IWYTBW - Chapter 44

 Chapter 44

What Does it Mean to Waste Food and Money?

On the transport ship, Yi Zhen closed his eyes to rest.

The moment he stepped onto this giant spaceship, the preliminaries had begun.

The long space journey, lasting several days, was the first hurdle. Not everyone could adapt to the jumps and tunnel navigation in a vacuum. When Yi Zhen went out to eat and take a walk, he saw many people with pale, greenish faces, vomiting uncontrollably due to dizziness. The pharmacists called this vacuum syndrome. If these contestants couldn’t overcome it or adapt in time, they would become the first batch of cannon fodder to be eliminated as soon as they disembarked.

According to the rules of the preliminaries, contestants eliminated others by destroying their wristbands. As long as a contestant eliminated one person, their score would be considered valid. In the end, the judging panel would aggregate all valid scores and determine a suitable median.

Those who eliminated fewer people than this median would be considered to have failed the preliminaries. Those who eliminated more than or equal to the median would be considered to have passed and would enter the semi-finals.

Therefore, with everyone unaware of the passing standard, everyone would seize every opportunity to strive for the top, ensuring they crossed that invisible passing line.

In the deep darkness, Yi Zhen suddenly remembered Rong Hongxue leaning over to personally open the car door for him when he departed. His voice was indifferent, devoid of its usual gentle facade.

“Xiao Zhen, may your martial endeavors be prosperous,” he said.

The mustard seed pouch beside him stirred. Yi Zhen didn’t open his eyes, but gently patted it, soothing it, “Hush.”

Suddenly, someone sat down beside him and started a conversation. “You brought a pet?”

Yi Zhen turned his head. To avoid unnecessary trouble, he had slightly altered his appearance, making his skin dull and his features ordinary. He looked at the young man sitting to his right, merely nodding slightly without speaking.

The delicate-looking boy wasn’t bothered by his coldness and continued enthusiastically, “I’ve been observing you for a few days. You came alone too, right?”

Yi Zhen’s hand, which was stroking the mustard seed pouch, paused for a moment.

He was an assassin. As long as he wanted to, he could disappear into the crowd at any time without attracting anyone’s attention. These days, he had deliberately downplayed his presence. The Jade Alchemy of the Eastern Sea made his aura faint, his body temperature fluctuating with the surrounding environment. The Illusory Body of Mo Luo also blurred the contours of his body, making him seem as if he was about to melt into the noisy background.

And now someone was saying that he had been observing him for several days?

“What do you want to say?” Yi Zhen asked.

“Hey, don’t be so cold,” the young man said with a smile, “I can see that you’re a capable person, brother. How about we cooperate?”

Yi Zhen smiled.

Although the features he had disguised were ordinary, the kind that would be lost in a crowd, his eyes remained unchanged. No matter how much a person disguised themselves, eyes were windows to the soul, after all.

When he smiled, his eyes seemed to ripple with a mysterious light, flashing brightly, enhancing his otherwise twenty-percent appearance to forty or fifty percent, causing the young man to be slightly taken aback.

“Let’s not talk about cooperation for now. Don’t get so close to me,” Yi Zhen said, his smile fading, “Something might happen, kid.”

The young man pouted but still didn’t give up. “Don’t be in such a hurry to refuse. Aren’t you curious about how I discovered you?”

“If I said I was curious, would you tell me?” Yi Zhen asked.

“Depends on your performance,” the young man chuckled, “How about it? Join forces with me? To be honest, I’m really interested in your abilities. With your stealth and my perception, we’ll definitely pass these preliminaries easily.”

Yi Zhen stared at him without speaking.

Sometimes, a person’s attitude during a conversation could reveal a lot. He was either an extremely arrogant and powerful person or an extremely arrogant and weak one.

Or, he was someone transcending this world, considering himself superior, yet forced to participate in this game... a player.

