Chapter 26 Introduction: A Game of Acquaintances
You slowly wake up from your slumber, your head still a little fuzzy, but this time your body is clearly more adapted to the state than the first time.
Practice makes perfect, and it turns out that this can also be applied here.
You squint, the faint roar of an engine in your ears. Almost instantly, a strong jolt shakes you from side to side.
It felt like something was pinning you to your seat, pulling at you painfully.
The throbbing pain in your chest forced you to open your eyes wide. Several cars passed by outside the window, and the drivers deliberately rolled down their windows and yelled at you before quickly overtaking you and speeding away.
Looking down in bewilderment, I see you're clearly holding the steering wheel; you're actually sitting in the driver's seat!
Ahead was a wide road, and the scenery along the road flashed by. In the distance, road signs were marked with the names of some cities in an unknown language.
Wait, but you can't drive at all.
Should I brake? No way! You've seen pigs run even if you haven't eaten pork. This is a highway. Even if there aren't many cars around, you can't just stop randomly. Besides, should I use my left or right foot to brake? Wait, now's not the time to think about that!
The steering wheel is lighter than you might expect; it turns too far with the slightest force, making the vehicle even more unstable than when you're asleep.
The road ahead is straight. Can you just ignore the steering wheel now? Call the police first and say the car has broken down.
Even if you ate potatoes for another month, you would never have imagined this would be the start. Looking at the dashboard and other things in front of you, you are in a state of confusion. After trying to sort out your thoughts for a long time, all you can think of is regret for not listening to advice and getting a driver's license after the college entrance examination.
"Watch out! Watch where you're going!"
A short shout came from your right.
Startled, you looked up and realized that there were four other people in the car besides you.
There are 5 people in total, and currently only you and the girl in the passenger seat are awake.
She had a mullet hairstyle, dyed green, but her face was very resolute. She wore a black jacket, and her tanned skin, along with several piercings, made her look wild.
"What are you looking at?" She frowned, puzzled. "Are you tired of living and not paying attention to driving?"
It's not that you're being indecent by staring at people; it's that your brain is genuinely short-circuiting, only able to focus on and process one thing at a time.
Moreover, for you, who actually only left the Deguo instance a dozen minutes ago, the silence you experienced over the past 30 days has also affected your current understanding of flower language.
In layman's terms, you're overwhelmed. The only thing you realize is that you can finally speak your mother tongue freely again.
Seeing your hopeless state, the short-haired woman clicked her tongue and leaned towards you.
The action was so sudden that your shoulders jerked in shock, but she simply snatched the steering wheel from your hands and said, "Let go."
You obediently let go. You'd love for someone to take over this hot potato from you.
She yanked the steering wheel sharply to the right, and the car screeched as it crawled at a snail's pace toward the emergency lane on the right.
“Step on the gas!” she yelled.
"Where's the accelerator?!" you shouted in a panic. As soon as you realized you were driving, you hurriedly moved your foot off the pedal—it was just an instinctive reaction, and you never dared to put it back afterward.
"Right side, step on the gas!" Because of her posture, she was practically yelling at you with her face close to hers.
"Keep your voice down, the more you do that, the more anxious I get." Fortunately, you gradually regained your sense of speaking and listening to the language of flowers, which calmed you down a bit.
As she instructed, you pressed down hard on the right pedal, and the entire car shot off like an arrow.
"Step on it gently! Step on it gently!" The girl was almost furious, glaring at you as she steered the car.
So, how do you decide between light and heavy? "I can't drive!" you say helplessly, waving your hand.
"Nobody asked you if you knew how!" The girl gritted her teeth, let out a long sigh of resentment, and stretched out one foot as well.
Even with your best efforts, the car still bounced around and nearly went out of control, crashing into the guardrail on the right.
The girl simply climbed into the driver's seat, while you, with your keen eye, scrambled into the passenger seat. Only then did she give you your first, non-derogatory glance.
