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

As the sky began to lighten with the first hint of dawn, the fog on the grass grew even thicker.

It was a grayish-white miasma, carrying the stench of rotting grass roots; inhaling it felt like swallowing a mouthful of sand.

"Well……"

She let out a soft moan and groggily opened her eyes.

She subconsciously touched her body.

My body, which was originally ice-cold, suddenly felt a warm sensation.

"I...I'm not dead?"

Ruan Ruan was somewhat dazed.

The feeling of near-death despair from last night was still vivid in her mind; she had even prepared herself to be kicked offline.

She looked down and saw that she was covered with a tattered gray cotton-padded coat.

The cotton-padded coat was thick, though it was yellowed and stiff, and had a smell of tobacco and sweat.

But to Ruan Ruan at that moment, this was simply the most luxurious quilt in the world.

"woke up?"

Kuang Ge's voice came from the side.

Ruan Ruan turned her head and saw Kuang Ge squatting on the ground tidying up the big black pot, while Ying Yan was poking the ground with a stick in front of him.

"These clothes..."

She sat up softly, her cotton-padded coat slipping down to reveal her undershirt.

She turned her head and saw the old squad leader sitting in the wind.

The old squad leader was dozing off against a mound of earth.

But his current appearance made Ruan Ruan's tears well up instantly.

The old squad leader was only wearing a single layer of clothing, which was full of holes and clung tightly to his body after being soaked by dew.

His eyebrows, eyelashes, and even his stubble were covered with a thick layer of white frost.

He curled up into a ball, like a stone abandoned in the wilderness.

"Class monitor..."

Ruan Ruan knew perfectly well where the warmth in her body came from.

She scrambled to her feet in a flurry, grabbed her cotton-padded coat, and threw herself at the old squad leader.

"Squad leader! Put this on quickly! You'll freeze to death!"

The soft movement startled the old squad leader.

The old squad leader suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze momentarily confused, but quickly regained its clarity.

Upon seeing that it was Ruan Ruan, he forced a stiff smile onto his face, which was bluish-purple from the cold.

"You're awake, little girl."

The old squad leader tried to raise his hand, but found that his arm was already frozen stiff, so he could only awkwardly move his shoulder.

"Don't cover me up, I'm already frozen to the bone, wearing more clothes won't help, I won't warm up." The old squad leader's voice was hoarse.

"You're frail, so please wear it."

"The road ahead is long, don't give up again just when you've recovered."

"I won't wear it! I'm not cold! You're the squad leader, you can't fall down!" Ruan Ruan cried out, but insisted on wrapping the cotton-padded coat around the old squad leader.

The moment Ruan Ruan touched the old squad leader's body, she felt like she was touching a block of ice, and her psychological defenses collapsed again.

In the live stream, countless viewers broke down in their emotions along with the streamer.

"Damn it, can I get a refund for this game? I don't want this 1 yuan experience anymore, it's too cruel!"

"Is this NPC really just data? Why does he seem more human than any living person I've ever seen?"

"Upstairs, because this was once a living, breathing person..."

Amidst this somber atmosphere, several extremely glaring comments suddenly appeared in the live stream chat.

[Little fanboy of Salted Fish Sauce]: Oh, still putting on a melodramatic act? Salted Fish Bro next door has already gotten three wild duck eggs!

[Rational Gamer]: Tsk tsk tsk, they could have just restarted repeatedly to farm weather and resources, but instead they insisted on enduring this. Is this what they call an immersive experience?

[Strategy Team Leader]: According to analysis, there are actually hidden resource spawn points in the grassland area. Blindly wandering around like Crazy Bro and his friends are just wasting time. I suggest watching Salty Fish Sauce's videos; he's a pro player, this guy is just playing the victim.

These comments instantly ignited a battle in the live stream.

"Go back to your masters!"

"Resource farming? Do you think this is my world?"

"A bunch of data-driven 'level-up enthusiasts' who only know how to clear levels, they know nothing about the Long March!"

As he looked at the few mocking comments, Kuang Ge struggled to pull his feet out of the mud.

"Wild duck eggs? Ha."

"I'll say it again: some things you just can't get no matter how many times you try and restart."

Besides, the game time for the grassland chapter is significantly longer than that for the snow mountain chapter. How could you possibly pass the game by simply finding a few wild duck eggs?

Hawkeye paused for a moment, poked the ground hard with his stick, and said nothing.

