Chapter 44

Chapter 44

After a brief respite, Ji Xinghai continued his journey, the car passing through landscapes that unfolded like scenes from a movie.

Abandoned wooden houses, deserted wells echoing with the sound of water... These images, brimming with horror elements, flashed in the rearview mirror, but he didn't stop.

Outside, people compared maps, speculating about his next destination.

On this path, he continued to collect resource boxes. Although white resource boxes were fewer, blue ones had appeared, and overall, his harvest was slightly greater than yesterday's.

At least it wasn't just bread and water anymore. Blue resource boxes guaranteed useful cards and equipment.

When opening the last blue resource box, Ji Xinghai hit the jackpot, drawing a 'Deluxe Bed & Breakfast Motel Experience Ticket.'

The audience was so shocked they couldn't help but check the direction of the sunrise today.

However, instead of immediately turning towards the motel, he continued to chat up NPCs along the way: "I'm a seeker of history and an adventurer, fond of abandoned buildings filled with stories and legends. Do you have any recommendations?"

Most NPCs dismissed him as a playful youth, but one elderly woman pointed him in a direction.

"There, on that mountain, you'll find what you're looking for."

Meanwhile, the player's internal channel remained lively. As time passed and temperatures rose, their fears became reality—the temperature soared to 40°C, making primary car upgrade cards hard to come by.

Simultaneously, they discovered that the drop rate for 'Motel Experience Tickets' had plummeted; their trading price was now comparable to car upgrade cards.

"Thank you, master, for saving my life," said a student who almost sold off their car upgrade card and motel experience ticket, now full of relief.

Those who hadn't drawn accommodation tickets or lacked resources to trade were forced to consider their next steps.

They might have to face monsters, and taking the initiative seemed the best outcome.

Some students used the camera function to capture suspicious nearby cabins, parks, and uploaded them to the student channel, asking if these were film locations or likely to trigger monster encounters.

Everyone was busy, so such questions were often ignored, receiving replies only occasionally. Of course, not very accurate ones, since many horror film scenes were similar.

At this point, those asking the questions would be left to ponder: Should they stay and trigger a monster, gambling on luck, or should they search for the next possibility before nightfall?

In this environment of collective unease, an exceptionally conspicuous outlier emerged.

It wasn't Ji Xinghai; after the fish pond incident, he hadn't shown himself again.

This outlier's student ID was 'Universe's Luckiest.' Some might recognize the name, and rightly so—he was the second to step forward after Ji Xinghai to supplement the instance information.

Initially, he merely answered questions kindly, but later, the tone changed, and he began to subtly 'Veerse.'

While others lamented the scarcity of car upgrade cards, he showcased his car, evolved twice using two primary car evolution cards, altering its electrical system and bodywork, thus changing its appearance significantly.

As others worried about the night ahead, he displayed plush toys as spoils from defeating monsters.

When students were collapsing from the heat, he showed off a car fridge, chilled drinks, fruits, and a bounty of food sufficient for two to three days.

He even had ranged weapons—a glimpse of a crossbow.

Students in dire straits: ...???

This 'Universe's Luckiest' said nothing, yet conveyed everything.

The observers were unsure of his intentions.

Initially, they thought he might sell information or save everyone, but neither happened. He ignored private messages offering resources for monster information, disregarded pleas in the channel, and paid no heed to the curses of irate students, as if all this was done solely for bragging rights.

Ji Xinghai had merely posted text, which, though information-rich, couldn't compare in terms of realism or impact to these images.

Though mere pictures, they vividly depicted this student's superior living conditions at the moment.

Most students still drove cars barely repaired and functional, eating stale bread and drinking water out of necessity, wielding initial white-grade weapons of uncertain efficacy. To them, this lucky student was practically on another level.

"An elite student, no doubt," muttered a regular student, unable to hide their emotions. "What's there to be proud of? If we were also trained by the country..."

Regular students felt genuinely unbalanced. They hadn't volunteered for the game!

Did they want to be useless and hold others back?

Who didn't want to be a hero? Who didn't?!

But they were already giving it their all just to survive!

Half of the entrants were national elites, a fact they knew well.

And half of these national elites could satisfy survival needs while vying for high scores, something they were also aware of.

Like the previous Ji Xinghai, clearly among the top tier, these students reached heights regular students could only look up to. They enjoyed better equipment and more resources—facts they knew all too well.

But there was no need to flaunt it!

Flaunting it, when it was out of reach, bred jealousy in regular students, even the most peaceful of whom would succumb to envy.

Especially as darkness fell, danger drew closer, and the shadow of death loomed, leaving their minds anything but calm, akin to bloated gas tanks ready to explode.

They were on the brink of psychological imbalance.

"D*mn it, f*ck! Why does he have to stir up the emotions of regular students?! Does he have an exhibitionist complex?!"

The spectators outside were as irritable as the students.

Losing control of emotions was the worst fear in instances, signaling an inability to calmly face challenges and increased susceptibility to being misled by abnormal creatures, raising the risk of death.

Worse still, due to the student channel platform, this annoying student wasn't spreading negative energy one-on-one; he dealt a critical blow to all ordinary people monitoring the student internal channel.

The mental values of randomly selected students and those who were not strong among the officially assigned ones have been affected.

The advantage Ji Xinghai had gained by revealing information has now been nullified.

Moreover, the unspoken tension between elite students and ordinary ones in the game has been exacerbated.

Is "Cosmic First Lucky" a spy sent in by the Hungry Academy?

"It's true, people like Ji are few."

"Hmm?"

