Join the management group, I've stockpiled millions of supplies for survival at sea.

The black smoke from the foot of the mountain burned until dawn before it gradually faded.

During this time, Yin Leyao heard a scream coming from the foot of the mountain. The scream was very short and lasted only a few seconds before it stopped.

It wasn't the cry of a monster, it was the cry of a human.

After daybreak, Yin Leyao emerged from the cave.

Sunlight shone on the open ground at the cave entrance, where traces of black blood, already dried, lay scattered like spilled ink.

The monster's corpse, which she had killed, remained in the same spot, its grayish-white skin gleaming with a waxy sheen in the sunlight, and it had begun to wither.

The black blood flowing from the wound congealed into a hard lump.

She kicked the corpse.

Dead, completely dead.

She followed the tracks on the ground down the mountain.

The movement of the monster horde was quite obvious: broken branches, trampled bushes, and trails of black blood dragged on the ground, all leading towards the foot of the mountain.

The campsite on the east side of the beach at the foot of the mountain no longer exists.

The tent burned down, leaving only a few charred skeletons.

The fire was still smoking, and inside it burned not only wood, but also some lumps whose original shape was no longer recognizable.

The beach was covered with monster footprints, so dense it looked like it had been turned upside down.

Traces of black blood and human blood mingled together, stretching all the way to the edge of the sea.

She did not find a complete body.

Only one shoe was found next to the burned-out tent.

They are women's cloth shoes, with a faded flower embroidered on the upper.

Yin Leyao stood there for a while, then turned and walked back.

Back in the cave, she checked her supplies. The dried meat was still there; nothing had been lost in the fight the night before.

A few berries were crushed, but most were still edible. The water level in the puddle had dropped below half, and the dripping water from the cracks in the rocks was becoming slower and slower.

The vines were so thick that the army green jacket had rolled up, enough to tie up the raft.

The axe chipped a small piece of its blade during last night's fight.

She sharpened it with a stone, and the dull part was worn away, making the blade sharp again.

What happened next was quite simple.

She spent three days building the raft.

The twelve logs were tied together side by side and bound tightly with vines.

A thin wooden plank was laid in the middle, which she had picked up on the beach; it was a piece of ship hull that had been washed ashore by the waves.

The canvas has been found, but not on the special forces soldier.

She found the special forces' hiding place in a rock cave on the east side of the foot of the mountain. The canvas was neatly folded and placed on the rocks, with four crossbow bolts and some dry rations next to it.

She took the canvas back and tied it to the log with vines to make a simple sail. The sail could not turn, but it could be used to gain momentum when the wind was down.

On the sixth day, she saw a message on a nearby channel.

Listen to me: "Is anyone still alive?"

No one replied.

She posted another message.

Eleventh Sister: "I'm still here."

Listen to me: "Where are you?"

Eleventh Sister: "The cave."

Listen to me: "Which cave?"

Shiyi Niang did not reply.

Yin Leyao closed the chat interface; there were still two people left on the island.

She and another.

She didn't know who the other person was, and she didn't plan to look for them.

After the raft was built, she began to stock up on food and water.

The meat jerky was thoroughly roasted and wrapped in scraps of canvas. The berries were dried into fruit jerky, and the water was sealed in a coconut shell.

She cut down a coconut, drank the coconut water, split the coconut shell in half, washed it clean, and used one half to hold fresh water and the other half to hold dried fruit.

Moltres has recovered a lot in the past few days. Its charred feathers have been replaced with new ones, which are even redder in color.

Every day it would go out to collect dry branches and pile them up at the entrance of the burrow. There were four animal traps buried outside the burrow, two of which she found later.

On the eighth night, the monster reappeared.

There were only two this time. They stopped at the edge of the woods about twenty meters outside the cave and stared at the firelight at the cave entrance for a long time without coming closer.

They left just before dawn.

Yin Leyao knew why; she had seen it in the management group.

As the mackerel said, these things are afraid of high temperatures.

A few days before a volcanic eruption, geothermal activity intensifies, causing these monsters to migrate towards the edge of the island.

They approached the cave not because they were no longer afraid of fire, but because they were looking for a way out.

On the ninth day, she pushed the raft onto the beach.

The raft was very heavy, and it took her two hours to push it to the water's edge.

Then they went back to the cave to move supplies, making three trips back and forth, and loaded everything onto the raft.

Finally, take the Moltres out and place it on the raft.

Moltres dislikes water and stands on the raft, screaming at the waves.

Yin Leyao ignored it.

On the tenth day, before dawn, the volcano erupted.

The first sound wasn't an explosion, but a muffled thud coming from underground, shaking the entire island.

The rubble at the top of the cave began to fall.

