“Whoosh— Whoosh—”
Automatically awakened by the biological clock she had developed over many years, what He Miaomiao heard was not the familiar shouts of street vendors outside her window, nor the 7:00 AM alarm that usually rang a few seconds after she woke up. Instead, it was the fierce howling of the wind.
He Miaomiao opened her eyes, and as expected, she didn’t see the yellowed, cheaply made ceiling of her rented apartment.
Staring at the grey, hazy sky visible through a gaping hole right above her head, she was a bit dazed.
Wait, had her jinx trait evolved to the point where her roof would collapse while she was sleeping? Just after a streak of bad luck where instant noodles never came with seasoning packets, going out without an umbrella guaranteed a torrential downpour, and important exams always triggered mysterious stomachaches?
The problem was, knowing full well how unlucky she was, she had specifically rented a place on the 3rd floor—which wasn’t even the top floor.
Surely the top three floors above her hadn’t been blown off entirely?
In the few seconds He Miaomiao spent staring blankly, a clattering sound echoed above her. A wobbly wooden board, unable to withstand the violent wind, slammed down toward her with a crash.
He Miaomiao’s body moved faster than her brain. While her head was still lightheaded, she had already rolled over to the side. The wooden board smashed into the empty spot where she had just been, kicking up a cloud of choking dust.
“Cough, cough… Cough, cough, cough…”
Unsurprisingly, He Miaomiao got a face full of dust, instantly looking even more disheveled.
The wooden board beside her shattered into several pieces, exposing sharp splinters. As she coughed, He Miaomiao felt secretly relieved.
“Thank goodness I’m used to being unlucky; my reaction time was trained long ago.”
She could now easily dodge electric scooters suddenly rushing out of blind spots, unexpected splashes of dirty road water, cigarette butts thrown from upper floors, and so on. A tiny wooden board was nothing to her.
However, what on earth was the situation right now?
He Miaomiao propped herself up from the dirty ground with both hands and looked around.
Well, well. Directly in front of her was a wooden wall with two-thirds of it broken—if that could even still be called a wall. The wall behind her lacked any coverage at all; only a collapsed crossbeam was left, propped up at a tilt.
The left and right sides were slightly better, but the holes were still big enough for her to pass through easily.
This place could definitely not be her rented room.
Did she sleepwalk while asleep?
With doubts in mind, just as He Miaomiao was about to closely observe the situation outside the holes, a glaring patch of red suddenly appeared.
This string of numbers appeared abruptly on the barely intact wooden wall, looking as if it had just been painted with overly viscous red paint, complete with thick red liquid dripping downward under gravity’s pull.
A stench of blood and decay filled the air.
The numbers changed after He Miaomiao blinked once.
“Got it, it’s a countdown.”
Having become notorious for her extreme bad luck and constantly played by fate, He Miaomiao was not frightened in the slightest by this childish trick in front of her.
“Not gonna lie, the atmospheric effect is pretty good. It would work great in a haunted house.“
Saying so, He Miaomiao walked outward.
The door hung crookedly on the frame. She pushed it, but it didn’t budge—it seemed stuck, so she simply used her foot.
Bang!
The already flimsy door was kicked open. Her foot passed through the wooden door and kicked a soft object.
“Oh no, did I kick a person?”
He Miaomiao quickly cleared the door away.
Even though the small wooden hut she was in was full of leaks and completely broken down, it was only after she actually opened the door that she realized the small hut actually functioned as a real room—without the door blocking it, the smell outside made her retch purely out of physiological reflex.
Stinky.
It was way too stinky.
It was that distinct, foul odor that occurs in summer when you take meat out, leave it in the kitchen, forget to cook it, and let it sit under the scorching sun for an entire day.
Without the door, He Miaomiao finally saw clearly what she had just kicked.
A rabbit.
However, it was no ordinary rabbit.
The rabbit knocked over on the ground had the familiar pair of large ears, four legs, and a short tail that she recognized. However, dividing the rabbit’s head along a line connecting its right eye and nose, one side had normal white fur, while the other side was rotting flesh hanging off exposed white bones!
