Ye Shu accepted Su Bai's praise with zero humility, not even pretending to be modest.
"Let's go! The sandstorm is almost here! Find shelter and stay hidden! Four more days—we just need to survive twenty days in Qiangwu City."
What had she just seen?
The person lying sprawled out on the ground... could it have been Ye Shu?
How could she possibly die?
She had cleared this desert dungeon before without so much as a scratch.
In the pitch-black burrow, there was a fleeting moment where Su Bai, unnoticed by Ye Shu, looked dazed.
As soon as they emerged from the burrow, Ye Shu choked on a mouthful of sand.
Choking yellow sand filled the sky, visibility less than a meter. She could only stumble toward the house by memory.
The giant scorpion was slain by Ye Shu; the remaining swarms of little ones, now leaderless, were soon annihilated by the townsfolk. Their venomous tails were discarded, and the harmless bodies skewered over fire.
It was now the sixteenth day since entering the game.
Qiangwu City was completely smothered by the sandstorm. The wind and dust swept through the empty streets; by midnight, the sand had piled up to the knees of a grown adult. If this continued, the city would be buried entirely.
Ye Shu had no real solution.
All she could do was wrap herself in floral cloth, don sunglasses, cover her nose and mouth, and try to clear the growing sandhills off her doorstep.
The people of Qiangwu had survived in this desert for millennia and knew what must be done.
Every household sent someone to shovel their door clear, doing what they could so the sand wouldn't drown their knees.
At first, all was uneasy but calm—until that night, when the city's water supply was buried under sand, and the last trickle was cut off.
Panic spread in an instant.
The price of water shot up, one small gold bean for a barrel at first, then three gold beans for a single barrel...
Ye Shu wasn't especially affected by the lack of water.
However, sheltering here came at a price: the food she needed to pay as rent had gone up by half.
[Strawberry Ranch]: 'The sandstorm swept me right into the sky—can anyone guess where I landed? Gumuo! Supposedly the biggest oasis on the whole planet. No shortage of water here, but don’t even ask about the prices!'
[Green Grass]: 'Anyone in Qiangwu? I think I bumped into some pros! A scorpion monster showed up here, handled effortlessly by two women. I thought I was dead for sure, but I’m still alive... though I’m nearly out of bug cakes and starving.'
[Keyboard Knight, the Real Deal]: 'Pros? Two women? What are women doing in survival games anyway? Wouldn't they be better off at home tending to husbands and children?'
Ye Shu caught this comment at just the right moment.
It’s true—sometimes anger can make you laugh.
[ImYourDad, tagging Keyboard Knight]: 'You low-level scrub, what are you barking about in the chat? As a man, shouldn’t you be at home minding the kitchen and the kids, huh? Why imitate tough women and go off adventuring in survival games?!'
With that fiery reply, she blocked and reported him on the spot.
[Keyboard Knight]: 'Who insulted me? Show yourself! Damn, this name looks familiar—wait, top of the leaderboard?!'
[Keyboard Knight has been reported, banned for ten days, and lost 10 ranking points.]
Ye Shu was mildly surprised.
Didn’t the old dog of the survival system always target her?
She actually succeeded in filing a report—unexpected.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t waste time gloating, because... Su Bai had charred, yet again, the prized Gulu Beast meat she’d paid a fortune for. The burnt stench drifted far and wide.
People in Qiangwu City could smell it, but only dared to complain under their breath.
Even if they hadn't witnessed Ye Shu slay the giant scorpion, no one was going to cross the woman who conjured fireballs with her bare hands.
Attila and the others from the caravan hid in the city's tiniest mudhouse.
Everyone envied Su Bai's abilities, though envy was as far as they dared go.
Planet R was a wasteland, its people exiled convicts from upper worlds. Even those favored by the gods were rare enough.
On the other side of the screen.
Fu Jingchuan stared at the subtitles, lost in thought.
So, Ye Xiao Shu prefers men who stay at home and look after their wives and children...
No wonder Xiao Eleven always says men who act spoiled get their way; whenever he acts cute toward Ye Xiao Shu, she gives in.
Seventeenth day of the game.
The storm was fiercer than ever. Almost no one could stand up to face the wind; the sand buried half the city, mudhouses and earth blending into a yellow wasteland.
Ye Shu abandoned trying to clear it away.
Every time she swept it clean, a vortex would swirl it back, undoing her work in moments. It was hopeless.
In just one day, the first floor was buried.
Of the original hundreds of thousands of players, fewer than ten thousand remained.
Even those gloating about their oases of plenty were now posting desperate commentaries—overnight, even the oasis water had dried up.
The desert heat was merciless. A few hours without water was life-threatening: heatstroke, fever, death awaited.
The price of water soared higher and higher.
Now, there was no market at all—even with gold beans and food, you couldn’t get water. If the system hadn’t locked down the trade platform, Ye Shu’s barter business would have thrived.
"Shushu... the house is buried in sand..."
Su Bai tried to plug the pouring sand from the crevices. Block one, and another would crack. The floor filled with grit.
Ye Shu answered calmly.
She’d never seen conditions quite like these before. There were only two choices: leave the shelter—and risk getting swept into the sky—or hunker down and hope the sandstorm passed.
Ye Shu decided to freeze the whole house.
Sure enough, the sand stopped flooding in.
Su Bai shivered, arms breaking into goosebumps, breath steaming white. "Chilly! Shushu, honestly, what level is your Ice power now? You’re using it so freely."
After all that, Ye Shu didn’t even look tired.
How many rounds had it been—could she already be at Power Level Eight?
"Level Three. Why?"
Ye Shu conjured little ice spheres, popping them into her mouth to chew.
She rarely made use of her Ice ability. If not for this round, she might’ve forgotten she had it.
"Level Three?!"
Su Bai, herself a Level Seven Fire user in her last life, understood perfectly what that meant. Yet she had never seen such a frighteningly strong... Level Three.
Back at Level Two, she could cast at most a dozen fireballs, but the price was days of exhaustion.
Nineteenth day of the game.
Ye Shu and Su Bai endured as best they could. The wind abated, and the sand at last stopped leaking indoors.
Qiangwu City was completely submerged.
From afar, it looked like a giant earthen mound.
From space, Planet R was a yellow ball, its last hints of green erased.