An Ruming and Ye Xiang, who were hiding in the back, secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
After Sha Yu realized what was happening, he slammed the cab door hard and shouted, "Can you do it again?! Can you do it again?! Or just let me in, let me go in instead of Le Liu!"
However, no matter how he roared, there was no movement in the cab.
The piece of white paper seemed to be stuck to the small glass window, not moving at all, and the conductor was nowhere to be seen.
Sha Yu began to kick the door fiercely, making a "bang bang" sound, but still got no response.
Finally, Song Yang stopped him and whispered, "Don't waste any more time. We have to find a solution first."
Sha Yu was like a mad wild horse, still wanting to rush forward, but Yang Leliu grabbed him with pale fingertips and choked with sobs: "Husband..."
Feeling the cold sweat in Yang Leliu's palm, Sha Yu trembled and stopped.
He gasped and turned his head.
The others looked at them in silence. Yang Leliu's eyes reddened slightly as she shook her head and said, "It's probably useless. Once the monster lists the conditions, they may not change this round. Besides, I don't want you to go in instead of me... Stop banging on the door!"
The woman adjusted her mindset in just one minute.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her voice was still trembling, but her tone was firm: "Tell me what to do after I get in. I, I will listen to you!"
Sha Yu clenched his fists and his eyes turned red.
He gritted his teeth and cursed: "Fuck...Fuck!"
*
Fifteen minutes have passed since the last round of disaster.
The group moved a few meters away from the cab and formed a circle.
"If the actual interval between each disaster is twenty-five minutes, then we still have ten minutes left." Li Mian looked at the time and said solemnly.
Xia Jing leaned against the window, glanced at the fields outside, and then glanced upwards.
Above was the dark night sky.
I don't know whether there is a moon in this copy, but Xia Jing always feels that there is a faint golden halo above near the top of the train.
He heard Li Mian's words and said, "The interval between each disaster isn't necessarily fixed. The first round was thirty minutes, the second was twenty-five minutes. Perhaps the interval between each subsequent round will be shortened by five minutes. Or perhaps the interval between each round is a random number, so we might be facing the third disaster in the next second."
The expressions of the others suddenly became tense.
Xia Jing turned around and smiled, "However, let's assume that the rest time for this round is twenty minutes. Please try to finish discussing the next plan within five minutes."
Song Yang said calmly, "I'd like to ask first, is there anyone holding a monster item?"
As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere became a little subtle.
In theory, no player would be honest with others about such things. This is just like "don't show off your wealth", it is a way of survival.
Many times, players actually understand that if they can work together from the very beginning, many dungeons may be completed in a shorter time.
However, people's hearts are hidden, and it is very difficult to trust others.
Fortunately, there were a few people in this copy who shared the same ideals as Song Yang.
Li Mian was the first to speak: "Sheng Xiao and I don't have any protective gear. The only gear the monster has is the sword in my hand."
This is obvious. When the first round of disasters occurred, the two of them just relied on their own strength to bear it.
Sha Yu was silent, and Yang Leliu took the initiative to say, "I have one last protective item here."
Song Yang looked at Ye Xiang, An Ruming and Wang Zhi again.
Ye Xiang curled his lips and said, "I don't have any."
An Ruming: "Me neither."
Wang Zhi shook his head quickly.
Song Yang looked at Xia Jing again, and Xia Jing spread his hands.
Song Yang turned his head.
Seeing him being so straightforward, Xia Jing couldn't help but tilt his head and asked curiously, "You don't want to ask where the props I took from you are?"
Song Yang curled his lips and said, "Looking at how you treat the props like treasures, I guess you didn't use any of the props you got. You hid them all away?"
Xia Jing raised his eyebrows.
Song Yang paused and said, "Next time, you should at least carry one with you for self-defense. Don't treat these dungeons as games."
Xia Jing chuckled softly and asked, "Doctor Song, why did you offer a reward to me?"
Song Yang glanced at him sideways: "What I said just now was just a friendly suggestion. We still have to settle the accounts between us, but not now."
After saying this, Song Yang returned to the topic and said to the others: "I don't have any props on me anymore, so now we only have one protective prop left."
Sha Yu immediately said in a hoarse voice: "This protective item cannot be given to you, Le Liu needs it."
Upon hearing this, An Ruming seemed concerned and said, "But based on Xiao Ma's experience just now, it seems that the protective gear will become ineffective once inside the cab..."
"Don't think I don't know what you're thinking." Sha Yu's kindness finally turned sharp for his wife's sake. He stared at An Ruming and said, "None of us knows what Xiao Ma went through after entering the cab. The fact that the protective gear would fail inside is just your speculation, not an established fact!"
An Ruming's plan was exposed and he looked embarrassed.
Ye Xiang was shameless. He loudly questioned, "There are still eight of us here. Are the lives of eight people not as valuable as your wife's life?"
Sha Yu's veins bulged, he stood up and grabbed Ye Xiang by the collar, scaring everyone.
At this moment, the man even exuded a bloody smell.
