After closing the iron door, the room was pitch black. Lin Yong tried to turn on the light switch on the wall, and it actually worked.
Lu Cai sat down against the wall. She took the pill from Lin Yong and swallowed it in one gulp.
"Take this medicine bottle. If it works, take two pills when you feel uncomfortable." Lin Yong handed the small medicine bottle to Lu Cai.
Lu Cai was a little surprised and looked up at him: "Give me the whole bottle?"
"I still have some." Lin Yong shrugged, then found it a little funny. "You said you're an NPC in the world view, you weren't injured in the main world, but you inexplicably fell into the side story and got caught. Are you considered a bug?"
Lu Cai was also annoyed: "I'm not a bug, I'm your father——"
Lin Yong's expression was visibly distorted. He opened his eyes wide and looked at Lu Cai as if he had seen a ghost.
Lu Cai was shocked by his reaction. Did his joke just now touch a taboo? Calling himself the other person's father was a joke, but if the other person didn't find it funny, then it would be offensive.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you." Lu Cai stopped smiling and apologized to him seriously.
Lin Yong turned a deaf ear to her and only stammered, "Do you understand what I just said?"
Lu Cai was also stunned: "What sentence?"
"NPC, main world, side story..." Lin Yong said, staring at her with more and more surprise.
Lu Cai understood that as an NPC, he would not understand what the players were saying about the game.
"I understand." Lu Cai nodded. "I know this is a game world. We are now in a side story. You are the players, and I am an NPC—"
Lin Yong was completely stunned. After a long while, he finally spoke: "You are such a bug..."
"The NPC couldn't understand your conversation about the game?" Lu Cai planned to take the opportunity to find out more about this game world.
Lin Yong finally calmed down his excitement: "NPC will automatically block players' comments about the game world. Those words will not exist for them."
Lu Cai pondered for a moment: "For you players, is our world a holographic game, or is it just an ordinary computer game?"
Lin Yong looked at her with a lonely and sad look in his eyes: "None of them—" he said slowly, "It is the real world."
Lu Cai didn't expect this: "The real world?"
Lin Yong smiled bitterly: "Look at me, what do I look like?"
Cai Lu took a look and said, "A college student, a tech geek."
Lin Yong still smiled. "It's been two years since I graduated. I've worked in sales and as a salesperson, but I couldn't stay in any job for long..." He seemed lost in the past. "I don't like working. I want to be a game streamer..."
"No one likes to work, they just muddle along..." Lu Cai comforted him. She recalled her last day in the supermarket. In the morning, she was scolded by an older woman for not giving her a plastic bag because she refused to pay two cents.
He laughed self-deprecatingly and said, "I secretly quit my job and started live streaming in my rented apartment. After a month of living a life of drunkenness and debauchery, my family found out."
Lu Cai looked at him and saw a hint of powerlessness in his lowered eyes.
"I was really desperate at that time. Everyone said that I was such a grown-up, but I was not doing my job properly and had no sense of importance..." Lin Yong's eyes were dim and no light could be seen. "Even my father said I was a waste..."
The wound on Lu Cai's arm throbbed, but she felt no other discomfort. She raised her hand and patted Lin Yong on the shoulder to comfort him.
Lin Yong shook his head: "At that time, I thought it would be better to die. There is no meaning in living... Then I locked myself in the rental house and didn't see anyone. I thought every day that it would be better to die--" He stopped.
Lu Cai waited for him to say what he would say next.
"Suddenly one day I woke up and found myself in the game world." He tapped his head, "There's even something here that calls itself a 'system'—"
Lu Cai stared at his head, wondering what exactly this "system" he was talking about was like. Would it be the same as that annoying world system?
She saw a string of green numbers, so faint they were almost invisible, appear on Lin Yong's smooth hair. Lu Jue looked closely, but the green numbers disappeared.
"When I woke up, I was in a community realm. The ruler of the entire world was a main system called 'KB Game', which was supervised by various administrators."
