After Fang Yuming left, Ye Miao returned to the second floor, cut three strawberries, and sat by the windowsill, earnestly trying to please the alienated little earthworm: "Little earthworm, it's been so hot lately. I'll cut you some strawberries to make you feel better."
In fact, there was no heat in the room, but the alienated earthworms were eating happily, making squeaking sounds.
The Pixiu circled around Ye Miao's feet in dissatisfaction, dissatisfied with her favoritism.
"Good boy." Ye Miao fed the Pixiu a few gold coins as a comfort. The Pixiu proudly took the coins and ran away. Ye Miao continued to nag the alienated earthworm: "If only there was a good way to cool down. Sigh... I'll sweat after being outside for five minutes."
This statement is true. On the first day of the extreme heat, the situation was actually quite good. This was mainly because the outside of the territory was hot, but the inside of the territory was protected by the barrier stone, so the temperature did not fluctuate significantly.
But after a few days, the temperature inside the territory began to rise slowly. Although it was still significantly different from outside the territory, it was no longer cool.
The mutated earthworms perked up upon hearing this, and all six of their heads dropped strawberry slices, swaying rhythmically as if they were casting a spell.
Before long, a small dark cloud gathered under the bedroom ceiling, and it looked like it might rain at any moment.
"...It's fine indoors!" Ye Miao said hurriedly. Then, he gently tapped the little mutant earthworm's head with his finger and said, "If it can rain, could you move it outside the territory? Help cool it down! There are a lot of children in the territory, and I'm worried they won't be able to bear the heat."
The six ugly little heads nodded at the same time, and then moved. The cloud condensed with thick water vapor floated out of the house, dropping raindrops as it drifted away into the distance.
"Thank you!" Ye Miao was overjoyed and immediately ran to the kitchen, cut a small bowl of watermelon and brought it to him. "Thank you for your hard work. Come on, this is also yours!"
The next morning, Ye Miao got up at half past six, went out for a walk, and saw that the dark clouds were raining above the small market. The temperature in the territory was obviously cooler than yesterday.
She led the team to defeat the [Mutated Earthworm King] and obtained the reward [Alienated Earthworm] when the soil erosion stage was almost over. When she first saw this reward, she felt a moment of regret, because she felt that this reward was used to help her easily pass the "soil erosion" mode. It seemed that as long as it helped to irrigate the land, the problem of farmland could be easily solved, but it would not be useful in the future.
I didn't expect that this thing could actually cool down. It didn't cause soil erosion, but it can still save lives in high temperature mode.
After Ye Miao returned to the house, he gave the mutated earthworm another bottle of high-level magic potion, then went out with his backpack and waited at the door to meet everyone.
Fang Yuming asked her to call a few more people. The first person she thought of was of course Chu Cheng's team. In addition, she also called the control department leader Deng Wei, so that everyone's skill distribution would be basically comprehensive.
But seriously speaking, their team configuration is actually "comprehensive but unbalanced". Chu Cheng's team consists of five archers and the assassin Fang Yuming. All six of them are ranged units. There is only one control unit, Deng Wei. As for melee and priests, they all rely on Ye Miao alone.
In short, the only way they dare to form a team like this is because they are so strong!
At 6:55, the team gathered. When Chu Cheng and Fang Yuming met, Ye Miao was nervous for a moment because she had sensed some unpleasantness a long time ago.
Fortunately, both of them were normal. They drank a cold drink and went out.
At 7:30, the territory market entered its peak period, with members coming and going in an endless stream.
Before the heatwave hit, most players would come for breakfast, buy some potions, or occasionally restock their gear before heading out to forage and swipe monsters. But now, restocking on cold drinks has become a crucial part of preparation, and every stall is packed.
Qin Zhen wakes up at 4 a.m. to make iced watermelon juice and iced sour plum soup. She sets up shop at the market at 7:30 a.m. and sells hundreds of cups in less than half an hour. Then, she packs her backpack and heads out of her territory to start gathering.
