Chapter 11: The First Encounter
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At eleven in the morning, Yu Jiang spotted the road signs pointing toward Parallel Highway and Silent Town.
To reach the entrance of the Silent Town instance, she first had to travel along this stretch of Parallel Highway.
As for the groups formed upon entering the instance, that was entirely random. This instance did not support party play.
Once she entered Parallel Highway, Yu Jiang stopped pulling over.
Without the protection of a service area, she still had to be cautious. Even places governed by laws and order had bad people in them, so this place was certainly no exception.
After driving for roughly two kilometers, she saw other vehicles up ahead.
It was a small, pink, four-wheeled electric mobility scooter, about 1.2 meters long, with only a single seat. A fluorescent green canopy shielded it from the rain, making for an especially eye-catching color scheme.
Vehicles like this supposedly had a maximum range of fifty or sixty kilometers. In a survival game, however, she had no idea how far this one could actually go.
Before long, several more vehicles began appearing along the road. Everyone was hurrying onward. At most, they gave one another a curious glance or two, but no one stopped.
Then Yu Jiang noticed that the two vehicles behind her were behaving strangely.
One was a royal-blue, 1990s-style old pickup truck with a broken bumper.
The other was a white modified scooter, its engine roaring with ear-splitting violence.
At first, both vehicles had been driving normally. Then they suddenly accelerated on either side of her—once might have been accidental, but twice or three times meant they were deliberately cutting her off.
The pickup matched her speed. Its window suddenly rolled down, and the driver whistled several times.
Yu Jiang’s windows were the most ordinary kind, with neither privacy tinting nor soundproofing. When she glanced to the side, her eyes met those of the driver in the neighboring vehicle.
He was a man in his thirties or forties. The area around his collar was grimy and blackened, and both his gaze and his smile were greasy and lecherous. Even so, he wore the smug expression of someone utterly pleased with himself.
One hand rested outside the window, a cigarette held between his fingers, while he steered with the other.
“Hey, that little mobility scooter looks pretty nice. What’s a beautiful girl doing driving so slowly? You don’t know how to drive, do you? Want me to teach you a thing or two?”
Yu Jiang frowned and sped up. People like this were idiots—the more attention you gave them, the more encouraged they became.
There were still about three kilometers to go before they reached Silent Town.
The younger man riding the modified scooter accelerated to catch up and let out a shrill laugh. “Looks like the girl’s embarrassed.”
The man in the pickup curled his mouth into a crooked grin, overtook her, and stopped across the middle of the road.
A three-wheeled vehicle had far less defensive power than a fuel-powered car. Besides, Yu Jiang’s vehicle had only just been upgraded. If she rammed into him, she would be the one to suffer.
That was precisely why they dared to block her. They would never have tried this against an off-road vehicle or a truck.
There was no way this would end peacefully today.
Yu Jiang drew a deep breath to steel herself and tightened her grip on the dagger hidden in her pocket.
The two men had already gotten out of their vehicles. Either one of them had attack power and overall physical ability no weaker than hers.
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She had to wait for the right moment, just as she had when dealing with the zombies earlier.
Yu Jiang got out as well, putting on an uneasy expression as she asked, “What do you want?”
The two men were extremely brazen and made no attempt to conceal their information. One was called Brother AK Wang, and the other was known as the Handsomest Man on the Highway.
Brother AK Wang took a drag of his cigarette, his eyes sweeping over her from head to toe.
“That blueberry tree on your vehicle is pretty nice. Very tasteful. You even grow trees?”
“We don’t mean anything by it. We just saw you traveling alone and thought it wasn’t safe, so we kindly wanted to team up with you. But we can’t protect you for nothing, right? You’ll have to show us a little sincerity.”
Yu Jiang’s hand tightened around the door.
Seeing this, the two men exchanged a glance and moved a little closer, their smiles becoming even more suggestive.
“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. Your big brother here...” Brother AK Wang began, reaching out to touch her face.
In the next second, Yu Jiang raised her hand and flung a handful of hallucinogenic powder at them. As the two men began to feel dizzy and disoriented, she swiftly drew her dagger and drove it into Brother AK Wang’s neck.
By the time he realized what had happened, blood was already spurting out. He let out a howl and was about to strike back, but Yu Jiang was faster. She yanked out the dagger and stabbed him twice more in rapid succession.
