After all, this person had already lost all use value.

 

Five minutes later, the system refreshed the location data, showing that Xing Ye was still in Car No. 1. One of Shao Lin’s teammates, Qiao Yuxin, frowned and said, “Why is he staying in Car No. 1 and not coming out? Isn’t he afraid we’ll discover and ambush him?”

Shao Lin replied, “I’m afraid he’s planning to guard a tree stump waiting for a rabbit (NT: idiom meaning waiting passively for prey to come on its own). The situation is different now. Before, it was nineteen people against him alone. As hunters keep getting eliminated, the ones who can still oppose him are probably just the few of us left.”

The second teammate, Ye Zirou, said, “I really can’t understand how he defeated Tan Feng and the conductor. Either one of them could have killed the two of us easily. Yet the Thirty-million player managed to eliminate them—he’s really terrifying.”

After speaking, Ye Zirou hugged her arms, looking somewhat frightened.

Shao Lin said, “A player who can take thirty million points from the system—do you really think he’d be weak? From the moment this game began, we should’ve known that our opponent was anything but simple. At the very least, the system judged him capable of fighting nineteen people alone.”

Qiao Yuxin added, “What’s even scarier is that although it was nineteen against one, some players were still willing to be his teammates. Even if they were companions from his previous worlds and helped him out of loyalty, it still shows that his authority among his companions outweighs the temptation of thirty million points. Isn’t that a bit too frightening?”

After learning that Tan Feng and the conductor had been killed, the two girls actually began to hesitate, losing some of their will to fight.

This was a common flaw among Fate-following players. Being carried smoothly by the system and rarely encountering truly difficult worlds, after dozens of worlds they easily developed a desire to retreat. Losing one world was no big deal—after all, with their luck, they would still win the next one.

Some Fate-following players might have had the motivation to struggle at the beginning, but later, when they realized that all their desperate efforts were far less useful than the luck granted by the system, they gradually stopped thinking for themselves.

Once a Fate-following player’s mindset fell into this trap, they were not far from becoming a Fate-following tool.

Shao Lin looked down on the two girls’ thoughts inwardly, but he was not in a hurry. He picked up a piece of chocolate, stuffed it into his mouth, swallowed hard, and said,
“If we fail, we lose three-quarters of our points. If we fight him and get killed, we also lose three-quarters of our points. Since the outcome is the same, why not gamble once? Think about it—thirty million points, three billion RMB. Split between the three of us, that’s one billion each. With that money, we’d never have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of our lives. Isn’t that worth it?”

The two girls had only been wavering to begin with. Hearing this, combined with the effect of his “Sweet talk”, they agreed to continue fighting.

Ye Zirou asked, “If the Thirty-million player has set traps in Car No. 1, what should we do?”

Shao Lin said,
“Don’t worry. Tan Feng and the conductor didn’t die for nothing. I already know the Thirty-million player’s abilities and teammates. He has three teammates in total. One woman has already died. One male player has absolutely no resistance to women—since the three of us are girls, he won’t fight us. There’s one more male player who’s quite strong, but I already know his ability. As long as we’re prepared, he’ll be easy to deal with.

“There are two key points right now. First, they can use some kind of initial skill to block our vision. If we don’t break that ability, we won’t be able to see where the traps are. Second, there are nine passengers in Car No. 1. If a fight breaks out, they’ll definitely get in the way, and someone might even call the police. We need to get them out.”

Ye Zirou said: “The first point isn’t a problem. My initial skill, ‘when the water recedes, the rocks appear’ (NT: Idiom meaning the truth will be eventually revealed), can break any illusion that blocks vision. No matter how many times he uses it, I can crack it just as many times.”

Seeing her eagerness to fight, Qiao Yuxin also spoke up:“That’s perfect—I've got a solution for the second point. I have a world item called ‘Corpse Driver’. It can make unconscious NPCs move like corpses being driven. We don’t need to send them far—we can drive them to the dining car, make it look like a group meal. By the time they finish eating and return, the fight will already be over. By then we’ll have killed the Thirty-million player, the game will be cleared, and we won’t be afraid of the railway police discovering anything.”

Shao Lin put on an amazed expression. “What a coincidence. Your abilities perfectly counter his.”

Hearing his praise, Qiao Yuxin smiled proudly. “We’re Fate-following players, after all. Our abilities are special, and in almost every world our opponents are restrained by them. That’s how we smoothly made it to the high-level worlds.”

Shao Lin said: “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s act now. The Thirty-million player has too many tricks. I’m afraid that if we don’t strike quickly, he’ll come up with something new. One of my previous teammates—I don’t know what ability he used on him—ended up going on a killing spree and got arrested by the railway police and eliminated. He just fought Tan Feng, so his skills must be heavily consumed and in cool-down. We can’t give him time to recover. Tan Feng and the conductor must not have died in vain.”

“That makes sense,” Ye Zirou said after checking her phone. “Let’s go to Car No. 2 and stand by first. If the next location refresh still shows him in Car No. 1, we’ll act according to plan.”

“Alright!” After agreeing, the three stood up and headed toward Car No. 2.

Ye Zirou and Qiao Yuxin were both very beautiful girls, and Shao Lin’s appearance in this world was also decent. The three of them encountered little resistance while walking through the train cars. They simply said they were going to Car No. 2 to find a friend, and the train attendant let them pass.