Many members of the territory arranged their lives in a way that would not only make their lives more varied but also allow them to earn more money. Qin Zhen might seem like a typical example, but she was actually somewhat different—for example, she was exceptionally hardworking.
These days, everyone buys cloaks to protect their equipment, boots to maintain their physical strength, and cold drinks to relieve the dizziness caused by heatstroke. Qin Zhen had no choice but to buy the first two items. After all, equipment and physical strength potions are not cheap, but she has never bought a single cold drink, and she is even reluctant to drink the ones she made herself.
For her, heatstroke and dizziness were bearable. And after a few days, perhaps because she had adapted, the heatstroke and dizziness no longer had any effect on her. Even though she was sweating profusely, she continued to collect at a brisk pace.
It was noon, and the sun was even hotter. The familiar system prompt appeared as expected: You have heatstroke.
Qin Zhen ignored her and picked the raspberries from the bush in front of her, then walked towards the rice field not far away.
Rice is always a very popular crop in the territory. With so many players setting up stalls to sell food, most of them want to pair it with rice, so the rice they harvest is always easy to sell.
She walked into the rice field, squatted down and started collecting. The rice was very tall, and the person was almost completely shaded when she squatted down, but the temperature did not ease at all.
Ten minutes later, a line of scarlet characters suddenly appeared in front of Qin Zhen: "Severe heatstroke for five consecutive days has triggered the negative effect [Heat Stroke]. You will faint in 30 seconds and your health will continue to decline."
"Ah?!" Qin Zhen exclaimed. She didn't bother to find out what heat stroke was. The desire to survive deep in her heart was finally activated, driving her to run out of the rice field in panic.
After running a few steps, the 30-second countdown ended. Qin Zhen's eyes went dark and she fell straight down.
But fortunately she ran out, otherwise she would have fallen face first into the paddy field and would have suffocated to death soon.
Meanwhile, the team heading to the snowy mountains had already passed through City T and reached the southern suburbs. Chu Cheng looked up at the scorching sun, took off his backpack, and silently distributed drinks to everyone.
[Item: Mojito on the Rocks]
【Quality: Gold】
[Description: Effectively relieves heat and provides a cooling effect. Furthermore, under the stimulation of alcohol, attack speed increases by 30% and critical hit rate increases by 30%. Effect lasts for 12 hours.]
The whole team: “!!!”
"Fuck, Chu Cheng!" Yi Hang held his mojito and drank it down with big gulps, feeling heartbroken. "I beg you, just open a shop! 12 hours of effect, plus increased attack speed and critical hit rate, how can this be sold like hotcakes?!"
"That makes sense." Chu Cheng agreed deeply, then ruthlessly refused, "No."
Yi Hang: “…”
Ye Miao was already accustomed to watching them bickering. She smiled and took a sip of the mojito. The coolness of the mint was refreshing, and the perfect amount of sweetness mixed with the faint aroma of the wine soothed the nerves and made the whole body feel comfortable.
"It's delicious." She praised sincerely. Chu Cheng smiled, but it seemed that what he said was not meant for her. Instead, he continued to bicker with Yi Hang: "Why do you always want me to open a shop? Like now, when we go out to fight monsters, I prepare food for everyone, isn't that good?"
Yi Hang was in agony: "But if we don't kill monsters together, we won't get any food at all!"
Chu Cheng: "Even if we open a store, you may not be able to grab it."
Yi Hang: “…”
Brother, you are really a bit ruthless.
The golden-quality food attributes are eye-catching. After drinking this mojito, everyone looked at the buff countdown next to them, and their mentality changed immediately. They no longer deliberately bypassed monsters to save travel time. Instead, they began to deliberately take a long way around monsters, for fear of wasting the blessing of attack speed and critical hit rate.
It has to be said that the high-level bosses stacked with gold-quality high-level buffs can really maximize all attributes. When passing through a quarry, they activated a stone giant. This was originally a medium-level boss with slow attacks but extremely high defense. As a result, it was reduced to a skin of blood as soon as everyone used a wave of skills.
"Awesome!!!" Ye Miao delivered a final critical hit, smashing it to pieces, his face filled with joy.
