At seven o’clock the next morning, the milk tea car arrived at the usual spot outside the safe zone and started selling milk tea.
There were noticeably more customers today. Most of them still had anxious expressions on their faces, and nearly all of them, as if preparing for the worst, bought a full set of buff milk teas.
Some players looked worried that they might be selected; others worried that they might not be. In short, no one seemed particularly energetic.
He Wuning actually wanted to prepare a full set of milk tea buffs for every player just in case. Unfortunately, the current production of milk tea still couldn’t keep up, and they had no way of predicting who would enter the game. In the end, they could only leave it to luck.
At the exact moment the Voice of the World announced the list, its voice echoed across the sky. The player standing in front of He Wuning had only just taken the milk tea when he suddenly vanished from sight.
The expression on his face before disappearing was extremely complicated—fear mixed with a hint of joy, and despair carrying a sliver of hope.
The Voice of the World rang out: “The Monster Challenge Arena event is about to begin. The randomly selected 105 players have taken their positions. A game-wide livestream is about to start. Players may connect through their communication devices or watch the large screen projection in the sky.”
He Wuning glanced toward the back of the line. The players who hadn’t been pulled into the event no longer seemed anxious. One by one, they let out a sigh of relief and looked up curiously at the projection playing in the air.
He Wuning turned back and called, “Yi Luo…”
The milk tea car was empty.
He Wuning fell silent for a moment—he was also on the list of the 105 people.
Q-chan flew nervously over to He Wuning and skillfully opened the forum, showing him the pinned post with the announced list of 105 players. “Sweetie, I just saw Yi Luo’s name on the list!”
“Mm.” He Wuning raised his head. The livestream in the sky had already begun. The camera swept across the faces of the selected players. Most of them looked uneasy, filled with fear of the unknown—even though the game had promised that no one would die during the event, no one wanted to experience death even once, especially those who weren’t good at fighting.
A small portion of them looked determined and prepared. Their expressions were solemn, unaffected by the outside world as they quietly checked their equipment and weapons.
—and then there were people like Yi Luo, who stood out by waving cheerfully at the camera.
He Wuning watched expressionlessly as he waved and made a heart gesture toward the camera. He couldn’t help closing his eyes. “Idiot.”
“Hey—We’re over here—!” Even though he knew Yi Luo couldn’t see or hear him, Q-chan still waved back enthusiastically. He patted his chest in relief. “Seeing how energetic he is, I’m not worried anymore!”
“Thinking about it, it’s actually much better that Yi Luo went in instead of someone else.” He cautiously glanced at He Wuning’s expression, and only when he confirmed that He Wuning didn’t seem too worried did he finally relax. “After all, even though he’s dumb, he can still fight.”
He Wuning nodded and looked at the forum’s published list.
There were 105 names in total. Zone A alone occupied 39 spots—the largest share by far. Besides Yi Luo, there were also familiar names like Master Zhi Yin, Ji Ou, and Xue Xun.
He Wuning opened the livestream on his communication device. The camera happened to sweep past Ji Ou and Xue Xun. The two of them were squatting together looking utterly miserable, as if they were just one step away from hugging the master and Yi Luo and crying.
These two were basically useless in combat. Right now they were worried about getting beaten up later, and at the same time anxious about dragging everyone down.
There were also several other familiar members of the combat department, healers from the treatment center, as well as ordinary players and even elderly people and children who clearly couldn’t serve as combat power.
Zone B had 23 slots. The administrator candidate they had met before, Padra, and most of his team had been selected. After glancing at Yi Luo, he actually copied him and gestured at the camera as well, forming a sharp contrast with the serious people standing beside him.
Even though Zone B’s published names had been translated phonetically into Chinese, He Wuning still couldn’t recognize anything from the names alone. Judging from the camera shots, most of their players were young adults. Perhaps that was the advantage of being a dungeon-clearing team.
Zone C only had 8 slots. Their population had always been small, and it was filled with an unknown number of believers, so such a low number wasn’t surprising.
Most of the people entering the game were young. He Wuning recognized quite a few faces—almost all of them were candidates for Zone C’s administrator whom he had previously visited, including Raj and that ambitious secretary. He couldn’t help frowning.
Raj still looked extremely pale. Although he could stand now, he was clearly still weak, and the players from Zone C didn’t seem to have any intention of helping each other.
Among the remaining three newly opened Zones, Zone D had 13 slots, Zone E had 7, and Zone F had 15. The players from these new Zones were noticeably lower in level compared to the others, which was obvious from their equipment.
