Mu Ke silently moved behind Charles.
Although he had no idea who this Charles, who had suddenly appeared, actually was, Mu Ke could tell from the tense, hair-trigger atmosphere of the current situation that Bai Liu had gained Charles’s help.
“To be obsessed with a man once and to be infatuated with a racehorse every season—I don’t think those can be considered the same thing.”
All expression on the Queen of Hearts’ face sank away, dark undercurrents surging in her wine-red eyes.
“Don’t compare your animality to me, Charles.”
“Then I apologize for my impropriety.”
Charles bowed slightly, his smile widening.
“But to me, animality is a compliment. I very much admire people who possess it.”
The Queen of Hearts fell silent for a second.
She realized Charles was determined to fish Bai Liu out. Once this man’s gambling nature had been stirred, no one could stop him.
The Queen of Hearts did not hesitate at all. She turned to look at Titan.
“Titan, surround them.”
A huge black sphere descended from the sky, threatening to swallow Charles and the people behind him—Wang Shun, Mu Ke, and the rest—like a black hole.
Charles, however, did not panic in the slightest.
He raised the walking stick at his side and braced it against the falling black sphere.
The black sphere swallowed the walking stick inch by inch. Just as it was about to touch the tip of Charles’s nose, he removed his black silk top hat. While drawing back the end of the walking stick lodged inside the black sphere, Charles flipped the top hat over and pressed it down over the enormous black sphere.
Like a magic trick, the massive black sphere was captured beneath the brim of the hat and pressed into Charles’s white-gloved hand. With a flick of his wrist, it became a black bouncy ball resting in his palm.
[System Notification: Player Charles has used skill (Phantom Devouring Hand).]
[This skill can reverse-devour an opponent’s skill at the moment of an incoming attack and transform it into a certain magic prop for storage.]
“It’s useless to launch skills at me, Queen.”
Charles flicked the bouncy ball in his hand with some interest, then removed his white glove and wrapped it around the ball. Glove and all, he stuffed it into the pocket of Wang Shun standing nearby.
“It played dirty, so I’ll give it to you.”
Wang Shun: “????”
He had long heard that Charles was an extremely fastidious person, but he had not expected him to be fastidious to this extent.
Just because he had bounced it a few times in a place without a speck of dust, he no longer wanted it.
Charles leisurely produced another pair of white gloves from somewhere and put them on. Then he tipped his hat in return to Titan and the Queen of Hearts, smiling with great restraint.
“Queen, allow me to take my leave first.”
With that, Charles turned around.
He raised his elbow toward Wang Shun, lifted his chin slightly in a courteous gesture, and tapped one finger against his own elbow.
Wang Shun stood dazed for a moment before realizing Charles wanted him to take his arm.
...= = This person really had far too many requirements.
But despite complaining inwardly, Wang Shun still obediently took Charles’s arm. Only then did Charles walk forward in satisfaction.
He walked up to Mu Ke and said with a smile, “I believe you have already seen my sincerity toward Bai Liu. You shouldn’t mind going to [No-Man’s Land] with us, should you?”
Mu Ke had been holding his breath, waiting for this Guild Master Charles, for a long time. But at this moment, he still maintained his composure. He neither panicked nor lost his manners. Instead, he extended his hand, neither servile nor overbearing, and thanked him sincerely.
“I don’t mind at all.”
“You are very welcome to come with us.”
No-Man’s Land.
After Charles intervened in the matter, ordinary spectators, who previously had not dared come over to watch the excitement because of the aggressive blockade by the foreign guilds, now began to gather.
Furthermore, because the [Blockade of Bai Liu] incident had gone through several twists and turns, the suppressed heat on the forum had reached its limit and finally exploded into massive discussion, making the majority of ordinary players curious about the matter.
Large numbers of ordinary spectators stealthily followed behind Mu Ke and the others, pretending all the way to [No-Man’s Land] that they were simply passing by.
They could not really be blamed for pretending, because the people from the Kings Guild had also followed.
The melon-eating crowd did not dare act too openly.
The two factions faced each other at the entrance of [No-Man’s Land], a place where usually even ghosts could not be seen. Charles and the Queen of Hearts, the two big shots, stood at the front of their respective guild members, looking as though they might start fighting at any moment.
The spectators nearby watched with surging hearts, but in absolute silence.
The league’s main show had not even begun, yet the “melons” of the support season were already coming one after another.
Inside No-Man’s Land, the stacked old television sets flickered with static and snow.
