Chapter 70-Game Descent: I Am the Sole Player
Chapter 70
The room was tiny — a meter-and-a-half-wide bed, a desk, and a wardrobe were enough to fill it almost completely. Two people standing inside left virtually no room to move.
Bai Shan paced back and forth in the cramped space, touching the walls, inspecting the window, pulling open every desk drawer, and not sparing the wardrobe either.
After a swift and thorough search that yielded nothing, Bai Shan shrugged off her jacket and flopped onto the bed, her somewhat vacant eyes staring at the ceiling.
Nothing special. It seemed Yan An had already cleared out everything of Zhao Yi's. She couldn't find a single item proving Zhao Yi had ever lived here.
Lin Huijun sat on the room's only chair, wearing an expression of wanting to speak but holding back.
The soundproofing in this apartment was poor. Dundun's tap-tap-tap of paws padding around outside came through the door clearly, and their conversation could easily be overheard by Yan An — not the best place for a private discussion.
Lin Huijun also felt Yan An's behavior was a bit odd, but they knew so little about Hai City that all they could do was explore further tomorrow.
"Oh — is the RV safe up on the roof?"
Lin Huijun suddenly remembered their vehicle and shot up from the chair. As she spoke, she gave Bai Shan a meaningful look.
Some things weren't safe to discuss here, so they could move somewhere more convenient.
Bai Shan, sprawled on the bed, hadn't caught Lin Huijun's signal. Hearing the question, she sat up slowly like a corpse rising from the dead, and said in an eerie tone, "Almost forgot."
"Let's go take a look."
They had come down in a hurry — there might still be clues about Hai City hidden somewhere in the building, Bai Shan thought.
Yan An had already returned to her room and shut the door. Lin Huijun knocked and told her through the door that they were heading up to the rooftop. Yan An called back in acknowledgment.
The two stepped out. The pudgy Corgi trotted after them. Unlike most Corgis, it hadn't had its tail docked — its fluffy tail stood high and wagged gently. A very people-friendly dog.
Lin Huijun couldn't resist crouching down to pet the little head that nudged up to her. Corgis and Shiba Inus were both famously feisty and temperamental breeds, yet this one was sweet and affectionate.
To satisfy popular preferences, Corgis typically had their tails docked at birth, exposing their round little rumps for grooming into shapes that better matched human aesthetics. A Corgi like Dundun that still had its tail was a rarity. Lin Huijun felt that Zhao Yi and her former roommates must have all been very gentle people.
The two humans and one dog climbed the stairwell to the rooftop. The black RV sat quietly on the roof, looking unharmed from the outside.
Bai Shan placed her hand on it, checking the RV's health bar.
It held at 5% — no attacks during their absence. She relaxed slightly.
But just as she was about to pull her hand away, she noticed the health bar was fluctuating!
She immediately lifted her hand, then placed it back again. The health bar was calm when it first appeared, but after two or three seconds, it began to waver.
A look of disbelief flickered across Bai Shan's face. Recalling what had happened earlier inside the RV — she had checked the health bar, and then the RV was suddenly attacked... Could it be that the act of checking the health bar itself was what triggered the attack?
Bai Shan snapped out of it and stopped observing the bar.
Yan An's warning about "not opening the Game Panel" — it was actually true.
The people of Hai City had no game system, and outsiders who opened their Game Panels would be subjected to bizarre attacks. Was that why there were no Hai City residents posting in the channels?
Bai Shan had a strange feeling. A force powerful enough to turn the entire planet upside down couldn't possibly have overlooked a place like Hai City. If the game truly hadn't descended upon Hai City, it looked as though Tomorrow's Dominator 2.0 was simply incompatible with this city. The attacks were more like bugs caused by that incompatibility.
Bai Shan looked down at her right hand with its dark-green bracer and fell deep into thought. Her abilities still functioned normally for now.
But bugs might surface later.
That would explain why, ever since the game's arrival, plenty of people from surrounding cities had entered Hai City, yet none of those game-system-bearing individuals had managed to leave or relay even a scrap of intelligence to the outside world.
"Bai Shan, what happened?"
Noticing Bai Shan's troubled expression, Lin Huijun immediately spoke up and scanned their surroundings with vigilance.
"Don't open the Game Panel, Lin Huijun."
Bai Shan stressed the warning, her gaze still on her right hand. Suddenly, a pistol materialized in her grip.
She tossed it to Lin Huijun.
Then another gun appeared. Bai Shan unzipped her jacket, tucked the pistol into the large inner pocket, and zipped it back up.
Just in case — if their Talent abilities glitched at a critical moment, they'd still have weapons for self-defense and retaliation.
Taking the gun from Bai Shan, Lin Huijun's heart sank. If even Bai Shan was acting like they were on the brink of a crisis, just how dire was Hai City's situation...
After checking on the RV, Lin Huijun climbed aboard and grabbed a bag of food and dug out a large umbrella.
Opening the red umbrella against the downpour, the two walked to the edge of the rooftop.
The building was only eight stories tall, offering a limited view. The streets below were relentlessly lashed by rain, sending up an endless spray of tiny splashes. Occasionally, inconspicuous dark shapes glided beneath the surface. The deafening pitter-patter of the rain drowned out everything else — hollow and deathly still.
Further out, high-rises stood row upon row, their sleek glass facades dulled in the rain.
Lin Huijun craned her neck to look down. The stench of rot clinging to her nostrils likely came from the floodwater — there was no telling how many people had collapsed into knee-deep water and never gotten back up.
"Bai Shan, how many people do you think are still alive in Hai City?"
"Hard to say."
Bai Shan replied.
The cruelest aspect of Tomorrow's Dominator 2.0 was that it placed extraordinary power in everyone's hands, then used its rules to force people into killing one another.