Players from Zone F automatically gathered together with those from Zone B—they were both from Country B and had probably coordinated with each other earlier on the forum. In contrast, the Zones belonging to Country C—Zones C, D, and E—didn’t appear nearly as friendly. They stood in small groups, clearly wary of one another.
Squatting among the crowd, Xue Xun rubbed his palms together and muttered that he really needed a strong cup of tea to stay alive right now.
Yi Luo handed him a cup of milk tea. “Make do with this.”
Xue Xun froze for a moment, then accepted it with a bitter smile and nodded. Yesterday, He Wuning had a vague feeling Yi Luo might be selected, so he had asked him to pack as much milk tea as possible into his backpack and distribute it to teammates before the battle.
Padra shamelessly leaned over and spoke in heavily accented Chinese, “Hey! Brother!”
Yi Luo smiled at him. “No system. Can’t understand.”
Padra’s small robot system, Jarvis, stepped forward. “He wishes to ask whether the beverage you are distributing is the milk tea mentioned on the forum—the product of Zone A administrator candidate Mr. He Wuning’s ability.”
Seeing that he could help with this matter, Xue Xun pulled Yi Luo aside and gave a polite smile. “Yes. This is indeed the buff-granting milk tea created by our administrator candidate, He Wuning.”
Watching them talk, Yi Luo raised an eyebrow. “I seriously don’t understand. If all they wanted to ask was ‘Is this made by He Wuning?’ why did they have to say such a long, roundabout sentence?”
Ji Ou quietly shuffled closer to him. “Probably to prevent loopholes between each other, so they use wording that’s precise but unnecessarily complicated. It reminds me of my days as an office worker… everyone tried to explain everything clearly in handover emails just to avoid taking the blame…”
Yi Luo looked impressed.
Over there, Xue Xun finally finished negotiating and turned back to them. “He wants to buy some milk tea from us. Should we sell it?”
“Do we really need someone to relay messages when we’re standing this close?” Yi Luo shook his head and beckoned to Padra. The free-spirited rock singer immediately squatted down with them. The robot Jarvis spoke on his behalf: “He wants to drink milk tea.”
Yi Luo paused, then laughed. “What, you’ve never had it before? I don’t believe that. Zone B definitely bought some secretly to research.”
“We did buy it, but I never drank it.” Padra glanced nervously toward the system’s camera and whispered behind his hand, “Those guys think drinking his milk will brainwash them.”
“Tsk.” Yi Luo frowned. “Watch your wording, comrade. What do you mean ‘drink his milk’? Learn how to talk.”
“Watch your thoughts!” Xue Xun covered his face. “Don’t say weird things like that!”
He cleared his throat and tried to look serious again. “Anyway, the players’ side should unite and help each other as much as possible. Brother Yi, how many milk teas do you have?”
He shot Yi Luo a look, signaling him to report a smaller number.
Yi Luo nodded. “About thirty full buff sets.”
Xue Xun blinked. “That many?”
Behind his back, Yi Luo held up five fingers to indicate that he actually had fifty sets. He smiled smugly. “Well, can’t help it. I’m favored. He was worried about me, so he stuffed my backpack full.”
Xue Xun couldn’t stand his smug expression and bared his teeth irritably.
Padra’s eyes lit up. “Sell us ten sets!”
Xue Xun waved his hand. “We’ll give you ten sets.”
Padra froze. “But there’s a condition,” Xue Xun continued. “We cooperate.”
He pointed toward the players from Zone A who didn’t look very good at fighting. “We don’t know which dungeons everyone will be assigned to later. Let’s look after each other.”
“Ah.” Padra sighed and rubbed his chin gloomily. “Looks like I’ve really been treated as the villain.”
He pointed to himself. “Don’t let appearances fool you. I also want to be a hero—the kind who says, ‘I’ll bring all of you home.’ I don’t want anyone to die here.”
“If everyone can work together, that would be great,” Xue Xun said, nodding after giving him another look. “Hopefully, the other Zones will cooperate a little too.”
When he turned his head, Yi Luo had already gathered a group of kids from Zone C and was handing them several sets of milk tea. He turned back and waved at Xue Xun. “Relax, I know these guys. Leave them to me.”
Watching the livestream from the milk tea car, He Wuning: “…”
He rubbed his forehead silently. “I remember we only met those kids once when we visited Zone C. How did he reach the conclusion that he ‘knows them well’?”
Q-chan tilted his head curiously. “The first meeting makes you strangers, the second makes you acquaintances. Since this is the second time, that counts as familiar, right?”
He Wuning: “…”
After spending too long with these people, he sometimes wondered if the problem might actually be himself.
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The author has something to say:
He Wuning: I have nothing to say to you social media geeks.
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