It was a player.
Judging by the figure, it was a man. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and held a burning torch in his hand.
The other party’s gas mask had no glass visor; it was the kind of full-head covering common in horror movies, with only two round shapes for the eyes.
【Ordinary Player No. 421021
ID: Huang Hongbo
Profession: Elementary Fire Mage】
The moment they saw each other clearly, both moved at once. The other party lunged toward her, and Mu Shan shot up from the ground.
They charged at top speed, but their target was not each other—it was the insect monster.
This person had come to steal the kill!
Mu Shan wanted to retrieve the axe stuck in the gap of the cockroach shell, but the flames were too hot; she was burned and couldn’t get close. The insect monster’s health bar was getting lower and lower, its six legs gradually stopped moving—it was almost fully roasted!
If this continued, the kill reward would definitely count as the other party’s credit.
At that moment, the man had rushed out of the forest. He raised his torch, intending to repeat the trick. Mu Shan whipped her head back and roared, “Attack him!”
The man froze, looking around in panic. One drawback of the full-head covering was the narrow field of vision; if someone was really hiding, he wouldn’t easily spot them.
“Gah—aaah!”
The zombie worker that had waited behind the tree roared and pounced out, reaching him in an instant. It opened its bloody maw, with unidentified dark clumps of flesh stuck between its rotten teeth; its twisted face was maximally horrifying.
The man seemed startled and dodged the zombie’s big mouth in a fluster.
The zombie worker that was obedient in front of Mu Shan appeared as a classic monster to other players. One person and one corpse chased each other, gradually moving away from the insect monster’s area.
Seeing things go south, the man raised his torch high. The flames in his hand surged and leaped like agile spirit snakes, bypassing the obstructing bushes and encircling the zombie.
The scene was straight out of a magic world.
But Mu Shan’s zombie worker was no ordinary being; it was even transformed from a player, so its physical qualities and combat ability were on another level.
It showed no fear of the flames’ scorching heat and charged forward like the bravest guard.
“Gah aaah!”
The zombie pursued relentlessly. The man not only had to dodge its claws and fangs dripping with corpse poison but also evade the rusty kitchen knife in its hand, wasting a lot of time.
When he snapped back to attention, he saw that part of the flames on the insect monster had actually been extinguished.
Over there, Mu Shan tossed aside the smoking, charred palm leaves. She placed one foot on the axe blade and pulled a large iron hammer from her backpack—the kind used by construction workers.
【Item Card: Large Iron Hammer
Description: One hammer 80!】
The axe and cleaver were still slanted in the wounds on the insect monster, stuck by the carapace and unable to penetrate further. Blue blood gushed out.
The giant cockroach was just one final fatal blow away.
Mu Shan gathered her strength, raised the iron hammer high, swung her arm in a full circle, and smashed down with all her might.
With a heavy “Bang—”, the hammer struck the knife handle. The massive inertial force drove the cleaver “Pfft” deep into the insect monster’s flesh, directly severing its neck.
The charred insect monster struggled once more, then completely stopped moving.
Mu Shan was drenched in sweat. She finally received the system prompt.
【Player successfully killed Giant Insect Monster x1
Gold Coins +50】
The gas mask made breathing difficult; the hot breath fogged the glass visor. Sweat trickled down her forehead and nose tip, sticking stickily to her skin, but Mu Shan didn’t dare relax.
She gripped the hammer and turned, looking toward the fire mage not far away.
A new weapon had appeared in his hand besides the torch. The dispatched zombie worker had been burned beyond recognition—skin charred black, hair completely gone. Its tenacious vitality kept it alive, writhing futilely on the ground with flailing arms.
The zombie worker had only bought her a little time, but fortunately, the insect monster was killed—his scheme had failed.
The two tacitly halted their movements and stared at each other silently across the insect monster’s corpse.
Though the other party still wore the mask, Mu Shan could feel his icy, venomous gaze.
He sized her up, assessed her strength, and predicted her next move.
After a moment, the player named Huang Hongbo spoke. “A little girl, pretty impressive. Hope you have such good luck next time.”
Mu Shan replied calmly, “Thanks for the auspicious words, but I’ve survived this long not by luck.”
They faced off for a moment. The man panted “Huff huff” through the protective headgear. Finally, he seemed to give up attacking her and turned to flee swiftly into the forest, vanishing from sight.
Mu Shan gave chase and listened behind the trees for a long while. Only when she confirmed the man had gone far from her safe house did she relax.
She walked to the zombie worker and crouched down.
Its head, face, and body were charred and carbonized, with only some red flesh left in its mouth. The whole corpse was burned horribly.
But the zombie’s vitality was extremely strong; even in this state, it wasn’t dead. It made hoarse “Gah gah” sounds from its mouth and feebly tried to move its arms.
