Chapter 4: First Drop of Blood

Zhang Zhiyin went to see Brother Fei as according to the instructions. Brother Fei was as busy as he was in the game. He immediately placed Zhang Zhiyin into the team that was preparing to depart.

Zhang Zhiyin set out with the team before he was even clear about the situation.

Halfway down the road, he felt the route was not right, so he tapped the captain’s shoulder and asked, “Big Brother, where are we going?”

“Runfa Supermarket!” The captain answered straightforwardly.

Zhang Zhiyin: “…”

In the game, in M City, which was where he was at now, Runfa Supermarket was the only location with a high-level boss. Inside it was the only level 20 boss in the whole city. Players who had just entered the game would not be able to cope with it at all. It was only after the players left M City and level-up several times could they come back and group up to annihilate the boss.

Although this world looked real and complete now, Zhang Zhiyin felt that many of the world settings still followed the game.

He felt very worried.

But Zhang Zhiyin obviously thought too much. Before they reached Runfa Supermarket, they found that there were more and more zombies around them. Then their car was surrounded.

Zhang Zhiyin, who had only awakened the precision enhancement ability was still very weak (he lack the strength to even truss up a chicken). Without a doubt, he died under the siege of the zombies.

At the moment of losing consciousness, Zhang Zhiyin last thought was…

Actually, he died too fast so he had no thoughts.

——————

When Zhang Zhiyin woke up, he found himself in the hospital with a big fruit basket on the bedside table.

His friend Dajia cried terribly at his bedside, “Zhang Zhiyin, you don’t do good deeds. Why didn’t you see the traffic lights when you go out and got hit by a car? In order to accompany you, I’ve been here for the whole month, what do I do…”

Dajia raised his head after crying and his eyes meet Zhang Zhiyin’s. He was stunned. “You are awake?”

Zhang Zhiyin nodded.

“Doctor—he’s awake, he’s awake—the guy who was hit by a car—”

Soon, a group of doctors and nurses came around, they pushed Zhang Zhiyin to do a lot of tests, and then claimed that it was a medical miracle. It was clear that his brain activity was so weak when he was first sent here, and then it grew stronger and stronger, and now it had completely returned to normal.

Just to be safe, they let Zhang Zhiyin stay in the hospital for a few days.

Zhang Zhiyin felt that besides the slight abrasion, he had no other problems at all. He and Dajia finished eating the fruit basket. They looked and observed each other with dull interest.

Dajia said, “Brother, this is Guangming Hospital. It’s one of the best in the city. Have you heard about it?”

Zhang Zhiyin didn’t understand what Dajia was saying.

Dajia continued, “At that time, you were almost not breathing. As Guangming Hospital was close to you and the conditions here were good, so you were sent here. Guangming Hospital’s intensive care unit, 2,888 yuan a night. I mean, if you’re okay, just go home and recuperate, it’ll be the same.”

Zhang Zhiyin immediately jumped out of bed without regard to the doctors and nurses repeated persuasion. He carried Dajia, the bags, and ran away.

The rest of his spare money left every month was based on a bachelor’s self-sufficiency. That Zhang someone was still trying to save up for down payment, he could not afford to burn money like this.

Back in his small apartment, Zhang Zhiyin finally felt at ease. He first turned on the computer like a conditioned reflex, his body was faster than his brain. He opened the landing interface of and entered the game.

When Zhang Zhiyin finally reacted, he was already standing in the abandoned laboratory.

He was here when he went offline yesterday.

He was still thinking of deleting the game and never playing it again, but now that he was here, it’s better to say hello to the Boss Lord.

Zhang Zhiyin recalled the very real world he’d experienced in his coma and the tragic situation of him being clawed to death by those monsters. At once, because of the injustice he went through, he felt an anger he normally didn’t feel towards the boss who was just standing obediently in front of him.

“All because of you,” he typed, “Why do you have to release a bunch of monsters out of your experimentations just because you have nothing to do.” Incidentally, there was an eye-rolling expression.

