Chapter 130: Silent Land of the Living Dead (19)
Ji Ning felt that after she mentioned the matter of No. 3, all three men were like they'd been shot full of adrenaline. From then on, whether using entrails as bait or charging straight ahead, they pressed forward with "steady progress," and their efficiency improved dramatically.
The journey went smoothly, and the four-person team finally entered the Kaimao Building.
This building, the tallest structure within a three-kilometer radius, was an office tower leased to various companies, thirty-five floors in total.
The power had been out for a full day and night, so the elevators were naturally unusable. To reach the rooftop, the four of them would have to climb all thirty-five floors on foot.
Upon seeing the Living Dead corpses sprawled in pools of blackened blood in the stairwell, Ji Ning and the others understood—someone had gone up ahead of them.
The continued absence of new player death announcements meant the other four people were also a single team, and that team included No. 3.
A team with No. 3 in it was, as expected, no pushover.
Ji Ning's group was already exhausted from climbing, and to make matters worse, the fire escape doors on every floor had been deliberately left open by the people ahead.
Living Dead would periodically burst out and obstruct their progress. Though they never posed a major threat, the constant, unpredictable harassment was maddening—even the mild-tempered Ji Ning gradually grew furious.
Not to mention that time was steadily slipping away, inching ever closer to sunset.
The stairwell was sealed off on all sides, without a single light, darker than anywhere else.
Checking her phone, it was already 6:20, and the team had only reached the seventh floor. The higher they went, the more dangerous it would become. There simply wasn't enough time left for them to charge all the way to the rooftop.
"Why don't we clear out a company office, rest for the night, and continue climbing tomorrow?" Ji Ning suggested. "We still have until about three tomorrow afternoon before the full three days are up. There's no rush."
Xing Ye nodded. "After dark, it won't just be Living Dead—there will be players upstairs as well. It's far too dangerous. Better to rest for the night. We also need to discuss how to deal with those four."
"Four?" Ji Ning was surprised.
She hadn't expected Xing Ye to count No. 3's three teammates among the targets as well.
Xing Ye walked up to Ji Ning, looked down at her, wanting to touch her cheek but, since his hands were filthy, settled for holding her hand instead.
"Once we make a move against No. 3, our two teams become enemies. It's 3 versus 4—once the numbers are imbalanced, they'll definitely suspect us, and there will be no peaceful coexistence. And after all the trouble they've deliberately caused us, I'm not inclined to just let it go."
Song Weiyang walked over and said something very simple: "Anyone who teams up with No. 3—how good could they possibly be? Take them all out together."
Sheng Churan nodded in agreement with both of them.
In truth, Ji Ning was only reflexively surprised at the idea of dealing with four other Real Players who were living people. After all, she had never crossed the bottom line of human ethics and morality before.
But she fully understood the reasoning behind Xing Ye's considerations.
Ji Ning thought for a moment and added, "And there's another point. The game only said we need to board a rescue aircraft to leave and clear the instance—it never said how many people the aircraft can carry. I suspect they were acting on that consideration as well, which is why they've been throwing obstacles in our path the whole way. They don't want us competing for what might be a limited number of seats. Since they've already done all this, how can we afford to go soft? That would be irresponsible to ourselves."
"Exactly." After so long, a trace of a smile finally appeared on Xing Ye's face, and it was because of Ji Ning. "That's truly worthy of my good girl."
Ji Ning returned the smile, her fingers hooking around Xing Ye's in his palm, gently rubbing against them.
After the four-person team resolved to stand united against their common enemy, they climbed two more floors and finally found a suitable company office to serve as a waypoint.
Once they'd finished their rations and finalized their strategy, the three men took turns keeping watch so that everyone could get some sleep.
That night, dangers lurked on all sides outside. At any moment, Living Dead—or living people—could burst through the front door and bring lethal peril.
No one let their guard down. Even their sleep was little more than a light, restless doze.
After barely enduring until the first hint of dawn, the four gathered their gear and left the office, continuing their ascent through the fire escape.
This time, whenever they encountered Living Dead, unless the creatures posed a direct threat to their safety, the team would simply beat them back, drive them into the company spaces, leave the passage doors slightly ajar, and set out the leftover Living Dead entrails from the day before just outside those doors.
Advancing while laying traps as they went, the team drew ever closer to the rooftop.
It wasn't until they reached the thirtieth floor that a new unexpected problem arose.
At the stairway turn on this floor, a barricade of desks and chairs stacked all the way to the ceiling completely blocked the path, extending from the corner up to half of the upper flight of stairs, rendering it utterly impassable.
The barricade was built solidly—clearing a way through would take considerable time.
If there were no Living Dead still moving around below, that might have been manageable. But the problem was, Ji Ning's team's plan had been to gradually lure the Living Dead upstairs.
Before long, they would be coming up. The team needed to get past this obstacle, and fast.
No. 3 and his group had created this massive hurdle—perhaps to block the Living Dead, perhaps to block them.
But this problem clearly could not stump Xing Ye.
He set down what he was carrying, stepped back a few paces, then used the stair railing to vault up. Wedging one foot into the wide gap in the middle, he planted his other foot on the sloped handrail, standing perfectly steady on the railing that rose along with the stairs.
