Chapter 25-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player

At six in the morning, the phone alarm went off on schedule.

Bai Shan hauled herself upright, looking faintly hollow-eyed, like a wandering spirit.

She had been woken before the alarm even rang — not by crowing roosters at dawn, but by howling and broadcast announcements that had continued throughout the night.

"Attention everyone — white parasitic insects have been spotted in the area. They range in size from a fingernail to a thumb. They enter through the mouth and eat the tongue..."

"Please check your food and clothing carefully. Try to keep your mouth closed as much as possible — do not give the parasites an opportunity to enter. If you observe anyone behaving strangely, report it immediately on the local channel..."

The village loudspeakers kept up their warnings without pause.

The two of them did a quick wash, ate some bread, and got out of the RV. Lin Huijun led Bai Shan through a set of military exercises to warm up.

The middle-aged woman who had confronted Bai Shan over the wrecked car the night before had been watching from not far away for quite a while. When she saw the two young people stop for a water break, she finally walked over carrying something.

"I really am so sorry about last night. We'd been planning to leave before the final day, so when I saw the car had been damaged I panicked."

"I'm grateful you pulled that creature off me — if you'd been anyone less tolerant, I might not be standing here today. This is a small token from our family. Take it if you don't mind the bulk."

Bai Shan took the cloth bag she held out and looked inside — it was stuffed full of bright red apples and large pomelos.

Apples and pomelos weren't Bai Shan's favourite fruits, but in the current circumstances there was no room to be particular. Having fruit to vary the diet and top up on vitamin C was already a luxury, and both apples and pomelos kept well — in an apocalypse setting, this gift was genuinely thoughtful.

"Thanks. I like them," Bai Shan said.

The middle-aged woman let out a quiet breath of relief. She had been too impulsive last night. Fortunately the young person she had confronted was even-tempered — if it had been a harder, more ruthless type, her whole family could have been in serious danger.

Lin Huijun was also very happy with the gift. These past days they had been living almost entirely on processed food. Something natural was an unexpected delight.

She warmly asked a follow-up question: "Has your car been repaired? There should be somewhere in town that can fix it."

"I already asked last night — there is a place." The middle-aged woman's expression clouded at the subject. "But they're asking for an arm and a leg — rice, cooking oil, bottled water — I think they want half the things in our car!"

"There are other places in town. I'll go and ask around today."

"Since you can't leave yet, don't wander too far today. Stay here, and keep an eye on the people around you," Bai Shan said.

The family had originally planned to get back to their rural self-built house before the final day — somewhere with few people and a sense of safety — but plans never kept up with reality. The woman thought of the screaming she had heard in the night and the looming game deadline, and her face went pale.

After the worried middle-aged woman left, Bai Shan put her earphones in, and the two of them jogged laps around the basketball court area. Without realising it, they had done over twenty circuits.

Mid-run, Bai Shan suddenly slowed. "Lin Huijun — get the Frozen Tilapia out. Hit me with it."

"What do you mean, hit you — "

Lin Huijun's question was only half out before the Frozen Tilapia had already materialised in her hand. The sharp dorsal spines swept straight down toward Bai Shan's neck and shoulder before the words were even finished.

"Hey, I didn't say start yet!"

Bai Shan's upper body lurched back hastily — just dodging — but Lin Huijun's motion didn't pause for a moment. With the first strike deflected, she immediately flipped her wrist and hurled the rock-hard fish upward from below, straight and precise toward Bai Shan's brow.

A row of rigid spines spun through the air like a sharp gear, as if it would sink into the other person's forehead in the next second.

Bai Shan's dark eyes sharpened. The Frozen Tilapia halted in the air about ten centimetres from her face, suspended in place.

[Tyrannical Command] had stopped the Frozen Tilapia. But Bai Shan's expression held no satisfaction. She tried to grip Lin Huijun's item — and after a moment, the fish vanished from her hand.

Lin Huijun walked over. "Items can only be held by their owner — they can't be transferred or given away."

Bai Shan added: "But you can obtain another person's item by killing them."

This rule also prevented a certain kind of easy shortcut: if a powerful item could be freely passed around and held by anyone, and the person it happened to land with was kind or part of a benevolent organisation, then everyone around that person could simply shelter under the item and coast through.

Take Bai Shan's throwing darts — as long as someone could make the throwing motion, they could easily deal with ordinary people and mutated creatures with low defence, and reaching level five would be no difficulty at all.

Tomorrow's Dominator was clearly a stingy, unforgiving game.

"Bai Shan — why did you suddenly ask me to hit you?"

Lin Huijun blinked her wide eyes at her. Bai Shan raised one corner of her mouth, expression somewhere between resigned and speechless. "Isn't that question coming a little late?"

"In a fight, striking first is everything. You're better than me, so I have to make my move while you're not ready — only then does my win rate go up."

