Chapter 143: Chapter 134: Righteous Judgment (Part 2)
"The boss’s item is a super-fast bicycle, so all the challenges we created are related to it. You can find them just by searching the keywords ’bicycle’ and ’hospital.’"
After reading, Guan Tong opened the challenge list on his panel and tried searching with the keywords. Sure enough, more than ten similar challenges popped up.
"Challenge: Speed of traveling 500 meters by bicycle at the entrance to the Helu County Hospital in Ganlin City, using no other items or abilities."
"Challenge: Speed of traveling 501 meters by bicycle at the entrance to the Helu County Hospital in Ganlin City, using no other items or abilities."
"Challenge: ..."
"Wow. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore."
Guan Tong looked at this series of highly similar challenges. Aside from a slight difference in distance, they were otherwise completely identical. The "personally customized" nature of it all couldn’t have been more obvious.
There were other replies under that person’s comment:
"Holy crap, I searched it up. So many similar challenges... This really is a Supporter model!"
"OP, you should run if you can. This is way too terrifying..."
"Aren’t the authorities sending someone to deal with this?"
"I think ever since the wartime administration started, the authorities don’t really manage things outside the cities... To be precise, they just don’t have the capacity."
"Damn, isn’t there anyone powerful enough to go and serve some justice?"
Guan Tong read to this point, then looked again at the commenter’s words: "begging the site admin and any experts out there to save us." He closed the computer and stood up.
’In that case,’ he thought, ’I might as well pay them a visit.’
...
「Ganlin City, Helu County.」
As a small county in a remote region, its population was small to begin with. After the Apocalypse Rules began, what little population remained drained away completely, turning the place into a veritable ghost town.
Then, after the Blood Plague Rule, a group of forty to fifty people arrived and settled down in the abandoned county hospital.
These people had once lived in a Gathering Point in Ganlin City. Their leader was Gao Xinjian, the owner of a renovation company, and the rest were mostly his employees or their relatives.
The reason his employees were willing to follow Gao Xinjian even in the age of the Apocalypse Rules was that he had always treated them well, paying generous salaries. Even after the Apocalypse Rules began, he constantly encouraged everyone to persevere, and during the Living Dead Rule, he even led the charge to eliminate a group of Living Dead.
This earned him everyone’s trust, so when he proposed leaving the city to live in the countryside, most of the group agreed.
After leaving Ganlin City, they drove to Helu County. This was Gao Xinjian’s hometown, and he was very familiar with it, so he chose to settle here.
For the first few days, everyone got along harmoniously. But as time went on and supplies began to dwindle, Gao Xinjian slowly started to change.
He grew increasingly authoritarian, prioritizing himself and a few of his cronies in the distribution of supplies. If anyone objected, he would yell at them and even order his men to push them around.
The others could do nothing about it. Although they were all Ascenders, they were no match for those few men—Gao Xinjian had specifically recruited them as his underlings precisely because they had the highest combat strength.
But everyone could still tolerate the unfair distribution of supplies. However, once the details of the current Rule were released, Gao Xinjian demanded that the others create custom challenges for him and his cronies. This was unacceptable.
After so many Rules, everyone knew that Psychic Power was the key to everything. No one was willing to lose even one point from their maximum if they could help it. Gao Xinjian’s demand was simply too outrageous.
In the face of everyone’s protests, Gao Xinjian had his strongest men attack, injuring several people. The others were terrified and unable to fight back, so they had no choice but to agree and create the challenges according to Gao Xinjian’s demands.
Gao Xinjian then used his bicycle item to easily take first place in multiple challenges. Each of his cronies also took first place twice.
As for the thirty-plus other people, they could only endure it, waiting for the cruel reality of their Psychic Power decaying after the Rule Stage ended. This was now unchangeable, as each person could only create one challenge per Rule Stage.
One of the young men in the group, while browsing the internet on his phone, saw a "Supporter Complaint Thread" on Ascender’s Home.
Only then did the young man realize that similar problems existed not just in their group, but in other places as well.
So, he posted about his own situation in the thread, begging for someone to come and rescue them. Failing the Rule this time would only cause their Psychic Power to decay, which wasn’t fatal yet.
But if a situation like the first Rule occurred again, he had no doubt that Gao Xinjian, having already dropped all pretenses with the group, would take their lives just to ensure his own survival.
A few hours after posting, the young man picked up his phone to check for replies.
Many people had replied, but not a single one said they would come to help.
Some said they were too far away, some said they had helped by reporting it to the authorities, and still others told them to find a way to save themselves... The young man gave a bitter smile and shook his head.
Suddenly, a hand reached down from above and snatched his phone.
Startled, the young man looked up. It was Gao Xinjian.
"Boss Gao..."
"Wang, what are you looking at so intently?"
"N-nothing... I wasn’t looking at anything... Really..."
To an old fox like Gao Xinjian, the young man’s panicked expression was an open book; he could read it all at a glance.
He said with a smirk, "Is that so?"
As he spoke, he glanced at the content on the young man’s phone.
After reading the thread and the young man’s post, the smile vanished from Gao Xinjian’s face, his expression turning as cold as ice.
"You’ve done a real fine job, Wang."
"B-Boss Gao, I..."
The young man, Wang, felt his lips tremble as immense fear spread through his heart.
Just then, the others noticed the situation and began to gather around.
Gao Xinjian held up the young man’s phone. "Come on, all of you, take a look! Our dear Wang has learned to go online and tattle. Isn’t that something!"
After seeing the content on the phone, everyone’s expression became extremely awkward.
Gao Xinjian suddenly threw the phone to the ground and crushed it under his foot.
CRACK!
"I’ll kill you!" The young man Wang’s eyes turned red. A dagger suddenly appeared in his hand, and he lunged at Gao Xinjian.
Gao Xinjian’s reflexes were sharp; he slapped the young man’s wrist aside. Immediately, a few of his cronies rushed forward and pinned the man to the ground.
"Well now, when did you secretly redeem a Psychic Power Weapon? Were you planning to use this on me, huh?" A vicious glint flashed in Gao Xinjian’s eyes. "Looks like I can’t let you live now, kid!"
The others realized Gao Xinjian intended to kill him. They wanted to intervene but were afraid he would turn on them instead, so they all remained silent.
TAP... TAP... TAP...
The sudden sound of footsteps made everyone turn to look. A young man in his twenties was approaching from a short distance away.
"I’m in the right place, right?" the young man asked as he drew closer.
Gao Xinjian frowned. "Where’d you come from? What do you want?"
The young man replied, "I’m looking for someone with the screen name ’Cafe Cultivator.’ Is that person here?"
The young man named Wang, pinned to the ground by Gao Xinjian’s men, was shocked to hear this. He yelled with all his might, "That’s me! I’m Cafe Cultivator!"
