Chapter 62: Three Identical People
Lin Huai climbed down to the first floor and transferred all the crates she had collected into the coffin. After all, ordinary boxes found along the highway shoulder were rarely anything special.
The only truly valuable rewards were the three bone-crushing boxes she had won for taking first place in the rally.
Lin Huai felt torn. She had no time to open crates during the day, and the road swarmed with monsters at night, making it unsafe to step outside. Waiting until morning seemed like the wiser choice.
The next morning, Lin Huai woke up feeling completely refreshed. While she slept, the vehicle had already covered another five hundred kilometers.
Sitting up on the large bed on the second floor, she glanced sleepily out the panoramic glass window. It was still dreary, with heavy acid rain falling outside. Overnight, the vehicle had become damp and sticky again, much like the humid rainy season in the south.
Lin Huai tossed out a Dust-Cleansing Talisman. Instantly, the excess moisture vanished, restoring the cabin to a dry, comfortable state.
Only seven days had passed since the acid rain disaster began, but people felt like they were already growing mold. As a result, Dust-Cleansing Talismans were being used up very fast. Coming from the north, Lin Huai disliked this sticky, humid weather, so she burned through her talismans without a second thought.
“Yellow Springs, bring the vehicle to a stop.”
Lin Huai walked down to the first floor and called out. The Yellow Springs Road Guide answered right away:
“Understood. Fewer monsters detected one hundred meters ahead. Parking is safe. The spirit vehicle is slowing down now. Please prepare, driver.”
Once they reached the clear stretch, the road guide directed the automated driving module to pull over. The autopilot seemed to integrate naturally with the road guide, allowing the artifact to take full command of the driving controls.
Lin Huai was very pleased with the setup. After the vehicle came to a steady stop, she put on her acid-resistant suit and protective boots, picked up the three bone-crushing boxes, and stepped outside.
She lined up the three boxes in the middle of the road. With her greatsword in her left hand and her scythe in her right, she stood fully on guard.
Old Hei must have shown some rare mercy this time, because one of the three boxes was completely empty of monsters!
The other two boxes, however, both contained Yellow Father Ghosts. After a fierce battle, Lin Huai secured the supplies inside, but she was hit by the curse once again.
The instant the sharp, agonizing screech pierced her ears, Lin Huai could not bear it for even a second. She immediately took out the pawnshop token, summoned the long-necked ghost for a remote transaction, and pawned two more talisman blueprints to wipe the curse away.
Communicating through remote trades was rather inconvenient, so the two added each other as friends. Only then did Lin Huai learn that this long-necked ghost belonged to the famous Head-Dropping Clan!
They were a type of ghost whose head could detach and fly through the air. Normally, their neck stretched endlessly to follow the head, but in moments of danger, the head separated entirely. Once safe, it would fly back and reattach to the neck, which earned them the name Head-Dropping Clan.
The ghost’s display name was simply those three characters: Head-Dropping Clan.
Lin Huai paused for a moment before sending a message:
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Thank you so much, Brother Luo. Next time I find something good, I’ll definitely pawn it with you!
[Head-Dropping Clan]: Hmph. I’d be thankful enough if you brought me less trash.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Hehe…
[Head-Dropping Clan]: Don’t ‘hehe’ me…
Ending the conversation, Lin Huai closed her screen and happily sorted through her new loot.
These three bone-crushing boxes had truly yielded great treasures. Lin Huai took out a space jade bangle, slipped it onto her wrist, and pricked her finger to bind it with a drop of blood before activating the item:
[Space Jade Bangle: Storage item. Holds up to 50,000 items. Living beings, monsters, unopened treasure chests, and vehicles cannot enter.]
With the space jade bangle, team supplies no longer had to be piled inside the coffin. That would lighten the casket’s load considerably. Lin Huai had always worried that if the coffin grew too heavy, it wouldn’t be able to float.
Apart from the bangle, the other materials were fairly standard. Lin Huai stored everything away, climbed back into the driver’s seat, and set off again.
Not long after she resumed driving, her light screen beeped rapidly.
[Peace and Violence]: Boss, a few people just suddenly appeared in our zone.
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: ???
[Peace and Violence]: Yes, I’m very confused too. Usually our numbers only go down each day, but when I checked the roster this morning, three new names had just popped up.
Peace and Violence then sent over the usernames of the three newcomers.
[Peace and Violence]: Boss, should we teleport over to check out the situation?
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Let Brother Long know. Keep an eye on them together. It seems zone transfer cards have appeared, and players from outside are moving into our area.
[Peace and Violence]: Are they hostile?
[Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice]: Quite possibly.
[Peace and Violence]: Understood. I’ll keep watch right away.
Lin Huai searched the three names on the global roster and found that they all came from the same region: District 25, Zone 897. It was an area she had no memory of.
She had never heard of these three players either, so they probably hadn’t been top-tier powerhouses in her past life.
What caught Lin Huai’s attention, however, was that all three drove Level 4 vehicles!
In Zone 444, even with the collective backing of the squad’s resource pool, they only had three Level 4 vehicles in total, while the rest were still Level 3.
Given the current pace across the server, Level 4 vehicles were still very rare, clearly placing these drivers among the high-end survivors.
High-level players rarely transferred zones. They were leaders in their own territories, so why would they give that up to serve under someone else? Lin Huai felt certain that their arrival hid an ulterior motive.
Before she could track them down to investigate, the Yellow Springs Road Guide blared an urgent alarm, and the psychic camera feed flashed onto her console.
“Alert! Alert! A parallel road has appeared. Three Level 4 vehicles are approaching rapidly. Driver usernames: ‘Pee-Sized Matter,’ ‘Farted a Fart,’ and ‘You Are a Fart.’ Activate combat mode?”
“Hold fire for now.”
Those three names matched the ones Peace and Violence had just sent over. Lin Huai wanted to see what they were after, so instead of opening fire, she eased off the throttle and brought the hearse to a steady halt.
Three identical off-road vehicles screeched to a stop around her, blocking her path. Then, three men sporting matching full beards climbed out of the cabs.
Seeing their identical faces, Lin Huai’s brow furrowed tightly. Is this some kind of new item? A cloning skill? Or an illusion?
How could there be three identical vehicles driven by three completely identical men?
The man in the center strode toward the front of Lin Huai’s hearse. His greedy eyes swept over her Level 5 fortress before he spoke in a rough, gravelly voice: “You’re Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, aren’t you? We know you’re the top-ranked big shot. Step down from the cab so we can talk.”
Lin Huai pulled up the hood of her acid suit to shadow her face. She pushed the heavy door open and leaned against the frame, looking down at the three men below.
“You switched zones just to have a chat with me?”
The man on the left sneered, his voice high and shrill: “You’re just a woman. Wasting such top-tier gear on yourself is ridiculous. Why don’t you hand it over to us three brothers instead!”
