Players, Please Board the Train

The items weren’t moving slowly, but there were simply too many corpses. In ten minutes, the stuff that had fallen out had piled up into a heap. Chu Yuan even picked out two inconspicuous items from the pile.

They weren’t particularly valuable items.

Generally, when players die, items stored in their item slots are reclaimed by the game. Items taken out for use but not put back in time are left behind on the spot, and items carried on the body remain on the corpse. However, considering the Bolun Family sends people in for every dungeon, the items left on the bodies probably aren’t that great either.

”Let’s rest for a bit.” Gan Qing, who was quite injured, was the first to feel tired.

Over there, Qiu Xiangdong slightly frowned, his gaze shifting back and forth between Xu Huo and Chu Yuan. Seeing both of them sit down looking weary, he turned to look at Wu Xiaonan instead. ”How do you feel?”

”You try having a hole punched through your chest?” Wu Xiaonan seemed to be in pretty good spirits.

Meanwhile, Chu Yuan flexed his sore, numb hand and asked Qiu Xiangdong with a furrowed brow, ”It won’t take a really long time to recover, will it?”

”Don’t worry, you’ll see in a bit.” Qiu Xiangdong pointed at Wu Xiaonan again. ”Isn’t she already better?”

Chu Yuan didn’t say anything more, instead looking to Xu Huo with his eyes.

Xu Huo was also rubbing his wrist. ”How about we take turns later, so we aren’t all exhausted? In case something sudden happens, we might not be able to react in time.”The others naturally had no objections. Dr. Deng proactively walked over to the pile of objects cleared from the corpses, put on gloves, took out a magnifying glass, and began examining them carefully.

Qiu Xiangdong came up behind him. ”What does the potion look like?”

Dr. Deng shook his head. ”Who knows? Perhaps Professor Wu used another method to store the potion. In my opinion, the possibility of it being hidden inside the corpses is very small.”

”Are there any androids among these corpses?” Xu Huo said. ”They’d be hard to spot mixed in with the corpses, but we can’t rule out that possibility.”

So, Dr. Deng proactively went to rummage through the corpse pile again. Identifying them was much simpler this time; androids don’t rot.

Unexpectedly, after searching for a while, they really found two ”disabled” androids. Dr. Deng seemed to know a bit about mechanics too, deftly disassembling the androids. Still, they found nothing.

”This is too slow,” Qiu Xiangdong said. ”Besides, we can’t completely rule out the possibility of it being hidden in the corpses. Even if the chance is tiny, we still need to try to know for sure.”

”It’s better than doing nothing.”

Chu Yuan and Gan Qing didn’t respond. Xu Huo and Dr. Deng also looked away.

”Even if there’s a high chance there’s nothing inside, even if there is, would it still be usable?” Chu Yuan said, stretching his limbs while sitting on the ground. ”I think we should change our thinking, look for other breakthroughs.”

”You have another idea?” Qiu Xiangdong asked.

Chu Yuan shrugged shamelessly. ”Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”

”What are your thoughts?” Qiu Xiangdong directly asked Xu Huo and Dr. Deng. Chu Yuan clearly had no real plan.

”Didn’t you buy a metal detector?” Xu Huo looked at Chu Yuan. ”Take it out and use it. Let’s find the androids first.”

”Mine is for finding ore. It won’t work for robots, right?” Chu Yuan hesitated.

”It can,” Dr. Deng chimed in, pushing up his glasses. ”Androids have special ore embedded in them. An instrument specifically designed to detect ore should work.”

”Alright then.” Chu Yuan took out the instrument and directly handed it to Qiu Xiangdong. ”It’s your trouble now.”

Qiu Xiangdong looked at him expressionlessly.

”Don’t look at me like that. It’s because of your item that I don’t even feel like standing up right now,” Chu Yuan said, then sat back down lazily. ”I don’t care about some potion. If it really doesn’t work out, we can just make a fake one. Those people upstairs haven’t seen the real one anyway.”

”That’s actually a method,” Gan Qing said. ”We’re just buying time anyway.”

Xu Huo’s gaze shifted between these few people. After a moment, he said, ”I think we still need to find the real potion. A fake one might not fool the Kong siblings. They might already know what the potion looks like.”

”Also, this kind of potion must be very precious. If we can get it, it won’t be a wasted trip. We could even trade it with the Kong siblings.”

”Xu Zhi is right,” Wu Xiaonan said, grimacing as she stood up. She walked over and picked up the collection bag. ”We’re already here, and we’re so badly injured. We can’t go back empty-handed.”

”Searching the corpses is too much work. Let’s find the androids first,” Xu Huo said. ”If the potion happens to be in an android, we won’t have to sift through the corpses.”

Wu Xiaonan looked at Qiu Xiangdong. The latter nodded and proactively picked up the detection instrument.

”By the way, did you kill Chang Chengyong?” Xu Huo asked, seemingly casually.

Qiu Xiangdong looked back. ”Is there any point in asking that now?”

”Just pure curiosity,” Xu Huo said. ”Zhu Rumin is most likely dead. Wan Yunrong, who became a ghost last night, is also dead. There’s still one ghost left.”

”By tonight, almost all the remaining people will turn into ghosts. Could the potion be tied to this game? For example, successfully clearing the game might reward you with this potion.”

Qiu Xiangdong searched for androids as he spoke. ”If that were the case, the Bolun Family would have gotten the potion long ago.”

Dr. Deng also looked at him with confusion. ”That’s not very likely, is it?”

The S-version potion hasn’t appeared in the game system before. And why would the Stellar Group give an S-version potion to ordinary players?

Xu Huo, however, sighed. ”So many players before us haven’t found the potion. It seems it will be very difficult for us to find it.”

The people present had similar thoughts in their hearts, so no one said much more.

Qiu Xiangdong worked quickly. After searching this floor, he found three more androids. He brought them back for Dr. Deng to check, but again, there was no gain.

”Let’s just stop looking. Like I said, use a fake to impersonate it,” Chu Yuan said.

Xu Huo also seemed visibly tempted. Over there, Qiu Xiangdong and Wu Xiaonan exchanged a look. The latter said, ”Think it through. There are still three days. There’s no guarantee the Kong siblings won’t come down. What do we do if we’re exposed then?”

”I think we should just seal the elevator shut,” Xu Huo said. ”Seal it and they can’t come down. The lab isn’t that easy to destroy either. It should hold for two or three days.”

”Should have done that earlier,” Chu Yuan said, his stamina recovered again. He flexed his limbs. ”I’ll move the corpses.”

Compared to easily movable objects like desks, chairs, and cabinets, ready-made corpses were more useful and less susceptible to item effects.

The group worked together to move the elevator up to the second floor, directly stuffing the elevator shaft full and even blocking the doorway.

After finishing this, Xu Huo finally said, ”Let’s go take another look at the lab on the west side. It’s full of dust everywhere here; it’s not suitable to stay long.”

The group crossed the corridor again towards the other half of the lab. Once inside, they naturally discovered the corpses of Zhu Rumin and Zhao Bi.

”What the heck? Wasn’t Zhu Rumin a ghost? Why did she die from suffocation?”