[You Hua]: “Don’t, Going Home Bro! Run first! Our levels are usually around 2 or 3 by now, right? You can run, bro!”
[Zhang Na]: “That’s right, don’t give up!”
[Wan Zifan]: “Where are you? Name a location! In case any of us are close, I’ll come help you!”
[You Hua]: “Going Home Bro mentioned earlier that he was heading to the river to see if he could find a clean water source. Who has a river nearby? Give him a hand!”
[Xia Ning]: “None here.”
[Cui Heng]: “Haven’t found a river.”
[Mu Yao]: “No sound of water near me either.”
[You Hua]: “Going Home Bro, what’s the situation on your end right now?”
[Duanmu Jing]: “There are likely new monsters in the river that we know nothing about. Do you have enough EXP? Calculate your HP carefully and time your level-up precisely.”
[Wang Shouyi]: “@He Miaomiao Aren’t you the Big Boss of Village 4? They all place so much faith in you, why aren’t you going to save him? Or is it that certain people only enjoy praise and benefits from others, but play blind when actual effort is needed?”
[You Hua]: “Are you insane?! The Big Boss isn’t necessarily near Going Home Bro, how is she supposed to save him?!”
He Miaomiao was currently chopping trees.
She figured that since she could find 1 piece of resin on a tree, it was possible to find a second one. With so many trees of varying shapes, relying purely on her eyes meant a high probability of missing them. Therefore, using the spot where she had just found resin as a starting point, she chopped trees one by one in the direction of home.
Wood ×48, Raw Rabbit Meat ×20
“Still all rabbits. It seems to roughly follow the rule that the closer to the safehouse, the lower the monster level and the smaller the threat.”
Among the monsters that had appeared so far, the easiest to deal with were the Corrupted Rabbits.
They wouldn’t attack proactively.
He Miaomiao kept her head down and continued chopping trees, encountering several more monster groups along the way. Utilizing her high Agility, she bypassed them rapidly without getting into conflicts.
There were too many monsters outside; getting into real fights would be endless.
Her goal in exploring outside today was to gather missing resources, not to slay monsters and trigger passive level-ups that would draw even more terrifying creatures.
Just like that, she chopped and walked, walked and chopped. Suddenly, the faint sound of running water echoed from the distance.
Arriving alongside the sound of water was a foul stench that made one want to stay far away.
“Gag—what is that?”
Just as He Miaomiao felt nauseated, an “arrow” flew toward her.
The “arrow” came abruptly, its attack appearing to carry a stealth effect that made it hard to detect in advance, hitting He Miaomiao dead-on.
However—
The “arrow,” upon leaving the water, fell onto the ground and thrashed about frantically, yet He Miaomiao felt nothing at all.
No HP loss, no pain.
Appraisal.
[Mutated River Shrimp (Lv1): HP 60, Attack Power 6, Defense 0, Agility 1.5]
[Special Skill 1: Stealth. In aquatic environments, ignores Agility differences to launch stealth ambushes undetected by players.]
[Special Skill 2: Stagnation. Paralyzes attacked players, causing loss of mobility for 2 seconds.]
Well, well. Turns out it was an aquatic assassin—no wonder its stats were average yet she couldn’t dodge it.
He Miaomiao also understood why the river shrimp’s attack was useless against her: the river shrimp’s attack power was 6, while her Defense—boosted by critical hit multipliers—was 8.
The river shrimp couldn’t even break through her Defense. Upon crashing into her, the attack missed completely, just like in a video game.
When attacks couldn’t even land, no crowd-control skill mattered.
He Miaomiao casually collected the river shrimp monster that had left the water.
[Raw Shrimp Meat ×1, EXP ×35!]
[Raw Shrimp Meat ×1, EXP ×35! (Critical Hit)]
New food +2
He Miaomiao looked at the river before her.
She hadn’t planned on finding water, but since she was already here, exploring it didn’t hurt.
The river was very wide, its far bank invisible at a glance. It was also very long, with no end in sight to the left or right.
What drew the most concern was that the river’s surface was pitch-black, enveloped in a layer of mist that obscured vision even at a slight distance.
Ranging her maximum attack distance, He Miaomiao cast a Sparks Slash into the river, wanting to see what was hidden inside the black mist.
[Qi Yi]: “Waaaah… I seem to be hallucinating. A flame blade actually surged out of the river.”
Was the “arrow” poisonous, or was he losing HP too fast?
The large fish that jumped out of the river earlier looked very strange, contorted and twisted. Casting Appraisal yielded no information, meaning its level was definitely high.
The fish grazed him lightly once, wiping out 65 of his HP. Fortunately, he had listened to You Hua earlier and held off on leveling up immediately. In this scenario, besides munching meat, he could rely on leveling up to Level 4 to save his life.
After leveling up, Qi Yi’s max HP reached a full 100. Taking another hit from the large fish, he squeezed out time to munch down two pieces of meat, dragging out the clock until his body regained sensation. Crawling and scrambling about 2 meters away from the riverbank, he was struck by another “arrow,” getting crowd-controlled once more.
Now, he had only 35 HP remaining. One more hit from the large fish, and he would die.
Perhaps because the large fish was too massive, requiring time to burst out of the water, it didn’t land the final blow on him immediately, allowing Qi Yi to post a couple more messages in the group.
Before he could even reminisce about grilled skewers, a light flared up over the dark river.
He froze, sharing this occurrence with his group members.
He was about to die anyway—what if this piece of information proved useful to other players?
With that thought in mind, Qi Yi then—
He heard footsteps.
Qi Yi pulled his mouth into a dry smile.
