Chapter 97, Taking Refuge in the Cave
"Don't even mention it. We ran into a complete lunatic. We'll talk in detail once we get rid of this wooden man."
Fu Yucheng thought he just wanted to provoke so many wooden figures, which he couldn't kill or avoid, and he was extremely frustrated.
"We're all really having the same bad luck. I wonder how Linlin is doing? I hope she's not as unlucky as us."
Fu Yuchen discovered that out of the four people in the team, three were being chased by the wooden figures, making them the unluckiest team among all the players.
"Linlin has always been lucky, she shouldn't be as unlucky as us."
It's unclear whether Zhong Bingxuan's implication was intended to persuade Fu Yucheng or herself.
"Stop talking, Linlin is up ahead, she'll find out soon enough."
Li Hanmo pointed to the person in front of them as they fled, and it was none other than Linlin.
"I hope Linlin is alright, we're almost surrounded here."
Fu Yucheng couldn't help but feel a headache coming on when he thought about how the group had all run away in the direction of the wooden figures.
"Oh my god, what's going on? There are so many wooden figures! Hurry up and go over there. I just came from over there, and there are no wooden figures there."
The three of them ran up to Zhong Linlin, but before they could even speak, Zhong Linlin saw a large group of wooden figures in front of her. She quickly told everyone to follow her, as she knew where there were no wooden figures.
Thanks to her three days of being lost, Zhong Linlin had explored most of the forest. She knew exactly where people could hide and led everyone to a secluded cave to rest.
In just one hour, the Rain or Shine Team had temporarily shaken off the wooden figures behind them. They were all panting heavily and didn't want to get up from the ground.
Zhong Linlin was alright; she wasn't chased by the wooden figure for too long and still had the energy to get water for the team. She first got a bottle for her cousin, then for Fu Yuchen, and finally for Li Hanmo.
"Tell me what happened after everyone dispersed."
After drinking the water that Zhong Linlin handed her, Zhong Bingxuan got down to business.
In this instance, she plans to focus on accumulating points. Having the clue about the wooden dummy's weakness, killing it shouldn't be difficult.
If there hadn't been so many wooden figures behind them, they wouldn't have been chased so badly, and instead, they could have wiped them all out, making them their source of points.
"Like I just said, I encountered a madman who insisted on burning me to death with a torch. I put out the torch in his hand, but he was still not satisfied and tried to set himself on fire to take me down with him. In the end, I barely managed to put out the fire, but it was too late. I angered the wooden figures that were watching me like hawks, and they chased after me in groups."
Li Hanmo briefly explained the situation to everyone. Fu Yucheng and Zhong Linlin sighed deeply. They weren't afraid of the ruthless, but they were afraid of the reckless. The vice-captain was unlucky to have encountered such a plague.
"Fu Yucheng, how about you over there?"
"Well, my situation is different from Li Hanmo's. Being chased by the wooden man was entirely my own fault."
Fu Yuchen told everyone about how he snatched food from the tiger's mouth, and everyone couldn't help but curse this reckless guy. He didn't even know the situation of the wooden man, yet he dared to take advantage of him. It would be strange if they didn't kill him.
"What about you, you fierce woman? You can't be as unlucky as Li Hanmo, running into a plague god, can you?"
Seeing that the captain, who was also attracting a lot of attention from the wooden figures, hadn't spoken yet, Fu Yucheng immediately asked a question to divert everyone's attention.
“I’m not like Hanmo, but my situation is somewhat similar to yours.”
"You also went to steal the treasure, you were so stupid as to do it?"
Fu Yucheng was speaking in a cheeky manner when Zhong Bingxuan slapped him away.
"Sister, that's real skill. Look at the team mission, I killed 44 wooden dummies. Look at yourself, what right do you have to laugh at me?"
Zhong Bingxuan's lips curled into a sarcastic smile, leaving Fu Yuchen speechless. He turned to Linlin with a pitiful look, seeking comfort from his lover.
"Brother Yuchen, you're the same. You always get shut down by your older sister. You can't beat your cousin, and you'll keep acting like a jerk next time. I don't even know how to save you."
Zhong Linlin shrugged, indicating that she couldn't help and told herself to go cool off somewhere else.
"Compared to everyone's exciting three days, mine has been rather boring. To put it bluntly, I've just been wandering around this forest for the past three days without ever leaving."
Zhong Linlin blushed, feeling embarrassed to share her experience, but thinking that everyone else had already told her, she felt out of place if she didn't, so she shyly told them about getting lost.
“Sometimes calm and tranquility are not necessarily a bad thing. Misfortune and fortune are intertwined. Look at you, you got lost for three days and became familiar with this forest. That's how you saved us from being eaten by the vicious wooden man. You are the greatest contributor in our team.”
Fu Yucheng couldn't bear to see his lover upset, so he quickly came out to comfort Linlin.
Zhong Bingxuan and Li Hanmo nodded in agreement from behind.
Seeing that no one was laughing at her, Zhong Linlin breathed a sigh of relief and became curious about how her cousin had killed the wooden figure.
"Cousin, have you discovered some secret?"
According to both Fu Yucheng and Li Hanmo, the wooden figures were not easy to kill. The older cousin was able to kill 44 of them by herself, while the other two couldn't even kill a single one. There must be some secret behind this that outsiders don't know.
"Well, most wooden figures can be dealt with by combining the lethal object with the location of death. For the few wooden figures that cannot be dealt with in this way, we can let them go for now and find another way to deal with them later."
Zhong Bingxuan shared with everyone the rules she had discovered from the behavior of an indigenous person she had finally met.
They also took out the rule slip that the man had dropped after his death and showed it to everyone.
"This should be the death rule of this treasure forest. I thought you hadn't read it yet, so I didn't burn the note. Once you've read it, then you can dispose of it."
It would be better to avoid any unexpected events from happening later.
Zhong Bingxuan didn't say the last sentence, but everyone understood.
Everyone received a rule slip from Zhong Bingxuan and wrote down the rules one by one.
"According to the description on the note, I must have violated rule eight by coveting the wooden figures' treasure and thus incurring the attack of all the wooden figures."
If he had gotten the rule slip earlier, he wouldn't have been chased all over the forest by the wooden figure. Fu Yuchen was very frustrated.
"If Fu Yucheng was attacked by the wooden figure for violating rule eight, then I guess I was just unlucky and encountered someone who wanted to get rich quick."
When Li Hanmo saw the rule two, which stated that there were not many wooden figures in the forest, and that if he wanted to gain more wealth, he would need to increase the number of wooden figures himself, he quickly realized that he was being chased by someone who was blinded by greed for wealth, which led to his tragic escape throughout the forest.
"So, rule two is actually a flawed rule. If you follow its description, you will be corrupted by the copy and eventually die from your own greed."
Upon hearing Li Hanmo's words, Fu Yuchen quickly drew this conclusion based on his experience and intuition from more than ten dungeon runs.
"Just like the man I mentioned earlier, he had better opportunities than the natives on Li Hanmo's side. He collected all the heads required for the treasure and obtained the wooden box that allowed him to seize it, but in the end, he also died at the hands of the wooden man he had killed and transformed."
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