Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Snap! I've gotten too cocky. At first, I was just happy to be alive, but now I'm actually aiming for first place?"

The audience from JiuZhou trembled in their voices; they were indeed getting ahead of themselves. What was Zhang Ziqing like when he first defected? And how was he now?

They were daring to dream!

This day felt like a ninety-degree rollercoaster ride—just two words: exhilarating.

"Hai Ge's success this time is both inevitable and coincidental. We need to stay calm and not set our expectations too high for him. Don't listen to those foreigners who praise him to death; we should keep our hopes reasonable so that Hai Ge can focus on the task at hand."

"Yes, yes, Hai Ge, play it safe and steady. Don't take unnecessary risks."

Sensing something amiss, they took the initiative to steer the live stream's conversation and looked for other topics to divert attention.

"This scenario benefits special forces and those with experience in forest warfare, but there aren't many professional soldiers among the government-sponsored students participating this time."

"Pity about Federation's Jie Sen. If he had been more cautious and acted later, he wouldn't have lost his head so quickly."

"Hungry Academy doesn't follow the usual path. The majority of scenarios in the past two years tested niche skills. Even if Qin Shen were here, he'd be in trouble. That's why everyone chose students proficient in both literary and martial arts. I wonder how Hai Ge fares in other aspects."

"Woof?"

"It's me." Ji Xinghai had arrived at the hunter's cabin, dragging the unconscious man in black inside. There was still glowing charcoal in the hearth, and he added a handful of dry pine branches.

The flames licked around the pine branches, brightening the room slightly.

At the entrance of the wooden house, he sprinkled a thin layer of ash. There were no additional footprints, and none of the traps he had set up had been disturbed.

Ji Xinghai, enduring his thirst, circled the area, confirming everything was as it was before, then scooped a ladle of water from the pot, blew on it gently, and sipped it slowly.

The fire danced in the hearth as Ji Xinghai drank silently, leaning against the Tulou stove.

Someone was hiding in this room—no, in this space. When he moved, that person's emotions resonated like an agitated cello.

Ji Xinghai was certain; an entity followed him, watched him.

A faint smile played on his lips as he dipped his fingertips into the water and casually wrote on the Tulou stove: Do you like it?

The stove absorbed the moisture swiftly, but the silent emotions surged like tides, akin to quick, leaping notes, trembling strings quivering in the darkness.

Unbuttoning the fastenings on his clothes, Ji Xinghai's lips curled in the dim light. His actions interrupted any possible probing or guessing by that presence, disrupting the steps of the chess player.

What did it matter if the enemy was in the dark and he was in the light? He never let himself be passively led through the plot.

His black clothes fell to the ground, the firelight caressing his pale skin. With the dry fungus in front and the green lamp wick behind, strength nourished this fragile body, adding a thin layer of muscle beneath the gaunt skin.

The live stream screen suddenly cleared, revealing a body that was beautifully poised between youth and adolescence. Though somewhat thin, the broad shoulders, slender waist, and V-cut lines hinted at a promising future.

Ji Xinghai picked up some black soap nuts from the corner, breaking them open to create lather. The smell on his body was too strong; whether out of personal necessity or survival, he needed to wash it off soon.

"Hai Ge is so composed; I forgot he just crawled out of a pile of corpses."

Watching him lather his hair and body, stripping down to his boxers, the atmosphere in the live stream suddenly turned strange.

Emaciated, sickly pale, yet with a handsome face and slightly disheveled long bangs. Everyone suddenly realized this was a captivating young man, or perhaps the label of a strong individual now carried a hint of fragility that could be plucked, suppressed hormones stirring under the dangerous environment.

Only the professional medical team analyzed his physical condition.

"His family spared no expense on miracle drugs, so he doesn't show signs of muscle weakness from prolonged bed rest. But he still needs nutritional supplements and scientific exercise. To achieve what he has in this state, our student's willpower and execution are top-notch."

The doctor turned to the minister. "Is there no way to send supplies in, even when the students are in their 'dormitories'?"

The minister shook his head. "We can only connect with him remotely."

"What a pity," said the doctor. "Research on anomalous creatures has made significant progress; there are already drugs available to rapidly restore bodily functions. If it were Ji Xinghai, he would qualify for the first batch of applications. This could help him better tap into his potential."

"Perhaps there are other methods," the minister mused, looking at the half-grown child on the screen. He consumed anomalous creatures, possibly for a compelling reason.

Carrying warm water, he rinsed himself clean in the courtyard, removing the few bubbles that remained. Ji Xinghai found a cloth to dry off, then wrapped a piece of deer hide around his waist.

Under the cover of the deer hide, he removed the last piece of wet black clothing—considerate Ji Xinghai taking care of the viewers' fragile sense of modesty.

He quickly washed and wrung out the clothes, hanging them on a branch near the stove to dry while he squatted, feeding wood into the hearth.

The fire cast a beautiful golden sheen over his sinuous body, illuminating his eyes like delicate, fragile pieces of gold glass.

The autumn night was cold, and he needed the fire to dispel the chill.

But this night wasn't lonely. An unseen presence lingered, observing, evaluating, or waiting. They were in a test of patience.

An hour passed, and his clothes were nearly dry. He put them back on. At that moment, the breathing of the man in black on the bed changed.

"Are you awake?" Ji Xinghai approached the man on the bed, asking in M language.

