Zuo Lin'an was not surprised to see this.
Having five ordinary women descend the mountain in the middle of the night was indeed asking too much of them, and it looked like one of them had even sprained her ankle.
“No wonder they had to stop and rest.”
As for Jin Youwu and the bounty hunter Zhou Shan...
They were already on their way back to the summit. In addition to water, they each carried a rabbit and a pheasant.
Zuo Lin'an felt a bit puzzled upon seeing this.
He recalled that when they had first found the puddle, they already had this exact catch, didn't they?
How was it that they hadn't found a third one even after all this time?
Whatever, it wasn't important.
Zuo Lin'an shifted his gaze to the other players.
“Hmm?”
He spotted the two female disciples from Mount Yinxian.
The junior sister was actually supporting her senior sister, walking away along the valley. Looking at their direction... if they kept going, they would probably reach the white mist by dawn.
Did they not plan on returning?
There was only one small puddle in the entire dungeon. They wouldn't be able to find any water source out there, making survival impossible, so they would have to return eventually.
Just as Zuo Lin'an thought of this, his attention was suddenly drawn back to Zhang Tinglei.
“I didn't expect to find it so quickly.”
Zhang Tinglei had originally wanted to look for a water source. He hadn't expected that by just picking a random direction, he would actually find the small puddle.
He squatted down and carefully examined the edge of the puddle.
“The water level has dropped significantly... It seems someone found it before me. Quite lucky.”
However, he did not seem to care much.
“But this much is still enough.”
Zuo Lin'an assumed he would collect some water and return to the mountain.
To his surprise, the man sat cross-legged right by the puddle, closed his eyes, and began to recover his true qi.
Was he... not planning to climb back up?
Zuo Lin'an breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
It was better if he didn't return.
This way, his living body wouldn't be in any danger.
Next, he checked on Zhong Cheng, the general whom Zhang Tinglei had casually spared...
!!!
Wait.
What was going on?
Only now did Zuo Lin'an realize that the three rabbits he had caught and hidden in a corner had somehow been discovered by Zhong Cheng.
The man had taken his rabbits!
Although Zuo Lin'an was slightly annoyed, there was nothing he could do.
If he had known, he wouldn't have caught them in the first place.
Calming his emotions, he looked at the last player—the one he had knocked unconscious.
Hmm...
No one had found him, and he hadn't woken up yet either.
After confirming the status of all the players, Zuo Lin'an withdrew his gaze. A faint trace of exhaustion welled up in his heart.
He even felt a slight sense of bewilderment.
Given the current situation, did he still have a chance to wipe out all these players?
Just as he was starting to feel a headache coming on, he suddenly realized that his previous line of thinking might have been slightly off.
What was the purpose of this dungeon run?
Zuo Lin'an asked himself.
His primary objective was... to create a sufficient number of unsolvable specters, obtain enough Contribution points, and head to Sin Hunter City to acquire his second Death Rule!
Afterward, he would upgrade his dungeon to a Two-Star difficulty dungeon. At that time, he could enter the dungeon with the gold hairpin and make things incredibly brutal for future players.
Wiping out the players was only secondary.
In other words...
For his ultimate goal in this dungeon run, wiping out the players was not the most crucial task; creating an unsolvable specter was his primary choice!
As long as the Contribution points he earned this time brought his total Contribution to one hundred!
Even if his dungeon was cleared by the players and temporarily locked down, it would be a minor issue.
In any case, the supernatural world's specter assimilation of 【Wuxia World】 had already reached its final stages.
The ultimate outcome would not change because of his tiny One-Star dungeon.
Right now, he was merely a grain of sand in the desert, completely insignificant.
Even if his dungeon was locked down afterward, he only needed to wait... at shortest a few months, and at longest about a year, before he could wait out the next world.
He had figured it out.
Zuo Lin'an had finally figured it out.
Next, he needed to completely avoid Zhang Tinglei and target other players instead.
“Father.”
Zuo Lin'an slowly opened his eyes upon hearing a familiar voice.
It was Jin Youwu and Zhou Shan returning.
Seeing his son, Jin Qianwen smiled and nodded. “You're back. Come and rest.”
Jin Youwu looked around.
“Where is everyone else?”
“They've all left,” Jin Qianwen replied. “And from the looks of it, they probably won't be returning to the summit.”
Zhou Shan sat down on the ground with a thud.
“To be honest, constantly climbing to the summit is indeed a hassle. Why don't we head down the mountain as well?”
Jin Youwu actually shared the same thought.
“Father, what do you think?”
Jin Qianwen nodded subtly. “If possible, staying at the foot of the mountain would indeed be more convenient.”
However...
The three of them turned their gazes to Zuo Lin'an.
Zuo Lin'an shook his head. “I'll stay right here and won't go anywhere. If you ever want to chat, you can come find me anytime. I'll always be here anyway.”
Jin Qianwen stroked his beard and waved his hand dismissively. “Since this young brother is unwilling to leave, let him be. We will head down the mountain once dawn breaks.”
After those few simple words, they stopped talking.
The entire night passed in silence.
Yet, as soon as dawn broke, Jin Youwu and the other two got up to leave.
They didn't even say goodbye to Zuo Lin'an before they left.
Of course, he didn't really care either.
Only after confirming that these three players had truly descended the mountain did Zuo Lin'an breathe a sigh of relief.
He carefully extinguished the bonfire in front of him, then walked over to the tallest withered tree several dozen meters away.
There was a leaf on this tree.
This was the only leaf hanging on a tree in the entire dungeon.
It was also a specter item he had crafted.
But now that all the players had gone down the mountain, there was a high probability that this leaf wouldn't be discovered by them.
“Not bad.”
Zuo Lin'an sensed the location of his phone.
“Sigh! It's too far, on the neighboring mountain...”
So, without his phone, how was he supposed to spend the next three days?
Was he really going to just stand here blankly on the summit and wait for three days?
After some thought, Zuo Lin'an decided to go retrieve his phone.
He had his God's-eye view anyway.
If any player approached, he would be able to hide the phone in time.
As for what he had just told Jin Youwu and the others about staying on the summit the entire time?
...
Did he say that?
He didn't remember.
As the faint sound of footsteps gradually faded into the distance, the summit of this mountain fell into absolute silence.
Several hours later.
It was already afternoon, but the sky inside the dungeon remained heavily overcast, dark, and gloomy.
By the puddle at the foot of the mountain.
“Sister Liu, look ahead! There really is a small puddle!”
“That Young Master An Lin didn't lie to us!”
The five women had set off again just as dawn broke. After walking along the mountain paths for several hours, they had finally reached the foot of the mountain and spotted the small puddle.
But before they could even smile, they noticed a figure sitting quietly by the edge of the puddle.
Rate on N.U.
