Sudden Disaster

"Woo~~~ woo-woo~~~"

"The red sun rises over Shaoshan, the eastern land shines bright, the red sun rises over Shaoshan..."

The resonant singing echoed through the beautiful mountains and forests along with the train.

Sunlight streamed through the window onto his face, revealing the dense jungle and tall, straight trees outside.

A warm, gentle breeze blew in from the window, feeling exceptionally comfortable.

Reflected in the window glass, a thin, clean-cut face appeared in his line of sight—a face completely different from his own.

The features were refined, with a scholarly air between the brows, thick eyebrows, and large eyes, topped with a small cap.

At this moment, he glanced down at his hands, which were holding a notebook.

On the notebook, lines of neat fountain pen script filled the page.

June 20, 1968, Sunny.

I have been assigned to a place called Black Forest Hill to work as a forest ranger. On the day of departure, I searched the map for a long time but couldn't find this place.

They said it was a place with beautiful mountains and clear waters, but from their eyes, I only saw four words... barren mountains and treacherous waters.

He closed the notebook, which had the name Chen Shaoguo written neatly on the cover; clearly, this unfamiliar name was the role he was meant to play.

"Shaoguo!"

Just as he was lost in thought, a girl with a long braid walked to his side. Xu Tong looked up, and information about her immediately surfaced in his mind.

This girl was Fu Qiuling; they were middle school classmates who had grown up in the same compound, childhood sweethearts.

The girl sat down in front of him and quietly tucked two eggs into his hand.

"Shaoguo, when we return, you must wait for me!"

Xu Tong was stunned, and before he could say anything, the train came to a stop. The girls in the seats ahead immediately called for her to get off.

"Wait for me, you must wait for me!!"

The girl waved her hand vigorously and disappeared from his sight amidst the pushing crowd.

The carriage suddenly emptied by more than half, and the previous laughter and singing vanished. He scanned his surroundings, but he didn't see Mad Dog or the people from the other three teams.

But since his own appearance had changed, the others' likely had as well, only...

He recalled the words the host said as she pushed him through the door, and his pen began to doodle aimlessly on the notebook.

Just as he was pondering whether that old hag had been tricking him, the conversation in the neighboring seats caught his attention.

"Grandpa, are there really immortals??"

The child in the next seat held up a comic book and asked the old man.

The old man smiled and said, "Of course there are. When they were alive, they did many good deeds, eventually sacrificed themselves, and eradicated evil, so people honored them as immortals."

Once the old man finished speaking, his son and daughter-in-law's expressions turned sour. They glared at the old man, and the daughter-in-law snatched the comic book from the child's hand and tossed it on the floor.

The son, looking embarrassed, whispered, "Dad, stop talking nonsense. What immortals? It's all fake."

The people on the train looked over in unison, causing the old man to turn away in embarrassment, not daring to say another word.

Xu Tong picked up the comic book from the floor and flipped through it. The quality was absolute trash, with most of the images printed as pitch-black blobs.

It was clearly the product of some unlicensed workshop, and the story inside was simple to the point of being ridiculous.

It claimed that when people encountered a Drought Demon, the vast wilderness suffered a total crop failure. Many Taoists and monks came to subdue the demon, only to be beaten to a pulp and devoured alive.

Then, a Taoist from the Lu Clan arrived. Knowing he couldn't defeat the Drought Demon, he tricked it by claiming he had a miraculous elixir, letting the demon swallow him whole. Once inside, he cut a hole in the Drought Demon's belly and killed it.

The story was simple and full of holes, yet he still found it interesting. Just as he finished reading, the train came to a halt.

"Chen Shaoguo!! Chen Shaoguo!!"

As soon as the train stopped, a villager wearing a sheepskin coat leaned against the window and shouted the name Chen Shaoguo at the top of his lungs.

At the same time, a notification sounded in Xu Tong's ears.

[Main Quest 1: Head to Black Forest Hill]

[Quest Objective: Arrive at Black Forest Hill within 38 hours.]

[Quest Hint: If I were you, I wouldn't eat too much.]

"Chen Shaoguo!! Chen Shaoguo!!"

Seeing that the train was about to depart and still unable to find this so-called Chen Shaoguo, the herdsman Old Bart grew anxious.

"That's not right, this is definitely the train. Did this kid run away??"

Old Bart muttered, unwilling to give up, and leaned against the window again to shout.

"Chen Shaoguo!!"

Unfortunately, there was still no response. Watching the train slowly begin to move, Old Bart chased after it in a panic, hoping to shout a few more times. But just as he took two steps, he suddenly felt someone bump into him from behind.

His foot slipped, and he watched helplessly as his head headed straight for the train wheels.

Fortunately, at that moment, someone behind him grabbed his collar and yanked him back with brute force.

"Ouch!"

Old Bart sat hard on the ground, his face deathly pale as he watched the train pull away. His legs were still jelly.

If he had tumbled in there, he would have surely lost his life.

"Are you alright, old comrade?"

He turned to see a young man standing behind him with a knapsack, asking with a look of concern.

"No, no, no... I'm fine!!"

Old Bart said he was fine, but he couldn't even speak clearly. After all, he had just walked through the gates of hell; anyone would need a moment to steady their nerves.

"Here, have some water. Calm down."

