Global Collapse-Chapter 468 - 443: Unearthly Beauty, Xiao Hong_1

"Ah," Fatty said, his mouth slightly agape. "Yeah, our event is held by the Liannu River. They said players without tickets can’t get in, but they didn’t say anything about ghosts. And Xiao Hong was even considered an NPC before."

At this point, Gu Mian had already pictured it: Xiao Hong discovering everyone’s disappearance, panicking, sprinting out the main gate, then plunging into the river and swimming for dear life. Just as she neared, she’d be conveniently pulled out by the brother—the one who’d been forcefully abducting young women.

Xiao Hong’s ghastly face must have surely shocked any passersby.

Just then, another female ghost’s head appeared at the boat’s edge.

Gu Mian stared at this head for several seconds. It suddenly dawned on him that humans and ghosts might have very different standards of beauty.

Perhaps in the brother’s eyes, Xiao Hong was a peerless beauty. Otherwise, why would he have grabbed her in the water?

Although the face before him was hardly something Gu Mian could praise, he still reached out, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to try, and grabbed the somewhat terrifying female ghost, attempting to pull her onto the boat.

What if this event’s standard for beauties was the same as the brother’s?

The female ghost Gu Mian grabbed thrashed like a fish out of water, clearly determined to resist.

Gu Mian tried to soothe her, "I’m just going to pull you up for a moment. I won’t do anything else..."

Seeing the hideous female ghost, Fatty gulped. "What else *could* you want to do?"

Fortunately, no other players were around; otherwise, this scene would have undoubtedly scared them away.

As it turned out, the event’s standards were quite normal. Nothing happened after he pulled the female ghost onto the boat.

Just as the brother set off for the fourth time to find a beauty, Xiao Hong also jumped into the water.

Dressed in her red skirt, she plunged into the water like a red carp and vanished.

Gu Mian wasn’t too worried about her safety. The water is full of ghosts; they probably wouldn’t fight amongst themselves.

Fatty looked in the direction Xiao Hong had disappeared. "Doctor, what’s Xiao Hong doing? Did she feel cooped up on the boat and decide to go for a swim?"

"I don’t know," Gu Mian said, picking up an oar. "Let’s paddle towards the area with more players. I don’t think we can rely on the brother’s judgment of beauty anymore."

Gu Mian was certain that if the brother had been responsible for selecting beauties for the emperor in ancient times, he would have met a very gruesome end.

Although less than three minutes remained, what if they got lucky and stumbled upon a beauty, like a blind cat finding a dead mouse? Of course, the chances of that were minuscule.

"If we don’t pass this stage, we’ll just be short one teammate. It’s no big deal," Gu Mian said while paddling. "Besides, it’s not like we’re relying on manual labor to row this boat."

"Makes sense," Fatty agreed with a nod. With the brother acting as a super-propeller, they could probably win first place in this event with just the boat itself.

The "Doctor’s #1 Gorgeous Fan" boat had ceased its frenetic, mad-dog pace and was now slowly approaching the area densely populated with players.

The players who noticed this finally breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Looks like that boat’s special item ran out. I wonder what it was, though? It was so damn powerful!"

"I thought they’d keep up that speed until the event ended! Scared me to death. But looking at the speed of our dragon boats now, we should be able to leave them in our wake soon."

Some players had already passed the second stage, their dragon boats now manned by three teammates.

Three people paddling were naturally faster. The speed of several dragon boats on the river was visibly increasing.

During this time, the brother had fished out several more female ghosts, repeatedly proving that human and ghostly aesthetics likely differed.

After a moment’s thought, Gu Mian decided to try the opposite: he instructed the brother to find ugly women instead.

After seeing the "ugly women" the brother found, Gu Mian realized it wasn’t fair to blame the brother’s aesthetic judgment. The issue was that all the female ghosts in the water were uniformly hideous!

They either had eyes bulging from their sockets or their faces were split open. Even if they had been beauties in life, there was no salvaging their current appearances.

Gu Mian suddenly realized that all those novels about "beautiful female ghosts falling in love with me" were pure fiction.

"Only one minute left!" Fatty exclaimed nervously, checking the time. "Doctor, we’re about to be toast!"

So be it then...

Silently, Gu Mian put on a pair of wide, black-framed glasses and wrapped a black plush scarf around his neck, covering the lower half of his face. "We’re not far from the other players now," he muttered. "I’d better disguise myself first."

To avoid recognition, Gu Mian had already donned a long trench coat over his white lab coat. With this getup, even people who knew him would have to look very closely to recognize him.

He adjusted the ridiculously unfashionable glasses on his nose and looked at Fatty. "Ugly enough?"

Fatty chuckled. "Actually, you look quite good..."

Just then, the brother’s head reappeared at the boat’s edge. This time, he was empty-handed. All the female ghosts nearby must have fled.

Gu Mian turned to look at the head by the boat. The brother stared at his disguised face for a long moment, apparently not recognizing him.

Just as Gu Mian braced himself for a "Who the hell are you?!" the brother grabbed the gunwale and said, "Sister."

At that exact moment, Gu Mian sensed another boat approaching at an incredible speed. He swiftly shoved the brother’s head back into the water and looked up. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

A boat was indeed rushing towards them, parting the water as if equipped with a propeller, and it was aimed directly at them.

"What the hell?!" Fatty exclaimed, staring in alarm at the rapidly approaching boat.

It only took a few seconds for Gu Mian to get a clear look at the oncoming boat.

Of course, the first thing he recognized was Xiao Hong’s head. Her unique, unmistakable face was floating in the water right at the bow of that dragon boat.

Xiao Hong was towing the boat towards them as if she were walking a dog.

Gu Mian focused his gaze on the boat. 007!

Fatty stared at the nearby dragon boat. "007 is a beauty, isn’t she? She should count, right?"

Even though 007 was pale with fright, no rule stated that a beauty who turned pale from fear ceased to be a beauty.

Fatty grew excited. "Doctor, fifteen seconds left! There’s still time!"

Gu Mian was already prepared.

Xiao Hong, reliable as ever, quickly towed the boat over. However, unable to fully control her momentum, the two dragon boats slammed into each other, nearly capsizing.

Gu Mian immediately reached out and snatched 007 from the other dragon boat. "Borrowing you for a sec!"

Before 007 could react, she was disorientedly yanked onto Gu Mian’s boat. Instantly, a prompt appeared before Gu Mian—

[You have successfully cleared Stage Two. Please select your teammate.]

Below it were three profile pictures.