Chapter 179: While in Line

Lin Yun rolled her eyes at him again, clearly annoyed. This kid, honestly.

"Come on, before that little girl shows up, let’s hurry over to the roller coaster."

Song Xizheng nodded quickly and hurried off toward the roller coaster without another word.

The starting point of the roller coaster turned out to be quite far away, and the two of them had to take a long detour before finally reaching the location.

"You do remember the rules I just went over with you, right? You haven’t forgotten any of it, have you? Don’t you dare forget them once you’re on that roller coaster!"

On their way over, Lin Yun explained the rules to Song Xizheng once more, just in case he hadn’t read every line on that paper.

"Don’t worry, Sister Lin, I’ve got it all memorized."

"Good, that’s fine then."

Lin Yun looked ahead once more and found that there were still quite a number of people waiting for the roller coaster, meaning they’d have to stand in line for a while yet.

Reaching the very end of the line, the two of them settled in to wait their turn.

"Hehe, did you hear? Someone just fell off the roller coaster earlier! Tsk tsk, how awful."

"Really? Who told you that?"

"Of course it’s true. Don’t worry about where I heard it. Just look down once you’re up there, it’s guaranteed to be true."

"Honestly, that person must be something else — how could they not notice their own safety lock had come undone?"

"Roller coasters go so fast and climb so high, it must hurt terribly to fall off one of those."

"Sure, but he brought it on himself, really. He can’t blame anyone else for failing to check his own safety lock."

"Well, technically the safety lock is optional anyway. I’m certainly not stupid enough to go and fall off a roller coaster."

"Don’t say things like that — what if it scares everyone else off? We’ve got to follow the rules, after all."

The two men chatted and laughed easily with each other, though the tourists standing both in front of and behind them paid absolutely no attention to what they were saying.

Lin Yun and Song Xizheng exchanged a quiet glance, both silently wondering who exactly had fallen off the roller coaster.

He must have been one of their fellow survivors.

It seemed likely he hadn’t actually noticed his safety lock was open — more likely someone else had opened it without his knowledge, leading directly to this tragedy.

"Ah—"

"Help! Someone help me—please, help!"

Suddenly, a desperate cry for help rang out from somewhere up in the air right beside them.

Everyone standing in line looked up and saw a person dangling from the roller coaster track high above.

He clung tightly to the pole in sheer terror, not daring to loosen his grip even for a second. It was a long way down to the ground below — if he fell, there was no question he would die.

He had definitely checked his safety lock beforehand, so why had it suddenly given way like that?

How could he possibly have fallen off the roller coaster if the safety lock hadn’t been released in the first place?

No wonder, no wonder those people in the green vests had made him sign an agreement before letting him board the roller coaster. It turned out that once he was up there, someone would deliberately try to unlock the safety locks and send him tumbling off!

The man’s grip was slipping; his own weight was proving too much for him, yet he still refused to give up calling out for help.

The handful of green-vested staff standing near the roller coaster’s starting point merely glanced up at him with complete indifference before returning to their work.

Anyone who had already boarded the roller coaster had signed an agreement beforehand, so whether they fell or not was simply none of the staff’s concern. After all, this sort of thing had happened plenty of times before.

They’d grown thoroughly used to it by now.

As long as their roller coasters didn’t get dirtied, it saved them the trouble of cleaning up and wasted less of their own time.

The man shouted himself hoarse for what felt like ages, yet still no one came to his rescue.

He suspected the tourists around him were too wary to help, so his main hope rested on catching the attention of someone in a green vest.

But those green-vested workers remained utterly unmoved, showing no reaction at all!

How could they just stand there like that? How could they refuse to save him?

The man’s strength was fading fast now; he could barely manage to hold on any longer.

"Sigh, how much longer do you think he can hang on? Why doesn’t he just fall already? This is getting boring."

One of the two tourists who’d been chatting earlier was now staring intently at the scene unfolding above, as though watching some kind of show.

"I don’t know! People have already gotten off ahead of us, so why hasn’t he fallen yet? I really hope he doesn’t make me miss my turn on the ride!"

"Exactly, he should just fall already. There’s no point hanging up there any longer — no one’s coming to save him anyway."

"Haha, he probably still thinks somebody’s going to come rescue him. Well, it’s certainly not going to be me."

"It’s so high up, who on earth would even go up there to save him?"

"Exactly, I’m not going, and none of you should go either. I’ll personally stop anyone who tries."

"That’s right, nobody’s allowed to go. Whoever tries is a traitor, and I’ll report them straight to the visitor center. Then that traitor gets blacklisted by the amusement park and can never come back in again, hahaha."

"..."

Lin Yun pressed her lips together tightly. She realized these people were deliberately threatening them — the outsiders — warning them off from attempting any rescue.

If they tried to save him, their true identities would be exposed at once, and the whole crowd would turn on them.

Song Xizheng had already thought of the same thing, though he said nothing about it.

Once someone entered the survival world, their only real priority became ensuring their own survival, above everything else.

As for other people, if the other party posed no threat to them, they could offer whatever help seemed reasonable if that person found themselves in danger. But if doing so would bring trouble down on themselves, they would naturally put their own safety first.

Song Xizheng turned his head away deliberately, no longer paying any attention to what was unfolding nearby.

Lin Yun, for her part, looked away from the scene entirely and focused instead on the line of people still waiting ahead of them.

Many more people were being let up onto the ride.

She counted quickly — each roller coaster car held about twenty people, and once this group got off, it would finally be their turn.

"Aaaaaaahh—"

The man simply couldn’t hold on any longer.

Exhausted beyond his limits, he lost his grip on the pole entirely and plummeted from the air above.

He stared in absolute horror as the ground rushed closer and closer toward him.

Death was drawing nearer to him with every passing second.

In the end, all he could do was shut his eyes and brace himself to meet it.

Thud—

"Oh, he finally fell. Honestly, he was going to fall sooner or later anyway, so what was the point of holding on for even that long? Total waste of time."

"Haha, I thought for sure I was going to miss it, but I made it just in time."

"Such a shame, we’re still stuck in line right now and can’t go over there to check things out properly. Lucky for whoever gets there first."

"Yeah, what a shame indeed."

Many tourists nearby turned to look toward where the man had fallen, a glint of greed flashing in their eyes.

That was food, after all! Who wouldn’t be tempted by that? But they still wanted their turn on the roller coaster too. It was almost their turn now, and none of them wanted to give that up and start the whole line over again, since that would take far too long.

The man’s limbs had twisted into an unnatural, broken arc, and a spreading pool of blood had already formed beneath his body.

This drew the attention of the tourists standing around, but since it wasn’t their turn yet, they had no choice but to hold themselves back and wait.

They watched, helpless to do anything else, as a group of black-vested workers rushed over, scooped up the body, and carried it away, leaving behind nothing but a trail of blood that no one bothered to clean up afterward.

Some of the tourists didn’t seem to care in the slightest whether the blood staining the ground was dirty or not — some of them even lay right down on the pavement and stuck out their tongues to lick at it directly.

But Lin Yun and the others never actually witnessed that particular part of the scene.