Now that she has taken over driving, there's no need for her to use the emergency lane to buffer the situation.
The girl steadily controlled the steering wheel with one hand, while the other hand quickly manipulated the various buttons inside the car, adjusting it to a reasonable state for driving at high speed.
The car finally came to a stop. Although I don't know if you will be investigated by the traffic police later, at least you are safe now.
The girl finally breathed a sigh of relief, and her attitude was no longer as impatient as before: "Where is this?" she asked, turning to you with her eyes full of scrutiny and curiosity.
Seeing how naturally she handles unexpected events after waking up, you'd think she'd at least experienced one instance of the game, but it turns out she's a complete newbie.
No, it's also possible that the identity is fraudulent.
Unlike in other countries, the difference between locals and outsiders here isn't just a matter of looking at the numbers above their heads. In reality, aside from those numbers, as long as outsiders don't break the rules, locals are mostly no different from outsiders who originally came from the West.
In short, after what happened with Sister Y, you think it's best to be more cautious.
“If you want to know what’s going on here, I can tell you, but you have to show me your phone first,” you said.
Faced with such an unreasonable demand in reality, the girl was a little annoyed, but turning to look out the window at the road signs and scenery that were clearly not in a flower country, she still took her phone out of her jacket and threw it at you with a sour face.
You open her phone; the interface is almost identical to when you first arrived in the dungeon—practically blank. You easily find the rental agreement and school admission notice in the documents, confirming her identity. You apologize for your earlier wariness and ask her to wait while you explain.
You fall into deep thought.
Because she is a Yingguo Liuzi, and you are all Yingguo Liuzi too. This is the Yingguo instance, but the road sign that flashed by was definitely not in Ying language.
No way, this is only the second instance, and you're already going to encounter the situation Sister Li mentioned about having to leave the home country where you studied?
"Hey, are you alright?" The girl, who had been keeping a straight face, couldn't help but ask with concern when she saw you looking dazed.
"Ah, it's nothing." You smiled and gave a brief explanation of the situation in these dungeon worlds. You didn't know if she understood, but she nodded with a frown.
"We're in Yingguoruko right now, but we don't know where we are, maybe we're traveling... As for the rest—you saw it, I, someone who can't drive, woke up in the driver's seat, it's really messing with my mentality," you said, pointing to your phone which was navigating. "When we stop at the next rest stop, we can check the information properly and see what they're trying to do by putting us all together and dumping us somewhere else."
He answered some of the girls' questions, and a chorus of yawns came from behind him.
While you and the mullet-haired girl were trying to prevent everyone from crashing and dying, the three of them were fast asleep with their heads down. Now, the three of them are slowly waking up.
"Stop talking, it's giving me a headache. It's so annoying. Why are we in a car? I get carsick." A familiar voice muttered from the back seat.
You feel familiar with her because you were together just a few days ago, so you shouldn't mistake her for someone else; but you're not sure because you've never heard her talk about flower language before.
You looked back with a mix of surprise and trepidation, and it really was Xiao Fang! Her sleeping posture was the most outrageous; you hadn't recognized her at all just now.
"Xiao Fang, what a coincidence!" you greet her happily.
When this guy spoke the language of flowers, his voice was surprisingly soft and gentle, lacking any of the sharpness he usually displayed when speaking.
It's frustrating to wake up to a car, but the joy of seeing familiar faces makes up for it.
Unexpectedly, she looked at you with a puzzled expression, as if she had been trying to recognize you for a long time, before her eyes lit up with excitement: "It's you, kid! You're so fair-skinned now, I didn't recognize you at first. Sorry, hehe."
Well.
You turn around and look at yourself in the rearview mirror, and you find that the unhealthy tan you got from the sunburn while playing games has faded, and you've regained the pale skin that a typical office worker should have.
"You two know each other?" the girl with the mullet asked curiously.
"Not only do those two know each other, I know them too." The person who had been sleeping with her backpack in her arms had listened to enough of the conversation and looked up. She smiled gently; it was Xiaoming.
