To Sweep Across Like Wildfire - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

“I’m down, I’m down… Sister, save me!” Lao San clutched her phone and shouted anxiously. After several rounds of gaming, she had become exceptionally practiced at calling out “Sister.”

Number 4 quickly moved over, pulled her up, and dropped some medical supplies.

Touched, Lao San picked them up, healed herself, and said, “Sister is so kind, I like Sister the best.”

As soon as she spoke, a slight cough from Lao Si sounded beside her. She looked puzzled and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

Meng Chi said expressionlessly, “Nothing, my throat is just uncomfortable.”

Number 4’s soft laughter came through the headset, saying, “Drink more hot water.”

“Oh,” Meng Chi replied with a somewhat cold tone. She was usually cold, so her roommates didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

Xiao Er said, “What’s going on? I feel like there are more ‘big shots’ in these last two rounds. Everyone is playing so brutally!”

Lao San replied, “It’s probably because we’ve had a few consecutive wins. The system thinks we’ve gotten a lot better and put us into a pool of experts.”

Xiao Er lamented, “Ah, what a beautiful misunderstanding. We’re just low-tier players trying to survive for points.”

Lao San added, “I can’t imagine how we’d get slaughtered by these pros if Sister wasn’t playing with us.”

Xiao Er said, “Stay calm. This won’t last long. The system will soon send us back to where we belong—the trash can.”

Number 4 laughed and said, “It’s not that exaggerated. There’s an air drop nearby, want to go?”

Air drops are crates sent by the system containing high-end gear, which always attract a crowd of players. They appear in two ways: random drops or summoned by a flare gun. Flare guns are extremely rare and have a higher chance of appearing in certain map locations, but encountering one is pure luck.

“Let’s check it out; maybe we can find an AWM.”

The AWM is an incredibly powerful sniper rifle capable of one-shot headshots, found only in air drops.

“It’s a bit of a distance to run. Let’s drive. Are there any vehicles near you?” Number 4 asked.

In the game, vehicles include motorcycles, three-seater bikes, buggies, and off-road vehicles, each with different capacities.

Meng Chi, who had been silent for a while, chimed in, “There’s a sedan across the road,” and marked the location.

They drove over and encountered two teams. Neither team had as many players as they did, and they were driving a buggy and a standard motorcycle. In the ensuing fight, the buggy team was wiped out, and the motorcycle team fled immediately upon making contact.

They rushed to the air drop site. Number 4 threw a smoke grenade, and soon a cloud of white mist enveloped the crate to prevent them from being headshotted while looting.

“There’s an AWM. Who wants it?” Number 4 was the fastest, jumping out of the car and running to the crate.

“Nice,” Xiao Er said. “I don’t want it; I just wanted to see it.”

“I don’t want it either. In my hands, an AWM is just a fire poker; it’s not much use,” Lao San said.

Meng Chi said, “I don’t want it, you take it.”

“Fine, I’ll take it. If you want to play with it later, just ask me,” Number 4 said. “I also have an M24 here. It’s a waste to leave it. Do you want it?”

During the game, players can carry at most three guns: a pistol and two primary weapons (SMGs/rifles/snipers). Shen Qingruo already had a rifle and a sniper. Since she was picking up the AWM, she had to drop one of them. She couldn’t drop the rifle needed for close combat, so she dropped the M24, which shares the same attributes as the AWM.

“Snipers are useless in my hands,” Xiao Er said. Her aim wasn’t great, so she had given up on snipers, usually preferring two rifles or an SMG-rifle combo.

“The M24 isn’t something I can handle, and I already have a Mini,” Lao San said. The Mini14 is a marksman rifle that can serve as a sniper.

Just as Shen Qingruo dropped the M24, an unexpected voice came through the headset. Meng Chi said, “Give it to me.”

“Sure,” Shen Qingruo said. “I’ve dropped all the M24 attachments too. Pick them up.”

“I hear car sounds nearby. It’s likely the motorcycle duo found a new vehicle and came back. Get in the car, quickly!” Shen Qingruo added urgently.

Xiao Er, being closest to the car, immediately hopped into the driver’s seat.

The two teams chased each other for over ten seconds, ending when Shen Qingruo leaned out the window and took out the enemy driver.

A few seconds after the car kept moving, Shen Qingruo heard the faint sound of gunfire. Someone was sniping them. She quickly told Xiao Er to drive toward a residential area. Just as she finished her sentence, Xiao Er was sniped and knocked down.

The place where they stopped was an open field, and they immediately sought cover behind a haystack.

Shen Qingruo located the sniper’s direction and fired a few rounds. One opponent went down but was quickly revived by a teammate.

The number of players on both sides was equal, and the opponents were very agile, with two of them being skilled snipers.

Twenty seconds later, the opponents figured out their pattern. Realizing there was only one strong player among them, they moved in quickly. During this time, Xiao Er and Lao San were knocked down once. Although Meng Chi revived them quickly, it clearly made the opponents more confident and even reckless.

Two seconds later, the opponents spoke in the World Channel: “You can’t beat us. Just surrender. Don’t slow us down from outrunning the zone.”

In the game, the “signal circle” shrinks over time. Players must stay inside, or they’ll be eliminated. Before the game was censored, players called the area outside the safety zone the “poison circle,” so the process of entering the safety zone was called “running from the poison.”

