Chapter 22 Resupply

After jumping off the Dreadleaf, the players headed north (as far as they were concerned, any direction was the same; only the creatures of this universe could discern directions on the island).

The farther they got from the Silkworm Mother’s nest, the wider the crystal path ahead became, and the number of forks decreased accordingly.

After a brisk half-hour walk, the four arrived at a relatively spacious area.

Only then did they stop to officially rest…

“Ugh…” Jibu lay down again. “This time, you can beat me to death, but I’m not moving. Let me lie here for at least two hours.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Pegasus said, lying down as he spoke.

On the other side, Honghu sat down against the wall and muttered, “I think I have blisters on my feet… but I can’t take off my shoes, and I don’t see anything unusual in the status bar.”

“Heh… then you’ll have to bear with it,” Feng Bujue chuckled.

Honghu sighed. “Well… this reminds me, next time I buy a costume, I’d better choose sneakers (he’s currently wearing cloth boots).”

“Um…” Little Ma panted on the ground for a few breaths, then immediately said, “Are you guys hungry? I think I’m a little hungry again…”

“Ah, me too, pretty much,” Feng Bujue replied thoughtfully. “It’s only been less than three hours since the last time we ate. Logically… the feeling of hunger shouldn’t be this obvious. It seems the hunger effect in this script is faster than in reality…”

“Perhaps it’s because we’re expending more energy,” Jibu interjected. “And… we didn’t really eat our fill before…”

“Impossible,” Feng Bujue immediately denied. “I’m not like you guys, with your psychological resistance to food…” He said with great pride, “I stopped when I was nine-tenths full.”

“What are you trying to say…” Jibu squinted. “Are you expressing that you’re a pervert who eats people and doesn’t spit out the bones?”

“No, Brother Feng is talking about the rhythm of eating…” Honghu interjected.

Feng Bujue snapped his fingers and said, “That’s right. As you can see, I, who ate nine-tenths full, and you, who only ate six or seven-tenths full… are experiencing the return of hunger at about the same time.” As he spoke, he took something out of his knapsack.

The teammates’ expressions changed when they saw what he took out.

“Hey, hey! Is that necessary?” Jibu was the first to shout. “Don’t we already have mutton? Why did you take out the Wokel corpse fragments?”

“First of all, these are not corpse fragments, but reserve rations that I roasted and preserved,” Feng Bujue replied calmly. “Secondly, don’t worry… I’m not taking them out to eat. Even if I were to eat them, I wouldn’t force you to eat them.” He held up the piece of meat and placed it in his palm. “I’m taking this piece of meat out to give a lecture.”

“Okay…” Jibu replied helplessly. He understood that even if he didn’t want to, he had no ability to stop this madman’s behavior…

“This piece was cut from Wokel’s back, which is the tenderloin,” Feng Bujue continued. “According to my estimate…” He really did weigh it in his hand before saying, “It’s probably between five hundred and forty grams and five hundred and seventy grams.”

“Can you get to the point… please don’t do this anymore…” Even Little Ma covered his face and advised.

“Don’t do what?” Brother Jue asked, shrugging.

“Don’t do such terrifying things so casually…” Honghu interjected. “Maybe it’s nothing to you, but you have to accommodate the feelings of us normal people. You’re holding a piece of meat cut from a humanoid creature and calmly talking about the cuts and weights like a professional butcher. It’s scary…”

“Okay~ okay~” Feng Bujue humbly accepted, but he showed no intention of improving his behavior. “Anyway, let’s just say this piece of meat is five hundred and fifty grams.” He pointed at the meat with his finger and said, “In the sacrificial temple, the portion I ate was about five hundred grams, while each of you only ate less than three hundred and fifty grams.” He paused. “But now, we’re almost all feeling hungry at the same time…”

At this point, Feng Bujue looked up at his teammates. “Notice the problem?”

“Your appetite is thirty percent bigger than ours?” Little Ma wittily replied, using his elementary school math knowledge.

