My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 19

Crystal Hidden Weapon

A wave of revulsion washed over Ren Chenxi the moment she learned Fan Juntian was also in H City. She quickly suppressed the feeling.

So what if that guy, who could pester relentlessly¹ even better than I can, is also in H City? Isn’t that perfect? With that annoying pest keeping her busy, that wooden-headed Goddess Mu probably wouldn’t have time to bother with “Ren Muhui’s” twin sister.

Lost in memories of the times she and her “love rival” used to fight over a romantic interest, Ren Chenxi didn’t notice when the bus arrived in Zuoning Town. By the time she snapped out of it, they were still some distance from Yanghu Village, the place Fang Hong had mentioned. But now, the sky was completely dark.

“Xi-jie², what’s the plan? Should we keep pushing on to Yanghu Village, or find a place to rest around here for the night?”

Ren Chenxi had become the de facto Big Sis Head³ of the bus. It wasn’t just Jian Dan and the three other girls who had been with her from the start; even the S University students who had boarded today were all looking at her, waiting for her to make the call.

“Hmm…” Ren Chenxi glanced at the game map. After a moment of thought, she made her decision. “We’ll find a relatively open spot nearby and rest for the night. We’ll head to Nanhai Base tomorrow.”

Although they had driven a good distance from the forest, they were in a rural area. The vegetation had been denser than in the cities even before the apocalypse, and in the last two years, all kinds of wild plants had grown and spread with reckless abandon. Ren Chenxi could see on her game map that the road ahead was covered in green. There was no telling how many dangers were hidden in the darkness. Instinct told her they weren’t prepared enough to risk traveling at night.

Everyone present was a veteran who had struggled and clawed their way⁴ through two years of the apocalypse; they understood the dangers of the night even better than Ren Chenxi did. Her decision met with unanimous approval.

The problem was the sheer amount of plant life. Chang Ling had to circle the area for a while before she finally found a dilapidated two-story house. It was a reluctant choice, as a field of overgrown weeds still started about 300 meters away, with some of it creeping into the clearing in front of the house. Several other half-collapsed buildings dotted the surroundings. The plan was to clear the weeds from the clearing, park the bus there, and make do for one night inside the self-built house.

The Strength-System Esper Lu Ping and the Wind-System Esper Zhu Kang were more than enough to handle the weeds. As for Jian Dan and her bandmates, it was late, so there would be no musical performances tonight. While Lu Ping and Zhu Kang got to work, Ren Chenxi and the others went inside the house they’d be staying in, hoping they might scavenge some more food and water. Once inside, however, they realized it wasn’t that this house alone had survived while the others had fallen. It was just that from the outside, the damage to the two-story structure wasn’t as obvious.

As for the inside… well, the stairs to the second floor were completely gone. Yang Xiangrui managed to haul himself up arm over arm, dropping back down a moment later with his face covered in dust.

He grimaced, wiping soot from his face. “No point in going up there. It’s a total mess. The walls have caved in. The only thing left holding it up is a roof beam.”

“No food or water on the first floor, either. There’s a well by the door, but the water’s contaminated. Can’t drink it…”

“Sigh, looks like it’s dry crackers again tonight. Hey, Tang Ying, how are your rations holding up? You got enough?”

“I still have some stored grain⁵, crackers too. Oh! I’ve got two ham sausages, but I’m out of bottled water…” Tang Ying said, rummaging through her large backpack.

“We’ve still got some barreled water. We can share some with you guys in a bit.”

They were heading to Nanhai Base tomorrow anyway, and they would need to rely on these S University students to get an introduction to their Water-System Esper xuejie. Because of that, Jian Dan and the others weren’t about to be stingy⁶ with their remaining water.

“Ah! Thank you so much! We were just going to try and tough it out tonight.”

“D-Don’t mention it…” Compared to these little pitiful ones⁷ who would even endure thirst, their Xi-jie was practically extravagant with her water usage. After all, Xi-jie insisted on brushing her teeth every morning and night.

Of the three containers of barreled water, two were in Ren Chenxi’s backpack. The third had been kept on the bus for everyone to drink on the road. Just then, Song Xin hauled the remaining half-full barrel into the house. The S University students, who had been thirsty for a long time, saw the water and their eyes lit up. But no matter how parched they were, no one rushed forward to grab it.

Ren Chenxi glanced at the reassuring green dots on her mini-map, then watched as Jian Dan and the others poured water for the students. Each of them had their own thermos or an empty water bottle. While pouring for Tang Ying, Jian Dan suddenly looked at her and asked casually, “Hey, Tang Ying, you must be an Esper, right? I can sense you have an Esper Ability. What is it?”

Huh? So Espers can sense each other? Ren Chenxi stared for a moment at Tang Ying, whose level was displayed as 2nd-Order Esper. She had known the girl had an Esper Ability and had wondered why she hadn’t used it against the Mutated Leopard, choosing instead to just cheer from the sidelines. Though it was strange, Ren Chenxi hadn’t asked. Now, Jian Dan had asked for her.

“Sigh, my ability is basically useless… I’m just a Wa—”

“A Water-System Esper?”

Before Tang Ying could finish, Song Xin and Chang Ling cried out in excitement. Even Ren Chenxi’s heart skipped a beat at the word “water.”

