Where there’s a cave, there must be hidden treasure!
Ye Shu didn’t hesitate for a moment; abandoning her wild vegetables, she moved towards the mountain cave instead.
She didn’t leave the curtain of climbing vines covering the entrance untouched either; she gathered them up and stuffed them into her fishing net to serve as fodder for her rabbits.
Pushing aside the vines, a chill wind rushed out to greet her.
The cave was enormous. Even with her searchlight, Ye Shu couldn’t see its end. As she stepped forward, her foot slipped—she narrowly avoided tumbling over a rock.
Glancing down, she saw that her white cloth shoes, already muddied, now had their toes smeared with a layer of black.
Stooping, Ye Shu picked up the chunk of inky stone, wondering how coal could possibly exist on this island, when the familiar chime of the game interface rang in her ears.
[You’ve obtained: Ordinary Coal x1. Description: A plain lump of coal, useful for heating and boiling water, burns for one hour.]
Ye Shu grinned ear to ear as she found several more such coal rocks scattered through the cave, eagerly scooping them into her inventory.
Such resources would surely be precious in this survival game.
At the cave’s far end, Ye Shu came upon a blackened wall. She struck it with her wooden sword, breaking off a slab the size of her palm, only to discover that the entire wall was a solid vein of coal.
[You’ve obtained: Low-Grade Coal x1. Description: This is low-quality coal, useful for heating, burns for two hours, and can ward off monsters from the deep sea.]
With that prompt, Ye Shu set to the coal seam in earnest, her wooden sword biting vast chunks with ease.
By the time she finished, her cheeks—once fair—were now as blackened as a miner’s.
To use a SSS-ranked piece of equipment for coal mining, Ye Shu was certainly breaking new ground. Most survival game players would worship such high-level tools, cherishing their mere 100% durability for critical moments only. No one would dream of risking them on menial labor.
[You’ve obtained: Low-Grade Coal x14.]
[You’ve obtained: Medium-Grade Coal x5.]
The peachwood sword cut through the coal vein like tofu, making the black lumps clatter to the ground. Only when there was no more empty space at her feet did Ye Shu stoop to gather them into her warehouse.
Her hand fell upon a blackened shard—wet to the touch, and decidedly unlike the texture of coal. Ye Shu frowned at the strange sensation.
In the beam of her searchlight, she saw the fragment was a dark wood splinter, carved with weird, indecipherable symbols blurred by the ages.
On the translucent game screen, her optimization skill prompted: The fragment in your hand can be refined.
[A treasure chest fragment detected. Would you like to repair and optimize it?]
The next moment, the cave was awash in white light.
The shard vanished. In its place appeared a massive black treasure chest.
It was like the chests she’d seen before—they never betrayed the nature of their material, and the lamplight seemed to dim upon its surface. The designs upon it, now clearer, were even more sinister, and Ye Shu felt a dreadful chill creep up her spine.
In common with earlier chests, there were five inlaid gemstones set into its exterior.
Treasure chests promised both opportunity and danger, and Ye Shu knew well that in this survival game, whatever lurked inside a black chest could easily be as monstrous as her encounter with the blood-red one.
Ye Shu’s fingers brushed the jet-colored bronze lock—the chest sprang open on its own.
[You’ve acquired: A Strange Black Treasure Chest!]
[Black chess opened: you’ve received Firepit Blueprint x1, Milk x2 liters, Pajamas x1, High-grade Living Deep-Sea Jiaoren x1...]
Something shadowy leapt out of the chest; Ye Shu dove aside, flinging her newly-acquired items into storage.
“Pupupupu~”
The shadow made an eerie, bubbling noise. Its gray-white, snake-like vertical pupils fixed on Ye Shu with a baleful stare, full of apparent discontent.
The creature was vaguely human in form, but its skin had a bluish tinge. Where ears should have been, gills flared, and when it hissed, a mouth lined with triple rows of fangs opened wide, revealing even the scales puffed up behind its cheeks.
