From start to finish, Lin Qingyue was entirely ignored, as though he were invisible.
When Pang Pangzi turned around and their eyes met, a strange sense of déjà vu struck him.
Pang Tong took one look at Lin Qingyue’s striking face, and terror seized his heart—a sudden, urgent sense of danger.
Could this be… a new recruit the legendary Heroine Ye found?!
And he didn’t look like much… ordinary, thin as a reed, altogether unimpressive—surely no match for him. Yet, despite Pang Pangzi's self-assurance, he still felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy.
He stepped forward, forcing himself to play the part of a senior welcoming a newcomer. Stretching out his left hand with practiced politeness, he said, "Hi there! Name's Pang Tong. Just call me Pangzi. And you are?"
Lin Qingyue ignored him completely; a killing intent flickered coldly in his dark eyes.
Pang Pangzi silently retracted his hand. "..."
Terrifying. The Heroine Ye's new sidekick was way more intense than he’d anticipated!
Ye Shu sat at the table, quietly eating, not sparing either of them a single glance. When she was done, she said in the same even tone, "Find Pang Pangzi a place to stay."
Hidden in his sleeve, Lin Qingyue’s fist clenched so tight the knuckles whitened. But forced to obey by the obedience talisman, he managed only a strained, "...Fine."
Seeing the restraint in his eyes, Ye Shu’s smile widened. Oh, you want to fight her? She had him in the palm of her hand.
……
Day Twenty-Six of the game.
Ye Shu barricaded herself in Sector Q, eating and drinking well, practicing her Wing Chun forms and marksmanship.
Day Twenty-Seven.
More food. More training. More shooting practice.
Day Twenty-Eight.
Eat. Drink. Practice.
……
Day Thirty of the game.
From morning until afternoon, Lin Qingyue was nowhere in sight.
"Pang Pangzi, have you seen Lin Qingyue anywhere?"
"Heroine Ye, nope. I haven’t seen him—he hasn’t been back since last night."
Lazily jogging on a treadmill, a towel draped around his neck, Pang Pangzi panted hard. His constitution had always been poor—even after adding two points, he was still wheezing after half an hour, unlike Heroine Ye, whose energy was inexhaustible no matter how long she sparred, shot, or ran.
A sense of wrongness hit Ye Shu. She cursed under her breath. "Damn it—got too complacent last night and let him slip away."
Not the end of the world—unless, of course, that slippery bastard starts stirring up trouble again. Given Lin Qingyue’s nature, that was all too likely.
Suddenly losing her appetite, Ye Shu sprang up, ran outside, and just happened to catch one of Lin Qingyue’s former bodyguards. She grabbed the man and demanded, "Where’s Lin Qingyue?"
The bodyguard hesitated. Last time, he’d seen his boss on his knees, teary and pleading for forgiveness. If things went badly, underlings like him would be the first in the line of fire.
After some internal struggle, he finally disclosed Lin Qingyue’s whereabouts.
Ye Shu intercepted him in the shelter's escape tunnel.
Cool and deliberate, she asked, "Where to? Big Boss Lin, care to take me along?"
Lin Qingyue heard her mocking tone, and it felt as if the sky collapsed.
That damnable woman again...
Killing him repeatedly was apparently not enough—she had to chase after him, too.
If not for the restrictions imposed by the game items, he’d have snapped her neck in an instant.
"Confess. Why are you leaving the shelter?"
As the true power behind the scenes, there’s no way Lin Qingyue would just up and leave without cause. There had to be a reason.
Lin Qingyue glared daggers at her, his fists creaking, barely restraining volcanic fury. He wanted nothing more than to devour Ye Shu alive.
"Seismic sensors have detected strong tremors in the Tanchuan Basin. In eight hours, a near-magnitude-eight earthquake will strike... and the epicenter is here, in Yuhu City."
Ye Shu gritted her teeth.
An earthquake—so that’s it.
He was planning to abandon everyone in the shelter and bolt.
Magnitude eight... What did that mean? Towers reduced to rubble in seconds, the ground caving and splitting as if struck by nuclear warheads—ordinarily, no one could possibly survive.
"Aren’t you the shelter director? Why not warn the survivors and help them escape..."
Ye Shu trailed off, silent.
Tens of thousands inside the shelter, countless tons of supplies, survivors scattered at the periphery... With relentless rain, too few boats, and no roads out of the Tanchuan Basin, evacuation was impossible. Any attempt to share the truth would only spark panic—accomplishing nothing.
"They’re just NPCs in this game. And you—a player—are taking it seriously?" Lin Qingyue sneered. He couldn’t fathom how someone so soft could have bested him three times over.
"Heh. Aren’t you just another NPC yourself?"
"What makes you any different from them?"
Ye Shu’s gaze turned cold, all jesting vanished. She pressed a blade to Lin Qingyue’s throat and said, "If you’re useless, then you’re good as dead."
Her movements were sharp and merciless. If he weren’t the one on the receiving end, Lin Qingyue might have actually admired her knife skills.
15:02 in the afternoon.
Eight hours before the earthquake.
Ye Shu, passing herself off as a precog, revealed the impending earthquake to Elder Yu and the other leaders. Unlike Lin Qingyue, they did not hesitate for long—quickly organizing evacuations and supply runs, inside and out, all with military precision.
For a moment, chaos flared among the survivors, but Ye Shu’s squad crushed disorder with force. In disciplined ranks, the crowds retreated, taking whatever could be carried.
Ye Shu’s great fishing boat was packed to the brim, Pang Pangzi and several soldiers maintaining order nearby.
18:05, nearly three hours later.
Over 100,000 evacuees had been ferried from the central Qixia Mountain Shelter.
20:10 that evening.
More than 300,000 had been evacuated from Qixia Mountain.
Thousands of fishing boats darted back and forth under torchlight, the dark floodwaters now bright with the glare of their lamps. The people’s fear of rain was gone—for now, they were driven only by the will to live.
Ye Shu slumped over the railing, her strength utterly spent, her optimization skills barely functional.
Still, her heart eased as she looked upon the expanse of crowded boats.
Many of the shelter’s fishing boats were battered relics—no better than rowboats—barely floating. With her optimization, she’d upgraded every last one, and the shelter’s stores of fuel helped them speed miles away from Yuhu City.
Elder Yu and the others watched Ye Shu with complex expressions. Their leader was gone, and in his place, a young outsider risked everything to save survivors who weren’t her own, all while wielding an uncanny power to heal and restore—something they’d never seen.
Elder Yu was no ingrate. After witnessing Ye Shu’s ‘abilities’ firsthand, he immediately ordered the news contained; previous human experiments were summarily disbanded.
23:08—late that night.
A crack of thunder split the sky.
The ground lurched. The boats bucked wildly, countless small vessels capsizing, the earth gaping and closing again, muddy water roiling red with blood.
Ye Shu gripped the rail and clung tight, praying to survive.
Within minutes, the boat formations were shattered, chaos everywhere—upstream, whole mountainsides crashed into the torrent. The soundscape was a nightmare: children’s keening, adults’ ragged breathing, cries for help drowned by rain.
In the next half-hour, aftershocks struck, tossing Ye Shu’s boat to the very brink.
Midnight.
[Congratulations! Player Ye Shu has survived for thirty days!!]