Chapter 6: Highway Survival 3
Chu Yun weighed the pros and cons, running calculations in her mind before settling on the optimal strategy.
[5, 4, 3, 2, 1… Game Start!]
The moment the voice dropped, Chu Yun’s three-wheeled motorcycle shot forward like an arrow released from a bow, wasting not a single second.
To pass the track within the limited time and grab as many rewards as possible, her only option was to push her speed to the absolute maximum.
The motorcycle’s throttle was twisted completely to the gauge. Due to the rapid acceleration in such a short window, the engine vibrated with a loud vroom vroom vroom. Chu Yun gripped the handlebars tightly, her upper body leaning slightly forward. She was a picture of absolute focus, her eyes fixed ahead, blending completely with the vehicle.
Straight ahead, left turn, right turn, shift right to grab gold coins, grab food, then shift back left.
Up ahead was a sharp hairpin turn. Chu Yun didn’t decelerate; instead, she smoothly executed a drift right before entering the curve. A harsh screeching friction echoed from the side wheel, and relying on her seasoned handling skills, she slid through the turn in an instant.
If someone had been passing by, they would have been utterly shocked to see a battered three-wheeled motorcycle tearing down the road like a supercar.
Chu Yun locked her gaze onto the various gift boxes, maneuvering the motorcycle to slice right through them.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
The crisp, pleasant chimes of the collected gift boxes one after another filled her with delight, and her body, which had been slightly tense from the extreme speeding, relaxed considerably.
In the final few dozen meters, only five seconds remained, then four…
Time was running out.
Faced with the final turn, Chu Yun twisted the throttle to its absolute limit, accelerating through the curve. The wheels spun at a high velocity, and under the influence of centrifugal force, the vehicle unleashed a speed that shattered its own boundaries.
Two seconds, one second…
Screeech!
The motorcycle let out an ugly shriek as she slammed on the brakes.
[Congratulations on completing the challenge!]
With a mere 0.01 seconds left on the clock, she crossed the finish line.
Chu Yun calmed her violently pounding heart and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead.
Just a bit more. Just a bit more and I would have failed. That was too close!
[Challenge successful, please check your rewards.]
[Congratulations on ranking 3rd in the entire server for maximum speed on the motorcycle track (only the top 5 receive this). Reward: 1x Solar Engine Item Card.]
An engine card was part of a vehicle’s assembly components. The card featured a detailed descriptive prompt, indicating that this item card could only be obtained by clearing stages. Once a player collected all four cards—Engine, Chassis, Body, and Electrical Equipment—they could synthesize a vehicle, though the specific type remained unknown for now.
Presently, she had the solar engine card. To synthesize the vehicle, she still needed to gather the remaining three. The issue was that ranking in the top five of a single track server-wide was inherently difficult; the slots were few, and the probability of encountering these components in a game was even smaller. Moreover, even if she did meet someone who had them, they wouldn’t necessarily be willing to trade.
Chu Yun dismissed the thought of synthesizing a car.
Fortunately, a solar engine wasn’t restricted to cars; using it as a standalone generator was completely viable. Chu Yun believed that any reward the game handed out to players would definitely have its uses, even if it wasn’t clear right now.
She put away the item card.
Aside from the stage clearance reward, she had also picked up quite a few gift packs during her run. Now, she began to take inventory: ten gold coin packs totaling 50 coins, and twenty food pack cards containing twenty 200ml bottles of mineral water, twenty working-class boxed meal combos, and twenty pieces of fruit.
What a massive harvest!
Having only eaten half a pork floss bread in the morning, she was quite hungry by now. Moreover, since these were rare boxed meals, she no longer had to eat the mantou and dry bread produced by the community convenience store.
The boxed meal combos actually existed in card form, which was different from typical supply packs.
Chu Yun randomly drew a food card and clicked “use.” The boxed meal combo was a standard two-meat-one-vegetable set: braised pork ribs, stir-fried beef with yellow chili, and garlic water spinach. They were piping hot, looking as if they had just come fresh out of the wok. The aroma of the food stimulated her appetite; besides, she hadn’t eaten white rice in six days, making her ravenous.
Without a second word, she picked up her chopsticks, grabbed a mouthful of white rice, paired it with a piece of sour, spicy, and delicious beef, and sent it into her mouth. This was pure heaven.
She enjoyed her meal thoroughly, then peeled a plump, bright orange tangerine, popping it in mouth section by section. Listening to the pattering rain outside the window, she couldn’t be happier.
If there wasn’t the pressure of survival, this would truly be a divine life!
Chu Yun, whose dream was to be a salted fish, fantasized unrealistically.
But reality was cruel, and after eating, life had to continue.
The heavy rain showed no signs of letting up. After resting for a brief moment, Chu Yun started her little three-wheeler, preparing to hit the road.
On the sixth day of the game, Chu Yun finally encountered another player.
“Kind soul, give me a lift!”
Up ahead, a sixty-year-old man blocked Chu Yun’s vehicle. The elderly man only had a sheet of plastic draped over his head, and his clothes were completely drenched from the rain. He slouched his back, waving tremulously at the passing Chu Yun.
The old man looked very kind, reminding her of the elderly grandpa who had taken her in when she was in distress during her past life. Everyone had a grueling time in the apocalypse; the old grandpa himself was so poor he didn’t even have rice to cook, yet he still spared half a bowl of his thinly watery wild vegetable porridge for her. Had it not been for the kindness of that half-bowl of porridge back then, Chu Yun would have died long ago when the apocalypse arrived.
