Chapter 23: Emergency Evacuation

Returning to the dorm building, the interior was equally empty, many dorm doors wide open, as if students had left in a hurry.

He pulled out his phone and saw one missed call from his dorm roommate number two, lasting ten seconds.

He called back, but received a response that the user was temporarily unreachable.

He called the other two dorm mates in turn, and got the same result.

He entered the campus official WeChat account and saw a republished news article: a Haishai City earthquake early warning, with official advice for citizens to evacuate nearby.

He'd already killed a demon god—what did he care about an earthquake?

He shook his head, didn't head to the evacuation site mentioned in the news, and returned straight to his Room 426, pulled the curtains shut, and lay down to sleep.

Half-asleep, he faintly heard noise outside, and not long after, the dorm door was violently shoved open, several wailing cries erupting at once.

"Big Brother, you're back! Big Brother, wake up! You can't die on us, Big Brother!"

Wu Chang sat up, annoyed: "What the hell are you yapping for? If you keep making noise, none of you are sleeping tonight!"

The one shaking the bed hardest was He Wei, the youngest, dorm number four, nicknamed Seed Emperor, a spiritual guide for naive teenagers, a human image-recognition machine.

He had a square face, a neat crew cut, an efficient demeanor—the classic look of a mature, steady class officer—but only those who knew him well understood how deceptive appearances could be.

The hidden files on this kid's computer could make a demon god curse aloud; Wu Chang had relied on those folders to hold his own against Lyman.

"Big Brother, how can you sleep through this? Outside it's total chaos—you weren't here, and Brother Two nearly got beaten to death," said a glasses-wearing, 188cm-tall guy with pectoral muscles like steel plates and arms thicker than his thighs.

Muscle-Glasses Gao Xuezhang, dorm number three, was the top student in the grade.

He'd just passed the preliminary exam for Tsinghua's postgraduate program, brilliant in both literature and martial arts, aka Newton of Physics; during the time Wu Chang transformed his body after enduring the sports student's resentment, he trained with Gao Xuezhang lifting weights.

Wu Chang frowned and looked toward the dorm door, where dorm number two, Fang Hui, had a bandage wrapped around his forehead and his left arm slung over his neck, grinning and waving at him.

"What happened?"

Fang Hui sighed. "Damn, ran into a lunatic."

After hearing the others' brief account, Wu Chang learned what had happened during his absence.

Shortly after Wu Chang entered the Moonlight Sanatorium, Haishai City issued an earthquake warning, and several universities initiated targeted evacuations.

Evacuation management was extremely strict; as soon as the responsible department arrived, mobile signals were jammed.

No calls could be made, no internet access—Fang Hui had just gotten through to Wu Chang when the signal was cut.

Along with the department personnel, students from several universities and some corporate employees were sent to an underground shelter.

Until today, many locals didn't even know Haishai City had such a thing underground.

When they first entered the shelter, everything was calm—but soon, things changed.

People in the crowd began whispering: sometimes claiming a massive earthquake was coming, sometimes saying it was a sign of the apocalypse, that those left behind were abandoned cannon fodder, while the rich had already fled.

These absurd rumors were usually treated as jokes, but under the prevailing atmosphere, many unconsciously believed them.

Half an hour after the rumors spread, people began emotionally demanding to leave; guards stopped them several times, and some broke down mentally, launching indiscriminate attacks on everyone around them.

The unlucky Fang Hui got caught in it while using the restroom.

He was dragged into a stall and brutally beaten by a madman; had a female officer not heard his screams and rushed in to subdue the attacker, Fang Hui might have been beaten to death.

In the past, Wu Chang wouldn't have thought much of it—but now that he knew about the Abyss Game, he couldn't help but think deeper.

Though he had no proof, he had a gut feeling: Haishai City's abnormal snowfall and the strange evacuation measures were tied to the Abyss Game.

Judging by the player numbers, the Abyss Game's player count couldn't be small—the authorities had no reason to be unaware of its existence.

So what department was this "responsible department" in the emergency evacuation? And what was their attitude toward Abyss Game players? As Wu Chang pondered this, Fang Hui said: "To celebrate me surviving, I'm treating everyone to North Gate kebabs tonight!"