"Do I need to explain it more clearly?" Sha Yu said word by word, "We have this item. If we don't give it to you, none of you can use it!"
Ye Xiang: "You——"
Song Yang said in a deep voice: "I don't intend for you to use the protective gear on us, calm down!"
"Husband!" Yang Leliu quickly separated Sha Yu and Ye Xiang.
When Sha Yu sat down again, his expression was so ugly that it was beyond words.
The fact that his wife was about to be sent into the monster's mouth turned him into a firecracker that could explode at any time.
Song Yang rubbed his eyes and said to Yang Leliu, "Sister Yang, please take the protective gear. Whether it's useful or not, it's at least a layer of protection. Also, do you have any weapons like machetes?"
Yang Leliu nodded quickly: "Yes!"
"Okay," Song Yang nodded and analyzed, "From what we can see now, the train conductor's method of attacking players isn't to kill them in one blow. When Ma Qiu was stuffed into the pipe, he was still breathing. From the most optimistic perspective, it's possible that Ma Qiu was stuffed into the pipe intact. In other words, even if you can't kill the train conductor, you won't necessarily die."
Hearing this, Sha Yu stared at Song Yang and held his breath and said, "——As long as we cut the pipeline immediately?"
"Yes. Of course, this is just a guess," Song Yang said slowly. "As for what to do after entering the cab—most monsters are flesh and blood. Once in the cab, just hack forward without thinking. Although there is no method, the cab is small, so it is the easiest to injure the monster."
Yang Leliu nodded repeatedly, memorizing everything Song Yang said.
"Then what should we do? It would be best if this woman could survive, because that would mean the monster in the cab has been dealt with. But if this woman dies, and we don't have any protective gear this time, can we all survive? Can you guarantee that?!" Ye Xiang questioned Song Yang with his eyes wide open.
Several people also showed hesitation.
Yes, they all survived the last round, but in the last round, each of them entered the prop protection circle.
Xia Jing casually interrupted, "Many players always feel that the rules of the dungeon can be easily shaken, changed by other forces, and twisted by players."
As soon as these words came out, everyone looked at him.
Xia Jing looked at Ye Xiang and said slowly, "However, once rules can be easily changed, they become meaningless. A copy of Smiley City never sets meaningless rules. So rather than calling them rules, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe them as 'laws'."
"Just like this instance, have you ever thought about what it means when a instance offers a choice between two options?"
When Xia Jing said this, Li Mian and Fei Shengxiao had already reacted, and An Ruming also quickly realized what Xia Jing meant.
Only Ye Xiang, with bloodshot eyes, asked: "...What does it mean?"
The young man leaned against the window in the night, and said in a gentle voice, "This means that the dungeon doesn't give us a third option—to let protective items determine our life and death."
Ye Xiang was stunned.
Xia Jing said slowly, "If the person who entered the cab is not dead, then the monster must have been eliminated. Regardless of whether the train conductor is the main monster or not, we can advance the game to the next stage. But before that, we will only face two possibilities."
"One, the person who enters the cab dies, and all the players in the car survive. Two, if that person doesn't enter the cab, then the players in the car will die according to the number of stars that rise."
"In the first round, Cheng Jiayu seemingly died because he didn't enter the prop protection circle, but he wasn't the only one without prop protection at the time. There's a high probability that even if everyone entered the prop protection circle at the time, one player would still have died in other ways."
"In the second round, everyone entered the protective circle, but the props could only protect us from injury; they didn't mitigate the impact of the train. The train's windows didn't break in the end, which means that those of us who were in the carriage at the time could have survived even without the protective props."
"In other words," Xia Jing said slowly, "before the train conductor is dealt with, the protective items can't actually affect the life or death of the players outside the cab."
The person who truly controls everyone's life and death is the one in the driver's seat.
Hearing this, Ye Xiang was dumbfounded.
What Xia Jing said was actually what Song Yang had thought of.
Before the second round of disaster was about to begin, when Xia Jing said, "The number of stars is the number of players who will die in this round," Song Yang realized that protective props might be meaningless to those of them who were outside the cab at the moment.
But since I still had the props at hand, I would naturally use them if I could.
Seeing that everyone had understood this principle, Song Yang stopped talking nonsense.
He checked the time and said, "If Sister Yang manages to injure the monster after entering the cab, we still have no idea what will happen next. I suggest everyone try to gather together and look after each other. That way, if something unexpected happens, we can help each other and act collectively."
No one objected to this statement, and everyone nodded solemnly.
It was also at this time that a death announcement sounded inside the train.
"Ding Dong!"
"The train will now pass through a rainforest where ferocious beasts roam. Please hold on tight."
The atmosphere suddenly became tense.
Li Mian whispered, "This time it's really five minutes early..."
The interval between each round will be shortened by five minutes, and the time left for them to breathe in the copy will become shorter and shorter.
Yang Leliu stood up suddenly, took out the machete and held it in his hand.
She took a deep breath and let it out shakily.
"Le Liu..." Sha Yu stood up, his eyes bloodshot.
