Chapter 47: Encounter at the Medicine Lake

Chapter 47: Chapter 47: Encounter at the Medicine Lake

A powerful jolt sent the raft rocking violently. Water splashed over the side, soaking her thick cotton clothes.

Shi Zhile was taken by surprise. She steadied her stance and swung the blood-stained axe in a backhanded horizontal slash.

Jiang Yaozu was caught off guard. The axe slashed across his chest, revealing bleeding flesh.

He cursed loudly as he came to his senses and lunged straight for Shi Zhile.

Instead of dodging, Shi Zhile counterattacked. With her axe in one hand and an Arrow Fletching in the other, she stabbed straight at him.

The raft was too small for him to dodge in time. He had no choice but to take the hit. As he reeled from the pain, Shi Zhile drew back her knee and viciously slammed it into his groin.

A blood-curdling scream pierced the sky. He forgot about his bleeding wound, his hands clamping protectively over his groin.

His thrashing caused the raft to take on water. Fearing it would sink, she punched him in the temple and pinned him to the floor of the raft.

"Isn’t it nice to be alive? You’ve already died once, how have you not learned your lesson!"

"AHH!! I was wrong, I was really wrong! Please, spare me this time! I’ll never again... GLUG... GLUG GLUG."

Shi Zhile shoved his head firmly under the seawater.

In that moment, it seemed she had discovered the joy of killing. She deliberately slowed the raft to let the other players following her get a good look.

After a few more dunks, Jiang Yaozu was breathing his last.

His stomach was alarmingly bloated. Whenever she pulled his head from the water, it would gush from his nose and throat.

The distant players didn’t dare to approach, so Shi Zhile brought the raft to a complete stop.

"Satisfied with my performance? One, two, three... nine of you. Want to take me on together? If you do, I’ll do my best to make it a one-hit kill.

But hold on, let me just kill this guy first."

She dragged Jiang Yaozu’s head toward the edge of the raft, then slowly inserted the Arrow Fletching she was clutching into the back of his neck. With some unknown strength, she drove it clean through.

Fresh blood dripped into the sea. When she pulled the Arrow Fletching out, the bleeding quickened.

Jiang Yaozu’s face was a mask of agony, any cry for help caught in his throat.

Fearing the body was too intact and might reanimate, Shi Zhile simply chopped his head off.

She kicked the corpse into the sea, then grabbed the head and hurled it at the nearest raft.

The player’s face went pale. For a moment, he was too stunned to even think of throwing the head away.

A chill emanated from the depths of the sea. The feeling was all too familiar.

Shi Zhile’s expression flickered. She brought out a two-masted sailing ship, climbed up from the raft, and sped away.

Before the other players could even react, Shi Zhile was already far away.

Someone asked in confusion, "What’s wrong with her? Don’t tell me she got scared off by our numbers?"

Only one of the nine players noticed something strange about the water. He departed silently, not alerting the others.

The waves grew calm. The man in the lead sneered, "And here I thought she was tough. Didn’t expect her to scare so easily. Let’s go, everyone! We kill her, and that big ship she had is ours!"

The rafts moved forward steadily. Just as excitement was building, a colossal creature leaped from the sea.

It swallowed two rafts and the players on them. Their screams were carried across the water.

A huge splash erupted on the surface of the sea. Shi Zhile glanced back, then quickly made for the island and stowed her ship.

She lingered by the shore for a moment, and only after confirming there were no survivors on the water did she head toward the center of the island.

She traveled in fits and starts. By the time the sun was sinking in the west, she had arrived at a lake surrounded by lush greenery. The area was already packed with people.

On the outskirts, a wooden board was inscribed with several lines of large, red text.

[1. Fighting, brawling, murder, and arson are prohibited in the Medicine Lake area. Violators will die!

2. The vegetation around the Medicine Lake must not be trampled or picked. Violators will die!

3. Please protect the environment!]

This was the first time Shi Zhile had ever encountered such rules.

The players were crowded together, yet there were no conflicts, which further convinced Shi Zhile that the rules were enforced.

She took out today’s Wish Drifting Bottle:

"Today’s wish: find Jiang Yuxing."

The words had barely left her lips when a system notification sounded:

[Target detected. Locking position.]

A golden beam of light shot through the crowd and settled on the center of the Medicine Lake.

Shi Zhile’s blood-soaked appearance was enough to make a path for her, and she successfully squeezed her way to the front.

The information panel for the Medicine Lake popped up again, but this time, it was different.

[Medicine Lake: Contains unknown medicinal properties. Use to restore 20 Life Value. (Obtain me, and you will have infinite Life Value, but only if you possess an Alchemy Station.)

Current location of Alchemy Station: In the depths of the Medicine Lake.]

Never mind whether the panel’s information was true or not; the very fact that it pointed out the Alchemy Station’s location was enough to prove the Medicine Lake had ulterior motives.

The Alchemy Station was at the bottom of the lake. To get it, you had to go to the bottom of the lake.

The water had unknown medicinal properties... No matter how she looked at it, this felt like a honey trap.

And of course, her target was right there at the bottom.

As she stared at the lake’s surface, a powerful desire to obtain the Alchemy Station welled up inside her, and she even felt a flicker of resentment toward Jiang Yuxing.

She frowned and quickly averted her gaze.

As she was lost in thought, a tall figure squeezed in beside her.

She turned her head and saw it was Jiang Jing.

"What are you doing here?"

Jiang Jing crouched down, scooping some water from the lake. "I tracked your location, of course," he said. "The top 100 players by supplies have their locations revealed. You haven’t noticed the way everyone’s looking at you? Like they want to eat you alive?"

If it weren’t for the rules, the players on the fringe would have pushed her into the lake already.

Meeting their gazes, she sat down on the ground. "Plenty of people want a piece of me," she said. "It’s 3:30, and it’ll be dark in another two hours. Burning time here isn’t going to work. The desert gets cold at night. We should find a place to build a shelter first."

Jiang Jing nodded. His eyes swept the area, and he took the lead, walking into a small clearing surrounded by vegetation.

The clearing wasn’t large—only about four or five square meters, with enough room for just two or three people.

Shi Zhile followed close behind. When she saw Jiang Jing pull out wood and a hammer and start building a cabin, she joined in to help.

Two hours later, the cabin was nearly finished, and the sky was growing dark.

The players by the lake had moved on from merely observing to cautiously testing the waters.

First, they’d dipped their hands in. Seeing no strange effects on their fingers, they slowly submerged their entire arms.

While the two were debating between a wooden roof and a glass one for the cabin, tiny snowflakes began to drift from the sky.

Just then, the players who had touched the lake water screamed in agony.

Shi Zhile looked over. The arms that had been submerged in the water were freezing solid.

She didn’t watch any longer. She and Jiang Jing quickly finished the cabin.

The cabin was built right up against the vegetation, meaning anyone trying to approach from the sides or rear would have no choice but to trample the plants.

They closed the door. Light streamed in through a glass window.

Shi Zhile opened her panel, navigated to Jiang Yuxing’s profile on her friends list, and started a video call.

This time, the call went through.

"Jiang Yuxing, where are you?"

Jiang Yuxing’s voice was tinged with a hint of disappointment. "I’m at the bottom of the lake," he said. "Don’t worry, I’m fine."

"It’s the first day of the instance. How did you end up at the bottom of the lake? Don’t tell me you went down there on your own."

For once, Jiang Yuxing was silent.

He was indeed trapped, but he had also gone down of his own free will.