Chapter 184: Draining the Pond to Catch the Fish, Treating All Beings as One's Children

Facing Hearing Mao Mao Xuan's inquiry, the increasingly severely infected Little Jin could no longer give any answer.

A low growl came from his throat, large areas of his eyes covered in grey-white, his body on the verge of being completely taken over by the Immortal Virus.

This gave Hearing Mao Mao Xuan a headache.

Collecting Wish Power requires looking at how strong the target's desire is; curing an illness isn't hard, the trouble is that it might cost Shou Shou Jili.

But thinking carefully, this was just right for testing the intensity of Wish Power acquisition.

Summoning the Shangcheng panel, he entered keywords, and a row of goods appeared before his eyes.

Spending 300 points of Shou Shou Jili, he purchased a Clear Heart Pill.

According to the analysis description, this was a medicine that could clear negative status, and its price was steep.

At that price, even they players normally couldn't bear to use it on themselves; better to just die and respawn in the little black room for convenience.

But to acquire Wish Power, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan still decided to buy it and try.

Crouching down, he stuffed the pale blue pill into Little Jin's mouth; once inside, the medicine dissolved automatically and slid down his throat.

Part of the liquid was absorbed by the oral mucosa.

At this moment, Little Jin's body was still trembling violently, veins bulging beneath his skin, black-purple patterns spreading across his body's surface like twisted vines.

A hoarse roar kept coming from deep within his throat.

Several seconds later, a strange change occurred.

Little Jin's wildly flailing arms slowly stopped, and the roar gradually turned into a pained low moan.

His eyes, which had originally become clouded and turned grey-white, slowly regained clarity, the grey on his eyeballs rapidly fading away.

Immediately after, the black-purple patterns on his skin melted away quickly like ice and snow meeting heat, retreating at a speed visible to the naked eye back to the cheek where the Immortal Virus had first taken hold, until they completely vanished.

The originally dry, cracked skin that had been seeping black blood also gradually became smooth and even, returning to a normal complexion.

His breathing went from rapid and chaotic to steady and orderly, his body no longer trembling, having regained control of his limbs.

In just a few seconds, all traces of the Immortal Virus's modification and destruction of his body vanished completely, as if it had never existed.

For the living beings of the small world, the Immortal Virus was a calamity for which no antidote could be made, but for players, it was merely a negative status.

If one wanted to solve it, there were plenty of ways.

The small world lacked the high-quality spiritual resources needed to compound an antidote, but the Shangcheng had plenty.

After Little Jin's infection was cleared, Challenger prompts kept sounding in Hearing Mao Mao Xuan's mind:

【Challenger Prompt: Obtained Wish Power +229 from Blackie (if the target recalls this event while alive, there is a probability of continuing to obtain Wish Power).】

【Challenger Prompt: Obtained Wish Power: 225 from Little Jin.】

【Challenger Prompt: Obtained Wish Power: 92 from A Shi.】

【Challenger Prompt: ……】

As prompts kept sounding in his mind, a brilliant smile appeared on Hearing Mao Mao Xuan's face.

More importantly, he discovered that acquiring Wish Power was a long-term business.

In the future, if these survivors once again recalled everything that happened today, imagining their own feelings at the time, and the suffocating despair they felt, the gratitude rising in their hearts would once again provide him with a certain amount of Wish Power.

This meant that as long as these fellows lived long enough, the output of Wish Power could also be sustained.

Recall the past, produce Wish Power.

This deal feels great!

But the smile on Hearing Mao Mao Xuan's face, in the eyes of Blackie and the others, was that of a deity feeling happy after saving mortal beings.

It could be seen that this deity respected them mortals greatly.

Before the rescue, he had even carefully asked whether Little Jin had any wish to continue living, respecting individual will, not obstructing even if one wished to die.

"God, could you please save our chief."

Just then, an urgent voice came.

Hearing Mao Mao Xuan turned his head and saw that the speaker was a young warrior.

Following the direction of his finger, on the ground lay an elderly warrior who had already died, his hand still tightly gripping a modified weapon in death.

This request gave Hearing Mao Mao Xuan a headache.

Although willing, he truly could not resurrect a dead life.

They players possessed the ability to resurrect infinitely, but this ability could not be provided to non-player targets.

The Shangcheng also did not sell any special goods capable of bringing the dead back to life.

Those on the brink of death could be saved, but the truly dead were hard to keep.

Looking at the dirty faces one after another, the expectation flickering in their eyes made Hearing Mao Mao Xuan feel immense pressure.