Every now and then, under the black-and-white stripes, a person’s distorted shadow would appear, pounding against the TV screen in breakdown. Most of them were crying for help.
Hoarse, desperate voices leaked out through the damaged speakers on the sides of the televisions, stretched and stuttering into eerie, unrecognizable tunes that were indescribably grim and unnerving.
These game players trapped in No-Man’s Land appeared intermittently on the black-and-white televisions, like ominous recordings meant to commemorate a segment of their lives after death.
On one side of No-Man’s Land was a smooth wall so white it was dazzling.
Old-fashioned, bulky frequency-modulated televisions were stacked across it, forming a mountain of TVs so long its end could not be seen at a glance, extending all the way into the deepest reaches of No-Man’s Land.
No one knew whether No-Man’s Land had an end, because no one had ever reached it.
The full name of [No-Man’s Land] was [District of the Nameless].
However, this place was not actually devoid of people. On the contrary, it was piled high with the dead ends of people who had exhausted everything and yet still desperately wanted to live.
These people had lost their names in this game, and so they had lost the right to exist as human beings. They could only turn into monster after monster inside the sizzling old televisions, forgetting the path by which they had come.
It was Mu Ke’s first time coming to this place.
He felt a heartfelt shock, especially when Wang Shun told him with a sigh that many of the players in [No-Man’s Land] were newcomers playing the game for the first time.
“If newcomers who enter the game don’t receive the audience’s approval, and don’t receive reward points from the audience, they have no way to buy props. Clearing the game is extremely difficult.”
There was deep pity in Wang Shun’s eyes.
“They very quickly fall into [No-Man’s Land]. The only thing they can do is delay time during the process of gradually being alienated, doing everything they can not to die too quickly.”
“That is very painful. They see no hope. They only struggle in the game by instinct, waiting for someone to save them.”
Mu Ke stared blankly at the mountain of televisions and asked softly in return, “Is it... just like how I was in [Siren Town] back then?”
“Yes,” Wang Shun said. “If Bai Liu hadn’t saved you then, this place would have been your grave.”
“Many times, these people don’t need much. Just giving them a few points is enough to let them see the light of day again and crawl out of this grave-like No-Man’s Land.”
Wang Shun turned to look at Mu Ke and let out a long sigh.
“But unfortunately, in this game, very few people have that kind of kindness.”
“Not everyone is as lucky as you, to have a Bai Liu forcibly break through dimensions to save them.”
Wang Shun exhaled slowly. At last, a bit of a smile appeared on his face.
“But now, perhaps many, many people will be saved because of Bai Liu.”
The surrounding crowd whispered among themselves, discussing what Charles and the Queen of Hearts were planning to do.
The Queen of Hearts glanced at the endless mountain of televisions, then turned back to look at Charles, whose smile had not changed.
“Are you sure you want to waste that many points on Bai Liu, just to fish him out of this garbage dump?”
“This isn’t a waste,” Charles refuted with a smile. “All spending that can amuse me, I call reasonable entertainment. Bai Liu is very interesting, isn’t he?”
The Queen of Hearts neither agreed nor disagreed.
“You really are an incomprehensible man.”
Charles bowed slightly to accept it.
“Thank you for the praise.”
“How many points do you plan to spend before stopping?” the Queen of Hearts asked.
Charles straightened.
He turned toward the piercingly white background of No-Man’s Land, twisted the diamond ring on his thumb, and narrowed his eyes.
“—Until I see Bai Liu reappear before me.”
Mu Ke took a deep breath.
He stood before the guild members and, on Charles’s behalf, began giving orders.
“In a moment, Charles will transfer one million points to each of you. However, these points will have restrictions. You cannot embezzle them.”
“The only use for the points transferred to you is to recharge the players in No-Man’s Land beside you. Each small TV gets five to ten points. While recharging them, you must also bookmark and like them, until you see the small TV go dark.”
“Mark the positions of the small TVs that do not go dark after being charged ten points, then hand them over to me. We will conduct a second analysis of the players inside. If a player is determined to possibly be Bai Liu, we will carry out a second charge as appropriate.”
Mu Ke took one step to the left, revealing Wang Shun behind him, and introduced him.
“This is our guild’s data analyst, Wang Shun. All the small TV data you obtain will be handed to him for statistics. After comprehensive analysis, we will conduct a third screening of the televisions in No-Man’s Land.”
“And our famous fourth-ranked Nightmare Rising Star, God Mu.”
Mu Ke glanced indifferently at Mu Shicheng, who had kept his head down and had not spoken all this time.
