[Wang Shouyi]: “You guys—you guys—”
[Jia Chang]: “Brother Wang, Big Boss Miaomiao has helped us so much, how can you say such nasty things? Hurry and apologize to the Big Boss. She is broad-minded and will surely forgive your careless words.”
[You Hua]: “Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Who was that talking just now?”
[Wan Zifan]: “@Jia Chang It’s him.”
[You Hua]: “Tsk tsk tsk, incredible. Despair Valley really has all kinds of birds.”
[Wan Zifan]: “Huh? Birds? Where are there birds? A new monster?! Is its attack power strong?”
[You Hua]: “…Kid, go play on the side.”
On the other side, He Miaomiao had mostly rested up.
Current Copper Coins: 448
Required Copper Coins: 1200
Shortfall: 752
You still need to keep fighting, He Miaomiao.
He Miaomiao got up, stepped out the door, and continued kiting rabbits.
This time, there were 4 of them.
After a bout of tossing and turning, she finally triggered the guaranteed reward again, earning 2 Copper Coins through a critical hit.
“Not easy.”
Keep going, keep going.
He Miaomiao stayed busy running back and forth, killing another 5 Corrupted Rabbits.
By now, her stock of cooked rabbit meat had reached a high of 122 pieces, and her EXP was close to triggering a passive level-up.
[EXP: 2290/250 (Upgradeable)]
“Keep it up!”
He Miaomiao walked out of the safehouse.
She wanted to keep looking for rabbits, but as she moved, her foot inexplicably stepped on a tree branch, making a loud snap.
The next second, a red-eyed Corrupted Dog roared and charged straight at her.
Run!
Cooked Rabbit Meat -2
Sparks Slash ×3
Corrupted Dog HP -81
Corrupted Dog Remaining HP: 39
Without Sparks Slash to interrupt it, the enraged dog frantically attacked the safehouse.
[Safehouse Durability -22!]
[Safehouse Durability -22!]
[Safehouse Durability -22!]
One more hit and the safehouse would collapse!
Fortunately, He Miaomiao had calculated the time when setting off. Before the Corrupted Dog could launch its next attack, the next timeframe arrived.
She immediately gobbled a piece of rabbit meat.
“Sparks Slash!”
Gulp down another piece.
“Sparks Slash!”
[Raw Dog Meat ×1! Copper Coins ×2!]
[Raw Dog Meat ×1! Copper Coins ×2! (Critical Hit)]
[EXP +35!]
[EXP +35! (Critical Hit)]
[EXP: 2360/250 (Upgradeable)]
He Miaomiao: Wow! 4 Copper Coins!
She immediately checked her kill logs and found that she had killed a total of 4 Corrupted Dogs so far.
“So, killing 10 rabbits earns 2 Copper Coins, while killing 4 Corrupted Dogs earns 4 Copper Coins?”
Fantastic!
After feeling overjoyed at finding a faster money-making channel, He Miaomiao forced herself to calm down.
In the current timeframe, she could still eat 8 more pieces of rabbit meat.
Consuming 4 pieces of meat allowed her to take down 1 Corrupted Dog.
8 pieces meant 2 dogs, but she would need to kill 2 more after that to earn another 4 Copper Coins.
If she fought Corrupted Rabbits, she didn’t need to consume any rabbit meat at all and could just stick to her old method. Besides, she had already accumulated 46 rabbit kills; killing just 4 more would earn her 2 Copper Coins.
After analyzing it, He Miaomiao decided to prioritize finding rabbits without eating rabbit meat, saving her 8-piece quota just in case—without the recovery boost from rabbit meat, once a Corrupted Dog arrived, her safehouse would collapse two hundred percent.
Upgrading the house was indeed very important, but the house had to exist first for that to matter.
While lying down waiting for her stamina and safehouse durability to recover, He Miaomiao drew up a new combat strategy.
Once her status was fully restored, she set off immediately. After running around for a bit, she successfully lured back a small pack of 9 Corrupted Rabbits. Following another wave of fighting and retreating—
Raw Rabbit Meat ×18
Copper Coins +2
EXP +360
[EXP: 2720/250 (Upgradeable)]
[EXP overflow exceeded 10x, starting automatic level-up!]
