Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo followed behind them.

These few white monkeys had a specific route. After weaving through the trees several times, they entered a patch of giant flowers. They covered their heads with the small buckets and crossed along the ground, then hopped and skipped up a small hill.

Behind the hill was a deep river about ten meters wide. The monkeys climbed the low trees by the riverbank, tore down the vines wrapped around them and tied them to the buckets, then threw the buckets into the river. Before long, thumping impacts came from beneath the water. The monkeys immediately pulled the vines up, and two of the buckets had actually trapped several black fish with pointed snouts, two fingers wide.

The little monkeys cheered. Those with fish tossed them to their companions. They squatted on the branches, joyfully waving the black fish, then flashed two neat rows of sharp white teeth and ate the fish, flesh and bones alike.

This meal was quite the ceremonial affair.

They fished up ahead while Xu Huo watched from behind. But the fishing process wasn’t always so smooth. When one monkey’s bucket was bitten through by a crocodile and spat back onto the shore, the monkeys banded together and jumped and screeched along the bank. Judging by their movements and expressions, they were probably cursing up a storm, but the crocodile in the water couldn’t understand them.

After jumping around for a while, the monkeys huddled together and muttered among themselves, then squatted in a cluster on the bank, with one monkey performing the act of drinking water while the others waited with loops of vine.

The crocodile that had been lurking nearby soon charged at the bait, but it wasn’t as fast as the white monkeys. When it opened its mouth near the water’s edge, a vine looped around it and the monkeys dragged it straight onto the shore.

On land, the crocodile was no match for the monkeys’ agility. The white monkeys coordinated with each other, some grabbing while others smashing, and in no time they had battered the crocodile until it was covered in wounds.

The crocodile, unable to win, bit through the vine and retreated into the water. Still fuming, the monkeys cursed at the bank for a while longer before carrying their buckets to a new spot to fish.Xu Huo waited until they had gone far enough before approaching the water’s edge. When the crocodile surfaced, he sent a few tranquilizer darts into it, then dragged it ashore with the kite string. He secured its mouth and began taking photos.

After the three types of reptile appreciation were completed, the small projection screen displaying his number reappeared, along with a prompt:

”Number 313 guest detected with no entry or exit pod nearby. Please locate a pod door as soon as possible.”

The monkeys were drawn back by the sound and stood upright around him in front, imitating his posture.

Xu Huo wrote a number on the crocodile’s back and threw it back into the water. Only when it revived and struggled did he retract the kite string, then greeted the monkeys.

The monkeys stood still. One of them extended a paw and pointed at the kite string in his hand.

Xu Huo pointed at its bucket.

The monkey hid the bucket behind its back and kept pointing at his hand.

”This one’s a no. I’ll show you something good instead.” Xu Huo grabbed a handful of lollipops, unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth, then tossed one to the monkey that had come out to ”negotiate.”

The little monkey imitated him and ate it. It seemed to find the taste not bad, and after communicating with its companions, they closed in on him.

Having failed the second round of negotiations, Xu Huo placed the snake cage forward, used the water jet gun to snap a branch, and drove the monkey in the tree back down to the ground.

Monkeys that would fish out a crocodile just to beat it up definitely wouldn’t be intimidated by him. They quickly shifted positions and coordinated their attack.

Half a minute later, they were very successfully all strung up by Xu Huo.

Xu Huo sat on a nearby rock, took out the tattered ”Severing Ties Door,” demonstrated the motion of opening it, patted the door, then pointed at the candy in his hand.

The monkeys howled furiously, all their fine teeth bared.

Xu Huo smiled, gave two more tranquilizer shots to the one howling the loudest, then in front of the other monkeys, pulled a pair of pliers from his toolbox and yanked out two of that monkey’s front teeth.

The monkeys fell silent.

Xu Huo patted the door and pointed at the candy again. Getting no response, he pulled out the second monkey’s teeth.

It was the leader’s turn next. Looking at its ”ugly” companions, it shed scalding tears.

One minute later, Xu Huo was leading a string of candy-eating monkeys to find the pod door.

This group of monkeys roamed these jungles and smoothly led him away from the riverbank. After heading east for about several hundred meters, the projection screen indicated a pod was to his front-left.

The monkeys couldn’t understand human language, but they were indeed heading in this direction. However, as he got closer, Xu Huo discovered that this stretch of forest had just been through a fierce battle. The ground was covered in large amounts of blood and beast footprints, the vegetation was nearly flattened, and from afar he could see a large tree with a half-open pod door tilted over on the ground. The soil beneath its roots had been dug up and destroyed, revealing metal-poured pillars. Clearly, this passage had been blocked and destroyed.

Two injured people were hiding not far away.

Players had entered the zoo before, so running into living people wasn’t strange. But with the entry and exit pod destroyed like this, he didn’t know whether they had completed their adventure task.

Xu Huo walked to the big tree, flipped the pod door in front of the monkeys, and patted it.

The monkeys spat out their candy sticks with a ”ptui” and tilted their heads up, refusing to move.

Xu Huo held a fistful of candy in his left hand and a pair of pliers in his right, extending both in front of them.

The monkeys’ arrogance lasted less than three seconds before they obediently took the candy.

”W-wait!” The person hiding behind the tree jumped out on their own. It was a woman, and she said in a trembling voice: ”Can you take me with you?”

The other player traveling with her also came out. Xu Huo remembered they had also received a white ball task, and the task requirement was to capture a rainbow ant alive.

”Have you completed your task?” he asked. Both of them were wounded, though the other player had more combat injuries, while the woman who had spoken only had a scrape.

The female player took out a bottle, inside which lay a palm-sized rainbow-colored ant.

Xu Huo noticed her lips had a slight purple tinge, and asked again: ”Poisoned?”

”I got pinched by the ant by accident.” The female player spoke cautiously.

Her protective suit was intact, so she must have swapped it out. She didn’t look to be in too terrible a state, but bringing along an ordinary person to find the next entry and exit pod carried no small risk, especially after surviving a hard battle.

Xu Huo scrutinized the two of them and didn’t immediately agree to travel together.

”I have insect repellent!” The woman who had spoken first hurriedly said: ”Spray it on and once the scent spreads, normal poisonous insects will leave on their own.”

”I definitely won’t drag you down!”

”Three people make too big a target.” Xu Huo wore a look of hesitation.

The woman turned to look at the female player, her expression conflicted and struggling, and finally, as if she had made a decision, she stepped forward.

Xu Huo knew what she was about to say, but he didn’t give her the chance to speak, cutting her off first. ”Then let’s go together. We can look out for each other when danger comes.”

The woman’s expression shifted. She happily lowered her voice and said to the female player: ”Great, we can go together...”

Before she finished speaking, the female player crisply and efficiently snapped her neck. The female player said with a sneer: ”I don’t even know how many times I saved her on the road, and now she wants to ditch me. Ungrateful thing!”