On another train.
“Fufu, was there something you wanted to say just now?”
Mo Cha had known Tang Shifu since they were children; she could spot any abnormality in her friend at a single glance.
Earlier, Tang Shifu’s expression had clearly been one of hesitation, as if she were holding back.
Even though she could more or less guess what was on her friend’s mind, Mo Cha asked anyway, with a hint of playful mischief.
“I… I think Mu Bai is quite good,” Tang Shifu replied, her voice sounding a bit weak.
“Good in what way?”
Mo Cha narrowed her eyes, the corners of her mouth curling upward.
It was rare to see her friend like this.
Tang Shifu actually gave it some serious thought.
While pondering, she said, “Well, her talent is very practical, and her personality is nice too… When Ye Yuan blocked the ghost, Mu Bai had been attacked only a second before. Her eyes were full of terror, yet she immediately calmed her panic, picked up the pendant, and gathered us all together…”
“I’ve replayed it in my head many times. Even though the ghost was quickly eliminated by the enchanted flames, that was the most correct choice at the time. If we had been forced into a prolonged stalemate with the ghost, that decision would have been the key to ensuring everyone’s survival.”
“Mu Bai looks like she’s in poor health and she’s younger than us; she seems like someone who needs constant protection. But her mind is delicate, and she isn’t timid at all. She’s completely different from her appearance. If she could be a teammate, it would be perfect.”
Tang Shifu’s sudden long-winded speech caught Mo Cha a bit off guard.
“What are you thinking? She has Ye Yuan as a teammate. How could she possibly be willing to have her name struck from the System just to join our train?”
Mo Cha leaned her head on her hand.
Indeed, there were people in the chatroom who had joined other teams, but because they didn’t return to their own trains, they lost their System interface.
Losing the System’s features and the channel for new information meant that, from then on, their survival depended entirely on the whims of others.
And Mu Bai didn’t lack powerful teammates.
Ye Yuan was far from weak—especially her proficiency with ranged weapons, which was something they couldn’t match.
Now that she had learned Sentry Boxing, she was a dual-threat in both melee and ranged combat.
If it weren’t for that person’s somewhat flawed personality, Tang Shifu probably wouldn’t have even entertained the idea.
But clearly, Mu Bai knew how to handle Ye Yuan, or perhaps they had known each other before and had a very good relationship.
Otherwise, a powerhouse like Ye Yuan wouldn’t be so obedient to Mu Bai.
“Sigh, true,” Tang Shifu sighed.
“However, while recruiting her is unlikely, there might be a chance to merge teams in the future,” Mo Cha suddenly smiled.
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“The System paired us up in twos from the start and intentionally matched people with existing relationships like friends or classmates. It’s allowing us to use the power of teamwork,” Mo Cha analyzed.
“Do you think the Train System might open up conditions for team merging? Maybe those people were struck from the records because they didn’t go through ‘official channels’?”
Competition was encouraged, and teamwork was permitted; in a sense, the existence of teams could make the competition even more intense.
If there was a distinction between official and unofficial merging, it was naturally for the sake of game balance.
Mo Cha truly held onto this hope.
Otherwise, she would be stuck spending her whole life with only her best friend…
“If that’s the case, it would be for the best,” Tang Shifu remarked emotionally.
Since coming to this survival game, she had lived quite well and had a reliable teammate like Mo Cha, but who wouldn’t miss the stability and comfort of modern society?
Under the extreme conditions of a survival game, being few in number meant a lack of security and a sense of loneliness.
Ordinary people would always want to huddle together for warmth.
She was just a teenage girl after all—a girl who had practiced martial arts since childhood, but not someone who was invincible…
“Let’s see what changes come with the train upgrade first.”
Mo Cha fished out two Train Coins from Tang Shifu’s backpack and placed the upgrade materials obtained from trading water and food into the hopper…
She clicked upgrade.
Reading carefully from top to bottom, Mo Cha’s breath hitched when she saw the next upgrade requirement: 20kg of Silver.
