Chapter 423: Pure Water

The shore of the lake was fractured, and endless rotting corpses crawled out of the dark green, nearly black water.

These corpses were severely decayed and blackened; some had lost all flesh, leaving only skeletons of varying heights.

The interesting part was that all the corpses' skulls, sternums, clavicles, scapulae, and other bones had dimensions—length, width, height, angle, thickness—that correlated positively with their original height.

Moreover, corpses of different heights exhibited proportional bone growth.

In other words, all the rotting corpses were, in fact, different growth stages of a single person. The final form was a young woman, approximately 16–17 years old at death, who had suffered multiple external injuries during her growth.

Li Cheng ran through the player data in his mind and confirmed none of the players in the second or third waves entering the secret realm matched this description.

As he pondered, he had already rushed to the lake's edge.

A large number of rotting corpses noticed him and surged forward en masse.

Thud.

Li Cheng leapt high into the air, drew from his 3D storage a domestic underwater drone with his right hand,

removed his Integrated Information Goggles, and, using an assembled puppet, mounted them onto the drone's camera.

'What is he doing?'

The blood spider, performing a giant spinning top atop a heavy truck's roof, felt puzzled,

but its body's instinct reacted faster than its brain, rapidly spinning and firing a dense chain of bullets to annihilate countless rotting corpses and cover its teammates.

Crack.

Hovering in midair via floating engines, Li Cheng plugged the waterproof data cable connected to the drone into the back of his neck, then hurled the drone into the black lake like a meteor hammer.

The lake water was murky and icy cold; the drone's rear propellers spun at full power, racing toward the lakebed while automatically activating its searchlight.

Under the effect of the assembled puppet, the data cable became optic nerves, and the camera with the Integrated Information Goggles extended as if it were his own eyes.

Li Cheng clearly saw that the nameless lake was about thirty meters deep; at the center of its flat bottom lay a metal butterfly hairpin.

The hairpin itself was rusted and unremarkable in craftsmanship, surrounded by a ring of black mist that continuously generated rotting corpses.

Found it.

The drone's mechanical arm precisely gripped the hairpin; Li Cheng yanked the waterproof cable hard, reeling it in like a fisherman hauling his line, pulling the drone and the hairpin out of the water together.

Instantly, every rotting corpse attacking Red Spider and others, as well as those just crawling from the lake, turned to ash and vanished.

Hm?

Li Cheng had already prepared to use his crotch-mounted 【Ape Regression Gun】 to shoot the hairpin and regress it—but he hadn't expected such a direct, mass elimination of the rotting corpses.

'Everyone, step back.'

Floating in zero gravity, he fired his bat claw, returned to shore, and commanded the drone via the cable behind his neck to release its mechanical arm and drop the butterfly hairpin onto the ground.

'Uh…' Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao poked his head out of the cockpit, hesitating: 'This thing is…'

'The source of all rotting corpses,'

Binary Tree, wearing VR goggles with analytical capabilities similar to the Integrated Information Goggles, added: 'More precisely, it's the combination of the hairpin and the lake water that generates rotting corpses.'

Hmph!

At that moment, Red Spider deactivated all skills, exited her Eight-Armed Asura form, immediately clamped a hand over her mouth to prevent vomiting, then sprayed medicine violently into her nose to alleviate dizziness—

She had forcibly boosted her neural response speed, slowing her perception of time; now that she'd returned to normal, the outside world spun wildly, everything accelerated twofold, and all vision doubled.

This was probably the price one must pay for cheating—since becoming a firearms-specialist player, she rarely played her favorite FPS games anymore; every shot hit, every headshot, and after every two matches, opponents and even teammates reported her, then later added her as a friend to kindly inquire about her parents' health.

When she recovered slightly, she heard Li Cheng's explanation: '…More precisely, the spider hairpin generates rotting corpses of the same person.'