The moment she got a clear look at the rabbit’s appearance, He Miaomiao gasped.
Is this a creature that could exist in a normal world? Could it be a legendary mutated rabbit?
The rabbit gave He Miaomiao no time to think. Staring with crimson eyes, it charged straight at her.
He Miaomiao reflexively delivered another kick.
This time, she saw something different.
[HP -5!]
It appeared right above the rabbit’s head.
In addition, another pop-up with similar text appeared directly in her mind.
[HP -18!]
HP: 32/50
It hurt so much!
It didn’t feel like a small rabbit hitting her foot; it felt more like a heavy truck running over it.
Scarily realistic.
Without needing any extra prompts, He Miaomiao already understood that the string of numbers was her Health Points (HP), and if it hit zero, she would die.
After realizing this, He Miaomiao immediately dropped all her questions and retreated into the wooden hut, thinking that any cover was better than none.
Right at that moment, a magical thing happened. The strange rabbit, which was about to launch another attack on her, suddenly seemed to lose its target. It stood dazed in place, completely bewildered. After a moment, it squatted down and began eating grass, showing no further intent to attack.
He Miaomiao: Huh?
Normally speaking, were rabbits this stupid?
Could it not see her standing inside the wooden hut?
Since the door was completely destroyed, she couldn’t even close it; she had merely hidden behind the adjacent wall.
Yet, with the wall looking so broken and dilapidated, there was no way it could block her entire body. Given how small the rabbit was, it was impossible for it not to see her.
Ever since she was little, whenever He Miaomiao didn’t actively solve a problem, the problem would inevitably come looking for her. Therefore, she had learned at a very young age to take the initiative and gain control whenever possible, so as not to lose her life over a trivial matter just because of her terrible luck.
This time was no different.
Knowing too little about the situation, He Miaomiao didn’t panic and decided to test things out herself.
Taking advantage of the rabbit lowering its head to eat grass, she dashed out at top speed, gave the rabbit a kick, and ran back before the rabbit could react.
[HP -5!]
After taking her kick, the line of text appeared above the rabbit’s head again, but no notification of “-18 HP” appeared for her this time.
“So, every time I hit the rabbit, it loses 5 HP?”
Having rarely played games but having watched combat game videos, He Miaomiao instantly grasped the key point.
When she hit the rabbit once, it lost 5 HP.
When the rabbit hit her once, she lost 18 HP.
She didn’t know how much total HP the rabbit had, nor how much she had baseline, but with the rabbit’s attack power being 13 points higher than hers, she absolutely, positively could not let the rabbit hit her.
Fortunately, patience was the one thing He Miaomiao never lacked.
Having finalized her combat strategy, He Miaomiao dashed out, kicked the rabbit, and ran back, repeating the process over and over.
Every time the rabbit was attacked, its eyes would turn red as it tried to counterattack. But as long as He Miaomiao entered the wooden hut—even if she stood directly in front of the rabbit—it seemed unable to see her. It would quickly forget about attacking and lower its head to keep nibbling on grass.
“So, inside the house is safe. As long as I stay inside, it can’t see me, nor will it attack the house just because I’m in it.“
He Miaomiao didn’t miss a single discovery, committing everything firmly to memory.
After repeating this process over a dozen times, the rabbit exploded under one of He Miaomiao’s kicks.
There was no gory scene of flesh and blood, only a dispersing, hazy grey mist.
[Congratulations to the player for completing their first kill! Player status is officially activated, opening the Survival Stats Panel! Novice Gift Pack ×1!]
[Congratulations to player He Miaomiao for taking First Blood in Despair Valley, becoming the first person to strike back in Despair Valley! True warriors deserve fate’s reward. Congratulations to the player for obtaining — Purple Chest ×1!]
He Miaomiao: What gibberish are you saying?
The next second, a light screen appeared in front of her.
Player: He Miaomiao (Lv0)
HP: 35/50
Attack Power: 5
Defense: 0
Agility: 5
EXP: 20/100
Personal Assets: Lv0 Safehouse (Durability 100, Defense 0, Monster Alert Radius 0m, Storage Box 4 slots, Arable Farmland 0 slots, Defense Structures 0, Portable Inventory 8 slots)
Basic information about this strange place simultaneously appeared in He Miaomiao’s mind.
