Ding Shi continued driving down the road. Brother Kai raised a question: "Do you guys feel like Ding Shi has some sort of disaster-magnet constitution?"
Ding Shi strongly objected. "Nonsense. I have the lucky koi constitution."
Chu Yu and Ritian chimed in perfunctorily, "Sure, sure."
After traveling twenty kilometers, they ran into three agent vehicles. Even Chu Yu began to succumb to superstition and had Brother Kai take the wheel. A miracle occurred—over the next 180 kilometers, they didn't encounter a single agent vehicle. Unconvinced, Ding Shi took over driving again; within five minutes, an agent vehicle came speeding after them.
Forced to become the navigator, Ding Shi remained thoroughly unconvinced. "If the agents were just AI data, you could say I'm unlucky, or that the system is targeting me. But the agents are all players!"
Brother Kai drove into a self-service gas station and asked, "Doesn't that just prove you're exceptionally unlucky?"
Ding Shi got out of the car in a huff, walked over to an agent vehicle that was refueling, and shot the refueling agent through the head.
While they were fueling up, another agent vehicle pulled into the station. The driver got out, glanced at the player standing nearby, and turned back to focus on figuring out how to use the self-service pump.
You had to admit, there was a reason these people had died in the Taoyuan Village instance.
They were utterly pathetic.
But many players who had taken the Speedy Express quest didn't see it that way.
After reviving for the third time, Shabi had gone completely mad. He couldn't accept the reality that he had already died twice. Armed with a handgun against target players who only had rocks for weapons, he had somehow managed to die twice! What infuriated him most was that he had no idea how he had died. And so, he threw himself frantically into running quests.
He killed and killed, searched and searched. Over the course of a single day, more than fifteen target players fell by his hand. This only drove him crazier—every single one of these players was an ordinary person, none able to withstand even a single clash.
Who the hell killed me?
On the system map, only seven glowing dots remained. Shabi started by examining the times of his two deaths, then pulled up the suspect vehicles around those times. Before long, his attention was drawn to nb711. This vehicle had been missing from the map for more than twenty-four hours, without a single traffic surveillance camera capturing it.
Reviewing the surveillance footage, Shabi discovered that he himself had been driving the black 711nb sedan toward the Heishuigou exit, and the car had never come back out.
Shabi immediately searched for license plate 711nb. The cameras reported that five minutes ago, 711nb had appeared in Zhongxia Province. That was it—someone had killed him and stolen his car!
...
At eight in the evening on the third day, Ding Shi took over driving after sleeping the whole afternoon. About ten minutes in, he spotted a pair of headlights closing in rapidly from behind in the dark. The car was traveling at extreme speed; Ding Shi estimated it was going over two hundred kilometers per hour. The current road's speed limit, however, was one hundred kilometers per hour.
Vehicle X would certainly be caught by the surveillance cameras, which would send its traffic violations to the yamen, prompting nearby War Police to intercept it immediately. Yet there were no police flashing lights anywhere near Vehicle X. There was only one explanation: the surveillance cameras had photographed Vehicle X, but the AI had deleted the records before they could reach the yamen.
This confirmed that Vehicle X was an agent car. And judging by that blistering acceleration, it was almost certainly coming for them.
Shabi caught up to 711nb in no time. The sedan was parked in the emergency lane with its hazard lights flashing, and a few people were stretching outside near the hood.
Damn it, more weaklings!
Shabi jerked the steering wheel, parking diagonally to block 711nb. Handgun in hand, he stepped out of the vehicle—and took a bullet to the head from the flank. Without uttering a single word, he was dead the second his feet touched the ground.
After searching the corpse, Ding Shi couldn't resist giving Shabi's body a kick. The guy was getting poorer and poorer. He used to carry one or two hundred instance coins, but now he only had ten, not even equipped with a baton or a concussion grenade.
Chu Yu asked, "Is he the player you stabbed to death at the gas station?"
Ding Shi nodded. "He's also the one who killed Mumu."