Lin Huijun laid this out with complete seriousness, and somehow actually made it sound entirely reasonable. Bai Shan had half-thought Lin Huijun was just eager for an excuse to take a swing at her.

"Are you looking to spar to sharpen your skills? Bai Shan, I wouldn't have expected you to have that kind of drive."

"When it comes to life and death, nobody can afford to be complacent." Bai Shan said.

Lin Huijun still found the occasional urgency Bai Shan showed a little puzzling. Bai Shan's strength already far surpassed most people, and they hadn't yet run into any particularly formidable opponents. This was a student who had managed to stay perfectly relaxed even through the run-up to university entrance exams — becoming a hard worker wasn't exactly her style.

"Lin Huijun, your footwork and reflexes are much better than mine. I'd like to spar with you a bit every day — help sharpen my physical technique."

Bai Shan rarely asked anyone for help. Lin Huijun felt a small, unexpected flicker of being honoured. She replied modestly: "I'm not that impressive — it's just the environment I grew up in. I even attended a martial arts school as a kid. Tell me what areas you want to work on and I can give you some pointers."

"My abilities are better suited to ranged combat. If I ever come up against someone with very good close-quarters technique, I'll be at a serious disadvantage."

Bai Shan stated her concern directly.

Since hearing the game broadcast about Charlie Anderson and his ten thousand kills, Bai Shan had come to understand that the road ahead would bring her into contact with many complicated people and complicated situations. Even with the head start she had built in Tomorrow's Dominator 1.0, too many unknowns remained for her to relax.

Bai Shan had always felt the level cap in the game's first phase had been set oddly. The game had never stated it explicitly.

A level cap of twenty. She had a persistent feeling — this was aimed at her specifically.

"Close combat?" Lin Huijun thought for a moment, then said: "Physical combat ability and fighting instinct take long-term cultivation to develop. They can't be rushed in a short time. If you're worried about losing a close-quarters fight, there's actually a different way to think about it."

"Like improving your defence?" Lin Huijun offered.

"Improving defence… that's actually a good idea."

If the game's second phase raised the level cap to fifty, she did have a rather good S-rank defensive item waiting — but for now, it might be worth checking the local channel to see if there were any thousand-year-old mutated creatures in the area. Those had a chance of dropping defensive-type items.

The two settled on a daily morning sparring routine, then turned to find a young woman in a trench coat walking toward them.

"Good morning, you two."

Qin Zhen greeted them in a leisurely, unhurried tone.

To maintain order, all outsiders had been assigned to stay at the basketball court, with town staff keeping watch. Many of the people there actually hoped to settle in Qianxi Town permanently — but Mayor Zhong had made it clear: outsiders would only be considered for residency after Phase One of the game concluded. Until then, for the safety of the town's own residents, outsiders were to remain under staff supervision.

Qin Zhen was an exception. She had apparently leveraged her high level to negotiate some kind of arrangement with the mayor and was staying inside the town proper.

As for what Qin Zhen had said in the mountains the previous evening — Lin Huijun had relayed it to Bai Shan word for word. Bai Shan had listened and felt mildly disappointed. Qin Zhen genuinely had no immediate intention of making a move against them.

Qin Zhen stopped in front of the two of them and, without preamble, said: "The mayor is hoping you'll come and help."

After last night's parasite outbreak, a handful of vehicles had quietly slipped away from the basketball court. At a moment like this it was already hard to say what was more dangerous — the creatures lurking outside the town or the people within it.

As most people had predicted, the real chaos opened on the final day.

"Last night we swept four villages and pulled out twenty-one people who had been parasitised," Zhong Xile said.

In the town's government office, she held a thermos cup in both hands, her thumb rubbing the surface over and over. Her face looked a decade more worn than it had the previous evening.

"People who were only recently parasitised can still be saved — they can cooperate with us to have the lice forcibly removed."

"But a few were parasitised long ago. They must have drunk directly from the Qianxi stream, or eaten fish caught there. Their minds are completely under control — they attacked our people without hesitation… and another one of our colleagues has given their life."

Just the previous evening, when Zhong Xile had been talking with Bai Shan on the mountain behind the town, her manner had still been confident and upbeat — worried, yes, but with an optimistic outlook for the future.

Now her voice was saturated with exhaustion.

"Ten more villages haven't been searched yet. A large number of people across the whole town haven't reached level five. Today is the last organised outing to fight monsters and level up."

The parasites had to be brought under control — but the game deadline was tomorrow at noon. Both were equally urgent.

"I'd like to ask each of you to take care of certain locations."

Mayor Zhong spread a map across the table and indicated several areas marked in red.

"An ageing population is unavoidable in any village or town. We've gathered the elderly who have completely lost the ability to move around and have no will to survive — over a hundred of them — and arranged to look after them in one place… until the seventh day."

Bai Shan was faintly surprised. She had assumed the mayor would be asking them to deal with some area full of dangerous mutated creatures, or to help inspect people for parasites or supervise the monster-hunting teams. She hadn't expected it to be… looking after elderly people.

