Chapter 114

Lin Tu ignored the gossiping crowd.

Time would prove everything. She had great confidence in her judgment—charcoal would only increase in value. Even if most people eventually got SUVs, compared to burning fuel for air conditioning, charcoal was still the more cost-effective option. The market dictated that even with competitors, she wouldn't end up stuck with unsold inventory.

If she could bundle the charcoal blueprint with other crafting recipes like hand warmers or pots, Lin Tu felt she could sell the whole set for a green-tier item.

Speaking of green-tier items, Lin Tu felt a pang of guilt. She really wasn't sure if the camel was worth that much, and no one had mentioned it since she woke up...

Whatever. If no one bought it, she'd just take it down. It wasn't like she didn't have the Anomaly Space to keep the camel. Lin Tu relaxed with that thought.

After breakfast, Lin Tu entered the sixth leg of the highway. After completing a passive task similar to the fifth leg, she cleared the seventh leg as well. Legs six and seven were each twenty-five kilometers like the fifth, and Lin Tu could drive the fifty kilometers in half an hour. But with tasks to complete and stops to pick up supply crates, she only reached the entrance of the eighth leg by one or two in the afternoon.

So far, she had accumulated one three-star supply crate, four two-star crates, and ten one-star crates.

Two of the two-star crates were rewards for completing tasks; the rest were found on the road, including the three-star crate—a person couldn't be unlucky forever, and Lin Tu's luck had turned.

With her luck turning, Lin Tu opened all the crates at once and got: “Electronic Components ×50, Glass ×40, Metal ×50, Plastic ×50, Whole Wheat Bread ×10, Salted Egg Yolk Taro Pork Floss Bread ×1, Butter Cheese Flavored Fried Chicken ×1, Rose Flower Pastries ×5, Icy Lime Tea ×1, Mineral Water ×22, Glucose Rehydration Drink ×1, Charcoal ×10, Gasoline ×10, Doctor's Special Bandage ×1”

As usual, Lin Tu first stuffed the bulky items like wood into her backpack. Sorting through, she realized she was about to save up enough for a small SUV. Once she gave those SUV resources to Guan Suixing, she wouldn't have to look out for her at such a loss anymore. At most, she'd give her a discount when selling things. Lin Tu wasn't a babysitter.

This time there was also a lot of food. Looking at the pile of goodies, she thought for a moment, then opened the group chat. Players were actively reporting their positions and each task. Lin Tu pinged all the players in the group and requested to trade one whole wheat bread from each person.

After the whole wheat bread arrived, Lin Tu sent each of them a flower pastry to supplement their vitamins.

The players, pleasantly surprised by the unexpected gift, happily ate the flower pastries. To thank Lin Tu, Yi Ying even cut her pastry into neat quarters, arranged it on a plate, paired it with a glass of pure mineral water, and took a photo in the sunlight to post in the group.

Guan Suixing sent two question marks: “Why am I the only one with the salted egg yolk taro pork floss bread?”

She sent a photo—the bread was clearly more expensive than the flower pastries. Everyone guessed that since there was only one, it had been given only to Guan Suixing, and they could only sourly express their envy—

“It's okay,” Guan Suixing posted a photo of a small bite taken. “It's not that great. Quite greasy, actually. I've already drunk half a bottle of water. I think the flower pastries are nice, but I guess Sister Lin Tu didn't know my taste preferences. Don't blame her. Next time, just give me the same as everyone else. Anyway, thanks, Sister Lin Tu.”

Everyone: “...” You took only one small bite and it's already greasy? And you've drunk half a bottle of water? Since when are you like this? Don't you usually just throw things you don't like right in someone's face?

She was clearly gloating and showing off. How irritating!

“Next time I get a salted egg yolk taro pork floss bread, I'll send one to everyone,” Lin Tu said in the group.

Everyone's mood visibly lifted. Yi Ying happily sent a heart: “Thanks, Sister Lin~”

Amused, Lin Tu closed the screen and finally picked up the only item card she'd gotten from all those crates—

[Doctor's Special Bandage (Green/E-level item): Automatically wraps wounds on living and non-living entities, forming a protective film to prevent secondary damage; its lifespan is the length of the bandage.]

Lin Tu roughly calculated—it could wrap about ten times around a thigh. A bit short, but the auto-wrapping feature made it valuable, like having a temporary battlefield medic.

Lin Tu: It really was a turning of luck.