His answer was so outrageous that Feng Bujue didn’t even bother to refute it…

“I understand…” Honghu seemed to have reached a conclusion. “Eating nine-tenths full and six-tenths full is essentially the same…”

“Correct,” Feng Bujue nodded in agreement. “We should have thought of it earlier… there’s no setting for excretion in this game, so our digestion process… absolutely can’t be completely realistic.” He continued, “Clearly, in this script, so-called ‘eating’ is just a way to relieve hunger; it has nothing to do with ‘absorbing nutrients, metabolism,’ or anything like that.” He put the piece of meat in his hand away again. “In a sense… we’re a lot like zombies, purely eating because we’re hungry.”

“So… it doesn’t really matter how much we eat?” Jibu asked.

“Not exactly,” Feng Bujue replied. “I estimate… that to temporarily eliminate the negative effects of hunger, you have to eat at least five-tenths full… after that, the feeling of hunger basically disappears, and eating more is just for the sake of ‘fullness.’” He stroked his chin. “Therefore, I suggest… that we only eat half full each time we eat from now on.”

“I agree,” Honghu quickly responded. “That way, we can last longer with the same amount of food.”

“Whatever, five-tenths full is fine, just get the roast mutton going!” Pegasus said, using his waist to sit up from the ground.

“Okay…” As Feng Bujue spoke, he took out a branch from the Tree of Mockery, ready to start a fire. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to eat Wokel’s meat now…”

…

At the same time, on the Dreadleaf.

“Am I just rolling it up?” Bill stood on the leaf vein and shouted to Billy below.

At some point, many bloody corpses had appeared in the crystal paths nearby. Most of them were fierce beasts that had come from elsewhere, some attracted by the smell of blood, some attracted by the aura of death, and some… preparing to take over the Silkworm Mother’s dominant position.

However, they had all been killed by Bill. After all, these creatures were just creatures from the Reversed Island, and even the most powerful Silkworm Mother among them… was still no match for the “prisoners” on the island.

Even Lysander, the one the players encountered first, was strong enough to contend with the Silkworm Mother. Not to mention the hidden boss at the level of “Fuling”. If Fuling was in a sealed state… it wouldn’t take much effort to drown the Silkworm Mother in shit…

“How can you just roll it up?” Billy replied from below. “Do you think it’s a *natto* roll? If you do it that way, the corpse pieces will leak out from both ends.”

“Then what do I do?” Bill asked back.

“Wrap it up like a *zongzi*,” Billy replied.

“Uh…” Bill thought for a few seconds, and a puzzled expression appeared on his display screen face. “But there’s no string to tie the *zongzi*?”

“Can’t you use the vine monster you just killed to tie it up?” Billy added.

“Eh? That’s right.” An XD emoticon appeared on Bill’s face. “Haha! Use what’s available.”

“Sigh…” Billy shook his head. “Still so unreliable and doesn’t like to use his brain…” He pondered, “I hope spending some time with Zhuan Jie Zun will help him grow…”

Bill, high above, didn’t hear his brother’s mutterings. Right now, he was cutting the Dreadleaf’s leaf lobes with his fingers.

The Dreadleaf was naturally not just an ordinary large leaf, or else the Silkworm Mother wouldn’t have chosen it as her nest. In terms of hardness, the Dreadleaf was indeed not as hard as the surrounding crystals, but its “toughness” was astonishing. No matter what kind of damage it suffered, the Dreadleaf could repair itself in a short amount of time… For the Silkworm Mother, when she couldn’t catch prey, this leaf was her breakfast, lunch, and dinner… and she could never finish eating it.

At this moment, Bill was preparing to take advantage of the Dreadleaf’s property, cutting off and lifting out a piece of the leaf to pack up the Silkworm Mother’s corpse and take it away.

*Zzzzzzzz—*

Accompanied by a sound like metal rubbing against leather, the cutting began.

Bill’s fingers could deform to a certain extent. As long as he wanted, each of his five fingers could turn into a small chainsaw (small is relative, the width of one of Bill’s fingers was close to the size of a human hand), or five hammers, five screwdrivers, etc… These petty tricks were nothing to him.

