There Are Always Troublemakers Out to Get Me

The moment the announcement came out, the sandbox players, already partying themselves into a frenzy, exploded in outrage. They were beside themselves with excitement.

Most of them had yet to reach land and were still suffering in the ocean where life originated, dying and restarting over and over. A small handful had only just crawled ashore and become amphibians. Before they could even get a proper look at the legendary giant or discuss him in private, this happened, and they immediately started cursing.

"Dog Planner, three seconds? You might as well have said nothing!!"

Swish.

The instant the three seconds were up, their screens went black.

Fuck!

Countless people ripped off their VR Glasses, nearly smashing their equipment.

They had no idea that it was precisely because they had been talking dirty in front of Xu Zhi that he remembered them. If you don't court death, you won't die.

My Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, Wants to Evolve into a Kun: "Look at this! Does this announcement even sound human? Dog Planner, who the hell works like that without advance notice? I'm quitting! This is the first time I've ever seen a game designer like this! A petition signed in blood by ten thousand players—sacrifice the programmers to the heavens!"

Mount Akina Speed: "Just get used to it. This casual game has always been hardcore, anyway. (picks nose)"

Recharge and Chop Hands: "The guy above saying he's quitting will definitely be saying Zhen Xiang later! (Wang Jingze Zhen Xiang meme.jpg)"

A group of closed-beta players raged on the forum, cursing the Dog Planner like mad, yet they could not resist the appeal of a game with such incredible freedom.

Xu Zhi glanced at the lively comments.

These free laborers in the sandbox, tasked with breeding new species, were getting awfully smug. He could not be bothered with them at all. Faced with the players' wails and pleas, he remained utterly cold-hearted. He was a Creator without emotions.

Meanwhile, those who could not even play the game instantly turned green with envy and began posting beneath the closed-beta players' comments.

Crazy African: "Big shots, if you can't handle something this hardcore, let me do it! My liver's hardened—I can grind like crazy!"

Little Fists Are Beautiful: "If you don't need your closed-beta slots, please donate them to someone who does. Thank you!"

A group of people felt that their chance had come and silently waited for them to quit. Who would not want to personally enter the game, become a spore filled with limitless potential, play Creator for once, and evolve endless possibilities? Yet although the closed-beta players kicked up a fuss, they ignored all talk of quitting as if they had not heard it. Then they began discussing something else—the mysterious giant. After all, apart from the various evolving species, that giant was clearly the most unusual thing in the entire sandbox.

Mount Akina Speed: "Guys, have you noticed? As we gradually make landfall, this game has started its story sequence! That giant is actually eating a boxed lunch in the yard! Unbelievable!"

Recharge and Chop Hands: "Obviously! With how hardcore and realistic this game is, even a boss has to eat. Naturally, he has his own NPC routines. We need to evolve species, then defeat him."

Mount Akina Speed: "Defeating him anytime soon is basically impossible. But since the game is so realistic and hardcore, and he has to eat, then we have a way to beat him."

My Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, Wants to Evolve into a Kun: "He's eating... You mean you want to poison his food? But we don't have poison in the game."

Mount Akina Speed: "No guns, no cannons—we make them ourselves! We little bugs can evolve a highly toxic species with neurotoxins, then blow ourselves up and jump into his lunchbox. He'll eat us, and we'll poison the boss to death. At the very least, we'll give him diarrhea."

My Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, Wants to Evolve into a Kun: "666! You're dark and vicious as hell. I like it!"

Mount Akina Speed: "I'm going back right now to cram up on the biology of neurotoxins—the evolutionary history of scorpions, venomous insects, and venomous snakes. I'll evolve a super-toxic species that looks like shit and let him taste what us little bugs can do. I'll put shit in his food, with poison hidden inside the shit!"

Recharge and Chop Hands: "Big shot, awesome!"

Cute Girl Wants to Evolve into a Dragon, Endorsing Legendary Web Games: "Big shot, awesome!"