Xu Tong reached out to pull him onto a nearby bench and opened the canteen at his waist, letting Old Bart take a few sips.

Only then did the man, who looked to be in his early fifties, manage to calm his emotions.

"Hey, tell me, that guy just now hit someone and ran off without even saying sorry."

Xu Tong pointed in the direction where the person had long since vanished, cursing, "No, I'll help you chase him down!"

Old Bart was still shaken, and since he hadn't even met the person he was supposed to pick up, he had no heart for a chase. He just said, "Forget it, forget it. Thank you, little comrade. If it weren't for you, this old life of mine would have been finished right here."

As he spoke, Old Bart took a close look at the young man before him. Seeing his red lips, white teeth, regular features, and fair skin, he couldn't help but be stunned. "Are you that... Chen Shaoguo who came from the capital?"

"How did you know?" Xu Tong asked, looking surprised.

"Oh my, I've been looking for you for ages! Little comrade, I'm from the forestry station. I got the notice and waited here a day early, just so I wouldn't miss you."

Old Bart slapped his thigh in delight, stood up from the bench, and grabbed his hand with great enthusiasm. "I finally waited for you! And you just saved my life—tell me, isn't that a coincidence!"

In truth, Old Bart had been very resistant to this mission, but his superiors had urged him repeatedly, and the forestry station leadership had specifically pushed him to arrive a day early.

He had spent the entire journey cursing Chen Shaoguo's ancestors down to the eighteenth generation.

But if not for him just now, he would have rolled under the train wheels and likely wouldn't have even left behind a whole corpse.

"Yes, yes! This is fate indeed."

Xu Tong nodded repeatedly, thinking to himself that he had been watching the man ever since the train pulled into the station—of course it was a coincidence.

After the two exchanged pleasantries, Old Bart led Xu Tong out of the station. To repay the life-saving favor, Old Bart paid out of his own pocket, trading half a catty of grain coupons for two bowls of black jelly noodles and a flask of strong liquor.

A full bowl of jelly noodles was served, and a sour vinegar scent filled the air. The pitch-black noodles were topped with a handful of green onions and a spoonful of chili. Though it didn't look like much, the taste was delicate and smooth. One bite, and the stifling frustration he'd felt on the train vanished into thin air.

Xu Tong shoveled down a few bites, but remembering the mission prompt, he didn't dare eat too much.

Seeing that he couldn't finish, Old Bart simply ate the rest of his portion as well, scraping the bottom of the bowl and drinking every drop of the seasoned sauce.

Once fed and watered, the two didn't dare delay and hurried on their way.

To pick him up, the forestry station had specifically sent the only horse-drawn carriage at the plant. Xu Tong only learned this after sitting in the carriage and asking.

It turned out that the so-called Black Forest Hill was still a day's journey from their current location in Luoping Township.

They would have to travel through the night and wouldn't arrive until tomorrow evening.

Hearing this, the corners of Xu Tong's mouth twitched involuntarily, and he immediately regretted not eating more.

But fortunately, after his previous experience with hunger, he had tossed a few beef pancakes, some steamed buns, and several bottles of mineral water into his item catalog before entering this Script World.

The road grew narrower and narrower until it disappeared entirely.

The carriage bumped and swayed over the uneven grass. Old Bart was used to it, but Xu Tong was almost shaken senseless.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but the sky had turned dark.

Stars twinkled overhead, a dense, shimmering expanse that some people in reality might never see in their entire lives.

"Little Comrade Chen, look over there. You can go anywhere else you like, but don't you ever go into that mountain over there."

Xu Tong sat up and looked in the direction Old Bart pointed, but he only saw a pitch-black shadow in the distance; he couldn't see a thing.

Old Bart continued, "That area is mostly wild tribes; they don't welcome outsiders like us. Plus, the mountains are deep and the forests are vast. If you don't have someone familiar with the path to lead you, you'll get trapped inside and die."

"Oh!" Xu Tong nodded, unimpressed.

Just as the two were talking, the horse beneath them suddenly stopped, refusing to move no matter how much Old Bart urged it.

"You beast, move!"

Old Bart swung his whip and lashed it several times, but no matter how he whipped it, the horse wouldn't budge. Just as Old Bart was growing angry, he suddenly saw a blurry white shadow in the distant woods. It was a white figure—he couldn't make out its true face, but he could vaguely tell it looked like the silhouette of a woman.

The shadow seemed to drift over with the wind, and at that moment, a strange, eerie scream began to echo from the nearby mountain forest.

"It's... it's... the Old Immortal is angry!!"

Seeing this, Old Bart seemed to recall a local legend. His face changed drastically, and he scrambled off the carriage, "prostrating himself on the ground and kowtowing frantically toward the white shadow ahead."

But the more he kowtowed, the more hair-raising the screams from the surrounding woods became. Just as Old Bart was trembling uncontrollably from fear, Xu Tong, who had been curiously watching the white shadow and wondering if he should drop his pants and charge at it to see if it would run or he would, suddenly pricked up his ears.

He looked up toward the mountain forest beside them. He heard a sound of wood splintering in the forest above, as if something was rolling down. His expression shifted instantly, and he grabbed Old Bart from the ground and lunged forward.

The moment they hit the ground, a massive boulder rolled down from the slope with a loud "bang," smashing the horse and carriage into a pulp...