Wilderness Survival

Then he would have no way to rake in money in the real world and top up his account.

He pulled his hat lower and continued on foot to the tram shed.

He mounted his unregistered electric scooter.

He did not drive his own car. It was too conspicuous; the Sky Eye System would spot it immediately.

He had already made a plan: first, he would flee into the wilderness and survive there for a while.

No matter how powerful Xu Corporation was, it could not mobilize that many people to search the mountains.

A mountain search would cause too much commotion and would inevitably attract the attention of other companies and the media.

Besides, he could retrieve supplies from Skyfall World through the shared function of the Game Backpack.

That provided tremendous convenience for his wilderness survival.

Gao Linzhi rode his electric scooter out of the city.

His scooter had been modified and had a range of fifty kilometers.

That was enough to reach the South City Mountain Area.

South City had a vast hilly mountain region that belonged to Xu City Resort.

Many companies chose that place for team-building events.

Xu Corporation controlled Xu City, but it also had competitors there.

Xu Corporation was considered a small-to-medium company on the Company Ranking.

Companies were divided into mega, large, large-to-medium, medium, small-to-medium, small, and micro companies.

Two other companies competed with it for control over Xu City: Radiance Company and Zheng Corporation.

Radiance Company was a typical open company. Status was determined solely by shares and technical ability, not bloodline.

Xu Corporation and Zheng Corporation, on the other hand, were both centered around their families.

Meanwhile.

The members of Xu Corporation's Security Office Team 3 failed to find Gao Linzhi.

They hurried to the residential complex's property management surveillance room to check the footage.

Reviewing surveillance footage was exhausting work.

Team leader Zhao Xianqing watched the footage while flying into a rage at his team members, Qi Cheng and Liu Jinshan.

"Weren't you monitoring him the whole time?"

"How did he suddenly get away?"

Qi Cheng explained somewhat indignantly, "We were all focused on Lin Qing. Who would have thought that this Gao guy, despite clearly not getting any benefits, would still think of running away early?"

"He probably has a persecution complex."

"You can explain that to Young Master Xu!" Zhao Xianqing snorted coldly.

He painstakingly reviewed the footage and finally spotted something unusual.

"Move the footage back a little. Yes, that person on the electric scooter."

"Mask and hat. That's obviously suspicious."

"Immediately request support from the Technical Team. Have them pull up the Traffic Surveillance Footage for comparison."

There had originally been a high-speed facial recognition technology, but the companies had suppressed it too harshly, so its developer had simply quit and fled.

As a result, people still had to rely on human eyes for identification much of the time.

This corporate system had already begun to stifle technological development in many ways.

Soon, the Traffic Surveillance Footage was linked to their phones, and video clips related to Gao Linzhi were rapidly retrieved.

The three of them opened their phones.

They discovered that after the electric scooter left the main road in the city, it entered a suburban side road.

There were no cameras on that road.

"To run so decisively, he clearly got some kind of benefit too. Young Master Xu was right: better to kill a thousand by mistake than let even one slip through!"

"He definitely got part of Li Ziming's game inheritance, perhaps some kind of game item," Zhao Xianqing said with certainty.

Qi Cheng's heart immediately sank.

He had the nerve to talk back to the team leader because he was dating an illegitimate daughter from a collateral branch of the Xu Clan.

But if this really turned into a major incident and Gao Linzhi took away some important inheritance, that little connection clearly would not be enough to protect him.

He immediately grew nervous. "I'll go after him myself right away."

"We'll go after him together," Zhao Xianqing said as he stood.

If Gao Linzhi had truly taken something important, every one of them would face severe punishment.

After riding for more than an hour, Gao Linzhi finally reached the edge of the southern suburban mountains.

He tossed his electric scooter into a deserted gully without even locking it.

Then he entered the mountains on foot without making contact with anyone there.

After walking for over half an hour, he looked back and saw that the urban district was already behind him.

He was three kilometers into the mountains.

He had looked at maps before. This mountain range stretched far and wide.

It extended more than one hundred kilometers from east to west and over thirty kilometers from north to south, forming a long strip that served as the city's green lung and was forbidden from development.

There were also several small cities nearby, right at the edge of the mountains.

It was said that during the war years, this had been an important base with numerous tunnels and military warehouses.

Gao Linzhi proceeded along the mountain path.

Soon, he saw several unfamiliar colleagues wearing familiar company uniforms.

They were Xu Corporation's blue uniforms, and Gao Linzhi recognized them at a glance.

Once upon a time, he too had worn this standardized uniform during team-building events.

The most recent time had been three months ago, when they had tried high-altitude jumps, unity projects, and more...

At that moment.

Gao Linzhi's former colleagues walked along the sunny mountain path with backpacks on their shoulders, chatting and laughing.

They appeared to be headed for a team-building event.

Gao Linzhi had been falsely accused and forced to flee everywhere.

Yet these people could still peacefully enjoy their lives.

As for that, Gao Linzhi felt no dejection or self-pity whatsoever. On the contrary, a sense of superiority naturally rose within him.

No matter how outstanding these laughing people were, how skilled they were at socializing, working overtime, or competing...

Sooner or later, they would grow old and die!

But he now had hope of eternal life and freedom!

According to the Game System's explanation, he was already an immortal existence.

But he was not yet free.

After all, he could still grow old, and others could still imprison him.

Eternal life without the means to protect himself, without freedom, was in truth a genuine life sentence.

With that thought, Gao Linzhi took a different path from those people and headed deeper into the forest.

Just then, someone suddenly looked at their phone.

"Huh, the company is hunting a former programmer named Gao Linzhi. It says he was dissatisfied with clients constantly changing their requirements, so he deleted the database overnight and ran away!"

"Damn, this guy's incredible!"

"Yeah, I'd only heard about this online. I thought it was just a joke, but I never expected it to happen right around me!"

"The company is offering a two-million reward. Thirty thousand for useful information—there's the down payment for a house!"

Hearing this, anger surged in Gao Linzhi's heart.

That damned Xu Corporation actually dared to slander him like this!

When it came to work, he had always done as much work as the pay warranted, but he would never deliberately screw anyone over.

At worst, he would quit.

Gao Linzhi looked at the Corpse Vine in his Game Backpack and got an idea.

Once he was settled, he would buy another distinctive pet and make Xu Corporation properly understand what a fucking surprise was!

He left the mountain path and pressed deeper toward a remote area higher up the mountain.

After walking for more than ten minutes, two yellow dots suddenly appeared on the Minimap.

He immediately became alert.