Why do these ghosts come one by one? Is it because they just entered the game, and it's only the first day?
The sneak attack ghost was taken out, and they continued sleeping. Mu Anqi sat by the campfire, eating candy in a daze. Eating too much candy was inevitably cloying, so she scooped some water with a wooden bowl to drink.
Two hours—not too long, not too short—passed in the blink of an eye while daydreaming. When Fang Xunjiu got up to take over the watch, Mu Anqi quietly walked back to the wooden shed and dozed for a while.
In this long wait, Mu Anqi increasingly felt how fast General Ji took her through dungeons. Every time it felt like it had just begun, it was already over—efficiency maxed out. Compared to that time with Xia Fenghua… it was fast too, but not as fast as with General Ji. Mu Anqi couldn't help thinking, if General Ji lived in modern times, she must be the kind of person who never watches the cutscenes in games and just frantically clicks "skip."
Closing her eyes for a light sleep, Mu Anqi only felt everything around her becoming clearer. She heard the night wind blowing through the leaves, and also the distant chirping of insects. Honestly, if it weren't inside a game, camping in the Eternal Night Forest might actually be a good choice.
Until Fang Xunjiu returned and Sheng Wujie took over the shift, Mu Anqi calculated the time, opened the virtual map for a glance, and felt that the next treasure chest was not far off.
She still lay there without moving.
This time, the opponents were players. Players were different from ghosts—if they died, they had to spend points to revive. And against players, ordinary bullets were enough.
Forget it. If the other side made the first move, then she would also take action and eliminate them. If those players didn't go for the kill, Mu Anqi wouldn't be willing to either. Simply seizing the treasure chest could still yield decent supplies. Since this game placed no restrictions on survival time, if she could pocket every treasure chest and then clear out another wave of suicide-seeking ghosts, breaking past 50 survival points shouldn't be much of a problem.
[Ding! Supply box has been delivered~]
[Note: The first novice period has passed, guardian ghosts will appear near the supply box! ~ Defeat the ghosts for the supply box to appear.]
Mu Anqi: You call such a measly little box of stuff a treasure chest?
It seemed that this time, getting the chest wouldn't be so easy. Even if Xia Yun was the first to arrive, she would still have to kill the ghost to take the chest. With the time delay in between… other teams of players might arrive. By then, it would be another conflict.
Leaving Sheng Wujie to guard the base, Xia Yun stepped onto her flying sword and went ahead. She said that if she could handle the ghost, she'd kill it, grab the chest, and leave. If the ghost was troublesome, she'd just lay low for a while.
Mu Anqi, together with the Fang siblings, headed toward the chest. Halfway there, she suddenly thought: "Xia Yun should hide high in the sky, wait until those players finish off the ghost, and then in the instant the chest appears, control her life-bound sword to scoop up the chest and fly away."
Fang Xunjiu froze for a moment, thought about it, and realized the method did seem pretty good, but… "Those players would chase her, wouldn't they? Also, Miss Xia's life-bound sword isn't broad. If the chest is too big, scooping it up in one move might throw it off balance and cause it to fall."
That was true. Mu Anqi sighed and dropped the idea. She always unconsciously assumed Xia Yun was like the sword cultivators in those cultivation novels, with a life-bound sword that could of course change size at will. After all, magic treasures in novels had all kinds of functions.
Xia Yun, who randomly got the sword-heart ability—was she someone who studied the sword before her death? Maybe she was even a disciple of some hidden sect. Mu Anqi's thoughts drifted further and further; after all, since Nirvana Space and the Shattered Mirror Continent existed, then it was perfectly reasonable that her world before death might also have had some reclusive masters, right?
…She wondered if she could buy some martial arts manuals from Xia Yun.
"What's your ability?" Mu Anqi glanced at Fang Xunjiu and couldn't help asking, "I keep feeling like you're a good person—is that one of your skills?"
"Ah, it's a passive." Fang Xunjiu smiled and said, "My ability is kind of interesting. It's called 'Good Person Card Dispenser.' In my life, my love life was pretty rough—the people I liked didn't like me, and they gave me good person cards, while the ones who liked me, I didn't like, so I gave them good person cards. Maybe I handed out too many, and by accident I ended up with this ability. My sister and I died in a car accident, a traffic accident."
"…" So that's how it was. Mu Anqi nodded. This ability really was quite unusual. She looked over at Fang Yunjiu; the younger sister looked gentle, quiet, extremely introverted—yet deep down she was a total chuunibyou girl. "What a coincidence, I also died in a car accident. Before the accident, I was on my way to claim a 300-million lottery prize, so after death I got the 'I Have Plenty of Money' ability… that makes sense too, right?"
Fang Xunjiu: "…Ah, that does make sense."
"What's little sister Fang's ability?" Mu Anqi looked at Fang Yunjiu, who was silently hurrying along without speaking. "The flames you release are really beautiful."
Fang Yunjiu's eyes flickered evasively. After a long moment, she finally whispered, "Possession by an Evil God."
"That sounds really powerful." Mu Anqi smiled and praised her. "So it's an offensive type?"
"Mm." Fang Yunjiu thought for a bit, then added, "But the duration is limited."
