The Trembling World

Chapter 10: Contamination

The moment before the helicopter crashed, the helicopter blade swept at Liu Gan’s waist while he was suspended mid air. Just in time, Liu Gan clenched his abs, and swung his leg up on on to the remains of the billboard as as The helicopter blade powerfully scraped his back. Afterwards, the fuselage of the helicopter tumbled down into the area below the billboard sent dozens of zombies flying, and rolled ten meters.

The helicopter fuselage ignited, but didn’t explode immediately. The zombies had no fear of death, so they even stepped on fellow zombies in an attempt to get inside the helicopter – searching for fresh meat within.

Liu Gan, still shocked, climbed back onto the broken remain of the advertisement structure. He looked at the helicopter that had landed ten meters away. Before this moment, all he had wanted was to be rescued – to be able to leave the billboard. The next moment, the Trembling World had once again given him another obstacle. He wasn’t able to be rescued, and the rescue helicopter was unluckily struck by lightning and crashed.

Is heaven too harsh? Before, there were so many lightning strikes, yet none struck the billboard. All were diverted away – yet now that the rainstorm had weakened, a sudden lightning strike actually struck the helicopter that was there to rescue him?

Right now, he had not only not gotten rescued, the helicopter crew nearby were also out of luck. Even if they didn’t die from impact, half of them would become food for the zombies.

“Save…me…”

His eyes and mouth were wide open, as he stared at the helicopter crawling with zombies, when he heard another voice coming from the direction of the support structure, a weak voice calling for help. He turned his head towards its direction and looked around. It was the female crewmember wearing the San Xing corporation uniform, holding onto a piece of support structure that was still hanging.

Liu Gan recognized her – it was the one who threw the rope ladder to him. Her body was covered in blood, probably from the moment the helicopter had smashed into the billboard. It most likely flung her out of the helicopter, or she voluntarily jumped out of it, and then grasped onto the remains of the billboard.

Liu Gan carefully crawled as close as possible to that part of the billboard, to test out the sturdiness of the structure to ensure it wouldn’t collapse. Then he positioned himself as carefully as possible, and used his strength to pull the fragmented billboard up.

After pulling the female crewmember up, Liu Gan found out that the female worker’s body had been pierced by sharp iron shrapnel. Unsure if it was from the helicopter or the billboard structure, it pierced straight through her abdomen. This was the main reason for her loss of blood.

After she was pulled up by Liu Gan, she sat down on the destroyed billboard, while her expression turned painful. But, she was still conscious and alert.

“Are you a GM for this game?” Liu Gan asked her.

The female crewmember stared at Liu Gan, not fully understanding his question’s meaning.

“The Trembling World has an error where players are trapped within the game, unable to logout. You are the representatives that the game company assigned here to resolve the issue, right?” Liu Gan asked the female crewmember.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying…” The female crewmember had a confused look and stared at Liu Gan.

“San Xing Corporation made a game, this billboard here is within The Trembling World – therefore, this is San Xing Corporation’s game. I am a game player, trapped within and unable to logout…” Liu Gan let the female crewmember look at his alloy watch, while telling her.

The female crewmember looked at Liu Gan, as if he was a mentally retarded patient, and didn’t speak in reply.

“I’m asking you something! What’s wrong with this game? You’re already heavily injured, don’t help your company hide it anymore! There are ten thousand players trapped within this game, San Xing Corporation can’t hide it anymore!” Liu Gan asked the female worker again.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying. Simulated games could be a different department’s project? I am responsible for biochemical laboratory work. Before the red rain, I was at sea on an expedition. I didn’t expect that the moment I returned, the world would have become like this.” she finally replied to Liu Gan.

This confused Liu Gan even more.

“You aren’t a game player, a game corporation’s worker, and also you haven’t recently transferred into this game… You’ve been living here in this world your whole life, right?” Liu Gan tested the female’s response.

“Of course, I’ve lived here my whole life. The purpose of our helicopter trip was to search the houses for usable resources and then return. After lifting off, I saw someone on the billboard, so we flew closer…” The female looked strangely at Liu Gan. She seemed to feel a lot of discrepancy when talking with Liu Gan.

“You are this game’s NPC.” Liu Gan finally understood.

“What?” The female crewmember frowned. Her face started to become pale. Her wound had been continuously leaking blood.

“Forget it.” Liu Gan shook his head, unsure of what to say.

“Why haven’t you been contaminated? Why are you so lucky?” The female took the lead to ask Liu Gan.

“I am a game player. One hour ago, I was transferred here. I haven’t been bitten yet, so how would I have gotten contaminated?” Liu Gan replied.

“Your brain seems to have a problem… but that’s not strange, considering all that scary stuff that’s happened…” The female was beginning to understand, and came up with her own theory.

[TN: error 404 lol] [ED: It’s scawy what zombies do to computers]

“My head is fine, it’s the game that has an error.” Liu Gan replied to the female. No matter how he explained himself, she was from this world – an NPC. She was unable to comprehend the meaning that another person had been transferred into this world.

“You haven’t been contaminated yet, it’s possible that your body has developed a natural antibody against this contamination. Perhaps, you are the key to ending this contamination…” The female started muttering to Liu Gan.

“You were lowering the rope to make me your guinea pig?” Liu Gan looked at the female uncomfortably and was a bit angry, since his previous assumption was right.

“We just wanted to rescue this world…. “ The female worker revealed her sadness, as her loved ones, her friends, and even her coworkers had all become zombies. She had been on her ocean voyage which had allowed her to survive this disaster. Upon returning, everything she was once familiar with, had all changed.

“You said you were on an expedition, is this place close to the coast? Is there only one ship? If something happens to you here, they will send another helicopter to search and rescue you right?” Liu Gan suddenly remembered and asked the female worker.

[Explanation if necessary: One is an NPC (aka resident of the “new” world) and the other is the player (aka “new” world visitor).]