Chapter 85.1 Crimson Sunset Expedition
After the chubby worm finished sighing, Wen Shi lowered his head and checked his hand. “Huh? Where’s my knife?”
The chubby worm’s face quickly changed. It went to the water tank and rubbed one of the heads in it with its foot. “Call me Dad.”
“……”
Wen Shi cleared his throat and explained, “Their tongues are gone.”
Mr. Chubby Worm decided to break through their mouths when it saw they lacked limbs. But now, the only option they had was gone.
Li Nan spoke at that moment, “Can’t you just turn them into worms directly?”
Mr. Chubby Worm replied coldly, “I even wanted to become a butterfly. Can you see me doing that?”
Looking at him with a look that indicated speaking while standing didn’t bother it, Mr. Chubby Worm kept talking, “Read more books. The Golden Tower Kingdom had a whole system of evolution. Worms had only one way to evolve: survival above all else.”
“Golden Tower Kingdom?”
Li Nan and Wen Shi exchanged a glance. Considering these strange passengers, their first thought was about the pyramids. Pyramids held various symbolic meanings, but the most relevant in this instance seemed to be a symbol of hierarchy–the law of the jungle which the tour guide had mentioned.
A shadow couldn’t help asking, “Don’t you feel suffocated like this?”
Mr. Chubby Worm showed off its chubby figure. “The vitality of a worm’s body is the strongest.”
The shadow: “Still can’t withstand being stepped on by higher animals.”
“Not true,” Mr. Chubby Worm flashed an eerie smile, “Even those who step on insects find it disgusting and hesitate to lift their feet to stomp us. Who knows, in the future, we might even become part of an animal system ourselves.”
The latter sentence sent shivers down people’s spines.
The sunlight was too harsh. The heads in the water tank hung down. Mr. Chubby Worm was at a loss, when suddenly Crew Cut Guy whispered a few words in its ear.
“……” Mr. Chubby Worm realized how kind it seemed compared to this group. It turned without a word, grabbed a sharp piece of iron, and came up to the tank, making direct eye contact with someone. Meanwhile, the worm’s sneaky little eyes were fixed on a spot in the water, full of dark amusement. “There’s a spot that might not come in handy.”
The heads all lifted, first dazed and then seemingly understanding something, vigorously shook their bodies.
Crew Cut Guy softly reminded, “If you manage to survive this game, treat it as a dream. After all, you don’t have much left to lose.”
His words were cold-blooded yet practical. “Otherwise, the past sins would have been in vain.”
No limbs, no tongue… they endured till now. Giving up seemed a bit regrettable. Especially for newbies, the fear of death was stronger than that of veteran players. Those in the water tank conceded under the sudden silence.
Unlike their previous struggle, this time they had begun to accept it willingly.
Crew Cut Guy’s indifference cut in at the right time, “Can we get on with it? Everyone is waiting to know whether they’re alive or dead.”
When Mr. Chubby Worm raised the piece of iron again, the human heads looked at the impatient expressions of the people around. Gradually, their terror faded, replaced by numbness.
Players closed their eyes, not waiting for pain, but for a thud as they hit the ground.
Surprisingly, Mr. Chubby Worm tossed the iron piece aside. Its earlier intention was just to intimidate them. What it truly needed was the current state of numbness.
It expelled slime, turning the water in the tank turbid and viscous. White threads covered the black scabbed surfaces, wounds gradually smoothing out, new short legs growing from within.
Regaining her senses, the tour guide looked at Wen Shi and said delightedly, “You really know how to save people.”
“Between life and death, it’s their own choice,” Wen Shi said expressionlessly. “And there isn’t necessarily no way out, like evolution.”
A slight ripple of emotion stirred among the heads in the water tank as they looked up at him.
Wen Shi: “Humans have also evolved from ordinary animals.”
Since the game was set up in a way that followed the food chain, under the law of the jungle, they must have a path of evolution as well.
Yu Xingzhou, who hadn’t spoken much, suddenly spoke up, “The process of breaking free from fixed mindsets is a form of training in itself.”