Fang Yuming put away the dart, looked at her silently, then looked at Chu Cheng, and said nothing.
At 1:30 PM, many players who had returned to their territory for lunch to rest were out again, and Sun Chen's team also joined them. Everyone dispersed to gather items not far from the territory. Ding Yu and Wu Zhen walked together towards the rice paddies. When they reached the grass not far from the horizon, Ding Yu suddenly cried out, "Ah!"
Wu Zhen hurried forward to check. Ding Yu pointed at something not far below with a look of horror on his face: "That, that, that... is that a corpse?!"
No wonder Ding Yu was afraid. Although the apocalypse had begun a long time ago, almost all players had seen dead people and even killed people with their own hands. However, since the corpses in the game would disappear very quickly, the "dead people" everyone had seen were those who had just died. Most people had never seen a "corpse" in the true sense.
"...That shouldn't be it?" Wu Zhen calmed down and bravely turned the person on the ground over. He nervously reached out his hand to check for breath, and his heart suddenly relaxed. "Alive."
Ding Yu frowned. "He fell in this position. Nine out of ten times, he's from our territory."
"I guess... Oh my gosh!" Wu Zhen suddenly noticed the health bar above Qin Zhen's head. "It's almost empty! Quick, quick, do you have any blood-replenishing potions? Give me a big one!"
"Yes!" Ding Yu immediately took off his backpack and pulled out a bottle, handing it to Wu Zhen. Wu Zhen pried open Qin Zhen's mouth and poured it into her mouth, but although her health bar had recovered by more than half, she still didn't wake up. In less than three seconds, he could tell that her health was still dropping.
"It looks like there's some negative effect..." Ding Yu frowned, "but I can't tell what it is."
"Yeah." Wu Zhen said puzzledly, "I just felt really hot. Maybe she was attacked by a fire monster? I think we should ask Sun Chen for leave and send her back to the territory and see Doctor Fang."
"Okay." The couple hit it off immediately, and Ding Yu stayed behind to guard Qin Zhen for a while. Wu Zhen quickly ran to find Sun Chen to explain what happened, and then came back to find them.
Wu Zhen carried Qin Zhen on his back, and Ding Yu supported her from behind. The couple trotted back and headed straight for Fang Shuqin's villa.
After so much time, Fang Shuqin's healing skill had reached level 85. Besides simple health restoration, she had also acquired several new healing skill cards. She usually "sat in" at home, healing players and treating negative effects. When it came to the various ailments brought on by the game, Fang Shuqin was quite knowledgeable.
However, even so, Fang Shuqin did not expect that today she would meet someone who was unconscious when he was sent to her and could not be woken up!
Generally speaking, there are a few main types of negative effects in the game. Common ones, like poisoning, can be cured with a healing potion, then restored to full health. There are also more specialized ones, like frostbite, which requires the healing skill [Warm as Spring] to heal, and burns, which require [Cool as Water] to soothe. Even being stunned by a lightning skill has corresponding skills to remove the negative status. Once the negative status is gone, you can just drink potions to restore health.
But today, Fang Shuqin first injected a recovery potion, but it had no effect. She then used all sorts of healing skills, but the person still showed no reaction. If it weren't for the fact that this person still had a health bar and was still breathing, Fang Shuqin would have suspected that he was dead.
After trying the last skill to no avail, Fang Shuqin sighed, "From a game perspective, I think it's possible that I don't have the skill that targets her condition, so I can't save her."
"Ah?!" Ding Yu was speechless, a little panicked, "What should I do?!"
"Don't worry," Fang Shuqin said solemnly. "If we put the game aside, let me tell you my speculation."
Wu Zhen was bewildered: "What do you mean by putting the game aside?"
Fang Shuqin glanced at him. "High temperature, coma, arrhythmia... plus the current external environment, if the game system hadn't arrived, we would probably highly suspect she had heat stroke in the hospital."
Wu Zhen: "Heat stroke?!"
Ding Yu: "I know this...it's a very severe case of heatstroke!"