Ji Xinghai looked up at the sky. Although there wasn't much change after six o'clock, the temperature that had soared to 42°C plummeted sharply, dropping fourteen degrees in just half an hour, and continued to fall like diarrhea. It wouldn't be surprising if the students experienced the extremes of ice and fire during the night.

A certain factor in the air became active, and he sensed another entity taking over this world. Something was stirring in the darkness.

"Gurgle."

An abandoned wine barrel rolled on the ground, and the rusty chains binding the swing in the small garden creaked as it moved on its own. Ji Xinghai glanced at the swing, then at the seesaw swaying slightly.

It was a classic horror movie scene, full of details, and it was clear that it would trigger monsters with a hundred percent certainty.

Ji Xinghai was at an abandoned Orphanage L, and through the fallen iron gate, one could see the long-abandoned three-story red brick house. In front of the house lay gardening tools, and the ground was covered with weeds.

But the entire space gave off a feeling of 'coming alive.'

The wind blew fiercely, pressing down on the lawn as if it were a series of invisible footprints. He heard the sound of metal wind chimes under the eaves, the crisp sound of glass tubes colliding. Ji Xinghai increasingly believed that he was about to touch another realm.

Unlike the Skinwalker or Arachne he had encountered before, this situation seemed more like a powerful collective will forming a 'domain' with its own operating rules.

Abandoned places always held surprises, and it was worth his journey here.

The last thing that moved him similarly was the abandoned camping site; the delicious barbecue pizza he had there lingered in his memory for a long time.

So he was eyeing it again...

the boss delivery service.

"In the game, such small instances usually have plot prompts. Where is it?"

Ji Xinghai got out of the car. It was a bit cold outside, and he couldn't help but shiver. His thin shirt couldn't keep out the chill, so he rubbed his hands and squatted down in the grass outside the iron gate to search.

Several emaciated insects flew out of the grass. Where the insects flew from, he saw half of a notice board already swallowed by wild grass. The notice board had several notices pasted on it.

He squatted down without any pretense, and the live stream's perspective followed him downward, focusing everyone's attention on those notices.

Although they were yellowed, the writing was still clear. They were about the significant impact of the heinous events at Orphanage L on society, and thus required them to relocate as soon as possible.

"Heinous events," a key element acquired.

Ji Xinghai continued searching nearby and finally found the other half of the display board leaning against the wall, piecing them together into a complete one.

He continued reading the other parts.

In the center of the display board was a newspaper, torn in half but with no content missing.

There was a portrait of a middle-aged woman who had been arrested, drawn particularly gaunt and grotesque, her face full of shadows and crevices, with a few silver coins as evidence of her crimes beside her.

The paper said she was the perpetrator of all the heinous events, a terrifying criminal, an evil witch.

The police found many pieces of evidence in her room - records of her selling children to factory owners under the guise of providing jobs while serving as the headmistress of Orphanage L, lists of missing children, and the money she had obtained from these transactions.

But where did the money end up, and why did the headmistress still look so poor? The paper didn't go into detail.

"The murderer was caught in June, but the relocation notice was issued in September, a gap of three months. What happened during those three months?"

He touched the edge of the notice, which had some thickness, with papers stacked beneath it. So he carefully tore off the topmost notice.

Sure enough, there was something underneath, an even older piece of paper.

It detailed the recent identification of the Orphanage L children's skeletons found on the back mountain, confirmed to be those of the children who had disappeared over the past three years. It hoped that Orphanage L would strengthen management to ensure the safety of each child, and that the police had already intervened in the investigation, which would soon be solved, urging everyone to have confidence, and so on.

"Children went missing, and their skeletons appeared on the back mountain, only to find out that the culprit was the headmistress of Orphanage L. And three months after the case was solved, there was another notice for them to relocate due to the ongoing 'heinous events.'

"Orphanage L is truly a place full of stories."

If the murderer had already been caught, why would they need to relocate? Unless...

Ji Xinghai looked at the main building of the now desolate Orphanage L. In the dark, broken window, there was a grayish-white shadow, as if someone was standing there, staring straight at him.

Ji Xinghai didn't dodge or hide, meeting the gaze with a more direct stare. But the grayish-white shadow vanished. A smile suddenly appeared on his face as he twirled a strand of bangs around his finger.

The sky was growing dim, but the game hadn't started yet. He took another look at the 'reviving' Orphanage L, then took out bread and water from his backpack, sitting on the hood to replenish his energy while opening the internal student channel.

Hmm?

Were they arguing?

It was so noisy, it hurt his eyes.

Ji Xinghai was almost about to close the student channel when new help messages popped up. The red messages stood out conspicuously among the regular black comments.

This was a paid feature; spending points was required to make the words colored.

Points were life to students. Spending points to send a message, what kind of situation was this?

"Does anyone know what this scene is? I'm inside now, and no matter how I walk, I can't leave. Oh God, what on earth is happening? I don't know, I don't know what's going on."

This was a help message. This student was now in a panic, seeking assistance.

"Calm down, what's the scene? Can you take pictures now? Or describe in detail everything you see."

Some of the trainees had already checked into motels, and there were plenty among them willing to lend a hand. They asked in the channel about the kind of place he had entered and what he was seeing.

The trainee was panicking, but with so many offering help, he managed to regain some composure.

Soon, several images appeared in the channel.

He was in a cemetery, surrounded by iron gates and stone pillars, with unkempt, overgrown grass inside. Western-style gravestones of various designs were arranged throughout the cemetery. But oddly enough, these differently styled tombstones all featured statues of the same design, dust-covered figures that seemed to be praying Madonnas or angels, heads bowed.

Ji Xinghai swallowed the bread in his mouth, his interest piqued.