Chapter 20

Meanwhile, Su Han couldn’t help her curiosity. “So, what’s with going all out to get the wood?”
Zhong Rui just shot back, “What about you? Why do you want it?”
Su Han lowered her voice, a little secretive. “Because I’m betting it’ll come in handy the next few days.”
“Same.” Zhong Rui’s reply was casual. “In disaster scenarios, you always get blizzards, storms, and heatwaves. Gotta stash what you can, just in case.”
Su Han thought to herself, No wonder neither of us gave an inch. We were both expecting trouble.
It took quite some effort to drag the wood back to the guesthouse, and by the time they returned, the other three were already eating lunch.
“Hey, you’re back!” Cai Sheng greeted warmly. “Come eat, there’s lunch for everyone. You each get three steamed buns, and you can pick from corn, wheat, or rye.”
Su Han peered over and saw that each bun was the size of a grown man’s fist, packed solid.
Bun: Using restores +20 satiety.
Su Han grabbed three corn buns without hesitation and started wolfing them down. She’d burned a ton of energy since morning, her satiety and cleanliness had each dropped by over thirty points.
Nearby, Fan Wanyu was chatting with Xiao Fang, “It’s been ten days since the supply ship came by. Seriously, what kind of cursed situation is this? Who knows how much longer we’ll have to hold out?”
“Isn't that the truth?” Xiao Fang sighed wistfully. “After this meal, who knows when we'll eat again.”
“We might have to chop wood all afternoon.” Fan Wanyu eyed her hands, feeling oddly sorry for herself.
Su Han cleared her throat, then suggested in a perfectly serious tone, “So, how about we just burn all the trees this afternoon?”
Fan Wanyu jumped. “Are you out of your mind?!”
“All the supervisor said was that we have to clear the trees. He never said how.” Su Han looked smugly unbothered.
“But didn’t he give us axes?” Xiao Fang pressed, dubious.
Su Han shrugged, feigning innocence. “Hey, maybe he’s just not bright enough to imagine we’d opt for arson. Perfectly possible.”
Xiao Fang was honestly speechless.
Cai Sheng looked uneasy. “But what if we accidentally start a huge fire?”
Su Han hadn’t even opened her mouth when Zhong Rui spoke up first, “Just have two people stand by with hoses on fire-watch. The second something looks sketchy, douse it. No big deal.”
Some areas were already suffering water outages, but their section was still going strong, full access to running water.
“Nobody ever said it was forbidden. Let’s just pick a tree and give it a shot.” Su Han was practically hopping with excitement.
Cai Sheng felt an odd twist in his stomach, he realized he was actually half-convinced. He hesitated, “Well... maybe we could... try it?”
Three out of five were already on board. Fan Wanyu and Xiao Fang were instantly outvoted. And so, their grand “burn the trees” campaign officially began.
Zhong Rui arranged flammable stuff around the base to help start the blaze. Su Han pulled out her lighter, lighting up all over. The other three stood at the ready, hoses in hand, prepped to pounce at the first sign of trouble.
Turned out, burning trees was way easier than expected. Surrounded by kindling, the huge trunk went up in flames in no time. Every time a stray ember floated away, the designated fire brigade would douse it instantly.
Twenty minutes later, the tree was reduced to embers. The system announced, “Clearing progress +2%. Current total: 30.6%.”
“It works.” Su Han perked right up.
The supervisor showed up at just the right moment, barely opening his mouth, “Next up...”, when Zhong Rui cut him off cold.
Zhong Rui looked extremely righteous as he declared, “Please assign the tree-clearing duties entirely to us.”
Burning trees was wildly efficient: set it up, then just wait it out. Plus, clearing them boosted overall progress, so Zhong Rui fully intended to take over the whole job.
The supervisor, seeing their team’s crazy efficiency, nodded without hesitation and agreed.
Thus began their reign of fiery teamwork. Trees burned across the area, and progress shot up like mad.
“Clearing progress +2%. Current total: 37.9%.”
“Clearing progress +2%. Current total: 42.3%.”
“Clearing progress +2%. Current total: 48%.”
…
By 5 p.m., every single tree blocking their path was gone. Their total progress had reached exactly 60.1%. Still a ways off from the 70% threshold to avoid triggering a debuff.
Su Han gave up hope. “If players don’t work together, we’ve got no chance. A couple of hardworking heroes can’t save the day alone.”
After all, nobody’s a born savior carrying the world’s fate on their shoulders.
Zhong Rui, on the other hand, was cool as ever. “It’s only a low-level debuff, not the end of the world.”
Su Han mulled it over and realized he was right. She decided not to stress about it.
But at exactly 9 a.m. the next morning, the system’s mechanical voice chimed in: “Clearing progress 64.3%. Low-level debuff triggered, Island ecosystem damaged. All residents lose 15 stamina per day.”
Su Han was floored. A low-level debuff steals 15 stamina every day? What would a mid-level one do?
Her stamina cap was 220, so 15 didn’t sound huge, but for most level one players, who only had 100 stamina max, that was survival for just six days. Not to mention, there were plenty of other debuffs constantly draining stamina.
