trying to achieve?
To enable humanity to survive in this apocalypse?
“Forget it. No more thinking. Eating and sleeping are more important!”
She could think about all this miscellaneous stuff after she’d eaten her fill and gotten some sleep. As for the souvenir, she decided on the bathtub. There would always be chances to encounter hotel beds again in the future.
“What should I eat…”
Remembering that the trendy trio had met in the Parasite Instance because of hotpot, Jiang Qi suddenly found herself craving it too. She opened the ordinary shop and painfully spent 100 points on a beef hotpot from the food section.
After thoroughly enjoying every bite, she happily lay down on her bed.
Before going to sleep, she also glanced at her friends list. IDs Xiao Xue’s Grandma, Yan Mei’s Granddaughter, Huai, Please Call Me Queen, and Peerless Flower Pretty Boy had all sent her friend requests.
Jiang Qi accepted them one by one, inwardly complaining that everyone’s IDs were ridiculously straightforward. One look and you immediately knew who was who.
There was no message from Qi Zhaozhao, which probably meant she still hadn’t cleared her instance yet.
But Ye Ling had sent her a message.
[Ye Ling: You there?]
[Jiang Qi: Yeah, I cleared the instance early and came back!]
[Ye Ling: Congratulations.]
[Jiang Qi: What about you?]
[Ye Ling: It took a bit of time, but I cleared the instance successfully as well.]
[Jiang Qi: Not bad, not bad.]
[Ye Ling: Have you checked the instance interface yet?]
The moment Jiang Qi saw Ye Ling’s latest message, her expression stiffened.
“Sometimes I really want to block him…”
Please! She had only just gotten out of the Parasite Instance!