[There is no evidence of him conversing with a system,] Tai’a said, [But I believe we still can’t rule out the possibility that this person is a transmigrator.]

Yi Zhen closed his eyes again. “There are many other experts besides me. Go find them.”

The young man’s face fell. He looked at Yi Zhen, his expression displeased at being rejected. His gaze slowly slid from Yi Zhen’s face to his wristband, his tone turning cold, “If you don’t cooperate with me, I’ll kill you as soon as we land!”

Regarding whether killing was allowed, the preliminaries had rules.

The wristband was equivalent to an individual’s competition qualification. A contestant who lost their wristband would automatically be eliminated. Killing someone at that point would not only be against the rules but also illegal. If the orbital satellites monitoring the entire competition area detected it, the killer would be immediately disqualified, and the army personnel stationed at the off-planet base would intervene to arrest them.

But conversely, before the wristband was destroyed, contestants had maximum freedom in their actions, even if they killed someone first and destroyed the wristband afterward.

Therefore, the boy’s threat to Yi Zhen was not just empty words.

Since coming to this world, Yi Zhen had seen all kinds of people, but this was the first time he had encountered someone who could change their attitude so quickly, faster than turning a page in a book.

Not to mention, judging by his appearance, the other party was just a child.

How many children, at his age, were simply snuggling in their parents’ laps, begging for a new game console or a weekend trip to the amusement park?

However, when he said those words, his eyes were still so clear and bright, appearing even more innocent and childlike than those children begging for game consoles and amusement parks.

“So vicious at such a young age,” Yi Zhen said calmly, simultaneously hearing two rows of extremely light and fragmented sounds, scraping along the edge of the seat, kachak kachak.

The young man said proudly, “I don’t mind telling you. I really like an old saying, ‘No cruelty, no greatness.’”

He then lowered his voice, “So, if I can’t have something I want, I’ll destroy it!”

Behind Yi Zhen’s head, there was a faint sound of wind, barely noticeable. The young man’s face broke into a triumphant, sweet smile.

An insignificant nobody, a cocky fool who thinks a little ability makes him special, dares to defy me?

He needs a lesson, the young man thought casually. Ants look up at the sky and get the illusion that they can touch it, but ants are still ants…

“A Golden Nephila. So, is this how you ambush people?”

A voice suddenly came from beside his ear, like a thunderclap, making the young man jump up in shock, staring at Yi Zhen in horror.

Yi Zhen had changed his skin color and appearance, so naturally, his hands were also disguised. Between two slender fingers, now rough-skinned, was a small, glittering golden spider with its eight legs curled up.

Yi Zhen had thoroughly memorized the Book of Poisons, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in poisons outside the scope of the martial arts system. He had done his research. The Golden Nephila, native to the Warhorse Nebula, had a golden body, a narrow abdomen, and long legs. It fed on insects living in the companion ores near gold mines. An adult Golden Nephila often accumulated a large amount of gold element in its body, making it popular among interstellar collectors. It was listed as a universally endangered species twenty years ago.

At the same time, its attacks were deadly. With venom that could dissolve metal and a mouthpart that could cut through gold, anyone bitten would struggle on the brink of death, with a slim chance of survival.

But at this moment, Yi Zhen had pinched this beautiful and deadly little creature between his fingers.

Although its legs were curled up, it wasn’t dead. The Golden Nephila was cruel by nature, and attacking prey was its instinct. It was still twisting and struggling fiercely between Yi Zhen’s fingers, trying to leave a bite mark on them.

The young man’s expression was unpredictable, anger burning in his eyes. Raising such a responsive little pet meant spending a lot of effort and money. However, his anger wasn’t for this little pet in distress, but for Yi Zhen.

He seemed to have never encountered anyone who dared to treat him like Yi Zhen did. Earlier, his eyes looked like they were on fire. Now, they looked like they were poisoned. The young man wanted to lash out, but before reaching their destination, contestants were forbidden from fighting on the transport ship. Violators would be immediately sent back on the return route.