"Wow, this is a gathering of acquaintances." Xiao Fang, who was sitting next to her, immediately gave her a firm bear hug.
You were overjoyed.
In both Sister Li's and Sister Y's experiences and stories, they never encountered anyone they knew from the previous dungeons. It was as if, after parting ways, even the best of friends became nothing but fleeting memories, each going their own way.
But then you two meet again. Thinking about it, the gloom in your heart is swept away. You think that if there are gods in the dungeon world, they probably chose you as the driver to balance out the incredible good luck of the three of you.
It's alright, acceptable.
"But where are we going?" Xiao Fang asked.
"I don't know yet, my phone is on navigation. By the way, could you check your phone? We experienced users probably have a lot more messages on our phones," you replied.
Xiao Ming took out his phone, smiling somewhat helplessly as he handed it to you: "I just checked. We have a travel group chat, but you're the one who planned it, and the group announcement said you're going to give us a surprise, so the itinerary will be kept secret."
You facepalm and smile wryly, never expecting the original identity of this country's alternate version to be such a mischievous person: "It's okay, knowing now or knowing later makes no difference."
The topic of where we came from and where we're going is temporarily put aside. You point to the mullet-headed boy and recount what happened earlier to Xiaoming and Xiaofang, then ask the mullet-headed boy, "Hey, I still don't know what to call you?"
"Oh, just call me Xiao La. You two are Xiao Fang and Xiao Ming, right?" Xiao La winked at Xiao Fang and Xiao Ming in the rearview mirror as a greeting, and then asked you, "And you?"
“I’m probably older than all of you in real life, so you can call me sister, older sister, sister, big sister, or lady,” you said with a smile.
“Okay, sis,” Xiao La readily agreed.
Xiao La and Xiao Fang are both quite impatient and quick to warm up. After introducing themselves, the four of you instantly formed a small group and chatted enthusiastically.
"Cough cough."
The pleasant atmosphere was interrupted by the male voice that had been trying to take seats from Xiaoming and Xiaofang ever since he woke up, with his legs wide open. He didn't greet you and remained silent, just staring at you with a strange, scrutinizing look.
Nobody paid him any attention. You could all sense the unspeakable hostility emanating from this boy, so you couldn't be bothered to give him a friendly look.
He waited for several seconds, then, as if he couldn't take it anymore, suddenly raised his voice: "I'll talk, let me say a few words."
Without waiting for your response, he continued, "Things are easy. We're traveling together, which will be much more complicated than just survival. Not only will we have to follow the basic rules of Ying Kingdom, but we'll also be constantly joining different scenarios. The road ahead is difficult, so we need to work together even more."
After saying all this, he seemed to be waiting for your response, but all he got was silence.
"I know that those who take on major responsibilities will inevitably attract hate, but I hope you won't be prejudiced against me. I know you girls like to stick together, but it's best not to oppose me just because of my gender. Because I actually studied for my master's degree in Japan, Japan is my eternal homeland, so you should know how valuable a guide I can be. Of course, maybe you don't understand, after all, girls won't know the true feeling of studying abroad in Japan... uh..."
He stopped abruptly, taken aback, before he could finish his laughable remarks.
You guys are pretty shocked too.
Xiaoming pulled out a safety hammer from somewhere and smashed it on his temple without saying a word.
One blow, two blows—it's clear Xiaoming is very experienced; he smashed the man to death without spilling a drop of blood.
"Now the world is at peace." Xiao Ming laughed as he put the safety hammer back and stuffed the body under the seat.
He was so short and thin that he was just the right size to stand on without taking up too much space.
"Okay, the back seat is much more spacious now." Xiaoming moved over to his side and gestured for Xiaofang to sit down as well.
"Wow, your old friend is fierce," Little La said to you in a very soft voice, her lips barely moving.
“Uh, I just found out today too,” you replied in the same voice.
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Author's note: Good afternoon!
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