After two hours of no response from the communicator, the answer was obvious— Zhang Yuwen's three-person team was not coming back.
The vehicle turned and drove away. No one advised them to wait any longer; they had already waited long enough, and waiting any longer would only hurt others.
Xuewen looked at the empty seat at the very back, beneath which lay a specially made box. A pang of sadness welled in her eyes. She could only hope that it could bring new hope to humanity, so that the sacrifices of her teammates would not have been in vain...
"Boom--"
An hour after the vehicle had been traveling, a thunderclap boomed in the sky, and a torrential downpour began.
The headlights shone two beams that illuminated the rain.
The raindrops pounded heavily on the car roof, more like hail than water droplets.
"It's pouring rain, but we're still two hours from the shelter. God help us, please let us make it through," Wang Yueyue prayed softly.
Su Cheng kept her eyes closed, and no one disturbed her. To the other two people in the back seat, it looked like she had fallen asleep from exhaustion.
At the moment the heavy rain began to fall, Su Cheng felt something, closed her eyes, and sensed wisps of faint Qi.
Although extremely rare, she was certain she hadn't made a mistake.
It almost made her doubt again whether this was really a normal dungeon.
How could there be Qi...?
The original inhabitants of the dungeon all share a consensus: mutated plants that have experienced heavy rain will grow rapidly as if they have gained a large amount of vitality, flowering and releasing more spores.
Are spores a carrier between mutated plants and Qi?
It parasitizes the human body, not only absorbing flesh and blood but also devouring souls.
This explains why the Fire-Attracting Art can burn the spores.
But this is clearly a normal dungeon without any supernatural elements, or is this world evolving into a supernatural, special dungeon...?
The moment this thought popped into her head, Su Cheng's eyelids twitched; she felt she might have stumbled upon the truth.
Based on her past experiences with special instances, if an instance has advancements, the amount of White Qi in this world will increase, not just during rainfall.
At that time, the mutated plants will be even more dangerous, and may even develop rudimentary intelligence, like the locust tree spirit.
As Su Cheng pondered, she silently recited the mantra to absorb the Qi from the rain. However, due to the low Qi content, the efficiency was greatly reduced.
Two and a half hours later, the vehicle finally arrived inside the shelter's Protection circle and parked steadily in the single garage.
The heavy rain continued, pounding against the awning panels.
Under the dim light of the wall lamp, the five people got out of the car one by one.
The identification device on the wall emitted Leader Yu's voice. "Great, you're back safe and sound!"
Tang Jia stepped forward first to identify them, and smiled as Leader Yu showed concern. However, her smile vanished as soon as Chief Yu asked, "Where are the other three?"
" Zhang Yuwen, Yi Ze, and Deng Yun were a team; they haven't come out since they lost contact..."
Leader Yu was stunned for a moment, his initial excitement gone, and he sighed sadly, "You must all be very tired. Let's get into the shelter quickly."
The five people entered the elevator on the wall and went through screening, changing clothes, and disinfection procedures in the transition room before entering the seventh basement level.
The specially made box was carried away by a tall woman. She was another group leader in the shelter named Li Chenwen, who was usually responsible for transporting supplies between various shelters.
With Li Chenwen shook hands with each of the five people. "Thank you for your contributions. The research institute at the Level 1 shelter has begun developing a new weapon capable of eliminating mutated plants using meteorite fragments, and you have all played a part in this!"
After Li Chenwen left, Leader Yu and Tang Jia comforted and calmed them down, while also gaining a general understanding of the mission situation beyond the video recorder.
After Tang Jia and the others left the office, Leader Yu kept Su Cheng behind to thank her privately.
Before she could even watch the video recording, she learned from Xuewen that the efficient completion of this mission depended entirely on Su Cheng.
"I hope you can take over as security captain. Yuwen's departure is a blow to many outpost teams. To boost morale, the shelter needs a new captain..."
"Sorry, I didn't intend to." Su Cheng interrupted, clearly changing the subject. " Leader Yu, I'd like to go check on the N92 Fuel; consider it payment as we agreed before."
Yu Wenzhe was surprised that Su Cheng would say no so resolutely. He looked at Su Cheng for a while before nodding in agreement.
She was helpless against Su Cheng's rejection; after all, such things couldn't be forced, and the shelter needed Su Cheng more.
Su Cheng saw N92 Fuel in the warehouse area of the incineration room.
N92 Fuel is scarce and expensive; the entire shelter only has one bag in stock, enough for just one month.
The golden powder is exactly the same color as meteorite fragments, so it's not hard to imagine that its development is inseparable from meteorites.
However, it has no polluting power; it may be a meteorite extract or something else.
Moreover, the fuel also contains a faint trace of Qi.
Su Cheng couldn't figure out the principle behind it, but she lost interest after reading it.
She returned to her room on the eighth basement level and received a communication phone provided by the base.
