Yan Hebi’s single-player life

From the moment he entered this world, Yan Hebi began the most difficult journey of his life.

He had majored in computer science in college, and his future career plan was to work in some IT industry as a diligent “997” programmer (NT: 997 refers to working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 7 days a week, symbolizing extreme overtime work). Because he had been rather slack during his university years, he still had not even managed to get a driver’s license.

Yet the system had him drive a train—and not just any train, but one travelling at extremely high speed.

The fastest means of transportation Yan Hebi had ever actively driven in his entire life was the small electric scooter at home, which claimed a top speed of 60 km/h but in reality could no longer accelerate once it reached 45 km/h.

There was a map in the driver’s cab. After boarding, Yan Hebi spent a short amount of time calculating: the distance shown on the map was 3,000 kilometers, and the train was required to reach the terminal station within ten hours. Taking stops into account, this high-speed rail would need to maintain an average speed of 330 km/h to arrive on time.

After learning the mission of this world in the system space, Yan Hebi was excited. He knew that Xing Ye was the Thirty million points target the system wanted the players to hunt. Yan Hebi had never once thought about hunting Xing Ye, but he could form a team with Xing Ye, Cao Qian, and Qian Jinlai, face sixteen other players, and defeat opponents four times their number. Those opponents were hidden among thousands of passengers and staff on the train—just thinking about it made him excited.

Back when he played online games in college, Yan Hebi particularly enjoyed the sense of victory that came from counter-killing after being hunted by many people. To him, this was a man’s romance (NT: expression for a stereotypical ideal of masculine passion and heroism).

When the system told him that his identity was “high-speed rail staff,” Yan Hebi was extremely excited. He thought his luck had finally turned.

In his imagination, high-speed rail staff usually meant train attendants. Attendants could move freely throughout the train; he would be able to find Xing Ye immediately, cooperate with him in secret, and take down opponents one after another.

What an amazing identity! This was not the luck of a defying-fate player— even fate following players could not compare!

As for the punishment of losing three-quarters of his points upon failure, Yan Hebi, who possessed 220,000 points, was not afraid at all. As long as he followed Xing Ye, he did not need to worry about points in the slightest. He did not dare exchange points for money anyway—what was the use of having so many points?

Yan Hebi excitedly clicked to enter the game, anticipating a ten-hour-long slaughter. However, reality gave him a head-on blow: the so-called staff role turned out to be that of a high-speed rail driver.

This time, his system prompt was particularly advanced—there was even a narrator beside him!

The narrator said in his ear: “As a high-speed rail driver, you are not allowed to carry a mobile phone during work hours. Your phone is located in the train attendant office in Car No. 1 near the front of the train. During work hours, you may only wear a wristband. However, the system will prompt you every ten minutes with the distance between you and the hunting target. Currently, you are twelve cars away from the Thirty-million-point player.”

Yan Hebi: “...Um, I have no driving experience at all. What if the high-speed rail derails?”

The narrator replied: “In principle, high-speed rail does not derail. Do you see the pedal beside you? In order to ensure that drivers remain focused at all times, the cab is equipped with a special braking device called the Unmanned Vigilance Version. It is an intelligent pedal. The driver must continuously step on it to keep the train’s speed within the specified range—not too high, not too low. If the pedal is not pressed within the required time, the train will perform an emergency brake after seven seconds. Therefore, players need not worry.”

This explanation only made Yan Hebi more nervous. He asked, “Then what if… because of my mistake, the train crashes into another train? What will happen to our game?”

The narrator replied: “Rest assured. All passengers on this train are intelligent projections created by the system by extracting personality traits from various worlds. They are not living beings and will not truly die. As for players, dying in the game only sends them back to the system space. They will not truly die.”

“Then… if no one succeeds in the hunt and I crash the train, what consequences will there be?” Yan Hebi wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

The narrator explained: “Well, the mission of this game is to hunt the Thirty million points. If the nineteen players fail to complete the hunt, then you will all fail.”

“Huh?” Yan Hebi froze. “Then wouldn’t it mean that as long as I drive badly and crash the train hard, Xing Ye can win without fighting? Brilliant!”

Narrator: “…As for the mission of the Thirty-million-point player, they must survive until reaching the terminal station. If they die in a train accident, the Thirty-million-point player will also fail. It will be a double-loss ending. The system will reclaim the Thirty million points given as a reward, as well as three-quarters of the points of the nineteen hunters.”

Yan Hebi: “……”

“So you deliberately chose me as the driver just to create a double-loss ending, didn’t you?”

At this moment, departure time arrived, and the high-speed rail began moving automatically. Yan Hebi’s face was filled with despair.

The narrator said: “That’s not the case. Leaving a trace of hope amid despair is an iron rule of the system, effective for every player. Do you see the QR code at the lower right corner of the driving map? That QR code is specially prepared for driver players.”

Yan Hebi immediately scanned it, clicked to use it without even reading the description.

After the QR code took effect, he felt his body slip out of his control and begin driving the high-speed rail automatically, with extremely skilled movements. This finally put Yan Hebi at ease. He planned to patiently become a salted fish (NT: idiom meaning someone who gives up striving and lies low passively), using this method to protect Xing Ye.

Who knew that at this moment the narrator would prompt him again: “Friendly reminder: the ‘High-Speed Rail Driver’ QR code is a delayed-operation type QR code. It can control the player’s body to drive the train, but its duration is only two hours. It is recommended that the player patiently study and follow the movements during these two hours. Otherwise, once the effect expires, the train will be destroyed and lives will be lost. A normal high-speed rail driver must have several years of train-driving experience to take on this role. We hope the player has relevant experience.”

“I don’t!” Yan Hebi roared.