He said hoarsely, “I’ll make you pay!”

Yi Zhen nodded calmly, his fingers still holding the Golden Nephila without any intention of releasing or returning it. “I’ll be waiting.”

The young man stormed off. Yi Zhen examined the unexpected windfall in his hand and couldn’t help but chuckle.

[Player, do you think this person is a transmigrator?]

“At first, I thought so, but now I’m not so sure,” Yi Zhen said, “Rather than a transmigrator, he seems more like a spoiled brat... a spoiled brat from a powerful family.”

His eyes were filled with mockery as he opened the mustard seed pouch at his waist and tossed the Golden Nephila inside.

During the long fall, the Golden Nephila felt dizzy, tumbling through darkness until it finally crashed into a small mountain of fragmented steel pieces, clattering loudly and rolling many times before stopping.

It got up, its pent-up aggression having nowhere to go. It spun around in place, its sharp legs tapping on the steel pieces, making a fragmented sound of metal on metal.

Hunger gnawed at its insides. It took a bite out of a steel piece, its venom seeping out and corroding it, causing it to smoke. But this did nothing to alleviate its hunger.

So hungry... so hungry…

It suddenly felt a vibration in the air, the pressure of air currents, and simultaneously smelled a cold scent, like snow, that made its whole body ache.

The Golden Nephila was a top predator in its small ecosystem, but at this moment, it was so frightened that it cowered and didn’t dare to move, as if a natural enemy had appeared... or a fear ingrained in its genes had been activated!

It was feeding time. Insects had very precise biological clocks. The Three-Smile Butterflies perched on the honey pots placed by the keeper, peacefully sipping. The small mountain of steel pieces suddenly shifted, and three pairs of beady eyes lit up amidst the cascade of falling metal.

So hungry for meat!

The Bone-Eroding Spirit Scorpion extended its pincers, snapping the Golden Nephila in half and bringing it to its mouth, chewing.

Ptooey! What is this thing? It tastes awful! Blech!

“We’re almost there,” Yi Zhen said with a smile, patting the mustard seed pouch, unaware of what had just happened inside. In front of him, the beautiful blue and green planet was already reflected in the transport ship’s porthole. “Just a little longer. I’ll let you out soon.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the transport ship’s portholes began to close one by one. Everyone was ordered to return to their rooms and wait for the fleet to pass through the atmosphere.

Yi Zhen carried the Eagle Wolf Bow on his back and sat quietly on the bed, regulating his breathing. He was assigned to a later batch for disembarkation. With so many examinees, it would take more than a day or two, divided up into more than just one or two batches, to send them all down. If he wanted to get off the ship, he would probably have to wait a while longer.

Indeed, a full seventeen hours passed before the signal light in his room finally indicated that he could disembark. Yi Zhen put on the uniformly issued landing suit and silently joined the flow of people to the lower hatch. At the wide exit, thousands of empty floating vehicles, each capable of carrying five people, were docked.

Yi Zhen boarded one. Immediately, people filled the seats beside and behind him. The examiner in charge of checking the contestants’ airdrops waved his arms lazily and said, “Good luck, everyone!”

The floating vehicle started silently, like a small boat breaking through the waves, and quickly disappeared into the sky.

“Prepare for descent,” the man beside Yi Zhen said through the wind, “Everyone, do your best!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the bottom of the floating vehicle opened. In the rapid sensation of weightlessness, Yi Zhen quickly pulled open his parachute, gliding down with the wind.

In the distance were vast mountains. He would land in a forest.

Many others around him also opened their landing suits one after another, like dandelions spinning in the wind. Many small, dark gray parachutes opened in the sky.

Shortly after, two popping sounds were heard. Two parachutes to Yi Zhen’s lower right suddenly burst, followed by screams, as the people under them plummeted to the ground like meteorites.

Yi Zhen’s heart tightened.

The hunt had begun.

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