Famine 87: Turning Point

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum—
The swarm of human faces still flickered overhead.

Countless copies of her own face circled around her. Even after escaping the hallucination, those faces now wore grotesque, twisted smiles—distorted and terrifying.

Think—got to think of something… Lin Qiushui desperately tried to force her scorched mind to work, but the heat-fogged haze in her brain was impenetrable—she could remember nothing at all.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum—
Down fluttered clouds of moth dust.

So hot—unbearably hot. Heat cramps still racked her, lips split and parched, her whole body trembling uncontrollably. Lin Qiushui realized, horrified, that as the human-faced moths shed new dust, her own consciousness seemed to be peeling away along with it… @All the best stories, only at Jinjiang Literature City

Most crushing of all was that Lin Qiushui had no way to deal with it.

“Please, please don’t eat anymore…”
“So much blood! Goddamn it, why does this item only shield two people…!”

The cries of the desperate filled the air.

Lin Qiushui’s body was already partially disabled—her fingers lacked strength, and her condition grew ever worse. Meanwhile, Hu Yongchang’s awful smile stretched even wider, his muscles taut as ever, his strength undiminished.
At last, Lin Qiushui’s grip weakened; the controlled Hu Yongchang broke free in a frenzy!

“Caught in a butterfly net? Broke free… Let me teach you a lesson!”
Hu Yongchang laughed as he twisted his body, slamming Lin Qiushui to the ground. His knee crashed down, sinking into her abdomen.

“—”
Lin Qiushui heard a series of broken, almost inhuman screams. It took a moment to realize—ah, those screams were her own.

Hu Yongchang raised his arm high, dagger-like fingers poised to gouge directly at Lin Qiushui’s eye!

“Brother Hu—!!” Lin Qiushui gritted her teeth, turning her head away.

It was too late to break free now.
In that final instant, time seemed to slow. Lin Qiushui stared helplessly as Hu Yongchang’s hand descended, and an entire lifetime flashed before her eyes like a magic lantern show.

The local militia officer pinning a red flower to her chest; her mother smiling and applauding from behind. The examination room that had changed her fate, where a blade flashed in the sunlight toward the doctor. Starving brothers and sisters bawling as the famine game first descended. The miraculous farm, and now—this moment beneath a sky of twisted faces, speckled with blood from a raised hand…

A fleeting thought flashed through her mind—
In this life, what have I changed, what have I left behind?

Her attempts to save people had always been so one-sided, her desire to share the farm’s burdens perhaps all too naïve.

Born to die, powerless to change fate… what difference was there, really, between a player in the famine game and a moth?

Splash!!!

Suddenly, a torrent of ice-cold liquid was poured over her head!

Chunks of ice mingled in it, a freezing, biting liquid soaking both Lin Qiushui and Hu Yongchang through, dousing them utterly at the sweltering wall top.

“?!!”

The shock of cold was so intense that Lin Qiushui jerked in surprise. Even Hu Yongchang paused, the violence instantly arrested.

They shivered as one, looking up together at—

A wall of fur.

It was a rabbit—a gigantic rabbit. Its blue-white fur glistened with an icy sheen, its body plush and soft, half a frostbitten horn crowning its head, and blood-red eyes gazing down upon them with regal indifference.

A rabbit? Why was there a rabbit here?
Lin Qiushui stared, stupefied, then noticed the rich scent enveloping her. The substance soaking her…was it—some kind of beverage?

What was it?

Ah—
Before she could piece it together, the giant rabbit opened its gaping, fanged jaws.

From its mouth, a young figure, clutching a large bucket in both arms, leapt out and hit the ground in a roll before dashing toward her, shouting, “Sister Lin!!”

Yun Zhong!

Behind Yun Zhong, one after another, a crowd emerged.

Tang Qinghuai, Li Xuan, Wu Jing, Li Cuie… the slender cobbler who ran the armor shop, a seamstress from the garment plant…

@All the best stories, only at Jinjiang Literature City
Men, women, old and young—the only thing these people had in common was that all wore soft peasant’s clothes, their bodies frail and unremarkable, as if a breeze could knock them down or they could be chopped down by a careless swipe.

—They were “service” players.

These weak, pitiable service players, each carrying a big bucket, burst out from the frost-horn rabbit and charged headlong onto the sweltering battlefield!

Lin Qiushui hardly had time to react before Yun Zhong was at her side in three quick strides.

The boy cracked open his bucket, scooped out a cup of liquid, pried open Lin Qiushui’s mouth, and poured it swiftly inside!

“Mmph! Cough—cough, cough…”

Lin Qiushui was too slow to resist; she swallowed several mouthfuls.

At last, the taste registered.

It was coffee.

[Nursery #4—Your “Employee Power Up” (Phase One)]
You say my monthly salary is 4k, no pension, no benefits, and I work 9 to 9 with only two days off a month?
Time for a power up!
[Employee-Style Coffee]
The lifeblood of the cattle and horses.
Drink to receive the buff: [I Haven’t Broken Down—Yet]
Wipes out all debuffs—drowsiness, hunger, exhaustion, dizziness—and forcibly maintains wakefulness.

And yes, the “wiped out abnormal status” included:
Heatstroke and hallucinations.

Humm!

The fog instantly lifted, her lucid mind regaining its foothold.

Lin Qiushui!

By the time Lin Qiushui recovered fully, Yun Zhong had already force-fed Hu Yongchang as well.

As consciousness flooded back, Hu Yongchang stared at his blood-covered hands in horror and let them fall, striking the ground with a clang.

Yun Zhong hugged Lin Qiushui tightly, trembling with relief. “We made it in time!”

All across the wall, similar scenes were playing out, again and again.