Satisfied, she tucked the bandage away and looked at the entrance to the eighth leg, recalling the progress reports from the players—Guan Suixing was fastest, halfway through the sixth leg; Luo Yongzhi, strong and pushing his cart quickly, had just entered the sixth; Yi Ying and Dong Huadan were in the middle of the fifth.

The most behind was undoubtedly Liu Sheng, still stuck before the fifth leg.

The reason was that on the regional channel today, some veteran players, trying to recruit people, had revealed some game rules. In [Fight for Survival], the first four legs were beginner levels, and difficulty increased every three legs thereafter.

The fifth leg was the first difficulty spike, and it was no lie.

Many were already posting chat logs on the regional channel—people who had been alive just moments ago saying they were about to enter the fifth leg, and then disappearing. Some had even posted screenshots—

“Help! Give me some food, anything!”

“What's wrong with you?”

“In my fifth leg mission, some damn starving ghost is chasing me. If I don't give it food, it'll eat me! Please, give me a little food, anything! We're friends!”

“Here's two whole wheat breads. I'm about to enter the fifth leg too, so I don't have more. Be careful!”

“...”

A few minutes later, the other person's avatar went gray.

“I'm sorry! I should have given you more! I'm sorry, please don't go!”

The person who posted this didn't dare enter the fifth leg anymore. He was practically crying as he warned everyone not to be overconfident unless they were fully prepared!

“The fifth leg is mostly passive tasks. Once you're in, you're entangled! I really don't dare go in!”

A veteran player said, “That's right. Basically, all the later tasks are passive. Once the difficulty reaches a certain level, it's not just the tasks—just getting through the highway might be hard! You might need teammates to help push carts and do tasks.”

“How could this be? How are we supposed to survive?”

The newer players had gotten used to the first few legs. They didn't need to worry about tasks; they just had to push their carts, bear the sun, and keep going. They thought the game would stay that way. It wasn't easy, but compared to what the veterans described, it was paradise!

“So you think anyone actually likes doing tasks? We all do it to stockpile supplies and gain experience! Ha, you really think this is a fun game?” The veteran player finished and ignored them. He was looking for teammates, not charity cases.

Liu Sheng was relatively better off—he'd completed all the previous tasks. It was just that at this stage, he was truly afraid.

The main issue was that his teammates' fifth-leg experiences were too hard to replicate. Dong Huadan and Yi Ying had items, Luo Yongzhi relied on his speed cycling, and Guan Suixing and Lin Tu had only their personal skills. Liu Sheng couldn't replicate any of them.

For instance, if Liu Sheng had to face the boss in Lin Tu's final leg?

Just imagining himself sweating, failing to hit the weak point, and being crushed by the chasing tombstone would give him nightmares!

“I'm about to enter the eighth leg,” Lin Tu sent a private message to Liu Sheng before entering.

The eighth leg was the second difficulty spike. Lin Tu wasn't entirely confident either. “Maybe you should wait for me to go in first, see if there's any new information or new items, and then you can try the fifth?”

Liu Sheng said gratefully, “Thanks, Sister Lin. I understand. I don't want to fall behind either. I'll try to go in!”

Lin Tu sighed and closed the screen.

She'd invited Liu Sheng because, though he wasn't strong, he was good at teamwork. With everyone forcibly split up this time, it was tough for him to clear these legs alone. She couldn't decide for Liu Sheng. If he really didn't dare, she could only help as much as possible. But the new players' situation proved one thing: the self-rescuer is saved by heaven; the one who doesn't rescue himself finds no salvation.

She could help this time, but what about next? Maybe Lin Tu would reconsider whether to invite him again.

Setting that aside, Lin Tu stared solemnly at the intersection ahead for a moment. "Let's go."

Meanwhile, a person named Zhang Zimi sent Lin Tu a trade request for the charcoal crafting blueprint. She waited and waited from one in the afternoon until four, with no reply from Lin Tu.

Just as she was about to ask her friends for advice, she finally hit the auto-trade deadline Lin Tu had set. Her three pale-white items were deducted, and the blueprint fell into her hands.

"It came!" Zhang Zimi happily messaged her two friends.

The three of them were all new players stuck before the fifth leg. They didn't want to stay, but they were genuinely afraid of the passive tasks the veterans mentioned. So they'd come up with a plan: pool three pale-white items together, trade for the charcoal blueprint, and replicate Lu Zhu's method—making a living by selling charcoal.

Zhang Zimi would learn the crafting technique, and all their wood would go to her. Once they made money, they'd first supply the other two, upgrading their carts and buying them items so they could clear the fifth leg.

