Chapter 1: My vision went black again and again as I traversed this damned mutated cockroach...
The 166th day of the Gregorian calendar year 301, the City of Chasing the Sun.
The sun rises in the west as usual.
"Waaaaah, Miss, Miss, please don't die..."
Her consciousness dazed amidst the tearing pain, as a vast amount of unfamiliar memories flooded her brain, causing a dull ache in her nerves. A sharp cry, however, relentlessly pierced her brain, leaving her no peace for even a moment.
Du Yu opened his eyes, unable to bear it any longer.
"Miss?!"
"Shhh."
The noise-maker, bound like a pretzel, was crying as she crawled towards her cocoon, her short red hair a mess on the ground. The moment their eyes met, she widened her gaze, pouted, and prepared to launch another noise attack.
Du Yu's eyebrows twitched, and he made a shushing gesture at her. The sound went out, but his hand didn't move. Only then did he realize that he was also tied up tightly like Hong Mao.
Who would launch a sneak attack while I'm asleep? No, there are hardly any survivors left, why are we fighting amongst ourselves?
And she was so hungry. She felt like she hadn't eaten for three days. She hadn't been this hungry in a long time since she awakened her powers... It wasn't her old acquaintances who did it. Those bastards would rather kill her than let her go hungry.
What exactly is going on?
Suppressing the restlessness caused by hunger, Du Yu licked his back teeth, sorting through the flood of memories that suddenly surged into his mind. An unbelievable yet reasonable fact lay before him:
She is dead, but not completely dead.
She actually transmigrated into the novel "The Real and Fake Heiress: The President's Imprisoned Love 99 Times" and became Du Yu, a cannon fodder female supporting character who actually died after courting death.
It's certainly a joyous occasion to have your life spared, but you have to survive and avoid falling objects in order to eat the pancakes that fall from the sky.
Based on the original owner's memories and the novel's plot, the melodramatic love story between the male and female protagonists is currently stuck in the "on-again, off-again, off-again, off-again, off-again" stage. The original owner has already successfully courted death and is waiting to receive his "lunchbox" (a euphemism for being killed off).
She framed the female protagonist and was caught in public. The male protagonist ordered her to be banished to the Misty Junkyard outside the Lower City. In the world of the book, this is a punishment more terrible than the death penalty—leaving the protection of civilization, entering the mist, facing the terrible mutated creatures and corrupt monsters inside, and finally dying miserably in the mouth of the mutated creatures.
Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to play the male lead; he'd be so frustrated.
Bian Shaoyan understood the importance of finishing off the villain. With the original owner's powers crippled and his actions hampered, he even sent two B-level ability users to monitor him and record the original owner's death video before he could leave.
However, the flesh of a high-level superhuman is much more attractive than the original body. The male protagonist's subordinate was attacked by a powerful mutated creature in the junkyard. After hastily fighting back, he casually abandoned the two of them there.
Tsk, it's been a long time since I've been looked down upon like this.
Du Yu suppressed the memories he hadn't had time to examine closely, looked around, and saw countless piles of trash and old things stretching to the horizon.
The gray mist melted away quickly in the sunlight like ice and snow, and the pale sunlight bounced off the smooth surface, making it hard to open one's eyes.
The place was desolate and dilapidated, but Du Yu knew that it was not as lifeless as it appeared.
Squinting to confirm the sun's position in the sky, Du Yu's brow twitched violently. He had an urge to grab the novel's author by the collar and yell at him—this melodramatic novel not only had a ridiculously poorly designed romance plot, with the male and female leads barely able to form a single sentence, but even the world-building was enormous.
Perhaps ordinary urban romance couldn't satisfy the author's desire to create melodramatic scenes, so the author "Guanshuren" not only added a useless cyberpunk background to the novel, but also "ingeniously" introduced Crypto-style elements.
In this world, apart from the cities where the flame of civilization still flickers, the rest of the place is shrouded in an eerie gray fog. The gray fog is full of distortions and mutations, and ordinary people may go insane just by seeing the gray fog.
After the sun rises, the gray fog that shrouded the world dissipates, and the eeriness temporarily recedes, but this does not mean that it is safe.
