Ye Shu clutched a block of ice to her chest, inching her way through the desert’s burning sands. The precious ice was melting, droplets falling and vanishing before they could cool the ground.
A single chunk of ice could only last half an hour at best.
She had no choice but to constantly consume her ability, condensing new ice to stave off the heat. During this period, she even managed to strike a few deals.
She wasn’t the only one thrown into this black desert by the game. All it took was listing the ice on the trading platform—soon enough, supplies came to her hands, offered up eagerly by desperate players.
Some drew food cards in the lottery—so for them, food wasn’t even a limitation.
Ye Shu put ten blocks of ice up for trade and got five strips of dried meat, ten cacti, and three mixed grain biscuits. It was enough, if she rationed it, to last her two days.
Amidst the endless dunes, she’d become a peculiar sight: her head wrapped in peony-patterned cloth, sunglasses shielding her eyes, a solid block of ice hugged to her chest.
On Planet R, ice was as valuable as hard currency. Ye Shu had exchanged for all manner of goods with it.
Her sunglasses and even the shoes on her feet had come from trading ice.
You could say, save for the fact that she still had to trek on foot beneath the cruel sun, she had food, water, and was making do quite comfortably—at least by comparison!
Suddenly, a cold mechanical voice sounded in her ear.
[The beginner’s grace period for players has ended. Game difficulty will now increase. Player trading is closed. The game map is now disabled. Chat is temporarily enabled.]
Ye Shu exploded, internally if not outwardly.
So did the other players!
[aaa Silicone Wholesale Li Ge: What the hell?! Nothing on the survival manual mentioned mid-game announcements! Stingy bastards—shutting down the trading platform, too? How am I going to get my stockpile of jerky delivered to my goddess now?]
[Watching with My Grin On: Tsk! Flirting in a survival game? The sheer audacity!]
[Bear Squad: I just shipped out some meat jerky! Haven’t even gotten the water in return yet—am I out both goods? What a bloodbath for me!]
[Bear San: Stupid game! My water was for barter—now you just close the channel? Go to—￥%#￥*0]
[Bear San has been muted and blacklisted for six months due to system violations.]
Ye Shu: "…" She wanted to curse a little, too, but she held her tongue.
Damn, did this system have no sense of boundaries at all?
Even the trading channel was shut down?
Thank goodness she had worked fast exchanging supplies. If not, she might have starved to death in this black desert.
And as for the direction on the map… She remembered it: she just had to walk east. As long as she headed that way, she couldn’t go wrong.
As these thoughts crossed her mind, the howl of wind suddenly rose in the distance.
Her eyes widened almost comically.
No way.
Say something bad, and it always comes true.
It was as if misfortune itself had answered her tongue.
Kilometers away, a fierce wind whipped up sand that darkened the sky, swallowing the sun and drowning the world in an instant blur of dust.
Ye Shu ran with all her might in the opposite direction, not caring if she lost her way.
In only a few minutes, the sandstorm was nearly upon her.
Wind howled, sweeping up gravel and casting ominous shadows across the earth.
She could see nothing ahead.
Trusting her instincts, she did as ostriches do—dug a quick pit in the sand and buried herself inside.
Unexpectedly, the gale was so powerful that it tore her right out of her hiding place and flung her up into the sky. Knees drawn to her chest, Ye Shu clung fiercely to her peony cloth.
When she awoke, she was buried beneath a mound of sand.
Despite her preparations, grit seeped into the cloth, stinging her eyes and nose with raw pain.
Tears streamed from her burning eyes as she clawed herself free of the suffocating sand.
It was several minutes before she finally dragged herself out. Ice, melted into water, gradually rinsed her burning eyes and nasal passages.
At last, her eyes flushed clean, though the whites were crimson red. Had it not been for her improved physique, a normal person might well have gone blind.
She took in the surroundings—no different from when she arrived. Nothing but dunes as far as she could see.
She chewed half a cactus and finished half a stick of melted ice, then rested briefly until she regained her strength before setting out again.
With no map, two suns in the sky had rendered Blue Star’s navigational tricks useless. Ye Shu was now completely lost in the black desert.
She trekked for half a day.
At last, a sign of life—a change for the better. Faint animal tracks appeared, tiny prints etched in the sand.
In the distance, she glimpsed several towering cacti.
After a few sips of water, she set off in that direction.
One hour passed.
Then two.
But the distance to the cacti never changed. Surrounding them, space shimmered with distortion—here, she even glimpsed ghostly mirages of ancient desert cities and bustling market crowds.
A mirage!
This was an illusion—a trap to lure her in.
Ye Shu stopped immediately, turning on her heels to flee in the opposite direction. Before long, she was back to where animal tracks reappeared. She even found a few small lizards buried in the yellow sand.
Her storage space was now locked, with only some meager supplies left: eight cacti, three strips of dried meat, and two grain biscuits.
The lizards were gutted and dried into jerky to be stashed in her storage—emergency rations.
Night fell.
The temperature plummeted again.
Ye Shu, clad in only a short-sleeved shirt, shivered violently, bereft of anything to keep herself warm.
As before, she dug herself a pit and buried herself in the sand, trapping the remaining warmth.
In the dead of night, the wind whistled across the dunes.
In her hazy half-sleep, Ye Shu suddenly caught a scratching, rustling sound. Instantly alert, she sprang from the sand like a coiled spring, evading an attack.
Above, the two moons lit the land.
And by their light, Ye Shu finally saw her attacker’s true form.
The creature was a massive worm, over ten meters long, sightless, with a maw circling with rings of jagged teeth. Its skin was a gruesome purplish red, as though sheathed in a membrane.
"Wuuuu—"
The monster let out a cry that eerily mimicked an infant’s wail, twisting its grotesque body in her direction.
For a second, Ye Shu froze.
It wasn’t the abomination’s hideousness that shocked her. She just wondered—was this damned beast another trick of Lin Qingyue’s?!
"Wuuuuu…"
The monster roared and spat a stream of venom at her.
Ye Shu couldn’t dodge in time; she could only tumble forward, barely evading the blast.
The venom struck the sand and stone, instantly corroding them away in a smoking pit.
She whipped out her peachwood sword and, with a tremendous leap, drove the blade deep into the worm’s body without hesitation.
"Wuuu…"
The monster screamed, writhing furiously, trying to throw her off.
The peachwood sword was a powerful talisman, not just against the supernatural but all manner of monsters.
From the wound, thick, poisonous ichor poured in streams.
Ye Shu, quick-eyed, flipped away from the creature’s thrashing mass.
She hadn’t run far when the worm’s body suddenly ballooned into a grotesque ball of flesh, exploding with a deafening roar.
Venom sprayed in all directions.
Ye Shu was splattered, a patch of flesh on her arm dissolving away from the caustic fluid.
[Ding! Congratulations, player Ye Shu, for slaying a Death Worm! You have earned 10 points.]
At the same time, the system’s announcement echoed in every player’s ears:
[Player No. 10096 has slain the monster Death Worm—first kill achieved; 10 points awarded.]
Just an ordinary monster.
Not him, after all.
Ye Shu stared for a moment. Then her mind started to race. The worm’s entire body was venom—if she could harvest this poison, it could serve her well.
But… how was she supposed to collect it?
There was only a sliver of space left in her storage; the monster’s venom could corrode not just sand and stone, but even her equipment.
Still, Ye Shu collected the worm’s corpse into her storage, willing the system to separate it from her other goods.