The mobile phone only has one enterprise social networking software, which can only be used for communication within the shelter.
Su Cheng's software received numerous applications from the three group leaders of the shelter as soon as it was registered.
She did not pass, and did not intend to use her phone unless absolutely necessary.
While Leader Yu's special care brought convenience, it also attracted a lot of prying eyes. When there are many people, there will be managers and those being managed. People crave survival and also yearn to live better than others.
She only had a few days left before leaving the instance, so naturally she wanted to stay away from the power struggles that lurked beneath the surface.
In the following days, the number of times Leader Yu sought out Su Cheng for "talks" gradually increased.
After this happened three times, Su Cheng started avoiding her.
But Yu Wenzhe is, after all, the leader of the refuge, and it's not so easy to avoid him.
Su Cheng often saw a smiling old man sitting in a wheelchair when she turned a corner.
The other person waved to her, "Oh, what a coincidence, Xiao Cheng! Want to have lunch together?"
"..."
Su Cheng simply accepted the mission to search for meteorite fragments in other regions, and there were no more chance encounters with Yu Wenzhe.
She always completes tasks with extremely high efficiency.
Gradually, those doubtful and probing glances all turned into admiring gazes.
All members of the outing team reached a consensus: as long as they followed Su Cheng's orders, they could return to the shelter unharmed.
The survival rate for those who return from outside is nearly 100%!
Just as all the team members were secretly vying for the chance to go out with Su Cheng, "bad news" suddenly arrived.
"You're saying Su Cheng hasn't come back?!" Yu Wenzhe's fingers gripped the wheelchair handles tightly, his usually gentle eyes now cold and stern.
"Yes, only Captain Su didn't come out..." Wu Linlin was frightened by Leader Yu's gaze, and her trembling voice turned into a sad sob.
Although Su Cheng forbade them to call her captain, they still called her captain behind her back.
In the hearts of the team members, Su Cheng, who led them to escape from danger, is their most respected captain.
"What on earth happened... How could she suddenly not be able to come back? Cough cough cough cough!"
"You can't get too excited..." Ruolin quickly took out some pills and water and handed them to the old woman, gently patting her back to help her calm down.
"I'm fine... Tell me what happened."
The video recorder did not capture the latter part of the operation, and although Yu Wenzhe was unwilling to believe it, he had to accept the fact.
" Captain Su did it to save me... At the time, I was suddenly bewitched and crawled into the mutated plant trap. When I came to my senses, Captain Su told me to go first."
Gao Yu, who had been silent all along, spoke up, tears welling up in her eyes, "I thought Captain Su could handle it... She always told us to go first... How come this time..."
Yu Wenzhe, exhausted, told the others to go and rest first.
"Chief, please don't be too sad. Your body can't be affected by too much emotion..." Ruolin whispered.
Yu Wenzhe shook his head, his weathered eyes darkening with sorrow. "How could she have died on this mission?"
The mutated plants, recently ravaged by torrential rains, have become even more rampant. Only Su Cheng's team was able to return safely; most of the other mission teams suffered heavy losses.
But even the most capable Su Cheng is still human, and accidents that lead to her death are not uncommon.
Ruolin thought pessimistically, opened her mouth but then closed it again. She didn't answer, unwilling to say anything that would hurt the leader.
*
[Congratulations to the owner of Apartment No. 1167, Street X, District E, for successfully completing the task. This will be counted as part of the Recovery Mission reward, for a total of 1700 points.]
[Instance exiting...]
[Medical services will not be provided this time; you will be transported directly to the apartment.]
Calendar Update:
January 21, 2000.
After returning to her apartment, Su Cheng changed and ate a hearty meal. Burping contentedly, she sighed deeply, remarking how comfortable the apartment environment was.
She then lay on the sofa and sent the information about the latest dungeon run to the group chat.
Scrolling up reveals a long message posted by Xu Shaowei:
[ Xu Shaowei ]: I have something very important to tell you. I encountered a senior player in this dungeon who had enough points. But he didn't immediately exchange his pass to return to his apartment in reality.
He received inside information before entering the apartment, and after meeting new people, he made guesses about the current state of the real world:
Unknown dangers are emerging in the real world, and ordinary people will find it difficult to survive. Only those who have been trained by the apartment system have the ability to survive.
[ Xu Shaowei ]: He guessed that he could take the supermarket items with him when he left the apartment, so he was accumulating points to buy more items so that he would have more security when he returned to the real world.
Yan Yu replied shortly after Xu Shaowei sent the message.
[ Yan Yu ]: It's possible that unknown dangers can occur in the real world; Cheng mentioned this before.
However, it remains questionable whether the items can be brought back to the real world.
[ Yan Yu ]: The supermarket's gadgets have surpassed the technological level of the real world. If they could be taken outside, the impact would be too great.