“He will guard the entrance of No-Man’s Land to protect our operation from interference by the Kings Guild.”
Mu Shicheng raised his head and locked eyes with Mu Ke. The air between them was thick with hostility.
He took a deep breath, irritably turned his gaze away with a tsk, and neither refuted nor agreed.
However, he did indeed stand at the entrance of No-Man’s Land, chin slightly raised, facing off against the members of the foreign guild.
Mu Shicheng could feel Mu Ke’s hostility toward him.
This made Mu Shicheng unhappy.
But what made him even unhappier was that, at this moment, Mu Ke was actually much more organized than he was!
After finishing, Mu Ke looked around at the guild members before him.
“Is there anything else you don’t understand?”
The guild members below were already stunned.
They had been in the Carrion Guild for so long, yet they had never even seen one million points. Now each person was getting a share, and then, just to save someone they had not even met yet, they were going to spend it all.
This sort of thrilling matter was beyond anything they could have dreamed. One by one, they were dizzy and could barely stand straight.
The nearby spectators were even more dumbfounded by what they heard.
They looked at Charles, who was still wiping his walking stick as if nothing at all had happened, then looked blankly at that mountain of televisions—which stretched out like a train without its final carriage—their eyes glazing over.
—Charles was... joking, right?!
To find someone in a mountain of televisions that long, at the very least, they would have to smash tens of millions of points into it!!
But they soon discovered Charles really was not joking.
The guild players walked forward one by one to Charles, trembling as they raised their system panels and waited for the transfer. Once the transfer succeeded, they walked back down again in a daze.
Tens of millions of points were transferred out.
From beginning to end, the curve of Charles’s smile did not change at all.
He gently patted the shoulders of the dazed guild members.
“Now, go find your hidden Leader.”
——————
The Shrine.
At the center of the table, a card suddenly flipped over.
The character on the card was a mysterious magician wearing a gentleman’s hat pulled low, covering his smiling face.
The man whose face was hidden beneath a hood tapped the card thoughtfully, his voice carrying a smile.
“Interesting. A Magician card has appeared that belongs to neither the Werewolf camp nor the Divine camp. The situation has changed.”
“Are you still going to play a card, Prophet?” he asked with a smile.
The Prophet was silent for a while.
“I won’t.”
“The scene has already become this messy...”
Beneath the hood, the man’s gaze shifted between the Hunter card that had transformed into a Werewolf, the Witch who had chosen a side, the Rose card that was flickering and about to disappear, and the Magician card that had suddenly appeared.
Then he abruptly revealed a mischievous smile, one that wished for the world to descend into chaos.
“Then let’s make it a little more chaotic.”
A brand-new card appeared between his index and middle fingers, and he pressed it down to the right of the Werewolf card.
The Prophet’s eyes changed imperceptibly the instant he saw this card.
This was a card somewhat different from the others. It did not follow the rules very well.
The moment it landed on the table, the character inside the card popped up like a pop-up book, hovering over the tabletop, running everywhere with a gaudy toy trumpet gun going du-du-du.
It wore a pair of pointed short boots with pompoms that reached past its ankles, baggy bright-red carrot pants, and a puff-sleeved upper half with layered lace collars encircling the entire neck.
A two-horned, two-colored hat with bells hanging from the ends jingled as it ran.
From its face down to its neck, it was covered in thick white greasepaint. Its mouth was outlined in bright red, making it look a full circle larger, while its eyes were marked with two huge black ink X’s.
Hidden beneath the X’s was a pair of emerald-green eyes, and golden curls gleamed on its head.
This was clearly a Joker—
Or rather, a Joker card.
And now this Joker was holding its trumpet gun, firing biu-biu-biu everywhere across the table. It aimed at the faces of the characters on the cards and shot wildly the moment it saw one, letting out a high, piercing, joyful laugh that made the hair on one’s body stand on end.
Finally, after causing trouble all around the table, the Joker stood on its short boots, tilted its head, and stopped atop the Werewolf card.
This was also the only character card it had not shot at or sabotaged with its trumpet gun.
“King!”
The Joker jumped happily.
It opened its bright, jewel-like green eyes from beneath the X’s, then lay prone on the Werewolf card, curling up dependently against its surface. It rubbed its face against the Werewolf while giggling neurotically.
“King! Find my king!”
“What did you do to the Joker?”
The Prophet’s tone became unusually grave.
“This is not the normal state of an initial character card appearing in the game for the first time. The Joker seems to remember Bai Liu—but in this timeline, the Joker and Bai Liu have not met even once.”
