9: Chapter 9 Despair and Extreme Cold, A Spark of Miracle!

What does minus thirty degrees mean?

Water freezes instantly upon contact, and breath turns to frost.

Without sufficient warm clothing and heating, the human body cannot last even two hours in such extreme conditions!

At this moment, the regional chat channel was filled with desperate cries.

"I can't move! The chain on my tricycle froze and shattered! Wuwuwu... it's so cold!"

"Brother above, do you have gasoline? Forget about the vehicle, quickly find some ruins, ignite the gasoline, and tough it out!"

"Help! My mobility scooter stalled, and the red mist is less than two kilometers behind me... I don't dare stop!"

"Good luck, buddy. Hope you have a better life in the next one."

No one would turn back to save him.

In this cold-blooded apocalypse game, with the red mist chasing madly behind, everyone is too busy fleeing for their lives; who dares to turn back?

The channel was constantly flashing with the wails of those on the verge of death.

"I need gasoline! Kerosene! Diesel! Anything that can burn will do! I'll trade all my blueprints for it! Help!"

"I don't want to die... someone save me..."

On the highway.

A dilapidated Wuling minivan was struggling forward on the icy road, pushing against the piercing cold wind.

Inside the vehicle, the temperature had already dropped to minus ten-something degrees.

In the driver's seat, a man named Wang Jian was shivering, gripping the steering wheel tightly.

In the passenger seat, his wife, Li Na, was pale, clutching a month-old infant tightly in her arms.

The infant was wrapped in every piece of clothing they could find, yet its lips were still purple from the cold, letting out a faint cry like a kitten.

The global survival game has a rule that is both cruel and relatively humane: all infants and toddlers without self-care abilities are forcibly and randomly assigned to one of their parents.

The couple was extremely lucky; not only were they assigned to the same road section, but Li Na had also drawn an electric scooter at the start.

To survive, Li Na did not hesitate to use the system to dismantle the electric scooter, exchanging it for a small bucket of gasoline, which was all added to Wang Jian's minivan.

But now, the extreme cold had descended.

The fuel gauge on the dashboard was completely empty, and the glaring red light was flashing wildly.

"Waa... waa..."

The infant's cries in her arms were growing weaker, and its body temperature was rapidly dropping.

"Husband..." Li Na's eyes were red, and she looked at Wang Jian in despair. "We're out of gas, the baby is not going to make it..."

Wang Jian slammed the steering wheel hard; a grown man, tears instantly welled up and spilled from his eyes.

Just as they were about to give up struggling completely, ready to embrace each other and wait for death as a family of three...

Suddenly!

In the lifeless regional channel, an exceptionally eye-catching highlighted message popped up.

Sender: Zhuifeng de Lang.

"Brothers! Hang in there! I've found a fire source! So many fire sources!"

"Current coordinate position C-72 / 1000! It's very warm! I don't know what fuel this fire is burning, but the wind and snow can't put it out at all!"

"It looks like an absolute safe zone provided by the game system! Everyone, rush over!"

These few short sentences.

To the hundreds of thousands of players currently waiting for death in the extreme cold, it was like the final straw thrown to a drowning person!

A fierce desire to survive suddenly erupted in Wang Jian's hollow eyes.

With trembling hands, he immediately opened the system map and stared intently at the marked coordinate point.

"Wife! There's fire! There's a safe zone ahead!"

Wang Jian's voice was trembling with excitement, his eyes filled with the light of hope. "There are only thirty kilometers left! Hang in there!"

He slammed his foot down on the remaining accelerator, and the dilapidated minivan roared, rushing madly towards the coordinates.

In the chat channel, countless players who saw hope completely descended into madness.

"Wuwuwu! I see it too! There's a red glow on the horizon ahead!"

"It's real! There's a huge fire every few kilometers! It's so warm!"

"Thank you, system! Heaven never closes all doors! Brothers, charge!"

"Who can help me with a liter of gasoline! I'm only two kilometers away from the fire source!"

"I'll trade with you, I need diesel!"

"Young lady, I have half a bottle of Erguotou here, take a sip to warm yourself up and run there!"

Faced with the threat of death and the dawn of life, humanity unleashed unimaginable potential.

Countless dilapidated cars, motorcycles, and even players who had abandoned their vehicles to travel on foot, like moths to a flame, rushed madly towards the raging, deep red fires on both sides of the highway.

When Wang Jian's family of three finally stumbled and stopped beside a sea of fire.

Those domineering flames, radiating an astonishingly high temperature, instantly dispelled the cold from their bodies.

The infant, who had been on the verge of death in his arms, finally saw its complexion slowly return to a rosy hue, and it fell into a deep sleep.

"We survived..."

Wang Jian and his wife knelt beside the fire, weeping in each other's arms.

Countless surviving players surrounded these huge bonfires that stretched along both sides of the highway, appearing every few kilometers starting from the one-thousand-kilometer mark, weeping bitterly, kowtowing frantically, and praising the system's mercy.

And at this moment.

Far away, at the sixteen-hundred-kilometer mark.

In the warm, comfortable, constant twenty-four-degree space-folding bedroom of the Red Wolf Tank.

Lu Yuan lay spread-eagled on the soft single bed, turned over comfortably, and even kicked the pure white down quilt to the edge of the bed because he felt a bit hot.

He smacked his lips, dreaming a wonderful dream of having overflowing supplies and counting money until his hands cramped.

A world of ice and fire.

The parched die of thirst, while the flooded die of excess.

Several hours later.

The long and desperate night of extreme cold finally passed.

A faint fish-belly white appeared on the horizon.

"Ding!"

A cold, emotionless mechanical voice suddenly exploded simultaneously in the minds of all surviving players and above the sky.

"Congratulations to everyone for successfully surviving the first day."

"Now beginning the statistics for the first day's death toll and survival rate for each district."

Immediately after, a huge holographic light screen appeared in the sky, and the dense numbers on it began to jump wildly.

[ District C-01: Survivors 160,000 / Total Population 1,000,000, Survival Rate: 16% ]

[ District C-02: Survivors 180,000 / Total Population 1,000,000, Survival Rate: 18% ]

[ District C-03: Survivors 150,000 / Total Population 1,000,000, Survival Rate: 15% ]

...

The light screen continued to scroll downwards.

Whether they encountered the initial zombie horde or failed to survive the extreme cold of the deep night, almost all districts suffered a reduction of over eighty percent in this cruel first day!

The bright red numbers, like sharp knives, stung the nerves of every survivor, making them deeply feel the bloodshed and despair of this survival game.

Until the light screen scrolled to the position of District C-72.

The jumping numbers paused eerily at this moment, then suddenly froze.

[ District C-72: Survivors 850,000 / Total Population 1,000,000, Survival Rate: 85% ]

The moment this message refreshed.

Not only were the players in District C-72 stunned.

In the entire cross-district channel, all the C-District players who were originally mourning or rejoicing all gasped in unison, completely shocked!

"What the f*ck?! Am I seeing things?"

"Why did over eight hundred thousand people die in our district, while eight hundred and fifty thousand survived in theirs?!"

"The system must have a bug! How is this possible!"

"District C-72... what on earth did they do on the first day?!"