The entire process – from the hunt to the counter-kill – took only a few dozen seconds. Just as Cheng Feng began collecting her loot, the live stream’s audience was still stuck on the moment the beast had pounced on her.
Netizens furiously typed out their messages, hit send, and then looked back at the screen – only to find that the world had already changed.
“San Yao’s camera work is getting more brutal by the day. Zooming in that close on a blood-drenched maw – scared the hell out of me! No need for close-ups of this kind of bloody kill scene!”
“Cheng Feng is done. Time to meet her offline. Hey, manual-operated mecha fans, your god has returned.”
“Put on some mosaics! Next time something like this happens, please just disconnect us directly! So disturbing!”
“…”
“??”
“That’s it? I just yawned, I swear I didn’t do anything!”
“Where are all those blabbermouth commentators now? Where’d they run off to? Come out and explain this to me!”
“Damn it, why doesn’t the bullet screen have a retract function?”
“No way. Several other solo operatives from other squads got killed by that thing. Its design is ferocious, aggressive, and even somewhat intelligent. How could a non-professional girl like Cheng Feng possibly counter-kill it head-on?”
After the initial shock, scattered voices of doubt began to emerge amid the sea of praise.
Newcomers flooding into the stream kept questioning whether the difficulty of Cheng Feng’s quest had been dialed down. The wording they used, laced with certain key terms, quickly rubbed another group of people the wrong way. Across the internet, the tone on both sides grew increasingly heated, and as expected, it escalated to the point of hurling insults at each other’s ancestors – earning themselves a lovely gift package of chat bans.
After a wave of bans, the comment section became noticeably cleaner. Those who had been silenced, now embarrassed and furious, shifted their main battleground to the San Yao forums.
Meddlesome viewers rewound the live stream to two minutes earlier, slowed the playback speed to 0.5x, and pulled up data-testing plugins. They scrutinized every detail, trying to deduce whether San Yao’s NPC parameters were functioning normally or if there had been any deliberate sandbagging.
At the same time, they pulled up monitoring results from several other live streams for comparison.
The related posts quickly shot to the top of the front page. “What’s all the arguing about? In this day and age, who doesn’t know to let the data speak?”
The beast’s burst speed, turning speed, attack angle, bite force – these were all the most direct data settings.
There was no way to test the bite force value on Cheng Feng’s end, after all, that little darling never got to plant a kiss on Cheng Feng’s slender neck. But as for the other key stats, they were no different from the norm and fully met the criteria of a “fierce beast.”
The strange thing was, no matter how many times they replayed the relevant GIFs, they still felt that Cheng Feng’s response seemed more effortless. In contrast, the several other soldiers who had been eliminated – despite having greater explosive power and movements full of raw strength – were still scrambling and flailing, overwhelmed after just a couple of struggles.
Even San Yao’s own system made a misjudgment. When Cheng Feng hit the ground, it slapped a large mosaic over her head. Then, realizing its mistake, it moved the mosaic to the spot where the beast had been stabbed.
San Yao has a wealth of combat data to rely on and rarely makes errors. That sudden, jarring patch of mosaic alone was enough to prove that Cheng Feng had danced her way back from the very edge of life and death.
But if one were to chalk it up to luck, that wouldn’t seem quite right either – because similar tactics had been seen several times before in manual-operated mecha battles. And the discussions surrounding them felt like a replay of the past.
A standout analytical post from back in the day, titled “The Art of Rhythm – Ultimate Pleasure,” still hung at the front of the featured section on San Yao’s forums.
Cheng Feng’s unique, rhythmbased, frameperfect style of operation always danced on the razor’s edge of timing, yet boasted an unbelievable success rate – making it seem utterly unreasonable. It was as if, without putting her very life on the line, she couldn’t highlight her decisive, lethal flair. Every heartstopping crisis was nothing more than her teasing and baiting.
As the body of that very article said:
“Cheng Feng never underwent long, highpressure professional training, and her technique is far from flashy. But when it comes to her predictions, I dare say every single one of you here is trash.”
“What gets the blood pumping isn’t some pretty but hollow showmanship – it’s the thrill of dancing on a blade’s edge and turning certain death into a counterkill. I’d call Cheng Feng a machine of highprecision calculation. No one can take control of her rhythm through data.”
“You always think you can beat her. But you’ll quickly find out that’s just the fourth greatest illusion in life. The only real thing is that her playstyle really, really deserves a good beating.”
“I know this question cold. The post’s been bumped – you’re welcome.”
“So… this whole thing is pretty impressive? I’m a layman – am I getting that right?”
“Judging by San Yao’s demonic mosaic work, yeah, you’re right.”
“Cheng Feng’s combat skills have definitely been underestimated. Don’t treat manual-operated mech pilots as anything less than infantries – otherwise, why wouldn’t the military universities just put them in the liberal arts departments?”