Generally speaking, it was Fang Xunjiu who handed out good person cards to ghosts, lowering their hostility and avoiding them if possible. But if it came to a fight, Fang Yunjiu would use her Evil God Possession, transforming into an evil god and slaughtering everything (not really).
"Really nice." Mu Anqi nodded. "If only I could draw a few wide-scale offensive skills too."
"…Your items are already very powerful," Fang Yunjiu couldn't help but say.
Money power and such things—absolutely invincible.
As they talked, they drew closer and closer to the spot on the map marked with a chest. Even before they got near, they heard quite a commotion.
Out of nowhere, an inexplicably cheerful BGM started playing. Mu Anqi pushed aside the branches and saw a 1.8-meter-tall burly man spinning in circles while dancing, countless dreamy lights and pink bubbles flickering all around him…
Mu Anqi was stunned. Every time she thought a certain skill was the peak of awkwardness, Nirvana Space always shattered her imagination. This skill… was even more toe-curling than Fang Yunjiu's Evil God Possession! Almost instinctively, Mu Anqi quickly muttered a blessing of "Safe travels!" and interrupted the man before he could complete his transformation!
The cheerful BGM came to an abrupt halt. The male player, face full of despair, who had been desperately spinning and dancing, froze completely. His body shook uncontrollably, and with both arms raised high over his head, he traced out a giant heart.
"Ugh—" Another player, with a yellow ribbon tied around his arm, finally couldn't help but retch. "If you're going to transform, hurry up and transform! Why the hell are you throwing hearts and disgusting people?"
"Damn it, it's not me! I didn't! I'm not in control!" The heart-throwing male player was terrified. "I'm f*cking possessed!!!"
"Red team is here, hurry up and kill the ghost!" One player over there spotted Mu Anqi and the others, shouting nervously, "Quick! The chest is up to whoever's capable, but first kill the ghost!"
"Damn it, this ghost is like a loach, if you can do it then you do it!" A blue team player roared. "Come here and surround it!"
Mu Anqi glanced at the situation. The players were chasing and blocking off a thin little ghost. The ghost was extremely agile, and it looked like none of the players had any control-type skills. Only one player had exceptionally high agility, and he was frantically chasing the little ghost—but every time he was about to catch it, the ghost would dissolve into a wisp of yin energy and teleport to another spot, leaving him grasping at air. Because of this, the ghost still hadn't been killed, and the chest hadn't appeared.
Mu Anqi looked around, and finally spotted Xia Yun perched carefully on a high branch, observing the battlefield.
The place where the chest would appear should be right at that formation, right? At the edge of the formation stood one blue team player and one yellow team player, seemingly locked in a standoff. Neither was watching the ghost, instead glaring nervously at each other—clearly waiting to snatch the chest the instant it appeared.
"Xia—!" Mu Anqi almost called out Xia Yun's name, but thought better of it and swallowed the word. "Miss Xia! Get ready!"
From the tree, Xia Yun made a hand gesture toward Mu Anqi. Because of Mu Anqi's shout, the nearby players all turned their eyes in her direction. Mu Anqi didn't care. She looked at the little ghost being chased and teleporting again and again. Although it appeared instantly, there was always a pause. What's more… she had strong single-target control!
Without hesitation, Mu Anqi hurled two crudely made grenades toward the formation. The blue and yellow team players were instantly startled and instinctively prepared to run. At that very moment, Mu Anqi shouted at the little ghost, "Live a long life!" The instant the ghost froze, she fired three shots into its head, then tossed out two smoke grenades—one at the ghost's position, the other at her own feet.
Xia Yun's flying sword shot from its sheath, and like a shovel, it suddenly dug into the ground beneath the formation. At the moment the ghost dissipated, the sword struggled to lift the treasure chest. Seeing this, Mu Anqi immediately threw another smoke grenade toward the formation, then raised her hand into the choking smoke and pointed at the sky: "Money, come!"
With a muffled "thud" and a simultaneous scream, Mu Anqi turned and ran. "Retreat!"
Fang Xunjiu, who hadn't had time to hand out a card, and Fang Yunjiu, who hadn't had time to transform into an evil god: "…"
From joining the fight to turning tail and running, it only took one minute. Over there, the yellow and blue teams thought the red team had gone mad one second, and the next they were dumbfounded, trapped in the smoke grenades and blinded.
"How could this be!"
"The red team again?! Damn it, doesn't this mean they've already collected ten survival points?!"
"What are you staring at? Chase them! If we can't snatch the chest, we can still eliminate them!"
The agility-focused player was the first to react. He was the first to burst out of the smoke and rush straight at Mu Anqi—only to be met with the passionate welcome of "Spicy Syrup" and the warm blessing of "Five Blessings Arrive."
"Ah!—"
With a scream as the hot syrup splashed into his eyes, Mu Anqi panicked and quickly threw another smoke grenade at her feet, hurrying to catch up with Fang Xunjiu and the others.
Fang Xunjiu activated his [Good People Deserve Good Fortune] skill, giving himself a lucky buff, then pulled two smoke grenades from his backpack and tossed them to the left and right to confuse the enemy's direction, before grabbing Fang Yunjiu and retreating swiftly.