Chapter 436: Chapter 374: Those dungeons... Were they really this difficult?
"Haha, I still remember when you got into a fight because someone called you ’kid’." Xiao Siyuan’s expression softened.
"Oh? Why was that?" Li Zheng, standing nearby, asked curiously.
"Because ’kid’ is just one character away from ’imperial kid’." Gou Feng explained eagerly, "I didn’t expect Dr. Xiao to be so familiar with the legendary Li Zheng. I’m honored!"
Meeting Xiao Siyuan seemed like a joyful occasion for Gou Feng, as his excitement was visibly high.
"What kind of legend am I?"
Li Zheng rarely looked so embarrassed: "In my eyes, Old Xiao and you all are the real legends. One is the doctor who saved me, the other a warrior who protected us! You are the ones truly worthy of respect."
"Don’t say that, making it seem like what we do is so noble." Xiao Siyuan said seriously, "To put it plainly, our roles are just ordinary professions. If we are revered simply for doing our duties, then the profession loses its meaning."
"That’s right!"
Gou Feng echoed: "Our class leader used to tell us to consider guarding the borders as a job and to just carry out our duties well."
"But your profession endures much more hardship and danger than others..."
"There are plenty of risky professions, aren’t high-voltage electricians who work at heights dangerous? Isn’t it dangerous for façade cleaners? Why are they rarely admired?"
"Hardship? There are numerous professions that are arduous and exhausting—miners, hospital ward nurses, IT workers who are balding from overtime, even the delivery riders crisscrossing every street in the city. Which of them isn’t suffering? Which of them isn’t tired?"
Xiao Siyuan calmly said: "The ones who should be admired are those whose names are inscribed on the monument to merit. If one day our names are carved there, you can admire us then."
"..." Li Zheng opened his mouth, wanting to say more, but seeing Xiao Siyuan’s rare serious face, he suddenly found himself at a loss for words.
He thought of a saying: our country is always well protected by those who bear the burden of moving forward, yet their names are known to few.
But thinking about some phenomena and comments online before entering the Matrix, Li Zheng felt a sense of unresolved grievance.
Some people go to great lengths to ensure we are well fed, yet there are those who, after being well-fed and drunk, wield their keyboards as weapons and recklessly slander and attack the ones who fed them.
They poke at the backbone of the elderly, with sick smiles on their faces, without feeling shame but instead taking pride.
Some people raise the banner of equality, banning men and women from taking the same elevator.
Others brazenly shelter criminals; even when the evidence of murder is conclusive, they don’t think about punishing the perpetrator but instead fervently suppress related news just to maintain their social status.
Unaware that the reason they can leisurely engage in such frivolities is precisely because some people are enduring the harsh wind and snow, steadfastly holding the line outside.
It’s hard to imagine if one day, when the descendants of these steadfast individuals encounter unfair treatment internally, whether their hearts would be as cold as the wind and snow.
"Alright, just as you’re here, you go first." Xiao Siyuan pulled out a medical bed, personally lifting Gou Feng onto it.
"Your situation is quite complicated. The healed wounds need to be reopened to perfectly connect the neurons when installing the mechanical limbs. This process is somewhat painful."
Xiao Siyuan operated on the medical bed, several mechanical arms twisting around, transforming into various medical tools aimed at Gou Feng.
Old Xiao reached out to the leading warrior: "Give me the modification plans and materials."
"Okay, it’s all here." The leading warrior handed everything to Xiao Siyuan and then asked worriedly, "For such a surgery, shouldn’t we have a sterile room prepared?"
"Sterile room?" Xiao Siyuan glanced at him: "When Kunlun encountered a body modification table while exploring, did they also request the terminal to prepare a sterile room for them?"
"Uh... no."
"There you go." Xiao Siyuan scolded, "There are plenty of virus-disinfecting things in the Matrix, why are you worrying about this?"
"...Sorry, sorry..." The leader or class leader apologetically scratched his head, apologizing repeatedly.
He was just concerned about his comrades, hoping nothing would go wrong during surgery.
