Voice-Transmitting Trumpet Flower, Gas Station, Severed-Finger Compass, Ghost Bus License Plate

Su Nian leafed through the handbook and found the section on gold. Gold could block anomalies' killing rules, and containers made from it could temporarily seal them away.

The more gold used, the longer the seal would last. If you could build a gold coffin several meters thick, it could theoretically seal an anomaly forever.

No wonder the Transcendent Sequence was so fond of gold.

Su Nian wondered whether making a container to seal an anomaly was too limiting. He would still have to find a way to get it inside.

He could simply make a suit of gold armor to encase himself, block the killing rules, and hack the anomaly to death.

A gold car... he could just ram straight into it.

As his thoughts wandered, a figure appeared in his line of sight. He remembered this person-the man who had told him what soot could do yesterday.

The booklet also mentioned soot. To maximize its effectiveness, you had to strip completely naked, without a scrap of fabric on you, and coat yourself black.

Honestly, most people did not have the nerve for that.

"Freshly roasted corn. Try some." Tang Chen held out an ear of corn.

"Need something?"

Su Nian took the corn and appraised it with the system. Once he confirmed it was not poisoned, he ate without worry.

It was not that he had a persecution complex. Better safe than sorry, and there was no reason to pass up a free appraisal.

"I wanted to ask you about awakening as a Transcendent Sequence."

Tang Chen came straight to the point.

Su Nian opened the door and got out. Tang Chen's heart skipped a beat. He isn't going to draw his knife and slit my throat, is he?

Tang Chen could hardly be blamed for thinking that. From an outsider's perspective, no one knew about the grievances between Su Nian and Liu Yan.

All they had seen was Su Nian slitting Liu Yan's throat "for no reason." Sequence Transcendents did not treat ordinary people as human beings.

Naturally, Su Nian noticed Tang Chen looking at the Sin-Cleaving Butcher's Knife.

"How long have you been in this world?"

"About three months." Tang Chen had no idea why he was asking.

"There are two ways to awaken as a Sequence Transcendent. The first is to survive. Once enough time has passed, you'll awaken naturally."

"The other is to develop a conviction. A surge of conviction can unlock your potential and trigger an awakening."

"So you mean having courage is enough to awaken?" Tang Chen asked.

Su Nian shook his head. "Not courage. Conviction. A conviction to protect someone, for example, or to accomplish something. Courage can crumble. Conviction won't."

Tang Chen fell silent for a moment, then raised his head, sincerity showing on his face.

"Thank you."

He was not the type to sit around waiting to die. After he and his younger sister arrived in this world and encountered the convoy, he had tried to find a way out of their predicament.

He had tried trading supplies for answers, but without success. For one thing, he had too little to offer. For another, the awakened had no shortage of supplies.

Whenever they encountered a city or a group of survivors in dire straits, they would distribute porridge.

In exchange, the survivors had to hand over half the supplies they found.

That meant the awakened never lacked supplies, and he had no way to get answers to any of his questions.

He was glad he had not chosen to ignore Su Nian when Su Nian asked him a question.

Tang Chen returned to his three-wheeler.

As the sun sank toward the west, the convoy prepared to set off. Wen Keyi's driver, Chen Le, brought over a palm-sized potted plant.

A bamboo slat stood in the pot, with green vines winding up it. At its tip bloomed a pale cyan flower, its petals patterned like sound waves and its center glowing faintly.

"Su Nian, Sister Wen asked me to bring this to you. It's a Voice-Transmitting Trumpet Flower. Just gently pinch this leaf and speak into the flower to transmit your voice."

Chen Le demonstrated.

"Got it. Thanks." Su Nian accepted the Morning Glory.

[Voice-Transmitting Trumpet Flower]

[Type: supernatural plant]

[Details: a Morning Glory cultivated by a Transcendent. Transmits voices regardless of distance. Note: "Please don't chat all night. Flowers can wilt too."]

Engines roared, and the convoy set off again.

[Ding! Congratulations, host, on surviving another day. Awarded 100 Survival Points.]

[Survival Points: 1,050]

The highway lay quiet beneath the night sky, with only the rushing wind mingling with the roar of engines.

"Gas station!"

Hao Ren's voice came from the Morning Glory.

Su Nian looked up. A corner of a red gas station canopy emerged from the mist. The mist rapidly receded, revealing a station with six fuel pumps.

"Su Nian, you can see anomalies. Stop with me so we can get some fuel. Gong Qing, Wen Keyi, keep leading the convoy ahead."

Hao Ren opened the door and got out, while Zhang Ping drove on.

Hao Ren jogged over to the Raptor and knocked on the door.

Su Nian opened it, and Hao Ren climbed in with a backpack on his back.

A pickup behind them broke away from the convoy. A large water tank sat in its bed. This was the convoy's fuel truck, used to store gasoline.

Hao Ren took out a Red Candle and handed it to Su Nian, then produced a palm-sized compass. Its needle was a human finger bone mottled with bloodstains.

Su Nian lit the candle and looked at the compass.

[Severed-Finger Compass]

[Type: Curio]

[Details: a possession left behind by someone who died at a crossroads. Its needle points toward safety. When exposed to an extremely powerful sinister presence, the needle trembles violently and grows hot.]

Hao Ren aimed the needle toward the gas station, and the finger bone began trembling violently.

Hao Ren felt its temperature for a while. "Probably one anomaly, possibly two. C-rank. Definitely not B-rank."

This was not his first time using the Severed-Finger Compass. The stronger the sinister presence, the hotter the compass became.

Places like roadside gas stations generally did not harbor particularly powerful anomalies.

Three men got out of the pickup. One ran toward the Raptor, while the other two entered the gas station with terrified expressions.

One went left and the other right, circling along the station's perimeter, their eyes fixed on the surrounding woods. Even the slightest quiver of a treetop scared them half to death.

Hao Ren took out a bloodstained license plate. Its numbers were covered in countless patches of missing paint, as though insects had gnawed at them, but the plate number was still barely legible: five sixes.

[Ghost Bus License Plate]

[Type: Curio]

[Details: a consumable Curio. Anomalies will regard a vehicle bearing this plate as a ghost bus, and everyone aboard as their own kind. Once the plate has rusted completely, it will cease to function.]

After taking the plate, the man jogged to the front of the fuel pickup and fitted it into the license plate holder.

He opened the door, took out a toolbox, and walked toward a pump dispensing 98-octane gasoline.

With practiced ease, he removed the casing, motor, and circuit board, then secured a steel hand crank to the gear of the pump's original mechanism and tightened the screws.

He pulled out the original fuel hose and attached the one he had brought.

"Pretty professional." Su Nian surveyed the gas station with his Blood Eye.

"I don't provide for them for nothing. If they enjoy what I offer, they have to work for me." Hao Ren's smile faded, and his brow furrowed. "This anomaly really knows how to bide its time. All the better."

"No. The anomaly has already made its move." Su Nian shook his head.

The two men had finished circling the station and entered the convenience store.

One of them, a middle-aged man, stood at the boundary between shadow and moonlight.

His face was unnaturally white, like a cold-white porcelain doll. Utterly expressionless, he stared fixedly at the other middle-aged man, who was crouching on the floor and checking inside a cabinet.

The middle-aged man inspecting the cabinet noticed nothing.