Song Yu couldn’t quite explain why he was so honest with Rong Shi, maybe it was just because he was Rabbit’s childhood friend.

But the “childhood friend” relationship was, to this day, merely Rong Shi’s unilateral claim.

Suddenly, his head felt heavy, roughly patted a couple of times.

“You can tell him these things yourself later.”

The pressure on his hand eased, and Song Yu realized his hand was a bit sore.

“You’re not against it?”

Noticing his ruffled cowlick in his peripheral vision, Rong Shi said indifferently, “When did you learn to respect my position so much?”

Song Yu scoffed, “Didn’t you say we’re ‘family’?”

Rong Shi: “…”

“It’s best if you’re not against it.”

Song Yu got up, took off the thin blanket, and draped it over him: “I’m still waiting for you to scam my blank check.”

The blanket still held some body warmth. Rong Shi’s eyes flickered, just as he was about to say something, a restless hand appeared on his head.

Song Yu’s voice turned cold: “Try messing up my hairstyle again next time?”

Rong Shi: “…”

Watching him dutifully return to the tent with his messy hair, Rong Shi retracted his gaze, broke a wooden stick and tossed it into the campfire, then suddenly smiled.

---

The next day, it was still dimly lit.

All teams packed their gear, preparing to enter the mountains.

This mountain range was vast; a straight-line distance across it would probably take two days if everything went smoothly.

Qin Luo and his five teammates bid farewell to the little pickup truck they’d been with for two days, their hearts aching with reluctance.

They followed the other teams up, and in less than an hour, seven or eight teams branched off.

By the time they stopped for lunch, only about a hundred people remained.

“Strange, this journey has been too smooth.”

Someone in the team discussed.

“It’s been half a day, and we haven’t encountered a single wild beast. That’s unscientific.”

“Maybe we’re just lucky.”

“It feels unsettling, I have a bad feeling.”

“Yeah, where have all the wild beasts gone?”

Rong Shi’s seven-person team sat on a pile of rocks.

Qin Luo heard their discussion and couldn’t help but add, “It is strange.”

Hu Feng mused, “They either ran away or are hiding; they wouldn’t all be dead, would they?”

Liu Hong: “Could there be something big here?”

Old Bai: “What big thing? Don’t scare us!”

Rong Shi sat on a rock with his long legs bent, the distorted ‘rabbit’ stick figure on the tree trunk and Song Yu’s downcast eyes from last night repeatedly appearing in his mind.

“What do you think, Gege?”

It had been a long time since he’d heard that address. Rong Shi snapped out of his thoughts.

“I don’t know, just be careful.”

Once they entered the forest, it was unrealistic to completely avoid danger; they could only take it one step at a time.

Rong Shi sat on one half of a large rock, Song Yu sat on the other.

He smiled cheerfully: “Gege, you have to protect me, okay?”

Rong Shi: “…”

So utterly dejected last night, yet he’s fully recovered so quickly?

---

After a brief rest, they continued their journey.

They crossed one mountain peak and reached the halfway point of the second mountain.

Rong Shi paid attention to his surroundings, reminding the rest of the team to keep up.

“There might be an ant nest here.”

“Another ant nest?” Qin Luo frowned, “How can you tell?”

Rong Shi: “From the foot of the mountain to here, there were a total of five small mounds on the path. There are tree branch remnants near the mounds, which are passages for worker ants to forage.”

Hearing this, Chen Chen was puzzled: “I saw the mounds too, but there were no holes.”

Rong Shi: “They seal the entrance when they enter and exit to prevent other crawling animals from invading.”

Liu Hong: “Their intelligence also increased after mutation?”

Rong Shi: “Different mutation characteristics exist between the same species at different mutation levels.”

Rarely seeing Song Yu also looking like a curious baby, Rong Shi explained a bit more to them.

“Just judging mutation levels by size alone—”

Halfway through his sentence, Song Yu looked in one direction, his expression stern: “What happens if someone touches that mound?”

Rong Shi frowned, following his gaze.

He just happened to see a student kick the mound.

Student: “What is this thing? It’s quite sturdy.”

“Damn it—” Liu Hong, with his short temper, yelled at them: “Stop kicking! Why are your legs so itching for trouble!”

The student on the other side, suddenly subjected to a barrage of insults, felt his anger surge.

Just as he was about to retort, the mound under his feet suddenly vibrated, and he scurried back as if his butt was on fire.

Two antennae suddenly emerged from the small mound, quickly followed by the hard mandibles of a termite, opening and closing like large tongs.

“Sh*t! Termites!”

Everyone heard the commotion and quickly retreated in the opposite direction of the termites.