My Hunyuan Thunderbolt Hand, Wants to Evolve into a Kun: "Big shot, awesome!"

Xu Zhi was dumbfounded.

"This brother has some admirable courage. This time, he actually wants to bring people over to mess with me."

Xu Zhi smiled with nothing but goodwill. "Do you really hold that much resentment toward me? I'm eating in the yard while watching you evolve in the little sandbox beneath my feet. How did I provoke you? Last time you wanted to shit on my head, and now you want to put shit in my food, with poison hidden inside it?"

Xu Zhi silently added another mark to his little book. This brother could just pray for his own good fortune in the future.

He did not pay them any further attention. After forcibly logging everyone out of the "Land of the Origin of Life" sandbox, he carried a common white rubber hose slightly thicker than a finger over to the sandbox, intending to alter its structure.

He began considering how to enter the Great Sandbox World.

Picking up a hoe, he began digging. "Since I plan to enter the Great Sandbox World through the player channel, there needs to be a connection between the two sandboxes. I'll bury a hose passage underground to link them."

He started digging with the hoe. After half an hour, he had buried a white rubber hose more than ten meters long beneath the ground between the two sandboxes, connecting the two worlds and creating a "World Passage."

This was his exclusive VIP passage.

From now on, it would be his exclusive route into the Great Sandbox World. Without Xu Zhi's permission, no one could see it or enter through it, including those Sand Sculpture Players who were eagerly plotting to harm him.

Then he returned to his room, turned on his laptop, put on his VR Glasses, and registered a player account through his own client: "Write Down All Those Who Scold Me."

He logged into the game and clicked to confirm the start. His vision went black, as though he were drifting through seawater.

"Please evolve your eyes!"

After less than half a day, Xu Zhi's species, viewed from his own player perspective, began making its way onto land.

"This body is a little... something, isn't it? It's just as bizarre as those players'."

Xu Zhi looked at his bizarre body, which resembled a giant eyeball. He had thought he would be better than the players, but he was not much better at all. They were all cut from the same cloth—nothing but freakish oddities.

He now resembled a black, long-haired Three-Eyed Raven. It had two normal eyes and a vertical pupil in the middle, while its entire body was covered in black feathers.

It was the kind that could not fly, either. Flapping its wings, it could only glide three or four meters at low altitude.

Though Xu Zhi was reluctant to admit it, this was indeed an utterly failed evolutionary species. In the Great Sandbox World, it definitely would not survive the coming survival-of-the-fittest struggle and would be wiped out.

Xu Zhi could not help asking, "Sub-Brain, this raven and the Big Eye Monster are both equally ugly. According to the uglier-is-stronger law, this species must have equally great potential, like that Evil Eye, right?"

The Insect Nest Sub-Brain promptly dealt him a Critical Strike: "According to projections, there is a high probability that it possesses no extraordinary potential. This Three-Eyed Raven is merely a malformed species resulting from failed evolution."

That was too much!

Xu Zhi immediately felt deeply discouraged.

But on second thought, it was only natural. No two forms of life could evolve in exactly the same way; each was unique. Though the giant eyeball had been born by chance and possessed astonishing potential, it was a miraculous life-form brought about by countless coincidences, something extremely difficult to replicate.

"Still, my standards aren't high. As long as the species I evolve can move, that'll be enough." He collected himself and entered the Sand Table's secret passage—a white water pipe buried beneath the ground.

After traveling through a long, pitch-black World Tunnel, light gradually appeared before his eyes.

When he came back to his senses, he was already standing in a dense forest. The trees were lush and tangled, the earth verdant, while terrifying giant beasts roared in the distance as they raced and chased one another. It was a magnificent, vast scene of a primordial Paleozoic forest.

"I've finally entered my own Sand Table. Congratulations to me."

Xu Zhi had long since surveyed the terrain from God's perspective. Next, he swiftly grabbed two crows by their claws and strode toward the Babylon Tribe in a swaggering, utterly unrestrained gait.