After a sudden flash of white light, Ye Shu's figure reappeared on the subway. The familiar carriage made her involuntarily step back, her stark black-and-white eyes filled with hatred, tinged with an almost imperceptible fear—but, above all, there was anger.
When she took in the spacious, brightly lit environment and the suspicious stares from the people around her, Ye Shu's face flashed briefly with confusion.
The time remained frozen at 16:38. She remembered it vividly—this was the exact moment she boarded the subway. Ten days had passed in the game...
Could it be that everything just now had been no more than a hallucination?
But why had it felt so real?
If the game hadn’t ended, she was certain she’d have been torn apart by those horrors.
Suddenly, a mechanical melody sounded sharply in her ears.
‘First round of the game complete. Congratulations to the players who cleared the stage. Rewards have been distributed. The second round will commence in 48 hours—please prepare yourselves!’
‘For players who failed to clear the game: extermination, extermination!!’
‘Countdown: 10 seconds. 9… 2… 1—’
As the countdown reached its end, the man standing beside Ye Shu suddenly exploded in a cloud of blood and mist before the stunned and horrified eyes of everyone present.
‘Eradication: complete!’
‘Aaaaah!’
‘Help! Someone died—there’s a terrorist on board!’
‘What’s happening? How could someone just explode like that?!’
‘This must be bioweapons—my god, I only wanted to take the subway, how did I get caught in this?!’
‘Call the police! Hurry—hello, officer? Someone died here—yes, just exploded, out of nowhere!’
Panic overtook the entire subway car. Especially after people saw the gruesome mess on the floor—no longer even recognizable as human—they rushed screaming for the other compartments. The timid passengers retreated in terror, while the braver ones called the subway authorities.
Only one person stood unmoving at the heart of it all, dressed in a white cocktail dress, her expression frozen, as if petrified with fear.
Ye Shu only glanced with indifference at the remains beneath her feet—the carnage of a player, gruesome beyond words. She had seen worse plenty of times in the game; fear no longer touched her. She stepped out of the carriage.
‘Game failed. Player eliminated.’
To die in the game meant to die in reality.
Ye Shu left the scene as fast as she could, spending her last few hundred yuan on a night in a small, budget hotel.
She handled life’s necessities at the downstairs convenience store, quick and simple.
Now, Ye Shu faced not only the survival crisis in the game but also the harsh realities of daily life—she did not even have spare cash for rice, oil, salt.
Thinking of the original owner, a chill crept up Ye Shu’s spine.
The Ye Shu of before had been endlessly ingratiating toward her selfish parents and the ever-so-outstanding elder brother. After Ye Tianxiang uttered a single complaint about not liking materialistic girls, Ye Shu rushed to become the model of a virtuous daughter—rising at four in the morning to compete for bargains at the market, tirelessly preparing meals. Little did she know, the food she made was given to the family dog by her dear brother.
All her part-time earnings were spent currying favor with the Ye family, though they never truly cared. The Ye family ran a large business in Qianhu City; they were far from poor and hardly needed her money.
At the recognition banquet, the biological daughter they had just reclaimed wore a dress that looked plain but cost three hundred thousand yuan. Ironically, the entire cost of Ye Shu’s living in the Ye household never reached that sum.
Ye Shu now held an antiquated phone, staring at the meager balance shown on her WeChat account. Her eyelids twitched.
On the garishly green screen, the digits 3.06 stood out like a slap in the face.
‘Ding! Congratulations to the players who cleared the stage. For a better survival game experience, the in-game store will soon open. Before the next round starts, purchase your supplies.’
‘Note: Store items can only be bought with points.’
Ye Shu opened the shimmering interface—inside, the store’s dazzling array of items made her head spin.
‘A-grade stealth cloak: allows one hour of invisibility (as the name suggests, you’ll be unseen—not just by zombies, but certain ghosts, too). Price: 30 points.’
‘C-grade: ordinary pistol. Price: 10 points (comes with just seven bullets. At this rate, who even needs a bike?).’
‘Space Ring: for storing supplies, essential for survival. Two square meters of space, no refrigeration. Price: 300 points (If you can actually buy storage space, be grateful—who cares about points?).’
The player chat was in utter chaos.
‘Flowers in Spring: Whoa! The game’s opening a store? Let me see what this is all about!’
‘I Will Oil My Own Fate: Is this daylight robbery? You clear the game and barely get 5 points, but the cheapest pistol costs 10? This is a joke!’
‘Cao’s Wife is My Favorite: Rubbish game, just say you don’t want to give us anything. Even a dog wouldn’t want these points.’
Ye Shu gritted her teeth and bought two storage rings.
600 points. Four square meters.
Watching the falling number, her heart ached as if flesh were being sliced from her bones.
With storage space secured, the coming game’s difficulty would at least ease a little—at least, she wouldn’t run out of emergency supplies in the short term.
There was no telling what kind of game came next. The store would be closed during each round, so Ye Shu also bought herself a pistol, a sniper rifle, grenades, and other essential weapons.
Broken as she was, she exchanged 1 point for ten thousand Blue Star survival coins.
‘Beep-beep! Your account has received... 100,000 Huaxia yuan.’
Money, at least, was sorted—for now.
Player: Ye Shu
Game ID: 10096
Age: 20
Points: 2000
Skill Talent: SSS-level ‘Rewind’ (level one; upon death, rewinds half an hour; cooldown: once every three days. Cannot be dropped or stolen. Derived skill: SSS-level ‘Optimization’—currently level one; allows optimization of items.)
Ye Shu’s eyes lit up—she hadn’t expected a new talent to arise.
She opened her inventory and found a notification.
The wooden sword had shattered to dust long ago during a game—could it actually be repaired?
‘Yes.’
Holding the fragments of the peachwood sword, Ye Shu watched as a glimmer of gold flashed. In her palm now lay a flawless blade—its durability showed 100%.
Among her game items, there was also a gray-black frame that grew more and more familiar the longer she looked. Wasn’t this the same frame left by her sacrificial path—the one for her beautiful ghost?
She tried to select it, but failed each time.
‘S-rank malevolent entity: Black Tiger. Status: deceased.’
‘Player optimization level too low—cannot optimize living entities of this type.’
‘Player optimization level too low—cannot optimize living entities of this type.’
‘Player optimization level too low—cannot optimize living entities of this type.’
Ye Shu: ‘...’
So if her level increased, she could even optimize dead malevolent entities? Thinking of the flawless peachwood sword in her hand, she inhaled sharply.
In a sense, optimization was akin to resurrection! The pity was, for now, it was strictly limited to inanimate objects.
At the same time, in every corner of Blue Star, the ‘human blood mist’ incident erupted. It shot straight to number one on the trending searches, where it remained unchallenged.
With incidents happening on such a scale, officials across nations were at their wits’ end.
According to incomplete statistics, on the afternoon of June 15, 3025, at 16:38, nearly nine hundred thousand people were thrown into this invisible war.
It had come without warning—the ‘blood mist’ incident unfolded in an instant.
Panic swept Blue Star’s populace, until, finally, a group appeared online claiming to be game players—individuals who could control the five elements, bending gold, wood, water, fire, and earth to their will...