However, not everyone could achieve this. Most of the time, it sounded like mere empty words.
The half-transformed bodies of the people in the water tank turned into worms, but their heads were still missing. Once their mindset shifted, it was hard to change it back. They knew that becoming more resolute might prolong the process of mutation, but in reality, all they wanted was to be like Mr. Chubby Worm, hiding beneath a hat and avoiding others’ gazes.
The newbie with a half-human, half-worm body grew a tongue again and suddenly felt an urgent need for an answer. He asked Wen Shi, “If it were you, what would you choose?”
“To live.”
His immediate and unquestioning response astonished the crowd, including NPCs. The newbie seemed skeptical and said with a wry smile, “Who could possibly humiliate you?”
He thought the other person was trying to console him. It wasn’t sarcasm. What the newbie said was a universally accepted fact.
“Anyone can.” Wen Shi pointed at the mini scarecrow. “If someone were to harm it in front of me, and I’m powerless to stop it, I’d feel humiliated. Even if they were to hurt my Grandma’s shadow and mine in front of me, I’d still feel that way. It’s just that the sense of humiliation would be a bit less.”
He paused, “I don’t think anyone can tolerate seeing someone they’re connected to being hurt for no reason.”
Sincerity was always effective and intimidating.
The mini scarecrow leaned in and discreetly pressed its face against his palm.
On the other side, the girl got closer to the teenager and carefully reminded him, “Be good, he wants to control us.”
The teenager responded coldly, “I know.”
The girl still worried and said, “You’re young and might not understand. He intends to…”
“I already know,” the teenager scoffed, half-smiling at the girl. “Want to guess why I know?”
There was a textbook-like case right in front of his eyes.
The girl met his gaze confidently, “Anyway, let’s not fall for his tricks.”
The newbie’s expression changed uncertainly upon hearing that, but he felt a bit better in the end. “One last question, how do you plan to break free after turning into a worm?”
Wen Shi replied, “Turn into a dinosaur, a Tyrannosaurus rex.”
The absurd and nonsensical answer, for some reason, made everyone oddly find it believable.
Under the scorching sun, the tour guide ruthlessly shattered his fantasy, “Not realistic at all.”
“Mhmm,” Wen Shi mumbled in a perfunctory manner, avoiding eye contact with the tour guide.
The teenager ruthlessly exposed the truth, “To him, ants and worms are all the same. Care to guess whom he intends to eliminate and usurp their identity?”
In this distorted instance world, evolution surely wasn’t about gradual environmental changes. Slaughter and plunder align better with the game’s theme. If it were the original self, the first choice would undoubtedly be to eliminate the tour guide.
【The tour guide’s favorability towards you -10】
The prompt sound echoed, and Wen Shi glanced at the teenager sideways.
“Immature.”
It wasn’t Wen Shi whe spoke. It was the mechanical cat.
Jian Qingrong clearly didn’t take kindly to the teenager’s upfront mockery. Although confronted with a face nearly identical to Wen Shi’s, one could find no trace of tolerance or compassion in Big Eye. He wasn’t even bothered about the origin of this shadow, casually summarizing it in two words: shoddy android.
Mr. Chubby Worm had already quietly left during their brief conversation. Wen Shi wasn’t interested in chatting under the blazing sun. He drained the water from the tank and packed it up in his bag.
The tour guide asked all players and shadows to gather at the first section of the broken track, serving as the starting line. The whistle was already at her lips.
Just as she took a deep breath, the system prompt sound rang out:
【Side Quest: Mad Dash Track
Quest Details: The track workers have set up many obstacles to prevent outsiders from entering the under-repair railway tracks. Please quickly dash through within the limited time!
Note: Some things might blow your mind!
Hint: Crimson Sunset Travel Agency doesn’t exist on the map.】
Xiao Hua was speechless, “The game sure integrates internet slang quickly.”
