Chapter 1: Return to the First Day of the Game
[The Horror Highway Survival Game is about to begin for everyone. Players, open your ears and listen closely. I am your system assistant, Old Hei. I will only explain the rules once. If you don’t listen carefully, you will die!]
[First, the highway is not a straight line, and the ground is not flat. The environment can change at any time.]
[Second, every person starts on their own path. There are forks in the road, and there are dead ends. You must choose which way to go. Be warned: at a crossroad, you are very likely to meet other players. Whether you live or die is up to fate; whether you find wealth or danger is up to heaven.]
[Third, treasure chests and supply stations will randomly appear along the road. If you walk past them by more than a hundred meters, you cannot go back.]
[Fourth, the game runs on a 24-hour clock. Nighttime lasts from 22:00 to 06:00. Monsters roam during the night, making it extremely dangerous. It is highly advised that you do not leave your vehicle. However, the Newbie Protection Period lasts for one month. For this first month, monsters will not come within ten meters of your vehicle at night—unless you attack them first.]
[Fifth, once you enter the highway, Old Hei will hand out a beginner’s gift pack and a random vehicle box to everyone. On this road to survival, luck is also a type of strength.]
[Sixth, you only beat the game when you reach the end of the highway. At that point, you can return to the real world. However, keep in mind that the highway might not actually have an end.]
After the grumpy Old Hei finished explaining the rules, everyone found themselves standing on an endless highway.
Lin Huai stood in the middle of the road. At her feet sat a moss-covered wooden box, giving off a cold, damp chill.
Everything she had been carrying, like her phone and the keys in her pockets, had disappeared. She had nothing left but the clothes on her back.
Her only “old friend” from the real world was a black steel-framed pushcart.
Lin Huai’s fingers tightened without her realizing it, gripping the cold handle of the pushcart. Her eyes carefully scanned the quiet, somewhat familiar space around her.
A dark red wooden coffin rested silently on the pushcart. It looked incredibly eerie in the dim light.
Once she was sure that the scene in front of her was real and realized exactly where she was, the tension in her back finally faded. She let out a long sigh. “I really came back.”
Yes, she had been reborn. She had returned to the very first day of the Highway Survival Game!
Suddenly, Old Hei’s grumpy electronic voice rang out again, snapping Lin Huai back to reality.
[All beginner gift packs and random vehicle boxes have been handed out. Players, open the screen in your mind, register a nickname to activate it, and begin your journey of survival.]
[Carve the rules into your empty brains! This is not a video game where you can come back to life. This is a real survival game. Dying here means dying for real, and your body in the real world will die too. If any fool wants to test that, then go ahead and die.]
[You may start moving now. But remember the most important rule: do not touch the river on either side of the road. Entering it means instant death!]
Endless rivers ran along both sides of the highway. Their waters were calm, like a quiet, boundless ocean.
The water was dark and deep, completely empty of fish, shrimp, or plants. Only a huge, terrifying dark mist floated above the surface. A little bit of this mist drifted onto the highway, but it was very thin and did not cause much trouble right now.
Along both edges of the road, there was a sandy, rocky path about one meter wide. It acted as an emergency safe zone.
The river sat about twenty centimeters below the level of the highway. The banks were covered in strange and exotic plants, acting like a weird green border.
Lin Huai chuckled softly. Being back here again, she actually found the scene somewhat charming.
The Newbie Protection Period. It had been a long time since she last experienced it.
In her previous life, Lin Huai’s system assistant had been named Desolate. Desolate had always spoken in a serious, formal tone, constantly handing out strict warnings.
This time, with the grumpy Old Hei in charge, it seemed she had been placed in a different division.
Lin Huai stared at a colorful gift box that suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of her. Feeling a bit excited, she walked up to it.
This was the random vehicle box. In her past life, because she had brought her own pushcart and coffin, the system assistant Desolate had noticed and tried to take them away. She had begged and pleaded until she finally managed to keep her items. However, because of that, Desolate had taken back the vehicle box.
So, from the very beginning, she had survived by pushing a heavy coffin on a small pushcart. It had been incredibly difficult, and she had worn right through the soles of her shoes.
This time, dealing with a different system assistant, she wondered if Old Hei would be a little kinder to her.
Lin Huai licked her lips and carefully reached out to touch the bow on top of the box.
But just as her fingertips brushed the ribbon, Old Hei’s distinct electronic voice suddenly rang out in her ear. It startled her so much that her hand jerked, popping the box open by accident.
[Why do you already have a vehicle with you?]
Lin Huai stared at the camouflage-painted light tank that magically popped out of the box. She gulped nervously and quickly tried to negotiate with Old Hei. “You can take away the vehicle I brought! I want to keep what was in the box!”
Old Hei let out a cold laugh. “In your dreams. I have detected that the player brought their own vehicle. The vehicle box will now be taken back and replaced with a different reward.”
The glorious tank instantly disappeared into thin air. In its place, a diamond-shaped jade pendant fell from the sky and landed perfectly in her hand.
Lin Huai caught the new reward. She closed her eyes, grabbed the handle of her small pushcart again, and let out a sigh of deep regret. She should have known—these system assistants were all equally heartless!
“A small pushcart it is, then,” she muttered. “I’m just starting over again. There’s nothing I can’t handle!”
She opened the moss-covered wooden box on the ground. Inside were four bottles of water and three small loaves of bread. She carefully packed them away inside the coffin.
Tightening her grip on the pushcart’s handle, she began to walk forward.
She had already walked this path once before. This time, she was determined to make it even further.
At the very least, she had to get ahead of Chen Feng—and make him pay for everything he had done!
