By the time Bai Xi woke up, it was already evening.
She stir-fried some shredded pork with green peppers and paired it with white rice mixed with crushed corn. Then, she unlocked her phone, checking for new messages as she ate. The online forums had long since blown up.
"Oh my god! There's a massive ant nest right under our residential compound. So many people have been dragged straight into the holes!"
"It's terrifying. I saw someone get dismembered alive, torn into pieces."
"My family is on the ground floor. Can someone come save me? I'll pay a ten thousand reward."
"Ten thousand? Even if you offered a hundred thousand, no one would come. Brother, let me give you a piece of advice: it's better to rely on yourself than to beg others for help."
Suddenly, a new video surfaced online. In the video, a group of people was completely surrounded by giant ants. Among them, a shiny black ant, several times larger than the rest, was particularly conspicuous. Bai Xi immediately recognized it. This had to be the soldier ant she had hypothesized about earlier. The latter part of the video was pixelated, but judging by the colors, she could infer that those people had been dismembered.
"Mother of god! Is it really the end of the world?"
"Have you guys noticed? We can't receive any news from the outside anymore. We can only see posts from Wen'an City. It's like everywhere else has been blocked off."
"I noticed that too. I tried messaging my classmate in the provincial capital, but it wouldn't send at all."
"This is too scary. Are we being penned in to serve as food for these giant ants?"
The panic and fear from the internet spread rapidly, eventually affecting everyone in the real world. Bai Xi, however, wasn't surprised. For a game capable of sending them to this world, isolating a single city's information network was hardly a difficult feat.
After scrolling for a while, Bai Xi turned off her phone and went into the kitchen to wash the dishes. Based on the information she had just gathered online, aside from Wen'an City being quarantined and isolated, the ants seemed to be growing increasingly active. Moreover, once they tasted blood, the ants went berserk, their combat power skyrocketing instantly.
Just as Bai Xi was carefully considering her next move, a server-wide game announcement startled all the players.
[During the completion of a side quest, a player has caused the premature leak of a laboratory gene serum, accelerating the game's progression. Time remaining until mutation: 24 hours. Players, please make preparations!]
Upon seeing this message, the players collectively cursed.
"Fuck! Which bastard did this? If I run into him, I'll definitely kill him."
"Is this guy fucking brain-dead? I can't believe there's actually a moron in this world who would willingly increase their own quest difficulty."
In a hidden laboratory somewhere, a young man stared at the notification before him with a bewildered expression. The large computer monitor in front of him displayed: [Serum release complete. Estimated to spread across the entire city within 36 hours.]
"What did I do?" The young man couldn't figure it out. He had only accidentally bumped into that red button.
"I'm screwed. I've become public enemy number one in this game. No, I can't show my face," the young man thought for a moment and decided to just resign himself to his fate. "Those bugs don't dare to come into this lab anyway. I might as well just hole up here and wait for the game to end."
Seeing the notification, Bai Xi was equally astounded. She wondered, "You can actually do that?"
The game notification stated there were twenty-four hours left, which meant that the remaining period of relative safety was down to twenty-four hours. Bai Xi organized her current supplies. The stockpile in her inventory space was enough to feed her for ten to fifteen days, and she still had some items in the apartment that she hadn't packed away, which should last her another three to five days without an issue.
She didn't know how long this game would last, nor did she know if these supplies would be enough. But going out now would be too dangerous. The other players definitely wouldn't pass up this final twenty-four hours to hoard goods. It was best for her to just stay safely at home!
At nine o'clock that night, Bai Xi was awakened by a muffled clap of thunder.
Immediately following, raindrops went PITTER-PATTER against the windowpanes. Accompanied by the rumbling thunder, lightning illuminated the dark room. She walked to the window and looked out at the city streets being washed by the rain, her heart sinking.
[Day three of the game. Survival rate: 93%.]
The heavy rain poured all night. By early morning, a light drizzle was still falling. The streets had been scrubbed clean, and a few giant ants were roaming about.
After eating breakfast, Bai Xi sat by the window to observe the situation outside. She had received the game announcement at seven o'clock yesterday evening. There were still over ten hours until the major mutation.
It wasn't long before Bai Xi broke into a sweat. "Why is it so hot today? It feels like a steamer."
The sky outside had brightened up, but it remained gray and somewhat gloomy. Last night's downpour hadn't broken the heat. The weather didn't cool down; instead, it was uncharacteristically muggy and humid.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!
A knocking sounded from outside the door, followed by a girl's anxious voice. "Hello? Is anyone there?"
Bai Xi walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. Outside stood a cute-looking girl around fifteen or sixteen years old.
"What is it?" Bai Xi asked. Someone coming to her door for no reason was highly likely to be premeditated. The previous events had left Bai Xi full of wariness toward everyone, especially other players.
Hearing a response, the girl outside beamed with joy. "Miss, do you happen to have any fever medication? My younger brother suddenly caught a fever, and it's still raining outside. I don't dare to go out."
"I don't have any," Bai Xi decisively refused. She was determined to avoid contact with anyone, especially strangers she knew nothing about.
In truth, she did have fever reducers. When hoarding supplies earlier, she hadn't known exactly what to buy, so she had just bought a little bit of everything—though the bulk of it was food.
"I'm sorry for bothering you." A flash of disappointment crossed the girl's face, but she didn't get angry. In an apocalypse, everyone was looking out for themselves. Helping was a kindness; not helping was the baseline.
Before leaving, she offered a kind warning. "Miss, don't go out when it's raining, and don't let the rain touch you. There might be something wrong with this rainwater."
With that, the girl turned and walked to the door opposite Bai Xi's. She knocked again and asked the same question, but received no response. The girl went door to door like this until things soon went quiet.
Standing behind her door, Bai Xi frowned, feeling both conflicted and guilty. That girl looked like she genuinely needed help, and her parting words of concern had struck a chord with her. But Bai Xi was truly afraid. She feared that the girl's appearance was premeditated, a ploy to test her. As a child raised in times of peace, Bai Xi was torn. Her emotions told her she should help the girl, but her reason told her it was dangerous to interact with anyone.
A few minutes later, Bai Xi put on her backpack and stepped out.
She listened carefully in the hallway. The girl was taking the stairs up to the fifth floor, knocking on doors one by one again. There was no one else around. The fact that the girl knew to take the stairs showed she was quite vigilant.
Bai Xi thought for a moment before quietly placing a box of fever reducers at the entrance to the stairwell leading up to the sixth floor. Then, she turned around and returned to her small apartment. Whether the girl truly needed the medicine or not, she no longer cared. As long as her own conscience was appeased, that was enough.
Meanwhile, the girl finished knocking on all the doors on the fifth floor. Still, no one answered. She felt a bit dejected but quickly rallied herself and continued up to the sixth floor.