Chapter 44: The Dungeon Opens

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: The Dungeon Opens

After claiming the thirty-nine treasure chests, Shi Zhile immediately opened all of them.

With her luck boost, she got plenty of medicine, herbs, soil, and seeds. In total, she obtained over a dozen different types of supplies.

Among them were two Summon Orders.

’The Summon Orders are back. This means the fighting between players is about to start again.’ She had a bad feeling about this.

The last treasure chest opened: [Iron Wok ×1.]

A large iron wok dropped straight down on top of her. Shi Zhile dodged just in time. Staring at the overturned wok on the ground, she rubbed her forehead, wanting nothing more than to throttle the system.

It was another day of having a love-hate relationship with the system.

Now that she had a wok, she could stir-fry food. The thought of smooth, tender scrambled eggs made her mouth water.

She sent the vegetables to Wang Dacheng but kept the eggs. ’I’ll save up some more before giving him any.’

Outside the window, the snow fell heavier and heavier, showing no signs of stopping.

The night passed quietly. In the cold winter dark, the number of players who died gradually increased.

At seven in the morning, Shi Zhile’s eyes snapped open. She had been woken by the crowing of the chickens in her Breeding Space.

Without even taking the time to brush her teeth or wash her face, she dove headfirst into the Breeding Space.

She was in for a shock.

The fifteen-square-meter space was jam-packed with chickens and ducks of all sizes.

All the chickens and ducks had hatched. Broken eggshells were scattered everywhere.

And right now, the laying hens, led by the large roosters, were collectively bullying the chicks and ducklings.

They had the little ones trapped in the middle, stomping on them and pecking at them, having a grand old time. She even saw a few chicks and ducklings lying on the ground, unable to get up.

She laughed in anger and roared:

"Are you trying to get yourselves killed?"

The roosters, who had been puffing out their chests, instantly deflated at her shout. The chicks and ducklings, on the other hand, acted as if they’d found their savior. All of them, except for those unable to get up, scurried toward her.

Shi Zhile carefully sidestepped the little ones and headed straight for the five that were down.

She reached out and touched one. The body was already stiff.

’To be this stiff in a warm space means they’ve been dead for several hours.’

She looked at the biggest rooster and kicked it.

"Crow, crow, crow! You’re the biggest one here, you should know to watch over them! I’ll cook you first later."

She never would have thought her chickens would bully each other. Of the five that died, three were ducklings and two were chicks.

Her heart ached a little. Fearing the corpses would rot and cause disease, she had no choice but to toss them out of the space.

’If those five hadn’t died, just think of how many eggs they could have laid when they grew up.’

There were three large roosters in the flock of thirty-two adult chickens, each with bright red plumage. She had seen it clearly just now; out of all the chickens, they were the most arrogant.

’I was originally planning to keep them for breeding, but since they bully their own kind, I might as well kill and eat them.’

She casually grabbed the nearest rooster, pinning its neck with one hand and taking out her axe with the other.

"You like bullying the weak, huh? Today, I’ll slaughter one of you and see how you taste."

With a wave of her hand, she sent the other chickens and ducks into the Planting Space. Then, right in front of the other two roosters, she chopped the head off the one in her hand.

She had gotten a set of bone china bowls and basins from a treasure chest she’d traded with Wang Dacheng. She took out a bowl to collect the chicken blood.

"See that? From now on, if even one more chick or duckling dies from fighting, I’m holding you two responsible. You’ll be next."

The two roosters stared, their eyes wide. Worried she might have scared them too much to breed, she gave them a couple more warnings. Not caring whether they understood, she ordered them not to damage the vegetables before sending them into the Planting Space.

The Green Snake had slithered in at some point. It coiled around Shi Zhile’s waist, its gaze fixed on the eggs in the hay nests.

Afraid it would eat the eggs, Shi Zhile kicked it out of the space.

After the chicken’s blood had been completely drained, Shi Zhile set the bird on the ground and went to collect the eggs.

"One, two, three, four... twenty-two, twenty-three. Twenty-nine hens laid twenty-three eggs. The production rate is really good."

It was just a pity that this first batch of eggs wasn’t fertilized, so they could only be eaten, not hatched.

She sent the fifteen eggs she owed Wang Dacheng, then carried the chicken into the Planting Space to take a look around.

The vegetables weren’t mature yet, but the wheat and corn were growing strong. With no pests, they grew even faster.

The chicks and ducklings she had sent in were very well-behaved. They gathered in small groups, focusing on eating pests in the vegetable patch.

After leaving the space, Shi Zhile went into the courtyard, lit the stove, and heated a large pot full of water.

She scalded the chicken, plucked its feathers, and gutted it. By the time the whole chicken was processed, the sun was high in the sky.

Blood had splattered on her while she was chopping the chicken. The metallic smell filled her nostrils, so unpleasant that it made her want to take a bath.

Her gaze fell on the bathroom she had built earlier. While the water was heating, she found a change of clothes, and once the water boiled, she went inside.

The white porcelain bathtub was filled with hot water. She added some water from her seawater filter to it, and when the temperature was just right, she submerged herself completely.

The hot water soaked her entire body, soothing her stiff limbs. Afraid the room would get cold too quickly, she brought both the water-heating stove and the lava basin inside.

She opened the chat channel. It was as lively as ever.

The most popular topic was about her, Shi Zhile.

[Old Man Le: My boss is awesome! She kicked rank one off the supply leaderboard last night! My boss is number one now! WAWAWA~~ My boss sent me supplies! Holy crap! It’s eggs, a full fifteen of them!]

[Time Prophecy: Boss Shi, look at me! I want to be your underling too! We share the same surname, sis~]

Shi Zhile quickly opened the leaderboards and found that her rank had indeed shot up to first place.

’Calculating the time I got on the board, it must have been when all the chicks and ducklings hatched.’

She leaned back lazily in the bathtub and began to take stock of her current supplies.

There weren’t many supplies in her backpack. Besides drinking water and food, there was only a sailboat, an axe, and a torch.

The rest of the firewood, treasure chests, iron blocks, and so on were all in her room and the basement.

All told, the scattered supplies amounted to over a hundred items, and that was without even counting the chickens and ducks in her Breeding Space.

Adding it all up, she could roughly estimate the number of supplies Jiang Yuxing currently had.

After getting out of the bathtub, she used the hot water from the stove to wash her dirty clothes. The soft armor was temperature-controlled, so she gave it a quick wipe-down before putting it back on over her thermal underwear.

She blanched the chicken and then stir-fried it. Due to a lack of ingredients, the flavor was just average.

She put a portion of the chicken in a bowl and sent it to Jiang Yuxing, asking him: [Are there any restrictions for being number one? Like limits on when you can go out to sea or changes to the monster encounter rate?]

He didn’t reply. Her eyelid was twitching violently, so she started a video call with him directly.

The moment the video call connected, a system notification sounded in the chat channel.

[Survival Tip: The Desert Island instance is about to begin. It will open tomorrow morning at 9:56. All players in Zones 1, 2, and 3, please prepare.

This instance will be based on a principle of forced conquest. Those who resist entering the instance will die!

If a player dies inside the instance or their Life Value reaches zero, that player will die!

Instance Mission: Survive, and find him!

Survival Time: Three days.

Conditions for clearing the instance: 1. Survive for three days.

2. Kill any one of the top ten players on the leaderboard.

3. Find the Medicine Lake...]