Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo didn’t laugh.

After a brief silence, Yi Pei asked again, ”Are the people in Sifang Palace City still alive?”

”About half,” Xu Huo said. Even the Dungeon Boss wouldn’t be so insane as to kill everyone—otherwise, where would it find so much nourishment?

Still, if it really wanted to do that, no one could stop it.

”I thought only one child was left,” Yi Pei murmured. ”But even if just one child survived, that’s still something.”

For a moment, all three of them stared at the unconscious child.

Stepping onto the stone path in the center of the water pool, they hadn’t gone far when they actually ran into other players.

”You’re all still alive!” Wei Xian climbed out of the water, dripping wet, and rushed over to them excitedly.

”Bang!” A water jet from the water gun shattered the stone in front of his foot. Xu Huo raised his chin to signal him to stay put. ”Were you hiding underwater the whole time?”

”Didn’t I tell you my profession is Fisherman? As soon as I crossed the stone bridge, I hid in the water,” Wei Xian said. ”I’m not good at fighting, so hiding was my best option. How’s Sifang Palace City? What about the others?””No danger for now.” Xu Huo put away his item. ”We’re probably the only surviving players.”

”Are we heading to the county now?” Wei Xian glanced at Yi Pei, who was seriously injured behind Xu Huo, and volunteered, ”Let me carry her—you’re not in great shape either...”

This time Xu Huo didn’t stop him, just watched.

Wei Xian had already walked up beside them, reached out his hand, then pulled it back. ”Never mind, I’m all wet.”

With that, he automatically retreated to the rear.

Xu Huo withdrew his gaze, and the group walked along the stone path in silence toward the opposite shore.

Behind the three of them, Wei Xian’s gaze kept shifting across their bodies, but until they reached the shore, he just obediently followed behind.

Xu Huo wasn’t in a hurry to return to the county. After setting Yi Pei down, he patted Wei Xian on the shoulder and said amiably, ”I’d like to ask for your help.”

The previously tense atmosphere instantly dissipated. Wei Xian quickly replied, ”Mutual benefit—it’s only right.”

”There should be a water gate under the pool. Please find it.” Xu Huo handed him the disposable item that Fu Danhong had passed along.

”Destroy the water pool?” Wei Xian was puzzled. ”Isn’t the danger over?”

Xu Huo didn’t explain, but Bian Jin beside him said, ”Just an extra safety measure, in case something goes wrong later. The three of us are badly injured, so you’re the only one who can go.”

Wei Xian hesitated for a moment but still took it. He dove into the water with graceful movements, and when he surfaced to look back, he unexpectedly met Xu Huo’s eyes. The man standing on the shore was watching him expressionlessly.

Fear flickered in his eyes before he waved and submerged.

Once he was far away, Xu Huo sat down under a tree to rest. Yi Pei said, ”That guy’s up to no good.”

”He doesn’t dare,” Xu Huo replied, cleaning his wounds. ”If he had the nerve, he would have made a move just now.”

Even with Xu Huo deliberately showing him his back, the guy hadn’t acted. He was quite cautious.

”Either way, we need to be careful,” Bian Jin also said. ”I’m worried he might take advantage while we’re vulnerable.”

”Having him help for now isn’t bad.” Xu Huo didn’t dwell on the topic further and instead checked the wound on his arm.

After discovering the tiny bugs in the wound, he had deliberately wrapped it with a potion pack. Soaking it had worked pretty well. Even though the water bag had burst in Sifang Palace earlier, the wound had noticeably improved.

He scraped off a bit more rotting flesh, applied some medicine, then wrapped another potion pack around it.

”What kind of wound is that?” Yi Pei had noticed it a couple of days ago. ”The healing potion doesn’t work?”

”A very small type of insect, invisible to the naked eye. But you can flush them out with water,” Xu Huo explained briefly.

”Bone-Eating Bugs, right?” Bian Jin suddenly spoke up. ”I’ve seen them in other districts before. Some people raise them specifically to consume corpses. They’re tiny, but their vitality and reproductive ability are strong. Normally, you pour a bottle into a mountain of corpses, and they’ll eat everything—flesh and bone—in no time.”

”The bugs are non-toxic. Afterward, you just burn them all with fire.”

”Bone-Eating Bugs... they eat everything?” Xu Huo thought about the water bags he had scattered around Sifang Palace.

He took out the bottles from his luggage compartment. The wood chips and food he had thrown in earlier to test the bugs were now just floating dregs, while the pebbles were still intact.

”What a shame.”

With the bombardment and fire, the bugs in Sifang Palace were probably all dead. Still, this was a pretty good idea.

”Why use bugs to eat corpses?” Yi Pei had a different concern. ”There are plenty of ways to dispose of bodies, but releasing bugs like this could easily lead to an infestation.”

Bian Jin was silent for a few seconds before saying, ”Bone-Eating Bugs prefer human and animal corpses most. They can eat other things, but their lifespan will be greatly shortened, and they’ll go extinct on their own before becoming a disaster.”

”Some underdeveloped small districts use this method—it’s cheaper.”

Yi Pei understood and couldn’t help but sigh. ”I’ve heard from other players that some districts are weak from the moment they’re born. After their resources are plundered by other districts, they might become ’garbage dumps,’ with adults and children living in trash. Their lifespans are very short.”

”There are countless such cases in the game,” Bian Jin nodded.

Humans were more insignificant than they realized.

Listening to their conversation, Xu Huo looked toward the opposite shore. People like Xiao Yun and her brother, and the residents of Sifang Palace City, were everywhere in the game. In this evolution game, they had been eliminated before even getting an entrance pass.

But not everything beneath the fire was ash.

He divided the liquid in the bottle equally into three bottles, then threw food into each. He asked Bian Jin, ”How much can they reproduce in two days?”

”At least five times the amount.” Bian Jin was slightly puzzled. ”What are you raising these bugs for?”

”To prepare a fitting gift for the Dungeon Boss.” Xu Huo put the bottles away and stood up. Wei Xian had already swum to the shore, but before he could climb out, a muffled sound came from underwater. A dim flash followed, and then a huge wave surged in the pool before turning into a vortex—the water level in the pool was dropping!

”There’s a drainage sluice gate down there,” Wei Xian said. ”The water sound we heard earlier must have come from there. Only after the water drains does the stone bridge get exposed. When I went down just now, the sluice gate was closed again.”

This wasn’t hard to understand. The water pool was originally meant to separate the two Sifang Palace Cities. Once the sluice gate closed, by the time dawn came, the water would nearly cover the stone path again.

”That way, the real Sifang Palace City can’t stay hidden anymore,” Yi Pei said. ”Once we burn down the county, I wonder if this dungeon can even continue to exist.”

”Survival dungeons don’t actually need ordinary people to participate,” Xu Huo said, his gaze deep.

As long as Sifang Palace remained, the problem wouldn’t be huge. It just meant the Dungeon Boss couldn’t eat people so easily anymore. But players would still voluntarily enter for higher ratings.

Besides, Sifang Palace City wasn’t completely cut off from the outside world. There was no guarantee that once this batch left, another wouldn’t come.