The rescued native clutched his throat, groaning as he slowly regained consciousness. Seeing the vague silhouette of a tall figure in the darkness, he recoiled in fear.

"The one controlling you is dead." These were Ji Xinghai's first words.

"You're temporarily safe." These were his second words.

The information that 'those people were killed by me, I'm strong enough, and you're safe because I'm being friendly' might not have been entirely clear to the middle-aged man in black, but he subconsciously relaxed, glancing around with the corner of his eye.

It was a dark room, but definitely not in the Tulou. The figures before him weren't the ones who controlled him.

"Thank you, where is this place?"

"Are you from the village?" Ji Xinghai didn't answer his question but asked another one instead, "Apart from you, are there any others still alive?"

The middle-aged man's thoughts followed the direction of his question: "Not many left, the others all..."

Under deliberate guidance, the middle-aged man began recounting what had happened.

They were indeed the village chosen by an illegal violent organization to cultivate prohibited substances.

"They say that stuff sells for a high price out there, but what does it have to do with us? If anyone in the village makes a slight mistake or says the wrong thing, they get their arms and legs chopped off. We have nothing to eat, nothing to wear, and if we fall sick, we can only wait to die. Everyone was driven to the brink, which is why... we rebelled."

The middle-aged man covered his face and wept, tears streaming down onto his missing fingers, mixing with blood.

Now the village was gone, the elderly and weak in the village had been slaughtered clean, leaving only a part of the able-bodied youth hiding deep in the mountains.

He could survive because they wanted him as bait to lure the young people down from the mountains. The villages under their control weren't just one; they wanted to massacre the villages, kill chickens to scare the monkeys.

"The Tulou over there is where the people controlling your village are."

The middle-aged man nodded: "At first, there were only about a hundred people, then several more batches came, bringing many guns and ammunition. I didn't count them carefully, but there might be hundreds of them."

"How are their relations?"

"Their relations aren't good, they even shoot at each other when they argue." The middle-aged man said while thinking.

The middle-aged man's fear and anger had been suppressed for too long. Ji Xinghai only needed to ask, and he poured out like water from a bamboo tube, his words lacking logic, saying whatever came to mind, occasionally repeating himself several times.

Ji Xinghai listened quietly to his outpouring, not showing any impatience. Only when the middle-aged man calmed down slightly did he suddenly ask, "Did you see that lantern floating in mid-air?"

The middle-aged man's dark brown eyes stared at him, motionless like a puppet.

"I saw a large pit over there."

As soon as he mentioned the corpse pit, the puppet-like middle-aged man immediately showed signs of life, he cried, very sad, very angry.

"The green lantern."

Alright, the middle-aged man, with tears still on his face, froze again.

Ji Xinghai asked several times in a row but received no effective response, as if there was a bug in the game, adding a touch of eeriness to the normal process.

These NPCs' plot lines seemed not to blend with the strange creatures.

This also reminded him that this was a bizarre and twisted world, not to be swayed by any emotions. Once he lost the advantageous identity of an 'outsider,' it was easy to be bewitched by other things and then consumed.

He stopped asking about the lanterns, holding the brass bird whistle that had never been used: "Do you remember this?"

The brass bird whistle reflected the light in the dim room, looking bright and shiny. The middle-aged man's eyes moistened again: "Isn't this the elder's whistle?"

"Do you know how to notify the others on the mountain to retreat into the deep mountains early?"

"Yes, yes." The middle-aged man perked up, picking up the brass bird whistle, "Should I blow it now?"

Ji Xinghai thought that the mission had already given a clear time for the enemy's invasion, so this brass bird whistle must not have a literal 'notification' function.

So he said, "I think those people below may make a move tomorrow, why don't we try it now. It's night, quiet, everyone will hear more clearly."

"Okay."

The sound of the bird whistle was clear and distant, the middle-aged man blew it following a specific rhythm, imitating various bird calls, the sound echoing through the silent deep forest.

With this sound, Ji Xinghai's mission watch vibrated. He leaned against the wooden wall of the hunter's cabin, swiping open the display screen of the mission watch.

Three more lines appeared in the mission description:

Killed 13 enemies, gained 13 points.

First identified the enemy's identity and obtained a small amount of clues, gained 1 point.

Used the bird whistle, added a 'cue sound' virtual item for all trainees, and gained 1 additional point.

He had already scored 15 points and gained an extra small item.

'Virtual Cue Sound' Item: When an enemy appears within 100 meters in a straight line from the trainee, the trainee receives a prompt. A one-time use virtual item.

When the middle-aged man returned after using the bird whistle, Ji Xinghai had already lit the oil lamp in the hunter's cabin, placing it on the small wooden table: "What are your plans next?"

The middle-aged man placed the brass bird whistle on the table and sighed heavily: "I'm going into the mountains."

"Now?"

He nodded: "They're too terrifying, if you're willing, come with me. Those people... those people aren't human, it's over if they find us. Now, hiding in the mountains, we can still find something to eat, we won't starve to death."

Ji Xinghai understood the middle-aged man's decision; in the script, this was just an ordinary person, barely able to protect themselves. But Ji Xinghai wasn't planning to go deep into the mountains; the enemy was below the mountains, and the points were also below the mountains.

Having lived through several worlds, having the quirk of needing to win once participating wasn't strange, right?!