It was supposed to be a casual game, but the Long March dungeon brought tears to everyone's eye

"call……"

"call……"

After Kuang Ge roared "Turning over will bring spring," it felt like his lungs had completely exploded.

He didn't dare stop.

Once you stop, the anger dissipates.

Hawkeye followed behind, his gaze fixed on the top of Madman's head.

There, the health bar that originally represented the player's status had long since turned blackish-red, flashing a death warning.

Energy bar? It's empty.

At this very moment, what keeps Madman's body moving is a gray data bar that players cannot see, which is burning fiercely.

[Willpower (Overloaded): 120%...130%...]

Hawkeye, who couldn't see the willpower overload bar, just felt that this was unscientific.

According to the underlying logic of this damn game, once physical strength reaches zero and pain shielding fails, the player's brain will trigger a protection mechanism that forces them offline.

But Kuang Ge was still walking.

He was like a rusty, scrapped tractor; every time his knees bent, you could hear the teeth-grinding "crunch" of bones grinding together.

The old squad leader's weight pressed entirely on his spine, bending it into a bow about to break.

Hawkeye couldn't stand it anymore.

He even suspected that the next second, Crazy Brother's spine would break and pierce through his skin.

"I'll hold it for you."

Hawkeye took two steps forward and reached out to support the old squad leader's dangling leg.

The moment his hand touched it, Hawkeye's fingers trembled violently.

hot.

Scalding hot.

The old squad leader's high fever shone through his tattered and greasy cotton trousers, burning Eagle Eye's palms like embers.

In stark contrast was the old squad leader's one arm dangling from Kuang Ge's shoulder—that hand was swollen and bluish-purple, the fingers stiffly curled, the fingertips as cold as dead flesh just dragged from an icebox.

This is a true sign of impending death.

The core is extremely hot, while the extremities are extremely cold.

Life is rapidly slipping away from this broken body.

Just then, the person on Kuang Ge's back, who had been lifeless, suddenly moved.

The old squad leader woke up groggily again.

He struggled to open his cloudy eyes a crack, feeling the violent jolting beneath him and the heavy, bellows-like breathing of Brother Kuang.

Although the old squad leader wasn't very educated, he understood one principle.

On the snow-capped mountain, whoever carries whom will die.

"Put...put me down..."

The old squad leader's voice was as light as smoke, and it was blown away by the wind before it could even drift out.

His body began to struggle on Kuang Ge's back, a desperate attempt to die!

He was like a fish about to be thrown into a pot, desperately trying to slide down and throw himself into the snowdrift next to him.

"I'm not leaving... I'll rest for a bit... You guys go..."

"Screw you!"

Kuang Ge didn't have the strength to shout anymore; these four words were squeezed out from between his teeth, laced with blood and saliva.

Sensing the person on his back moving around, Crazy Brother panicked.

He lost his balance, slipped, and his knee slammed hard against a sharp piece of ice.

"hiss--"

That really hurt.

But he didn't let go; instead, he tightened his grip on the old squad leader's leg.

"What are you doing! Behave yourself!"

Madman's face was covered in frozen ice crystals, and his expression was so ferocious that he looked like he was about to eat someone.

"You just promised to treat me to noodles, and you're already trying to skip out on the bill before we even get there?"

"No way!"

After finishing his rant, Crazy Brother freed up one hand.

His movements were extremely rough; he grabbed the old squad leader's hand, which was hanging in mid-air and frozen like an icicle.

Then Crazy Bro did something that made Hawkeye's eyes sting.

Crazy Brother forcefully stuffed his filthy, chilblain-covered hand into the collar of his neck.

That was the only part of Crazy Brother's body that was still warm.

The cold, dead flesh pressed against the burning hot neck, and Crazy Brother was so cold that he shivered and his whole body trembled.

But instead of dodging, he shrank his neck and clamped the hand tightly between his chin to prevent it from slipping out.

"Hold on tight! I'm not responsible if you fall!"

The old squad leader's struggle stopped.

The muscles on his face, weathered and etched like withered tree bark, twitched slightly.

Even though the hand that was stuffed inside the madman's collar was frozen, it instinctively didn't want to keep the doll in its cold embrace and wanted to pull it back.

But Kuang Ge squeezed her tightly.

"The mountain pass is just ahead!"

To distract the old squad leader, Crazy Brother started rambling loudly, his voice hoarse and unpleasant.

"Squad leader, did you see that? The wind over there is warm!"

"I can smell it! Really! It smells like rapeseed flowers!"

"Once we get over there, we'll roll around in the flower field! Bring your precious daughter over and let her ride on a big horse!"

That lie was so clumsy.