The place she was currently in was called Despair Valley, a corrupted region.
The corruption caused animals in the valley to mutate into monsters, and they would kill players.
New players were given a 3-day (72-hour) novice protection period. During these 72 hours, no monsters would proactively attack players.
For safety’s sake, He Miaomiao walked back into the wooden hut while reading the information. After finishing, she laughed out of sheer annoyance.
“Fine, fine, fine. Did you really have to use a ridiculous post-apocalyptic world just to kill me? He Miaomiao, you’re amazing, your life really is tough enough to survive anything!”
Besides, wasn’t the introduction to Despair Valley a bit too brief?
And what happened to the promised 72-hour novice protection period? How did her unlucky self run into a monster the moment she opened the door? If her reactions hadn’t been fast enough, she would already be dead.
Sure enough, only oneself is reliable; the panel’s information wasn’t even as detailed as what she had figured out on her own.
Since she was already here, it took He Miaomiao only a few seconds to accept reality.
Anyway, all her life, she was either experiencing bad luck or on the way to experiencing bad luck. Nothing happening to her would surprise her anymore.
He Miaomiao’s gaze swept across the panel and landed on the HP section.
When she was hit by the rabbit, the prompt she received was “HP -18”. 50 minus 18 equals 32, but it was currently at 35, proving that HP could automatically recover. The specific recovery rules would require further exploration.
Moving her gaze downward, there were the attributes of the so-called Safehouse.
Unsurprisingly, the safehouse was this rotten wooden house next to her. It was only Level 0, no wonder it was so terrible.
Yet, such a rotten house had 100 Durability, which was double her HP!
Her ability to eliminate the rabbit earlier was also entirely thanks to it.
He Miaomiao realized that the safehouse was extremely important—even more important than increasing her own personal power.
“If the safehouse has levels, can it be upgraded?”
However, no matter how hard she looked, He Miaomiao couldn’t find an upgrade button, nor did she know what materials were required for an upgrade.
Putting aside matters that couldn’t be answered immediately, He Miaomiao claimed the Novice Gift Pack first.
[Congratulations! Obtained: Workbench ×1, Stone Axe Blueprint ×1, Campfire Blueprint ×1, Primary Appraisal Skill Book ×1, Primary Looting Skill Book ×1!]
The workbench was a wooden stump. After He Miaomiao opened the gift pack, it dropped directly by her feet, giving her a fright.
Presumably because it dropped so close, the panel popped up automatically again, displaying the crafting blueprints she could learn—specifically the Stone Axe Blueprint and Campfire Blueprint she had just acquired.
After He Miaomiao tapped to learn them one by one, the panel changed.
Stone Axe: Wood ×15, Stone ×10
Campfire: Dry Grass ×30, Wood ×5, Stone ×3
He Miaomiao had nothing, so she couldn’t craft either.
“I can use it to craft various needed tools,” He Miaomiao muttered to herself, turning her attention to the skill books.
Skill books were essential items for learning skills. She tapped to learn them one by one, and a new entry appeared on her stats panel.
Skills: Appraisal (Primary), Looting (Primary)
As usual, there were no descriptions; He Miaomiao had to test the effects herself. So, she immediately cast Appraisal on her First Blood reward — the Purple Chest.
[Purple Chest: A rare chest produced in Despair Valley. Has a certain probability of dropping good items.]
Probability?
Having just felt excited over the word “rare,” jinxed He Miaomiao’s heart instantly cooled down. Anything related to probability meant she could only get the worst possible guaranteed baseline, so she decided to just open it casually.
Without doing any ritual—it was useless anyway—she opened it on a whim.
Unexpectedly, the next second, the rotten wooden hut was illuminated by a gorgeous, mysterious purple light.
[Congratulations to the player for obtaining SSS-Rank Talent — Critical Hit!]
Author’s Note:
He Miaomiao: “Here I come!”