He sawed as he walked, lifting as he went… slowly working around the Silkworm Mother’s corpse.

As the Dreadleaf was damaged, it began to heal itself. As soon as a layer of leaf flesh was peeled off, new plant fibers began to grow from the cut. So there was no need to worry that the piece of leaf in the middle would fall.

Before long, Bill had finished the preparations. He used the cut-out layer of leaf flesh to wrap the corpse… in no time at all, he had packed all the Silkworm Mother’s corpse pieces into a triangular leaf *zong*.

Billy, who was watching below, saw that his brother was having a little trouble with both hands, so he helped a little with his telekinesis. With a wave of his finger, the vine monster’s corpse was immediately pulled into neat strips and flew up to the Dreadleaf to complete the binding.

“Okay, done.” Bill stood next to the “big corpse *zong*” and patted the thing next to him with a sense of accomplishment…

“Pick it up and follow me,” Billy said at this time.

“Ah?” Bill was stunned. “Aren’t we leaving this island yet?”

“Yes,” Billy looked down at his watch again. “I still have to visit someone… and then we’ll leave…”

…

“I say… is it getting dark?” Pegasus looked at the crystals around him that were gradually dimming and asked.

At this time, the players had already finished eating and had rested in place for an hour and a half.

In the first ten minutes, they were a little apprehensive, fearing that the system would give a negative game judgment. As a result… half an hour passed, and there was still no movement, so everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that in this script, the system recognized “resting.”

“Who knows…” Feng Bujue replied. “There are no sun, moon, or stars in the sky…” He added, imagining, “Maybe there isn’t even a concept of ‘sky’ here. Who knows what we’re looking up at? Who knows what the time flow is like here? Maybe one night here lasts thirty hours; maybe the reflection in the sky is the real Chewer Island, and the place we’re in is a mirror image; or maybe… the creatures here transform at night…”

“We who can’t even tell the directions are indeed very helpless…” Honghu interjected.

“Well… okay…” Pegasus said, pillowing his head with his hands. “It doesn’t matter. Even if all these crystals completely stop emitting light, we still have that pile of fire, and other lighting equipment.”

“The problem is…” Feng Bujue’s eyes changed slightly, and he continued, “If the entire crystal labyrinth goes completely dark, is it really good for us to stay near the light source…”

“That’s right… it’ll attract monsters,” Jibu interjected.

Honghu also said, “Yes… if there really is a so-called ‘night’ here, then there will definitely be ‘nocturnal creatures.’ In that case… it’s really inappropriate for us to stay near such an obvious light source.”

“So… how well have your Stamina Values recovered?” Feng Bujue suddenly asked.

“Much better than I thought, it’s already at sixty percent,” Honghu replied.

“Me too,” Jibu added.

Pegasus also said, “Pretty much.”

“Okay, then let’s get ready to go,” Feng Bujue said, standing up and patting the crystal dust off his body.

“Huh?” Jibu said strangely. “Hey… it’s getting darker and darker around us.”

“That’s why we have to leave…” Feng Bujue replied. “Our human eyes aren’t suitable for darkness. We need light to see, no matter what. Whether we stay in place or keep moving, neither situation will allow us to extinguish the fire or lights… In that case, we might as well take flashlights and scout the way.”

“Mm,” Pegasus also stood up, stretching his muscles and bones. “We’ve been here long enough, it’s time to move around.”

“Staying in place or leaving… which is more dangerous…” Honghu interjected. “I reserve my opinion…” He looked at Jibu. “Jibu, what do you think?”

Jibu was stunned. He had become the decision-maker, which was truly a rare occurrence.

“I…” Jibu hesitated again and again, but still said, “I think… let’s go… we have to do the mission, after all.”

In fact, he hadn’t thought too much about it, he just instinctively leaned towards Feng Bujue’s side. At times like these, it was better to follow Brother Jue’s plan than to follow his feelings…

So, under the principle of minority obeying the majority, Honghu also accepted the suggestion to move, and the four set off again.

What they didn’t know was… the most terrifying crisis in the entire script was quietly approaching…