# Chapter 1100: A Strange Feeling About Time
Pu Gaoshan was furious at Wang Mo's weak spine. "A few broken fingers and you're begging for mercy on your knees? Coward!"
Wang Mo voluntarily stepped aside, no longer blocking Xu Huo's line of sight.
"You're still alive. Surprised?" Xu Huo smiled as he looked at Pu Gaoshan.
Pu Gaoshan's facial features twitched. "If you want to torture me, just do it!"
"The robot hasn't finished digging the hole yet, so we still have some time for now." Xu Huo said. "Since you're so loyal to Mr. Kang, I won't ask you about Mr. Kang. Let's talk about yourself instead."
Like Wang Mo before him, Pu Gaoshan fell into suspicion, not understanding what he meant by this.
"I'm very curious about the reasons you stayed. I want to hear if your reasons can convince me. If they can, maybe I'll consider staying too." Xu Huo explained.
"You?" Pu Gaoshan clearly didn't believe it. Grinding his teeth, he said, "I'm still a good judge of people. You managed to get your hands on tens of millions worth of mechanical soldiers. Would you stay? Staying is probably to deal with Mr. Kang!"
"How do you know I'm not yearning for an independent regime with a few hundred people?" Xu Huo said half-jokingly.
Even without looking at his expression, the sarcasm was obvious from his tone. Pu Gaoshan started cursing again, but he was severely poisoned, and exerting himself only made things worse for him. Soon he was spitting black blood, looking like he had more breath going out than coming in.
Seeing that Xu Huo had no reaction, he finally seemed to show signs of relenting. "You really want to know? Then come closer, and I'll tell you..."
Xu Huo chuckled lightly. "Do you think you're very clever?"
Pu Gaoshan grinned. "Looks like you're a coward too!"
"Let's use some medicine then." Xu Huo tossed a truth serum to Wang Mo. This was a specialty item from the game, better than the ones from District 014.
Wang Mo followed orders and injected it into the immobilized Pu Gaoshan. "He's poisoned. It might not work."
"We'll find out soon enough." Xu Huo looked at the instruction manual, waited three minutes, and then started asking questions.
The content was similar to what he had asked Wang Mo earlier. Their pasts were briefly glossed over, with emphasis on their experiences from entering the high-risk instance to deciding to stay. Like Wang Mo, Pu Gaoshan had also chosen to stay on his own, and the process had little reference value.
However, they both mentioned a very vague and seemingly insignificant matter—they felt that time was passing particularly slowly, and during the same period, other players who had planned to stay had gone missing.
Time was passing very slowly.
The daily timing mode in this high-risk instance was similar to District 014, so neither the prop watch face nor Xu Huo himself had noticed anything unusual so far.
But both Wang Mo and Pu Gaoshan had this feeling, which was a bit strange.
After evolution rate increased, a player's perception of everything would be amplified, and their experience of time was naturally the same. What people usually called "a day feels like a year" wasn't truly time becoming longer; this premise was still based on the "day". Even if the two were worried about failing to successfully cross the wormhole point, it shouldn't have left such a deep impression on them. After all, which instance or wait for a high-risk random event wasn't "a day feels like a year"?
Xu Huo intuitively felt that there was something problematic about their descriptions of time, so he asked again about the timing of the missing players who had stayed with them.
The one who stayed with Wang Mo was someone who had arrived a few days before him, but he went missing in less than a month.
As for the two players from the same period as Pu Gaoshan, both arrived a few days after him and went missing in less than twenty days. One of them had even disappeared during the daytime.
"They went missing just when new players were coming in?" Xu Huo seized on a key point.
"That should be the case." Wang Mo said. "After Big Zheng's team went out, they found traces of fresh corpses."
"Who else went out with Big Zheng?" Xu Huo pressed further.
Wang Mo and Pu Gaoshan each reported several names. Some were already dead or missing, but there were also a few familiar names, including Cao Zheng and Zhao Xiaofang.
"In three months, were there any changes different from before?" Xu Huo brought the topic back.
"Nails... hair... especially long..." It was Pu Gaoshan who answered. In his unconscious state, he reacted faster than Wang Mo.
Xu Huo looked at Wang Mo, who didn't see this as a problem. "It's the influence of this high-risk instance. Everyone's like this, just like getting hungry easily."
Xu Huo narrowed his eyes slightly, rubbed his fingertips, and said, "That's not the same thing."
At this point, several more inclined guesses had already formed in his mind, but he would have to return to Xiaohe City to verify them.
Just then, 114 crawled back.
After checking the task feedback, Xu Huo killed Pu Gaoshan with one sword strike and said, "We can go."
Wang Mo immediately stepped forward, but Xu Huo raised his hand and said with a half-smile, "You want to go first?"
Wang Mo obediently stepped back.
Xu Huo entered the underground hole first.
This passage was dug downward. Because the rocks on both sides were unstable, they had to take a detour from deeper underground to get out.
The exit was in a pile of rubble. Due to the collapse of the rock belt, there weren't many alien creatures around. Xu Huo led Wang Mo out easily.
However, the situation outside wasn't so good. Whether it was from the bombs or the rock belts colliding, the high cliff where they had parked their vehicle had collapsed. The wreckage of the vehicle was nearby.
But the survivors weren't just them. Big Zheng, Jiang Wenzhang, Zhao Xiaofang, and Cao Zheng were all alive. Among them, Big Zheng and Jiang Wenzhang were seriously injured. Their suspicious gazes swept over Xu Huo and Wang Mo respectively before they pressed for Pu Gaoshan's whereabouts.
"He's buried." Wang Mo glanced at their situation and said briefly.
The group was somewhat wary of Xu Huo, who was still alive. In a mountain collapse, seven people from Xiaohe City had come—excluding Big Zheng and Jiang Wenzhang's internal conflict—two dead, three injured. Yet he, aside from his protective suit being dirtied, was almost completely unharmed. Could that be called luck?
After a quick exchange of glances, the group decided to let this matter slide.
Xu Huo spotted Zhou Yuanzhu and called out to her hiding spot, "Come down."
Zhou Yuanzhu was hiding among the rubble. Only after hearing Xu Huo's words did she control her aircraft to descend. Smiling, she said, "I was thinking if you didn't come out soon, I'd have to leave. Not enough food."
Xu Huo tossed her a bag of green mushrooms. "Try eating these."
"The color alone looks poisonous." Zhou Yuanzhu said.
"They should be non-toxic." Xu Huo gestured with his chin toward Big Zheng and the others. "I saw someone picking them. It should have been them. If they were poisonous, they wouldn't have picked them."
This type of mushroom did appear on the dining tables of Xiaohe City players.
Zhou Yuanzhu looked at the green things with her whole body expressing rejection. Xu Huo considerately asked, "Want me to squeeze them into mushroom juice for you?"
(Chapter End)