He Miaomiao: Closing my eyes because I don’t want to face this.
Player: He Miaomiao (Lv1 → Lv2)
Coordinates: Despair Village 4
[HP +10!]
[HP +10! (Critical Hit)]
[Attack Power +1!]
[Attack Power +1! (Critical Hit)]
[Defense +1!]
[Defense +1! (Critical Hit)]
[Agility +1!]
[Agility +1! (Critical Hit)]
He Miaomiao: “As expected, attack power goes up by a tiny bit, while danger increases by a hundred million bits.”
[Energy Points +30!]
[Energy Points +30! (Critical Hit)]
He Miaomiao: “Yay?”
Player: He Miaomiao (Lv2)
Coordinates: Despair Village 4
HP: 90/90 (70 → 90)
Attack Power: 9 (7 → 9)
Defense: 4 (2 → 4)
Agility: 9 (7 → 9)
Energy Points: 105 (45 → 105)
EXP: 2470/450 (Upgradeable)
Skills: Appraisal (Primary), Looting (Primary), Sparks Slash (Intermediate 2/4)
He Miaomiao’s eyes could see nothing else; there were only Energy Points.
Before, she had only possessed a rough guess. She hadn’t expected that after reaching Level 2, Energy Points would directly appear on the panel. Moreover, she now had 105 Energy Points!
To put things in perspective, using Sparks Slash once consumed 35 Energy Points and dealt effective damage equal to 400% of her base attack power. Now that she was Level 2, her base attack power had become 9, meaning the damage dealt by a single Sparks Slash was 36!
With 105 Energy Points, she could cast Sparks Slash 3 times in a row without eating food, dealing a total damage of 108—meaning she could directly take down a Corrupted Rabbit in one go!
Mom, Miaomiao has made it big!
[Congratulations to the player for being the first to reach Level 2! Obtained Green Chest ×1!]
[Green Chest ×1! (Critical Hit)]
“There are chests for reaching Level 2 as well?”
Extremely satisfied with her increased Energy Points, He Miaomiao instantly became even happier.
Open.
[Stone Blade (Green) ×1! Pure Water ×5! Copper Coins ×20!]
[Stone Blade (Green) ×1! Pure Water ×5! Copper Coins ×20! (Critical Hit)]
Open again.
[Stone Blade (Green) ×1! Pure Water ×5! Copper Coins ×20!]
[Stone Blade (Green) ×1! Pure Water ×5! Copper Coins ×20! (Critical Hit)]
He Miaomiao’s eyes sparkled brighter and brighter.
There were weapons! There was water! And there was money!
“Appraisal.”
[Stone Blade (Green): Weapon, Attack Power 20]
“20! That much!”
Her base attack power was only 9.
He Miaomiao equipped it immediately, and changes followed on her attribute panel.
Attack Power: 9 (+20)
“Haha!”
Having walked this path where every monster fight required holing up inside the safehouse to chip away bit by bit, He Miaomiao looked at this line of numbers and put her hands on her hips, laughing wildly without a care for appearances.
She, He Miaomiao, had finally stood up!
“A single Stone Blade adds 20, and I have 4 of them—doesn’t that mean I can add 80?”
A Corrupted Rabbit’s health was only 80; wouldn’t she be able to one-shot rabbits in the future?
Unfortunately, while He Miaomiao’s plan was great, reality didn’t permit it—she could only equip 1 Stone Blade.
“…Despair Valley, are you being a sore loser? In such a dangerous place, is there an issue with carrying 4 blades on me? Even if I can’t carry 4, 2 should be fine, right? One in each hand!”
Regrettably, this was not an actual video game, leaving He Miaomiao with nowhere to complain and no use complaining.
Since the 3 extra blades couldn’t be equipped, she simply listed them all in the group—seeing that the protection period was about to end, rather than leaving such good equipment sitting in her inventory, it was better to let other players use them to kill more monsters and increase their chances of survival.
