Chapter 13 – Tears in Western Hunan
by Salted FishFang Zheng swept aside the tattered biscuit wrapper and picked up the promotional calendar beneath it, glancing at it to confirm he hadn’t misremembered—it was April. The most recent Valentine’s Day had passed less than two months ago. Two months ago, Mirage Server had already become Orchid Temple1The name of the haunted temple from “A Chinese Ghost Story.” (It was a ghost server even back then). So Polly had done the Valentine’s quest with the female ghost?
Of course, that wasn’t impossible. Even the most ghostly servers had a few living players. A lonely man and woman running into each other and teaming up could make for a lovely story. But… alright, Fang Zheng admitted his mind was wandering, and his hands were restless too. So, with this self-awareness, he unapologetically consulted Baidu.
In the information age, there were no secrets. Fang Zheng merely typed in “Drought Demon Transformation Potion,” hit enter, and a flood of results appeared. The top result was a forum post with the keywords blazing red. Fang Zheng clicked it—it was a rant from a gamer:
So damn unfair! After all the effort my wife and I put into the Valentine’s quest, we only got this lousy Drought Demon Transformation Potion! WTF! Flipping tables! Give me back my subscription money!
Fang Zheng checked the post’s timestamp—unsurprisingly, it was from last year.
Game developers didn’t repeat their tricks. Even if they did, they’d repackage it in some new form. So Fang Zheng was certain that such special event rewards would only appear once.
Whether the potion was trash or not, Fang Zheng couldn’t say—after all, it had just saved the entire team. But potions weren’t like wine; they didn’t improve with age. So the fact that Polly had carried this potion for over a year without using it spoke volumes to Fang Zheng. Having played MMOs for so long, though he’d never had any romantic encounters himself, he’d witnessed plenty of love and hate dramas. Connecting the dots with the melodramatic plot of Polly being kicked out of his guild, Fang Zheng’s mind immediately conjured up the tragic image of a lovesick man abandoning fame and fortune to wander the world alone, a solitary sword at his side.
But then again, if it was truly such a precious item, would he just casually use it in a random dungeon run with a PUG?
Romance Fang Zheng and Rational Fang Zheng were locked in a tug-of-war inside his brain, teetering on the brink of a stalemate, when a furious roar suddenly erupted in YY—
“Fuck! What the hell are you doing, healer?!”
Fang Zheng’s sensitivity to the word “healer” now far surpassed his own name. Instinctively, he checked the party status bar.
Yep. Mad Lad had wiped again.
Truly, being a non-professional tank was an extremely high-risk profession.
“How’d you die again…” Fang Zheng muttered lazily, tossing out a Resurrection.
“You tell me! This is the first time I’ve ever wiped to trash mobs in a dungeon!”
Mad Lad stood up weakly, his ID floating above his head radiating a thick aura of “I’m so fucking done.”
“Sorry, spaced out for a sec.” Fang Zheng apologized smoothly, his tone dripping with insincerity.
The Assassin’s mood wasn’t exactly improving: “The fuck were you thinking about?!”
Fang Zheng wanted to say, I was thinking about Baidu, but worried the Assassin might actually lose it, he wisely kept that to himself.
By then, the party had already left Haunted Grove and were heading toward the final boss’s lair, the General’s Tomb. Along the way, they cleared mobs as usual. The poor Assassin had never imagined he’d die again here, but when death came for him, all he could do was yell at the healer a bit.
“Your DPS is too high, so the mobs aggro you. Nothing we can do about that,” Your Uncle offered kindly.
Jiang Yang, however, felt like strangling him.
If high DPS was a crime, then he’d just stop doing it!!
With the healer’s focus restored, the party’s efficiency noticeably improved. They soon reached the General’s Tomb without further mishaps, so smoothly that the entire team fell into an unspoken silence, afraid that saying anything might jinx this rare moment of harmony and peace.
