Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

Chapter 373 Be Prepared
"To be honest, Lao Li, your nuclear explosion move was a bit too overpowered; it was practically a god-slaying attack!"

The group sat in a circle, with Li Zheng holding a mysterious declaration and focusing the lights on the center.

Fengshan remarked, "The moment the mushroom cloud rose, a background music inexplicably popped into my head, making me feel incredibly excited."

"Which background music?" Li Zheng asked curiously.

“That… what was it again?” Fengshan pulled out a thorn from his shoulder and frowned as he racked his brains. “I can’t remember right now, but I remember that song that was really popular online, oh right, a song composed by Ni Hongren.”

"Is it the one that starts with hěi～ēiéiěi～hēiéi……?" Li Zheng hummed a snippet.

"Yes, yes, that's it!" Feng Shan excitedly threw away the thorn he had just pulled out, looking puzzled. "But why does it sound a little strange?"

"That's not true at all," Lin Fengjiao said. "Brother Li, with your sense of pitch, you absolutely mustn't sing this song in front of Dr. Xiao. I'm afraid he'll come after you, and then I won't know who to help."

Li Zheng's face darkened: "If you want to say I'm tone-deaf, just say so. Don't beat around the bush and insult me. With Lao Xiao's fighting ability, I can take on ten of them! And I can take care of ten of you in the process."

"Hehe." Lin Fengjiao chuckled and continued to treat Fengshan's wounds.

“I remember Li Zheng, you also have the ability to ignite things at close range, right?” Zhan Zhouzhou said. “Now, combined with Yan Guang’s long-range incendiary bombs, you’re practically invincible. I think we should stop exploring for the next two days and use all our exploration opportunities to challenge the mutants. Let’s try to clear the event directly so we don’t have to keep thinking about it.”

“I have a different opinion.” Feng Shan shook his head and said, “Judging from the strength of the mutants this time, apart from Lao Li, there is basically no one else who can continue to kill mutants of higher difficulty. With such a high kill score, I estimate that no one will be able to surpass us in the next few days.”

"what do you mean……"

"What I mean is, let's not waste those exploration opportunities. Let's just do what we're supposed to do next and collect our rewards when the event ends."

Both Zhan Zhouzhou and Feng Shan made sense. From the perspective of personal gain, Feng Shan's suggestion was actually the most reasonable.

Putting everything else aside, just considering the recent killing of Asano Yuji, it's estimated that no one in the entire Matrix could kill him without losing any members of their team.

Not to mention the even stronger mutants that came later on.

The best suggestion seems to be to stop the event here.

However, Li Zheng's thoughts were closer to Zhan Zhouzhou's: the operation still had to be carried out, and they had to do their best to kill as many mutants as possible.

"Do you remember our discussion before we first entered the event?" Li Zheng pondered for a moment and said, "All the mutants in this event were actually caused by the Radiation Island nuclear leak. If we stop here, will the remaining mutants be released after the event ends?"

"If they are released, will they turn against normal people and kill indiscriminately?"

“These are all unknowns.”

"So I think it would be better if we killed as many mutants as possible to eliminate as many potential problems as possible in the future."

"Call me a saint or meddlesome, but I think it's better to nip this kind of hidden threat in the bud."

"Otherwise, if we give them the opportunity to grow stronger, it might not be as easy to solve the problem as it is now."

The truth about the mutants is currently only known to Li Zheng's team, and perhaps some of the remaining members of Radiation Island also know it.

Everyone else thought this event was just something the terminal put together, and no one took it seriously.

This includes Kunlun, which was previously the most aggressive challenger.

“What you said makes sense.” Feng Shan nodded thoughtfully, then cursed angrily, “These little devils, they make a mess of things, and we have to clean up their mess!”

"It's just like when they wanted to dump nuclear wastewater into the ocean and make the whole world pay for it—it's utterly shameless!"

No one can remain calm when faced with similar events in life.

It's like if a colleague makes a mistake at work, and if you don't help solve it, the boss will punish you along with them.

Can you accept that?
It's hard for you to accept. But there's no other way; you have to accept it!
Why did you have to work at the same company as them?

It's a matter of shared prosperity and shared loss.

The key difference is that what Li Zheng and his group encountered was somewhat different from this.

If you suffer grievances at your company, you can still switch jobs and find another one.

They had nowhere to go but to swallow their bitterness.

Is there anything more unacceptable than this?

Have!
This colleague who caused you trouble is also your neighbor...

Or perhaps it's a neighbor with a bratty kid who kicks your door and yells at you for no reason, or steals things from your house when you're not looking.

Are you angry?

You must be angry, right?
And there's something even more outrageous!

When your colleague causes trouble for you, and that brat kicks your front door, points his finger at you and curses you, steals your things, and makes so much noise that you can't have any peace and quiet.

You have a traitor jumping out from your own family, speaking on behalf of the other side.

Let me tell you, if I were you, I'd fucking want to kill someone!
The saying goes, "To fight external enemies, one must first pacify internal ones." I wonder when our parents will clean up the traitors in our family. They've been watching some anime and have become so skewed.

"It's alright. We're a great nation, we won't stoop to their level," Li Zheng reassured him.

At this moment, Li Zheng remembered something and said to Zhan Zhouzhou, "Tell Ye Kai and the others to try their best to improve themselves and maintain their combat strength these few days. I need your support at any time."

"I understand." Zhan Zhouzhou nodded, seemingly lost in thought.

Fengshan asked, "What? You're not thinking of starting a war with the Japanese outside of the event, are you?"

"I... Ouch... Be gentle! This is flesh, not a stone! Pulling it out so forcefully hurts!"

"Let me tell you, two fists can't beat four hands. I've heard about those two Japanese organizations. They have a lot of people. If we really fight to the death, we'll be the ones who suffer!"

"Don't worry, it's just better to be safe than sorry," Li Zheng said casually, then changed the subject, "I'm going back to rest for a bit. Let me know when you've finished dealing with this, and we'll kill a few more mutants tonight."

After saying that, he took out the event tickets and left with Sakura.

As soon as he left, Yan Guang followed him out without saying a word the whole time.

Zhan Zhouzhou glanced at the spot where Yan Guang had been sitting, sighed, and withdrew from the event.

"Tsk, at least wait until I've pulled out these thorns before you leave, there's no light now!" Fengshan complained casually.

Lin Fengjiao said to him, "There are only a few left. Go back and pluck them yourself to play with, so you won't blame me for hurting you again."

After saying that, she ignored Fengshan and exited the instance.

After everyone left, only Fengshan remained in the dark event instance.

He sighed dejectedly, "Why is everyone siding with that damned woman?"

……

After exiting the event, Li Zheng opened his private messages, found a profile picture, and clicked on it: "Misaka-san, I have a business deal I'd like to discuss with you. I wonder if you'd be interested?"

(End of this chapter)