Stone Blade: 200 Copper Coins (Installment plan available)
[You Hua]: “Green-tier equipment! Big Boss! You are my god! You even snagged such a great item?!”
[You Hua]: “I passed the asset verification! My hard grinding for copper coins wasn’t in vain!”
[You Hua]: “Hiss, this blade is pretty fierce! Everyone, I’m heading off to keep slaying rabbits, hehe!”
[Duanmu Jing]: “Many thanks.”
The 3 Stone Blades were snapped up in an instant: one went to You Hua, one to Duanmu Jing, and for the last one, He Miaomiao had thought it would be Xia Ning, but checking the backend revealed it was a person named Zhang Xiulan.
He Miaomiao recalled for a moment; she had never seen this person speak in the group before.
Now, having snagged the Stone Blade, Zhang Xiulan didn’t come out to say anything either—seemingly a very low-key player focused single-mindedly on survival.
[Xia Ning]: “Ah, I was just out mining iron and missed it! Sister, do you have any more?”
“Next time.”
[Xia Ning]: “I’ll definitely snatch one next time! By the way, sister, is there a river near your house? As the countdown gets lower and lower, I’m starting to feel thirsty and want to drink water.”
[Duanmu Jing]: “Over the first two days, I didn’t eat anything and felt no hunger. But starting from daylight today, I gradually began feeling hungry. Even if I return to the safehouse to rest, I need to eat at least once within a certain timeframe; otherwise, no matter how long I rest, I have no strength. I suspect that the closer we get to the end of the novice protection period, the more pronounced this situation will become.”
[Wan Zifan]: “I was wondering why not eating or drinking before didn’t affect us at all, as long as we stayed inside the house. Turns out this was waiting for us here! It seems the grace period really served a protective function; otherwise, I would’ve starved to death already.”
[Qi Yi]: “Waaaah… there should be a river near me, I can hear the sound of running water… waaaah… it smells so bad, gag… I want to go home and drink Coke…”
He Miaomiao’s expression turned serious.
She hadn’t felt thirsty before and hadn’t thought about water sources at all. Looking at it now, the water sources in Despair Valley were likely corrupted just like those monsters.
To verify this guess, she listed a bottle of Pure Water in the group—one she had just pulled from the green chest.
Pure Water: 5 Copper Coins
Hiss, so expensive!
Even more expensive than cooked meat.
According to the pricing patterns they had summarized, drinkable water was clearly not easy to acquire.
[Xia Ning]: “Thank you, sister! After drinking a bit of water, I finally feel comfortable.”
He Miaomiao also took out a bottle of water.
There wasn’t much water, contained inside a green bamboo tube as long as the distance from her wrist to her middle fingertip and four fingers wide.
Appraisal.
[Pure Water: Unpolluted water that is safe to drink]
Sure enough.
He Miaomiao opened the bamboo tube and took a small sip.
The cool water hit her mouth with no flavor whatsoever, yet it made her feel refreshed.
It turned out she was a bit thirsty too.
However, He Miaomiao only drank a tiny sip before recapping the bamboo tube and placing it beside the storage chest.
Pure water was precious; before finding a sustainable source, she had to save as much as possible.
[Yu Qiaoyun]: “Big Boss, can I buy a bottle?”
Inside the dilapidated safehouse, Yu Qiaoyun walked back and forth holding her swaddled infant.
The tiny baby seemed uncomfortable, letting out weak, milky cries, his little face flushed red.
Originally, after buying some cooked meat from the Big Boss and later gathering materials to build a campfire and roast rabbit meat herself, she had milk to feed An’an. Once full, An’an was finally able to sleep peacefully without crying bitterly from hunger.
Unexpectedly, as time passed, An’an’s body began mirroring real-world conditions—he had dirtied his diaper.
An infant barely a dozen days old had delicate skin. After pooping, his skin quickly turned red and hurt severely, causing him to cry and protest uncontrollably.
Not only did it break Yu Qiaoyun’s heart to watch, but the baby’s crying was also continuously drawing Corrupted Rabbits.
Right now, her house was surrounded by Corrupted Rabbits, all waiting for her to step out of the safe zone so they could take her life.