A civil, harmonious, and orderly train.

 

With the black-and-white cube acting as a third wheel, Xing Ye couldn’t keep discussing strategies with Lu Mingze. After setting the main direction, all remaining problems in the game world would have to be handled as they came.

After thinking it over carefully, Xing Ye added many more settings to his trendy-youth persona, listing notes 1, 2, 3, 4, and extra notes A and B.
Once he clicked submit, the system’s loading circle spun for a long time before finally confirming that the character had been generated.

Xing Ye asked, “If I eliminate other players in the game, will their punishment still be the same as before?”

The black-and-white cube replied, “Not the same. This world counts as two worlds. If a player fails, after losing half of their points, they will lose another half again, retaining only one-quarter of their original total. But if you, Player x8205, fail, you will lose thirty million points and your initial skills. ”

“Thirty million points?” Xing Ye frowned slightly at his current balance of over 31 million.

This time, the system was truly ruthless. Losing thirty million would still leave him with just over one million — barely enough to remain in the Advanced World.

But a player who lost their initial skills and had no usable QR codes — after a failure, how would they survive in the Advanced World? Even one million points was enough to make others flock in droves, treating Xing Ye like a juicy piece of meat.

This time, the system’s scheme was really well calculated.

Still, from the fact that he could choose — and even customize — his character identity, it was clear the system couldn’t act without restraint. Even if it wanted to kill Xing Ye, it still had to abide by basic rules.

Xing Ye had designed many small props for his trendy persona and submitted them. His designs were perfectly logical, though detailed, but the system approved every single one — clearly showing that, regarding character creation, the system was required to comply unconditionally.

And although the system could summon many players, it ultimately gathered only twenty. This meant a world could only support a limited number of participants. Advanced Worlds always had a quota of ten; doubling it to twenty was already pushing the system’s limits.

For this “Hunt the 30 Million” world, the system was stretching the rules just to eliminate him, the unstable element — but stretching the rules also meant loopholes existed.

Xing Ye closed his eyes and quietly reviewed all the QR codes he remembered, along with his current skills, items, and achievement titles. After everything he’d been through, he was no longer the clueless rookie who once faced Di Kuang in the campus world. His chips were much greater now.

At that moment, he felt Lu Mingze grasp his hand, signalling that they would face this crisis together.

Thanks to “Heart connected as One”, they could understand each other’s thoughts at any moment — truly a great skill.

Xing Ye opened his eyes, gave Lu Mingze a smile, and clicked Enter Game.

After the dizziness of transmission faded, Xing Ye found himself sitting in a second-class carriage of a high-speed train. Earbuds were in his ears, and he was holding a shiny phone with an extremely flashy mirror-finish case.

The reflection showed a young man with rhinestone teardrops under his eyes, a row of ten small earrings along one ear, and a lip ring at the corner of his mouth — practically full of piercings.

Since he was already holding a phone, Xing Ye didn’t look around. He immediately lowered his head to check the information on the screen.

Story Background:
This is a mysterious train. There are many people of unknown identity onboard, all hunting someone who possesses a fortune of thirty million. The entire journey lasts ten hours, with twenty cars including the engine and dining car. Players hold an app called “Hunt,” which includes location tracking and temporary-contact features.

The locator lets players see their distance from the Thirty-Million target, but when they are within three cars, the distance indicator disappears. Players must then search the five surrounding cars to identify the target.

The Thirty-Million player cannot see distances but can view the number of remaining players. All other players cannot see this number — only whether the Thirty-Million player is alive or dead.

A friendly reminder: This is a harmonious and civilized train. Please strictly follow train regulations.

Now, please enjoy this hunt.

After reading the screen, Xing Ye unexpectedly found that the game was quite considerate toward him. Other players couldn’t pinpoint his exact car — they would have to search the five-car range around him. And he was currently in a second-class carriage, surrounded by many passengers. Unless a player had something like the “Eye of Truth,” they would struggle to identify him.

Then a voice appeared in his mind: “Even if I did have the Eye of Truth, I probably wouldn’t bother examining you carefully. Mainly because your appearance is just… your disguise is really effective.”

“Of course.” Xing Ye thought back, crossing one leg over the other and popping a piece of bubble gum in his mouth.

There were many people in this car, but none sat beside him — probably because his look was too blinding. The passenger who should have sat next to him had relocated to another seat entirely.

Xing Ye checked his ticket, then pulled up a train-ticket-sales app on the phone.

“Little Mirror, what do you think the friendly reminder in the game background really means?” Xing Ye blew a bubble, which popped and stuck to his cheek. He swept it back into his mouth with his tongue and began blowing another.

Lu Mingze said, “It must be important.”

“Of course it is,” Xing Ye thought, looking up his train number. “This trip lasts ten hours from City B to City H, stopping at seven stations. My ticket is a full-route ticket, from departure to the final stop. The time shows the train has just left the station, which means the world has a time limit.