Li Cheng revealed the intelligence he'd gathered; the others grew even more confused. Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao frowned: 'Wait, isn't this hairpin a killing field item?'

'Actually, it isn't.'

Li Cheng said: 'It's not even comparable to items produced by surface secret realms.'

The meat-cutting knives and poisons produced by surface structures all carried descriptions from the Killing Field System, yet this butterfly hairpin—clearly capable of generating rotting corpses—was not recognized by the system at all. It was extremely strange.

'No system description means it isn't left behind by the Card Emperor; it likely originates from the inverted pyramid secret realm itself.'

As Binary Tree was pondering, he suddenly saw Li Cheng turn and return to the lake's edge, scooping a bucket of black-green lake water with an iron bucket, preparing to drop the hairpin into it.

'Wait, what are you doing?'

Binary Tree was startled and reached out to stop him. What nonsense—those rotting corpses had high attack but low defense, their numbers comparable to the millions of cockroaches lurking in a garbage mountain; continuing to fight would exhaust players through sheer fatigue.

'Just running a test. Don't worry—I've got this.'

Li Cheng had the 【Ape Regression Gun】; if things went wrong, he could always shoot the hairpin twice. He reassured them briefly, then used pliers to pick up the hairpin and drop it into the bucket.

The moment it touched the lake water, the hairpin emitted black mist, and from within the bucket, a rotting corpse crawled out.

Since the bucket's diameter was small, the corpse's waist got stuck; Li Cheng drew his steel flag spear and cleanly severed its head, then rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his left hand: 'Away from the lake, lake water alone can still generate rotting corpses—what if we use no lake water at all…?'

He chopped off the corpses emerging from the bucket like cutting vegetables, poured out the lake water, and the generation of rotting corpses ceased immediately.

'Come help me.'

Li Cheng took from storage a foldable inflatable pool, had the others unpack and inflate it, then retrieved a full high shelf of cardboard boxes containing twelve 1.5L bottles of Wahaha Pure Water,

used his flag spear to cut off the bottle caps, and poured the purified water into the pool.

'???'

Red Spider couldn't help asking: 'You're not American—why do you stockpile so much purified water?'

Players with a bit of money, while buying portable rations in the Slums, would also casually purchase low-tier scroll spells called 【Water Creation】, usable as water sources during mission scenarios—cheap, compact, and affordable.

'For experiments, usually.'

Li Cheng replied matter-of-factly: 'Wahaha Pure Water has conductivity ≤5 ms/cm—far more convenient and cheaper than tinkering with pure water apparatuses. Extremely useful in electrochemistry, organic chemistry, biological sciences.'

Upon hearing this, Binary Tree's eyes flickered; using Wahaha as lab water was extremely popular in domestic universities.

Even the Evil Science Alliance within the Killing Field used only their water as the sole designated diluent for blood during demon-summoning rituals.

Only in recent years, due to Wahaha's baffling business strategy—outsourcing water production to Jin Ma Lang, self-sabotaging its brand—and because the Evil Science Alliance had grown wealthy, did they switch their dedicated water from Wahaha to Watsons (Watsons distilled water has even lower conductivity).

'Come to think of it, there's always been a rumor on the forums that the 【Star Anvil Platform】 and the 【Evil Science Alliance】 have a strategic partnership, and Master Pi Fu is allegedly the biological son of Truth's Side—or vice versa. I wonder if it's true…'

The thought flashed through the electronic brain of the binary tree,

and Li Cheng had already poured bucket after bucket of purified water into the inflatable pool, and put the butterfly hairpin in as well.

Strangely enough, this time, no black qi swirled around the hairpin, and no rotting corpses were generated.

Could it be that it didn't work?

Li Cheng's eyes lit up. Mimicking the Card King's tone, he pinched his voice and said: "Cha yu qi."

The next second, a sudden change occurred — the purified water in the inflatable pool rapidly turned black, and a vast number of rotting corpses emerged once again.

(End of chapter)