Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Yang Shu advanced several steps toward her.
Lin Yinxi began talking nonsense. “I did well at my part-time job, so my superior promoted me.”
Yang Shu sneered. “Impossible. The rabbit is a sacred symbol in contaminated zones. That emblem doesn’t casually appear in a C-level scenario.”
Lin Yinxi blinked. “That’s rather absolute, isn’t it? There are plenty of rabbits in the world…”
“No.” Yang Shu interrupted. “Once contamination eats into an area, all the rabbits inside disappear. I’ve been to a zoo scenario. There were no rabbits.”
There was something mysterious about him. He seemed to know more about the containment center.
As Lin Yinxi considered how to draw information out of him instead, her phone suddenly vibrated in her pocket.
Beneath his oppressive gaze, she did not panic. Calmly, she took out the phone with its ominous aura.
“You ask too many questions.” Without even raising her eyes, she unlocked the screen in front of him.
Shadow covered half Yang Shu’s face. His left eye narrowed slightly.
The contamination emanating from that screen made him frown. Yet the power that should have driven people mad did not affect Lin Yinxi at all.
Unable to gauge her true abilities, he hesitated.
Rabbit Keeper had added Lin Yinxi to a group called [Rabbit House].
[Rabbit Keeper: Welcome to the group, newcomer.]
A large red-envelope icon appeared in the chat.
Holy shit. A cash giveaway!
Lin Yinxi tapped the screen.
[You claimed Rabbit Keeper’s red envelope.]
Two Rabbit Coins.
[Luckiest Recipient]
Lin Yinxi checked her wallet balance.
It had become 675 Rabbit Coins.
So stingy. Two coins, and she was the luckiest? Was he handing out alms?
Yang Shu slowly spoke, trying to test how much substance there was to her. “Have you dealt with high-ranking entities?”
Lin Yinxi deliberately ignored him.
The less she spoke, the more unfathomable she seemed.
In [Rabbit House], entities with numbered rabbit names were furiously roasting Rabbit Keeper.
[Rabbit 007: Too little, Keeper. We’re your own entities, after all. Make the red envelope bigger.]
[Rabbit 002: The newcomer got the most. Newcomer, show us a photo.]
[Rabbit 005: Experiment failed. Insufficient spread of contamination. And I missed the group giveaway. I’m going to catch a couple of humans and stew them for afternoon tea.]
Lin Yinxi was stealing stickers from the chat.
[Rabbit Keeper: Back to business. I created this group so you can exchange experiences in hunting humans, spreading contamination, ruling territories, and punishing low-ranking entities.
You can ask for help here, as well as sell and trade contamination artifacts with one another.
Whoever takes down a safe zone will be promoted to S-level. All operational permissions will be unlocked.]
[Rabbit 001: What class of entity is the newcomer?]
[Rabbit 002: Curious too. +1]
Rows of echoing “+1” messages instantly flooded the chat. Countless entities with rabbit avatars frantically tagged her.
Lin Yinxi knew nothing about entity classes. She barely understood the group messages at all.
Their conversations were full of entity jargon. She was too new to it, utterly bewildered.
So she replied only with a newly stolen [Shy] sticker.
Lin Yinxi was deeply moved.
At last, a stolen rabbit sticker that wasn’t a horny rabbit.
Yang Shu came to her side, his shadow covering her.
She pocketed the phone and stressed, “This taboo artifact recognizes its owner. Don’t get any crooked ideas.”
His expression showed nothing particular. He did not even radiate killing intent. He merely said casually, “If I kill you, I can take it.”
Lin Yinxi got to her feet and stepped half a pace closer, looking straight into his cold right eye with the hint of a smile.
“You can try.” Outwardly, she looked unfathomable. Inside, she was panicking like mad.
Please, please, please. Don’t fight her.
Seeing no panic, Yang Shu frowned and pressed his lips together.
He was even less certain of her strength now.
Lin Yinxi adjusted her deep blue wristband and spoke casually. “I’m good at making friends. I’ve met some high-ranking big shots in the scenarios. What do you think? If you attack, will those great ones currently discussing catching humans to stew for afternoon tea immediately crawl here along the contamination source and have a nice chat with you?”
Yang Shu’s expression grew grave.
In that instant, his mind connected countless incongruous details about Lin Yinxi.
She was playing weak to prey on the strong.
No wonder.
No wonder she seemed ignorant yet possessed a rabbit-emblem wristband. She had been playing dumb all along.
No wonder she looked relaxed while watching that intensely contaminated phone. She was immune to mental contamination of that level.
She pretended to lack stamina, yet had appeared in this underground sewage area, the endpoint of his entire investigation.
All because she was not an ordinary human survivor at all.
Her frail appearance was a disguise. She had already dealt with management and discovered the truth of the world!
Yang Shu’s fist slowly tightened, then gradually loosened.
The trace of killing intent hidden in his eyes disappeared entirely, replaced by wariness.
“Just joking, my little teammate.” He took off his jacket and threw it to Lin Yinxi. “Your clothes stink. Wear mine.”
His attitude changed in a heartbeat.
Lin Yinxi was sticky and uncomfortable.
“Thanks.” Accepting his gesture of goodwill, she held out her hand. “Now we’ve confirmed we’re still partners, let’s stop wasting time. Show me the Zone C rules you found, and we’ll look for a way out together.”
Yang Shu looked at the churning sewage around them. “It’s dangerous here. The Scavengers in the water will wake soon. Let’s leave first and compare clues somewhere safe.”
“All right.”
Just as Lin Yinxi answered, a muffled gurgle came from deep in the sewage pool behind them.
Tentacles reached from the filthy water and dragged the rotting merfolk creature on the bank beneath the surface. Soon, sticky bloody foam churned atop the murky water.
A nauseating, fishy gust swept past their ankles.
They really should not linger here.
While Yang Shu turned to scout ahead, she glanced at her phone again.
The big shots were still tagging her furiously, curious about the newcomer’s identity.
Lin Yinxi felt like a primary-school child who had wandered into a gaokao exam-preparation group.[^gaokao]
What did you do when you understood nothing? Pretend to have hidden depths.
She decisively opened the group settings and quietly added a parenthetical phrase after her nickname, Rabbit 009.
It became: Rabbit 009 (Socially Anxious Edition).
The moment she changed it, the group owner stepped in to help her out.
[Rabbit Keeper: She calls herself Organizer. A rare humanoid entity with a disguised form that deceives humans, she can freely pass between different scenarios. Her contamination rating is similar to yours.]
[Rabbit Keeper: Nobody is to bother the newcomer.]
With that endorsement from the big boss, no more entities questioned Lin Yinxi’s background.
She pressed the lock button and put the phone back in her pocket.
Following Yang Shu, she quickly left.
They crawled along a pitch-black pipe into a relatively dry, abandoned transfer room.
Yang Shu stopped and handed her the damaged, dark-red-stained paper.
“Safe now. Read it.”
Lin Yinxi took it and glanced down by the faint light. Her eyes widened in shock. These rules were different from all the others she had seen.
[^gaokao]: The gaokao is China’s national university entrance examination.