He could only become utterly flustered and focus all his energy on his body, using the two hours to learn driving skills.

The system would not stop him from crashing the train. To be precise, the system would be delighted if he did crash it, so as to produce a double-loss ending and reclaim the excessive points on Xing Ye.

While learning, Yan Hebi secretly thought of Xing Ye. If only he had Xing Ye’s photographic memory ability, then he could memorize the QR code and use “Repainting Brush” to reproduce it. As long as he drew it once before the duration expired, he could keep it going for another hour.

But on second thought, for such a small task, Xing Ye would not need to use his initial skill. After the two-hour control period ended, Yan Hebi should already be able to drive the high-speed rail himself.

Thinking of Xing Ye, Yan Hebi gradually calmed down.

He was not yet in despair. He still had two hours. As long as he used this time to study and memorized every operation, he would definitely learn how to drive!

Miracles existed in this world. Talent and effort together could create miracles. Yan Hebi was young with strong hands-on ability; in the real world, both his mental and physical abilities were at their peak, the best age for learning and memorization. He could do it!

Even if he could not, he still had to—there was no retreat for him.

While actively learning, Yan Hebi noticed a timetable posted in the cab. After asking the narrator, he learned that “a high-speed rail driver cannot drive continuously for more than four hours; after arriving at the fourth station, another driver will come to take over.” Only then did he finally feel relieved.

Two hours of learning, two hours of operation—so long as nothing unexpected happened during this time, he could hold on!

But Shao Lin was precisely that unexpected factor.

He had indeed arrived at the driver’s cab, and he was even wearing a female attendant’s uniform. It was precisely this outfit that allowed him to evade Little Mirror’s tracking and arrive here smoothly.

After guessing Xing Ye’s smokescreen, Shao Lin was no longer in a hurry to look for Xing Ye’s whereabouts.

What he could guess, Xing Ye could also guess. Sneak attacks were useless against Xing Ye. In the end, what decided fate was who had more chips, who was stronger, and how to counter Xing Ye’s time-stopping ability.

After a series of considerations, Shao Lin made a decision: to temporarily set aside his original dominance-at-the-top mindset and unite the remaining players on the train.

To Shao Lin, this was both simple and difficult.

What was simple was that Shao Lin was extremely intelligent and highly persuasive. Even without the “Sweet Talk” ability, he could still convince other players to obey his command. What was difficult was that he despised those weaklings who sat back and enjoyed the fruits of others’ labor.

Shao Lin’s motto was “the weak are prey to the strong”. This was also the achievement title he had obtained in the game. When encountering a player whose system evaluation was lower than his, Shao Lin could use the ability of this achievement title to unconditionally erase that player’s consciousness—from body to soul—and the player would also die in the real world. Like other titles, this ability could only be used once per world.

Shao Lin had never used this ability, but not because he had any principle against killing. Rather, “the weak are prey to the strong” was, to him, a chicken-rib ability (NT: idiom meaning something that is of little value).

For players whose system ratings were lower than Shao Lin’s, he did not need to use an achievement title at all—he could already toy with them in the palm of his hand. Such people were his chess pieces. He used them to accomplish many things and discarded them once they were no longer useful.

As for players whose system evaluations were higher than Shao Lin’s, the achievement title was completely ineffective.

In the casino world, Xing Ye was the first person who made Shao Lin want to use the “the weak are prey to the strong” ability. Unfortunately, Xing Ye’s system evaluation was unfathomable, and the achievement title could not be used on him.

Tan Feng’s system evaluation was slightly lower than Shao Lin’s, which was also why Shao Lin dared to team up with Tan Feng. He was not afraid of Tan Feng turning on him at all, because he could kill that man at any time.

Among the teammates Shao Lin had deceived, one had just obtained a peculiar fate following item—an item with consciousness.

He was a fate following player wearing a jade Buddha pendant. After using the jade Buddha item to kill another player, the dead player turned into a fate following item: a camera.

Because it had only just turned into an item, the player’s consciousness had not yet been erased. Shao Lin did not have a QR code to erase consciousness on hand, so this fate following player narrowly escaped disaster.

Since the camera-form fate following player still had no owner, and his self-awareness had not been erased, he was able to use his initial skills on his own.

Through an attendant teammate, Shao Lin obtained this camera. Using “Sweet Talk,” he soothed its mental state and made the camera work for him.

The camera had two skills. One was “Photography,” which could reproduce all the scenery it passed through in photos, allowing details that had been overlooked to be discovered through the images. The other was “Filming”: by taking a photo of a specific player or NPC, it could imprison the target inside the photograph for five minutes. During these five minutes, neither side could attack, and the player turned into a photo could not be killed; it only served a five-minute isolation effect. This skill could be used three times within 24 hours.

To Shao Lin, these two skills were extremely useful.

When the camera was still a player, it had travelled through Cars 1 to 20. Shao Lin had it develop twenty photos, one for each car, to observe the passengers in each car and conveniently identify players.

Through these photos, Shao Lin found three players and allied with them.

After the one-hour journey between the second and third stations, Shao Lin confirmed that Yan Hebi was not in Cars 1 through 20.

The reason was simple. Ning Xinyao had once revealed Yan Hebi’s ability: “Central Air Conditioning”, naturally possessing an attraction to the opposite sex. Wherever he was, there would definitely be many women, whether players or NPCs.

Shao Lin did not find anyone with this trait in Cars 1 through 20. By elimination, he concluded that Yan Hebi was in the driver’s cab.

After arriving at the third station, Shao Lin changed into a female attendant’s uniform, got off the train from Car 16, transferred via the platform, and arrived at Car 1.

He was going to use the camera’s filming ability to capture Yan Hebi!

 

Translator : DarNan