Chu Yu kicked Shabi, then told everyone to get in. As Ding Shi drove, Brother Kai asked, "Ding Shi, do you have some personal grudge with him?"
Ding Shi gave an ambiguous grunt in reply. He was genuinely puzzled: when an agent died, a new clone was deployed, and that new clone wouldn't inherit the deceased's memories.
So why did Shabi keep gunning for him? And even if he gave chase, why was his performance so consistently abysmal, dying again and again from underestimating his enemy?
Obviously, Shabi had no idea that his target was Ding Shi; otherwise, he would have been at the top of his game, laying all kinds of traps and ambushes.
If that was the case, why was Shabi pursuing him so relentlessly?
Having revived yet again with no retained memories, Shabi was once, twice, three times as incredulous. He couldn't believe the fact that he had now died three times. He went completely, utterly, wildly mad once more. He had no idea what had gone wrong, how he had died, or why he had died.
...
At eight in the morning on the fourth day, in a non-signal zone near Zhongshang County in Zhongshang Province, 711nb was concealed in a fork off the road. One person stood watch while the other two rested. The sky was their blanket, the earth their mat, with sheets of cardboard spread between. After killing so many agents, Team Yuyu's total funds had reached 1,500 yuan. They no longer ate crackers, moving up to self-heating hotpot.
A man grew rich only through ill-gotten gains; for those dutifully grinding the main quest, even a fractional bill was a treasure. Team Yuyu had originally worried about funds as well, but after plunging into non-signal zones twice and hunting down multiple agents, money was no longer an issue for them.
At noon, Chu Yu, Brother Kai, and Ding Shi held a meeting over their respective portions of self-heating hotpot. As for Ritian, he could only drink water and nibble on crackers to minimize his need to relieve himself.
Ding Shi pointed at the map. "Taking the expressway to Jibei Province is a total distance of 1,200 kilometers. We could arrive within the day. The toll is 0.3 yuan per kilometer, so 360 yuan in highway tolls is well within our budget."
Chu Yu said, "The expressway is densely covered with traffic cameras and has very few forks. Once agents target us, we'll have to drag race them." Once on the expressway, as long as the vehicle didn't exit, its position could easily be calculated by the surveillance cameras.
National roads were different. Certain stretches allowed parking on the shoulder, driving into villages, or ducking into non-signal zones. Furthermore, police car presence on national roads was relatively low, so occasional violations wouldn't cause much trouble.
Ding Shi said, "If we take national roads, it's another 2,000 kilometers to reach Jibei Province, and on many stretches, we won't be able to pick up speed."
Chu Yu voiced her concerns: "More than half the quest time has passed, so not many people will take on the Speedy Express quest anymore. I'm worried the AI has already wiped out most of the players who took it. We were attacked far more frequently yesterday than the day before, even excluding Ding Shi's disaster-magnet constitution..."
Chu Yu gave Ding Shi a gentle smile before continuing, "Once we get on the expressway, there will be nowhere to hide. Wave after wave of agents will box us in from front and rear. Under the surveillance cameras, we can't break the law, but the agents can—otherwise the War Police will hunt us down. That rule is the deadliest factor."
Chu Yu asked, "Do you have any thoughts on that?" She knew that since Ding Shi had proposed taking the expressway, he must have weighed the pros and cons.
Ding Shi said, "Carjacking."
Chu Yu asked, "Carjacking?"
Ding Shi nodded. "We take the expressway and hijack cars. Every hour or so of driving, we hijack another one. That way, the agents will never be able to lock onto our vehicle..."
Midway through his sentence, Ding Shi glanced toward the car. Frequent vehicle swaps would be pure torture for Ritian. They wouldn't have time to remove seats and would have to cram Ritian into the back.
During high-speed chases, the erratic fluctuations in speed would toss Ritian's body back and forth, worsening his injuries and multiplying his agony.
Chu Yu turned, opened the car door, looked at Ritian for a moment, and said, "I think he can take it."
Ritian said, "Take what? Don't make decisions for me! You could at least ask me first! I don't mind dying, but I do mind dying for nothing."
Chapter 57