Yin Leyao carried the last supplies on her back, tucked the axe behind her waist, and ran towards the beach, carrying a crossbow in one hand and dragging the firebird with the other.

The rafts are still on the beach.

She cut the vines tied to the rocks, and the raft was carried away by the receding tide.

She jumped on and glanced back at the island.

The mountaintop cracked open, and orange-red magma gushed out from the fissures, flowing down the hillside.

Black smoke obscured half the sky.

The forest was burning, from the mountaintop all the way down to the mountainside. Her cave, the stones she had piled up, the animal traps, the mangrove swamp—all turned black in the firelight.

The firebird huddled in the center of the raft, covering its head with its wings, too afraid to look.

Yin Leyao sat on the raft, paddling with a simple paddle made of logs.

After paddling for about two hundred meters, she put away the oars and let the ocean current push the raft along.

The raft drifted westward with the wind.

The firelight on the island receded into the distance, until finally only a dot of orange remained on the sea surface.

She opened the management group.

Mackerel: "We've lost hundreds of millions of players again. We're really cruel."

Yin Leyao's raft drifted at sea for two whole days.

Moltres was completely listless starting from the second day.

It lay in the middle of the raft, wings outstretched, neck stretched out long, occasionally letting out weak cries.

It wouldn't eat the dried fish, nor would it touch the dried fruit. Yin Leyao knew it wasn't sick, but hungry.

This silly bird only eats fresh food. It has to kill and roast dead fish and shrimp on the spot. If it smells dried meat, it will turn its head away.

She sliced ​​the last live fish she had caught from the sea into thin slices and placed them near the firebird's mouth; the firebird kept its eyes closed and remained still.

"If you don't eat, you'll go hungry."

The flamingo opened one eye, looked at her, then at the fish slice, and finally opened its mouth, picked up a slice, and swallowed it.

Then the second slice, the third slice, and the whole fish was eaten.

After eating, it buried its head under its wing and went to sleep.

Yin Leyao calculated the direction.

The raft drifted with the ocean current for two days, generally heading west-northwest.

The color of the seawater changed from dark gray to dark blue, and there were fewer and fewer floating ice floes.

The chill in the air is fading, and the wind no longer feels like knives cutting into your face.

The icy sea area is almost over.

On the third day at noon, a point of light appeared on the horizon. The point of light got closer and closer; it was her boat.

The ship remained intact at sea. The protective shield on the hull automatically recognized her approach, flashed a green light, and then went out.

Yin Leyao pulled the raft closer and first threw the firebird onto the deck.

The silly bird landed on the deck and bounced once. It looked up blankly and around, then stood up, shook its feathers, and began to walk around on the deck, pecking at the rust spots on the ship's planks with its beak.

She loaded the supplies onto the boat and eventually towed the raft up as well.

Logs can be dismantled for timber, and vines and canvas can also be recycled.

Back in the cockpit, the communicator's blue light kept flashing.

All messages came from the chat channel.

"Why is the tomb raiding game turned off?"

"I just got my fourth green item, only one more needed!"

"Who closed the game? Is there a system bug?"

"It's not a bug; the game has been removed from the platform. The status shows 'Terminated.'"

"I haven't had a chance to enter the hidden room yet!"

"Do you know about room 0147? Five out of six people survived that round."

"I heard that the designer went in and changed the rules himself."

Who is the designer?

"I don't know. The system doesn't display the designer's number."

"But someone remembers the player list from that game. There was a woman on it named Yin Leyao."

"Isn't Yin Leyao the one with the protective suit from the trading space before?"

"It's her."

The news stopped there for several hours, then someone unearthed the records of room 0213.

Four people survived that round, and it was also a round in which Yin Leyao was present; she survived both rounds.

In both rounds, someone forfeited, breaking the rule that only one person would survive in the end.

The trend in chat channels is beginning to shift.

"Is she the designer?"

"Not necessarily. It might just be good luck."

"Could luck change the outcome of the game twice in a row?"

"It's also possible that she knew the rules. Someone scrolled to the bottom of the game announcement and found the folding clause."

"What 'folded clause'?"

"If the hidden room is triggered and all players forfeit, the game can end early. This rule is written in the notes on page seven."

"Damn, who would turn to page seven?"

"Fatty Wang flipped through the notebook; he flipped through the one in room 0213."

"So Yin Leyao might not be the designer, but perhaps she just looked at the folding clause?"

"Possibly."

"But she was the first to trigger the hidden room and the first to find the complete key. How do you explain that?"

"They're just smart; some people are just good at solving puzzles."

In the end, no one could be sure whether Yin Leyao was the designer. Some insisted that she was, some thought she was just a pro player, and others suspected that she was an insider of the system. Suspicion aside, there was no concrete evidence.

Yin Leyao finished scrolling through the chat history and then closed the interface.