Chapter 1 Ready
"Yes, I'm ready," Feng Bujue replied earnestly.

"Good, listen... the first clue I'll give you is..." Hama蜊尔斯 continued, "...'You have the right to remain silent.'"

Before he finished speaking, the system prompt rang: 【Main Quest Triggered】

At the same time, the content of the main quest also appeared in the task bar, and... there were two...

【Survive on Cannibal Island for seventy-two hours.】

【Complete at least six challenges given by the production team.】

"Need me to repeat myself, Stephen?" Hama蜊尔斯 asked again.

"No, I heard it very clearly," Feng Bujue replied.

"Very good," Hama蜊尔斯 said, "Then... I should be going too." As he spoke, he closed his backpack and put it back on. "Good luck, Stephen." After saying this, he turned around and ran along the beach.

"Goodbye, Bear," Feng Bujue shouted at his back.

Hama蜊尔斯 didn't turn his head, just raised one arm and waved it as a signal to Jue-Ge.

He ran very fast, seemingly completely unaffected by the sand. In less than a minute, he rounded a bend along the edge of the island and disappeared from Jue-Ge's sight.

"This guy... is he really human..." The next second, Jue-Ge's gaze slowly moved down, eventually settling on an oval-shaped indentation on the surface of the beach, where Hama蜊尔斯 had placed his backpack, "He just put the bag very lightly on the beach, and it pressed out such a pit..." Jue-Ge muttered, squatting down and reaching out to touch the sand at the bottom of the indentation, "Hmm... it's more compacted than I thought."

As he spoke, Jue-Ge looked up again, looking at the footprints he left on the beach, "Estimating conservatively... his load wouldn't be less than thirty kilograms..." Saying that, he stood up and shook the sand off his body. "Under the scorching sun, rescuing me in an environment of over forty degrees, and then carrying that heavy backpack weighing dozens of kilograms without changing his expression, running away with light steps..." He suddenly smiled, "Heh... his physical fitness is at least above a level thirty game player."

Thinking was thinking, Feng Bujue's actions didn't stop. As he thought this, he had already started jogging towards the jungle beside the beach.

This forest was very dense. At a glance, you could see lush vegetation and rocks like scales. Sunlight shone through the canopy, creating countless scattered spots of light in the dim forest.

"Phew... it's still cooler under the shade of the trees." After Feng Bujue arrived at the edge of the jungle, he leaned against a tree and sat down.

He didn't rush into the jungle. Instead, he took off his shoes and socks and carefully shook out the sand inside. He understood... the journey ahead was still long. Making his feet as comfortable as possible could alleviate some of the fatigue from the trek.

"'Clues' don't seem to have a purpose yet, and what 'challenges' specifically refer to... the script introduction doesn't say either." Jue-Ge muttered as he put on his shoes. "But the 'challenge' main quest must be exceptionally difficult... because the 'survive for seventy-two hours' quest is too simple. Even if I do nothing, just sit here for three days, I might not die..."

His guess was correct. In this program, if contestants simply wanted to survive until the time limit, it was truly not difficult... in theory, the contestants only needed to stay in a relatively safe place and drink their own urine collected in their shoes to last for three days.

Of course, this was the most foolish and passive approach... and no one had ever done it. After all, this was a show, and there were static and dynamic miniature cameras recording everywhere on the island (shots that involved privacy would naturally be cut or censored in post-production). The big names who were captured to participate in the program were all figures with status and face; they would never complete the competition in this way.

"Wait... what's going on..." Feng Bujue put on his shoes and socks and was about to get up when he discovered a very bad thing. "I was exposed to the sun for more than ten minutes, and I lost fifteen hundred stamina points?" Jue-Ge muttered, looking at the game menu in disbelief.

He always glanced at how many of his stats were left before taking any action; now it seemed... that this was indeed a good habit.

"Tch... so that's how it is..." Jue-Ge quickly regained his composure and muttered, "The specific numbers for stamina are meaningless... not only is my physical fitness, but even my 'stamina' is calculated according to Stephen Carbon's actual situation, so the deduction is based on percentages..."

Thinking of it this way, it made sense. If an ordinary person were buried in the hot sand and roasted under the scorching sun for ten minutes, then losing a third of their stamina would be very normal...

"Also... what's with this strange 'status'..." Feng Bujue then continued.

Obviously, in addition to the unexpected stamina loss, this script had other坑爹 (kengdie - pit-fathering) settings. For example, at this moment, Jue-Ge's status bar had a strange deBuff hanging on it, called 【Withdrawal Reaction】.

Just those four words, without any annotations. Compared to statuses like 【Poisoned】, 【Bleeding】, and 【Fractured】, this one was very intriguing...

"Hmm... if this refers to withdrawal symptoms from drugs, then I might..." Feng Bujue was still thinking about what symptoms drug addiction would have, when a stream of snot flew straight down from his nose...

Fortunately, he was already standing up at this moment, and his head was slightly tilted forward, otherwise this large thing would have fallen directly on his clothes.

"Holy crap..." Jue-Ge exclaimed in his heart when he saw this, instinctively bending forward and arching his back, "Hey hey... it came out like that without any feeling..."

In fact, the 【Withdrawal Reaction】 deBuff had been present from the very beginning of the script, and its effects were quite rich, such as body aches, fever, sweating, dilated pupils, and so on... It was just that the hot environment happened to mask some of the symptoms, so Feng Bujue didn't notice it in time.

"So that's how it is..." After a few seconds, Feng Bujue's expression became stern, "So it's wilderness 'drug' seeking, not 'life' seeking..." He wiped away the snot casually and then wiped his hand on the tree trunk beside him. "If I want to alleviate the drug addiction, I have to find the marijuana stash; if I want to find the marijuana stash, I have to enter the island... then I have to expend stamina and think and make decisions while in a mentally dazed state... This is more difficult than simply seeking survival..." While thinking, he picked up his military shovel and set off into the forest, "If I expend all my effort and stamina but still gain nothing... at that time, a person under the drive of drug addiction can do anything..."