But when all the tone came together, unlike the words of righteous men who fight against evil, it was more like a girl who’s being coquettish towards her lover.

Yin Nian still stood silently with his head bowed, and there was no response.

Through the screen, Zhang Zhiyin stared at him blankly. He suddenly felt frustrated and turned off the game and the laptop. He went to the bathroom to wash and go to bed.

It was getting late.

Until now, he regarded what happened in his coma as an ordinary imaginary dream, but if he opened the Item Store in the game and looked at it, he would find that there was a crystal nucleus in the Trading House with a price of ten yuan and its seller who went by the name “Zhiyin”.

A lot of things happened today. He lay down in bed and it didn’t take long for Zhang Zhiyin to fall asleep.

He woke up feeling sore and opened his eyes to see Uncle Yun’s orange-skinned face.

Uncle Yun wiped his eyes and said, “Thank goodness, he’s okay.”

Only then Zhang Zhiyin knew that none of his team had returned. Later, two teams were sent to look for them but only the wreckage of the car was found. On the way back, they picked up a comatose Zhang Zhiyin in the alley opposite Lihua Shopping Mall Street.

Zhang Zhiyin thought for a moment. In the alley across the street? Wasn’t that the revival point of M City! It looked like the immortality of the player was still working?

His brain circuitry became more exotic. Now that he was back to the absurd reality version of <Tomorrow>. Zhang Zhiyin didn’t think much about what exactly happened to him and what strange things he encountered, but he was at ease with the situation. The first thought after he was completely awake was that, if he knew he would come back, he would have recharged his remaining 2,888 yuan into the game, bought magic weapons, awaken abilities, and thus reach the peak of his life! It was terrible to be bitten and scratched by the zombies!

In the evening, Zhang Zhiyin silently opened the Item Store and retrieved the crystal nucleus from his consignment. The deal was unsuccessful, and the money-hungry mall still deducted his handling fee of 5 cents. Fortunately, he still had more than 19 yuan in his account, which was enough for the deduction.

Curling up on the floor of the mall and listening to the breathing of the displaced people around him, the crying of children, Zhang Zhiyin tossed and turned. He opened the Trading House to window-shop for a while. Looking at the first-class magic weapons priced for tens of thousands, he slowly fell asleep while admiring them.

When he woke up the next day, the Item Store was still open. Zhang Zhiyin looked at the time of the latest items update and slowly squinted — the time flow was wrong. He spent a night here but only half an hour had passed in the Trading House.

Brother Fei saw through the weak essence of Zhang Zhiyin’s precision enhancement ability and kicked him out of the Convey Team. Uncle Yun arranged for him to prepare food.

Zhang Zhiyin also looked distracted when he was distributing food with Ah Lan. He was thinking of his own way back to reality—should he gnash his teeth and try rushing into a pile of zombies to commit suicide?

The result of his absent-mindedness was that he accidentally spilled porridge on the person in front of him.

The man was instantly agitated. He grabbed Zhang Zhiyin’s collar and said, “Do you know how precious clothes and food are now?”

When Zhang Zhiyin was shocked, he looked up and became even more shocked. The person in front of him looked white and clean, and his facial features were normal. But this face, Zhang Zhiyin, would not mistake it. This man was not an ordinary passer-by NPC.

As the plot unfolded, a group of people who pursue power or status abandoned humanity and turned to Dr. Y as his underling. Most of the time in the game was spent by players and other forces of justice to fight against these underlings.

The man in front of him was one of his underlings. He was called Yu Huo. He had a fire ability. Later, he built up a villain force under the name Yu Huo. He was one of the most powerful bosses in the game. Zhang Zhiyin didn’t expect to meet him here.

Considering Yu Huo’s narrow-mindedness and bad temper, how he fought over the smallest trifles, and his character setting of being a person with a strong sense of revenge, Zhang Zhiyin felt that he could experiment with the proposition that “death is the only way to return to the real world”.

Footnotes:

Yu Huo (depressed fire), the villain underling, and Yu Huo (bathing fire), the villain group name is different!

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