"Yes." Fang Shuqin nodded. "Core organ temperature overheating, in simple terms... slowly ripening, has an extremely high mortality rate and is prone to various serious sequelae. It is very difficult to treat."
She paused, then added, "But right now, in the game, on the one hand, I can't make that kind of diagnosis, I can only speculate. On the other hand, I think if heat stroke really exists in the game, there should be corresponding treatments. We can slowly try it out."
"But what if the 'mortality rate' is extremely high and she can't hold on?!" Ding Yu asked anxiously.
Fang Shuqin was more relaxed than her. "This crappy game has ruined everyone's families, but there's one really good thing: the vitals are very clear. You can tell by looking at the health bar. Look, her health bar is constantly decreasing, but it can still be raised. As long as we keep replenishing her health, she won't die. Besides, we can buy some iced drinks to help cool her down. Maybe she'll come back to life after that. In the game, I can say from experience that treating illnesses is indeed much easier."
"Then I have several glasses of iced watermelon juice!" Ding Yu opened his backpack without thinking and poured juice into Qin Zhen's mouth. Everyone was looking forward to it, but unfortunately, Qin Zhen had no reaction after drinking one glass, and her body was still burning hot.
"Alas..." Ding Yu sighed and shook his head, "Let's take the blood medicine first."
In the evening, the group finally arrived at the foot of the snow-capped mountains south of City T. Ye Miao had never been to the south before, and only then did she realize how vast the so-called "snow-capped mountains" were, stretching for miles. It was very similar to the scenery she had seen on the Sichuan-Tibet Expressway before she crossed into the game.
We found a mountain path that had been worn out by players over the years, and everyone walked up along the path.
Fang Yuming explained as they walked, "The two outermost mountains aren't very high. Once you cross them, you'll be deep into the mountain range. Starting from the third mountain, snow monsters will randomly appear. They usually sleep on the mountain like giant blocks of snow. Sometimes you won't even notice you've stepped on one until it wakes up and moves, and then its name and information will be revealed."
"The Yeti will roar, and its roar carries a gust of wind, a knockback skill that can push people far away, or even throw them off the mountain. If there's something nearby you can grab, grab it immediately."
"A single snow monster is easy to kill, but sometimes four or five will appear at the same time, requiring coordination. Because they throw snowballs, which can interrupt many skills and block vision when they scatter."
"When vision is blocked, melee attacks may not be affected much, but ranged attacks will be directly affected... We only have Ye Miao as a melee fighter, so everyone else must pay attention to dodge."
Fang Yuming finished speaking the information he knew in one breath, and Yi Hang, who was always not serious, began to mutter: "It sounds a bit scary, but I think it's pretty good... At least it's not hot on the snowy mountain, hahahaha, the high temperature these days is really uncomfortable!"
Ye Miao couldn't help but look at Fang Yuming: "Have you been here before? Did you run so far to kill monsters?"
"...Yeah." Fang Yuming didn't deny it, but said vaguely, "It's boring to keep spawning monsters near the territory, so I took the opportunity to stop by on my way to T City to see what's here."
"Is that so?" Ye Miao nodded. A few steps away, a pine tree's branches suddenly rustled, as if something was about to appear. Ye Miao subconsciously looked over. Fang Yuming had already casually thrown a dart. The branches rustled twice more, and several Snow Spirits fell down, exploding and falling.
Fang Yuming walked forward, picked up a few fallen [Hearts of Wind and Snow], turned around and handed them to his teammates.
Ye Miao: "What is this?"
Fang Yuming: "Eat it to keep warm."
Ye Miao: “?”
"?" Yi Hang's eyes widened. "Holy crap, I just praised this place for not being hot, and now I'm complaining about it being cold, right?! Is there anything normal about this game?"
Fang Yuming continued his explanation calmly, "You'll start to feel cold about 30 minutes after entering the snowy mountain range, and your movement speed, attack speed, and attack power will all be affected. Taking the [Heart of Wind and Snow] dropped by various snowy mountain creatures can effectively keep you warm. One pill can last you for an hour. However, the [Heart of Wind and Snow] disappears after five minutes of being dropped, so you can't store it in your backpack."