As expected of excessive blood loss—he was actually hallucinating the sound of someone else’s footsteps.
After arriving in Despair Valley, Qi Yi could hear only the sound of his own footsteps, alongside the noises of monsters.
In a completely unfamiliar world, inside a dilapidated house, surrounded by monsters hiding and seeking his life at any moment, not a single human was in sight.
That sense of loneliness—if it hadn’t been for the Village 4 group chat, Qi Yi truly would have gone crazy.
Splash—
The sound of a massive object breaking through the water—far louder than footsteps—echoed out.
Qi Yi knew the fish had come.
He closed his eyes slowly.
“Let me go home.”
All of this was perhaps just a strange nightmare.
As long as he died in the dream, he could open his eyes once more and find himself back home.
Whoosh.
Another sound rang out, followed closely by the heavy thud of a massive object falling back into the water not far away.
Vaguely, Qi Yi felt a flash of light pass by in an instant.
“Run.”
A crisp female voice pierced his ears.
Qi Yi snapped his eyes open—someone had actually come.
The person was wearing a playful, cream-white floral teddy bear pajama set, with her hair tied in a round topknot, and matching teddy bear cotton slippers on her feet.
“Little sister, run fast, the monster inside is very—”
Before he could finish his sentence, a flame blade materialized out of thin air, crashing onto the large fish that had just leaped up.
The fish was slammed back into the river.
Qi Yi’s eyes widened.
“Watch out for the arrows—”
He froze once again, watching helplessly as the “arrow”—which had hard-controlled him by the riverbank to await death—struck the little sister. After landing on her, the little sister slashed it twice, and the “arrow” exploded into grey mist.
“Still not getting up?”
The paralysis lasted only 2 seconds, long past.
“Oh.”
Only then did Qi Yi realize his paralyzed state had cleared up. He scrambled off the ground and retrieved his stone spear at lightning speed.
“Thank you for saving my life.”
Having reached this point, if he still didn’t realize she had come to save him, he would be far too brainless.
He Miaomiao nodded without speaking or looking at him.
Her full attention remained on the river.
This river was extremely strange.
The river water was pitch-black. Staring at it didn’t feel like looking at flowing darkness, but rather at a bottomless abyss.
Even standing very close, He Miaomiao could see only the surface blackness of the water. It carried an illusion of not flowing at all, but rather standing as a static solid that one could step onto and walk across to the opposite bank.
Go ahead, walk across.
He Miaomiao felt a subtle internal urge.
Similar urges had occurred in the past: when she stood atop tall buildings looking down, or when she stood by the water’s edge looking into the depths.
She took two cautious steps backward, casually dispatching a series of shrimp monsters that flew up to crash into her.
Raw Shrimp Meat ×10, Copper Coins ×6, EXP ×350!
[EXP: 9000/1000 (Upgradeable)]
Seeing her kill them so effortlessly, Qi Yi wanted to try as well.
He had merely been unprepared earlier; now—
Thud.
Qi Yi was paralyzed again, falling to the ground unable to move.
He Miaomiao: “?”
Qi Yi wanted to cover his face but couldn’t move, feeling a burning sensation surging from the base of his neck.
“I didn’t…”
“Your Defense is low, so you get controlled.”
A normal Level 4 player possessed only 4 Defense, incapable of immunizing against the Mutated River Shrimp’s special skill.
Qi Yi felt somewhat ashamed, but his eyes widened in shock the next second.
“Y-You’re the Big Boss?”
He was already Level 4, counting among the fast levelers. Someone with a higher level and higher Defense than him, who could remain so calm facing such a powerful unknown monster—it could only be the Big Boss from the group chat!
“He Miaomiao.”
“I… Hello, Big Boss! My name is Qi Yi! Thank you for helping me so much before! I’ll treat you to spicy rabbit heads! The spicy rabbit heads near my home are number one in the whole province, the taste is incredible! And grilled skewers—that shop has been open for over a decade. Don’t mind the mediocre decor, the flavor is sublime! Tons of people drive over from other provinces to line up for their skewers, and the prices are super reasonable! Big Boss, if you don’t like spicy food, we also have a private stew shop run by a young couple. You can order from them in the group, they cook it fresh on the day, super delicious!”
Qi Yi was completely flustered to the point of rambling incoherently.
He Miaomiao didn’t interrupt, raising her hand to dispatch several “arrows” flying out before replying, “Thanks, I’ll definitely go if I get the chance.”
In the Village 4 group chat, the “69/100” next to the group name suddenly shifted to “65/100.”
[You Hua]: “Going Home Bro? Bro! Are you still there, bro?! Don’t scare me, bro!”
[Duanmu Jing]: “Safe journey. Hope he gets his wish and goes home.”
[Yun Cailiu]: “Why… why treat us like this? What did we ever do wrong?! I’ve never littered, I save water and electricity, I’ve never hurt anyone else—why me…”
[Zhang Na]: “4 fewer people… Some of them didn’t even get to leave final words, we don’t even know who they were, and they’re just… gone?”
The group member count had actually been changing since the very first day. Back then, however, separated by the screen, they could see only numerical decreases, so no one felt it particularly acutely.
This time, however, the person departing was Qi Yi—someone who frequently chatted with them in the group and whom they had gotten to know well. They suddenly realized the cruelty of Despair Valley, realizing that every single “-1” behind that shifting number at the top of the group chat represented a living, breathing human being just like themselves.
They realized that every numerical decrease represented an irreversible, real death.
This time it was someone else; next time, it would be their friends, or themselves.
[Du Qiu]: “This is our sin and punishment, an endless cycle of karma, the ultimate destruction that every single one of us will inevitably march toward.”