Chapter Two: Negotiation
However, the game assistant didn’t allow Liang Yi much time to grieve. Her vision suddenly went dark, and immediately the second scenario began.
This time, the screen showed Liang Yi’s elder sister, Liang Ya, with the words “Zombie Apocalypse” at the top.
Liang Ya and several other survivors were running desperately ahead, while behind them a horde of decaying, twisted zombies pursued relentlessly.
Liang Yi clenched her fists, silently urging her sister to run faster.
The final scene was of her younger brother, Liang Ning, with “Infrastructure and Farming” written above.
He stood unarmed in a barren desert, behind him a flimsy, drafty wooden shack.
[Player Liang Yi, we have fulfilled your request. We hope you will cooperate actively in the subsequent game.]
The game assistant gave Liang Yi no chance for sadness. Each scene played for only fifteen seconds before being promptly withdrawn, and the assistant immediately shifted to discussing cooperation.
Once Liang Yi confirmed her family was safe for now, she wiped away her tears, quickly calmed herself, and began to consider how to negotiate terms with the game assistant.
“Repeat again, what rewards were you just offering me?”
[First, you may receive an off-road vehicle.]
[Second, you may receive one hundred jin of food, available for use at any time.]
[Third, you may receive storage space.]
Considering her environment and the endless stretch of highway, Liang Yi knew how precious a vehicle and food would be now.
However, the mechanical voice had previously said that supplies could also be exchanged from loot boxes along the road.
Thinking of her family’s situation, Liang Yi’s mind quickly calculated.
“If you want me to fully cooperate, then I must be the one to decide the rewards.”
She had two conditions in mind.
First, she must be able to contact her family.
Second, she must be able to send them supplies.
[Sorry, Player Liang Yi. You may only choose from the rewards we set.]
Though the game assistant spoke words of apology, its tone remained flat and devoid of emotion.
Liang Yi stood firm. “Submit my request for approval.”
The game assistant glanced at the timer—only an hour and a half remained before the survival game on the highway officially began. The one and only test participant, randomly selected, sat calmly with eyes closed, unmoved. The assistant was growing frustrated.
If the tester died, wouldn’t the game be wasted? If it failed its task, it might be disposed of as a defective product by headquarters.
With no alternative, the game assistant had to submit the request.
Perhaps because Liang Yi’s demands were too much, the assistant vanished entirely this time.
Liang Yi called for it several times without response, then slumped, her body stiff with resignation, breathing heavily and weeping in silence.
After she regained her composure, Liang Yi dried her tears and began studying the game’s system interface.
Following the prompt, she silently recited “view game interface” in her mind, and a pale blue light screen appeared before her.
In the upper left corner was a gray box, followed by the text “Player 2010.” Liang Yi guessed this was her in-game code name.
At the center, from top to bottom, were the sections: [Channel], [Trade], [Creation].
Liang Yi mentally selected [Channel]. The screen shifted, and a flurry of messages began to scroll rapidly.
[Player 303: Let me see how this works.]
[Player 23508: I have to survive to the end and win a hundred million. No one better compete with me.]
[Player 15867: Sob sob, I just want to go home, I’m not interested in winning money.]
...
At the upper left of [Channel], it showed there were thirty thousand nearby players.
Liang Yi guessed that thirty thousand was the total player count for “Highway Survival.”
The messages overwhelmed her, and finding nothing useful, she switched to the other sections.
[Trade] was, as the name suggested, a place to post goods for exchange with other players, with options for private or face-to-face trades.
Private trades were safer, but the system would take a ten percent cut. Face-to-face trades allowed both parties to agree on a meeting spot and exchange goods directly, with no commission.
[Creation] was for combining one resource into another, similar to sandbox games Liang Yi played as a child. However, recipes required blueprints, which were obtained from loot boxes.
Raw materials could also be acquired from loot boxes or the game environment.
An hour later, the game assistant finally returned.
As expected, headquarters approved Liang Yi’s proposal.
When she first made her request, Liang Yi recalled the assistant saying she was the sole tester. Since she was unique, she had leverage, so she used seeing her family as her first bargaining chip.
