Ke Wuwen shook his head repeatedly upon hearing Tong Zheng's words, gritting his teeth and saying, "I will definitely persevere."
Tong Zheng smiled and said, "That's great."
Without the need for precise measurement, judging solely by the sensation of temperature, one could determine that the temperature on the snow mountain was well below minus one hundred degrees Celsius. It was questionable whether the unconscious individuals could hold on, and even Qi Hao and Gong Liang, who appeared to have the best physical condition, might not be able to endure much longer.
Qi Hao sat cross-legged in the snow cave, his fists clenched, his mind filled with the last image of Jing Minghe.
No matter what, he had to successfully exit this trial. He absolutely had to find out what the system or someone else had done to his Minghe.
Just as Jing Minghe was intently pondering his next move, some scenes suddenly appeared before his eyes. First, there were images of Mo Xiao and a few friends bullying a young girl. Whenever someone expressed fear of punishment, Mo Xiao would say, "We're going to be selected by the system sooner or later anyway. What are the chances of surviving after entering the City of Death? We might as well do everything we want to now, to avoid any regrets."
A cold glint flickered across Qi Hao's eyes.
A fish that escaped the net.
Next came scenes concerning Lu Bin. Lu Bin and his elder brother were constantly searching for children whose parents had been selected by the system, leaving them orphaned, and then selling them to the black market.
This elder brother was Lu Da, a teammate they had encountered on the underwater cruise ship, whose intestines were tied to his chest and whose limbs were torn apart and placed beside his body after his death.
Retribution for evil deeds. This Lu Bin was also a fish that escaped the net.
After the scenes ended, Qi Hao's lips curved into a slight smile. There wasn't no way to expedite the end of this instance.
Qi Hao reached into his storage bead and rummaged for a while. Since that person had placed this item on him, it would be a waste of their good intentions not to utilize it to its fullest.
He smoothly retrieved a prop called "Additional Punishment," which could arbitrarily increase the penalty for teammates within the instance.
Coincidentally, this prop could increase the punishment for a maximum of two players at a time. Qi Hao skillfully pulled out a pen from the prop and unhesitatingly wrote down the names of Mo Xiao and Lu Bin. After the final stroke, the prop transformed into a beam of light and flew out of Qi Hao's snow cave, splitting into two streams and drifting into Mo Xiao's and Lu Bin's respective snow caves.
"You... Mi..."
Gao Zhenli's voice reached You Mi's ears. You Mi quickly responded, "I'm here. How are you? Don't give up."
"I, really, can't, do it anymore," Gao Zhenli's voice was faint, "Thank, you, for taking care of me."
Upon hearing this, You Mi immediately raised her hand and patted Gao Zhenli's face. "Gao Zhenli! You have many ways to die, but you absolutely cannot freeze to death. Wake up!"
These words were spoken to Gao Zhenli, but more so to herself. Although she was patting Gao Zhenli with what she thought was great effort, in reality, she felt no physical contact. Sud an Novel Network.
If this continued, Gao Zhenli wouldn't be the only one who couldn't hold on.
Just as You Mi felt she was about to give up, the temperature seemed to rise significantly in an instant.
You Mi's heart sank, suspecting she was hallucinating like Gao Zhenli, yet it felt different. She didn't feel hot, just that the temperature was rising, and rather quickly.
"You Mi," Qi Hao's voice came from outside, "You can come out now. Hao Yu needs your help."
Hao Yu? Hearing this, You Mi quickly crawled out of the snow cave and indeed saw Qi Hao and Gong Liang supporting a severely injured Hao Yu, one on each side.
Since Hao Yu had returned, it meant he had passed his trial. Therefore, her previous sensation was real, not an illusion.
You Mi signaled Qi Hao and the other to set Hao Yu down. She took out her medical kit and stepped forward to examine him. As she prepared to bandage his wounds, she asked, "A stab wound?"
However, it was merely a question, and she didn't think much of it.
After treating Hao Yu's injuries, the temperature on the snow mountain had returned to what it was when they first entered. The bone-chilling cold they felt then now seemed much warmer, especially inside the snow caves.
The red color of the snow was noticeably deeper.
While You Mi was busy, Tong Zheng and Ke Wuwen had gone to check on Gao Zhenli's condition. Seeing that Mo Xiao and Lu Bin had not emerged, they went to call out to them separately.
"Ah!"
Before Tong Zheng could even approach Mo Xiao's snow cave, he heard Ke Wuwen shout and quickly turned to run towards him.
"Wuwen! What's wrong?"
"No, no, no," Ke Wuwen shook his head, pointing towards Lu Bin's snow cave, "It's not me who's wrong, it's this, this Lu Bin, he, he froze to death. He's turned into a block of ice."
Froze to death? How could that be?
Tong Zheng was puzzled. They had experienced the same things. Even if Lu Bin didn't have Qi Hao's physique, he shouldn't have been worse off than You Mi and Gao Zhenli.
"I'll go in and see," Tong Zheng said, then lowered his head and crawled in. When he emerged, he dragged the frozen Lu Bin out with him, still muttering in disbelief, "He really did freeze to death."
"This one too," Gong Liang's voice came from the other side, "This is truly strange. Judging by the state of freezing, it seems the temperature around them was tens of times lower than ours."
Tong Zheng nodded. "Yes, otherwise, even if they froze to death, they wouldn't freeze so..."
Before Tong Zheng could find the right word to describe it, Gong Liang squatted down, gently tugged, and broke off a finger from Mo Xiao, completing Tong Zheng's sentence: "...brittle."
"Why would this happen?" Ke Wuwen clutched Tong Zheng's arm, "Did they do something we didn't do?"
"Good question," Gong Liang praised Ke Wuwen with a look, then put on a sorrowful expression. "It's a pity we can't know. After all, the dead cannot speak."
They waited for a long time without any changes in the surroundings, nor was anyone missing.
After helping Hao Yu settle into the snow cave, Tong Zheng muttered to himself, "Is this perhaps a break time for us? This instance keeps shifting us between various environments. I wonder how much time has actually passed."
"Look over there!" Ke Wuwen pointed in one direction. "It looks like a wooden chest. Brother Tong, should we go and take a look?"
Before Ke Wuwen could finish speaking, Qi Hao and the others had already started walking towards the chest.
Tong Zheng instructed Ke Wuwen, "You stay here with your sister You Mi and watch over these injured people. We'll go and take a look."
"But..."
"Be good and listen."
The location of the chest, although visible to them, was not close. Since entering the snow mountain instance, they had not ventured far. No one could predict the dangers of walking there. Tong Zheng was not at ease with Ke Wuwen venturing into the unknown.