"Does that mean we still have to fight the boss and kill the monsters at the same time?" Deng Wei raised another question.
Fang Yuming offered another solution: "You can kill the monsters first and eat more Snow Spirits. The duration can be increased. Also, if you need to rest in the middle of the journey, you can light a campfire to keep warm. You don't need the Snow Heart at this stage."
Ye Miao couldn't help but stare at him.
She suddenly felt that Fang Yuming had become like a small encyclopedia of snow mountains, knowing everything. Even she didn't know so much about snow mountains, because there were no such detailed settings when she played the game before.
A town that got rich overnight.
The news spread quickly in the town, and many members ran to Fang Shuqin's house out of kindness or pure curiosity to watch the unconscious Qin Zhen.
Now, in addition to Fang Shuqin, there are more than 20 priests of different levels in the town. Fang Shuqin herself cannot cure people, so she does not stop everyone from coming in and trying various methods.
So, for half a day, Qin Zhen was subjected to various physical cooling methods, even being thrown directly into an ice pool. Then, she was fed ice water, had ice cubes held in her mouth, and was given various cold drinks. In addition, almost every healing method found in the territory was tried.
As her health repeatedly dropped, enthusiastic players fed her primary, intermediate and advanced blood-replenishing potions, various soups, porridges and other liquid foods. He Kailai even wanted to feed her a spoonful of the first golden delicacy he unlocked, [Crab Roe Tofu]. Fortunately, Hu Hao and Miao Lin held him down for fear that Qin Zhen would be strangled to death.
Fang Shuqin stood nearby, a complex expression on her face: "Luckily it's gamified, otherwise a heat stroke patient would have been in the morgue long ago if you had treated him like this!"
Even though Qin Zhen still hadn't woken up, her ever-decreasing health bar was surprisingly maintained at a high level by everyone's feeding. Come to think of it, with all the potions and health-restoring food pouring out almost non-stop for almost a minute, wouldn't even the system have enough time to replenish her health?!
That evening, players began a new round of speculation: "Do you think this is considered a vegetative state? Hey, are there even vegetative states in games?!"
"..." Fang Shuqin didn't know whether there would be vegetative people in the game, but she finally felt that it was not a good idea to let everyone brainstorm like this, so she finally started to drive people away, and asked all the enthusiastic players to leave on the grounds that she was going to bed.
At the same time, the snow-capped mountains had returned to the tranquility of the evening, and everyone subconsciously paid attention and became more vigilant.
Ye Miao, who was a melee fighter, was walking in the front. Halfway up the mountain, he suddenly felt a shock under his feet!
"Be careful!" Ye Miao shouted urgently, and everyone reacted immediately, retreating and taking a defensive stance.
The next second, the snow under Ye Miao's feet rose high. Ye Miao hurriedly jumped down. When he turned around, he was completely covered by a huge shadow. When he looked closely, he saw that the snow pile that was as high as a hill was stretching its limbs and became a sturdy humanoid creature.
In terms of size, they are only one-third the size of the early boss, the Frost Giant, but in terms of attack speed...
Before Ye Miao could recover, the snowman in front of her had already raised its fist and was about to strike her. She quickly dodged, grabbing a small tree trunk nearby with one hand to gain leverage, twisting it around and kicking it out. Just as she was about to land the kick, the snowman, like a nimble monkey, darted a few meters up the mountain, then flashed back with lightning speed.
"Be careful!" A low shout was heard. At the same time, several silver darts wrapped in a strong wind attacked the snow monster. With a few puffs, they pierced into its snowy body.
"Wow wow wow wow!!!" The snow monster was furious and no longer paid attention to Ye Miao. It quickly attacked Fang Yuming.
"Is it under control?" Fang Yuming said slowly.
"...Oh!" Deng Wei woke up as if from a dream and immediately cast a skill, "Vine Entanglement!" The emerald green vines immediately emerged from the ground and wrapped around the snow monster's ankle.
The snow monster that was about to kill Fang Yuming was suddenly stopped and fell face down unexpectedly.
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