As the final boss, the Zombie King was a force to be reckoned with. For one, he never played hide-and-seek with players, always standing atop the highest point of the General’s Tomb, looking down on the world with disdain. Secondly, he didn’t bother with fancy tactics like focusing on one target at a time—he just spammed AoE attacks. Non-stop AoE.
“Assassin, pull the Corpse King to that pile of grass in the northeast corner. Everyone else, stay at least 20 meters behind the Assassin to DPS.” Polly didn’t care if everyone already knew the boss mechanics—he gave concise instructions anyway.
The only way to avoid AoE attacks was to stay outside the boss’s spell radius. The Zombie King’s spell radius was exactly 20 meters, while healers, Blesscallers, and Spirit Masters could cast up to 24 meters away. Demon Refiners could also control their pets from up to 24 meters. Though this tactic limited some close-range spells, it maximized safety.
“Ready?” the Assassin asked gravely in YY. “If you are, I’ll pull.”
After a night of setbacks, this was the moment they’d been waiting for. Everyone shook off their drowsiness and focused.
Once the team confirmed they were ready, Mad Lad dashed toward the General’s Tomb like lightning. Without hesitation, he slashed at the massive boss!
The boss wasn’t about to take that lying down. It roared skyward, and the tomb was suddenly shrouded in dark clouds as thick black smoke rose from the ground!
Polly and 438’s Wind Sprite pet followed closely, crowding around the boss alongside the Assassin to unleash their attacks.
The three melee DPS weren’t huddling together for fun—it was to make it easier for the healer to top them off. If any of them strayed too far, the healer might check the distance and realize, Oh, they’re over 24 meters away, and at that point, even divine intervention wouldn’t help.
Milk is Mom only had two AoE heals, one of which was a low-tier skill with limited effect. But the boss didn’t care about that. Every time it swung, HP bars plummeted across the board. Crossplayer’s Blessing was still spamming Blessing of Healing, Blessing of Healing, Blessing of Healing… Fang Zheng didn’t even have the energy to direct him anymore—like telling him to buff the DPS’s attack power, dispel debuffs, or remove the boss’s shields. By the time he finished explaining, the optimal window for using those skills would’ve passed, and by the time Crossplayer found the right skill, the warranty would’ve expired. =_=
After a few minutes of DPS, 438’s pet ran out of HP and fell. He quickly summoned another to take its place. Polly’s HP was still at half, clearly thanks to his high magic resistance. About half of the Zombie King’s attacks were magic-based, and as a fellow zombie, Polly had a near 90% resistance rate. In contrast, the Assassin was having a much rougher time, repeatedly teetering on the brink of death and relying on potions to stay alive—because all of Fang Zheng’s heal skills were on cooldown.
“I knew running a dungeon without a proper tank would be a disaster!” Mad Lad was beyond frustrated from the brutal tanking experience.
Fang Zheng spoke earnestly: “Hero, this just proves how great you are.”
“Just focus on healing!” The non-professional tank’s biggest fear right now was the healer getting distracted.
“I think you’ll probably die at least once,” Polly predicted. “But it’s fine. Blesscaller, keep an eye out—when the Assassin dies, immediately cast Resurrection. Then the healer can spam heals.”
Both Blesscallers and healers could resurrect, but there was a difference. Players revived by a Blesscaller would have 30% HP, while those revived by a healer only got 15%. So the choice was obvious. But when it came to healing, the healer was still the best option—it was their job, after all.
In Huaxia, a boss’s aggro reset when a player died, but veterans knew this reset had a time limit—unofficially, players estimated it at 7-8 seconds. If a player was revived within that window, the boss’s aggro would remain on them. Of course, if heals didn’t come in time, even if aggro didn’t shift, a single boss attack could still take down the freshly revived tank.
If Your Uncle’s talent was being a jinx, then Polly’s predictions were pure skill honed over years of gaming. Within three minutes, Mad Lad found himself in a tight spot—his potions were on cooldown, and the healer couldn’t cast fast enough. The boss unleashed a devastating AoE roar, and the Assassin went down!