Fang Hui's family ran a business—he was a minor scion—and with the month-end approaching, all of them were tight on cash; seeing the big spender open his wallet, none of them would pass up the chance.

Wu Chang: "Tonight's entire bill is on Brother Fang!"

Gao Xuezhang shouted: "Brother Fang is generous!" He Wei: "Father, I bow before you!"

Fang Hui spread his arms: "My loyal subjects, rise."

At eight p. m., North Gate kebabs—the group devoured until two a. m.

Everyone had drunk a bit; He Wei had the worst tolerance and was the first to raise the white flag, now slung over Gao Xuezhang's back.

Fang Hui had slightly better tolerance but still limited—he was being supported by Wu Chang.

Drunk, Fang Hui talked nonstop; he stared at the sky, slurring: "Big Brother, seriously, when that bastard pinned me in the restroom, I saw my life flash before my eyes. As I struggled not to be shoved into the toilet, I was pondering the meaning of life—and in a daze, I saw a man."

Wu Chang raised an eyebrow. "You fell for the female officer?"

Dorm 426 was full of hidden talents; besides his money, Fang Hui was famous for his romantic luck—though it was always bad luck.

In four years of university, Fang Hui dated over a dozen girlfriends, each with extraordinary talents.

Stalkers and yandere were routine; in his junior year, he dated a Chinese-American, even planning to marry abroad—until she vanished suddenly; later, authorities showed up, revealing she was an international fugitive.

Every time Fang Hui found a new girlfriend, Wu Chang and the others would gasp: "There are still experts?!"

After all this, Fang Hui still hadn't lost faith in love—anyone who saw him would call him a Saint of Love.

Fang Hui: "We only exchanged contact info—nothing's settled yet. I'm talking about my late uncle—he told me something that made me see clearly."

"Life is short—it could end at any moment. I want to do what I truly love while I'm young, so I won't lie in a hospital bed when I'm old, regretting wasted youth."

"What did your uncle say to you?" Wu Chang asked curiously.

"He told me: what you love is your life."

Wu Chang: "..."

"Is your uncle serious?"

Drunk and strolling along the street, they passed Bai Shui Bay; suddenly, He Wei, slumped over Gao Xuezhang's back, sat up and pointed: "Look—there's some idiot running naked."

Wu Chang and the others turned to look: on the beach of Bai Shui Bay, a bald, muscular man wore only underwear, jogging in minus fourteen degrees Celsius.

"Looks like it. This guy's even more fired up than Hui—did he just survive a near-death experience too?"

"Maybe he's a winter swimming enthusiast."

"Where's my phone? I'll film this and post a short video—might go viral."

The bald man's ears caught their chatter. He quickened his pace and, before they could pull out their phones, vanished from everyone's sight at a speed rivaling Bolt's.

The next morning, Wu Chang was woken by the ring of his phone.

Squinting at the screen, he saw: Saturday, 9:15 a. m., and the contact field read HR.

"Mr. Wu, some unexpected incident occurred yesterday that caused the interview to be cancelled. We're very sorry. Would you be available today…"

He didn't wait for HR to finish and hung up directly.

Just yesterday the whole city had undergone a mass evacuation, and today they're already resuming interviews. Are people's hearts really this big now, not scared at all? But that's not the point. The point is, it was supposed to be a two-day weekend—how is anyone working on a Saturday?

So an evacuation counts as comp time, does it.

Screw that! Fang Hui had gone through an attack and gained some insight into life—let alone him, who had just come out of a nine-death-one-life instance.

The Abyss Game concerned the future of humanity and the entire Blue Star. As long as he could become a veteran player, everything would fall into place—so why go be someone's nuclear-powered workhorse? He climbed out of bed, washed up, left the dorm, and found a quiet corner on campus.

After a night of rest, he had already shaken off the tension from the Moonlight Sanatorium instance.

Now, as an official player, it was time for him to go see what the real Abyss Game was like.

He looked at the Official Player Pass that had appeared on his attribute panel and chose to enter Crimson Court.

(End of chapter)