Elderly people who had completely lost their mobility. Elderly people with no will to survive. Elderly people who, come tomorrow at noon, would certainly die.

Qin Zhen let the corner of her mouth shift almost imperceptibly. She seemed to find it slightly absurd. "Mayor, if I may overstep and say a word — at a time like this, resource allocation matters enormously."

"You're acting out of your duty as mayor, and protecting the vulnerable is genuinely admirable… but regardless of what happens today, tomorrow, barring any surprises from the game, every one of those elderly people you've taken in will die."

Was it worth expending precious manpower on a group the game was going to eliminate regardless?

Qin Zhen felt she was being quite restrained already. Her actual thoughts were blunter and colder: killing a single human player was guaranteed to bring someone from level one to level five. A group of old people with no value — effectively already dead — could be traded for a group of able-bodied adults who could continue playing. That was a worthwhile exchange.

"That's not the right way to think about it."

Before the mayor could respond, Lin Huijun pushed back first, with heat: "Even if many people are going to be killed by the game tomorrow, we cannot abandon our responsibilities to them right now. People must not die at each other's hands!"

"Mayor — I'll help you watch over those areas." Lin Huijun looked directly at the mayor, firm and certain.

Rebutted, Qin Zhen only smiled. She glanced toward Bai Shan, who had said nothing. "What do you think, Bai Shan?"

"From the mayor's perspective — for the long-term stability of Qianxi Town — this approach is quite necessary," Bai Shan replied.

An answer no one had expected.

"For a town like Qianxi to develop and remain stable in this new world, establishing absolute, inviolable authority matters enormously for a mayor. Whatever rules that authority upholds — the authority itself must not be challenged or trampled."

The town had established rules protecting the elderly and vulnerable. If those rules were casually ignored, every other rule would become equally meaningless.

"And beyond that — people who would resort to killing the helpless on the very last day, the ones who actually survive Phase One, are the ones who'll be a genuine headache for Qianxi Town going forward."

"That type of person lacks real strength or real courage. What they have is a vicious streak. More importantly, they'll treat the game's rules as the only law, and see no reason to respect anything this town stands for."

"If I were the mayor, using this as an opportunity to identify and deal with those people before they have a chance to grow — that's the trade that actually pays off."

Bai Shan's expression was the same as always — eyes slightly heavy-lidded, a shade of cool detachment. She rarely spoke this much at once, yet every word came out stripped of personal feeling, as if she were simply observing facts.

Behind the government desk, Zhong Xile raised her eyes. Her pupils trembled slightly as she looked at Bai Shan. Lin Huijun was equally startled — she knew better than anyone that Bai Shan was the last person who would ever speak in favour of "order" and "authority." Hearing these words from her came as a genuine surprise.

Qin Zhen gave Bai Shan a barely perceptible sideways glance, a trace of amusement passing through her eyes. Truly a "valuable" person.

"The concerns you've each raised are exactly what I've been weighing." Zhong Xile looked at the two of them with an expression of admiration. She said, half-teasing: "Knowing the country's future rests with people like you — I feel I can throw myself into the work with a little more energy."

"I'll have people transfer the elderly to this location. I'd trouble the two of you to work alongside our staff and keep watch."

Zhong Xile's finger tapped a spot on the map, then she turned to Qin Zhen, her tone still warm: "Miss Qin — I'd like to ask you to cooperate with the parasite-inspection teams."

Reassigned to a different task, Qin Zhen had no objection. Before she left, she asked one more question:

"To what extent?"

Zhong Xile answered: "Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. You have full authority to eliminate any threat. Whatever happens, I'll answer for it."

After Qin Zhen left, the two of them didn't move to leave immediately. Zhong Xile could tell Bai Shan still had something on her mind, so she asked directly: "Is there anything else I can answer for you?"

"Besides food and water — I want guns and ammunition."

Bai Shan's gaze moved to the weapon holstered at Zhong Xile's waist.

"How many?"

"As many as you can spare."

Firearms were still fully effective in this era. A handgun could achieve an unexpected edge at close range, and Bai Shan had a feeling there would be moments ahead when that would matter.

Zhong Xile drew a quiet breath. She studied Bai Shan's face, genuinely unable to gauge what "as many as you can spare" actually meant.

"Alright." Ammunition was a precious resource, but she agreed anyway.

The two walked out of the government building. The sun had climbed to its midday height, and the time had, without their noticing, become noon.

At this moment, Phase One of the game had exactly twenty-four hours left.

"Bai Shan — do you think there's any chance the game just disappears tomorrow?"

Six days, and yet Lin Huijun felt as though a very long time had passed.

"Let's go."

Bai Shan gave no answer, and walked on ahead without looking back.

*

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Author's Note:

Happy New Year, everyone! Sending you all my love!

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