In this city, the cruelest thing was that defenseless people were forced to face a mutated world in which human strength had become pitifully insignificant.
Which was more dangerous, more cruel?
Lin Huijun's hand on the umbrella shifted slightly. The red umbrella spun, flicking droplets, becoming the sole splash of vivid color in the gray city.
After watching from the rooftop for a while without spotting a single person, they headed back inside.
It was already five in the afternoon. The cloud-shrouded sky was growing even darker, and the residential building's stairwell was engulfed in gloom.
Their bodies and senses had been greatly enhanced by the game, allowing them to move effortlessly even in total darkness. Yet the two walked slowly. Bai Shan even pulled out her phone, turned it on, and switched on the flashlight.
Like any ordinary residential building, the stairwell was plastered with all manner of small ads, plus big red characters scrawled on the wall denouncing "So-and-so, pay your debts!" The bold red lettering was a bit startling at first glance.
Lin Huijun went ahead to check the sixth-floor apartments one by one. Bai Shan swept her phone light around the stairwell and noticed a crumpled ball of paper in a corner. She stared at it for a conflicted moment, then reluctantly walked over.
Dundun beat her to it, pitter-pattering over and snatching up the paper in its mouth. Bai Shan crouched down and gave the dog's head a pat, and the paper dropped from its jaws.
The slobber-covered paper ball fell to the floor. Bai Shan fought back her disgust and flattened it out.
The crumpled sheet was a mess, but the red text on it was glaringly conspicuous — painfully bright. Bai Shan gave it a casual glance, and just the first line made her eyes fly wide open.
"Bai Shan, sixth floor's empty! Only corpses — urgh!"
Lin Huijun ran over, hand clamped over the lower half of her face. The image of the decomposing corpse oozing putrid fluid in the living room was seared into her brain, along with the stench that had shot straight up her nostrils.
Since the game's arrival, thousands upon thousands died every day, leaving behind just as many corpses. But thanks to the active mutants, those bodies were consumed promptly. The worst Lin Huijun had ever seen was a corpse gnawed down to mostly bare bone — never one left to decompose on its own.
She entered the stairwell and found Bai Shan crouching on the ground. Hearing her approach, Bai Shan turned slowly. In the dim corridor, she looked up with a face paler than the corpse upstairs.
Lin Huijun flinched. "What happened? You look like you're about to sprout mushrooms."
Bai Shan stood up and shoved the wrinkled paper into Lin Huijun's hand.
Lin Huijun took it, baffled. She glanced down, and her eyes snapped wide open.
[Great Compassionate Sacred Love Primordial Unity Omniscient God]
The glaring red text burst into her vision, triggering a buried memory. A chill shot through her body.
[This world is about to collapse... Great Compassionate Omniscient God... those who do not believe will be plagued by misfortune and incurable illness...]
She remembered the bizarre old woman she had encountered when visiting Bai Shan's home — a fanatical devotee of some cult. The deity that cult worshipped was called something like "Omniscient God."
Lin Huijun frowned. "That cult from Rong City has already spread all the way here?"
Standing in the corner, Bai Shan said nothing. Her expression was somewhat dark.
Under these circumstances, the last thing Bai Shan wanted was to run into old acquaintances. That grandmother-and-grandchild pair had better stay put in Rong City.
After combing through the building, both of them wore somber expressions. They returned to Yan An's apartment, ate some of the food they'd brought from the RV, tidied up briefly, and went to bed.
In the darkness, Bai Shan lay with her eyes open, her lightless black pupils staring into the void. A gun rested by her pillow.
Today, she had given Yan An a gun — not just as thanks, but also as a test.
They could have chosen to sleep in the far more comfortable and secure RV, but Bai Shan had decided to stay the night here.
Time passed uncounted. Eventually, Bai Shan closed her eyes, but her sleep remained shallow — a thin veil over her consciousness that any sound could pierce in an instant.
In the small hours, the tightly shut door emitted a faint creak. A narrow black gap opened silently.
The cold muzzle of a gun slid through the crack. Above it, behind the trembling barrel, a pair of bloodshot eyes peered in.
Bang bang bang! Bullets suddenly sprayed wildly toward the bed. Lin Huijun jolted awake almost instantly, instinctively rolling off the bed. Her body hit the cold, hard floor with a muffled thud. Only after she regained her bearings did she realize what was happening.
Bai Shan, on the other hand, simply rolled over in bed, then sat up with the blanket still around her. She turned to look at the doorway. Her expression showed neither alarm nor anger — she looked almost groggy, but on closer inspection, her face was thoroughly cold.
The bullets fell limply onto the bedsheet. Bai Shan spread her five fingers and clenched the air — every bullet instantly flew to her, caught in her palm.
Under Yan An's disbelieving stare, Bai Shan opened her hand and casually flicked the bullets away. They clattered down beside her shoes.
Bai Shan's feet slid into her shoes. She walked slowly toward Yan An at the doorway.
"Why do you look so surprised?"
"Is it because my abilities exceeded your imagination — or because you didn't think I should still have abilities at all?"
Yan An retreated step by step, shaking her head in disbelief, red-rimmed eyes wide. Bai Shan backed her into a corner until her spine pressed against the cold white wall.
"Twelve hours — it's already been twelve hours... This shouldn't — you shouldn't..."
From the broken fragments of her words, Bai Shan understood. It was the second reason.
"After twelve hours, game players who enter Hai City lose their game abilities — is that right?"
"Yes!"
Yan An snapped her head up, staring at Bai Shan with the terrified look one might give a monstrous creature.
"How — why?!"
A faint smile touched Bai Shan's lips — barely there, a wisp of amusement floating in the depths of her eyes. "Perhaps because I'm the chosen one."
Comments
Post a Comment