Chapter 1844: Just One Right Choice
After a brief rest, the group set off again.
This time, Xu Huo didn't waste any time. He stuffed Chang Shoujie into the painting frame and directly used a Space Teleportation Item to rush toward the CK12 Safe Zone at maximum speed, leaving Gao Dawei to be carried by Deng Xiahei.
Different items had different teleportation units each time, so after setting the target, the group didn't strictly travel together but moved at their own pace.
During the journey, Xu Huo encountered Deng Xiahei twice. Deng Xiahei's detection item had an extremely wide coverage range. The second time they met, he warned Xu Huo that someone had been following them the entire way.
"Can you tell who it is?" Xu Huo asked.
"Too far away, and they're using an invisibility item," Deng Xiahei shook his head. "But it looks like their main target is you. Not sure if it's because you look low-level or for some other reason."
"Don't worry about them for now," Xu Huo said. "If you run into Brother Wu and the others, let them know too."
Deng Xiahei nodded to indicate no problem.
During a break midway, Xu Huo deliberately used "Cube Space" to expand the coverage of his space power. Sure enough, he found the person about three hundred meters beyond his original detection range. The tracker was skilled at concealing their tracks, disguised as part of the desert, and remained completely still after he stopped—extremely patient.
Seeing that the other party had no intention of acting immediately, Xu Huo put away "Cube Space" and continued forward. After testing this a few times, he discovered that even using Space Teleportation Items couldn't shake the follower.
The tracker definitely had a Space Teleportation Item. The only question was their tracking method. Along the way, Xu Huo had already used two items designed to remove other items' effects, but the follower kept up without missing a step, indicating the items hadn't succeeded. By this point, using "Life Flashback" or "Dimensional Fog" would also be too late.
Besides testing the tracker, Xu Huo also expanded his search range along the way, because the closer they got to CK12, the more sectors the pointer on the positioning instrument fluctuated across.
If this happened, either the instrument was damaged, or there was magnetic interference, or else Dr. Joyce's positioning instrument had been moving continuously.
This cost him some time, so he arrived a bit later than Deng Xiahei and the others.
Deng Xiahei, Brother Wu, and the rest had already sent mechanical units down.
Although CK12 was buried under sand, it was a Safe Zone that had disappeared into the Sand Sea relatively late. The city should have had sand-proof facilities built. Even if it was buried by earthquakes and massive sandstorms, there should still be some cavities within the structures.
"Why are you so late?" Deng Xiahei's expression relaxed slightly.
Xu Huo glanced at Brother Wu, Gao Dawei, and the others, confirming they all knew about the tracker before saying, "Let's search first. The general direction is around here."
As he spoke, he also sent two Armed Robots down.
Deng Xiahei immediately recognized these as robots produced in Zone 019. His eyes grew a bit more eager. "Using these robots to dig sand is such a waste of their potential."
Xu Huo was pulling out food and didn't look up as he replied, "If they can't even dig sand, what's the point of having them?"
That said, these two machines weren't very smart, so he equipped them with communicators to record everything they saw, making it easier for him to search for clues later—this could, of course, be done by modifying the robots for real-time connection, but Xu Huo wasn't good at modifying robots, so he didn't bother with the effort.
After that, he released Chang Shoujie.
The group sat together, and Xu Huo asked about the tattoo on Chang Shoujie's face.
The black snake tattoo on Chang Shoujie's face was very famous in Zone 010.
"Why did you get a black snake tattoo on your face?" Pink Hair asked, resting her chin on her hand. "It makes you look a bit like a villain."
Chang Shoujie wasn't as cold as he had been during the day. He explained, "When I first became a player, I was severely injured returning from a game and accidentally got stung by a venomous scorpion. I collapsed from the poison in a desolate forest."
"It was a type of scorpion that secretes a paralyzing venom. After being poisoned, you don't lose consciousness. Instead, you stay fully awake, feeling the pain until you die."
"The terrifying part was that while the venom made you feel agony, your body became paralyzed like a stroke victim, leaving you only able to stare with your eyes open, experiencing the final journey of death."
"I thought I would die there, but then a black snake slithered over from a distance."
"That black snake was also venomous. Normally, small snakes don't include humans in their prey range, but many evolved snake species in Zone 010, even ones as thin as a finger, eat people."
"Moreover, these snakes usually live in groups. If you encounter them in the wild, people get bitten to death very quickly."
"But that snake was different."
At this point, Chang Shoujie's expression carried a hint of mysterious reverence. "It didn't harm me. Instead, it circled me no less than ten times before stopping in front of my face."
"I thought it was waiting for me to die completely before eating me, but it seemed to understand human nature. It came close and stared into my eyes."
"That was the first time I had been so close to a snake, and also the first time I observed a snake's eyes. Its green pupils were filled with fuzzy, drifting filaments, like newly sprouted grass or fish roe in a breeding tank."
"Just when I thought I was doomed, the black snake backed off a couple of steps, gave a slight nod toward me, then suddenly sprang up and bit my neck."
"At that moment, I could feel the venom entering through the wound. After the intense pain, the black snake disappeared into the grass, but my body gradually regained sensation."
"I survived."
"To this day, whenever I recall that life-and-death experience, I feel like I entered another dimension. If I had been poisoned in any other district, I would have died. But in Zone 010, a venomous snake saved me."
"This life of mine wasn't picked up for free. Zone 010 gave me a second chance at life, and I will spend my whole life repaying it."
"The story sounds pretty miraculous," Deng Xiahei said with a strange expression, "but the scorpion that nearly killed you was also from your hometown."
Brother Wu and the others nodded in agreement.
"Anyone, at any time, can encounter death in any district. But being saved by a snake—that is fate," Chang Shoujie said solemnly.
"The latter probability is much smaller," Brother Wu said.
Just hearing about such an experience felt mystical. It was only natural that someone who went through it would gain some unique insight.
"Is that why you decided to dedicate your life to Zone 010?" Gao Dawei suddenly asked.
Although Chang Shoujie believed in the guidance of fate, his experience was more like an epiphany. He didn't have a specific religious faith, nor was he a fanatic. So he replied, "I just made one right choice thirty years ago."
Gao Dawei fell silent.
Xu Huo raised his water bottle in a toast to Chang Shoujie, who raised his own bottle in return.