Lu Jianming's inner emotions swelled continuously. By the time he snapped out of it, the tombstone before him had already been wiped completely clean.
Yet, the notification for completing the quest never appeared.
This was far from the intelligence he had gathered.
Lu Jianming did not understand what had gone wrong. But as he stood up, he suddenly sank into a patch of exceptionally soft ground.
The sensation was very strange, unlike the softness of loose soil.
Instead, it had a bit of elasticity, as if he were stepping on a prime cut of steak.
Lu Jianming's heart tightened, and he immediately looked down.
Beneath his feet was still the dark brown soil, which looked completely normal.
Refusing to believe his senses, he stomped on it again.
With his movements, the ground sank slightly, giving off a bizarre tactile sensation.
“What is this?”
He squatted down and poked the ground with a stick he had picked up.
The stick became stained with a sticky, filthy substance, carrying a faint metallic scent of blood.
The soil was also a dark red, looking as though it were soaked in blood.
Lu Jianming felt his skin crawl. Not daring to harbor even a shred of curiosity, he quickly threw away the stick and ran in the opposite direction—
But in the next second, blood-red text forcefully barged into his vision:
【Tai Sui (Red): The essence of the earth, the blood of the soil. Consuming it can prolong life and preserve eternal youth.】
Tai Sui.
Tai Sui!
A rush of hot blood surged straight to Lu Jianming's head. His mouth went dry, and a restless agitation took hold of his entire body.
Prolonging life, preserving eternal youth.
As he grew older, Lu Jianming had witnessed firsthand his father's near-frenzied pursuit of longevity.
Sturgeon caviar, wild snow swallow bird's nest, and century-old ginseng were no longer anything special.
In addition to daily doses of rare deep-sea collagen, rhinoceros horn extract, and blue whale extract as a baseline dietary supplement, he also had to consume them alongside various special ingredients every single day.
Telomerase activation injections, adrenochrome, human placental embryonic stem cell injections...
Legal or illegal, domestic traditional Chinese dietary therapy, or foreign gene editing.
The Lu family even had a dedicated genetic database.
Scientists would customize exclusive nutritional meals based on their DNA and inject specialized medications to suppress aging and delay disease.
But aging was not a disease.
There was no cure for it.
That was why Lu Bingkun viewed the Instances as his sole saving grace.
...
“Hahahahahahaha...”
Sitting on the ground, Lu Jianming suddenly burst into loud laughter, feeling an overwhelming sense of gratification. The treasure his father had spent half his life desperately pursuing had been obtained by him so easily.
Didn't this prove everything?
To call this piece of 【Tai Sui】 priceless would be an understatement.
As long as he could bring it out, the entire world would go mad for him!
Endless greed completely submerged Lu Jianming.
It even made him overlook several anomalies.
Paying no heed to why the quest completion notification had still not appeared, he knelt directly on the ground and began digging with his bare hands.
The soil was soft and sticky.
Dark red mud crammed under his fingernails, but Lu Jianming did not care about the dirt. Instead, he dug deeper and deeper, growing more and more enthusiastic.
After digging about half a meter deep, his fingertips finally brushed against something white, plump, and fleshy.
The thing was slippery and warm to the touch, and it was even covered in a layer of prickly, short black bristles.
Lu Jianming's breathing grew increasingly rapid, and he felt so excited he was about to faint.
Tai Sui!
A living Tai Sui!
He accelerated his digging, his hands clawing at the dirt at lightning speed.
Soon, a chunk of “flesh” as thick as an adult's arm was exposed.
“It's Tai Sui! It's Tai Sui! This is absolutely Tai Sui!”
Lu Jianming's brain felt like it was melting from excitement. Unable to contain himself, he lunged forward to sniff it closely.
It was faint, with a hint of blood, and also carried... a scent similar to a custom-made cologne.
With the textual prompt right there, Lu Jianming did not overthink it at all.
His mind was entirely filled with thoughts of immortality, power struggles, being adored by tens of thousands of people, and the beautiful picture of eternal youth.