Ji Ning and the other two were utterly stunned by Xing Ye's maneuver, which looked like something straight out of a special effects reel.
Then, as if he'd activated some kind of cheat code, Xing Ye crouched, leaped, grabbed the railing far above him with his bare hands, flipped over it, and landed on the stairs of the next level.
Time was tight, no time for idle chatter. On the upper level, Xing Ye first retrieved his weapon, hauled Song Weiyang up, and then the two of them together pulled up Ji Ning, Sheng Churan, and all their gear. In moments, the entire team had repositioned to the floor above.
Song Weiyang crept quietly upstairs to scout and came back to report: someone was sitting asleep at the thirty-third floor turn, apparently standing guard on the path.
To ensure the Living Dead could also make their way up smoothly, Ji Ning and the three men worked in near silence, moving the desks and chairs back behind the door on the thirty-first floor. They also partially blocked that stairwell to slow the Living Dead's advance.
After finishing all of this, the four of them continued upstairs.
No. 5, who had been guarding the stairs, vaguely sensed something was wrong and snapped awake from his slumber. Seeing the four figures who had appeared out of nowhere on the stairs below, walking up toward him, he jumped in fright, gripped his watermelon knife, and stood. "How did you get up here?"
"Oh, you're awake." Song Weiyang wore an entirely amiable smile, pretending not to notice No. 5's defensive stance. "We got here a little late. How about showing us what the rooftop looks like?"
One against four. No. 5 didn't dare make any rash moves, and besides, he couldn't tell whether these people were fools or sharp operators. He had no choice but to turn and hurry ahead, heading for the rooftop.
Xing Ye, bringing up the rear, continued to quietly scatter entrails as he walked. Once on the rooftop, he even dumped a pile behind the door, then casually closed it behind him.
The rooftop was very spacious.
In the distance, No. 5 was being scolded by No. 3. The group was talking among themselves while glancing up at Ji Ning and her companions, their expressions far from friendly.
Once their internal discussion was over, No. 3 strode forward, leading his three teammates over to face Ji Ning and her group.
"Oh? Lucked out that well, did you?" No. 3's smile was all skin and no warmth as he swept his gaze over them, his eyes finally settling on Ji Ning's face, a veiled, unspoken viciousness lurking within.
Though he didn't single anyone out by name, Ji Ning knew that remark had been aimed mockingly at her.
Ji Ning looked back at him with the same unyielding composure she had shown the first time she confronted No. 3's conditions, replying neither servilely nor overbearingly, "Our luck isn't bad, and neither is our strength—and we certainly don't need to sabotage others to achieve our goals."
She could see that everyone on the opposing side was poised and ready to attack. There was no need to be polite to people like these.
Besides, there were already rustling sounds coming from behind the door. They couldn't afford to delay any longer. She needed to accelerate this confrontation.
After being talked back to by Ji Ning, No. 3 dropped all pretense. With a wave of his hand and his blade raised, he charged forward, snarling viciously, "Kill them for me!"
The two teams were already close to one another. Just as No. 3's blade was about to come slashing down, in the very nick of time, Xing Ye flashed in front of Ji Ning and doused No. 3 head-first with most of a bag of Living Dead entrails.
Song Weiyang and Sheng Churan executed the same move in perfect sync, splattering No. 3's entire team until they were unrecognizable.
Immediately after, the four of them swiftly opened the door, slipped behind the hinge side of the rooftop door, and yielded the stage to the Living Dead—and the "dressing-soaked" morsels that had been delivered right to them.
Surrounded by Living Dead that had been strengthened twice over, even as No. 3 and his team cut down those at the front, they could not hold off the relentless, ever-growing onslaught.
Because the entrails had been dumped right over their heads, the strongest scent was concentrated precisely on No. 3 and his group's faces.
Once the encirclement took full hold, the Living Dead bit straight down at their faces, sending No. 3's entire group into agonized, wretched shrieking that did not cease.
This painful yet deeply satisfying process lasted roughly twenty-some minutes before the sounds gradually faded away.
After receiving the four player elimination notifications in succession, Xing Ye took the lead in mopping up the now-worthless Living Dead.
The four of them worked for who knows how long, until the entire rooftop had become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, appearing at once vivid and grotesque under the brilliant sunlight.
Ji Ning and the men sat resting against the wall, and before long, they heard the whirring hum of helicopter blades—
—their steady drone cutting through the air.
The rescue aircraft arrived very early—it wasn't even eleven in the morning yet. The extra time buffer left over, needless to say, was there for a very clear reason.
As they boarded the cabin, everyone heard the NPC exclaim, "What a coincidence—only four seats left. Any more and we'd be overloaded. And here you are, exactly four people."
Ji Ning and the others exchanged knowing smiles, silently marveling at just how shameless the system truly was.
Livestream comments:
"When Ning-Ning talked back to No. 3, she was like a tiny mewing kitten with three snarling, teeth-baring big bad wolves standing right behind her for backup."
"Previous player-on-player kills were always either brutal or insidious—why is today's so hilariously satisfying?"
"No. 3: Don't I get to save any face?"
"He really doesn't. The Living Dead chewed every last bit of it off."
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