Spatial rifts leading to the Mist World can open anywhere. In the Mist World, in addition to mutated creatures, there are even more terrifying aberrations and even corrupted creatures.
Du Yu's eyelids twitched as he watched the black line expanding a hundred meters away. Although he didn't know if it was the legendary "Mist Rift," judging from the aura it emitted, the black line was definitely not a good thing!
With a high-level superhuman sent by the male protagonist in front and a mysterious black line constantly expanding behind, were the original owner's actions really so outrageous?
The familiar yet unfamiliar luminous object in the sky moved swiftly, its light stinging like needles against her skin. A strange unease welled up within Du Yu, a warning gleaming from her decades of combat experience navigating the wasteland.
After Du Yu shushed him, Red Hair didn't say a word. He just tried to inch behind Du Yu and painstakingly cut the rope on her wrist. However, the rope contained a special material, and Red Hair had to use his teeth to make a very small cut.
There wasn't much time left. Du Yu turned to the red-haired man behind him, who was biting the rope, and tried to find her name: "Tian Yinuo, my rope has special biological materials mixed in, so it's too slow to bite through. Find me some sharp metal fragments!"
Tian Yinuo was the original owner's follower. She had been brainwashed since childhood to obey the original owner's every word. After the incident, she was also banished.
Perhaps because she wasn't the main culprit, the ropes binding her weren't the special kind that tighten the more she struggled, allowing her to move freely.
"Found you! Miss, wait for me to rescue you..."
"Give it to me, I'll cut yours first."
With great effort, Du Yu turned around, using his hands, which were tied behind his back, to catch the metal fragments that Tian Yinuo had found, and reached out to cut the ropes binding the latter.
"Miss! How can I ask you to help me..."
"Listen to me, your rope is easy to cut. I'll cut it for you first, then you can come and help me. That way it'll be more efficient."
Not knowing how Tian Yinuo usually interacted with the original owner of this body, Du Yu explained in detail, but Tian Yinuo still hesitated and didn't dare to step forward. When she used a commanding tone, Tian Yinuo trembled, pursed her lips, and leaned closer.
The metal fragments that Tian Yinuo found were quite sharp. Du Yu tentatively touched the edge of the fragments with his fingertips, puffed out his cheeks, and took a deep breath.
The original owner's physical condition was very similar to mine, except that she had not undergone long-term training and had been hungry all day, so her muscles were sore and she couldn't exert any strength.
Du Yu closed her eyes and sensed the mental space. Before long, her consciousness sank into a corner of nothingness. Her mental power was still there, but her superpower had disappeared. Where the core of her superpower had been in the mental space, a void had appeared, slowly devouring her mental power.
The issue of the mental space can be addressed later. Du Yu suddenly opened his eyes, and his mental energy surged forth in an instant.
Du Yu tensed his arm muscles, quickly raised his hand, and the edges of the fragments seemed to be covered with a light purple halo. He directly cut the rope binding Tian Yinuo's wrist in one breath.
"Miss, you, you're amazing! When did you learn to project your mental energy outwards...?"
Mental power is a unique ability possessed by all intelligent beings, and it can be used to activate supernatural abilities. The higher the mental power, the greater the damage from supernatural abilities. Simply releasing mental power without using supernatural abilities, like Du Yu, is also a form of utilizing mental power.
Although this method is very inefficient, Du Yu had no other choice. With her superpowers gone, she could only resort to the most primitive solution.
Once her hands were untied, things became much easier. Tian Yinuo helped Du Yu cut the ropes binding her, then took the metal plate from Du Yu's hand. After only a few cuts, she almost slipped and cut Du Yu's wrist.
"Cutting a rope also requires skill."
Du Yu couldn't see behind her, but she could tell that Tian Yinuo's cutting wasn't going smoothly. Unfortunately, after a few explanations, Tian Yinuo didn't quite understand, so she had to choose the most rudimentary method:
"You can project your mental energy, right? Concentrate your mental energy into a single point..."
"Ah, I... I haven't learned it yet..."
A mocking laugh came from behind her, and Du Yu finally understood why she was so surprised when the rope was cut. It turned out that there were people who couldn't learn the basic skill of releasing mental energy from the outside.