[T/N: 创死 literally means “create death”, originating from a popular play on words 撞死 (meaning “hit to death/death by collision”). In online world, it is often used in a playful and exaggerated manner to indicate a strong reaction (i.e. i’m “blown away”/”knocked out”)]
Yu Xingzhou nodded. “Players talk a lot in their daily lives, so it can capture some.”
The game’s ability to learn human behavior was incredibly fast, which posed a potential long-term threat.
However, they didn’t have time to ponder the future. The urgent whistle sounded, and everyone sprinted. Wen Shi’s voice floated from the front to the back, “Miss Tour Guide, please take care of my grandmother.”
【The tour guide’s favorability towards you -10】
At first glance, the track appeared to be wide and spacious, with only one lane. It was only upon entering that they discovered there were actually seven tracks, each with a different color: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. When combined, they formed the colors of a rainbow.
The mini scarecrow was pulling the cat as it was running alongside, managing its duty of keeping an eye on the path ahead.
Suddenly, a gigantic, talking toy bunny appeared in the half-sky ahead, holding a piece of paper in a human-like manner, “I’ll now read out the safety guidelines. If you accidentally venture into a construction zone, remember these four points—
“1. Successfully touching the shoes by the roadside can significantly boost your speed.
“2. Passengers, please leave this section within eight minutes. Apart from the broken track section, it’s safer to stay within the tracks the rest of the time.
“3. Line workers have reported seeing phantom trains while drunk on this section. Waking up, they found themselves hundreds of meters away. If you see similar trains, don’t worry. They’re all illusions.
“4. The safe passage is very safe.”
Every single one was an illusion.
This toy bunny’s way of speaking was sharper and more discordant than the mechanical cat’s tone.
On each colored track, a different scenery unfolded.
Wen Shi ran straight into the foremost track, his feet landing softly. The pebbles on the red track didn’t hurt his feet at all. They were soft, almost like cushions. Amidst this soft ground, at intervals, there were teeth about the size of a thumb growing upright. This reminded Wen Shi of a toy called the “Biting Shark,” which would chomp down when you pressed on a certain tooth. Except here, they had the sky above them, and there were no sharp teeth to clamp down.
Wen Shi couldn’t afford the slightest complacency. He could almost be certain that special traps existed, triggered when stepping on some of the teeth. Now, it was a matter of who would be the unlucky one.
No track was safe. With a similar thought in mind, those who chose this path together didn’t switch lanes.
Prioritizing speed, under this premise, Wen Shi tried his best to avoid stepping on the small teeth on the ground, although he still ended up stepping on quite a few.
A player cleverly followed behind him, stepping where Wen Shi had stepped to save some trouble, even if it cost him a bit of time.
Because the teeth popped back up about three seconds apart, the latter player was following closely, and a few times Wen Shi narrowly avoided being stepped on.
“Don’t follow too closely.”
The player’s gaze flickered for a moment, but he persisted in following, realizing that venturing alone carried too much risk. With clarity, they saw the newbie’s shadow stepping on a tooth. Out of nowhere, a dagger soared from behind. Unable to dodge in time, it lodged itself into the position of the shadow’s neck’s artery.
After reminding twice in a row, Wen Shi fell silent. Talking while running could easily disrupt one’s even breathing.
Seeing this, the player tacitly acknowledged, his unease dissipating, and he ended up following even more closely for a while.
When he almost stepped on Wen Shi’s shoe again, it was as if something tugged at his own shoe. His step faltered, and the player’s body swayed abruptly. He attempted to regain balance in those fleeting seconds, but still lost it due to an unstable center of gravity. His palm landed on a small nearby tooth, and scorching flames shot up from beneath the ground.
The flames were scorching. Amid the inferno, he let out a painful scream. Nearby, a player with a half-human, half-worm form quickly moved away, fearing being inadvertently cooked into a protein due to the heat.
The mechanical cat kept repeating, “I did it, I did it…”
One warning followed another, echoing in the ears of everyone running under the scorching sun.
