A’Da ran his mouth nonstop, and true to everyone’s expectations, ran it all the way to the subway station.

Bai Youwei was quite impressed inwardly — he had kept going for twenty solid minutes without a single repeat. If they were in a residential district, he could probably make a living as a stand-up comic.

The other side also had remarkable restraint. Once they reached the station, they filed off the train and quickly disappeared into the stream of people at the exit.

A’Da stood at the exit and hawked up a contemptuous spit. “Cowards!”

“Several of the people in their squad were injured, and their ammunition is probably nearly depleted too. On top of that, they’re currently in first place on a new dungeon — plenty of people would love to see them taken down. This is exactly the kind of moment they can’t afford to get into a scrap with us.” Yuri stared ahead, eyes dark, speaking slowly. “The calmer a person is in a situation like this, the harder they are to deal with. A’Da, be more careful going forward.”

A’Da let the smile drop from his face, and said seriously, “Not to brag, but that squad of his — apart from the one called Nick, none of the rest could take me in a fight.”

Yuri gave a slight nod, and said quietly, “Even so… caution first.”

Having said his piece, he stepped forward and walked on, passing A’Da and gradually putting distance between himself and the rest of the group.

“Ah, Yuri’s brother seems to be in a pretty bad mood.” A’Da gave a quiet sigh.

Natasha sighed along with him. “How could he not be… The record they’d just set got broken, and there’s still no idea how to get a higher score.”

“Let’s go back and review.” A’Da said helplessly.

…

Yuri didn’t go straight back.

First, he stopped at a service station, pulled up the dungeon channel leaderboard, and in the Queen’s Nest rankings, found the updated standings:

1st – Alarm the People Squad – 895 pts

2nd – Hella NB Squad – 889 pts

3rd – Azure Sky Squad – 887 pts

4th – Imperial Dynasty Squad – 872 pts

5th – Planet B-Boy Squad – 871 pts

…

Yuri copied down the scores for the top ten, returned to the villa, and posted this sheet in the living room where everyone could see it.

After dinner, everyone gathered in the living room to review the day’s run.

“The top ten on the score board have basically all made use of the rookie buff.” Yuri said. “I asked several other squad leaders — they all seem to have run into the same problem we have. First time through, playing it by ear, they scored well. Second time, after careful preparation, the score didn’t improve much, and some even trended downward.”

He reached out and tapped the score next to “Alarm the People Squad,” looking at everyone. “They may be in the lead for now, but I believe there’s a degree of chance involved. If they were made to run it again, they’d probably find they couldn’t replicate that high score either.”

“But the problem is… they’ve already gotten the high score.” Natasha was troubled. “We need to find a way to surpass them, or the quota this year will definitely go to them!”

“Don’t forget — some of their people got hurt.” Shen Mo reminded everyone. “Casualties are a deduction. Meaning even after that deduction, their score still exceeded everyone else’s — which clearly isn’t normal. There must be something we missed somewhere.”

“What could it be?” A’Da had a headache. “We cleared every single variant at maximum efficiency and came out without anyone getting hurt. Is the time too short? But if we drag it out, those eggs will hatch and raise the dungeon’s difficulty.”

Shen Mo thought for a moment, then asked A’Da, “The first time you went to the Queen’s Nest — how many eggs had hatched?”

“About half, I think?” A’Da frowned as he recalled. “Things were chaotic for everyone at the time — we almost died in there. Could the score be connected to the eggs? Please don’t tell me it is… letting those things hatch is too nauseating…”

Shen Mo mulled it over. “It’s genuinely possible…”

A sudden weight settled on his arm. Shen Mo paused, looked down — it was Bai Youwei’s little head leaning in against him.

She seemed to have dozed off.

—