Chapter 21: Island Survival 2
Day 2 on the island.
It was also Day 6 of the Raft Survival instance. There was still not a single soul to be seen on the beach. It was hard to tell whether the map was too vast or if the clearance rate for Raft Survival was simply too low.
The two ate a simple breakfast and prepared lunch at the same time—the long-lost combination of bread and roasted fish. Once the fish was cooked, it was placed inside Chu Yun’s storage ring, as they didn’t plan on lighting a fire at noon.
After extinguishing the fire pit, they began their daily chores: gathering seafood on the beach, collecting firewood, picking wild vegetables, and checking the traps from yesterday for prey.
Every day, the ebbing tide washed up some marine life. Today, Chu Yun and her partner reaped a large handful of razor clams, which would taste exceptionally fresh when used to make soup.
The fire pit had to be lit every night to ward off predators and insects, so their firewood consumption was massive, requiring them to hoard a bit more. When they checked yesterday’s traps, they found nothing, and the dry bread inside hadn’t been touched either. The two continued exploring deeper into the woods for half an hour, adding two more traps.
After eating dinner, they resumed their night watch rotation.
Day 3 on the island, Day 7 of the Raft Survival instance.
She and Xu Dongdong patrolled the edge of the beach every day, checking to see if any new players had arrived.
Today, they spotted a figure lying on the sand from afar, the waves continuously washing over his body.
This person was none other than Yu Wenhao. Dragging an injured leg, he had been carried to the beach by the direction of the tide. He was completely spent, unable to move a single limb. Coincidentally, this happened to be the exact beach where Xu Dongdong and Chu Yun were located; the function of the system team finally manifested at this moment.
In his half-awake state, he seemed to hear someone calling his name. The voice was incredibly familiar, bringing a deep sense of security, and finally, he closed his eyes in peace.
When Xu Dongdong and Chu Yun arrived, there was no one else around. Yu Wenhao had already fallen unconscious, and Chu Yun squatted down to inspect his injuries.
“His calf is slightly injured, it’s no big deal. He just passed out from exhaustion.”
Hearing this, Xu Dongdong set his mind at ease.
The two carried him back to the camp. The fire pit hadn’t been extinguished, and the water kept warm over it happened to come in handy at this moment. Chu Yun gently tore away the bloody bandage on Yu Wenhao’s calf, revealing a gruesome wound underneath. Yu Wenhao carried system bandages on him, but it looked like he had long since run out.
Chu Yun took Xu Dongdong’s sharp knife and ran it through the flames to sterilize it. Once the disinfection was complete, she carefully cut away the necrotic flesh on his calf, cleaned it thoroughly, applied the herbs crushed by Xu Dongdong to the wound, and then retrieved a bandage from her storage ring to wrap it up.
The system bandages inherently possessed hemostatic properties, and the herbs had the efficacy of accelerating wound healing, so he would likely make a full recovery in a couple of days.
“All done!”
Chu Yun tied a neat bow, wrapping up her work perfectly.
“Watch over him, I’m going out to gather supplies.”
With an injured teammate at the camp, Chu Yun didn’t feel comfortable leaving Yu Wenhao alone, so she left Xu Dongdong behind to care for him.
She headed to the beach first. This time, the tide seemed to have risen much higher than yesterday.
While she was gathering seafood and shells, a squad swam up from the sea. To her surprise, there were actually four people in the group. They spotted Chu Yun as well, noting the system-issued tracksuit she wore, and knew they were all players. Covered in substantial injuries and barely able to take care of themselves, they cast a few extra glances at Chu Yun before supporting one another as they headed into the woods.
Chu Yun noted that the spot where they settled was less than a hundred meters away from her camp. They would likely rest there for a few days too. She silently gathered a full bucket of seafood and carried it back to camp.
Xu Dongdong wondered silently why Sister Chu Yun hadn’t just put it into her storage ring to bring back.
Chu Yun explained, “A group of players arrived about a hundred meters away. There are four of them, so keep your guard up. I’m going to check the traps I set for prey.”
Xu Dongdong replied, “Mm, alright. Come back early!”
Xu Dongdong and Chu Yun agreed on a time; if she didn’t return by that hour, he would go out to search for her. Although he knew Chu Yun was formidable, this was a survival game, and there was no telling what difficulties she might encounter.
Chu Yun agreed, a wave of warmth flowing through her heart. It felt like having a home. She hadn’t had any family in her past two lifetimes; aside from her mission comrades, she had always been a lone wolf, and very few people ever cared whether she made it home safely.