All around us was blizzard that felt like it could cut a thousand knives; where would the warm breeze come from? Where would the rapeseed flowers come from?

Hawkeye took a deep breath as he watched Madman desperately trying to keep the old squad leader.

Screw the data, screw reason.

Hawkeye pulled out the compass from his waist, the glass cover of which had long been cracked from the cold, glanced at it with feigned seriousness, and spoke as calmly as if he were giving a weather forecast.

"Squad leader, he's right."

"I'm a surveyor, I just calculated it."

"Depending on the airflow direction and air pressure changes, after crossing this pass, the altitude will drop by 500 meters and the temperature will rise by 15 degrees."

"Furthermore, according to topographical analysis, there is an 80% probability that alpine meadows and small villages exist on the leeward slope."

Hawkeye was spouting nonsense with a straight face.

He is using the "professionalism" that the game gives him to fabricate a scientific basis that does not exist at all.

The old squad leader was too weak to speak, but his eyelids twitched slightly, as if he were listening.

At this moment, Ruan Ruan, who had been being led around and whose eyes were covered with a cloth strip, suddenly stopped.

She can't see.

But precisely because she can't see, her heart is clearer than anyone else's.

Ruan Ruan suddenly turned her head forward and sniffed hard at her nose, which was red from the cold.

"It really is..."

Her voice was still that signature lisp, but it was no longer meant to please the top-ranked guy; instead, it carried a trembling surprise.

"I can smell it too! It smells so good!"

"Squad leader, can you smell that? It smells like fried sugar cakes!"

Her soft, purple lips trembled, yet she managed a radiant smile, her tears soaking the blindfold.

"And pork cracklings! I want to eat pork cracklings!"

Little Bean realized what was happening too.

The little NPC warrior, who always followed his older siblings around, wiped the snot off his face, pointed at the vast white void, and shouted loudly.

"Squad leader! I see smoke!"

"There's a chimney over there! They must be cooking over a fire!"

"I saw it too!" Little Tiger shouted.

A group of people are lying.

A group of people, in order to give a dying veteran one last breath, painstakingly painted an entire spring with their mouths on this desolate snow-capped mountain peak.

The old squad leader, perched on Kuang Ge's back, listened to these utterly clumsy lies.

He probably believed it.

Or perhaps there was no letter.

But his hand, which was tucked inside the madman's collar, no longer pulled out.

His cloudy eyes narrowed slightly, and a smile actually appeared at the corner of his mouth.

His expression was like that of an elder watching their own child being naughty, yet unable to bear to expose them.

"well……"

The old squad leader's voice was weak, yet carried a strange serenity.

"That's a good day...we have to go..."

The last 100 meters.

This is the wind gap, the last gate of death set up by nature.

The gale was like an invisible wall, pushing people backward.

With someone on his back, Kuang Ge's center of gravity was too high, making it impossible for him to stand steadily.

I could barely walk a moment ago, but now I can only crawl.

"Thump."

Kuang Ge's knees buckled, and he knelt on the snow.

But he didn't fall; he held on to the ground with both hands, like a stubborn ox.

Seeing this, Hawkeye immediately pounced on Crazy Brother's left side, using his shoulder to firmly support Crazy Brother's body.

"Softie! Right side!" Hawkeye roared.

"They're here!"

Although Ruan Ruan couldn't see, she groped her way along the straw rope and used her thin body to brace against Kuang Ge's right side.

The three of them, plus the old squad leader on their backs, looked like a clumsy crab or a moving mountain of flesh, inching their way up the 70-degree steep slope.

Blood seeped from Kuang Ge's bruised knees, leaving two shocking red marks on the pristine snow.

Every meter we moved felt like it cost us half our lives.

Kuang Ge's consciousness was beginning to fade.

He felt the old sergeant on his back getting lighter and lighter, as light as a feather, as if he could fly away at any moment.

This feeling terrified him.

Even if it's just a game.

He started muttering to himself in a nervous manner, as if trying to summon the old squad leader's soul with his voice.

"Don't sleep... We've already taken the blame for Old Li's mistake... Don't try to renege on it..."

"Almost there... We're really here..."

"Don't lose your old bones... I can't afford to pay for it..."

Nearly.

closer.

Through the swirling snow, the iconic boulder at the mountain pass was already visible.

Just flip it over...

Just as Kuang Ge's finger was about to touch the rock...

Suddenly, a chilling warning popped up on everyone's retinas, a warning that could cause their hearts to stop.

[WARNING: The vital signs of the key NPC "Old Sergeant" are about to drop to zero!]

[WARNING: Due to extreme exhaustion and hypothermia, the countdown has begun.]

【00: 59】

【00: 58】