Later on, relying on her own strength to climb the ranks, she rose from a low-ranking guard to a guard captain, becoming renowned among all the guard captains. She had always kept the old grandpa’s kindness close to her heart, wanting to return and search for him. Unfortunately, the place from back then had long since been vacated, and she never saw him again until her death—this was the lifelong regret of her existence.
“Get in quickly!”
Chu Yun opened the door, leaving the seat beside the driver’s side for the old man.
“Thank you, thank you so much!”
The old man thanked her incessantly.
“Don’t mention it, Grandpa. Why are you traveling in such heavy rain instead of finding a place to shelter from it?”
“Sigh, there’s nothing I can do. The survival supply packs I managed to find were all stolen by a bandit. If I don’t come out to find supplies, I won’t survive. I still want to hold out for a few more days,” the elderly man sighed.
The old man noticed that Chu Yun’s speed slowed down as she approached a fork in the road ahead; she seemed to be contemplating which path to take.
“Girl, I know that if you turn left at this fork, and then turn left again at the next one, there’s a gas station. I’ve been staying there these past two days.”
Chu Yun’s eyes lit up. Having failed to find a single shelter for six days, one was finally coming her way. Her original intention had been to turn right at the fork, but without the old man’s reminder, she would have missed a shelter.
Following the old man’s directions, she arrived at the destination half an hour later.
The gas station was completely dilapidated, with green moss growing on the walls, looking as though it had been abandoned for years. The windows and doors were smashed to pieces, but the roof was intact, making it suitable for blocking the rain.
Chu Yun parked her three-wheeled motorcycle in a corner under the eaves, and she and the old man entered one of the rooms in the gas station. This place had previously been a convenience store, leaving behind a few broken wooden tables and cabinets.
“Girl, come, come, come. You can rest here today.”
The old man walked over carrying a large bundle of thatch. He spread the thatch evenly on the ground, pressed it down with his hand, and layered an old newspaper on top—this was a supply he had collected earlier.
Chu Yun looked at the other corner of the room, noting that more than half of the thatch there was missing, and understood.
“Thank you, Grandpa!”
“Don’t thank me, don’t thank me. You’re a good person, girl. I should be the one thanking you for driving me back. If it weren’t for you, I probably would have met my end today.”
“If I got sent back this early, I wouldn’t have any gold coins to give to my old lady…”
“Sigh, let’s not talk about it!”
Chu Yun’s heart stirred. “Grandpa, did you experience the labyrinth game?”
The old man couldn’t possibly have luck as good as Xu Dongdong’s to clear the labyrinth instance in a matter of days.
“Labyrinth? No, this is my first game. My old lady and I were originally eating breakfast when we were inexplicably pulled into an island. The island allocated a single suite to the two of us. Buying food and clothes on the island requires gold coins. A voice said that for every additional day we survive in the survival game, we get an extra day’s worth of gold coins. My old lady and I had no choice but to choose to participate.”
Death in the labyrinth instance meant death in reality, but death in this survival game merely meant being instantly teleported back to the rest area.
It was currently known that those entering the instance included the first batch of labyrinth clearers, along with the old man’s cohort. The old man’s group had a choice; they could choose to participate or not. Of course, the majority would choose to participate for the sake of gold coins.
Chu Yun guessed that this game didn’t want to artificially spike the mortality rate. Aside from the youth cohort who were forced to participate, the elderly and children cohorts could choose freely.
Outside, the sky was gradually turning dark. Watching the old man curl his body up, closing his eyes halfway as he lay on the thatch, Chu Yun’s heart softened slightly.
She retrieved a boxed meal and a bottle of mineral water from her storage ring and walked over to the old man with them.
“Here!”
“No… no need… girl, you need to keep this to save your own life!” Looking at the steaming, sumptuous boxed meal, the old man couldn’t help but swallow his saliva, but he ultimately refused firmly.
Chu Yun insisted, “You earned this. You gave me directions and even prepared thatch for me; this is the labor compensation you deserve. I still have more, so don’t worry about me.”
Tears welled up in the old man’s eyes. “Thank you, thank you! Girl, you truly are a good person!”
He accepted it with trembling hands, cradling the boxed meal like a treasure.
Chu Yun returned to her thatch bed and sat down. She saw the old man open the boxed meal, but he only ate a third of it, carefully covering the rest and placing it behind him.
Chu Yun shook her head. Sigh, let him be.
Then, she closed her eyes to rest. Driving continuously was truly exhausting. She lay on the thatch with her spiked mace kept close to her body, falling asleep instantly.
Day 7 of the game, the rain continued to pour.
Chu Yun explored the gas station; aside from some broken wood, there was absolutely nothing here.
She didn’t continue driving forward that day, choosing instead to stay at the gas station to rest and train. She practiced the combat skills she had learned before the apocalypse over and over again, reinforcing her muscle memory.
The old man stretched those two meals out using the boxed meal Chu Yun had given him. Afterward, no matter what, he refused to accept any bread or mantou from Chu Yun, stating that he had his own hands and feet.
He remained diligent, braving the rain with that plastic sheet over his head to search for supplies nearby. Chu Yun had cautioned him not to venture too far. Today he was quite lucky, picking up a box of small buns; the game had likely refreshed another wave of supplies. He was happy for a long time, claiming he would let his old lady taste them when he got back.
Listening to him, Chu Yun couldn’t help but chuckle silently.
Day 8 of the game, the rain still hadn’t stopped.
At noon that day, Chu Yun was training in the adjacent room when she suddenly heard the roaring vroom vroom vroom of a car approaching from outside. Following a harsh screeech of emergency brakes, she heard footsteps. Judging by the sound, there were roughly three people. Immediately after, an argument erupted from the room where the old man was staying.