But his bloodshot eyes also revealed a fierce edge.

Reopening it would only hurt the old squad leader's feelings.

They are unwilling to do it, and they will never do it!

At noon, as if God had suddenly opened his eyes, the thick dark clouds abruptly parted.

The long-awaited sunlight poured down, instantly making the entire meadow dazzlingly bright.

The once gloomy and terrifying swamp now exudes a strange and alluring charm.

At this moment, the scenery of the place they were traveling to was changing.

No longer is it gray-black silt, but a vast expanse of green flower meadow.

Unnamed little yellow and white flowers bloom all over the mountains and fields, swaying in the breeze, amidst lush green grass.

The stench of decay in the air seemed to have faded, replaced by a sweet, refreshing scent of herbs that invigorated the senses.

"Holy crap, this is so beautiful! I've taken a screenshot!"

"If I hadn't been told this was a segment of the Long March, I would have thought it was a promotional video from some travel agency."

"Is Luo, that old scoundrel, finally acting like a human being? Is this some kind of perk for players to enjoy the scenery?"

The chat in the live stream instantly shifted from hostility to amazement.

This extreme visual contrast made both the tense audience and the players subconsciously relax.

Even the young soldiers in the team, whose faces had been tense the whole time, relaxed a lot.

"Hawkeye, the ground's hard!" Little Bean stomped on the grass, then looked up in surprise. "It's not soft mud, it's solid!"

Hawkeye probed with the stick, and indeed, there was a rebound when the stick touched the bottom.

"Looks like we've made it out of the mud."

Hawkeye let out a sigh of relief and glanced back at the sallow-faced old sergeant.

"Squad leader, want to take a break?"

"It's dry here, so let's sunbathe and dry our clothes."

The old squad leader didn't speak, but just squinted at the flower field in front of him, which was as beautiful as a painting, his brows furrowed into a "川" shape.

At that moment, a young soldier at the edge of the column suddenly had a bright idea in his eyes.

"Beans! Look what's that!"

Xiao Chen, who was very familiar with Xiao Douzi, pointed to the distance and said with surprise.

In a patch of lush green grass, there was a cluster of bright red wild berries, hanging from the branches like red agate, only five or six meters away from the road.

"Red berries!" Little Bean swallowed, his mouth watering.

Along the way, apart from a few leather belts and bitter wild vegetable roots, there was no oil or fat left in my stomach.

Upon seeing these bright red fruits, my instinctive appetite instantly overwhelmed everything else.

"I'll pick some for you!" Xiao Chen grinned, revealing two small, white tiger teeth.

He saw that the grass was growing lushly, so he figured the soil underneath must be solid.

So he slung the gun over his shoulder and ran off.

"return!"

The old squad leader shouted in a panic, but Xiao Chen had already run three steps.

But with these three steps, Xiao Chen seemed to be stepping on calm water, with ripples spreading across the surface.

Before he could even wipe the smile off his face, he had already disappeared without a trace.

Only the tattered cloth shoes, mended countless times along the way, remained, floating forlornly on the verdant grass.

The comments section was flooded with "picturesque scenery" just moments ago, but it's all gone now.

"Xiao Chen!!!"

Little Bean let out a heart-wrenching cry and tried to rush upwards.

"Snapped!"

The old squad leader swung the stick with one hand and struck Xiaodouzi hard on the back of his knee, knocking Xiaodouzi to his knees.

"Don't you want to live?! That's a 'magic carpet'! Anyone who goes there dies!"

The old squad leader's eyes were bloodshot, and his chest heaved violently.

He strode to the roadside, picked up a stick, and plunged it hard into the grassy field full of flowers.

puff.

The stick pierced through the lush green grass without any resistance.

The old squad leader stirred it vigorously, and when he lifted it up again, the stick was covered with rotten sludge that smelled incredibly foul and was as black as ink, along with a few pale bones that were hard to tell whether they belonged to animals or humans.

"Look carefully, everyone!"

The old squad leader, holding up the stick dripping with black water, roared at the terrified crowd, emphasizing the words he had repeated over and over again with heartache.

"In this godforsaken place, the more beautiful something is, the more deadly it is!"

"Don't trust your eyes! Don't trust the sun! Only trust the stick in your hand!"

"Anyone who dares to run another step will be killed by my own hand, so they won't have to fill this mess!"