The Trembling World
chapter-198

TL: xDh20, LifeisaJourney

ED: Nintendonuts

I finished watching "Goblin" the K-Drama. It's so sad! In addition, there are two upcoming characters that I really get tired of naming since I don't know if they will die all of a sudden or stay. That's why I opened up to naming them for patreons -> TTW Patreon Obviously it will be closely similar to the pin yin and not outrageous.

When Xue Jian was leading his group of guild members, he had no choice but to rely on Mr. Sheng. Later, he’d decided to leave Mr. Sheng’s care and follow Liu Gan toward the countryside. Xue Jian explained it in a way to show that he and Mr. Sheng had conflicting viewpoints, but the real reason why Xue Jian wanted to leave was that he’d felt that Mr. Sheng didn’t have enough trust in him.

Xue Jian, in reality, was similar to Liu Gan, they were both second-generations from a wealthy family. They loved playing online games, so they spent most of their free time on the internet. Xue Jian was heavily invested into the online game, the typical pay-to-win player.

With his wealth and straightforward personality, he bought a lot of equipment and gave it out to guildmates. As long as the players were familiar with him, Xue Jian would buy equipment for them when asked. So among the ingame players, he had a very high popularity. There were many players alongside him when he played the game, but a majority of them were his real life friends. They all had one thing in common; it was due to his generosity and straightforward personality.

When Liu Gan was playing [Dominion] and decided to join Xue Jian’s guild, it was because Liu Gan appreciated the guild name [Lonely Wild Crane], and he'd never would’ve thought that he would stay for so long; it was a good few years.

On the day [The Trembling World] released its server to the public, Xue Jian was also with a group of real life friends logging onto the game. They were logging on at a luxurious internet cafe, so they were all simultaneously grouped together in the same district. Totally, they numbered up to 20 people. Due to prior habit, Xue Jian automatically became the leader.

Xue Jian was leading his group of friends when they’d attracted the interest of Mr. Sheng. Through a series of underhanded methods of dividing Xue Jian’s followers, the original 20 players were divided in half. Up until the point when Mr. Sheng had died, Xue Jian had only ten remaining loyal followers.

With such strong players by Liu Gan’s side, Xue Jian knew that it was safest sticking with Liu Gan. Liu Gan had no plans of dividing Xue Jian’s group like Mr. Sheng, so Xue Jian was grateful. With so many strong players under Liu Gan’s guidance already, there was no need to prey on the loyal followers of Xue Jian; Liu Gan didn’t care for whether these players would remain with him, so the possibility of dividing the followers was non-existent.

As for the benefits of staying, Xue Jian and Liu Gan had years of friendship in [Dominion] so he knew that Liu Gan would definitely treat him nicely.

“So now that we are one big family, there is no need to compare with each other! We all work for Elder Liu!” Zhang ShengLi patted Xue Jian on the shoulders.

“Yes! We shall work for Elder Liu!” Xue Jian rejoiced as he had a new role in the group.

After subordinating Mr. Sheng’s people and rearranging the personnel, it was time to move back onto the yacht. Liu Gan was confident now that with this many people, he could take over the Serenity aircraft or any large airships docked at Green Pao Bay. There was also a lurking concern of securing enough food ration and water for everyone.

Based on Liu Gan’s personality, he was the type that liked to be independent. So to reach this problem of having so many players was unexpected. However, he wouldn’t abandon them; he would carry out the duties of a leader and establish a safe base for them.

To retain some freedom of independent movement, Liu Gan had Zhang ShengLi and Wang DeCheng in managerial positions. Without having to worry about the whole group’s safety, Liu Gan could travel independently for more dangerous risks, and when he needed more people, he could always go back to camp to call for help.

As for Liu Gan’s current strength, he was quite powerful. Along with Yin He as the bodyguard, it was very easy for him to survive in this chaotic world. But he also knew the limitations of being the strongest alone, so at the same time as being strong, he must have a strong, loyal set of team members.

…

“Elder Liu, I found a notebook on Mr. Sheng’s body. Within it is a drawing of a map, I’m not sure if this would be any use to you,” Zhang ShengLi said as he carried the notebook over to Liu Gan.

This is one of those exercise notebooks that Mr. Sheng must have picked up from somewhere. Written on it were several unrecognizable writings and a whole bunch of drawings of a geographical map. In between the pages of that notebook, was a sheet of folded paper.

The drawings were indications of where Mr. Sheng had been transferred from and the districts he had to pass through to get to where he was now. It was a really detailed map. According to the lines and the sequence drawn, Mr. Sheng seemed to have been transferred to NinJing City’s southern outskirts near the countryside. Then Mr. Sheng walked north until he reached this location.

Mr. Sheng’s original transferred location was very close to Green Pao Bay. Seems like the road that Liu Gan is traveling on have already been mapped out with indicators. Along the road on the map, was a large-scale prison. Mr. Sheng seemed to have felt that the prison was an appropriate place for a base, so he had clearly marked out the location.

The prison was located right outside of NinJing City. So if Mr. Sheng had decided that was a suitable place, then it didn’t match why Mr. Sheng entered into the city. As his ultimate decision was not choosing the prison as his base camp, he had chosen this location to be base camp, which was a little closer to the city center.

Mr. Sheng, for the past few days, had ventured deep into the city center since the drawings of the map were quite detailed. Upon encountering the large-scale corpse tide, he was forced to return. Mr. Sheng had even tried to venture upstream of the river, in hopes of finding a boat to cross the river, but had been unable to find one.

Judging from the map and what was written, Mr. Sheng’s real target wasn’t to enter into the city. It was to pass through to the city to another larger island. It was near the location of where Liu Gan had been transferred into, the northern part of the district.

This struck a chord within Liu Gan’s heart… Why was it so important that Mr. Sheng head north in that direction? He’d seemed dead-set on heading in that direction. What could it be?

It was too upsetting that Mr. Sheng had died. Now all clues were lost, with only hints from his notebook.

The last hint within the notebook wasn’t what Mr. Sheng had written down or drawn, it was the folded piece of paper slipped in between the pages. In the folded paper, was a detailed map of the northern district of NinJing city. It was a region that was even further north than where Liu Gan had been transferred into.

The landmark location was a logo of San Xing Corporation, that was where Yin He had been found within the Biochemical Intelligence Research Center. The name of the northern district on the map was indicated by the logo; it was the Lucky Garden District symbol. Essentially, it was the opposite direction of where Liu Gan had headed towards.

If the guess was right, Mr. Sheng must have wanted to head north past NinJing City. So Mr. Sheng had been searching for an appropriate path through the city center.

Since his path and Liu Gan’s path are in opposite direction, Liu Gan was able to successfully pass through the city center to reach this location. However, for Mr. Sheng, he was blocked by the corpse-tide, so he’d had no choice but to head toward the northern district.