From their gazes, it could be seen that if he could fulfill this wish, he would surely earn a large amount of Wish Power.

But the heart was willing, the ability insufficient.

None of the ten Wish Power-unlocked skills from the Sixth Generation Wish had any resurrection-related traits.

Perhaps only the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, or even the Tenth Generation ultimate Meng Yuan Chu that the player legion would shelter in the future would possess the trait of reshaping a target's life, causing the target to resurrect on the spot.

As for when a Painful Painful Minghun with resurrection traits would be sheltered, no one could predict.

Facing the request, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan shook his head:

"My abilities are limited; I can heal the wounded, but I cannot resurrect dead lives."

Hearing these words, the light faded from the eyes of the group of survivors.

After sweeping his gaze around once, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan opened his mouth and asked:

"Whatever needs you have now, you may raise them all; I will do my best to fulfill them."

Hearing Hearing Mao Mao Xuan say he could fulfill their needs, the light returned to the eyes of the group of survivors.

Standing beside him, Blackie, after a hesitant look, was the first to speak:

"God, if possible, we hope to have a safe place to live."

"No problem."

"God, we want food that can fill our bellies."

"No problem."

"God, we want clean water."

"No problem."

Facing their requests, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan agreed to each one, and with a wave of his hand, a pile of canned food appeared on the ground.

Next, he planned to find a new place for these survivors to live. The fortress environment beneath their feet was dark and damp, with various musty smells permeating the air — simply not a place fit for people.

Finding a place for the survivors to live, providing water and food — all of these were ways for him to obtain Wish Power.

After distributing the canned food and watching the survivors eat ravenously, the Challenger prompt sounded again in Hearing Mao Mao Xuan's mind.

Wish Power increased in a very easy manner.

Once all the survivors were full, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan gained another 1,359 points of Wish Power.

It could be foreseen that every time he provided food in the future, he would be able to gain Wish Power returns.

But with too many repetitions, the Wish Power provided by a full meal would clearly show a downward curve.

After all, once one got used to it, the original longing would become an everyday habit.

No longer would eating one's fill be felt as a happy thing.

But Hearing Mao Mao Xuan wasn't considering how to solve this problem for now — he only wanted to rake in a big haul first.

As a player, he had always believed in draining the pond for all the fish.

He only wanted to unlock the first two skills of the Painful Painful Minghun.

As for the third Wishing skill, it required 300,000 Wish Power to unlock — he certainly couldn't gather that in a short time.

His gaze swept over the smiles on the survivors' faces, and Hearing Mao Mao Xuan also smiled very happily.

After all the survivors finished their meal, he led the remaining hundred-plus survivors out of the fortress shelter.

It could be seen that many survivors were stepping out of the fortress shelter for the first time, finding everything outside extremely novel.

"Don't touch the bloodstains on the ground. Stay close behind me."

As for where to go next, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan had no Hao De Xiang Fa.

He planned to first look around the city ruins, see if there was a suitable environment that could be made into a shelter. If he couldn't find one, then he'd consider leaving the city or returning to the fortress shelter.

Walking along the broken streets, the apocalyptic gloom was like a massive slab of lead, pressing down heavily over the city, keeping visibility perpetually dim.

Hearing Mao Mao Xuan walked at the very front of the group, his shoes crunching on the ground covered in broken glass, making "creak" sounds.

Behind him came the shuffling footsteps of the survivors, sounding especially clear in this deathly stillness.

Although the city beneath their feet had long been abandoned, one could still see that it had once been prosperous.

Now, however, only broken walls and crumbling ruins remained.

The doors and windows of the shops along the street had all been shattered, and the faded signs hung crookedly, creaking in the wind.

The distant skyscrapers were riddled with holes, and abandoned vehicles were parked haphazardly along the roadside, their surfaces covered in dust and rust.

Dried bloodstains would appear on the ground from time to time, and a pungent smell permeated the air.

Like the smell of rot, gunpowder smoke, and burnt char all mixed together.

Hearing Mao Mao Xuan didn't really mind, but every breath the survivors behind him took felt like their lungs were being scorched, and they couldn't help but cough violently.

Unlike Hearing Mao Mao Xuan, the survivors' expressions were unusually tense as they advanced.

Especially when they saw the remains of the dead by the roadside, fear would still surface in their eyes.

But what surprised Hearing Mao Mao Xuan was that during the exploration, Wish Power gain prompts would also appear in his mind.

Clearly, in the hearts of many survivors, stepping out of the fortress shelter to see the outside world was also no small wish.

