Ye Yi didn’t know what Xie Yi meant by those words. She opened her mouth to ask more, and everything went black before her eyes.
When she saw light again, she was already back in her own familiar room. Looking at the familiar décor, she gave herself a light pinch, it hurt a little. She really was back on Blue Star.
But that last thing Xie Yi had said, wait for “what”? Was he telling her to wait for him? They’d only lived together through one map, twenty-some days. Wait for him for what?
She couldn’t figure it out. Forget it, better to hurry and see how many points she had, her life depended on it.
She pulled over the stool beside her, sat down, lifted her wrist, and was just about to open the wristband when the phone on the desk rang.
Who was calling her now?
She reached over, scooped up the phone, glanced at the name, and pressed answer. “Hello, Xiao Li.”
Li Li finally heard her best friend’s voice and couldn’t help letting out a breath, then the next second said furiously, “You finally picked up. I called a dozen times, how could you not answer a single one? You scared me half to death. I thought something had happened to you.”
Without waiting for an answer, she went on, “Where did you run off to these past few days?”
“I went into a map.” Hearing Xiao Li’s clearly foul mood, Ye Yi answered obediently to lower her anger.
“You actually went in, are you hurt?” Li Li, hearing she’d already entered a map, was worried and even angrier at the same time, and raised her voice. “Something this big, and you didn’t even tell me. Am I still your best friend or not?”
“There just wasn’t time to tell you, was there?” Knowing she was in the wrong, Ye Yi answered quietly.
Thinking of how Ye Yi’s kindness tended to overflow at the drop of a hat, and not knowing whether she’d been bullied in the map, Li Li felt she couldn’t stay put another moment and said, “No, I’m requesting leave from my boss right now and flying back to find you. You stay home like a good girl and don’t go anywhere.”
With that, she was about to hang up, pack her bags, take leave, and fly back.
“Hey, Xiao Li. Don’t take leave, this chance is the one you’ve dreamed of all along.” Ye Yi hurried to stop her friend from coming back. The reason she hadn’t told Xiao Li before entering was precisely that she’d worried Xiao Li would give up such a precious opportunity for her sake.
Feigning ease, she said, “I really am fine. The people in the map I entered were all very nice, and I only came out on the last day. Don’t worry about me. Focus on your work, I’ll wait at home like a good girl for you to come back, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
Gripping her phone, Li Li asked worriedly, “You’re really fine? You’re not lying to me, are you?”
“When have I ever lied to you? All my life, what have I not told you? Stop worrying about me and work with your mind at ease over there.” Listening to Xiao Li’s voice through the phone, Ye Yi felt a sour ache inside, and her eyes reddened. Not waiting for Xiao Li to agree, she said in a very weary voice, “All right, that’s enough. I just got out, I’m going to rest first. I’ll call you once I’ve rested up.”
Hearing Ye Yi’s tired voice, and afraid of disturbing her rest, Li Li quickly urged, “Then I’ll hang up. Rest well.”
“Mm. Bye-bye. Whatever you do, don’t come back, if you do, I’ll cut ties with you. Make the most of this chance.” With that, not waiting for Xiao Li to speak, Ye Yi hung up and wiped away the tears she hadn’t been able to hold back.
She’d spent a month in the map, but only three days had passed on Blue Star.
In the map, living alone in a strange place, she hadn’t cried. But the moment she heard Xiao Li’s voice, she’d wanted so badly to hug her and cry her heart out.
Why had this wristband suddenly appeared on her hand? Why did she have only 150 hours of points? Why her? Why?
She hadn’t dared cry in front of Xiao Li, afraid she wouldn’t be able to resist secretly running back.
She could only wait until she’d hung up, then slump over the desk, bury her head in her arms, and cry for a while, venting her pent-up feelings. After crying, she felt much better inside, as if the bad mood had flowed out with the tears.
She lifted her head, wiped her tears with a tissue, and resumed what she’d been doing, opening the wristband:
Time: Blue Star, May 17, 2030, 9:34 a.m. Location: J City, Shangyue Complex Weather: Clear Temperature: 19°C Humidity: 41%
Name: Ye Yi
Sex: Female
Age: 26
Survival Points: 5,149.66 (Base points: 150. First map: successfully survived 30 days: +1,000 points, successfully rescued teammate: +2,000 points, rescued natives: bonus +2,000 points. Points consumed: 0.34)
Current Map: None (Next map countdown: begins in 6 days, 23 hours, 26 minutes)
Random Teammate: None
Ability: Gathering-and-Crafting System (Lv2: 11.6/80. Craft function unlocked, please check!)
5,149.66 points converted into days was about 214 days. So many points, yet not even a year of time. She couldn’t be too greedy, this was already much better than she’d expected.
At the very least, she could live a while longer.
