Trains, tunnels, vanished roads… A shadow fell over Xi Xi’s brows. What kind of bizarre story was this…?
[Congratulations, adventurer, you have obtained 1 dungeon fragment. Would you like to accept the dungeon 'The Strange' quest?]
As she was carefully reading the fragments of the pilot's diary named Sam, a system notification sounded in her ear. She raised an eyebrow. Sure enough, there were no useless maps in the game. This abandoned railway was actually a dungeon?!
[Instance Notice: Adventurers will receive special rewards upon completion of the quest, while failure will result in corresponding penalties. Adventurers are advised to assess the risks themselves and make their own decisions.]
What?! There's a penalty for failure?!
Xi Xi gasped, the words she was about to say stuck in her throat. After a brief moment of internal deliberation, she made up her mind and resolutely replied, "Yes!"
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Since there's a punishment, the reward must be very generous, so she accepted the challenge!
[Ding! Dungeon progress notification: Please collect all remaining fragments of the handwritten diary]
It was just collecting fragments, Xi Xi breathed a slight sigh of relief. She lowered her head and stared at the fragments of the diary in her hand, still having doubts about their contents.
Just then, Xi's mother's scream suddenly came from afar. Xi Xi's heart tightened, and she quickly ran back the way she came.
Perhaps it was her past life experiences that honed her skills; while she wasn't particularly meticulous in gathering supplies, she was always quick, and before she knew it, she had left her mother far behind.
Chu Zhiqin was standing outside the restroom at the junction of the train carriages, panting heavily as she carried a Thunder Wolf Fang Mace.
"What happened?" Seeing that her mother was safe and sound, Xi Xi finally felt relieved. She looked around sharply and asked in a low voice.
Xi's mother was still in a state of extreme shock. She took two steps back, gasped for breath for a moment, and then waved to Xi Xi, "It's alright..."
Even so, Xi Xi walked over steadily and looked into the inside of the bathroom.
Xi Xi's pupils contracted sharply. Only then did she realize that the full-length mirror that Aura had "scared herself" with was actually hollow inside.
Rather than a mirror, it's more like a very shallow mirror cabinet, with the train's water storage pipes hidden inside. Presumably, the original design purpose of this mirror was to conceal imperfections.
It turned out that Chu Zhiqin thought the full-length mirror looked really good. Although it was a bit old, she figured it could still be used after a wipe.
Their RV happened to be missing a mirror, so Chu Zhiqin decided to break off a piece and take it with her.
Unexpectedly, she reached out and pulled open the mirror cabinet, revealing the train's water storage pipes in full view.
What horrified her even more was that a skeleton lay in the center of the pipe...
Unlike her mother, Xi Xi was not alarmed. She slowly squatted down and calmly examined the remains of the deceased.
The skull of the skeleton appears to have been violently struck with a sharp weapon, and the blow was extremely heavy. The skull is completely shattered, suggesting that the person was murdered and hidden here.
Was there a murder on this train? Xi Xi was startled. No way… It's just a survival game, is she really going to have to solve a case?
Did we get the script wrong...?
She was about to turn around and say something to her mother when she saw Chu Zhiqin's slightly uneasy figure.
Chu Zhiqin gave her an embarrassed smile, waved her hand slightly, and stammered, "Um... you don't need to look at my head... actually, I just knocked it..."
Chu Zhiqin blushed. She had been genuinely terrified by the eerie white bones. Without thinking twice, she raised her Thunder Fang Mace and smashed it against the bones, shattering the skull...
Xi Xi: "..."
She said that the way the body died was too gruesome, apparently because you, sir, beat it to pieces. Xi Xi was speechless and rubbed her forehead.
"Oh right, and this too!" Before Xi Xi could fully recover from her shock, Chu Zhiqin seemed to suddenly remember something important and hurriedly reached into her pocket, pulling out a yellowed piece of paper.
Xi Xi took the paper and looked closely. It turned out to be a fragment of another paper diary!
Sam's Diary Day 5
"This is our second day in the tunnel, and the road conditions remain unchanged."
"The dream was shattered, and the supplies in the train were about to run out. The train crew members who knew the truth were filled with anxiety."
“Every minute a passenger comes to ask about the train’s maintenance status, but we can’t tell them the truth.”
"In the end, one of the flight attendants let it slip, which sparked a riot."
"Without rails, trains cannot enter road tunnels, but people can. Many passengers jumped off the train and planned to walk to the exit."
"During the riots, people split into two factions: those who stayed and those who left."
"The carriage was in chaos, and the remaining food and coal had been looted by the departing bandits."
"Watching the people walk away, I hesitated for a moment, but in the end I held back."
“I have to stay. I can’t abandon the train. It’s my duty as the train conductor.”
"Besides, the compensation for negligence is exorbitant, and I simply cannot afford it..."
"A piercing scream came from a distant highway tunnel. I'm pretty sure that's what woke me up."
"It seems that there has been another dispute among those who left..."
Xi Xi read through the fragment of the diary word by word. She realized that the train had so little coal because of this incident, and her mind immediately cleared.
Xi Xi then took out her own fragment of diary and carefully compared the handwriting, confirming that it was indeed written by the same person.
"How come you have one too!" Xi's mother exclaimed, then looked at Xi Xi anxiously and asked, "Have you accepted the dungeon quest?"
"I accepted it," Xi Xi replied calmly, examining the two fragments of the diary in her hands, one on each side.
One is from Day 3, and the other is from Day 5; one is clearly missing in between.
Chu Zhiqin, who had not accepted the mission, was immediately anxious. She knew that failure would result in punishment, so how could this girl be so hasty in accepting it?
Xi Xi then understood the root of her mother's anxiety.
Chu Zhiqin is a typical risk-averse personality. When faced with this type of prompt, she always adopts the strategy of pretending to be deaf and dumb and turning a deaf ear.
Neither agreeing nor refusing, they stubbornly waited until the dungeon's countdown ended.
The conservative Chu Zhiqin naturally couldn't understand her daughter. In her view, if risks could be avoided, it wouldn't matter if she lived a plain and uneventful life. She would never personally take risks and put herself in a difficult situation.
Xi Xi, on the other hand, believes that the world is a dog-eat-dog world, and hiding is not a long-term solution. Small fish will eventually be swallowed by big fish, and in order to protect oneself, one must learn to take risks.
[Adventurers detected to be from the same party. Would you like to accept the dungeon 'The Ghost' quest as a party member?]
[Instance Notice: Resources are shared within the team. If any member of the team completes the task, it is considered a successful completion; teammates will not be penalized.]
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