“In your dreams!” Tang Ying shot them a hard eye-roll⁸. “If I had a Water-System Esper Ability, would I have to travel a thousand miles to seek shelter with Mu-xuejie⁹? Would I have had to endure being so thirsty this whole time?”

“Good point. So, what kind of water ability is it?”

“It’s the ability to turn anything I touch into crystal…”¹⁰

“…”

“…Th-That sounds like a really powerful Esper Ability!”

“Then why didn’t you try to turn that Mutated Leopard into crystal earlier?”

“I’d have to touch the Mutated Leopard first, Big Sis¹¹!” Tang Ying was starting to freak out¹². She’d had to explain her useless-to-death¹³ ability to people so many times.

Unfortunately, Chang Ling couldn’t comprehend her frustration. She was stubbornly trying to find a powerful application for what sounded like an amazing ability. “Well, can you crystallize yourself? You know, like those Petrification abilities that make your skin invincible!”

Tang Ying gave Chang Ling a live demonstration. She reached out and touched a dusty, overturned wooden table. With just a light tap of her index finger, a corner of the table slowly transformed, the dirty, gray wood turning into a sparkling, translucent crystal.

“Whoa—”

Before Song Xin could even finish her gasp of admiration, Tang Ying turned and gestured for Lu Ping to come over. Lu Ping reached out and, with a gentle twist, snapped the crystal table corner right off.

“Anything I crystallize becomes very brittle. Against a Strength-System Esper like Lu Ping, it’s completely useless. And once it’s crystallized, it can’t be changed back,” Tang Ying explained helplessly. “If I crystallized a part of my own body and it shattered, it’d be gone for good…”

“…” Everyone looked at Tang Ying with expressions of pure sympathy. Before the apocalypse, her ability would have been incredibly valuable. But in these times… it really did seem kind of useless.

Ren Chenxi looked at Tang Ying and casually handed her the empty cracker wrapper. “Try this?”

Tang Ying was usually annoyed with “performing” her ability for others, but since it was Ren Chenxi asking, she nodded happily and turned the entire flimsy wrapper into crystal.

When Ren Chenxi took the crystallized wrapper back, she tried to bend it with her hands and found it was surprisingly hard; she couldn’t break it with her bare strength. The crystal had sharp edges and corners. If it were shattered, the long, sharp pieces could be used as excellent hidden weapons¹⁴. With that in mind, she had Lu Ping break the wrapper into pieces, then picked out a few of the decent “hidden weapons.”

The crystallized items were genuinely beautiful. Tang Ying didn’t ask what Ren Chenxi wanted them for. Seeing her playing with the crystal, she took the opportunity to gulp down the water Jian Dan had poured for her.

Outside, the weeds were nearly cleared. Yang Xiangrui suddenly spoke up. “Since we have water and rations, why don’t we build a campfire and have some hot food? I’ve still got two packs of instant noodles.” He’d been craving them the entire trip.

Ren Chenxi had instant noodles too, but for some reason, this place didn’t feel as safe as the service station. The atmosphere made her uneasy. That encounter with the 4th-Order Mutated Leopard had left her with a keen sense of crisis.

“I think we should skip it. The forest was incredibly dangerous just now, and you’re still in the mood for a hot meal?”

Song Xin was quick to shoot down his suggestion. Although she also wanted to eat something hot after a diet of cold water and crackers, her own safety came first. She could endure. Besides, they had enjoyed a proper hot meal at the gas station, so the craving wasn’t as intense for her group.

“But we’re a long way from the forest now. No matter how fast that Mutated Leopard is, it couldn’t have chased us all the way here, right?”

“You never know. Anyway… why do I feel like H City is actually more dangerous? Even though it has that huge Nanhai Base…”

“Maybe… it’s precisely because H City has such a large Survivor Base that the zombies and Mutated Beasts around it were driven out, with most of them fleeing to the surrounding towns and villages?” Ren Chenxi offered her guess.

“That makes sense! The base must have a lot of Espers, so the low-level zombies and Mutated Beasts were probably wiped out easily. The ones that escaped were either higher-level or just better at surviving, and they’ve probably leveled up by now…”

Hearing this analysis, Yang Xiangrui couldn’t help but shiver. “Hiss… I guess I’ll just stick to my crackers. Having water to drink is already a blessing.”

Huo Keyu, who had been quiet the whole time, glanced at Yang Xiangrui before lowering her head and continuing to nibble on her own cracker. After they had all worked together to fight the Mutated Leopard on the bus, she no longer felt as hostile toward the S University students.

After a simple dinner, Ren Chenxi couldn’t stifle a yawn. The incident with the Mutated Leopard had kept her nerves stretched taut for a long time. Now that she could relax with a full stomach, she felt overwhelmingly sleepy.

She wasn’t the only one. The S University students, in particular, had spent a long time wandering the forest and were eager to get some rest. After a brief discussion, they decided to take turns to keep watch at night¹⁵. They would have three people per shift, changing every two hours. Before turning in, Lu Ping pushed various cabinets from the inner room to barricade the broken front door. She also found a few sturdy wooden planks and, using the toolbox from the bus, sealed the two windows shut.

Ren Chenxi followed the others’ lead, pulling her windbreaker tighter around herself and finding a corner to lean against. Just before she drifted off, she looked through her backpack one last time, counting her remaining cards. Soon, she was fast asleep.

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