A human head atop a fish’s tail—wasn’t this... a mermaid?
But this thing was far from the storied mermaids of legend. It was a living horror, too hideous to behold.
“Pupupupu...”
Ye Shu reeled, nearly losing her grip on her sword as the thrashing fish tail whipped past.
Again came the strange sounds, echoing in her skull. Yet Ye Shu steeled herself, resisting the nauseating ache and stabbing at the creature.
The mermaid’s voice could unsettle the mind itself.
But the peachwood sword—a natural bane to monsters—kept her will clear. Seeing Ye Shu immune to its song, the mermaid tried to flee, but with a single stroke, she severed the muscles in its tail.
[Deep Sea Jiaoren wishes to submit to Player Ye Shu and become your pet. Establish master-servant contract?]
[Yes — Contract Successful!]
[S-Rank Deep Sea Jiaoren. Description: This is an adolescent jiaoren living in the ocean depths. It is very fast, but weak in combat. Their songs are typically used to lure prey.]
Ye Shu looked at the jiaoren sprawled at the cave mouth, its blood pooling on the ground, and she sheathed her sword.
Upon seeing the terrifying peachwood sword vanish, the jiaoren’s twisted face softened, and it bared its triple-layered fangs in what passed for a smile.
“Shut your mouth. Don’t smile.”
The jiaoren opened its maw—revealing even more wicked teeth and the gray-green veins in its throat. The sight alone made her stomach churn.
“Pupupupu... Yes, my dear master.”
The jiaoren obediently closed its mouth, its grayish gaze darting slyly at Ye Shu, a trace of regret flickering in its eyes. Such a beautiful prey... If only it could just snap her throat in one bite, its master would taste so very good.
“If you don’t want to wind up sashimi, behave yourself.”
The sun dipped, glowing orange-red on the horizon. Only then did Ye Shu realize—two hours had slipped by unnoticed.
Yet in the cave, time seemed to have passed in little more than half an hour...
The island was about to sink into the sea.
Ye Shu tossed her fishing net to the jiaoren and sprinted madly. At her pace, she could make it to the beach in under fifteen minutes.
The jiaoren discerned her urgency and warned, “My dear master, time flows twice as fast in this cave. In half a hai zhong, the island will sink to the deepest abyss. That’s five minutes in human time.”
Five minutes? There was no time left at all!
So this cave was a trap—unbeknownst to her, it was meant to trap players until both they and the cave vanished beneath the waves.
No wonder the chest had been left as only a fragment.
If she hadn't restored and optimized the chest, contracted with the jiaoren, and stumbled out by sheer luck, she would have perished under the sea today.
Ye Shu ran faster still.
But no matter how swift she was, the jiaoren always glided ahead by a few dozen meters, pausing to wait for her with disarming leisure...
“My dear master, I am very fast. Allow me to carry you back to the beach.”
Aboard the sailboat.
Da Piaoliang lounged against the railing, glaring disdainfully at the shredded meat drifting in the water below. These players actually had the nerve to compete with it for territory.
As a supernatural being, it was only too happy to let these foolish humans become its feast, making up for all its previous hunger.
But as the sun dipped lower, Da Piaoliang grew increasingly agitated.
Its gleaming green eyes scanned the distant woods, yet saw no sign of Ye Shu. If not for the contract bond still intact, it would have thought this woman dead.
Still, it dared not stray a single step from the sailboat...
No boat, game over for Ye Shu, and it would share her fate as well.
Another ten minutes passed; darkness deepened as the sun vanished, stars blossoming in the sky. Seawater surged up the island’s slopes, the sailboat rising and falling with each swell.
“Meowww... damn it, she’s still not back?”
Da Piaoliang cursed, fury making its fur stand on end.
Suddenly, its huge cat eyes widened: not far off, a figure with a fish tail was skimming rapidly along the muddy ground, Ye Shu slung across its back, a fishing net hanging from its neck, a bamboo stick tucked under its arm.