The Gathering-and-Crafting System had leveled up to level 2 too, her gathering all that snow in the final days hadn’t been for nothing. And the Craft function had actually unlocked. Curious, she opened the Craft page, and sure enough it was no longer grayed out.
A cluster of 3D icons appeared on the page: campfire, stone axe, stone knife, stone pick, water purifier, shelter, rainwater collector, cooking station, processing table, and so on. Of all those icons, only the first row, campfire, stone axe, stone knife, stone pick, water purifier, was lit, the rest were all gray.
She tapped the campfire and tried to craft it. The mechanical voice suddenly sounded: “Cannot craft in the current map.”
Hm? Could the system be unusable on Blue Star?
At that thought, Ye Yi walked to the vegetables growing on the balcony, put her hand on a chili pepper, and silently thought, “Gather.”
“Cannot gather in the current map.”
It really couldn’t be used. It seemed that on Blue Star, she was still just an utterly ordinary person.
Looking at the Craft page, her fingers itched, she wanted to test it but couldn’t, and could only close the wristband, resigned.
She patted her flat stomach. She’d come out of the map at 6 p.m. and hadn’t eaten since, she took out her phone, ordered several of the foods she’d been craving in the map on a delivery app, and had a hearty feast.
Full and satisfied, she took a hot shower, lay comfortably on her soft bed, relaxed, opened her phone, and browsed the latest news about the wristbands. After going through a large number of posts and weeding out the useless ones, she gleaned some information, no telling whether true or false:
One: Once a map begins, it can’t be stopped. Seven days after a map ends, you enter the next map.
Recalling the next-map countdown she’d just seen on the wristband, this piece of information was probably true.
Two: The Random Teammate, only newcomers entering a map for the first time get this way of earning points.
She hadn’t yet experienced a second map, so she didn’t know if this was true.
Three: The ways to earn points aren’t limited only to “the longer you survive, the more points you get.” Some said saving small animals earned points, some said planting plants earned points, all sorts of strange and varied ways.
In the first world she’d rescued the local natives and earned 2,000 points, she didn’t know whether this method worked in all maps.
She found no more useful information.
Keenly, Ye Yi sensed something a little off in all this: why did it feel as if the mysterious consciousness were guiding them to do something?
Her intuition said that if she could figure this out, it would give her a different kind of help in later maps. But she’d only entered one map, and the information was all from online searches, no telling if it was true. She’d have to discover the rest herself.
Having gone thirty days in the map without touching her phone, Ye Yi played on it until 3 a.m. before closing her eyes to sleep.
She slept straight through to noon the next day before crawling out of bed.
Sure enough, sleeping at home was the most reassuring, a nearly dreamless night, and she felt full of energy.
Freshened up, she made herself a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Sitting at the dining table, eating while flipping through her phone, she saw eleven delivery notices in her texts, she’d almost forgotten. Before entering the map, she’d made another round of purchases she hadn’t yet picked up.
After finishing lunch, she opened the small door in the living room, went downstairs, pulled out the small cart she often used, and headed to the courier station across from the complex.
The proprietress, Wang Lin, saw Ye Yi walk in and greeted her happily. “Xiao Ye, you’re here.”
“Ah, Sister Wang, are my parcels still in the usual spot?” Ye Yi greeted her, pushed the cart into the shop, and went straight to the southeast corner.
Wang Lin was helping someone else fetch a parcel. She nodded to Ye Yi and said, “Yes, still there. Wait a moment, I’ll get them for you.”
With that, she quickly handed the parcel in her hands to the person waiting beside her.
Turning to see Ye Yi already moving her own parcels, she hurried over to help and asked familiarly, “Xiao Ye, what did you buy this time?”
The same old question again. Hearing this, Ye Yi quickened her pace and answered, “Thank you, Sister Wang. Bought some home appliances.”
Although she was already close with Sister Wang, having to field the “what did you buy?” question every visit was still a headache. Fortunately someone else soon came in to pick up a parcel, and Sister Wang went to help them, leaving Ye Yi to move her own.
Before long she’d loaded all eleven parcels onto the cart, stood up, and pushed it toward the door, calling to the busy Sister Wang, “Sister Wang, I’ve taken all my parcels.”
Searching the packed shelves for goods, Wang Lin glanced back at the sound and answered, “Okay.”
Ye Yi pushed the cart, carefully crossed the road, and returned to her complex.
At the base of her unit building, she struggled to push the cart into the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor.
She opened the iron door on the right, pushed the cart in, set it by the door, took a big pair of scissors from the drawer of the shoe rack beside her, crouched down, and started opening the parcels.