As fragments of memory surfaced, Du Yu was speechless to discover that the reason the original owner chose the mediocre Tian Yinuo as her follower was because, like the original owner, she couldn't learn the basic skill of projecting her mental energy!
A useless master and a useless subordinate—truly, where there is a hidden dragon, there will be a phoenix chick.
Du Yu's vision went black, unsure whether from hunger or anger. Speechless for a long while, she resignedly withdrew her spiritual energy, attaching it to the edge of the metal piece to assist Tian Yinuo. The fragment wasn't in contact with her, which would cause greater energy loss, but if she didn't do this, when would she ever escape?
Tian Yinuo didn't dare to say anything, gritted her teeth and cut hard, even chipping the metal sheet, and finally cut the rope on Du Yu's hand.
Du Yu stretched her wrists and let out a long breath, recovering her overexerted mental energy. After a moment, she picked up a piece of scrap metal. She was responsible for cutting the body, while Tian Yinuo was responsible for cutting the ropes on the feet.
When the original owner was being escorted, she was anything but well-behaved. With her hands behind her back, she couldn't exert much force, and the ropes on her feet and legs had dug into her flesh due to her struggles, making them extremely difficult to cut.
Du Yu gritted her teeth and struggled for a long time before she could only make a small cut. She threw away the metal piece with the cut and looked up to find a new one when her pupils suddenly contracted. Before she could speak, she bent down and kicked Tian Yinuo backward with both feet. The blade went out of control and cut a wound more than ten centimeters long on her leg.
"Crunch—squeak!"
The metal creaked and groaned under the pressure of the mandibles, making Du Yu instinctively roll over and lift a metal plate. Her arm muscles ached from the recoil, but she dared not relax for a moment. Only then did she see the attacking monster clearly, and her pupils dilated in shock—
How could there be a cockroach almost as tall as a person!
What did they eat to grow up like that?!
Without even considering the mutated cockroach's diet, Du Yu struggled to block the cockroach's mouthparts, veins bulging on the back of his hands. He had just ordered the terrified Tian Yinuo to find a hiding place when he suddenly caught a glimpse of a black, rod-shaped object out of the corner of his eye—
This damn mutated cockroach can even raise its leg high?!
Du Yu broke out in a cold sweat. Seeing the thick, bristly cockroach leg sweeping over, he didn't care about saving his energy. He quickly concentrated his mental power in his hands, and the pale purple light seemed to materialize in an instant. With a "bang," he flung the mutated cockroach away and smashed it into a garbage heap not far away.
"Miss, come quick!"
Du Yu rolled twice as if exhausted. This attack almost consumed half of her mental energy. The black hole in her mental space was stimulated, and the suction suddenly increased, causing the mental space to shake a bit!
She was half-dragged, half-pulled by Tian Yinuo to an abandoned hovercar. Her vision blurred, and her brain throbbed with excruciating pain. After catching her breath for a few seconds, she recovered from the backlash of her mental energy. She frowned as she looked at the motionless pile of garbage, when out of the corner of her eye, she suddenly caught a glimpse of a small black dot in the air rapidly enlarging.
"Buzz buzz buzz!"
Damn it, this mutant cockroach can fly!
Without bothering to explain, Du Yu grabbed Tian Yinuo and climbed into the car through the window, picking up a two-meter-long discarded metal rod with one hand.
"boom--"
The mutated cockroach slammed heavily onto the abandoned hovercar with a deafening roar, visibly denting the roof. Just as Du Yu's relief flickered, a loud crash echoed as the window shattered, and a massive, grotesque head squeezed in!
The mutated cockroach tried to squeeze in! Seeing the metal at the car window begin to deform, Du Yu's scalp tightened, and he grabbed the metal rod and poked it into one of the mutated cockroach's eyes.
A cold glint flashed in the mutated cockroach's compound eyes, and it retreated. Its mandibles snapped shut, gripping the metal tube and pulling back with force. This cockroach had developed intelligence; it was trying to trick itself out!
Du Yu's pupils contracted sharply, but her bound feet severely affected her balance, causing her to lean forward unsteadily, her body about to fall out of the car window!