Cai Lu temporarily put aside his doubts about the green numbers and listened attentively to Lin Yong's story.
"The community area is an immeasurable building with 13 floors, each with different functions. We need to go to the first floor to register and activate our information, and then—" Lin Yong raised his left hand, "A string of green digital marks will appear on your left arm near your wrist. This marks your identity as a player and can also be used to identify other players."
Lu Cai stared at his arm with his shirt sleeves lifted for a while, but couldn't make out anything.
Lin Yong laughed out loud, his face gentle, with the warmth of spring sunshine: "You can't see it? This is a sign that only players can see..."
Lu Cai withdrew his gaze and said "Oh" indifferently.
"Only after registering and activating our identities do we have authority in the community. However, to survive, we have to constantly enter the dungeon world to complete tasks and obtain points, the community's unique currency." He ignored Lu Cai's sour face. "After entering the dungeon world, I realized how difficult it is to survive. In the dungeon, those NPCs don't even know what's happening and are attacked by all kinds of terrifying forces. Even in such an environment, they still struggle to survive..."
Lu Cai thought, players were pulled into the KB game world, it couldn't be that they were here to experience the preciousness of life, right?
Lin Yong continued, "I began to miss my old life and wanted to go back...but the price of going back..."
"Can't you return to your own world freely?" Lu Cai asked him.
Lin Yong sighed: "The only way to go back is to exchange points for insurance time. Once we have accumulated fifteen years of insurance time, we can go back."
Lu Cai smiled and said, "At least you still have a way to go back."
"You don't know..." He shook his head. "There are only two ways to earn points: open a shop in the community, or enter the dungeon world and complete system tasks. The business reserve points required to open a shop are too huge, not something a novice player can afford. We can only enter the dungeon to fight, but during the mission, injuries and deaths are real..."
Lu Cai raised his eyebrows: "You will die too?"
Lin Yong nodded: "We can use points to buy resurrection cards, but each person is limited to three, and resurrection cards can only be used outside of the side story."
Lu Cai looked at him, then at the small medicine bottle in her hand, feeling a mixture of emotions. She was about to change the subject to something more pleasant: "How much insurance time have you collected?"
Lin Yong's face turned even paler: "Fifteen minutes."
Lu Cai felt that he was not suitable for small talk.
Seeing that she was a little embarrassed, Lin Yong smiled and said, "In the entire community, the player with the longest insurance period is only one month and three days."
Lu Cai was shocked, thinking that this main system had no intention of letting the players out?
Lin Yong then said: "Everyone knows that this is just empty talk, but no one is willing to give up."
After a long time, he slowly said: "I really want to go home and eat a bowl of shepherd's purse and pork wontons that my mother made..."
Lu Cai couldn't say anything to comfort him, so he just said, "If I hadn't turned into a zombie, I would help you earn points, and you would help me find an identity."
Lin Yong raised his head to look at her, a hint of doubt on his lost face: "Looking for an identity?"
Lu Cai nodded helplessly: "My memory starts from the day I escaped from the supermarket. Before that, I don't remember anything."
Lin Yong hesitated, finally saying, "Have you ever considered that you don't have a 'past' at all? You're an NPC, and your life began that day."
"I've thought about it—" Lu Cai leaned his head back, leaned against the wall, and stared at the ceiling in a daze, "But what about before? Even if I was just a data code before, I will find out."
Lu Cai just felt dizzy and his body felt a little cold.
"What's wrong with you?" Lin Yong saw that she looked unhappy.
Lu Cai shook his head and shrank his neck.
Lin Yong looked at her scratched arm: "There's no pus, and no bruises. I was saying, how could you, an NPC in your world view, who has already entered the side story, die like this--"
Seeing his excitement, Lu Cai couldn't help but pour cold water on him: "Aren't you worried about the virus in me mutating?"
As she spoke, she thought of something and took out her phone: "When I was running around the consultation center, I found an office. This is the information in the computer. It's about viruses."