Before long, they once again encountered wandering Undying Zombies.

Five Undying Zombies clustered together, upon spotting them, charged over at extreme speed.

The following survivors all turned their gazes toward Hearing Mao Mao Xuan.

The Undying Zombies drew closer and closer, and the survivors instinctively held their breath.

Just then, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan threw a punch.

With the Gang Qi characteristic activated, the fist shadow conjured from crimson airflow swept through. The five Undying Zombies were blasted apart mid-run into five clumps of black mist, and five clumps of blood mist — invisible to the survivors — peeled away from the black mist, made contact with his body, and merged into it.

The Wish Power gain prompt and Shou Shou Jili gain prompt sounded in his mind, and Hearing Mao Mao Xuan led the survivor squad onward.

After walking for a stretch, the scenery along the way was all ruined.

Hearing Mao Mao Xuan, walking at the very front of the group, summoned the Small World chat channel and sent out a query:

"Any bros know where I can set up a safe shelter?"

"Did the OP find survivors? Share a few with me, I beg you. I've been exploring forever and still have nothing to show for it."

"Of course you build the shelter yourself. You can buy materials from the trading house. If you don't have the ability to do it yourself, why play savior? Let me do it!"

"Let the survivors do it themselves. They all have hands and feet — you just need to keep them safe."

……

Many players in the regional chat channel offered suggestions.

What was clear was that the place to live had to be near a water source — only this way could the survivors survive long-term.

Next best would be to have land that could be farmed.

Regarding this, Hearing Mao Mao Xuan also asked this group of survivors.

But they had all been born inside the fortress shelter and knew very little about the outside environment.

The areas explored in this ruined city were even fewer than what he, an outsider, had seen.

Arriving at the entrance of a dilapidated shop, Mao Mao Xuan looked inside; the shelves were knocked askew, trash scattered everywhere, long since looted clean.

Glancing at the faucet at the door slowly dripping black liquid, Mao Mao Xuan shook his head in his heart.

The rivers encountered along the way were also filthy; the water sources in the city were utterly unusable.

He asked the survivors how they had solved their drinking water problem before.

The answer given by Hei Pi was that the fortress interior had a water circulation system.

It collected water sources in four ways.

First, a large rainwater collection device was set up in the open area on top of the fortress, connected to a filtration system for storage.

Second, there was an underground water source beneath the fortress; drilling equipment had established a small well, and after installing a pump, water was drawn into the fortress for filtration and treatment.

But the well was basically abandoned; the stagnant groundwater underground had been nearly pumped dry.

The third plan was sewage recycling.

Domestic wastewater generated inside the fortress, such as urine, was recycled through a sewage treatment system to be reused.

The final method was collecting condensation; utilizing the temperature difference inside and outside the fortress, the ventilation system collected water vapor condensed into liquid water, which could be drunk directly after purification.

As for obtaining food, it was mainly through a small animal with super-strong reproductive capabilities; eating it provided protein.

To Mao Mao Xuan's ears, it sounded like a cockroach-like insect.

Occasionally, they would also go out to explore, seeking various types of supplies and tools.

After listening to Hei Pi's account, Mao Mao Xuan couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Although they were all NPCs in the game, these humanoid lives in this small world were doing far too miserably.

If he were a survivor, rather than struggling to survive in such a harsh environment, he would prefer to go to the Lord of Bliss's Palace of Joy for a good time, then happily end his life's journey.

However, given the survivors' physical constitution, the Lord of Bliss would probably be too lazy to even open the door.

After all, the entertainment venues opened by the Lord of Bliss in the Monster World did not serve the weak... nor did they serve players, because players would only go there to crack down on pornography and black markets.

Walking through the ruin scene, Mao Mao Xuan began to think about what to do next.

If he really couldn't find a suitable living environment, he could only return to the fortress shelter and improve the survivors' living conditions through renovation.

In this regard, he would have to seek help from the omnipresent forum players; after all, he truly didn't know how to build a shelter, such a troublesome task.

Just then, Mao Mao Xuan suddenly stopped.

He looked up ahead.

A huge black snake head poked out from the corner of the ruins ahead, slowly slithering forward.

This was a giant snake nearly 30 meters long; its eyes were like two burning cold flames, its pupils narrow as blades, radiating endless ferocity.

The body revealed while moving was as massive as a mountain, winding out; every scale seemed forged from hellish lava, incredibly hideous.

