Shuffling alone

At the thought, Xu Nian inexplicably felt cold.

Wind blew into the tent from outside, seeming to carry an extremely unusual fragrance.

She had no idea what it was.

These past few days, the smells she had encountered most often were insecticide, bug repellent, floral water, and cooling balm.

And the smell of rotting protein.

Xu Nian did not want to remember that smell. It was too disgusting.

Curious, she glanced outside.

Outside was a jumble of incandescent lights, fine rain, and wind. For an instant, Xu Nian suddenly felt that she knew nothing at all about the Western Hunan Mountains.

The whole world felt utterly unfamiliar.

Instinctively, she wanted to go outside and take a look.

But the moment she stood up, another senior student caught her wrist.

"Xu Nian, what's wrong?"

That interruption suddenly brought Xu Nian back to her senses.

She shuddered. Just as she was about to say she had smelled a strange fragrance, she sniffed.

The fragrance was gone.

Xu Nian immediately realized.

Something was wrong.

Out on a field expedition, nobody, male or female, would wear perfume.

That scent...

It was neither insecticide nor cooling balm, much less perfume.

It was a rich, mellow fragrance with intensely lingering base notes.

Xu Nian had never smelled it before.

Yet recalling it inexplicably made her feel terribly sick.

She dry-heaved and waved a hand to indicate she was fine.

The senior student gave her a worried look.

"You haven't caught a cold and come down with a fever from being out in the rain, have you?"

That was what he asked.

Catching a cold and running a fever in a place like this was no small matter.

Xu Nian waved her little hand again and said quietly, "I'm not that delicate."

Nobody slept that night.

Everyone stayed up with Professor Han, waiting for news.

Unfortunately...

There was no news.

No news was bad news.

After an entire night of searching, the Security Section and the local mountain villagers still had not found their most senior student. When someone from the Security Section informed Professor Han, he let out a long sigh, looking as though he had aged several years.

Even the white hair at his temples seemed to have multiplied.

Waving a hand weakly, Professor Han left the tent.

"Everyone, get some sleep."

The second-most senior student spoke.

Xu Nian was in low spirits too. After her teacher left, she seemed to catch that strange fragrance inside the tent again.

She walked out of the tent alone.

Ignoring the people around her, she felt as though another layer now separated her from the world.

Was it because she was tired?

In a daze, Xu Nian returned to her own tent and lay down.

She had a small tent all to herself.

That could count as something of a special privilege.

It was a very strange feeling. Xu Nian thought she might have a fever.

It felt like the aches and dizziness that came with a high fever, along with a sense that the world was unreal.

Lying inside the tent, by the time she realized something was wrong, she could not even call out.

She had intended to take a couple of pills to ease the symptoms, but to her dismay, Xu Nian discovered that she did not even have the strength to get up off the ground.

"Aaaaah!"

Xu Nian opened her mouth wide, trying to shout, but strangely, it felt as though a wall had appeared inside her throat.

When she opened her mouth, all her breath caught in her throat.

None of it could get through.

An overwhelming sense of despair settled over Xu Nian.

She began to struggle violently. Unfortunately, that "violent struggle" existed only in her imagination. To anyone else, she was motionless, "steady as a mountain."

Despair washed over Xu Nian like the tide.

Just as she began to panic...

Footsteps sounded outside.

Xu Nian's eyes widened, and joy rose in her heart.

Someone was coming!

She looked toward the entrance expectantly and saw Ran Zhihui's face appear through the gradually widening gap in the tent flap.

He crawled inside.

He wore the same clothes he had been wearing before he disappeared. Once a powerful, burly man, he was now skin and bones.

Blood-red horsehair worms crawled out of his eyes as he said, "Xu Nian, I told you to leave this place."

"This is an accursed place."

"Everyone is going to die."

"But not you."

"Not now."

Her senior rambled on, looking as though he was neither quite crying nor quite smiling.

"Save me, Xu Nian! Save me! Save me!"

His final scream pierced the heavens. That shrill shriek erupted in an instant, startling Xu Nian so badly that strength suddenly flooded her body.

In the livestream.

Chat messages flew across the screen.

The god of war at A site. A one-shot headshot.

Terrorists win.

Lin Feng let go of the mouse, a torrent of trash talk pouring from his mouth.

On the screen, all his haters had vanished, leaving only a congregation of worshipful fans.

[Streamer, that was siiiick!]

[Hacks?]

["I'm not hacking, right?"]

[Hey, hired carry, come out from under the desk. It's cramped down there.]

[Potato bro is badass.]

[My sweet Potato, my god!]

Lin Feng was in exceptionally good form tonight, as though blessed by the gods. His pistol aim was frighteningly precise, every shot a headshot.

Lin Feng thanked viewers for their gifts.

He had never expected this. Whether cultivation made him a better fighter was something he had no way of knowing, constrained as he was by life in a peaceful society.

But the benefits of faster reflexes...

Showed themselves in gaming, revealing his might!

In competitive games, being bad was the original sin. Streamers had to entertain while playing, dividing their attention between two tasks, which was exhausting. Normally, Lin Feng was only an average player and focused mainly on console games.

But today, he had risen to greatness!

His gameplay was off the charts!

His skills were off the charts!

It sparked a little spending spree.

[Woohoo, we have liftoff!]

[My sweet Potato, my god!]

[Hacks! Hacks!]

With a clear head, slick plays, and even slicker trash talk, Lin Feng was in incredible form tonight. Several viewers bought premium memberships, and plenty sent gifts with special effects. He was raking in cash.

Lin Feng had never expected cultivation to help him make money too.

After finishing with a couple of rounds of a newly released action game, Lin Feng ended the stream despite his viewers' reluctant pleas for him to stay.

Normally, after ending a stream, Lin Feng would slump in front of his computer as though utterly drained, taking ages to recover.

After all, livestreaming was mentally exhausting. A streamer had to remain upbeat throughout the broadcast. Nobody liked someone brimming with negativity. If you could not give your viewers something to laugh at, they would make you the joke instead.

A person only had so much energy.

Lin Feng was no exception.

But now, things were different.

After four hours of high-intensity streaming, Lin Feng was still full of energy.

A proper corporate drone needed an inexhaustible supply of energy!

He stood up, made sure the stream was off, then washed his face and went to the window, planning to do a set of exercises. What he had not expected was...

Whenever he thought nothing unexpected could happen, this world would always...

Throw him a surprise.

At night, Fog City grew lively again. Just as he was considering whether to get a late-night snack before finishing his game...

He saw something outside the entrance to his residential complex, where, though it was not exactly bustling, there were certainly plenty of people.

A headless person was slowly crossing the street, making his way to the other side.

Around him, neither men nor women noticed this headless person.

The headless person shuffled along alone.