Mu Shan drew her small knife and gently pressed it against its charred neck. Her voice was soft.
“Hard work.”
“Rest in peace.”
【Gold Coins +1】
With everything settled, Mu Shan stood with a cold face. She scanned the forest around her safe house, now a chaotic mess from the battle.
The ground was pocked with pits dug by the insect monsters, broken branches littered everywhere. Plus, that fire mage’s sudden appearance had burned a large patch of grass black.
Insect monsters were the signature foes of this instance; their health and combat power far exceeded zombies, but they lacked contagion risk—no infection worry for players.
Thus, the system “thoughtfully” added the purple fungi as support.
Players might dodge insect monsters with luck, but not the pervasive spores. The body would become a fungal breeding ground, a fate worse than turning zombie.
A lone fighter could at best handle 1-2 insect monsters. This fire mage, who entered the instance before her, likely had the same idea: let other players wear down the monsters, then steal the kills for easy gains.
If that player got lucky and injured the target, ambushing for the kill would net gear and supplies—a massively profitable deal.
To survive, players would do anything.
Mu Shan found a nearby depression and dragged the zombie worker’s corpse into the pit. She buried it with rubble and dirt.
It had been a great contributor, after all; a proper burial in hopes it wouldn’t be a zombie in the next life.
The insect monster’s corpse remained in place in its final state—too heavy to move, and far beyond the virtual backpack’s capacity.
She exerted great effort to pry out the deeply embedded cleaver and axe.
The flames had scorched the insect monster’s body, leaving black marks on the shiny shell. Mu Shan tapped it with the knife back; it rang with a metallic “Clang clang” and showed no damage.
This thing was so sturdy—could it be used for something…
She selected two long, strip-shaped shells from the insect’s hind legs, about the size and thickness of a human arm.
She wanted the two largest back plates from its back—they could serve as Captain America’s shields—but with the giant insect belly-up, she couldn’t flip it alone.
Mu Shan took out her knife and chisel, wedging the blade into the shell seams and hammering bit by bit.
The job required not just patience and care but enduring the disgust.
Perhaps because the insect was dead and its flesh inert, she easily removed the shell intact, without a single scratch on the outer surface.
Mu Shan quickly tossed the bloody shell into her backpack, planning to deal with it later.
She subconsciously ignored where it came from.
…Survival first; she wouldn’t pass up any resources.
Prying the shell took about fifteen minutes. In that time, carnivorous little bugs had crawled from underground, densely surrounding the insect corpse and carting off bits of its innards.
She’d worried earlier about scavengers; now it seemed the body would soon be fully consumed.
Notably, at some point, the fluorescent purple fungi in the forest had shrunk back to their original form. Harmless-looking purple mushrooms clustered at tree roots.
The spores in the air had vanished completely, no trace of the earlier danger.
But she kept the gas mask on for now. To eliminate any risk, Mu Shan bound some dry branches together, wrapped rags at the tip, and lit it.
Using the scorching torch, she burned every fungus clean, one by one.
The fungi that could parasitize any living thing withered rapidly in the flames, turning into shriveled black-gray clumps that crumbled to powder underfoot.
Eradicating the fungi was meticulous work; she had to crouch in the grass, parting leaves and bushes bit by bit to find the mushrooms.
And with spores spreading so widely, even after this, she couldn’t guarantee no regrowth nearby.
Sweat dripped down, leaving trails on the glass visor.
Over an hour later, Mu Shan was sore-backed and exhausted. She plopped down on the ground.
She removed the gas mask and shook her head; sweat had soaked her stray hairs, and her face was flushed from the stuffiness.
Night had fallen; humid hot wind blew, with leaves rustling in her ears.
She stared blankly at the river, its waves surging.
The traces left by the six departing insect monsters were clear on the riverbank—pits gouged in the gravel by their limbs. Following them should lead to the destination.
But she’d only trapped one; what of the rest? Would the NPC Village from Side Quest 1 be overrun?
That was a 3000 gold coin penalty—thinking about it suffocated her…
No failure prompt yet, but it hung like a sword over her head, ready to bankrupt her.
Mu Shan fretted, wishing she could float downstream now to check.
She pushed up on her knees to stand when her vision blurred—speak of the devil, a system prompt appeared!
Mu Shan jumped, thinking she’d gone bankrupt.
But looking closely, it was new content.
【Ordinary Player No. 537099, you have triggered Side Quest 2 in Humid Heat Forest
Quest 2: Kill the instance boss
Success: Receive rewards
Failure: Deduct 100 gold coins; if insufficient, deduct other items】
Mu Shan wore a puzzled expression.
Wasn’t it… after becoming an ordinary player from cannon fodder player, did the system misunderstand her abilities?