She started from the smallest on top. The first parcel: an extra-large-capacity power bank. The second: a case of instant noodles. The third: a case of alcohol. The fourth: a case of disinfectant. The fifth: a case of compressed biscuits. The sixth: self-defense weapons. The seventh: a small box of seeds. The eighth: a survival kit. The ninth: a life raft. The tenth: a solar fan. The eleventh: a solar power socket.
She worked for about half an hour, sweat beading on her forehead. Whew, finally all opened. Opening parcels was satisfying, but pretty tiring too.
Looking at the cardboard boxes piled all over the floor, she couldn’t help sitting on the ground to rest a while before getting up to flatten them and stack them with the boxes flattened earlier.
Only then did she notice the discarded boxes had piled up to half a person’s height. Next time the recycler came, she could sell them for money.
She bent to sort the items she’d just unpacked onto their proper shelves, and did a casual check to see whether anything on the shelves needed replenishing.
Patrolling, she walked to the southernmost end and put the instant noodles on the first food shelf. Looking it over, she found the snacks needed restocking, the last time she’d bought was three months ago, and the shelf was nearly empty. But then, thinking of her soaring weight, maybe she should buy less, exercising and keeping fit would let her live longer, and staying away from junk food was best.
The rice, flour, oil, salt, seasonings, and sauces hadn’t been used much, so she could hold off on those for now.
The second shelf, self-defense. Seeing the thick dust on the dust cover, she couldn’t help wiping it clean with a damp cloth, then opened the cover and arranged the newly bought self-defense weapons in order across the three tiers.
The third shelf, medicine. She hadn’t been sick lately, so the medicines were basically untouched, no need to buy.
The fourth shelf, long-term storage. She put the compressed biscuits she’d just bought in, then checked the production dates of the earlier biscuits to see if any were near expiry.
The longest had 30 months left, the shortest 10 months, no need to buy more.
The fifth shelf, survival. She put the life raft she’d bought on the third tier, the solar power socket on the fourth, and the solar fan beside it.
The sixth shelf, daily goods. She stored the alcohol and disinfectant on the second tier. Laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, face wash, towels, toothpaste, and other daily items hadn’t been used much, no need to buy.
The seventh shelf, clothing. She put the just-bought down jacket in the winter-clothing area. Buying clothes off-season was cheap, and she already had plenty, basically no consumption, so no need to buy.
The last shelf, miscellaneous, for all sorts of odds and ends. No need to buy either.
She wiped the dust off every shelf again with a damp cloth. Once everything was clean, she went to the small room near the balcony. She hadn’t been there in a few days, but the vegetables inside were growing quite well and hadn’t died just because she’d entered a map.
She crouched, pulled out all the weeds that had grown, and added a little fertilizer. She gathered the weeds into a trash bag, left the vegetable room, and climbed the stairs from the shelf room up to the eighth floor.
Sure enough, it was still Blue Star, her eight shelves put her at ease.
Having tidied everything up, she felt much more refreshed.
In the days that followed, Ye Yi got up every morning to exercise, and even seized the chance to sign herself up for a crash course in air-gun marksmanship, systematically learning to shoot.
The days flew by, and soon it was time to enter the map a second time.
Before entering, Ye Yi prepared herself a hearty breakfast. Not knowing where this map would take her, she’d fill herself up before going in.
Full and satisfied, she wore the down jacket from the last world, stuffed 6 packs of compressed biscuits into its pockets, put a big bottle of mineral water in her right pants pocket and four bags of hand warmers in the left, draped a blanket over herself, wound some thin cord around her wrists, and tucked a five-catty piece of pork inside the down jacket.
She put some paper in plastic bags inside her shoes, padding the soles, and held a folding fishnet over her head as a hat. She didn’t stop until there was nowhere left on her body to store supplies.
She opened the wristband:
Time: May 24, 2030, 8:55 a.m. Location: J City, Shangyue Complex Weather: Clear Temperature: 20°C Humidity: 45%
Name: Ye Yi
Sex: Female
Age: 26
Survival Points: 4,982.71 (Base points: 150. First map: successfully survived 30 days: +1,000, successfully rescued teammate: +2,000, rescued natives: bonus +2,000. Points consumed: 166.95)
Current Map: None (Next map countdown: begins in 0 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes)
Random Teammate: None
Ability: Gathering-and-Crafting System (Lv2: 11.6/80)
Hm? At the very end of “Current Map,” why was there a new icon shaped like a die? Curious, Ye Yi tapped it, and the die instantly grew large, startling her, then countless icons kept sliding left and right.
Below the icons was a red stop button.
Was it a lottery draw?
Ye Yi quickly pressed her palms together, closed her eyes, prayed a bit, and pressed the stop button.
The icons slowly began to stop. A huge cruise-liner icon slid slowly before her eyes, and she felt a secret thrill, could she be a lucky emperor, about to draw a cruise liner?
But the cruise-liner icon slid slowly past her view and finally stopped on the next icon.