Then, the rich would help the poor, and the two would help Zhang Zimi clear it together.

But reality was harsher than imagination. They'd expected an entire afternoon to make charcoal, but before they even started, they'd wasted three hours. And when Zhang Zimi began burning charcoal, her inexperience led to two ruined logs.

"It's okay. Good things come to those who wait." Her two friends comforted her. "Give us the ruined ones first. Don't waste them."

Moved, Zhang Zimi nodded, vowing to do her best. Eventually, her experience points grew, and her charcoal quality gradually became perfect.

"This is sale-quality!" Zhang Zimi happily inspected a piece of charcoal in her hand.

After learning the blueprint, she felt as if she'd gained intangible knowledge—she knew how to burn charcoal and how to judge what was good or bad.

It was already six o'clock, and darkness was falling. Time to put it up for sale.

Burning one charcoal required one log as fuel, consuming two logs in total, so it should be priced a bit higher than rope. Zhang Zimi thought for a moment, then decided to follow the system evaluation and Lu Zhu's pricing model—

[Charcoal ×1: Timber ×4, plus any item ×5 or a bread or a bottle of mineral water.]

This was a reasonable price. After discussing with her two friends, she quickly listed the twenty charcoal sticks she'd just made, waiting for buyers. If she sold ten, she'd accumulate forty units of timber, enough to burn another batch of twenty. And so on, endlessly.

But things weren't going as smoothly as expected.

Zhang Zimi waited for the timber to come in, but only received about ten units. She realized something was off. She hurried to find her friends, and the one who came back with the latest news looked furious—

"They're insane! That group led by Lan Yanzhen—they're watching the trading platform for anyone listing charcoal. The moment we put ours up, they listed theirs at a price just a little lower!"

Zhang Zimi was shocked: "What price are they selling at?"

"Just one unit of timber cheaper than ours."

What was that if not deliberate provocation? Utterly unreasonable.

"What do they gain from that?" Zhang Zimi couldn't understand.

The market was huge; charcoal wouldn't sell out. Even if they sold at the same price, they'd still sell. Deliberately lowering their price to take a loss—what was the point?

"It's just to spite us!" Her friend snorted. "It's fine. It might slow us down a bit, but they don't have as much stock, so people will still buy from us."

That reassured Zhang Zimi somewhat.

Still, the comments on the regional channel were inevitable and chilling.

"Well said! Burning charcoal—who can't do that with hands? Can't understand how someone sells a blueprint for three pale-white items, and people actually buy it!"

"Just a nest of snakes and rats, I say. This Zhang Zimi is definitely the one who bought the blueprint. Just like Lin Tu, selling stuff so expensive."

Someone from Lan Yanzhen's group came out and said, "It was our Sister Lan who asked Old Li to burn some charcoal to sell. She said everyone's having a hard time, and we should help each other. We lower prices as much as we can. The cost is high, and it's manual labor. Please be understanding and supportive!"

"All for one, one for all. The world truly has more honest people. Just for saying that, I'm definitely buying from you!"

"I'm poor. I can't afford the expensive ones. I'll buy yours!"

How much more expensive could hers be? Just one extra log! And were these people brainless? Couldn't they see that Lan Yanzhen was deliberately targeting her, lowering the price by just one log?

If Zhang Zimi sold for five logs, Old Li wouldn't sell for three—he'd sell for four!

Zhang Zimi waited about an hour until seven thirty before she had enough materials. She quickly burned another batch of twenty. She'd considered lowering the price, but it felt unfair. The wrongdoers weren't her, so why should she bear the loss?

Zhang Zimi listed the new charcoal at the same price and then went to check the regional channel.

People didn't seem to have noticed she'd put up another batch. They were still urging Old Li to burn more, preferably overnight. Some were asking how to use the charcoal, others were complaining about it.

Some said the charcoal produced thick black smoke, stinging their noses and throats, making it impossible to breathe in a car; others said it burned for too short a time—they'd lit it an hour ago to cook something hot, and it burned out in half an hour without even boiling water. To stay warm at night, they'd need to burn ten or twenty sticks. Who could afford that?

Zhang Zimi: "?" Is charcoal supposed to be like that? Something felt off.

If not for a few people saying "Shouldn't it be different?" on the channel, Zhang Zimi would have thought she was the problem.

She quickly pinged her friends: "Why is the charcoal they bought like that? Is that right? It shouldn't be, right?"

Her friend was puzzled: "It's like that. Ours is the same."