The scarecrow had been itching to act since the first time Wen Shi’s heel was almost stepped on. However, targeting was difficult while running, and contamination wasn’t easily transferred to the shoe’s surface. Jian Qingrong also had to prevent Wen Shi from tripping when the opponent fell.
The fire wasn’t deadly. It only caused burns. The player clenched his teeth and stopped wailing, “Help, save me…”
Even though he had saved even shadows before, Wen Shi didn’t turn back this time.
The player gritted his teeth, dragging his maimed leg forward.
“Something’s not right.” The distance between them had increased. Using an ultra-low volume, Jian Qingrong’s voice reached Wen Shi’s ear.
Wen Shi nodded, indicating that he noticed.
It wasn’t just teeth. Outside the teeth area was the broken track, and further ahead was a fork. The path split again, one of them clearly marked as the “Safe Passage.”
The toy bunny had mentioned that the safe passage was very safe.
Li Nan and Yu Xingzhou decisively turned towards the safe passage, an opportunity to test whether the toy bunny’s words were true.
As soon as they entered, the steel rails beneath their feet disappeared, and wild grass surged. These grasses stood upright like aquatic plants, swaying even without the wind.
In terms of speed, Yu Xingzhou was faster than Li Nan. When accelerating forward, a slender rainbow-colored steel rail suddenly sprung up beneath Yu Xingzhou’s feet. Without hesitation, he continued running, ensuring he had enough height to somersault over the last raised plank and landed safely.
Not just him, there were players and shadows who gradually made their way onto this path, and quite a few of them fell victim.
Someone yelled, “Don’t go in, the more people on this path, the less safe it becomes!”
Just like a seesaw, every step taken by the person at the back could potentially launch the person in front into the air.
The grassy ground was soft. When someone flew up, the steel rails automatically disappeared. Falling down didn’t lead to fatal or disabling injuries. Overall, this path bore the weight of safety.
However, even with warnings, due to the uncertainty of other unfamiliar paths, many people would rather take a chance and rush in together. The back always seemed safe. However, as the number of people being launched into the air increased, those at the back surged forward, only to be launched again.
“Dammit! Let those in front go first. This path isn’t long. It takes just half a minute to run through.”
The system had only given five minutes, and precisely because the path wasn’t long, those in the middle of the route noticed that no one was stopping, so they kept moving too, falling into a vicious cycle.
“What the toy bunny said is true, but there are pitfalls.” Watching this scene from behind, Wen Shi didn’t take the safe passage, opting for another fork. “This segment deliberately stirs up conflicts among players.”
Whether it was the teeth area or the grassy part, there was no difference.
Compared to experienced players, Wen Shi’s running speed was pretty average. He could only be ranked in the middle or lower.
“Thirty meters ahead, where the track is broken, there’s a pair of shoes buried under a pile of stones.” The mechanical cat issued a reminder.
Wen Shi said earnestly, “You’re quite handy with a mouth.”
The scarecrow agreed, taking a step forward and observing in mid-air, “Only the front of the shoe is visible, red.”
“Men’s or women’s, running shoes?”
“Women’s.” Jian Qingrong had limited knowledge about women’s shoe styles, so he couldn’t give a definite answer. “Not running shoes, they’re delicate, no chipped paint on the front.”
Relying on Big Eye’s keen sight, Wen Shi had some buffer time for thought. As the shoes came close, he chose to sidestep directly.
At the same moment, without waiting, the shoes leapt out from the pebbles, as if they’d grown legs, thumping onto the gravel and relentlessly pursuing from behind.
In the meantime, Wen Shi looked back and caught sight of a pair of red dancing shoes charging directly at him.
Almost immediately, he thought of the tale of the red dancing shoes. In this scorching environment, he broke his personal running record.
【Countdown: Forty-five seconds.】
Wen Shi dashed forward with all his might, faintly spotting the platform about a kilometer away. At his current level of stamina, the fastest he could manage was a four-minute run.
At the fork, two adjacent paths appeared with a sign nearby, reading: Shortcut.
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