Lin Yong took it and quickly opened the photo album. The most recent photos were computer data.
He looked at every picture. Spotted hyena? Human virus testing...
"I have a mission, which is to find the source of the virus in the zoo." Lin Yong was a little excited. He had already met Lu Cai, but the first mission was not completed. This means that there are other players in this side story, most likely Cheng Mushen.
They couldn't search the entire zoo for Cheng Mushen, so Lu Cai's mobile phone information was just a cheat.
"What is your mission?" Lu Cai asked him. At least he had to figure out how to leave here.
Lin Yong explained: "I have two tasks. One is to find a partner to enter the dungeon with, and the other is to find the source of the virus."
Lu Cai also thought of Cheng Mushen, and felt a little uneasy.
The wound on her arm exploded with pain, as if it were being torn open again. She gritted her teeth and doubled over in pain.
Seeing her like this, Lin Yong quickly took the small medicine bottle from her hand, poured two pills into it and fed them to her.
After taking the pill, he finally felt better. Lu Cai's neck was covered with sweat.
Boom——
A muffled sound came from the iron gate on the observation deck. They both looked up at the iron gate.
"Are the military people coming?" Lin Yong asked her hesitantly.
Lu Cai asked him, "What time is it?"
Lin Yong looked at the phone in his hand: "It's almost time for the appointment——"
Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang
There was a rapid knock on the door, followed by a loud bang.
Cai Lu immediately picked up his pistol, as something happened outside.
Lin Yong also held a gun and looked at Lu Cai with a questioning look.
She gestured to remain still.
Then a burst of gunfire rang out. Through the door, the sound seemed real and unreal and could not be heard clearly.
Lu Cai frowned. The sound insulation of this door was too good.
After a long time, the gunshots gradually subsided. The two men waited for a while before getting up to open the door.
Lu Cai's arm was throbbing with pain, but he still held on to the gun. When it came to saving his life, this little pain was nothing.
Lin Yong gripped the handle, turned to look at Lu Cai, and nodded. Lu Cai leaned against the door frame, making preparations.
He pushed the door open, frozen in place. Lu Cai heard no roars or voices, but she could smell the strong stench of blood and decay. She slowly leaned forward, also horrified by the scene before her.
The vast semicircular observation deck had iron railings higher than the shoulders, and gusts of hot wind, mixed with the smell of blood and gunpowder smoke, blew towards him.
The bodies lying all over the ground had teeth marks and bullet holes on them.
The two men walked past the corpse in front of the door whose arms had been torn and the skin had been peeled off. There were far more than eighteen corpses on the ground.
"How did they get in?" Lin Yong couldn't believe it, his voice trembling.
If there were zombies on the platform, they would have reacted as soon as the tourists entered. They took so long to knock on the door for help, and there were so many of them, so they must have been zombies.
Lu Cai recalled the zombies in the Wisteria Corridor, who would step on their companions to climb to higher ground. She cast her gaze on the roof of the bungalow: "They came in from here."
An arm, already beginning to rot, hung from the edge of the roof.
"Can they climb walls?" Lin Yong's tone changed.
Lu Cai's breathing rose and fell a few times: "They will step on their companions to climb higher... I forgot..."
They had reached the finish line, and only ten minutes were left before they could be rescued.
Lu Cai knew that disasters always bring countless unexpected events. But she still couldn't help but wonder, if she remembered that zombies could climb to high places, could she make some preparations?
"They'll try to drive us to the observation deck." Lin Yong couldn't help but say as he saw her face getting paler and paler. "This was an accident. Without our escort, they would have died at the information station."
Lu Cai covered her arm and her eyes fell on a thin arm nearby. She looked away and took a deep breath.
"Let's go in--" Lin Yong was halfway through his words when a hoarse roar came from the roof behind him.
Goosebumps rose up their spines, and they turned quickly to see a white tiger standing on the roof. Its once glossy, smooth white fur was now sticky and viscous, black streaks and bloody stains blending into one, and the black "king" character on its head was dented by rotting flesh.