Her luck was excellent today. Out of the seven traps, prey was found in two, while three traps had been destroyed. The prey consisted of two small wild pheasants. Paired with the mushrooms she had just picked, they could perfectly make a dish of stewed chicken with mushrooms. After mending the three destroyed traps on the spot, Chu Yun retraced her steps.
She didn’t continue deeper into the woods, constantly feeling a gloomy, eerie sensation the further inside she went.
Now was not the time.
By the time she returned to camp, it was already 12:00 PM. The beach, which had previously been dead silent and deserted, now bore a trace of life. As Chu Yun walked back, she discovered several plumes of cooking smoke.
Chu Yun was observing them, and they were likewise observing Chu Yun.
They had come across the sea, and to save their lives, many of their supplies had been left in the ocean. This fully demonstrated the benefits of a spatial item.
However, the trigger probability for a spatial item was very low, with the known probability in the labyrinth instance being one-in-a-hundred-thousand.
Spatial items were not bound to the owner, meaning they could be plundered by other players. Consequently, every player who possessed a spatial item was exceptionally cautious.
Chu Yun was no exception. Although her combat prowess was very high, she didn’t want to become a public target. Xu Dongdong and Yu Wenhao were different; on one hand, they were teammates, but more importantly, they lived in the same community. The monk can run, but the temple can’t—she didn’t need to worry about them.
But in front of outsiders, she still needed to keep up appearances.
Holding a wild pheasant in each hand, Chu Yun walked back to her camp with absolute composure under the scrutinizing gazes of the crowd.
The players leering from the shadows discussed quietly among themselves.
“There’s bound to be plenty of wild game deep in the forest. Tomorrow, let’s catch a few to taste too.”
“Definitely. Look at the two large ones she caught, they’re incredibly plump.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy. Look at how she arrived even earlier than us. Anyone who can clear the raft instance ahead of schedule is definitely not weak.”
“True. Look at her—her stride is vigorous and her body is packed with power. She’s clearly a trained martial artist.”
“I don’t care, we have to go catch some. If we don’t, we’ll starve! Look at her, she didn’t suffer a single scratch. There’s definitely no danger inside.”
Chu Yun had no idea her appearance had triggered a wave of intense discussion. Completely oblivious, she prepared to join her teammates to make lunch.
When she returned, Yu Wenhao had already woken up, but his leg still made it inconvenient to move around. Under Xu Dongdong’s fierce insistence, he lay inside the tent to rest.
“Thank you, Chu Yun,” Yu Wenhao thanked her earnestly. Hearing Xu Dongdong recount Chu Yun’s monumental achievements along the way, his admiration for her grew even deeper.
Given her skills, there was absolutely no need for her to carry an injured liability. After all, the other players he had encountered on the raft were exactly like that; he had saved them at the beginning, yet they had abandoned him without a second thought the moment he got hurt protecting the wooden boat. People helping you is a kindness, but not helping you is human nature—no one was in the wrong.
Chu Yun countered, “Don’t thank me so early. I’m a capitalist who doesn’t wake up early without a profit. You need to get well quickly so you can do hard labor for me!”
Looking at the stubborn Chu Yun, Yu Wenhao couldn’t help but smile slightly. “Alright!”
Lunch was stewed chicken with mushrooms. It was Xu Dongdong’s first time making this dish, with Chu Yun guiding him from the side as usual. He actually possessed a decent talent for cooking; when he first arrived, he barely knew how to handle a kitchen knife, but now his plucking, chopping, and stir-frying operations were incredibly smooth, and he even wanted to try tossing the wok.
Once the fat was rendered into chicken oil, the chicken meat was tossed in and stir-fried until fragrant. Adding a bit of mineral water and tossing in the mushrooms, a delicious pot of stewed chicken with mushrooms was complete. With no shelter around, the rich aroma of the meat wafted in all directions, causing the surrounding players to experience another wave of envious jealousy.
After eating lunch and resting for an hour, Chu Yun stayed behind to guard the camp. With more and more players on the beach now, she had to stay vigilant. Xu Dongdong went out to gather firewood and pick wild vegetables. His skills weren’t formidable, so Chu Yun instructed him to stay nearby and not wander off.
When darkness fell at night, Xu Dongdong finally returned carrying a bundle of firewood and a small handful of wild vegetables, wearing a thoroughly miserable expression.
“Those players are honestly something else. They followed closely right behind my heels. When I gathered wood, they gathered wood. When I picked wild vegetables, they picked vegetables too. The resources nearby were already scarce, and with so many people splitting them up all at once, I labored all afternoon just to pick this tiny handful.”