He untied the silk tie around his neck, carefully bound it around the “head” of the Tai Sui, and pulled it into a tight knot.
“Treasures belong to those with the ability to claim them.”
Lu Jianming licked his lips, grabbed both ends of the tie, and pulled backward with all his might—
“!”
Yet, even though Lu Jianming exerted every ounce of his strength, the piece of Tai Sui remained completely motionless, as if rooted deep in the earth.
“I don’t believe it! Heaven let me encounter this treasure, there’s no way it’s going to let me leave empty-handed!”
Lu Jianming gritted his teeth in resentment. Sitting on the ground, he wrapped the tie around his wrists and leaned his entire body weight backward—
He pulled and pulled.
He tugged and tugged.
The expression on Lu Jianming's face grew more and more ecstatic, his complexion turning redder by the second. He was entirely immersed in a state of supreme bliss.
Suddenly, he heard a crisp crack.
The sound was very quiet, like a root snapping.
It worked!
It was a pity the treasure had broken.
Feeling a bit regretful, he put even more strength into his hands.
This time, there was another sharp crack.
The sound had the distinct texture of bone splintering.
Only then did Lu Jianming realize he was having trouble breathing, and his vision began to darken.
What was happening?
Was he just too excited?
Lu Jianming lowered his head in confusion, but he could no longer move.
His hands were still gripping the tie, and his head was tilted far back.
The last thing that entered his vision was a gloomy, gray sky, and his own lower body slumped to one side.
—Why was he flying?
—Oh, it wasn't that he was flying.
—His head had fallen off.
—There was no Tai Sui here.
Lu Jianming was kneeling before a half-man-tall tombstone.
One end of the silk tie was tied to the stone base of the tombstone, while the other end was tightly strangled around his own neck.
Just like pulling up a radish, he had pulled his own head off.
“...”
Lu Jianming's eyes stared wide, a lingering greedy smile still plastered on his face as his body went limp and collapsed.
His head slumped onto his shoulder at a bizarre angle, a deep purple bruise strangled around his neck.
The wind swept over with paper ashes, landing on his face as his eyes remained wide in death.
The cemetery remained silent, save for a crow perched on a distant tombstone, letting out a harsh caw.
As if mocking his greed.
In the next second, the tombstone that had just been wiped clean underwent a change.
All around the cemetery, every single tombstone began to alter.
Densely packed, without exception.
On every tombstone, the name “Lu Jianming” was carved.
Large and small, crooked and misshapen.
He was destined never to leave this place alive.
...
【All participants who have completed the main quest will be teleported out of the Instance.】
【Participants who have not completed the main quest will remain in the Instance permanently.】
【Instance closed.】
The thick fog dispersed, shadows shifted, and the silhouette of a fox quickly fled.
Inside Taiping Cemetery, blue and white lights flashed in a tangled web as hurried footsteps echoed.
“Over here! We have people!”
“The players are out! Medical team, move in!”
Medical staff in white protective suits rushed over holding detectors, followed closely by field agents from the Special Investigation Bureau.
“Don’t move! Check their spiritual energy levels first!”
“All players, wait where you are! Please place any items you brought out into the sealed boxes. We will return them immediately after inspection!”
“Quick, quick, here’s one!”
“There’s a new player here!”
The medical staff came up and slipped a detection wristband onto each of the surviving new players. Once they ensured that the readings were within a safe range, they carefully helped them sit on the stretchers.
“Slow down, slow down. Watch your step. Are you injured anywhere? Dizzy? Nauseous?”
The nurse's voice was gentle as she asked while conducting the examination.
“I’m fine. Just a bit dizzy, nauseous, and I feel like throwing up.”
Song Mo sat on the stretcher, her face displaying just the right amount of terror:
“Where is this? Am I back?”
—To avoid blowing her cover, Song Mo had truly exerted every ounce of her lifelong capability.
It was a peak acting performance from the Screenwriter.
Rate on N.U.
