Lulu’s livestream chat had turned into a shouting match. She was forced to disable the on-screen comments.
The argument continued, but now she couldn’t see any of it. Naturally, that meant she had no idea that, in truth, most viewers were on her side.
[Pretty sure that guy’s never actually played the game.]
[They don’t know how dangerous it is in there—just good at talking big.]
[LMAO, all the keyboard warriors from before the game started just migrated here, huh?]
[To save you, these guys might have to risk their own lives. You think they give a damn about their salary? Not everyone is gonna treat you like family. Grow a brain, will ya?]
[…]
The chat kept buzzing with arguments, but rational voices gradually drowned out the noise.
Unaware of any of this, Lulu stood and joined Song Zhenpeng at the entrance to check the situation outside.
Most of the people on the streets had already found shops to take shelter in.
Aside from the rustling of tree branches, the world had gone eerily quiet.
The welcoming pine tree at the entrance hadn’t shown any aggression before they arrived. But shortly after they stepped inside, it suddenly turned hostile—like it had caught some contagious rage.
That mother and son had been attacked by that very pine tree. The woman had been pierced by pine needles, blood pouring down her body. She bled out and died right there, her corpse still sprawled on the steps outside.
Lulu’s heart sank at the sight. She tried to drag the body back, but the pine tree lashed out at her.
With no other choice, she retreated back into the mall.
***
On the other side, Fu Changxun and Xiao Xiao were curled up in Dong Zi’s arms, eyes wide as they stared at each other.
After a moment, someone’s stomach let out a loud gurgle. Fu Changxun looked a little embarrassed.
“Hungry?” Dong Zi let him lean on his shoulder, then freed one hand to dig a cookie out of his pocket.
Fu Changxun wasn’t particularly starving, but seeing the hopeful look in Xiao Xiao’s eyes, he accepted the cookie anyway. He split it evenly into three pieces and gave some to both Xiao Xiao and Dong Zi.
He mumbled, “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have spent points to trade for cash and buy food.”
He had enough resources—it just stung a little to part with them.
“No, that was actually really foresighted of you,” Dong Zi said. “At this point, it’s probably too late.”
He didn’t get a chance to explain what he meant, because at that moment, the twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy and his mother, after some noisy wailing and shouting—plus a few choice insults thrown at his sister—suddenly turned to glare at the cookie in Xiao Xiao’s hand.
Fu Changxun immediately sensed danger. And sure enough, the boy shrieked:
“Mom! I want that too!”
He pointed straight at the cookie that had been divided into three pieces, eyes burning with entitlement.
The woman immediately started coaxing, “Baby, Mommy has food. We don’t need their bland old crackers, okay?”
Originally, the boy wasn’t all that interested—just a little curious. But the moment she said that, he threw a fit.
“I don’t care! I want that one!”
“Oh, sweetheart…”
As the boy kicked up a fuss, her voice turned even more syrupy. “Okay, okay, Mommy will go ask for you.”
She tossed her bag of chips aside and walked up to Dong Zi. “Sir, could you please share a little of that cookie with my son? He’s hungry and really wants to try it.”
She said she was “asking,” but her tone was full of entitlement and condescension, like it was only natural to expect compliance.
“And what if I don’t feel like giving it?” Dong Zi wasn’t about to indulge her. “We don’t have much either.”
The woman’s eyebrows shot up, face darkening with irritation. “Wow, stingy much? It’s just a cookie! Not like we’re asking for your life. There’s food everywhere—”
The boy made a face behind her back—and even spat on the floor.
“Apologies,” Fu Changxun said with a gentle smile. “But personally, I’d suggest you toss that badly raised little brat of yours outside and let the willow tree whip some manners into him.”
Dr. Fu was polite—but only just.
The woman had just been refused and was gearing up for a tantrum when that soft-spoken, delicate-looking man hit her with a pointed remark. She froze for a moment, then flushed with rage and snapped, “What do you mean, badly raised? Your mother’s the one who failed, huh? Telling me to let my son die? You’ve got no class at all!”
She was the one who’d started this with unreasonable demands, but now she acted like she held the moral high ground.
Fu Changxun let out a gentle sigh and once again curled up pitifully against Dong Zi, his whole demeanor a picture of fragile innocence. “I didn’t mean to…”
It was as if the sharp-tongued version of him from moments earlier had vanished—and this delicate, soft-voiced one was the real deal.
“You’re pretending—!”
Dong Zi cut her off coldly. “Shut up. If you don’t know how to talk, don’t open your mouth. Who’s really the one without manners here?”
The sudden intensity in his gaze startled her. It took her a beat to recover—only to remind herself: what was there to be afraid of? This guy couldn’t actually kill her.
“Fine, don’t give it to us. I’ll go get something myself.” She rolled her eyes and yanked her son toward the snack aisle.
Qiu Yi raised a hand to block her. “Don’t wander off. It’s dangerous.”
The woman shoved his arm away irritably. “What danger? We’re just getting food. Are you gonna stop us from going to the bathroom too? You’re so annoying.”
“Ma’am, if I’m responsible for your safety, then you need to stay put. Otherwise—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it!”
Still impatient, she waved him off and dragged the boy along.
The kid made a face at Qiu Yi as they walked, even stuck his tongue out.
