Chapter 481: Flood

Su Rui cradled the small soundproof blanket as if it were a priceless treasure, hurriedly thanked her, then tiptoed through the driver's cabin back into the vehicle.

She carefully moved to the edge of the sofa, held her breath, gently shook out the blanket, and draped it over Cheng Shuili.

The instant the blanket fell, Cheng Shuili opened her eyes.

Su Rui: "……"

Cheng Shuili's gaze was clear, showing no trace of just-woken grogginess.

She almost instantly sat upright, the blanket on her slipping halfway. Her gaze swept over her hand still frozen midair, then over Su Rui's embarrassed, caught-in-the-act face, and finally glanced out the window at the vehicle conspicuously stopped in the middle of the road.

"Treasure chest?" Cheng Shuili asked, her voice low and hoarse from just waking.

"Ah… yes, a silver one, right up ahead on the road." Su Rui quickly nodded, pointing forward.

Cheng Shuili glanced at Su Rui, who stood off to the side, obviously embarrassed.

She felt amused and touched inside, but showed nothing on her face, merely saying, "Let's open it together."

Su Rui nodded, her expression returning to normal, and she followed Cheng Shuili out of the vehicle.

Although she had only slept a short while, Cheng Shuili had indeed fallen asleep; upon feeling the outside air, she unconsciously raised her arms and stretched.

Su Rui simply waited patiently.

With Cheng Shuili present, it would never be her turn to open the chest.

If whatever came out turned out to be some monster, of course it would still be Lao Da's job.

Su Rui could feel that, if it weren't for the spear Cheng Shuili gave her being good enough, she would have long been unable to defeat the monsters that emerged from the treasure chest.

Although there was no explicit information, everyone knew that after the server merger, the difficulty would certainly increase again.

Su Rui watched Cheng Shuili's back, and for some reason suddenly felt a bit sad.

Was she going to retire?

By then Lao Da wouldn't need her…

Actually, Su Rui quite liked the current schedule of 8 a. m. to 8 p. m. with one day off a month.

Although it sounded like a somewhat hard life.

Her previous job often injured her, so she naturally had no objections to the current work environment where she might have to fight monsters at any time. Although the work hours were indeed longer, all she needed to do was sit in the driver's cabin and drive. Moreover, Cheng Shuili didn't micromanage her, so she could pop into the safe zone for a quick loop whenever she liked and then return to drive.

Thinking she might have to retire, Su Rui let out a quiet sigh.

The noise behind her was really loud; ignoring it further risked mistreating staff. Cheng Shuili raised an eyebrow and asked, "What's wrong?"

She had asked, and Su Rui of course had to answer.

There was nothing to hide about this; she explained her worries in just a couple of sentences.

Su Rui's brows held a hint of worry, while Cheng Shuili drifted off in thought.

People who don't like to talk really have strong language organization skills; Su Rui's few short sentences were all key points. If Qin Wen could be like her, would it be a waste of all that time spent on her?

Su Rui was still standing before her, so Cheng Shuili could only hastily push her thoughts aside.

The two stood on the highway discussing whether Su Rui should retire. Ahead was a silver treasure chest; behind was an off‑road vehicle with crossbow bolts mounted on its roof. No matter how you looked at it, in this setting they shouldn't be debating whether one of them should retire.

"You're thinking too far ahead." Cheng Shuili reached out and patted Su Rui's shoulder as a comfort, "Your position—no one can replace you for now."

"If someone else came, she wouldn't feel at ease either."

Su Rui's eyes lit up slightly, then dimmed again; she softly repeated her concern: "But… after the server merger, the difficulty will definitely rise…"

"It's fine." Cheng Shuili interrupted, "Do you think Black Feather lacks only combat‑type people?"

Su Rui thought of Ailin and the firearms squad she had trained, then recalled the cold‑weapon squad that daily trained with those supernatural martial arts manuals on the training field, and she shook her head honestly.

Black Feather—what it lacks least is combat personnel.

"So…" Cheng Shuili concluded, "Put your heart back where it belongs. When the car reaches the mountain, there will be a way; if that day truly comes, there will surely be a solution."

"Moreover," she said, looking into Su Rui's eyes and lowering her voice, "you're not some object that can be discarded just by saying so."

Cheng Shuili's voice rose again: "You're a living person; now you follow me, and you'll keep following me—what's there to fear?"

Su Rui struggled to keep her expression neutral; those words warmed her chest and made the tip of her nose feel a bit sour.

When speaking with Cheng Shuili, she deliberately acted nonchalant, but Cheng Shuili could still see what she was worried about.

The highway stretched ever forward; as players advanced they grew a little stronger, monsters grew stronger too, and even the weekly disasters became increasingly hard to cope with.

Only she…

Her qualification to participate in this game had been revoked; her identity was special, like a discarded defective product cast out by the world.

She hadn't said it outright, but Cheng Shuili's comfort happened to soothe exactly the part she was most anxious about.

For the first time, Su Rui felt that those past painful experiences might have been the advance payment for meeting Cheng Shuili.

At dusk.

Cheng Shuili was strolling through the safe zone; she had just finished dinner and was now picking fruit that pleased her eye in the fruit field tended by Zhou Zhuxing.

Perhaps because of the problem with this instance, its summary still hadn't been released.

As for next week's disaster, Cheng Shuili had already predicted it.

It was a flood.

This time, the gift of the Great Prophet God not only gave those two words, but also gave the scene of when the disaster would occur.

On Monday the flood burst forth, an endless expanse of turbulent, muddy water that submerged all the highways.

Vehicles were like helpless skiffs, tossing and bobbing in the waves.

Fortunately, the highway would be bare again the next day.

Although the flood receded quickly, the pollution it brought would take a full week to dissipate.

Merely, the water sources were totally contaminated, the inundated crops rotted over large areas, and the various corpses of those drowned in the murky water bred a strange odor and…

…something even more unsettling.

In a fleeting glimpse of the prophetic vision, Cheng Shuili seemed to see long‑dead corpses twitching unnaturally.

No matter how you say it, this disaster seems more troublesome than the plague.

The plague is just a simple illness; if it's controlled and treated, nothing serious will happen.

This flood, on the contrary, is said to be a flood, but it's actually a combination of disasters!

The flooding on the first day was an indiscriminate attack, treating all players equally. After the water receded on the second day, it became a trio of famine, drought, and plague—an unprecedented super-disaster!

Just seeing a single image during the forecast was enough to make Cheng Shuili's heart race.

Just...

Why did the gift of the great prophecy god suddenly allow me to see images?