But other players’ tickets may not be full-route. If someone’s ticket ends at the first stop, but they don’t get off and also don’t buy a supplemental ticket, what happens?”

Lu Mingze thought. “They’d get fined, or escorted off at the next stop and sent to the station police?”

“Getting off equals elimination.”

“So if someone forgets this and doesn’t buy a supplemental ticket, that would be a disaster,” Lu Mingze said. “Though that’s probably for Fate-Defying players. Fate-Following players should have long time limits.”

Xing Ye continued blowing bubbles: “There might also be a Fate-Following player who works as train staff — or even kitchen staff in the dining car. And if one of them happens to possess a starting skill similar to Teacher Li’s ‘Toxic Perfume’ from the campus world, what if they tried poisoning the entire food supply?”

“It’s possible. Players don’t care about the lives of other players or NPCs. Killing them all at once would keep anyone from sharing the thirty million.”

“But the reminder was: ‘This train is harmonious and civilized. Please follow train regulations.’ If a murder occurs and the culprit is caught on the spot, what would happen?”

“They’d be restrained and handed over to the nearest police station at the next stop.”

Xing Ye smiled. “Meaning that even if we want to counter-kill the others, we still need to follow the basic laws — we can’t let the NPC staff catch us. There must be NPCs with strong abilities to maintain order.”

“Then to eliminate nineteen people — even subtracting Cao, Yan, and Qian, that’s still sixteen — we have to be careful!” Lu Mingze said.

“No,” Xing Ye shook his head. “I mean that this world is actually safe for us. As expected, when the system intervenes too forcefully, the rules become unbalanced — in my favour.”

“Then we should…”

“Before the first stop, do absolutely nothing. Just wear sunglasses and blow bubble gum. Let the first wave of idiots who test the rules reveal themselves.”

Xing Ye put on color-changing sunglasses, hiding whether he was sleeping or observing.

He slouched in the seat. After a while, a male train attendant approached to check tickets.

“This passenger? Sir?” The attendant lightly patted him twice.

Xing Ye had been awake, but pretended not to react at first. After observing the attendant, he replied, “Hmm? What is it?”

His voice was lazily hoarse, like someone who had just woken up.

“Please show your ID and ticket,” the attendant said, holding the verification device.

Xing Ye inhaled sharply and immediately broke into a violent coughing fit, drawing stares from everyone in the carriage.

After coughing for a while, he spat his bubble gum into a tissue and said, “God— I must’ve fallen asleep chewing gum. Took a breath and almost choked myself to death!”

Still coughing, he took out his documents and ticket. The name for this identity had been chosen by Xing Ye himself—Lu Ye, a very ordinary name.

The train attendant glanced at the ID photo, which showed a fairly young and handsome face, and then looked at Xing Ye’s head full of purple hair. Politely, he said, “Sorry, could you please take off your sunglasses so I can match your appearance to the photo?”

Xing Ye removed the sunglasses, revealing flamboyant panda-eye smokey makeup. The conductor stared wordlessly, comparing the ID photo with the real person. After looking for quite a while, he still couldn’t find much resemblance between the two.

The sunglasses were off, but he couldn’t very well ask a passenger to remove makeup, take off earrings, remove the glitter at the corners of his eyes, or take out the lip ring, right?

Forcing himself to pick out a few features that vaguely resembled the ID photo, the attendant wrote down Xing Ye’s getting-off time in his notebook, then went to check another passenger’s ticket.

When he left, Xing Ye put the sunglasses back on and continued pretending to sleep peacefully.

The only people who could move freely between train carriages without raising suspicion were the train attendants. Even though he didn’t know whether this attendant was a player, it was best to remember his face.

Lu Mingze, meanwhile, made a round through the washbasin mirrors in each carriage. There were mirrors in the toilets too, but he had absolutely no desire to look into those.

The train was a public space; only the washbasin area and the toilets were relatively quiet. If players wanted to team up or discuss something, they would usually pick a slightly more private location to avoid being overheard by others.

Lu Mingze reported: “Carriage 6, first class—two male passengers came out of the same restroom, exchanged ambiguous smiles, and patted each other on the shoulder. Highly suspicious.

“Carriage 8, dining car—a chef insisted on switching positions with the staff member pushing the snack-and-water cart. Failed. Eventually decided to wait until meal time to sell lunchboxes instead.

“Why is the train so quiet?”

Xing Ye said, “The real fighting will happen in the last five hours. For the first few hours, we just wait for some players who aren’t thinking straight to be eliminated by themselves.”

He lounged in his seat for over an hour without moving. When the train arrived at the first stop, he picked up his phone and glanced at it—and couldn’t help but smile.

The number of hunters had gone from 19 to 17. Two players had already been eliminated for violating the rules without him having to lift a finger.

Translator : DarNan