Chu Yun had anticipated this situation. She had noticed that after Xu Dongdong went out, several other teams had also sent a few people to follow him. This island didn’t belong to them anyway; the others hadn’t robbed or smashed anything, merely collecting supplies behind his heels, so there was nothing she could say. However, given this state of affairs, they would have to plan to move into the inner depths of the forest.
Another team of players arrived in the afternoon, but it was a lone wolf. He likely didn’t want to interact with other players, setting up camp a bit further away.
After a simple dinner and a quick wash-up, Xu Dongdong changed Yu Wenhao’s herbs and bandages before going to sleep. Yu Wenhao was a patient, so Chu Yun took the first half of the night watch as usual, while Xu Dongdong took the second. Yu Wenhao still felt incredibly uncomfortable, feeling like he was a burden and swearing secretly to recover quickly so he could contribute to the squad.
In the dead of night, Chu Yun returned to the camp after completing a patrol loop by the beach, faintly hearing rustling sounds coming from the tent area. It didn’t sound like their own people.
Holding her breath, Chu Yun slipped back into the camp with light footsteps, hiding behind a cluster of bushes.
“There’s bound to be supplies inside the tent. Are we still going in?” one person whispered softly.
“Go in for what? There are people inside. What if we get caught? Just take this chicken and this seafood. Move, let’s get back quick! Who knows when that woman will return!”
“Brother, what’s there to fear? It’s just a lone woman, plus a gimp and a pretty boy. Can our squad of grown men really fail to beat them?!”
Great. She had gone out for a bit and someone was raiding her base. To prevent others from discovering she had a storage ring, they placed all their overtly gathered supplies out on the camp ground, and it had still drawn covetous eyes.
Inside the tent, Yu Wenhao heard the commotion and woke from his sleep. His leg wasn’t fully healed, and he was gritting his teeth to endure the pain as he prepared to push his body up when he suddenly heard several wails erupt outside.
Chu Yun appeared before the two men like a ghost. Sliding her left foot forward half a circle, she unleashed a flying kick with her right leg, whipping up fine sand as she struck the man’s neck with precision, followed immediately by a sharp punch landing squarely on the other man’s face.
Before they could even get a clear look at Chu Yun’s moves, the two were sent wailing to the ground. Chu Yun pinned one down under each foot, looking down as she demanded:
“Do you still dare come steal things?”
The man whose face was pinned down could only mumble incoherently, while the other frantically begged for mercy:
“Heroine, Heroine, spare our lives! We’ll never dare do it again, please let us go!”
How arrogant they had been earlier was exactly how submissive they were now.
“Get lost. Don’t let me see you again.”
Chu Yun lifted her feet and waved her hand impatiently.
Hearing this, the two men scrambled up immediately and sprinted back to their own camp without a single backward glance.
“Go back to sleep, it’s fine now.”
Chu Yun picked up the wild pheasant and seafood from the ground. Fortunately, the food wasn’t ruined.
Day 4 on the island, the final day of the Raft Survival instance.
The moment Chu Yun woke up, she went to the beach to gather seafood. The tide had risen even higher, almost reaching the bushes, but the seafood washed ashore seemed to be dwindling. Chu Yun frowned as she looked at the bushes soaked by seawater.
The moment Chu Yun appeared, the surrounding players swarmed over. Like starving ghosts, they rapidly picked up the seafood left on the ground, moving to the other side once this area was picked clean.
Not far away, the sharp-eared Chu Yun heard people seemingly discussing her.
“Did you hear it? The wailing last night.”
“I heard it! It was that woman. She’s definitely no one to mess with—two grown men were beaten until their faces looked like pig heads.”
“Shh, she’s looking over here. Pretend to pick up seafood.”
Chu Yun: “…”
After an hour of hard work, Chu Yun only managed to fill a small half of her bucket.
Carrying the iron bucket back to camp, Xu Dongdong was already preparing breakfast. He had just changed Yu Wenhao’s dressings; Yu Wenhao could now walk without support and would likely make a full recovery by tomorrow.
Chu Yun stated, “We prepare to leave the beach and head inland tomorrow.”
Yu Wenhao replied, “Alright, my leg is no longer an issue.”
Xu Dongdong added, “We’ll do as Sister Chu Yun says.”
By nightfall, nearly ten teams had set up camp along this stretch of beach. Close to thirty players had only a handful of visible survival resources between them, coupled with the increasingly high shoreline—leaving this place was an absolute matter of urgency.