Yang Leliu stepped forward and hugged him, saying hoarsely, "Ayu, it's actually a good thing to be able to hold the possibility of life and death in your own hands. You should understand that, right?"
They have been through many instances, and sometimes they have to put their lives in the hands of others, which feels really bad.
Sha Yu's eyes became moist.
He took a sharp breath and nodded.
Yang Leliu whispered, "I will try my best to survive, so... you should also try your best to survive."
Sha Yu gritted his teeth and said, "I won't let you die!"
Yang Leliu let go of Sha Yu, looked at him deeply, turned around and strode towards the driver's cab.
The woman's back is slender and graceful, yet firm and resolute.
All nine people moved outside the cab.
Yang Leliu stood in the front, Sha Yu stood on her left, and Song Yang and Xia Jing stood on her right.
Behind her were Fei Shengxiao, Li Mian and the trembling Wang Zhi.
At this moment, Wang Zhi, who was forced to face the cab with everyone, also took out the knife from the space bag and held it tightly with both hands. He was so scared that his face turned pale.
He stared at the back of Yang Leliu's head, as if he was afraid that the other party would escape at the critical moment.
And finally, there are An Ruming and Ye Xiang who always hide secretly behind the main force.
Xia Jing said softly, "According to the pattern of the first two rounds, it will take half a minute from the end of the announcement until Sister Yang hears the voice."
Song Yang glanced at Ye Xiang's movements and said to Yang Leliu, "Be prepared before going in. It won't take too long to fight the monster. If we can injure it, it will change the situation, and we will get the result soon."
Yang Leliu nodded solemnly.
The train quickly rushed into the rainforest ahead under the night sky. There was no longer a vast view outside the window, but layers of huge black leaves, which kept hitting and rubbing against the train glass windows.
Huge tree trunks and grass could be vaguely seen flashing by, and pairs of flashing wild beast eyes were staring at them in the darkness. The claustrophobic feeling of being surrounded by heavy things was terrifying.
Yang Leliu was using this last moment to prepare himself mentally, and the others were also doing the same.
Xia Jing suddenly asked in a low voice in the corner: "Song Yang, how many stars do you think will light up this time?"
Song Yang was stunned.
Xia Jing said thoughtfully, "In the second round, if Ma Qiu hadn't gone in, we would have been wiped out."
"Do you think a three-star instance would offer such difficulty?"
A certain thought flashed through Song Yang's mind as Xia Jing said this.
Song Yang immediately followed up on this sentence and said, "If the interval between each round is shortened by five minutes, then after the sixth round, we will encounter disasters without any interval. No matter how many people die in each round after that, the players will be quickly consumed, and there is a high probability that all of them will die within a few rounds."
This only takes two or three hours.
This completely exceeds the difficulty level of a three-star copy and is extremely unreasonable.
Xia Jing narrowed his eyes and suddenly recalled, "When the train departed, the conductor said that this trip would 'pass through an unknown number of stations, and the number of times each station would be visited was also unknown.'"
The second half of the sentence made the two of them look at each other.
The track on which their train was running showed no signs of bending into a circle, so what could have caused them to pass the same station repeatedly?
Yang Leliu, standing in front of the cab door, said in a trembling voice, "I heard... a shaking sound, as if a group of things were rushing towards us..."
What else could there be in the rainforest besides the "beasts" mentioned in the report just now?
Fei Shengxiao was closest to the window. She looked up and shouted, "This time it's nine stars!"
An Ruming was shocked: "Nine?!"
Ye Xiang yelled, "Why is the whole team wiped out again?! Isn't this a three-star dungeon?!"
When Song Yang and Xia Jing heard this, their guesses became more certain.
Yang Leliu gritted his teeth and raised his hand to push the door.
Song Yang held her hand to stop her: "Wait, don't go in this round."
Yang Leliu was stunned, and so were everyone else.
An Ruming was stunned for a moment before asking in astonishment, "Song Yang, what are you doing?!"
"Are you fucking crazy?! Let go and let her in!" Ye Xiang's eyes were bloodshot, and he impulsively wanted to rush forward with a dagger in his hand -
Xia Jing said softly: "Hey, don't kill the wrong person."
His words rang in Wang Zhi's ears.
And Wang Zhi stood between Yang Leliu and Ye Xiang.
Wang Zhigang was confused by Song Yang's behavior. When he heard Xia Jing's words, he subconsciously turned around and saw Ye Xiang rushing towards him with a dagger in his hand.
He screamed in fear, his mind went blank, and he instinctively threw the knife in his hand out -
With a "puff", Ye Xiang looked at the blade that had penetrated his left chest in disbelief.
The smell of blood surged up from his throat, and he roared hoarsely: "Idiot, I want to deal with Song Yang and that woman, not you——"
The next second, the giant beasts roared and ran towards them at a rapid speed!
Everyone looked to the right, only to see countless giant dinosaur claws stepping out of the jungle and stomping down towards their small train.
The iron sheet of the carriage was quickly crushed and squeezed, and all nine people were crushed to pieces in an instant, with blood splattering everywhere.