The thirty-meter-long body moved through the ruins, crushing broken walls and debris; stones and metal emitted cracking sounds under its crushing weight. The movement seemed slow, yet carried an unstoppable oppressive force, as if the entire city was suffocating under its shadow.

The snake head rose high at this moment, looking down upon this wasteland, and at this time discovered Mao Mao Xuan and the others.

A low hiss issued from deep in its throat; the sound was like thunder, shaking the surrounding air until it trembled. The wind in the ruins seemed to stop flowing, leaving only that huge black body slowly approaching, carrying the domineering aura of destroying everything.

Seeing such a terrifying creature, the survivors following behind Mao Mao Xuan all turned deathly pale.

An indescribable fear surged into their hearts.

The moment the giant snake's vertical pupil fixed on them, they smelled a strong scent of death.

The heavy oppressive force made them feel nearly suffocated.

Roar!

The giant snake opened its mouth and roared at them; a gale carrying flying stones howled toward them.

The great snake twisted its body, suddenly accelerating its movement speed.

In the survivors' eyes, the giant snake was like a black mountain range moving rapidly; wherever it went, stones flew and walls collapsed.

Boom!

A building dozens of meters high was whipped into flying debris by a single tail lash from the giant snake; its thick body wound through the ruins, accelerating and easily overturning and crushing abandoned vehicles and obstacles along the way. Once-solid buildings were like fragile toys before the giant snake.

Facing the oppressive force of the giant snake's attack, Mao Mao Xuan took no action whatsoever.

This made the survivors behind even more nervous, constantly shouting in their hearts, hoping the deity would act quickly.

At this critical moment, the giant snake's huge head suddenly hovered three meters in front of Mao Mao Xuan; a look of pleading appeared in its cold vertical pupil:

"Bro, can you spare a few? I'm begging you."

"No, go find some yourself."

"Brother, which guild are you from?" the giant snake asked immediately after.

"Great Dragon City."

"Alright, I'm leaving."

Hearing Mao Mao Xuan announce his affiliation and realizing this was a guild he couldn't mess with, the Monster-Path player sighed very humanely, then turned and left, whipping a leaning tall building into pieces with a single tail lash.

Seeing that the giant snake could actually speak human language, the survivors following behind Mao Mao Xuan also widened their eyes.

They obviously couldn't understand everything happening before them.

Mao Mao Xuan offered no explanation and led the survivors to continue their journey.

Roars from Monster-Path players occasionally echoed from afar, like a doomsday giant beast rampaging unchecked through the city ruins.

The fact was indeed so; in this small world, apart from their own players, there was absolutely no combat power capable of fighting it.

Calling it an invincible giant beast would not be an exaggeration.

Continuing the exploration, they stopped for a meal along the way, but Mao Mao Xuan still couldn't find a suitable living environment.

Whether to leave the city or return to the fortress shelter for renovation, he finally decided to return to the fortress shelter, while contacting guild friends to find a player skilled in designing shelters to renovate and reform the fortress shelter, providing the survivors with a better living environment.

By the time they returned to the fortress shelter, the sky had already darkened.

The remains of the Immortal Zombie at the door were reduced to green-glowing dry bones.

At the moment they were slain by him, these immortal zombies had already been drained into energy and fed back into his body, leaving only bone remnants devoid of spiritual energy.

After settling the survivors, Mao Mao Xuan was about to summon the guild chat channel.

But he heard a friend's voice sound in his mind:

"Old Mao, take a look at this post (forum post link)."

Puzzled, Mao Mao Xuan immediately clicked the post and found it was a proposal put forward by a strategy-focused player.

This player stated that he was helping a group of survivors in the Mo Ri Shi Jie, a group that had previously obtained survival supplies by raiding other survivor teams.

They were also known as: Raiders.

Contact with this group of Raiders gave this player an idea.

He stated that endlessly helping survivors was like draining the pond to catch the fish, because the survivors' needs would rise along an upward curve as they were satisfied.

Therefore, a batch of players needed to stand in the Raider camp.

This would form a factional relationship of confrontation between Raiders and survivors, with players providing resource support to both camps respectively.

Doing so would continuously generate Willpower gains.

But this plan was too evil; whether to proceed depended on the forum players' advice.

After all, this plan could not be executed by a single person or a small team; it required the cooperation of all players entering the Mo Ri Shi Jie small world to unfold.

The post concluded by launching a poll:

Vote 1: Drain the pond to catch the fish, build a prosperous age together.

Vote 2: Let the small world become a delicate board, let the common people be pieces to be moved at will.

(End of this chapter)