The Pals lay scattered across the base, sprawled out in every direction.
Some wore gloomy expressions, others were bedridden entirely, and all of them had status debuffs floating above their heads—things like "Cold," "Binge Eating," "Fracture," and "Stomach Ulcer."
A few others lay on top of a campfire, seemingly having passed away some time ago.
In the vast base, only Qiwanwang was walking through the fields, watering can in hand.
"Why is Qiwanwang the only Pal working… wait, what the hell? Qiwanwang's down too???"
Zhong Yi hadn't even finished his sentence when Qiwanwang suddenly furrowed its brow, a "Cold" debuff appearing above its head out of nowhere. It turned and sprinted toward the hot spring.
"Senior Brother Zhong, your crow's-mouth spiritual root keeps getting more ridiculous by the day…"
Zhou Qiaoling muttered under her breath.
"That's not right… Could this really be a plague? It shouldn't be…"
Zhong Yi stroked his chin, beginning to analyze the situation.
"Qiwanwan… wake up! Qiwanwan!!"
Zhou Qiaoling walked over to the straw mats where the Pals slept and nudged Qiwanwan, who had a "Fracture" debuff floating above its head.
The latter rubbed its bleary eyes, struggled to lift its head and look at Zhou Qiaoling, letting out a pitiful "squeak squeak" cry.
"Who would've thought… Junior Sister Qiaoling actually has a soft spot for little animals…"
Zhong Yi nodded in approval.
"Help me craft some Pal Spheres, would you? I'm in a hurry… Huh?"
No sooner had Zhou Qiaoling spoken than the "Fracture" above Qiwanwan's head instantly flickered into "Depression," and the Pal rolled its eyes back and passed out cold.
"…"
Zhong Yi took a deep breath and slapped himself across the face.
"Senior Brother Zhong! Senior Brother Zhong!!"
Zhou Qiaoling's eyes lit up, as if she'd discovered something incredible. She excitedly waved at Zhong Yi.
"See—no more Fracture when you pat it! You try it too?"
"Is it possible that Depression is way worse than Fracture???"
Zhong Yi's mouth twitched violently.
Members of the poaching syndicate could drop medicine and supplies when defeated, and Zhong Yi happened to have stocked up some. Judging by the prices, it was clear that "Cold" was a low-tier affliction, "Fracture" was mid-tier, and "Depression" was the highest-tier one.
"So… because Junior Sister Qiaoling said that one sentence, poor Qiwanwan got scared into a worse condition?"
A flash of insight struck Zhong Yi, and he roughly located the root of the problem.
He scanned the surroundings. Besides the HP bar and saturation bar, there was another energy meter called "Sanity."
"Sanity?"
Zhong Yi raised an eyebrow.
The term was hardly unfamiliar to the cultivators. Back in that nightmare of a realm, The Ghost Town, sanity was the linchpin of the entire illusion environment.
"In The Ghost Town, players' sanity dropped from fear, causing hallucinations to kick in… Here, Pals' sanity drops from overwork, which triggers various afflictions?"
Zhong Yi's thoughts cleared like a fog lifting, and he instantly found the culprit.
Now he looked at the various facilities in the base with fresh eyes.
The hot spring wasn't just a decoration—it was a key facility for restoring Pals' sanity. Beds worked the same way, and the higher-tier the bed, the more sanity it restored during sleep.
Food also had different sanity-restoring effects. Higher-tier foods restored more sanity, and some even came with extra buffs like slowing sanity drain or increasing work speed.
The Pals had been fed wild berries this whole time—they restored zero sanity and each one barely filled any saturation at all.
"So that's how it is… I never expected there to be so much depth to base building. Junior Brother Lu really outdid himself!"
Zhong Yi found the whole thing more and more fascinating, to the point where even the lava area he hadn't fully explored yet suddenly lost its appeal.
With sanity added to the equation, Pals were no longer just simple work tools. There was genuine technique to building a functioning base.
To get the base back up and running, Zhong Yi pulled out the medicines from his inventory and fed them to the Pals. Unfortunately, his drop rate was limited—there were still a few Pals whose conditions he couldn't treat.
"Junior Sister Qiaoling, would you mind making a trip? Go to the merchant in the small village and buy me some medicine for treating 'Fracture.' It shouldn't be too expensive."
Zhong Yi said to Zhou Qiaoling.
"Not expensive still costs money! How could that be permitted!?"
Zhou Qiaoling immediately protested.
"But these Pals need treatment… this Blazing Bull over here has the 'Serious' trait, you know."
Zhong Yi reminded her.
"Hmm… what if we let them sit by the campfire? Would that heal their injuries?"
Zhou Qiaoling racked her brain desperately, trying to talk Zhong Yi out of spending money.
"Why do you say that?"
Zhong Yi stifled a laugh, inwardly amazed at how alike the siblings were.
Just moments ago, Zhou Yue had confessed in the sect telepathy channel that he was the one who started the campfires, thinking the Pals could warm themselves by it to cure their colds.
"Because… look!"
Zhou Qiaoling pointed at a Mischief Cat and a Cat Vampire Bat lying on the campfire, speaking with utter seriousness.
To avoid wasting money, Zhou Qiaoling's half-brain was racing at full speed, her intelligence level now at an all-time peak.
"The Pals warming themselves on the fire—they don't have any afflictions!"
"Those two have clearly been dead for a while!!!"
Zhong Yi's eyes bulged as he shot back.
Based on his deductions, those two Pals had likely been on their way back to sleep when they accidentally stepped through a line of campfires and got burned to death—poor , unlucky bastards.
Of course, that kind of death wasn't a true death. It was a near-death critical state, and simply putting them back into the Pal Terminal would revive them after a moment.
"Fine, let's resurrect them first… Wait a second!!"
Just as Zhong Yi opened the Pal Terminal to revive the two Pals, his pupils shrank sharply.
Across the entire base, only those two Pals that had been burned to death had no affliction tags above their heads!
Was it possible their sanity hadn't dropped to the threshold for sickness yet?
Zhong Yi thought it was unlikely. Those two had been placed in the Pal Terminal very early on.
"Every Pal in the base is sick, but only the dead ones aren't… What does that tell us?"
A subtle smirk tugged at the corner of Zhong Yi's mouth, and he couldn't help muttering to himself.
Zhou Qiaoling chimed in from the side: "It means better to live as a corpse than to die in agony."
"…Keep talking, that's hilarious."
Zhong Yi shot Zhou Qiaoling a deadpan glare, then stared at the campfire with burning intensity.
"It means—"
"Death resets all abnormal statuses."
In Lu Ze's previous life, in the earliest version of Palworld, that was indeed how it worked. After this mechanic was established, medicine lost all its value, so the designers later removed that feature in subsequent updates—even after death and revival, negative status debuffs would persist.
However, when Lu Ze built the illusion environment, he went with the original, early-game setting. After all, given the current system task, the more players leaned into questionable tactics, the better the outcome would be.
"So that means…"
Zhou Qiaoling's breathing grew rapid, and her eyes sparkled.
When it came to devious, underhanded tricks, she caught on with terrifying speed.
She turned around to look at those few bedridden Pals, glanced at her own lips, and licked them.
"If only we could bring them back from the dead..."
"Then we'd save on the medicine costs?"
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
