The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

When Jiang Hui woke up again, she was still on Huan Xian’s back. Her calf was in excruciating pain, the wound burning fiercely, and her head felt groggy, likely from a fever.

“You have a fever.” The person carrying her immediately noticed her condition.

“Are we… still not—”

“Jiang, are you awake?”

“Jiang, are you okay?”

Okay, they’ve caught up. But were they still on their way?

“The second round of supplies ended almost half an hour ago.” The voice responding to her was familiar, but Jiang Hui’s muddled mind couldn’t immediately place it. After a moment, she realized it was Clarens’s voice.

The second supply round had ended, and they had been running for half an hour, so it had probably been an hour since she passed out.

Sigh, it felt like there was still a long way to go before the competition ended. Perhaps due to her injury, Jiang Hui had become somewhat more vulnerable, no longer as strong as she had been earlier. However, that thought only lasted a moment before being overwhelmed by a flood of other thoughts.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but her thoughts were tangled, and in the end, she couldn’t say anything. She could only weakly comply with her body’s state, silently lying on her teammate’s back.

Soon, Jiang Hui’s thoughts grew hazy again, her consciousness focusing on the sharp pain from her wound. The journey was bumpy, and occasionally, the sound of gunfire would reach her ears. She felt herself being put down several times, her feet hitting solid ground, only to be lifted again, not knowing where they were going.

After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Hui finally calmed herself, feeling somewhat more alert than before. She managed to croak out her first words since being injured and losing consciousness: “What’s the situation now?”

“Why don’t you rest more? You had a high fever earlier, we thought you’d sleep through the whole competition. Seriously… After everything, you’re still thinking about the competition? After this, will you even be able to use your leg?” The boy complained lightly, not as concerned with distance as Huan Xian was.

At that moment, Jiang Hui realized the person carrying her had changed again—it was Xierman.

Though the boy wasn’t as tall as Clarens or Zhou Xiuwen, he was still above average for his age, and carrying Jiang Hui posed no problem. Unlike the more excitable personality of the others, despite carrying someone of not insignificant weight, Xierman remained steady, and neither he nor she felt much jostling.

But in the end, he dutifully gave her the update. Jiang Hui realized that she had truly lost track of time during her delirium. They had been away from the charging point for over an hour, which meant there were just over five hours left in the competition—it felt like no time at all.

During the time she was unconscious, the group had not slacked off. They had continued moving, taking breaks as needed, but it had not slowed their progress in hunting down the other participants.

Clarens and Huan Xian had been aggressively scoring points, with the latter even edging dangerously close to surpassing fourth place. Now, there were only about a hundred people left in the competition, with only a handful of official or temporary teams remaining, and the rest were scattered solo players.

Zhou Xiuwen and Xierman were still the same as before—if there was something, they did it, and if not, they didn’t; their main priority was to protect themselves and occasionally practice their skills. So their progress was much slower than the other three teammates.

During this time, Jiang Hui had already been carried by three different people, with Zhou Xiuwen being the next one to carry her… even Clarens had already carried her.

Though it might sound ungrateful and inappropriate, Jiang Hui couldn’t help but feel a bit of resentment. It was supposed to be a team effort, but she, as the team leader, hadn’t even led the team to dominate the competition yet and had become a burden for everyone. She couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

When she heard Huan Xian pushing forward with vigor, Jiang Hui felt a bit more awake.

This was also strange. Wasn’t this guy always so carefree before, often holding back? He wouldn’t even grab prey when it was right in front of him. Why had he suddenly changed, or was he just a late bloomer?

When she heard that Huan Xian was now closing in on fourth place, Jiang Hui wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, she thought it wasn’t enough. She felt that if given more time and better conditions, she might even lose her first place—Huan Xian had that ability.

“You’re first,” someone casually replied, joining in on the topic of discussion. The tone was slightly comforting.

Although her wound still hurt and she was running a fever, Jiang Hui clearly felt much more awake while thinking at a high speed. During the short conversation with Xierman, her ability to think gradually returned, and she felt much better. Her mind wasn’t as muddled as it had been earlier.

Hearing this, Jiang Hui instinctively looked at the leaderboard above.

The large leaderboard had darkened a lot, or more accurately, the avatars of most participants had dimmed, indicating that they had been eliminated. Only a small portion of participants remained in the simulation field, with most of them gathered in the upper half of the leaderboard.

The most noticeable part of the leaderboard was, of course, the top few rankings.

Jiang Hui’s name naturally occupied the first spot. Even though she had been unconscious for nearly two hours, she had dominated in the supply zones earlier without stopping, earning a lot of points. Just from her long-range shooting alone, she had gained nearly 27 points, and with the addition of other scattered points, her personal score had surpassed 500, reaching a high of 547 points.

In second place was still Huo Qi, with a personal score of 375. When only counting the points earned during the competition, he still had the highest total, but he had been significantly narrowed down by Jiang Hui. Even after deducting her 200 penalty points, the difference between him and Jiang Hui was only about twenty to thirty points.

Third place was Clarens, with a personal score of 342. It goes without saying that this was an astonishingly high score, considering he had been fighting alone for most of the competition.

Fourth was Lin Maowu, who had climbed to 278 points.

Fifth place was Huan Xian, who closely followed with 275 points.

Currently, the top five stood as follows, with a substantial gap between them and the rest of the competitors. Unless something unexpected happened, this ranking was unlikely to change much. Even if there were changes, it would only be by one or two spots.

Among the top five, three were from their team. Their team had effectively won the competition, fulfilling their initial goal of teaming up, making it a successful collaboration overall.

Xierman couldn’t help but sigh, “Jiang Hui, you can rest easy now, right? First place is definitely yours.”

After all, there were only about a hundred people left in the competition, and even if Huo Qi eliminated everyone else, he couldn’t surpass Jiang Hui’s total score. This was an unchangeable fact—nailed down, so to speak. In other words, even if Jiang Hui just coasted to the end of the competition, Huo Qi wouldn’t be able to overtake her.

Was she happy? Perhaps, but… it was hard to tell.