Her fluorescent blue-green eyes met Tang Shifu’s bright yellow ones.
Tang Shifu: “…”
Mo Cha: “…”
***
Mu Bai finished her shower and started cooking porridge.
Resources were limited, so she couldn’t eat lavishly every meal.
A bowl of porridge every now and then was a nice change.
Mu Bai waited for the rice to cook, and since Ye Yuan was still in the shower, she occupied herself by fiddling with the touch screen again.
“Cultivation Device… It can be connected to the train’s water and electricity to automatically grow plants? Does that mean I can grow vegetables later?”
Mu Bai said, overjoyed.
Lately, she had been worried about the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, which made for a very unbalanced diet.
Their canned food supply wasn’t large.
Most of the food she and Ye Yuan had gathered at the mall was various ready-to-eat meat products. Canned fruit, being packed in liquid, was heavy and low in energy, so it hadn’t been a high priority.
In the future, with a Cultivation Device and some seeds, she could grow her own vegetables.
However… building the Cultivation Device required an empty carriage, and she needed to continue collecting resources like rubber and wood.
The device itself even required plastic, which was a bit of a problem.
Infinite water was no longer such a massive advantage.
Other players were working hard to stay alive, and the price of water in the market was constantly dropping.
To get these materials from the market, she would have to trade hard currency like food, so it was better to collect them herself at the stations.
She checked the time.
Train time: 12:30 PM.
It wasn’t that a full day had passed to reach noon; it had only been six hours since she and Ye Yuan returned.
From this, it appeared that the flow of time on the train and at the stations wasn’t necessarily the same.
In train time, barring any accidents, they were bound to pass through two stations a day.
Rest well this afternoon, and continue gathering resources tonight!
Mu Bai sat back on the bed and opened the chatroom.
She wanted to lurk and see if there was any new news.
— c0721号聊天室 (3450) —
[Oh my god, do you guys know what I ran into? Right after the novice period ended, it was a Level 2 Trial Station! If I didn’t go in, the train would self-destruct. I’m totally numb.]
[The person above is living under a rock. Everyone still alive has gone through a trial by now. But a Level 2 trial is indeed bad luck; most people got Level 1. Maybe the System didn’t want too many people to die at once, so it intentionally lowered the difficulty.]
[I feel the same way. Have you noticed? As we survive longer, low-difficulty stations appear less often. I didn’t expect the trial station to be only Level 1 this time.]
[Am I the only one who got spawn-camped? Those jerks were just waiting for me to finish my mission so they could rob me. I thought they had died in some corner, but they were actually setting me up. My teammate is gone, and I took a blade to the shoulder. I don’t know what to do now.]
[That’s rough. Brother, if you don’t want to live anymore, you can sell me your stuff for cheap.]
[…]
[Did anyone find treasure? I searched the whole station and found nothing. I finished the mission but didn’t get a reward; I feel like I lost a fortune.]
[I found a Bronze Chest. Inside were two Train Coins and a revolver. Too bad it only had five bullets.]
[Holy crap, a gun!]
[Scared to tears.]
***
Mu Bai was shocked when she opened the chatroom and saw the member count.
Just before entering the trial station, there were over six thousand people in the chat.
She hadn’t expected nearly half the players to die in a single trial.
Most people encountered Level 1 or 2 stations, yet nearly half were wiped out.
Being able to pass a Level 3 station really meant they had some luck on their side.
Fortunately, they not only passed but did so virtually unscathed.
Although the Small Spirit Flame Talismans were used up, with Ye Yuan’s Sentry Boxing, they would have more confidence even if the next trial was a supernatural-type station.
Furthermore, they had acquired a semi-automatic pistol with a full magazine… only 13 rounds were left now, but this thing was much easier to use than a crossbow.
With a pistol, they didn’t have to fear ill-intentioned players.
And these were all just incidental gains.
However, seeing that others had obtained guns now—even if it was just an old revolver from the last century—Mu Bai felt a sense of crisis.
She still couldn’t let her guard down…
The Slaughter Station… how much longer until then?