Chapter 6: Six Suns (6)
The full moon shone brightly. In a quiet alley, a faint light flickered, and the space in the corner of the wall twisted—suddenly, three people appeared.
Young Master Xue wanted to curse, but he didn’t know any proper curses, so all he could do was stomp his feet on the spot to express his shock at Jian Yuntai.
“You just burned the supplies?!”
“If I hadn’t burned them, were you going to leave them for him to eat?” Jian Yuntai opened his mountaineering backpack and tore open a pack of compressed biscuits.
They were utterly tasteless—horrible—but he still ate one after another. His stomach felt like a void, a black hole, impossible to fill.
Fatty exclaimed in delight, “My livestream suddenly got so many likes! Coins too!”
Young Master Xue clutched his chest. “Jian Yuntai’s move just now, I wanted to like it myself!”
“Aren’t you two thirsty?” Jian Yuntai had already eaten several packs of biscuits without looking up. “If you keep talking nonsense here, I’ll eat it all.”
“This big a pack? You’d have to be a ghost to finish it all,” Young Master Xue said, clearly unconvinced, not paying much attention.
Soon he realized he had been too young, too naive.
Young Master Xue and Fatty each ate two or three packs of compressed biscuits and drank two bottles of water—and were full. Jian Yuntai, however, never stopped, eating one pack after another.
His movements were calm and deliberate, yet he ate fast. He hardly chewed, biting and swallowing with water. Five minutes later, he had already gone through over twenty packs.
At first, Young Master Xue and Fatty had the energy to bring up old grudges, talking about the last time their supplies were stolen. But later, they fell silent, staring at Jian Yuntai from left and right. Their expressions changed from hesitation to blank disbelief, and finally, outright questioning life itself.
“We’ve basically gotten on a pirate ship now,” Young Master Xue poked Fatty and whispered, “Brother Fatty, tell me honestly… was he a starving ghost reincarnated or something?”
Fatty’s expression was indescribable. “Absolutely right.”
When Jian Yuntai finally ate the food to the last bit, the two of them quickly pulled out several bottles of water, taking up a stance to guard the remaining supplies with their lives.
“Stop eating! Save some, at least a little!”
Jian Yuntai paused, a little deflated.
Strange—he didn’t feel full. Although the faint, on-the-verge-of-fainting feeling had disappeared, he still felt hungry, empty.
Could his stomach really be a bottomless pit?
He ran his finger across the ID on his wrist. A beep sounded in his ear: [Your Nutrient Solution recommendation slot has expired. You are 40,000 likes/shares away from the next slot.]
Even without a recommendation slot, Jian Yuntai’s livestream was still lively. The viewers had just witnessed the dramatic burning of supplies and were still excitedly discussing it.
“I checked Jiang Liu’s livestream—he’s nearly dead of anger, smashing stuff on the spot hahaha…”
“I came over from there. First time seeing Jiang Liu that frustrated. The newcomer is kind of awesome.”
“What’s his name? He has a name, right? Jian Dadan’er?”
Jian Yuntai had no idea he’d earned a new nickname. He stood and looked around.
They had been transported to another alley, much wider than before—and filled with many more corpses.
All around, the natives lay dead in pitiful states. Fatty squatted for a moment, observing. “All bitten to death. Judging by the marks, it must have been rodents. These animals are obviously more intelligent now. They always target the most lethal spot—the neck’s major arteries—hence all the blood on the ground.”
“Ah?” Young Master Xue raised a panicked foot. “Are the things that bit them still here?”
“They ran off long ago. The blood has congealed red-black; these people have been dead for a while,” Fatty said, glancing sideways at Young Master Xue. “Why are you still hanging around?”
“Brother Fatty, what are you even saying?” Young Master Xue forced a smile “If I’m not here, where else would I be?”
Fatty rolled his eyes. “Last time in the previous instance, when you stole my supplies, you ran faster than anyone. Why aren’t you running now? We still haven’t settled that score.”
Young Master Xue dragged out his tone: “Brother Fatty—”
“Go, go, go!” Fatty shivered and cursed. “That works on your female fans, not me!”
Young Master Xue had no choice. He shuffled a few steps closer to Jian Yuntai and called out in a pleading tone, “Brother Jian—”
Jian Yuntai sidestepped him, focusing. “There’s a car at the end of the alley. Go check it out.”
He started walking immediately.
Fatty followed at once, eyes wary as he watched Young Master Xue. “Don’t follow.”
Young Master Xue trailed behind, sulking.
At the end of the alley, the front half of a car was crushed against the wall, deformed, the windshield nearly flush with the surface. The driver had been flattened into an unrecognizable mass, pink flesh pressed against the door frame.