Unless players leveled up quickly, Su Han figured, they wouldn’t last long at all.
The bad news kept coming. The system went on, “Day 11. Cold wave incoming. Temperatures dropping below zero. Players with low stamina may develop frostbite. (Anyone with stamina >80 is immune.)”
Su Han: “…”
She felt her mood begin to crack.
When she first entered the instance, it was stereotypical beach weather, perfect temperature, gentle breeze, t-shirt weather.
Now, after that cold wave warning, she could’ve sworn the room chilled ten degrees in a second. She’d switched in a wool blanket, worried it might be overkill, but at this moment, she only wished she’d hoarded winter gear by the ton!
Su Han, face blank, thought grimly: She’d figured there might be some cold rain, a windstorm, sure, but who knew the system would just drop the temp straight to freezing out of nowhere?
With a level one player’s max stamina of 100, losing 15 a day, unless you sat on a drug fortune, forget being immune. She was too tired to even roll her eyes at this point. Everybody’s on their own now; in a crisis, no one can afford charity.
She swaddled herself in her blanket and tried cracking the window. A blast of freezing air hit, she was wide awake instantly, shivering so hard her teeth rattled.
She slammed it shut. There was no denying the truth: with her current condition, setting foot outside was not an option.
The door knocked.
Su Han bundled herself up, still wrapped in her blanket, and shuffled to answer.
She opened it and, surprise, surprise, Santa Zhong Rui was standing outside with presents: quilts, snow boots, thick pants, a down coat, scarf, hat, gloves, the whole winter wardrobe.
“Need some?” Zhong Rui grinned, generous as ever. “I can give these to you for free.”
“Why?” Su Han’s lips were tight, a shivering wreck, but still stubborn; she wasn’t about to accept charity easily. With enough meds, she could survive this solo. She’d just have a hellish time doing it…
Zhong Rui was completely unbothered. “You should know, I grabbed a ton of gold in the last instance. When I got here, I sold it off and made a killing. This stuff barely dents my wallet.”
Going rate: 200 Bei for a single gram of pure gold. All this winter gear might be worth 1,000 Bei total, not even five grams. Back in the beginner instance, that wouldn’t buy more than a single candle or a bottle of water.
“It might not mean much to you, but that’s still no excuse to just hand this stuff over for free, okay? Honestly.” Su Han pressed, unyielding.
Zhong Rui answered seriously, “I hope you'll become my teammate.”
“Why?” Su Han was baffled. All she wanted was to chill and play solo, not collect a harem of allies.
“The further you get in the game, the harder it gets to survive alone. I’m not looking down on anyone, that’s just the truth. Imagine a group breaking in to rob you, no matter how tough you are, you can’t fend off everyone at once.” Zhong Rui explained, word for word.
“I haven’t known you long, but I can see it: your skills are solid and you’re trustworthy. With you as a teammate, I can actually let my guard down and not worry about getting stabbed in the back.”
“These supplies are my good faith offer. It’s entirely up to you whether you accept.”
Su Han shivered, goosebumps prickling up and down her arms. In the end, reality won. But she insisted on paying it back a different way: “Who knows how the system assigns players? Maybe we won’t ever meet in-game again. The only thing I can promise is that if we run into each other, we won’t be enemies. And if you run into trouble, I’ll help out if I can.”
“I know you have money and plenty of supplies. Still, what I know is valuable, trust me, it’s worth more than enough to cover a debt.”
So she went ahead and let Zhong Rui in on her trick for stashing an extra-large storage crate in her portable inventory.
After a long, thoughtful silence, Zhong Rui had to admit, “That’s...creative.” And extremely useful, honestly, since the sheer number of supplies he had was giving him a headache.
“There are people hoarding huge barrels of bottled water, too.” Su Han accepted the winter gear without shame, armoring herself in layers stat.
Without realizing, their relationship took a step closer.
Suddenly, Zhong Rui said, “You can grind for coins in-game if you want, but honestly, you don’t need to bother. In the late game, you can barter food and daily goods for gold jewelry and gems, the rich players will pay anything. Then, when the next instance starts, you can unload all the jewelry and gems for cheap, turn it into cash, and go on a shopping spree to stock up again.”
Su Han’s eyes opened wide in sudden realization. You couldn’t eat jewelry, not when things got tough, by the endgame, even a bar of soap or a hunk of rye bread could trade for a fortune.
Then, come the next round, the situation was always calm for a few days. That’s when cashing out those valuables would give you a head start.
But still…
“Why are you sharing this with me?” Su Han sighed in exasperation. Wasn’t this basically them just swapping tips? She’d still gotten the winter gear for free.
Zhong Rui replied, all seriousness, “Think of it as a favor you owe me. You never know, after you owe me enough, maybe you’ll change your mind.”
He didn’t wait for her to protest, he just walked off.
From the bottom of her heart, Su Han was amazed: this guy was a real mastermind. For someone like her, owing a debt was way scarier than getting mugged.