Ahh, by a third of a fingernail she’d have drawn the luxury cruise liner. Her cruise liner.
The icon it finally landed on was a two-story wooden boat, compared to the luxury liner just now, one was heaven and the other earth.
Looking at the wooden-boat icon, Ye Yi was on the verge of a breakdown. Her luxury cruise liner, gone just like that.
By now the time to enter the map had arrived, giving her no time at all to think. Everything went black and then bright, followed by the familiar mysterious consciousness: “Destination reached.”
Truly, the first time is strange, the second familiar—Ye Yi could already open her eyes calmly.
Looking at the boundless sea before her, “breakdown” no longer described her feelings.
She looked around, all seawater and soaring gulls, not even a shadow of land, not a single small boat nearby. “Desolate and uninhabited” couldn’t begin to describe this place.
This couldn’t be the second map, could it?
Standing on the second floor and seeing nothing on it, Ye Yi’s heart sank. Thank goodness the supplies she’d loaded onto her body before the map started had come in with her, a small consolation. Feeling the pork inside her down jacket, she needed to find somewhere to take these off and put them away.
Suddenly a small wave surged over, and the boat rocked up and down with it. Ye Yi felt she could barely keep her footing and quickly grabbed the railing beside her to steady herself.
Only when the wave passed did she carefully descend the stairs from the second floor. She looked over the first-floor deck, empty, nothing there. Finally she went into the first-floor cabin, no items there either. She could only take off the 6 packs of compressed biscuits, the big bottle of mineral water, the four bags of hand warmers, some thin cord, the five-catty piece of pork, and the fishnet on her head, and arrange them neatly in a corner of the cabin.
Then she kept searching the boat for supplies. She went over the whole wooden boat but found none.
How was she supposed to survive?
The first map had at least come with a starter pack, this map had nothing at all?
Unwilling to give up, Ye Yi ran up and down searching, and finally, leaning over the side of the boat, she found emergency supplies inside the hanging life raft:
3 cans of luncheon meat, 2 bottles of mineral water, a bag of candy, a medical kit, two signal flares, a flashlight.
Well, these definitely weren’t enough to survive 30 days, but they’d last a few. Better than nothing. Thinking of the supplies she’d stored in the system Backpack in the first map, she wondered whether she could take them out.
She opened the wristband, didn’t look at any of the info, anxiously tapped open the system Backpack, and tried to take out the two unused starter packs from last time. She stared at the packs that appeared in her hands out of thin air.
She let out a breath, good, the system Backpack still worked. Carrying the packs, she went back to the cabin and took inventory of the supplies in the system Backpack.
Slot 1: fire basin. Slot 2: stove. Slot 3: in one bag, 10 bottles of plant growth serum + pliers + a small square iron pot (made by Xie Yi with the tongs at her request). Slot 4: remaining supplies. Slot 5: 60 briquettes. Slot 6: 2 starter packs. Slot 7: gun + fruit knife (one bag). Slot 8: five planting boxes not yet fully harvested. Slot 9: the iron gun Xie Yi gave her. Slot 10: the dismantled iron bed.
Adding the emergency supplies she’d just found on the life raft, eating sparingly she could last about half a month, but the drinking water definitely wasn’t enough.
She had to think of a way to collect drinking water in advance.
She took the planting boxes out of the system Backpack and set them at the cabin door, took out the stove and set it inside the cabin, and dug out the small iron pot to put on the stove. Then she took out 10 briquettes and hit a snag, she had no wood. Looking at the gun in the system Backpack, it seemed she’d have to rely on it to light fires for the next month.
She set the iron bed in the middle of the cabin, and suddenly felt the boat seemed to sink a little. Alarmed, she quickly ran to the side to check, the waterline seemed to have risen a bit.
She hurried back into the cabin and stored the iron bed into the system. It seemed she’d have to make a floor bed for the night. Fortunately the starter pack from the first map still had 1 down jacket, together with the one she was wearing, one could go under her on the boat and one over her, plus a small blanket, it should be enough for sleeping at night.
With everything done, the temperature on the boat grew hotter and hotter. Ye Yi couldn’t quite bear it, opened the windows to ventilate, and moved the planting boxes from the doorway into the cabin, to keep the baby greens from being scorched to death by the blazing sun.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cabin, she took out Slot 4, the supplies left over from the first map, and took inventory:
Still one-third of a bag of salt, a quarter jug of corn oil, half a bag of noodles, half a bag of flour, 2 lighters, three hot-water bottles, 10 candles, 1 flashlight, one-third bag of rice, all sorts of seeds, three nails, 20 bullets, 10 bottles of snow-water.
Having counted them over once, she put them back into the system Backpack. Now she had a rough mental tally of all her supplies, so she wouldn’t be at a loss for where to find things when she needed them.