Chapter 27: The Fork in the Road

At six in the morning the next day, Tang Yingying stretched lazily and woke up slowly.

"The blanket is so cold, but you're warm," she said with a grin, looking at Zhao Kuo, who was still staring at her.

Indeed, a girl's body temperature couldn't warm the blanket in such freezing conditions.

"How's your sanity now?" Zhao Kuo asked.

Tang Yingying directly displayed her attributes and said, "It's already 61. I have an item that speeds up sanity recovery. Hehe, didn't expect that, did you? Don't worry, I'm out of the danger zone now."

She reached out and pushed Zhao Kuo's gun barrel aside. Honestly, no one would feel comfortable with a sniper rifle pointed at them.

Zhao Kuo hesitated for a moment, then put the sniper rifle away.

"You seem to know a lot," Zhao Kuo voiced his doubts.

Tang Yingying seemed to clearly understand the effects of sanity on a person and could accurately state that 61 sanity points were out of the danger zone.

Combined with her other behaviors… Could she be a time traveler from the future? Zhao Kuo had an absurd thought.

But he quickly shook his head.

This wasn't a novel; it was too ridiculous.

Tang Yingying took out some rice from the storage and put it into the pot, saying, "I once got a book that recorded all this. If sanity drops below 60, you enter a dangerous state. Below 40, you'll hear, you know, the whispers of Cthulhu, the unknown entities."

"What if it drops to 0?" Zhao Kuo asked.

Tang Yingying laughed, "At 0, you might not be yourself anymore~ Oh, the water from the condenser is running low. We'll have to conserve water."

Seeing Tang Yingying change the subject, Zhao Kuo didn't press further. Instead, he lay down on the bed.

The blanket still carried the warmth left by the girl.

"I'll sleep for a while. Wake me up around noon," Zhao Kuo said.

"Alright, I'll cook first. What do you want for lunch? Pork chop and fried eggs, okay?" Tang Yingying peeked out, only to find Zhao Kuo already asleep, snoring softly.

Tang Yingying gently closed the door, cooked some rice, and squatted by the stove to eat.

The plain rice was a bit bland, but paired with the snowstorm outside, it still had some flavor.

Just then, a notification sound rang in her ears.

**[The extreme cold storm has ended. Please proceed to the next station, players!]**​

The extreme cold storm was over! Tang Yingying rubbed her hands together. This meant the subway could move forward again, no longer stuck in place.

After all, the sooner they reached the station, the sooner they could enjoy the comforts of the hotel. Although it had only been a day since they left Lushan Station, Tang Yingying was already missing the warm air conditioning and the comfortable bed in the presidential suite.

Due to their partnership, Tang Yingying could not only access the storage directly but also control the subway.

However, she couldn't access Zhao Kuo's private storage. Both of them had their own little secrets.

But looking at the thick snow outside, Tang Yingying frowned. She quickly upgraded the workbench from level 2 to level 4 and then used iron and steel sheets to craft a snow shovel.

As the progress bar finished, a brand-new snow shovel appeared at the front of the train.

She threw a few pieces of charcoal into the steam-powered engine, and in the next second, white steam rose as the snow shovel started working, and the subway slowly began to move forward.

However, the speed was very slow, only 21 kilometers per hour. The heavy snow greatly delayed the subway's progress.

Without the snow shovel, the speed would have been even slower.

Tang Yingying shared this method with Luo Ping'an and Gu Shan, then sat by the stove and started reading her CEO romance manga.

In the tunnel, the light illuminated a world of pure white.

The snow blocks were continuously pushed aside by the snow shovel, revealing the tracks below. The sound of the wheels pressing against the rails seemed insignificant.

After the storm, everything around them felt eerily quiet, as if they had entered a silent snow kingdom.

After a long while, Tang Yingying unhappily tossed aside her CEO manga and muttered to herself, "This is so annoying! Why would she fall for a poor guy when she could just marry the CEO and live happily ever after?"

Pouting, Tang Yingying started preparing lunch.

Pork chop and fried eggs—a single egg cost 2 subway coins, and Tang Yingying hesitated for a while before buying them.

But thinking of the fragrant fried eggs paired with the aroma of pork chops… she just couldn't resist.

In the subway world, she couldn't go shopping at the mall, so indulging her taste buds was justified, right?

With that thought, Tang Yingying's actions became more determined.

When the pork chop was halfway done, the moving subway suddenly slowed down and eventually came to a complete stop.

Tang Yingying blinked and looked through the windshield ahead.

Zhao Kuo felt like he had been in a long dream. He dreamed that he and Tang Yingying were on the island of Hawaii when suddenly a tsunami hit. The tsunami split in two, and a person walked out, questioning him.

"Why didn't you take me with you!"

It was Luo Ping'an.

Just as Zhao Kuo was about to explain that it was his honeymoon and there was no reason to bring his buddy along, the whole world began to shake.

"Wake up! Wake up!" Tang Yingying's face appeared in his vision.

Zhao Kuo slowly woke up and asked, "Is it noon yet?"

One of the benefits of having a companion was being able to sleep soundly and securely, of course, only if the companion was trustworthy enough.

Tang Yingying shook her head and said, "Not yet, but we've run into a situation. There's a fork in the road ahead."

"A fork in the road?" Zhao Kuo was fully awake now. Wrapped in the sheepskin, he got up and walked out of the room.

Through the front windshield, he indeed saw three diverging paths ahead—left, middle, and right, leading to three different directions.

Were they leading to different stations, or… Zhao Kuo wasn't sure, so he sent a message to Luo Ping'an.

Luo Ping'an had replied to his message from last night, thanking him for the reminder, but nothing unusual had happened on his end. This time, Luo Ping'an replied quickly: "Brother Zhao, I'm glad you're safe. However, I haven't received any news about a fork in the road. You're probably the first to reach it."

Zhao Kuo's train was a level 2 engine, much faster than others.

Seeing that Luo Ping'an had no information either, Zhao Kuo frowned slightly. He checked his luck value, which had recovered to 81%.

Suddenly, he had a bold idea.

Since it was a choice and he didn't know the answer, wasn't it just a matter of luck? And if it was about luck…

Zhao Kuo quickly made three lots, shuffled them, and silently drew one.

**[Luck value -82%]**​

As expected, the luck value played its role, and it was completely depleted.

Zhao Kuo opened the lot he had drawn.

"Go left, huh…" Zhao Kuo looked at the deep tunnel to the left and restarted the subway.