“There’s one over here! Hurry!!”
“Don’t slice me! Don’t! I’m trying to help you!”
“Drink up! Why won’t you drink?!”

“Hold him and pour it! I brought a funnel!”

“Smart thinking!”

The service players, wielding buckets of ice-cold coffee, dashed recklessly through the clouds of moths, stumbling and crawling wherever the battle was thickest.

Whenever they found a soldier locked in hallucination, they’d wrench open the victim’s mouth and pour in a brimming cup of iced coffee.

Gulp, gulp, gulp…

Countless cups of coffee went down the throats of the fallen.
Countless suitable players jolted awake, cold with horror, sick with regret.

“How—how did you get here?” Lin Qiushui could barely speak.

The wall was fifty, sixty degrees at least. How had they survived?!

“How could we not come?” Yun Zhong wiped the sweat from his face, smiling.

Seeing that both Hu Yongchang and Lin Qiushui were safe, Yun Zhong wasted no more words, hugged Lin Qiushui once more, grabbed his bucket and charged off to the next prone figure.

Watching Yun Zhong’s departing back, it quickly dawned on Lin Qiushui what they’d eaten—
[Strawberry Milk Ice Cream]
Its tangy flavor grants resistance to flame-based effects for 8h after consumption.

The farm’s food had given them strength to stand at this critical hour.

The frost-horn rabbit blinked its red eyes, soft fur insulating against the heat as it lay sprawled in the very center of the wall. It was like a gigantic, mobile icebox—the gaping mouth merely an entrance. Most important of all, its frost horn held tremendous magical space inside, filled with enormous buckets of ice cream, iced coffee, and chilled milk.

When people ran out of coffee, they simply dashed into its mouth to fetch another bucket. If someone finally couldn’t bear it any longer, they’d crawl into the rabbit’s frigid interior, gasping and resting for a moment before rejoining the fight.

Lin Qiushui watched all this in a daze, until her earpiece buzzed as channels shifted, and Wang Wen’s voice came through:

“Are you alright, Sister Lin?”

The words jolted Lin Qiushui. “This was your idea?!”

“We just made it. Not too shabby for the tactician, right?” Wang Wen replied.

“You brat…” Lin Qiushui’s eyes blurred with emotion.

“Leave us to wake everyone up, you get back to your post. Some moths have broken into the farm. You must stop the rest!”

Lin Qiushui wiped her eyes hard, swallowing a thousand words unspoken. She gave one firm answer: “Understood!”

She charged back to the watchtower.

——

Salvation from above was but an illusion—for the rest, a hard fight remained.

Over the earpiece, Lin Qiushui called on the soldiers to report in as she climbed to the control platform and began reorganizing the battle teams.

And the service players, relentless, kept running along the length of the wall.

The heat was enough to frighten even the battle-ready, let alone the service players.

Their bodies were frail—ice cream or not, they soon showed signs of damage. Blisters bubbled up on exposed skin, and some grew red and swollen, tugging futilely at their thin sleeves, desperate for the slightest shield against the blazing air.

From time to time, shrieks could be heard:
“Damn, these moths are worse than a horror movie—bet I’ll be having nightmares for days!”
“It’s like boiling alive! Is this really where I belong?!”

Yet for all their stumbles and chaos, not a single one turned back.

One warrior, then two, then three—

They braved the moth powder, covering the walls.

One after another, the soldiers regained their combat strength.

Each rescued fighter came through the same confusion Lin Qiushui had felt—but this was quickly replaced by a fierce gratitude.

The service players were obviously organized and determined. Whenever someone tried to help distribute coffee, they were promptly pushed back toward the guns—“We can’t use those damn cannons, you go and do your job!”

A young, eligible warrior, clutching a bleeding shoulder and unable to hold back his curiosity, muttered his thanks and asked, “Aren’t you afraid?”
Service players were supposed to be weak, trembling before anything supernatural, unable to fight at all… Wasn’t this too much?

“Hah?!” the service player shouted back over the noise without even turning, “Afraid of what? Afraid to die?”

“Don’t make me laugh!”

“I’m just a small-timer. I’ve never even seen your so-called Bone Ferry. I’ve always been a coward—I go weak at the knees whenever things get weird. Seven years, and nobody has ever cared if we lived or died—only the farm, only the farm truly cares! Only here am I treated like a person!”

“Do you know how good life is here?”

“I eat my fill every day, I live in a lovely house, there are hot springs to soak in… Stuff I never even dared dream of, and now it’s all real!”

His voice hitched with fierce emotion.

“Stop joking around! We care about the farm more than you ever could!”
“I’ll never go back to that old life, never, not even if I die!”

“If the farm is in danger, I’m going to protect it!”

“I still want to eat barbecue and soak in the hot springs!”

—Some people lack defiance, and sheer desperation can’t spark their courage, @All the best stories, only at Jinjiang Literature City
but hope can.

And with that, the service player ran off to the next casualty and soon vanished from sight. The young warrior, left staring after him, was jarred out of his reverie by a sharp slap from his comrade.
“What are you gawking at? Move it! Are we going to let the service players outdo us?!”

The fighter jerked to attention as if waking from a dream, and hurried off to his post.

The moths’ hallucinations were deadly, and if not for Lin Qiushui’s intervention, Hu Yongchang would have gouged out his own eyes. Not everyone had been so lucky. Some had already fallen forever; but most, bloodied and battered, still dragged themselves back to the gun emplacements.

“Group Two—three, two, one… fire!”

Lin Qiushui’s voice rang out again and again through the earpieces.

The first salvo was ragged and slow.

The second volley found its shape.

On the third, the firestorm of the machine-guns reignited the earth.