The white tiger roared and leaped down. The two men spread out to the sides. Lu Cai's left arm suddenly felt a sharp pain, as if a bug was drilling into his bones.
She watched the white tiger pounce on Lin Yong, quickly raised her gun, and aimed at the joint of its hind legs. With a gunshot, the white tiger limped.
Lin Yong took advantage of the gap to dodge and returned to the iron gate. As long as he turned back inside and closed the door, he would be safe. But he didn't move. He raised his gun and watched the white tiger turn to face Lu Cai, then aimed and fired another shot at its hind legs.
Unexpectedly, the white tiger started running wildly, and the bullets hit the floor tiles with a loud and sharp sound.
Lu Cai shot the white tiger in the front leg. It paused but continued to pounce.
Lu Cai leaned sideways against the railing behind her, dodging the tiger's charge. She felt the railing tremble, then creak. Without time to think, she simply wanted to get away from the fence, but the pain in her arm slowed her down, and she felt nothing behind her.
The white tiger beside her staggered two steps and pounced on her again.
Her body tilted, she felt her feet slip, and she fell backwards.
The azure sky was overhead, with a warm breeze blowing past. She felt her heart pounding, and then she felt as if she felt empty in an instant.
This was the top of a hill, with a high cliff below. With her mind racing, she relied on her survival instinct to grab hold of the loose and broken iron railing on one side.
The fracture cut across her left arm, blood trickling down her elbow. She saw the bullet holes in the railing and figured the military personnel who had come to pick up the tourists had been the ones who'd turned into zombies and were dispatched right there.
The railing was already in danger due to the fierce bullet shooting, and the violent impact of the white tiger just now caused the railing to break.
She climbed up by clinging to the iron railings. Just now, she took a quick glance and saw many bullet holes on the railings. Who knew how long the broken thing in her hand could last.
There was a burst of gunfire on the platform. Lu Cai looked up and saw that the white tiger had disappeared. It must have been led away by Lin Yong.
She pulled hard, and the iron bar in her right hand suddenly broke. Her body tilted, and her injured left arm bore the weight of her entire body. She looked down and saw the dense and tiny roofs under her feet. She immediately dropped the broken iron bar, and was careful not to lose her pistol.
He continued to climb up, and when he reached the edge of the platform, Lu Cai kicked his legs and grabbed the screws on the ground on one side that were used to fix the railing, using the force to climb up.
Then a roar came from the front. The white tiger had one of its hind legs broken and was staggering forward.
Lu Cai also raised his gun and aimed, firing fiercely at its other leg.
Lin Yong fired a burst of shots at the white tiger's head.
The tall figure collapsed with a loud bang, and Lu Cai staggered to his feet and walked forward.
"Lu Cai--" Lin Yong ran over in a hurry. He was frightened when he saw her fall down just now. Now that he saw that Lu Cai was fine, he realized that Lu Cai's ability was far better than his.
Perhaps, even Cheng Mushen might not be able to beat her.
Lu Cai looked at the white tiger lying on the ground. Its hide was loosely draped over its skeleton, and pus oozed from the many bite wounds. The king of the forest lay in such a state of disgrace after death. Fortunately, it finally rested in peace.
The two walked towards the house. Lu Cai took out a small medicine bottle, poured out two pills, and swallowed them. The burning sensation in the wound on his arm gradually faded, and a cool feeling rolled over the wound, which had a pain-relieving effect.
As they were walking, they heard the sound of light footsteps landing on the ground. The two men raised their guns almost at the same time and turned towards the source of the sound.
Then I saw a black figure slowly standing up. The man was wearing a black jacket and had wheat-colored skin.
Lin Yong heard the system sound "ding dong" -
[Side story: Crazy Zoo.]
[Mission objective 1 "Find the lost companions" has been achieved.]
Lu Cai also noticed a tiny wisp of light green data floating in the air. She stared at the data, then shifted her gaze to Lin Yong, and saw a few hazy green threads in front of him.