Du Yu gritted his teeth, used his upper arm to forcefully bend the metal pipe, wedging it against the car window to stop his momentum. Suddenly, the mutated cockroach's head swooped in, its mouthparts about to bite Du Yu's head—
Just then, everything went black before Du Yu's eyes, and he could see nothing. A screen of light that almost filled his entire field of vision unfolded in mid-air!
[Ta-da! Your game AI assistant 166 makes its dazzling debut! Game loading, congratulations on logging in! Let's use the power of synthesis to build a more beautiful world together! (Heart emoji)]
Du Yu's forehead veins bulged, and the legendary cheat code that every transmigrator in a book possessed appeared.
But why now of all times?!
A note from the author:
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Hehe, picking an auspicious day to start a post! Long time no see! Here's a giant, flying, mutated cockroach (?) as tall as a person.
————
My next book, barring any unforeseen circumstances, will be "On the Possibility of a Top Seller Saving the Card Game World." If you're interested, please add it to your favorites to help me start writing.
Copywriting:
A missing mother, a sick sister, and a woman in debt.
Because of poverty, Su Wanli chose the most lucrative profession of card maker and raced down the road to becoming the top salesman.
She failed to awaken her destined card for the third time, and was just about to find a pedestrian bridge to sell the card when she suddenly drew a strange card number 199.
199 claimed that the world was a novel about a protagonist's triumphant comeback, and that all the supporting characters were merely foils for the main character, repeating this over and over in her ear:
We're all human, so why shouldn't you be the protagonist? Do as I say, steal the protagonist's luck, and you too can become the protagonist of a wish-fulfillment novel.
The protagonist of a wish-fulfillment novel? Then he shouldn't be short of money, right?
Under its persuasion, the host was indeed moved.
Just as 199 was feeling smug, he saw Su Wanli pause for three seconds to think, and then head straight for the protagonist?
Hey! Isn't it too early to harm the protagonist? We should be plotting something behind the scenes first!
Su Wanli cheerfully ignored the strange cards' shouts and brazenly stood in front of the transfer student, enthusiastically promoting them:
"Hey kid, wanna buy a Star Card? Handmade, high-end custom-made!"
Why would the main character even notice your ordinary, low-level card!
199 was filled with impotent rage, but then the protagonist pondered for a moment and actually bought them all?!
Selling low-level cards to drain the protagonist's wallet—was this also part of your plan, host?
The protagonist improves his strength, while Su Wanli is making cards.
The protagonist is winning people's hearts, and Su Wanli is haggling with a card material dealer.
The protagonist is venturing into a dungeon, and Su Wanli is trying to sell cards to the dungeon NPCs.
The host completely disregarded the novel's plot, focusing solely on creating and selling cards as he pleased.
It only took 199 three days to go from being full of ambition to being utterly despondent.
But can anyone tell it why the protagonist came up to it when the host did nothing?
Purchasing large quantities of useless, low-level cards wastes funds, and may even result in the direct surrender of one's wallet.
Join the protagonist's team, share the protagonist's opportunities, and inexplicably replace the protagonist as the team leader.
Even during the protagonist's most glorious moments, Su Wanli stole the show.
199 hesitantly discovered that the host hadn't done anything, yet the task of plundering fortune had been completed on its own?
But why was the protagonist happier without the opportunities presented in the original story?
Why is the world's consciousness stronger after the Chosen One was weakened?
——
The gifts of fate come at a high price; after numerous accidents, Li Weiming became disheartened and exiled himself.
Until a girl suddenly stood in front of him and started selling.
Tired of the adventures, Li Weiming initially wanted to refuse, but suddenly hesitated: These cards... seem to really just be the lowest-level general-purpose star cards?
—
Before knowing the world was a novel, Su Wanli made, sold, and produced cards.
After learning that the world was a novel, Su Wanli made cards, sold cards... and when he sold them all, he continued making cards.
Apart from having a strange card that keeps making random noises, Su Wanli's peaceful card-selling career remained unchanged.
One day, Li Weiming suddenly handed her his destiny card. She casually put it in her pocket, and then the strange card emitted a deafening scream. Su Wanli finally realized something was wrong.
Did a strange voice claiming to be the World Consciousness just say that she has escaped the fate of falling into the abyss, thus elevating the world and making her the writer of the Book of the World?
Never mind... that's not important. Hey friend, wanna buy a card?
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