“Man, so embarrassing. Every time someone embarrass themselves, they blame it on a San Yao data bug. In all these years, have you ever seen anyone actually succeed with that excuse? If you can’t take a loss, at least come up with a decent excuse. Who do you think you’re insulting with that IQ?”
“Young and foolish, not knowing how precious this account is – now I regret arguing with idiots. Wouldn’t it be better to just focus on cheering for our Cheng Feng? These days, new accounts can’t even post consecutive comments anymore!”
By the time this group finished arguing and quickly created new accounts to rush back to the live stream, Cheng Feng was already back on the road.
They were about to casually chat with the audience about Cheng Feng’s combat skills when they noticed that the bullet screen had once again veered off in a direction they couldn’t follow. Resigned, the newcomers rewound the progress bar once more, searching for the traffic-driving secret they’d missed.
Fifteen minutes earlier, Cheng Feng was kneeling on one knee on the ground, pulling her knife out of the beast’s body.
The blade edge had curled slightly. She ran her fingers along it once, then set the knife down and pulled out a spare dagger from her backpack. Then, pressing one hand onto the animal’s body, she skillfully plunged the blade tip beneath its hide.
Watching Cheng Feng’s live stream was almost like watching a silent film. When she was alone, she rarely spoke, and even her cries of pain or groans were extremely restrained. The unbearable silence and solitude – it seemed she had long grown accustomed to them.
Animal hides were very useful, especially out in the wild.
Cheng Feng’s skinning technique was exceptional. She skillfully used her wrist strength, appearing to peel off large swaths of hide with little effort. The entire process was smooth and fast, without a single hitch, and the result was cleanly handled.
Nevertheless, she still used her blade to scrape off the flesh and blood still stuck to the inner side, then vigorously rubbed it with dirt from the nearby ground to remove as much of the hide’s bloody smell as possible.
Only after finishing that task did Cheng Feng turn her attention to the beast’s meat.
Raw meat couldn’t be eaten casually – especially from a carnivorous animal like this, which was highly likely to carry deadly parasites or viruses.
Cheng Feng avoided the tough, dense muscles and only cut out the relatively tender meat from around the neck and spine. Even so, it came to 12–15 lbs. Given Cheng Feng’s appetite, this would be enough to last her until the end of the game.
She sealed the meat in airtight storage pouches and hung them on her backpack, increasing her load once again.
The shoulder straps pressed down on her injured left shoulder, making her gait somewhat unnatural. For once, she curled the corner of her mouth into a slight grimace.
From start to finish, the whole process took no more than fifteen minutes. After such intense physical exertion, Cheng Feng was already launching her next offensive.
Watching her walk with her head down, her gait no longer steady, netizens couldn’t help but urge her to rest – even though she couldn’t see them.
“Can’t stay too long,” Cheng Feng explained in a very low voice, as if talking to herself. “Blood will quickly attract other carnivores to hunt here. And there was that big bird in the sky earlier – animals sometimes have cooperative relationships. It might bring other dangers.”
Because time passed faster in the game, after the sun began to tilt westward, the sky gradually darkened. The shadows cast by the towering trees grew long and faint, streaks of darkness falling beneath the feet of passersby.
Cheng Feng didn’t dare let her guard down. She pressed on with tense nerves, eating whatever edible things she came across along the way just to keep her character’s declining stats from bottoming out.
After walking for another hour, just as her vision started to blur, she finally emerged from that damp, dense forest onto a relatively open, dry stretch of flat ground.
Cheng Feng breathed a sigh of relief, unshouldered her backpack, and slumped down against a tree trunk, mumbling her second sentence of the day, “I can rest here tonight.”
In such a high-temperature zone, the night would have been a good opportunity to travel. Cheng Feng had originally planned to do just that, but it wasn’t possible now.
She needed to replenish her energy.
She urged herself to move faster, but still took two minutes to collect herself. To keep exhaustion from taking over, she gave her leg a hard pinch. Then, propping herself up against the trunk, she gathered dry branches nearby to start a fire while also looking for large leaves.
She wrapped the previously cut meat in layers of leaves, then sealed it in a layer of high-temperature fireproof material before tossing it into the fire to cook – so that the scent wouldn’t escape.
Taking advantage of this break, Cheng Feng logged off, went to the bathroom, and ate a piece of bread. Quite a few other students in the exam hall were also taking care of their real-life physical needs at this time. While washing her hands and preparing to log back into the instance, she happened to run into Xiang Yunjian.
Their eyes met. Xiang Yunjian waved a hand – a brief greeting.
Cheng Feng logged back in.
The jungle was about to enter nightfall. The oppressive heat from earlier gradually subsided as the light dimmed.
Cheng Feng could guess the instance’s malicious design – there would definitely be a sharp temperature difference between day and night. She needed to set up her shelter for the night before the cold arrived.
Translator’s Words:
Sorry guys, I will be going away for a week. Will be back next Thursday! I will upload an extra chapter today for this reason.