She looked at it carefully, her eyes dark. Is this the player system?
"Why are you here?" Cheng Mushen looked at Lu Cai with a puzzled look on his face.
When Lin Yong saw that the person coming was Cheng Mushen, he put down his gun and said, "Brother Shen, she followed us in." He didn't say anything else.
Lu Cai put away his gun and smiled at Cheng Mushen with a cold look. She turned and went back into the house. If another animal zombie jumped down from the roof, she would not be able to withstand it.
After entering the room, she sat down against the wall, guessing that Lin Yong and Cheng Mushen would discuss and exchange the information they had collected.
After a while, he heard footsteps coming in, and Cheng Mushen said, "She was scratched?"
Lin Yong quickly explained: "She was scratched before, and it's been more than 20 minutes now. There are no bruises on her body, and her pupils are normal-"
As if he was worried that Cheng Mushen would throw her out.
Cheng Mushen's gaze on Lu Cai became increasingly difficult to discern.
Lu Cai Gu closed his eyes and began to recall the string of green numbers he had just seen.
In the darkness, the green numbers were blurry, as if emitting a hazy fluorescence. She focused all her attention on the numbers. Slowly, the numbers began to jump, and the thin fluorescence faded away bit by bit.
Lu Cai frowned and continued to analyze the numbers. The numbers kept changing, creating countless combinations.
There must be rules, sweat broke out on her forehead.
Staring at these numbers, the darkness in front of her eyes turned into a green glow.
All the changes in the numbers here must have a source. Lu Cai was unwilling to give up, and watched the numbers in front of him jump continuously.
Suddenly, she saw a string of numbers that jumped slower than the others. Her eyes fell on that string of numbers, and the green color slowly turned to yellow, then to orange, and finally settled into bright red.
The red numbers rapidly pulsed and shifted, spreading outward from the center. Red permeated this digital realm, and the data intertwined to form a vast operating system.
They move quickly, like a big red train speeding past the camera.
The data was shrinking, or perhaps she was retreating. Lu Cai felt dizzy, and when everything stopped, the dizziness slowly subsided, and a deep red interface appeared before his eyes.
Cai Lu looked at the interface, a little confused. What is this?
The interface only had eight slots, like the memory card slots in an online game. Other than that, there was nothing else.
She thought of the weapons that Lin Yong and Cheng Mushen picked up and put down at will, and she had an idea. The first card slot "clicked" and a pistol pattern appeared.
Lu Cai couldn't believe it. She was...copying a system backpack?
She looked around the red interface in front of her, making sure there was nothing else, then she slowly woke up.
I opened my eyes and was greeted by the white light. The room was empty.
Lu Cai glanced at her right hand. The pistol was truly gone. She thought for a moment and pulled out the contents of her pocket—a small notebook, a Bumblebee phone, and a small medicine bottle.
All of a sudden, five of the eight card slots were filled, and the small notebook and small pen each took up one card slot.
Finally, I don’t have to carry a bunch of small things around in my pocket.
She checked the wound on her left arm again. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was still a little scary. Her arm was almost numb with pain.
While looking at the wound, Lu Cai's gaze passed over his arm and fell on a sprayer beside him, under which was a mobile phone.
It was the cell phone looted from an unknown zombie.
Lu Cai reached for the spray, which had no label. He turned on his phone again, and found it was only at 44% battery. Unlocking the screen revealed the memo screen, where Lin Yong had left a message.
— We can't wake you up, so let's go find the source of the virus first. The spray is for external injuries. We'll be back within 24 hours. (Lin Yong, left at 1:05 PM)
Lu Cai checked the time: 9:34 PM. She placed her phone in the interface slot, picked up the spray, studied it briefly, and then tentatively sprayed it on the wound.
A piercing pain shot straight to my forehead.
"Oh my god!" Lu Cai cursed and gritted his teeth to endure it.
What kind of trauma spray is this? Shouldn't players be able to heal their wounds painlessly?
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