"The charcoal you're using..." Zhang Zimi suddenly realized. "Aren't you using the inferior charcoal I burned?"

She quickly opened the trading platform, found the seller named Old Li, and saw he still had quite a bit of stock. It seemed that because many people had given his charcoal negative reviews, potential buyers were holding back.

"Quickly, buy one for me!" Zhang Zimi urgently messaged her friend. "I suspect he's selling defective products!"

Her friend was shocked too. Zhang Zimi traded a few logs to her friend, who managed to buy one piece of charcoal. The moment she held Old Li's charcoal in her hand, Zhang Zimi could tell with certainty—

It was from a big furnace with uneven heat, hence the black smoke and short burn time. In short, it was like cafeteria food compared to her gourmet meal. This was definitely inferior charcoal—a fake and shoddy product!

Now that was interesting.

Zhang Zimi quickly delisted one of her charcoals, lit it, and took photos from all angles. She'd long been annoyed by Lan Yanzhen's group's sneaky, pretentious attitude. Now she could finally play the "good person" herself.

"Huh? Real black smoke? Am I seeing things? Maybe it's Brother Old Li..." Zhang Zimi nearly laughed out loud as she typed. She suppressed a chuckle and continued—

"Maybe Brother Old Li and the others wanted to burn faster, make more, so everyone could stay warm. Unlike me, who's too stupid. To avoid the black smoke and make the charcoal burn longer, I burn it slowly, batch by batch. It costs more, so I have to charge a little more."

She grinned and screenshotted the message to her friends. One friend pointed out a key issue: it was missing a tilde.

Zhang Zimi understood. She immediately changed all the punctuation to tildes and posted it with the photos on the regional channel.

The channel fell silent for a moment, then someone replied—

"I was just about to say, it's not as bad as you all make it sound. I bought one from Sister Zhang Zimi, and it's perfectly fine!"

"Same here. I burned one for dinner, and it's still going now. Should last until nine or ten. Four sticks should be enough for the whole night. Much better than burning firewood."

"So it's not a charcoal problem, it's a burning technique problem."

Zhang Zimi was itching for more, so she continued: "Oh dear~ if I were smarter~ I could have learned it myself like Brother Old Li~ Too bad I wasted three white items~ I'm just so dumb~ can't help it~ and I have to charge everyone an extra log~"

After she sent it, her friend poked her: "Too much."

Zhang Zimi: "..."

Still, the public's eyes were sharp. A few more people bought her charcoal and spoke up for her on the channel. Soon, her remaining stock was cleared, and people were urging her to burn more and list it, instead of spamming tildes.

She quietly closed the screen and went back to burning charcoal.

Unless something unexpected happened, she, a young woman in her twenties, would be squatting at this intersection burning charcoal for days like an old farmer. How miserable!

Of course, not as miserable as Old Li.

Zhang Zimi snickered to herself.

Tian Chi was a victim of inferior charcoal.

As a former outdoor enthusiast, he knew how hard the desert nights could be. Worried about a charcoal shortage, he'd gritted his teeth and bought a two-day supply. But because he'd tried to save money, he'd gotten substandard charcoal! Who knew that in a game like this, there would be shoddy goods?!

The sky grew darker, and the air colder.

Tian Chi looked at the pile of charcoal, threw one last piece into the fire with a glimmer of hope—

Then he watched as thick black smoke billowed out. This piece was even worse—the edges were crumbling, and with the high heat, it snapped cleanly in half.

Tian Chi felt nothing but rage. He hadn't taken sides. He didn't care about Lan Yanzhen or Lin Tu. He just wanted to stockpile supplies and survive. What had he done to deserve being scammed even in a disaster?

"Refund! Refund! Old Li! Lan Yanzhen! Refund!" someone raged on the regional channel.

"You know how low the temperature gets at night! You put on a mask of fake kindness and deceive people! How many bought your charcoal! How many will freeze to death tomorrow? You know it in your hearts!"

"Never trust those so-called veteran players like Lan Yanzhen again. From rope to charcoal, they only care about their own profits, completely indifferent to others' lives!"

"Hah, if you had a brain, you wouldn't have been tricked!"

"Didn't anyone warn you?"

"Everyone, go buy Zhang Zimi's charcoal! I can vouch for it! Buy the products from Lin Tu's blueprint!"

At eight in the evening, Lin Tu had just come out of the dungeon. Exhausted, she stared blankly at the fresh blueprint in her hand—a fuel engine blueprint.