The man sitting opposite him crossed his hands on the table and looked up with a smile.
“Are you afraid? Afraid that the Joker’s influence on Bai Liu will turn him into Bai Six?”
The Prophet retorted coldly, “You are breaking the game rules.”
“I never break game rules.”
The man uncrossed his hands, his smile not fading.
“I merely released the Joker card early, but I did not let him debut.”
The Prophet was about to speak.
“What...” do you mean?
But before he could ask, the Prophet suddenly froze.
He looked at the person sitting opposite him in disbelief.
“You... put him in No-Man’s Land?!”
“Yes. The first single-player game I let the Joker enter was a Level 3 game. Naturally, he was trapped inside and could not get out. Then, very quickly, the audience lost interest in the poor Joker, who had no skills and no way to clear the game, and let him drift into No-Man’s Land.”
The man’s voice carried a hint of pity.
The Prophet’s voice trembled slightly.
“...How long has he been in the game?”
The man said carelessly, “He has been with those monsters for... almost ten years now. I wouldn’t truly let him die, but right now, he is indeed quite insane.”
The Prophet looked directly at the man opposite him.
“Why does the Joker remember Bai Liu?”
The man leaned forward, drawing closer to the Prophet.
“Because in order to make him persevere through that terrifying Level 3 game, which tormented him so much he wanted to commit suicide, I decided to give him hope. So I let him dream every night.”
“In the dreams, the Joker would see a man named Bai Six descend like a god to save him, leading him to sweep through every direction, invincible, and become the champion.”
“That person completely understands him, acknowledges him, and appreciates him. He is the only person in this world the Joker follows. The Joker is the most loyal clown in his hand, and that person is his King.”
The man looked down at the Joker on the table.
“This beautiful dream has allowed him to persevere until now.”
The Prophet closed his eyes, his breathing beginning to grow labored.
“You let the Joker... dream of content from other timelines...”
“But now this timeline is completely messed up. Bai Liu did not go save him at that point in time at all...”
“The Joker waited alone in the game for a Bai Liu who would never appear. He waited for ten years...”
“Congratulations. Isn’t he finally getting what he waited for now?”
The man laughed more and more joyfully.
“Bai Liu will soon appear in No-Man’s Land and save him.”
“Have you heard a fairy tale?”
The man suddenly brought up another topic, yet he was clearly very interested in chatting about this fairy tale with the Prophet. Without waiting for the Prophet’s answer, he continued.
“This story is called ‘The Fisherman and the Genie.’”
“A long, long time ago, there was a clown-like demon sealed in a bottle by a god. He was in agony, unable to escape. No one could see or perceive his pain; he could only survive on the illusions in his dreams.”
“So he made a wish in his heart. If that person saved him in the first year, he would give that person more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime.”
“Unfortunately, that person did not appear. In the third year, the Joker thought: if that person saved him then, he would join the league for that person and become that person’s subordinate.”
“But that person still did not appear. In the sixth year, the Joker thought: if that person saved him then, he would be willing to become that person’s dog and sell his soul to him.”
“But that person still did not appear.”
He looked at the Prophet, the curve of his mouth not changing even slightly.
“By the tenth year, the Joker finally waited for that person. What do you think the Joker will do to Bai Liu, the King he waited ten years for?”
The Prophet opened his eyes.
“He will kill Bai Liu.”
—
Author’s Note:
Basically, all the important characters will be debuting soon. The league is about to begin, and all the members of the Wandering Circus are present.
I want to say something very seriously to everyone here: because expanding the league requires many new characters, there will inevitably be many very powerful characters from other teams. They are not members of the Circus; they are opponents. Also, this story truly is a long epic, so there will be many characters—not only positive characters, but negative ones as well, and some whose positions are more ambiguous. Basically, everyone has their own standpoint.
The Joker will not join the team. He is a very strong opponent. His worldview is extremely distorted, and his feelings for Bai Liu are intensely frenzied. If he were put on the team, he would only kill all the other members, because only then could he ensure that Bai Liu was his King alone. In other timelines, the Joker also holds intense hostility toward the other team members, and in this timeline, it is even more so.
The Joker was the only newcomer player to survive in his batch—he was number one—so he has skills. His skill, the Soul Shattering Gun, is effective against Bai Liu and all other players, so this character truly is very dangerous.
The fairy tale “The Fisherman and the Genie” in the text is an adapted excerpt from One Thousand and One Nights.
