Chapter 987: "Crystalline" Aesthetics
The carriage quickly devolved into a brawl. At C-rank, players more or less had one or two decent items to use. While they might not be able to tear the train apart, dismantling the carriage's furnishings was no problem.
In just a few short minutes, the carriage Xu Huo was in had hardly any good spots left. To make room for them, he had already moved to the transition car.
The cannibal player who had latched onto Ye Kaihua was now fighting with the stubbly man. Both were cannibal players, leaning more toward close-quarters combat. Moreover, they had armed their teeth and limbs during evolution, making their fighting style closer to that of wild beasts—at least other players, when fighting, wouldn't resort to using their mouths due to a shortage of items.
Meanwhile, the female player wielding the crimson sword was holding her own against the Dong siblings, two against one, without losing ground. In the meantime, she found a moment to kill the remaining player she had been hunting. Logically, with her goal achieved, she should have withdrawn from the carriage. However, neither the trio nor the siblings relented or backed down, seemingly determined to settle things through life or death.
The action figure player and the hand puppet player, like Xu Huo, had gone to the transition car, but they went to the front. Unfortunately, they ran into another player who had rolled out from the front carriage and started fighting.
And Liang Yi, who was badly injured and missing a hand, had naturally slipped out early.
In short, on this train, most of the breathing beings were irritable and unwilling to admit defeat. It had already surpassed the realm of "you glanced at me in the crowd" and reached the level of "I'm annoyed just because someone walked past me alive."
"Are all these people crazy..." Liang Yi murmured.
It wasn't just their carriage in this state. In the carriages ahead and behind, wherever you could see, there were figures jumping around. From time to time, someone triggered the sensor doors, and with the doors opening and closing, the sounds of fighting and killing rose and fell.
Xu Huo sat down in the transition car, occasionally using an item to block attacks that spilled over, and ordered himself a breakfast and a news bulletin.
Given the situation on the train, it wasn't a robot delivering the meal this time, but a flight attendant.
No player dared to attack a flight attendant, at least not on this train. So when the flight attendant pushing the meal cart passed through the carriage, without needing a verbal reminder, players automatically moved aside—the flight attendant had the authority to expel players from the train, and no one wanted to be left on the tracks.
"Sir, would you like to dine in the VIP restaurant?" the flight attendant asked with a smile. "Dining in the VIP restaurant requires no additional fee, just ordering a fixed amount of food."
"The places the train passes through are quite interesting. I'd like to have a relaxing journey," Xu Huo said. "Are there private lounges on the train?"
"Yes, there are." The flight attendant's smile became a bit more genuine. "Sir, you can rest, dine, and entertain yourself in the VIP lounge. If you have any special requests, we can prepare them for you. The minimum consumption is three hundred thousand white notes."
Three hundred thousand bought not just service, but also safety.
Xu Huo wasn't short on money, so he directly booked a VIP lounge.
"Sir, you can have breakfast in the VIP room, or if you have special requests, we can prepare them in advance," the flight attendant said.
"Let's go to the VIP room. No other requests, I just want to get a good night's sleep." Xu Huo glanced at the sunlight outside the window.
"No problem," the flight attendant led the way. "The VIP room has a special light-blocking system, allowing you to sleep normally. Additionally, we have premium bedding that will make you feel like you're wrapped in clouds, with no pressure falling asleep. The bedding is changed daily, with an additional wear-and-tear fee of ten thousand white notes per day."
This exorbitant cost was almost on par with the Yongxing Restaurant.
But crossing this daylight zone would bring them to District 002 in three or four days, so it wasn't a big issue.
Seeing him nod without even blinking, the flight attendant began recommending other services worth experiencing.
Xu Huo had no other requirements, only asking to try the specialty dishes from the E20 wormhole point.
That, of course, was not a problem.
As they walked and talked, they drew envious glances from many players. Someone said, "Maybe I should just book a VIP room too..."
A person nearby sneered, "You think you can get out of a VIP room for just two or three hundred thousand? Once you stay in there, you'll spend at least five hundred thousand white notes. Five hundred thousand white notes, just to ride a train?"
Five hundred thousand white notes, with a bit more, could buy an ordinary C-rank item.
Most players weren't that well-off. Even if they could afford it, they were reluctant. Buying items, upgrading items, potions, tickets—what didn't cost money? Entering an instance cost money, and leaving an instance still cost money.
From that perspective, spending money on the train was the least worthwhile.
They thought about it and let it go.
However, because of this distraction, some people strangely calmed down.
"What's the point of fighting? No money to be made, just wasting items!"
The train briefly returned to calm.
The VIP room was indeed much better than the lounge in the carriage. It was a relatively spacious one-bedroom, one-living-room setup. The middle was no longer a passageway; the flight attendants walked along the sides of the room, and each room had only one door for entry.
"Except when the guest needs something, flight attendants won't pass by the VIP room entrance at other times," the flight attendant said, already changing the bedding and having the breakfast replaced with a freshly prepared one.
Part of the living room was set up as a small study, with bookshelves displaying books on the customs and culture of some districts in the E20 wormhole point.
After breakfast, Xu Huo stayed in the room to read.
The books placed on the train were bound to be relatively positive, so District 002 mostly featured beauty magazines. Flipping open any one would introduce the district's beauty pageants. Apart from the Snow Palace beauty selection, held once every three years, other things like plants, animals, and various miscellaneous items were selected almost every year or every month.
District 002's aesthetic standard was also very singular: "crystalline."
The closer something was to white or transparent, the more beautiful it was considered in the public eye. For example, the most beautiful plant Dong Yu mentioned was actually a transparent flower. Lesser ones had white stems and veins with transparent petals and stamens, while the best quality had stems and veins that were also transparent, as clean as water.
People, of course, couldn't be transparent, so the selection standard shifted to white.
White body hair, snow-white skin, and if the pupils were also white, even better.
Naturally, such an appearance wouldn't be considered beautiful in the eyes of others. Therefore, the final results published in the magazine showed that the most votes went to other pupil colors, especially heterochromatic eyes—this was no longer just District 002's aesthetic.
Xu Huo turned a page. Behind it were the finalist photos from the most recent selection. The first place was a girl with white hair and purple pupils. She wore a white gown, with a semi-transparent white veil just covering the upper half of her face, making her beautiful eyes appear more mysterious and lovely through the faint haze.
Apart from the purple-eyed girl, every photo afterward, regardless of gender, was beautiful and young—lovely faces, clean eyes, like newborn lambs.
(Chapter End)