No one would fear termites when they were smaller than a grain of rice.

But when they grew to half a person’s height, they were terrifying.

“There’s one here too!”

Someone else shouted from another direction.

Liu Hong and the others immediately drew their military knives, standing back-to-back in a circle.

Liu Hong: “Damn it, more people means faster deaths!”

Hu Feng: “It looks like we’re really going to clash with termites this time.”

Old Bai: “What should we do? Where do we escape?”

As members of the old slacker team, “charge” was not in their dictionary.

The termites crawled very fast, and in a blink of an eye, dozens had emerged from one mound.

Rong Shi looked around, using the visible mounds as markers to construct a rough mental map of the ant nest’s location.

Ants in a Level 3 danger zone were enormous, with the largest nests spanning tens of kilometers. Their current position was already fully within the nest’s range, making a quick retreat impossible.

“So many!”

Trapped by termites, the team quickly descended into chaos.

Some teams were already retreating the way they came.

Rong Shi frowned and stopped a team that was passing by, coincidentally it was Song Ke’s team.

“That way might not be safe.”

Song Ke wasn’t the leader of this team; the others were either his subordinates or trusted confidantes.

They already had a history of animosity, and with their escape route blocked, the team members looked terrible, all thinking Rong Shi was doing it on purpose.

“That way isn’t safe, so we should stay here and become termite food?!”

“Exactly, if you’re not escaping, don’t hinder us!”

“Get out of the way!”

Song Ke, protected in the middle, casually had his hands in his pockets, his gaze shifting from Song Yu to Rong Shi, smiling: “Ignorance is bliss; you two are truly a perfect match.”

“No good deed goes unpunished!” Rong Shi didn’t speak, Chen Chen, unable to hold back, interjected, “If you want to leave, leave quickly. Anyway, whether you live or die has nothing to do with us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want to fight?!”

Chen Chen was about to say more but was stopped by Rong Shi.

Rong Shi: “No need to say more.”

The warning was out of courtesy for being in the same competition; whether they listened or not was none of his business.

Rong Shi looked at Song Ke and said indifferently, “I think no one here has a more auspicious face than you.”

The smile on Song Ke’s lips gradually turned cold. Before he could speak, Rong Shi left with Chen Chen.

---

A few teams had participated in the quiz challenges, and the weapons they held were noticeably better than those of other teams.

Rong Shi’s group only had ordinary handguns and military knives, making fighting more difficult.

In less than ten minutes, the forest floor and trees were covered in termites. Their sharp mandibles and churning mouthparts made people’s scalps tingle.

Rong Shi jumped, avoiding a termite’s large mandibles.

When he landed, he stepped on the ant’s head, ignoring its flailing antennae, and stabbed his military knife into the soft tissue connecting its neck to its exoskeleton.

With a forceful horizontal slash, green fluid sprayed out, and the termite wriggled violently a few times before collapsing to the ground.

It took less than a second from start to finish. Rong Shi sidestepped the venom and jumped down.

His movements were light and precise.

Next to him, Liu Hong, who had to stab a worker ant several times to kill it and got venom on his clothes, was envious when he saw Rong Shi’s skill.

“Damn, you really are a big shot!”

Liu Hong knew Rong Shi was strong from watching him in new recruit training and mech battles, but comparing now, the disparity and impact were immense!

Some students there couldn’t even hit anything with laser guns. Liu Hong thought he was already awesome for being able to stab worker ants with a military knife, but Rong Shi was killing one a second! Without even blinking!

This wasn’t just “strong”; it was a completely different level of strength!

Rong Shi: “Concentrate.”

Liu Hong: “…”

Your skill makes it hard for me to concentrate!

Chen Chen, taking advantage of a lull, wiped sweat from his brow and chuckled, “When we go back, I can write a special report on termites.”

Old Bai: “I’ll provide material.”

Hu Feng: “Me too.”

A strong, strange odor came from all directions. Occasionally, the screams and exclamations of students could be heard; many had already been injured.

Termite mandibles weren’t poisonous, but their blood was highly toxic. If blood accidentally got into a wound, it would be difficult to recover without dropping out of the competition.

“So many!”

“We can’t kill them all!”

“Why are so many more coming from over there?!”

The few teams that had retreated the way they came ran back, followed by densely packed, layered worker ants.

If one accidentally fell in, they would be eaten without a trace.

Rong Shi kept an eye on the surroundings.

From the same nest, a disturbance easily led to a simultaneous attack.

He wielded an ordinary military knife more skillfully than others did laser sticks.