Collector wasn’t a combat profession; she had no combat skills!
Killing one bug had nearly exhausted her to death—what kind of insect king was the boss? Could she even take it down? Not like she could just charge with an axe.
“But at least the failure penalty is only 100 gold; she could afford that.” Mu Shan sighed.
Night deepened; the bloody sunset dyed the river red.
Humid Heat Forest’s beauty masked the day’s perils. Every surviving player in the instance looked toward the sunset, feeling they’d endured another day.
Some lay scarred on the shore, some holed up in safe houses, some neurotically marked Xs on walls for days, some smoked atop trees.
All remembered how many days they’d lived.
Mu Shan blew in the river breeze a while until the buzzing mosquitoes multiplied. She headed back to the safe house.
But leaving no sentry outside wouldn’t do; she reluctantly used another character card to summon a zombie worker to guard the door.
The male zombie with half its skull caved in still wore a suit and shirt. It hunched its back, eyes rolled upward, upper and lower teeth clacking with a da da da.
Its build looked intimidating enough, but this was just a zombie transformed from an ordinary person. Its combat power was quite limited—even the current Mu Shan could bash it dead with a single stick. It could only serve as an early warning or sentry.
After securing the two doors inside the safe house and closing the glass ceiling, Mu Shan finally felt a trace of relief upon returning to the basement.
Her stomach had long been rumbling with hunger. There was still some braised rice left from lunch. She washed her hands and reheated it on the stove.
She cracked open a few of the ripest passion fruits and opened a can of Sprite to make a fruit drink. The passion fruit juice and seeds floated amid the bubbles, soothing her utterly exhausted body.
She downed a quarter of it in one go, then tilted her head back with a long exhale.
“Burp.”
White steam began billowing from the edge of the pot. Mu Shan turned off the fire and suddenly remembered something.
She hurriedly opened the system mall and scrolled up and down frantically until she found what she wanted.
[ Agricultural Fungicide: 200 gold/bottle, dilute 1:1000 with water for spraying or irrigation. Kills 99.9% of bacteria and fungi in the environment.
Special promotion: Free spray bottle x1
Note: Be careful not to ingest it by mistake, or you’ll get poisoned. ]
This stuff had only cost a few dozen gold in the previous instance—probably no one except an agronomist would buy it. But in this instance, the price had been jacked up several times over.
Mu Shan did not want any of these dangerous fungi near her safe house. She did not think she could just burn them away, so she pinned her hopes on a system product.
She bought one bottle to test its effects. With a crisp ding, a bottle of pesticide with flashy packaging appeared abruptly on her desk amid the jingle of gold coins.
Wearing medical gloves, Mu Shan placed the pesticide bottle in the bathroom first, planning to deal with it tomorrow.
It was the second day of the main quest, her first night in the safe house.
After two days of trekking and fighting, her body was fatigued, but her mind could not relax.
—Players who might be friend or foe, powerful monsters, an environment riddled with crises.
Mu Shan sat up on the bed in her pajamas. She took out the berries and pods she had gathered yesterday and began processing them. She filled a steel basin with water to soak the berries, gently rinsing them several times and picking out the rotten or spoiled ones. She divided the rest into two portions for storage.
Berries did not keep long. She planned to add sugar to one portion to make jam—it would be convenient for soaking in water or eating with meals. The other portion would go straight into fillings for berry pies.
While the jam simmered in a small pot, Mu Shan started on the beans she had picked.
The pods in the rainforest were enormous, as long as an adult’s forearm. Once she peeled off the tough outer skin, the soft white bean flesh inside was revealed.
Mu Shan scooped out the bean flesh into a bowl, sealed it with plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge. She planned to make pork stew with beans when she had time.
Looking at the fridge gradually filling up, this sense of security was something nothing else could provide.
About ten minutes later, the berries in the small pot had completely broken down into mush. Mu Shan stirred them with a wooden spoon. The sour-sweet aroma lifted her spirits.
She left the jam in the pot to cool naturally.
Mu Shan climbed into bed to rest. The room was filled with the faint sweet scent of fruit. Half-asleep, half-awake, the aroma made her feel like she had gone back to the past.
She had always loved sweets.
In high school, cavities had plagued her, and she avoided all desserts for a time.
“Here, double skin milk I brought for you.” By the sports field, a tall shadow stood beside her. The cool bowl touched her cheek.
Mu Shan, in her school uniform, clutched her cheek and shook her head vigorously. “No, I won’t eat it.”
“What’s there to be afraid of? Just rinse your mouth after.”
“I said no. My tooth still hurts.”
“Isn’t it already fixed? Let me see.”
She looked up. The person beside her squatted down against the light. His tall frame nearly shielded her completely.
This time, Mu Shan finally saw the face of the person in her dream clearly.