Through the assistant, she also learned that the game’s creators were higher beings with no reverence for life; humans in these games were merely their entertainment.
Thus, Liang Yi decided to take a gamble. Maybe those so-called higher beings would enjoy a twist to the game’s rules.
Fortunately, she had guessed right.
[Player Liang Yi, after consideration, we can meet your demands, but only under certain conditions.]
Liang Yi’s heart pounded, but she kept a calm face and nodded for the assistant to continue.
The condition was that, for survival, Liang Yi had to collect various corpses.
Items obtained from corpses would be evaluated by the system and converted to points, which she could then exchange for supplies or opportunities to communicate with her family.
Supplies could only be sent to her family, not kept for herself.
Liang Yi immediately agreed.
There were plenty of loot boxes along the highway; she wouldn’t lack for supplies. But her family, especially Liang Ning with only a ramshackle hut, needed help first.
A contract appeared on the light screen. Liang Yi reviewed it carefully, signed, and then checked the system interface again. The original three sections had become four, with [Points] added.
[Attention all players: ten minutes remain before the game begins. Ten minutes left.]
[Anyone not at the highway starting point in ten minutes will die.]
The mechanical voice boomed again, and the assistant urged her to find a vehicle quickly.
Liang Yi, determined to survive, wasted no time.
But after searching, she found that all the vehicles left behind had no keys, and some had punctured tires.
Cursing, she returned to her small three-wheeled vehicle. Better than a bicycle, she reasoned.
Irritated, she twisted the ignition. The three-wheeler wobbled awkwardly toward the highway.
Liang Yi could only ride shared bikes and had never learned to drive, but thankfully this trike was electric—just a twist of the throttle to start.
[Game countdown: ten, nine, eight...]
The mechanical voice echoed across the sky as Liang Yi managed to reach the destination with three seconds to spare.
Before her was a sea of vehicles, so dense they seemed endless.
She was not the last to arrive; a few more vehicles pulled in after hers.
Unexpectedly, two off-road vehicles started in reverse with a rough jerk in the final seconds, crashing into two older, shabbier cars, sending them flying, then speeding away from the accident.
[One.]
As the mechanical voice announced “one,” a massive explosion erupted from the ruined city behind them, flames shooting skyward.
Terrible screams echoed from behind.
Liang Yi, closest to the blast, felt the searing heat and caught the scent of roasting flesh in the air.
“Shit!”
“This is a real explosion, not a movie, right?”
“It hurts—this isn’t a dream...”
...
Liang Yi stood dazed, murmuring, “Did the people inside just die like that?”
[Yes, please take care to protect yourself at all times.]
The game assistant answered her emotionlessly.
“Damn it, you two killed those people, do you realize that?”
“Don’t you have any humanity?”
...
As Liang Yi struggled to process what had just happened, several players, recalling how they’d been rammed in the final seconds, began to mourn and accuse the two responsible.
But the two culprits were tall and muscular, unafraid. After getting out, they shoved the angry accusers to the ground, grinning maliciously.
“The rules don’t say we can’t hurt people. I didn’t do anything wrong—who are you to judge me?”
“I’ll tell you now, that hundred million is ours. Anyone who tries to take it from us will have to answer to me.”
“Are you crazy? It just said you could win a hundred million, not that it would be split evenly.”
“It’s not split? Oh, then I misunderstood.”
“But whether they live or die isn’t my problem. They should’ve run faster.”
...
Their words were arrogant, their demeanor radiating danger.
No one else dared speak.
Liang Yi shrank back, determined to keep her distance from these troublemakers in the future.
She also noticed that the nearby player count in [Channel] had dropped from thirty thousand to twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven.
The game hadn’t even officially begun, and already over a thousand players were gone.
Liang Yi felt a heavy weight settle in her heart.
[Attention all players: Highway Survival has officially begun. Please set out immediately.]
[Once again: this game only allows forward progress. Retreat at your own risk.]
[Best wishes to all players—may you win the hundred million.]
The mechanical voice faded. Around her, players eagerly started their engines and drove forward.