The opponents were all guys, laughing and saying, “Just surrender. We’ll carry your legacy into the final circle. There will be a trace of your blood on our trophy.”

Xiao Er angrily turned off the World Channel and said, “Even if we have to drag them down, we’ll keep them stuck outside the circle.”

Initially, when the enemy fire suppressed them and Xiao Er and Lao San were knocked down, they were a bit intimidated. Usually, they would have just played casually and started a new round. But being taunted like that sparked a fighting spirit in them. Together they managed to knock down two enemies, but due to their lack of skill, they were soon hit and eliminated despite their bravery.

Meanwhile, under their cover, Shen Qingruo successfully eliminated one of the enemy snipers. But unexpectedly, a cold shot came from a hidden direction, and Shen Qingruo was knocked down. Realizing their targets’ change in mindset, the opponents had adjusted—their best sniper had detached from the team and snuck around.

The moment Shen Qingruo fell, Xiao Er and Lao San let out a chorus of “Aaaaahhh!” screams: “It’s over, it’s over!”

“That guy is so sneaky! He resorts to a sneak attack because he can’t win a fair fight!”

“I can’t take it anymore. I’m opening the mic to give them a piece of my mind!”

Although Meng Chi was still in the game, she had only started playing today. Her “service age” was so short that she practically didn’t count; they assumed the round was lost. Until now, Meng Chi had rarely fired, being busy rescuing downed teammates.

Shen Qingruo being knocked down surprised Meng Chi, but she quickly steadied herself. She told Shen Qingruo to hide well and rapidly shifted her position. The enemies were closing in; there was no time for a rescue. Furthermore, while rescuing, the rescuer can’t fire—enemies wait for such moments to wipe everyone out at once.

Meng Chi hadn’t been playing long, so her movements were somewhat mechanical, but she was meticulous. She planned her route in advance, moving from one haystack to another. The opponents, thinking the main threat was dealt with and Meng Chi was no concern, became impatient.

With a cigarette in her mouth, Shen Qingruo sat up slightly straighter, watching Meng Chi move on the screen.

Once Meng Chi confirmed the enemy sniper’s position, she quickly scoped in and fired. The “crack” of the shot hit the cover next to the sniper.

Realizing Meng Chi was serious, Xiao Er and Lao San immediately went quiet, almost holding their breath for fear of distracting her.

Meng Chi’s expression was calm, not looking like a novice at all. she glanced at the other side. The two knocked down by Xiao Er and Lao San were crawling around frantically, seeming agitated. On her own side, Xiao Er and Lao San had already become loot boxes, and Shen Qingruo was hiding quietly by the haystack. If Meng Chi were knocked down, the two enemies would be revived by their sniper teammate, and both she and Shen Qingruo would be eliminated.

Meng Chi let out a soft breath, quickly shifted positions again, and peeked for the sniper. He had moved too; his light tan clothing almost blended into the field, leaving no trace.

Her gaze swept over the two downed enemies and she suddenly realized something. She immediately turned and caught sight of a tiny bit of the sniper’s helmet.

Meng Chi quietly maneuvered toward him. She raised a hand to adjust her headset, recalling Shen Qingruo holding her hand earlier to help her control the recoil: “While firing, pull the crosshair down…”

Then she decisively scoped in and aimed. The opponent also spotted her, and the sound of their dueling sniper shots rang out almost simultaneously.

The fierce combat sounds on the field vanished into silence. Three thick plumes of green smoke drifted up from loot boxes.

A prompt appeared on the screen:

Your teammate MC_417 used an M24 to eliminate Everyone Here Is Trash.

Shen Qingruo shifted her gaze from the screen to her desk. She had been watching so intently that she had forgotten to flick her cigarette, and a length of ash had fallen onto the table. She put down her phone and used a tissue to sweep the ash into the ashtray.

The team was silent for a moment, then erupted into the loudest screams of the night.

“Aaaaaahhh! Meng Chi, you’re so strong!”

“Too strong! Way too strong!”

“The Chosen One! Goddess of Guns!”

Xiao Er, Lao San, and Lao Da (who had been watching) all rushed onto Meng Chi’s bed, howling with her. Anyone outside who didn’t know better would have thought the girls in room 301 were undergoing a strange evolutionary reversal.

While Meng Chi was searching for the sniper, she noticed that the two downed opponents were both facing the same direction. There was no cover in that direction, so the sniper couldn’t be there. In a flash of insight, Meng Chi immediately looked in the opposite direction—the one they were trying to hide—and caught that sliver of the helmet.

Meng Chi was faster than the sniper. In his panic, he missed his shot, and she knocked him out with one hit.

As long as one person in a squad is still standing, the others who are knocked down won’t be immediately eliminated unless they are finished off. but if the last person falls, the whole team is eliminated instantly because there is no one left to perform a rescue.

While reviving Shen Qingruo, Meng Chi opened the World Channel and heard the opponent boast, “Defeated but honored, defeated but honored! I have a fully-kitted AKM in my box, you can take it.”

Meng Chi thought for a moment, turned on the world mic, and said calmly, “Thank you for the supplies. We will make it to the final circle.”

The opponents: “…”

After pulling Shen Qingruo up, Meng Chi dropped some medical items.

Shen Qingruo was about to say she had some, but the words died in her throat. She obediently picked them up and whispered, “Number 1, you’re so strong.”