Xiao Siyuan glared at him for a moment and then said, "But you have a point. Xiao Lin, bring out your dwelling; the next surgery will be there!"
"Okay, Dr. Xiao."
Lin Fengjiao agreed, throwing out her capsule dwelling and granting Gou Feng access, sending the medical bed and patient inside.
Li Zheng and Xiao Siyuan’s dwelling held many secrets, not suitable for outsiders to see, even if Gou Feng had known Old Xiao before, Old Xiao wouldn’t set a precedent casually.
Who knows if, after they return post-surgery, they’d report some of the "inappropriate" things in Xiao Siyuan’s dwelling to their superiors?
Hence, the best surgery location was arranged at Lin Fengjiao’s place.
In the past, when less familiar people came to Xiao Siyuan for treatment, surgeries were also conducted at Lin Fengjiao’s dwelling. Both had long been used to it.
Xiao Siyuan walked into the dwelling, and the leader wanted to follow but was blocked by Lin Fengjiao: "Dr. Xiao doesn’t like to be disturbed during surgery, please understand."
This was just an excuse. Xiao Siyuan initially even planned for outdoor operations; not allowing the person to enter now was evidently to express dissatisfaction at Gou Feng being this injured after joining Kunlun.
"Yes, yes, I understand, I understand." The leader took two steps back, nodding repeatedly.
Li Zheng thought for a moment, then came forward to lead him away: "Just waiting around here isn’t good either, how about we chat about how they got injured?"
Li Zheng had met numerous players since entering the Matrix, but seeing ones with such injuries survive was a first.
Previously, the most seriously injured he’d seen were Yan Guang, Phoenix Mountain, and himself.
"Sigh..." The leader, guided by Li Zheng to a seat, first sighed, then habitually checked his pocket, realizing he had no cigarettes before stopping.
The days without cigarettes had only been less than twenty, leaving him somewhat uneasy but helpless, smacking his lips before slowly saying: "Mr. Li should know there’s a type of special room in the Matrix that requires a five-person team to explore..."
As the topic started, Li Zheng roughly understood how these survivors ended up like this.
In the end, it’s just that the difficulty of various dungeons is relatively high, and even the well-coordinated Kunlun members can inevitably face losses.
Li Zheng had experienced many dungeons, and except for the Biochemical Restricted Zone, all were basic level areas he’d conquered.
As his strength grew, these basic level areas’ difficulty naturally no longer posed a problem.
But what Li Zheng didn’t know was that even basic level dungeons could be continuously explored by different players.
And every entry had varied layouts.
It seemed like a dedicated dungeon designer would adjust the maps after each dungeon completion.
So, the usefulness of "walkthroughs" was significantly reduced.
As such, some members of Kunlun weren’t lacking in strength, yet due to unfamiliarity with the "maps," even with an "old" player leading, they occasionally faced setbacks.
Take Zhao Limin, for instance. He cleared the Biochemical Restricted Zone once, but during the second time, the final boss suddenly attacked from the side, tearing off the lower half of his body and arms.
If not for Ma Long and others in the team, Zhao Limin would probably just be a name.
Wei Hai’s injury, however, was from Mist Island, where a hermit crab clipped through.
That was his first time in that dungeon, and coincidentally, he did something similar to Li Zheng and the others by leaning against the stone on the hermit crab’s back.
But... he failed to dodge the hermit crab’s initial attack.
It could also be seen as him becoming part of a "plot kill."
Gou Feng’s injury happened in the Desert of Exhaustion due to a teammate’s oversight. To save them, his eye was stung blind by a scorpion.
Even after finally facing the boss, due to vision impairment, he couldn’t adapt in time, getting caught by the boss’s attack and taking a severe beating.
It was only through the desperate efforts of his other teammates that Gou Feng was brought back in one piece, but he was ruined.
"...These dungeons are so difficult?" Li Zheng found it hard to believe.
Since for him, facing them didn’t feel particularly challenging, and except for the Biochemical Restricted Zone, he found the others almost too easy...