***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to Idun for the donation! ^^
***
Yin Qingmo and Xia Ke, together with Ning Su, followed the scent of poison and found Shi Tianzhu.
Shi Tianzhu was outside a school with a few players.
When the apocalypse broke out, schools were heavily impacted.
The place was in ruins, with broken walls and debris everywhere, but fortunately, the surrounding wall was still intact.
With one look, Yin Qingmo could tell that Shi Tianzhu intentionally made this place a base for the human faction players.
He was about to walk towards Shi Tianzhu when he noticed Ning Su staring at her.
“Let’s go, say hi to the president,” Yin Qingmo said.
Shi Tianzhu waved them over when she saw them. “First, tell us about your experiences over the past few hours.”
She glanced at Ning Su, then looked to her right. “Never mind, Old Zhou is cooking porridge over there. You guys should go have a bowl and rest.”
As the three were about to walk over, Shi Tianzhu called Ning Su, “Ning Su, come here.”
The young man stopped, turned around, and looked at her.
Shi Tianzhu took out a piece of strawberry cream cake and a bottle of milk, placing them on the small table beside her. She looked up to see the young man staring blankly.
She smiled and said, “What are you standing there for? Come and eat.”
Perhaps not liking the dark environment, Shi Tianzhu had lit a bonfire beside her.
In the distance, the evening glow was red, while the nearby firelight cast shadows.
The warm yellow light also fell on the white cream cake, making it look like it was coated with a layer of sweet honey.
After staring for a while, Ning Su picked up a fork and first ate the strawberries and cherries on top.
Then he scooped a spoonful of cream and slowly ate it.
Shi Tianzhu took out two more bottles of milk and asked, “Where are Gui Sheng and Feifei?”
The young man swallowed the sweet and soft cream and said, “I put them into the system.”
Shi Tianzhu responded, “The post-apocalyptic environment is harsh; it’s good to keep them there.”
She handed the two bottles of milk to the young man. “These two are yours too.”
Ning Su was stunned for a moment, then looked down at the two bottles of milk in his hands.
Yin Qingmo and Xia Ke came over with bowls of porridge. Yin Qingmo asked, “President, do we have milk?”
Xia Ke: “How old are you, still drinking milk?”
Yin Qingmo chuckled softly and slurped his porridge.
Shi Tianzhu said, “It looks like you two are almost done with your porridge. Let Ning Su eat while you tell us what happened on the road.”
Yin Qingmo said, “Not long after I entered the instance, I ran into Xia Ke. Then we saw the Human Pupa Master and Black-clothed Azan, confirming that they were from the zombie faction.”
“When we were resting and eating, we encountered Ning Su and came straight here together.” He took out a piece of paper and handed it to Shi Tianzhu. It was a half-drawn city map. “I’ve marked places where there might be players.”
Shi Tianzhu nodded. “This map is very important. Our first task is to thoroughly understand this city in preparation for the upcoming large-scale battle.”
After discussing for a while and clarifying everything, Shi Tianzhu assigned them rooms. The convenience of being at a school was that there were plenty of rooms for them to sleep in.
Normally, it was already past midnight. Everyone had been on the move for seven or eight hours and needed rest.
As the three of them went to rest, Jia Chengsheng arrived with his group.
Shi Tianzhu sat by the campfire, continuing to exchange information with them.
After speaking, Jia Chengsheng drank a bowl of porridge and sighed comfortably. “President Shi, the zombie faction has already started killing human faction players in various places. Shouldn’t we start preparing too?”
Shi Tianzhu stood up. “President Jia, come with me.”
Jia Chengsheng followed her in confusion to a small dormitory building. This dormitory was smaller than the other two nearby, and its door was tightly locked.
Shi Tianzhu unlocked the iron lock and led him inside, walking to the room at the end of the first floor.
“President Shi, what are you going to do?”
Shi Tianzhu: “Take a look inside.”
Saying this, she pushed the door open a crack.
This relatively small dormitory building appeared to be for staff. Although small, each room was quite nice, similar to a single apartment, with a two-seater sofa.
A person was sitting on the sofa, dressed in a white shirt and suit pants, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, a typical office outfit.
Even Jia Chengsheng was too shocked to speak properly. “This is... me?”
“I’m sorry for locking you up here,” Shi Tianzhu said. “This version of you is a zombie. We had no choice.”
Jia Chengsheng quickly calmed down. “The system’s most important hint is about oneself?”
Shi Tianzhu nodded. “Every player here has another version of themselves.”
She asked Jia Chengsheng, “Can you tell which period of yourself this is?”
Jia Chengsheng opened a crack in the door. This time, he calmed down a bit and carefully observed, moving his gaze from that face to the watch on the wrist, the cuff, and finally to the tie with white chrysanthemums embroidered on the black shirt.
He pressed his forehead, his face showing a fleeting look of realization and sadness. “It’s me about to enter the infinite horror game, specifically me on the day I enter the game.”
Shi Tianzhu said, “Then it’s very clear. Using entering the instance as a node, this world has two of you: one is the you who has been in the infinite game for years, and the other is the you who is about to die in the original world.”
“Every player in this world is like this.”
“At the same time, in this zombie survival match instance, you are a human faction player, and your previous self is a zombie.”
“If it’s a zombie faction player, their pre-instance self would be human.”
When they first entered the instance, many people thought that zombie faction players had an advantage because the most terrifying zombies in this world didn’t attack zombie faction players, only human faction players.
But they quickly discovered that the native humans in this world would attack zombie faction players and not human faction players.
This seemed somewhat fair, but upon deeper consideration, it was still unfair.
It depended on what stage the apocalypse had reached, how much humans and zombies had evolved in this world, and which side was obviously stronger.
By splitting each player into two, one as a zombie and one as a human, this imbalance was addressed.
Because the system warmly reminded, you yourself were the most important.
Before the warm reminder from the system, there was another important reminder: be sure to protect your home and yourself.
“You, yourself.”
Jia Chengsheng asked, “According to this setup, if one version of yourself dies, the other will die too?”
“It could be more precise,” Shi Tianzhu said. “From the perspective of the instance as a whole and logically speaking, if your past self dies, your present self will die. If your present self dies, your past self might not necessarily die.”
Jia Chengsheng glanced at Shi Tianzhu. The evening glow fell on the soft and fair corners of her eyes, and even the strong warm colors could not hide the calmness in her gaze, showcasing her composure and clarity.
He clenched his hand. “I understand, so the past self is the most important, and the past selves are all from the opposing faction.”
[Awesome!]
[This is exciting!]
[So, there are two Ning Su’s, one from before entering the instance and one inside the instance. Since he entered the instance not long ago, the two look pretty much the same.]
[So, the Ning Su who passed the zombie test in the Yongming Guild is the earlier version of Ning Su?]
[No, that’s not right. The perspective is set on the current player. That Ning Su is the player’s main body, and the Ning Su with the Yinhua Guild is the earlier version, the zombie Ning Su, right?]
[The Yinhua Guild is the human faction, and Ning Su belongs to the Yinhua Guild. The current Ning Su should be human, but he passed the zombie test?]
[What’s so hard to understand? He used a skill to pass the zombie test.]
[Wait a minute, the high school student Ning Su has been holding on to all this time. Could he also be the past self of a player?]
Thanks for the update!! 🤩🤩🤩
ReplyDelete