Just seeing it made all three who had recently eaten feel queasy. Jian Yuntai said, “This person probably tried to drive to escape the mutated rats but went too fast and crashed. There are corpses in the back seat too. Fatty, can you tell how she died?”
“I… uh… I’ll try.” Fatty gagged as he opened the rear door, covering his mouth and nose as he crawled inside.
While he examined the body, Young Master Xue crouched next to Jian Yuntai’s legs, sighing. “These two are somewhat lucky—they died in a car accident, not in the jaws of mutated rats.”
“Death is always just bad luck,” Jian Yuntai said evenly, showing no emotion.
Young Master Xue looked up at him, serious. “I really can’t go with you guys?”
Jian Yuntai lowered his gaze. “What could you do for me?”
Young Master Xue immediately brightened. “I can do lots of things—bring tea, pour water, massage your back, rub shoulders…”
“I mean when danger comes,” Jian Yuntai interrupted. “Besides running, what else can you do?”
Young Master Xue’s smile froze; he was speechless.
Minutes passed before he spoke again, quietly: “Fine, I’ll leave now. But thank you for sharing your food and water. After being teleported here, you could have left me behind, but you didn’t.”
Jian Yuntai crouched, looking at him, lips curling slightly. “Why do you want to follow me and Fatty?”
“My skill can only teleport short distances, like just now with the airdrop—only about ten meters. Consecutive teleports drain my mental strength and can cause me to faint. Long-distance teleport requires making little crystals, but I can’t make any right now. At least a day more. If we run into Jiang Liu again, he won’t spare me.” Young Master Xue’s face was pale; his voice dry.
Jian Yuntai asked, “Why did he put a bounty on your head before?”
Young Master Xue cleared his throat and smiled awkwardly. “I stole his supplies once, indirectly nearly causing him to die in an instance. He only found out when watching the livestream replay.”
“Nicely done,” Jian Yuntai commented.
Young Master Xue’s eyes brightened. “So can I follow you?”
“No,” Jian Yuntai said.
“Okay.” Young Master Xue slumped, poking at the car tire. “Before we go, a warning: watch out for Jiang Liu. He holds grudges stronger than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
Fatty’s voice came from the car. “What do you mean? He wants to use us as tools. He’s done plenty of sneaky stuff and thinks fast. You really think your warning will make us rush to kill Jiang Liu?”
“What are you talking about?” Young Master Xue looked astonished, angry. “That’s vicious! I’m not that kind of person!”
Fatty asked, “Then what do you mean?”
Young Master Xue’s anger surged to his head, then was pressed down again. After a while he grunted, “I’m saying this because you two are newcomers, unfamiliar with the livestream team’s inner workings. I was trying to warn you. Haven’t you thought—Jiang Liu, a Sinister Monster Type with only brute strength, how could he have such influence, and how dare he act so arrogantly?”
This explained a lot to Jian Yuntai, though he still frowned in puzzlement.
“You know the inside story?”
Young Master Xue nodded. “Jiang Liu’s arrogance comes from his younger brother—a Sinister Spirit Type.”
“….”
Just that one sentence made Jian Yuntai instantly understand. He even felt a slight headache as he sighed.
There was a widely known saying in the New World—better to offend ten Sinister Human Types than to anger a single Sinister Spirit Type.
Because, in a sense, a Sinister Spirit Type was a resource. They themselves had no combat ability, but their skills were the only way for players to treat injuries.
Injuries sustained in an instance carried over into the real world. No medicine could heal them—only a Sinister Spirit Type could.
If a player entered an instance with a Sinister Spirit Type, it was obvious that most other players would have to rely on them.
Young Master Xue continued, “Jiang Liu didn’t put a bounty on my head using money or state points. He sold his brother’s healing sessions instead, which drove all the injured players in that instance crazy—they all came after me. Just think about it: by killing a defenseless me, they could survive. How tempting is that?”
“If he holds a grudge against you, he’s very likely to repeat the trick and buy your heads from players again.”
Fatty finished checking the corpses and climbed out of the car. He now realized the seriousness of the situation, though he still questioned, “We didn’t offend him that much, did we? The airdrop wasn’t even his—whoever grabbed it gets it. Look carefully: Jiang Liu bought your head because you nearly got him killed, not just because you stole a few boxes of food.”
“You offended him long ago, and you didn’t even realize it?” Young Master Xue looked at Fatty in surprise. “His little brother, Jiang Jiu, was originally going to join the livestream team. He was the top candidate. But you, a Sinister Ghost Type, just air-dropped in—Jiang Jiu had to wait for another chance.”
Fatty was stunned. “There’s even that?”
Young Master Xue turned to Jian Yuntai. “Jiang Jiu finally got a new chance, and then you took the spot. Before New World Arrival, that’s like getting into a prestigious university and having your place taken by someone with connections.”
