Chapter Nine: My Sister Said Purple Has a Certain Charm

After Su Chen finished speaking, he opened his palm. The earring shimmered with a strange light. Su Chen closed his eyes tightly and clenched his palm, inscribing unknown characters onto it. Suddenly, before his eyes appeared a long scroll. One might have mistaken it for an electronic miniature version of the Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival. It truly could be opened!

Su Chen thought to himself that their current situation must indeed be very dangerous. Only when life was at risk could this map be revealed. This map held the key to escaping the floating island.

He had lived on the floating island his entire life, never once feeling threatened. But now, with an unknown creature having escaped from the laboratory, logically, the floating island’s government should have intervened and deployed forces to control the situation. Yet, at this critical moment, there was not even a single person maintaining order.

Su Chen felt deeply disappointed.

“I see that on your miniature map, most areas only show shapes, but you can’t see the names of specific places,” Gu Xi asked curiously. So far, the only illuminated spot on the map was the floating island itself. Nothing else was lit up, and no names appeared. They were essentially navigating blindly.

Her voice pulled Su Chen back from his thoughts. “Let me see how we can get out,” he said, looking at the map.

“It seems we have no choice but to take this path. From analyzing the map’s structure, I’ve never been to this place before. I only heard my brother mention it when I was young,” Su Chen said, pointing to the lower right corner of the floating island map.

Gu Xi followed his finger and saw a red marker in that corner of the map. The marker read: “Downward Passage. Proceed with caution. Dangerous animals present. Animal type unknown.”

Su Chen noticed the warning too. The two exchanged a glance, their faces reflecting grim realization.

Despite being a man, Su Chen had never left the floating island since childhood. Later, as a tutor on the island, he should have lived out his days in peace. Now, to venture out and face danger was truly distressing.

“Scared?” Gu Xi teased, noticing his unwilling expression.

“No way!” Su Chen hurried to explain.

“Ahem. It’s getting late. Let’s set off quickly. If we encounter anything on the way, we’ll just open the map again. It’s my first time seeing this map too, so don’t look at me like I’m some kind of miracle worker,” he said as he stepped aside and grabbed the backpack from Gu Xi’s hands, slinging it over his shoulder.

Judging by Su Chen’s demeanor, he seemed unaware that Gu Xi had a system. Without space storage, carrying a human backpack wasn’t a bad solution. Gu Xi felt a secret thrill at this thought. She had just awakened her enhanced physique and hadn’t yet had the chance to study the system instructions. Once safe, she planned to find a quiet place to delve into it.

The two confirmed there were no extra dangerous creatures near the door. The surrounding residents were eerily silent. Usually, this apartment building was a chaotic mix of people, but now it was as quiet as Silent Hill.

“Do you remember? The floating island system always crashes when strange creatures attack? People become as silent as the dead? I don’t recall any of this,” Su Chen said, having grown up in a sheltered environment.

Indeed, he had never encountered such a situation. As a tutor, it was a bit foolish for him to ask this. Gu Xi was a little annoyed by his cluelessness. She didn’t understand the meaning behind his words, and secondly, they should just leave quietly. Finding the escape route and getting out was all that mattered. Why overthink it?

“If you ask me, you should be wondering if we need to take the elevator down from such a high floor,” Gu Xi rolled her eyes and whispered.

Before Su Chen could respond, she half-crouched and felt along the corridor to its end. Su Chen looked in the direction Gu Xi was moving.

An emergency exit.

Several green letters glowed softly.

Gu Xi saw Su Chen hesitate in place. Didn’t he know she planned to go down the emergency exit? She gestured silently for him to follow. After a long pause, Su Chen finally complied.

At the door of the emergency exit, just as Su Chen was about to explain, Gu Xi pulled him down the stairs. Going downhill was hard on the knees. When Su Chen had come to find Gu Xi earlier, the elevator was still functional. But now, the entrance was blocked by corpses, and it took all his strength to pry open the elevator doors.

This woman was a bit wild.

After about thirty minutes of descending, they reached the first floor. Su Chen’s knees and meniscus were beginning to ache, while Gu Xi stood upright as if nothing had happened.

Gu Xi came close and signed for him to unroll the map scroll to see the next direction. After a long moment, Su Chen finally understood.

The two studied the map and realized they had to traverse the outer edge. But the area beside the floating island’s electric shield had always been a forbidden zone, unexplored since ancient times. No floating island resident knew what kind of world lay beyond—whether dangerous or beautiful remained unknown. No book on the island recorded anything about that dark, forbidding outer land.

Gu Xi had no choice but to try. The map showed that only by passing through the outer forbidden zone could they reach the underground level, then slide down to the surface of Lingdu, and finally leave the floating island.

Su Chen noticed the method the map revealed. After all, this wasn’t an elementary school field trip; they carried so much gear. It had to be useful.

Gu Xi grumbled inwardly about how heavy her load was, wishing she had a handy weapon.

Then she suddenly remembered something. Before entering, the “disappeared parents” had passed a stage, and she had met Su Chen. Before Su Chen knocked on the door, he had opened the lottery system. At that moment, something popped up on the system screen, but she had forgotten to check it!

She had it!

[Open system and check lottery results.]

[Checking lottery results for host:

1. Instant noodles ×7

2. Winchester ×1 with 20 bullets]

Indeed! It was because of Su Chen that she had been interrupted from her draw! The Winchester was great! She remembered an old movie from the last century called The Terminator, a character she had loved as a child—decisive and ruthless, a stark contrast to her previous romantic self before rebirth.

And the gun’s color was purple. A soft, slightly pinkish purple—very tender and sweet. What girl wouldn’t love such a delicate shade?

“My little sister says purple has charm,” Gu Xi suddenly spoke aloud as the system displayed the information before her eyes.

Su Chen watched her muttering to herself and felt utterly bewildered. “Hey, sister, are you coming or not? What purple? What charm? I don’t get a word of this.”