He clutched his neck and collapsed to the ground, twitching.
After a moment of confusion, Yu Jiang picked up a stone and smashed it against the second man’s head.
The dizziness wore off.
The Handsomest Man on the Highway touched the blood on his head. His eyes widened as he stared at the companion he had met only yesterday, then he began backing away.
He wanted to run. Yu Jiang decisively chased after him, dagger in hand and blood dripping from the blade.
She had no time to think about anything else. One thought filled her mind:
If she did not strike first, she would be the one to die.
The Handsomest Man on the Highway had just pulled out a length of rebar when several loud bangs rang out, accompanied by his screams. One by one, the unripe blueberries flew at him like tiny firecrackers.
[Violent Blueberry: When it encounters someone it hates, even the air becomes disgusting. Obviously, the first thing to do is beat them up!]
Yu Jiang seized the opportunity, rushed forward, and stabbed repeatedly at his neck.
Looking at the two motionless bodies and the blood staining the ground, she took several deep breaths. Her reason slowly returned, but the hand holding the knife was still trembling.
After all, she had never fought anyone before. She had not even killed a chicken, duck, or fish, let alone a living human being.
Before taking action, Yu Jiang had struggled inwardly. Once she had drugged the two men, she could technically have driven straight through the modified scooter and escaped.
But the dizziness would last no more than five seconds. Once they recovered, there would be endless trouble.
They had made enemies of each other. What if they encountered her inside the instance and called others together to deal with her?
It was better to kill them outright.
The instant she made that decision, Yu Jiang acted.
She understood that hesitation was the greatest taboo in such a situation, so...
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After killing one, she absolutely could not let the second escape.
When a player was alive, their vehicle could not be reclaimed. When a player died, their vehicle automatically entered an abandoned state.
Yu Jiang possessed the Scavenger identity. When holding the scavenger’s claw hammer, she could see whether a vehicle could be reclaimed.
Thus, she also noticed that Brother AK Wang still had a breath left and was only pretending to be dead. She pretended not to know, crouched down as though to examine him, and then unexpectedly delivered two more stabs.
Only after confirming that both men were truly dead did she finally relax.
Once her emotions had settled somewhat, Yu Jiang spent considerable effort dragging both corpses into the dense weeds beside the road.
Naturally, the supplies in their vehicles now belonged to her.
Searching the vehicles would take some time. It would not look good for the two bodies to remain sprawled across the road where passing survivors could see them, and the smell of blood might attract other things.
Yu Jiang took out some household water she had filled at the service area and washed the blood from her hands and dagger, then casually wiped the water from her outer clothing.
Carrying the scavenger’s claw hammer, she first walked toward the pickup truck.
Expressionless, Yu Jiang swung the hammer into the vehicle’s window.
Crash—
The glass shattered. She opened the door from the inside.
At this stage, everyone had very limited inventory space, so there were bound to be at least some supplies in the vehicle.
A lighter, two somewhat damp cigarettes, ten compressed biscuits, six slices of whole-wheat bread, three freshly dug sweet potatoes still covered in dirt, six 550-milliliter bottles of mineral water, six liters of gasoline, one steel plate, five iron blocks, and one Vehicle Repair Card, Basic.
A waterproof old travel bag had been secured to the back of the modified scooter. Inside were ten pounds of flour, one plastic sheet measuring 140 by 140 centimeters, one 500-milliliter bottle of edible rapeseed oil, and two filthy articles of clothing, which she discarded.
The light screen confirmed that everything was fine. She stored everything that could fit into her backpack, while the small, lightweight food items were packed into the waterproof travel bag and carried away together.
Yu Jiang raised the claw hammer again and began smashing at the vehicle’s durability bar to reclaim its materials.
She had been hammering away for quite some time, reducing the old pickup to a nearly scrapped state, when the sound of another vehicle approaching came from behind.
Yu Jiang glanced over while moving to the rear of the pickup, toward the side nearest the grass.
The bodies lay not far from the grass, and there was also a large rock nearby.
If the newcomer intended to ram her, then unfortunately for them, the weeds would obstruct their view. If they crashed into her anyway, it would be difficult for the vehicle to maintain its balance.
The approaching vehicle was a motorcycle, its sharp metallic lines reflecting a cold gleam beneath the rainy sky.
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