“That comparison… fits,” Fatty said, empathizing immediately. “If I were Jiang Jiu, I’d grab a hemp rope and hang myself at the door of the connected kid’s house.”
Jian Yuntai, who hadn’t even finished high school, couldn’t empathize. He asked instead, “How did the woman in the back seat die?”
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Fatty said, shaking his head. “She didn’t die in a crash, nor from the mutant rats. She actually died from heat—she was baked alive.”
“You mean…” Jian Yuntai’s eyes flickered, his tone cautious, “the mutant rats didn’t find her?”
“Absolutely not,” Fatty confirmed. “I observed her. She didn’t even have postmortem lividity yet—she’d been dead less than two hours. She must have been hiding in the car that whole time.”
Young Master Xue asked in confusion, “How could you tell she died from heat?”
Fatty: “Pulmonary edema. I cut open her chest and checked.”
“…?”
Young Master Xue looked at him in shock, then at Jian Yuntai, still shocked. “I feel like I don’t belong next to you two.”
Fatty, his hands covered in blood, casually wiped them on his pants. “So you’d better leave before dawn. I don’t want to wake up and find you’ve run off with the supplies.”
Looking at the sky, dawn was still some time away.
Young Master Xue immediately grew bold. He smirked, “What’s the rush? It’s not even daylight yet…”
Before he could finish, a ‘whoosh’ sound came from far away, followed by a tremendous ‘boom.’
The three froze in place.
Before Jian Yuntai could react, a pillar of red light shot into the sky at the end of the alley.
The glow blotted out the moon, blinding to the eyes. The sky brightened instantly.
Jian Yuntai could see nothing, his ears ringing. He heard Fatty roar beside him, “Damn it! The lab just launched the third sun!”
That “sun” flared like an Olympic torch being passed. Within moments, another sun ignited suddenly.
Combined with the slowly rising real sun, the players were now directly under three suns. The heat beat down, dizzying everyone.
Outside the alley came continuous screams and the roars of beasts. The ground trembled, dust fell from the walls, and fine particles floated in the air.
“Luckily, there are no mutated beasts here,” Fatty shouted, covering his mouth and nose. “Run! There’s a building outside—get inside, you’ll be safe!”
No further urging was needed—Young Master Xue, ever cautious, dashed forward first. Fatty and Jian Yuntai followed. They had barely gone ten meters when Young Master Xue suddenly turned back, panic written across his face, running frantically.
“What’s wrong?” Fatty yelled.
“The corpses… all of them… run!” Young Master Xue’s words were garbled; he raced back like a gust of wind.
Fatty froze. “What did you say?”
“Fatty,” Jian Yuntai growled, voice the most serious it had ever been. “Stop running forward. Look ahead.”
Fatty turned and saw, and his eyes widened in horror.
He finally understood what Young Master Xue had meant—the corpses, all the corpses in the alley, were moving. They were alive!
“When there were two suns, plants and animals mutated. With three suns, the dead rise,” Jian Yuntai frowned. “If I’m not wrong, the difficulty of this instance just increased massively overnight.”
As he spoke, the scattered corpses staggered upright. Their necks had been bitten, heads slanted on their shoulders; some still had only a thin layer of skin connecting their heads, hanging on the chest or back. As their bodies wobbled, heads swayed, and clumps of red-black flesh fell to the ground.
Jinjin ran fastest, nearly plunging directly into the pile of corpses. Dealing with mutated beasts had been easy, but these walking corpses were a whole different challenge.
Within seconds, it was surrounded and restrained. Even its enlarged body couldn’t shake off the undead clinging to it.
“Meow…” Jinjin let out several pained cries. Fatty felt as if he himself was being bitten, panic overwhelming him.
He was about to rush forward when Jian Yuntai grabbed him. “If you go up now, you’ll die with it.”
Fatty’s eyes turned red with rage. “Then what do we do? I can’t just watch Jinjin die!”
Jian Yuntai surveyed the area. The sky above, the ground below—it was a dead end in every direction. Behind them, the alley led to a dead end. Ahead was a mountain of corpses and humans. The third sun had pushed them almost to the brink.
Meanwhile, the number of walking corpses was now uncountable, layered endlessly, blocking the exit completely. Jinjin summoned the last of its strength and leaped forward, dragging some corpses with it, which then pounced on and tore at its body.
Jinjin glanced back at Fatty, crimson pupils glinting with what seemed like tears. Seconds later, it forced itself forward, carrying the mass of corpses like a moving mountain.
“Not good… it’s trying to clear a path with its life,” Jian Yuntai said, voice tight, face turning grim. Fatty’s face went pale, and tears welled up instantly.
What to do?
What should they do now?
If things continued like this, Jinjin would die for sure.
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