When they arrived at Car No. 2, it was just in time for another location refresh. Qiao Yuxin looked at her phone and saw that the location was no longer displayed. This meant that the Thirty-million player was within the five cars around them (including the locomotive, Cars 1, 2, 3, and 4). They had just walked through Cars 4 to 2 and observed the passengers—there were no suspicious individuals.

The three reached the junction between Car No. 2 and Car No. 1. To be safe, Ye Zirou activated “When the water recedes, the rocks appear” to check whether Car No. 1 contained any visual illusions.

At the exact moment Ye Zirou used “When the water recedes, the rocks appea,” Qiao Yuxin activated her initial skill “Drowsy”.

She was actually just a high-school student with poor grades. The pressure of entrance exams made life feel unbearably boring. Once, while she was dozing off in class, her nodding head hit the desk and jolted her awake. She discovered that at some point, a QR code had appeared on the chemistry textbook spread out on her desk. Taking advantage of the teacher not paying attention, she secretly scanned it and entered the game world.

As a result, one of her initial skills was “Drowsy,” which could put other players and NPCs to sleep. However, because she woke up in class back then, this skill could only induce light sleep—any slight disturbance would wake the target. Qiao Yuxin didn’t think this skill could truly put the Thirty-million player to sleep. Another drawback was that “Drowsy” also made the user sleepy, though a pat from a teammate would wake them up.

Its advantage, however, was that it was an area-of-effect skill and consumed very few points. Within a certain range, no matter how many people were affected, they would all fall into the same state, and it would only cost 50 points, without increasing based on the number of targets.

After using “Drowsy,” Qiao Yuxin became so sleepy that she collapsed directly onto Ye Zirou. Ye Zirou slapped her awake. Once conscious, Qiao Yuxin showed none of the usual grogginess of someone just waking up. Instead, she swiftly and accurately took out the “Corpse Driver” item—a portable talisman. She activated it outside the carriage, communicated with the item, and instructed it to drive all the sleeping people to the dining car in Car No. 8 to order food, then bring them back after they finished eating.

Once the item took effect, the door of Car No. 1 quickly opened. Nine dazed passengers walked out, their limbs stiff, heading toward the dining car.

At the moment the carriage door opened, the three of them saw that inside Car No. 1 sat a trendy young man, a man in uniform, and a burly man.

Aside from the thirty-million player, no one else could see the number of remaining hunters. However, the number of people currently in the carriage happened to perfectly match their speculation. Without saying another word, Qiao Yuxin immediately activated her second initial skill, “Chemical Reaction.”

She had entered the game by scanning a QR code in a chemistry textbook, so naturally her second initial skill was related to chemistry.

A “chemical reaction” refered to the process in which molecules break apart into atoms, and those atoms rearrange and recombine to form new molecules. If used well, this ability could be extremely powerful—but the prerequisite was that the user had to be good at chemistry, clearly understanding the molecular formulas of the substances involved and the corresponding reaction equations. Unfortunately, Qiao Yuxin was terrible at science; otherwise, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep during chemistry class in the first place. She knew very few chemical formulas, and after becoming a Fate-following player, she had grown too lazy to study and strengthen herself. This time, she chose to convert the carbon dioxide in the air of Car No. 1 into toxic carbon monoxide and oxygen.

An excessive amount of carbon monoxide and oxygen would poison players, but this was a slow process, and it would also affect Shao Lin’s group of three, who had likewise entered Car No. 1.

However, Qiao Yuxin wasn’t afraid. At the same time, she tapped another QR code on her phone. The QR code transformed into a stack of ten masks. She quickly handed the masks to Shao Lin and Ye Zirou. This was an item-type QR code called “Anti-Poison Mask.” Each mask lasted ten minutes, ten in total. Because it was an item-type QR code, it did not interfere with the use of other QR codes.

Thus, Qiao Yuxin’s hand did not stop moving. Without even looking, she casually tapped yet another QR code. Upon opening it, she saw that it was a delayed-effect QR code called “Double Damage Reflection.” That is, during combat, once the opponent launched an attack and caused damage to one’s side, the opponent would suffer double the damage in return. Reflected on the game’s health bar, this meant: if you knock off 50 HP from me, you yourself will lose 100 HP. Unless your health is more than twice mine, no matter how you attack, you will ultimately be the one who loses.

Moreover, this QR code affected three targets. Shao Lin, Ye Zirou, and Qiao Yuxin all received the “Double Damage Reflection” buff, effectively turning all three into undying cockroaches (NT: colloquial expression meaning extremely hard to kill). The effect lasted five minutes.

After completing all this, Qiao Yuxin withdrawed. Her initial skills, items, and QR codes could no longer be used. The best choice now was to observe from behind the scenes, not join the battle, and avoid getting injured.

Watching from the side, Shao Lin let out a soft sigh. The luck of Fate-following players was truly enviable—so many QR codes in hand.

But then again, letting such luck stay with them was really a waste.

Shao Lin smiled, patted Qiao Yuxin on the shoulder, and said, “We’re going in. Be careful on your own.”

Qiao Yuxin smiled gratefully at Shao Lin, completely unaware that at the very moment his hand touched her shoulder, her luck had already been transferred to him.

From Shao Lin’s perspective, Qiao Yuxin—having already used up her skills—could no longer fight. Keeping her luck served no purpose. It was better to give it to him, allowing Shao Lin to use his QR codes with even greater ease and efficiency.

As for whether Qiao Yuxin—now stripped of her luck and unable to use QR codes—might be caught up in the battle due to misfortune, that had nothing to do with Shao Lin.

After all, this person had already lost all use value.

 

Translator : DarNan