“Blesscaller!” Polly barked the order without hesitation.
This time, Crossplayer’s Blessing didn’t space out. From hearing the command to casting the skill, it took less than four seconds!
Mad Lad’s corpse transformed into a streak of white light and, in the blink of an eye, reappeared right in front of Milk is Mom, Your Uncle, Crossplayer’s Blessing, and Refined Into a Demon 438!
Along with the Zombie King…
Fang Zheng wanted to make Milk is Mom run, but even a split-second hesitation in an emergency could be fatal. By the time he pressed the keys, the healer was already within the boss’s attack range—and the damn thing chained two AoEs back-to-back. So Milk Mom wiped.
438 and Your Uncle, being squishy casters, had already died to the first AoE.
Jiang Yang had no idea why he’d been revived in the middle of the group. All he knew was that the moment he stood up, he was dead again—this time sandwiched between 438 and Your Uncle.
The culprit, Crossplayer, wasn’t spared either, collapsing at Milk is Mom’s feet.
Milk is Mom couldn’t move right now, but if he could, Fang Zheng would’ve flown over and stabbed Crossplayer twice with Willow Leaf Blade!
With no other targets left, the boss turned to Polly. It didn’t even need to move—the Zombie King was already in a straight line between Polly and the pile of corpses (Assassin, Your Uncle, and Crossplayer). The boss’s double AoE had not only wiped the party but also clipped Polly and 438’s Water Sprite pet. The poor pet died, but Polly resisted both attacks. Now, facing the boss alone and its atomic bomb-level AoEs, even Polly couldn’t hold out. He quietly fell.
Total party wipe.
No one had the will to get back up. Jiang Yang even felt that making it to the final boss at all was a testament to his ironclad determination.
Fang Zheng collapsed onto his keyboard, utterly drained.
When you’re supposed to teleport2Through Remote Resurrection, you don’t. When you’re supposed to resurrect3Through Blessing of Resurrection, you don’t. Are Crossplayer and Your Uncle teaming up to screw with me?!
“I told you to separate the two skills…” Team Troll Member #1 commented.
“I’ve been using teleport all night, so I just did it out of habit…” Team Troll Member #2 weakly defended.
Polly lit a cigarette, took a few slow drags, then exhaled…
After all these years of gaming, this was the first time he’d realized that a Blesscaller’s Remote Resurrection could not only summon dead teammates to the caster—but also the boss…
……
The thoroughly demoralized party quickly disbanded.
As PUG members, they’d known from the start that their fate was on the line. Win or lose, it all came down to luck. But sometimes, luck was so abysmally bad that it felt like pure torture.
Life was fair, though. After suffering so much in-game, Jiang Yang consoled himself that tomorrow’s business negotiations would surely go well—and with that thought, he finally drifted into a peaceful sleep.
Fang Zheng wasn’t so lucky. The latter half of his night was plagued by nightmares of Hell Night, the words haunting him like a curse.
Your Uncle tossed and turned in his small bedroom, torn between guilt over his mistake and relief that Crossplayer had drawn all the blame.
438 and Crossplayer lived in different cities, but both silently shut off their computers and lamps under their roommates’ protests.
On the virtual internet, only the Little Zombie remained online, doing nothing but leaning back, quietly watching the willow branches sway—like an NPC.
Polly had smoked half a pack by now. He wasn’t usually a heavy smoker, only lighting up when frustrated. Strangely, though, he didn’t actually feel frustrated tonight. The cigarettes were more for thinking, for savoring.
Thinking about tonight’s tragedy.
Savoring tonight’s absurdity.
But someone had to ruin the moment—not just with flashing messages, but with obnoxious window shakes—
2nd to No1 23: 39:17
If you’re online, why the hell aren’t you talking?!
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