Chief Qiu had always lived by the motto: “Save them if you can. If not, move on.” Lulu had picked up the same philosophy from him.
Seeing that there was no convincing her, he gave up on the spot and waved them off. “Fine—just be careful.”
The woman huffed and walked off.
Her son kept pulling faces the entire way. He was clearly twelve, yet acted like an obnoxious seven-year-old—and not the kind of kid anyone found endearing. Quite the opposite, in fact.
As the mother and son finally left, a collective sigh of relief went around the room.
They’d been an absolute headache. Now that they were gone, it was actually peaceful.
But the daughter they’d left behind just stood there, frozen in place, unsure of what to do.
A young woman in a wheelchair smiled at her. “Hey, meimei, come over here. You can stay with us for now.”
She had a warm, kind face. The girl hesitated for a second, then slowly walked over.
“I’m Lin Shu. This is my ge, Lin Ze. What’s your name, meimei?” she asked gently.
The girl replied in a soft, barely audible voice, “Lu Zhaodi.”
The moment she said her name, everything made sense—the cold indifference she’d received, her brother’s rampant arrogance. It all clicked. This was a household where boys were valued far more than girls.
No matter how badly the son behaved, the mother treated him like a precious jewel. But the moment the daughter so much as raised her voice, she’d be scolded—or mocked by her brother.
Lu Zhaodi had understood this truth since she was very, very young.
She was actually fourteen, but due to years of malnutrition, she looked even smaller than her twelve-year-old brother and was constantly shoved and pushed around by him.
“That’s not a good name,” Lin Shu said, frowning slightly. “Once you’re old enough, you should change it.”
Lin Ze chimed in with a light cough. “Yeah. You’re living for yourself—not to carry someone else’s wish. And frankly, their wish wasn’t worth much to begin with.”
It was the first time Lu Zhaodi had ever heard anything like that. She stood there in stunned silence for a long, long moment.
Then, a blood-curdling scream shattered the quiet of the mall.
“AHH!! Don’t come near me!”
The woman’s shrieks were mixed with her son’s high-pitched wailing, echoing from the food section.
It was that same mother and her brat of a son. Despite how annoyed everyone had been with them, they all stood up and headed in that direction.
Most fruits and vegetables had been harvested and couldn’t mutate anymore. They’d lost the ability to attack. But when the players arrived, they were shocked to see a huge clump of—water plants. They had wound themselves tightly around the woman, nearly suffocating her to death.
The woman’s face was twisted in fear as she stretched out her only free hand, begging for help.
Apparently, one of the employees had, for some reason, stocked the live fish tank with plenty of still-living aquatic plants.
Aquatic plants were still plants—and they didn’t even need soil to survive. Now, they were growing at a terrifying rate, swelling, multiplying, and killing.
A veteran player in the lead immediately began attacking the plant with crackling bursts of electricity, trying to fry it, but the results were minimal.
Right behind him, Lin Ze and Lin Shu sprang into action—one holding the plant in place, the other evaporating all the water around it.
Finally, Dong Zi stepped in, easily shifting the dead portion of the plant elsewhere.
The woman was rescued.
Her face was ghostly pale. She’d almost died—for real.
“I thought you went to get cookies. Why the hell did you end up over here in the fresh food section?” Dong Zi asked.
The woman hesitated, unsure of how to respond.
An angry NPC spoke up. “We’d already taken over that area. She barged in, trying to steal food, so we drove her out. Then her son said he wanted fish, so she ran off to the fresh food zone. Had nothing to do with us!”
The surrounding NPCs all nodded in agreement—yes, the woman had been the one to start the trouble.
In that case, she had no one to blame but herself.
“My… my baby wanted fish…” the woman still shielded her son with an arm, her tone aggressive. “I had to fulfill his wishes…”
No one had anything to say to that.
She treated her son like a treasure—but the feeling wasn’t mutual. As she spoke, the aquatic plant behind her suddenly stirred again, its tendrils creeping toward the boy.
The boy was standing in a perfectly safe spot, yet he was the most terrified of all.
Just as the woman opened her mouth to speak, her body jerked forward.
Her son had pushed her.
He shoved her straight back into the writhing plants.
She had just been rescued—physically and emotionally drained, completely defenseless against the one person she’d never thought to guard herself from.
The water plants consumed her in an instant, blood splattering in every direction.
This time, there was no saving her.
Everyone stared at the now “fed and quiet” aquatic plants, then looked at the boy who had just pushed his own mother to her death—and all of them were struck by the unsettling truth that you really can’t judge a person by appearances.
Who would’ve thought he’d be the one to shove the woman who adored him most straight into the jaws of death?
“What a terrifying thing… human nature,” Fu Changxun murmured, gazing at the water plants, then at the boy. “Do you think he understands that from now on… he doesn’t have a mother anymore?”
Dong Zi replied, “He knows. He just did it anyway.”
The horror of a brat like that wasn’t just in his total lack of fear—it was in how utterly selfish he was.
Day One: The fresh food section of the mall was mostly destroyed.
Player deaths: 1.
*Zhaodi – this name has strong sexist implications, it was often given to girls born into families that strongly preferred sons. The hope is that naming a daughter “Zhaodi” would invite the arrival of a younger brother (male). The name functioned like a wish to the heavens for a son.