The area around him was piled with worker ant corpses, yet apart from a thin layer of sweat on his forehead, he remained spotless.

Equally clean was Song Yu.

He shot one with each bullet, not wasting a single one.

His patience was also gradually depleted with each bullet fired.

He said coldly, “This attrition isn’t going to work.”

“Go over there.” Rong Shi pointed to a quiet small mound.

The other six immediately responded, cooperating to carve out a bloody path.

After running a certain distance, they dealt with the pursuing termites, and no new ones emerged from the surroundings. They could finally catch their breath.

Some teams saw their area was safe and also started moving towards them.

Chen Chen, with sharp eyes, saw Song Ke’s team among them.

“Didn’t you not listen to us? Why are you following us?”

The leader of that team blushed crimson upon hearing this, unsure how to respond, constantly giving Song Ke glances.

Song Ke snorted coldly, his face dark, saying nothing.

“Old Chen, let’s go,” Qin Luo said with a smile, patting Chen Chen’s shoulder and telling him to keep up.

As an insider, Qin Luo couldn’t openly clash with Song Ke, but it didn’t affect him enjoying the drama from the side.

---

After running for over half an hour, only a few dozen termites were still pursuing them.

Everyone’s tensed nerves finally relaxed a bit.

They crossed the mountaintop, and after less than an hour of quiet, someone suddenly shouted in panic.

“Termites! So many termites!”

Rong Shi and Song Yu looked over. They were climbing up from the other side of the mountain, and most of them were soldier ants.

Soldier ants were larger than the worker ants they had just faced, and their aggression was at least double.

They could only retreat, but not too much, forcing themselves to fight on.

Fortunately, the number this time wasn’t as great as the previous worker ants, and after two waves, no more followed.

Seeing that several members of the team were exhausted and about to collapse, Rong Shi found a nearby rock cave and told them to go rest there.

“How are you?” Rong Shi walked over to Song Yu, “If you can’t walk, I’ll carry you.”

Song Yu tilted his head to look at him, spinning his gun a few times on his finger: “Where do I look like I can’t walk?”

Rong Shi: “It’s okay, don’t be shy.”

Song Yu: “Want to eat a bullet?”

The two walked and chatted casually.

The cave was cool and suitable for resting.

Just a few minutes after they sat down, other teams followed.

Many people were injured and had to take emergency measures during this time.

Rong Shi stood at the wide cave entrance, looking into the distance, checking the terrain. There was an ant nest here, so they had to re-plan their route.

Suddenly, a slight vibration came from beneath his feet. Rong Shi’s expression changed.

The vibration approached from afar. Thinking of a possibility, he turned his head to Song Yu and the others: “Pack up, let’s go!”

Having just experienced high-intensity combat, everyone else lacked the energy to continue traveling, but seeing Rong Shi’s grim expression, everyone’s hearts leaped to their throats.

One by one, they anxiously squeezed to the cave entrance to check the situation.

Even though Rong Shi reacted quickly, he couldn’t keep up with the speed of the ant swarm.

A hundred meters in front of the rock cave, dozens of ant holes appeared. Worker ants and soldier ants continuously emerged, gradually crawling towards them.

As soon as they saw this, some people were already terrified, shouting to quit the competition.

Given the team’s current situation, hiding was a dead end, and going out was also a dead end.

Song Yu walked up to Rong Shi: “What do you think?”

Quitting the competition wouldn’t be a loss for them.

In fact, taking this opportunity to quit might even be more advantageous, as they wouldn’t have to waste time and could return to Emperor Star early to handle their main business.

Rong Shi: “Let’s quit.”

He had previously thought that only the area from the mid-mountain to the ground was part of the ant nest, but the vibration just now confirmed that the entire mountain was the ant nest itself.

The ground portion was already so massive; the underground area was simply unimaginable.

With their numbers, they couldn’t fight, and fighting would be pointless.

Watching the ant swarm get closer and closer, someone took out a signal flare, preparing to fire it.

But while everyone’s attention was on the ant swarm, a golden flash suddenly flickered in Rong Shi’s vision. He instinctively reached out to grab it but grabbed nothing.

Song Yu was bumped from behind and rolled down the slope on the side of the rock cave. Even with his agile movements, by the time he flipped over and sat up, he was only ten meters away from the nearest group of soldier ants.

“Xiao Yu!”

---

Author’s note:

 Song Cat draws his blade: What the hell did you just call me?

Rong Bunny: Xiao Yu, the ‘yu’ in ‘little fish’ that cats love to eat.

Who was it that attacked them? What will become of the beautiful Yu’s fate? Will Rong Bunny gain some goodwill? Please tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion—