“I suggest everyone equip items that boost movement speed,” Bai Liu said after gearing up, glancing at the [passengers] crowding toward the train doors. “These monsters are probably extremely fast.”
Mu Shicheng immediately equipped his speed-enhancing bracers. With a lollipop in his mouth, he let out a strange little laugh.
Hearing the eerie sound, Bai Liu turned around.
Mu Shicheng had planted both feet against the carriage wall, clinging to it with his monkey claws like some agile beast suspended in midair. His entire body was loaded with speed-boosting equipment, poised to bolt at any second.
When he noticed Bai Liu looking at him, Mu Shicheng grinned. Releasing one claw, he flashed Bai Liu a casual two-finger salute. Malice gleamed openly in his eyes.
“Then I’ll be leaving first, Bai Liu. I’m not interested in your plan to kill the Puppet Master. Too many holes.” He smirked lazily. “Try not to die.”
“And one more thing—”
Mu Shicheng lifted the small white mermaid statue in his hand and shook it with a grin.
“I’ll be taking your item, [Siren’s Amulet]. Mu Shicheng style.”
“This is compensation for the two thousand points you scammed out of me. I told you already—I never take a loss.”
“Oh, and Bai Liu—”
Mu Shicheng kicked off the wall with a single claw.
His body vanished into the carriage like a gust of wind.
Only his wicked laughter lingered behind.
“I hate cooperating with people more than anything. Take this as a lesson. If you survive, don’t bother thanking me. Bye!”
[System Notification: Player Mu Shicheng has used the skill (Thief’s Monkey Paw) to steal the item (Siren’s Amulet) from player Bai Liu’s system inventory.]
[System Notification: Player Mu Shicheng has used the skill (Thief’s Stealth), movement speed +7000.]
In the span of a blink, Mu Shicheng became a fading afterimage and disappeared completely from Bai Liu’s sight.
Only Du Sanying and Bai Liu remained, staring at each other.
Du Sanying looked even more shocked than the victim himself.
“You—aren’t you two partners?!” he exclaimed, frantically pointing in the direction Mu Shicheng had fled before jabbing a finger at Bai Liu. “Why did he abandon you and run?! Why did he steal your item?! Weren’t you friends?!”
Bai Liu, meanwhile, remained perfectly calm.
Outside the small screen, Wang Shun let out a complicated sigh.
Sure enough, the reason Mu Shicheng had targeted Bai Liu and followed him into the game from the very beginning was because he wanted something Bai Liu possessed.
Recently, [Siren Town] had become almost exclusively a beginner instance. Veteran players could no longer enter, while newcomers rarely managed to clear it. That made an item like the [Siren’s Amulet]—which required completing the final page of the Monster Book—ridiculously scarce. Even a thousand gold points might not be enough to buy one.
Wang Shun had heard before that Mu Shicheng had been looking for a [Siren’s Amulet]. Most likely, helping Bai Liu earlier had been part of the setup from the start.
Unfortunately, Bai Liu’s shameless stinginess had probably convinced Mu Shicheng that there was no way Bai Liu would willingly sell it to him out of gratitude.
So he resorted to theft instead.
Still...
Bai Liu’s luck stat really was catastrophically bad.
In a collection-type game, he ran into Du Sanying, a player with absurdly maxed-out luck who specialized in this sort of thing. The ally he chose was Mu Shicheng, a notorious lone wolf who despised teamwork. And on top of that, he’d been targeted by Zhang Kui, who intended to turn him into a puppet.
It was as if Bai Liu had stepped on every possible landmine in existence.
Honestly, Wang Shun almost felt sorry for him.
Of course, not everyone shared Wang Shun’s sympathy.
The audience was realistic—and fickle.
Bai Liu had actively sought cooperation, only to get stabbed in the back by Mu Shicheng almost immediately. To many viewers, it looked like a disastrous miscalculation. Quite a few people who had initially held high hopes for him instantly lost interest.
Most of Bai Liu’s audience had already been siphoned away by the three god-tier players. The remaining viewers were few to begin with, and after this chain of questionable decisions, almost nobody was willing to support him anymore.
[107 new people liked Bai Liu’s small screen, 161 new people bookmarked Bai Liu’s small screen, 0 people charged for player Bai Liu.]
[120 new people are watching Bai Liu’s small screen. Due to a significant discrepancy from previous game data, player Bai Liu is about to be demoted from the (New Player Area) to the (Grave Dancing Area). Player Bai Liu, please take the game seriously!]
[Welcome slogan for player Bai Liu in the Grave Dancing Area: Yo~ Your gameplay is hopping back and forth on the edge of death~ Yo~ So hilariously clumsy it hurts~ Yo~ The Grave Dancing Area welcomes all players who refuse to play properly! We’ve specially prepared premium eight-heart eight-arrow grave-shaped small screens for your disco needs!]
The contrast with Mu Shicheng’s screen was immediate and brutal.
His betrayal and theft were wildly entertaining to watch. Viewer data exploded almost instantly. Following Du Sanying, Mu Shicheng’s screen also broke out of the sub-zone and entered the Central Hall.
“The Grave Dancing Area?” Wang Shun’s expression finally darkened. “That place is only for players whose performance drops far below their previous standards. Even if Bai Liu’s current data is bad, the game literally just started. How is he already being thrown in there?”
Then Wang Shun realized the reason.
It wasn’t that Bai Liu’s current performance was exceptionally terrible.
It was that his previous performance had been far too good.
The system had judged Bai Liu as someone deliberately not taking the game seriously—essentially slacking off—and issued a punishment.
Wang Shun disagreed with the assessment, but there was nothing he could do about it. With mixed feelings, he packed up and headed toward the [Graveyard Disco] zone.
A handful of viewers followed him.
Far more sighed and abandoned Bai Liu’s screen entirely, choosing instead to watch the gods.
The [Grave Dancing Area] was deathly pale.
Every small screen here had a cross mounted above it, resembling rows of miniature tombstones. At the entrance stood two enormous funeral wreaths with long banners hanging down.
One read:
—[Star of Universal Attention]
The other:
—[No Place for Burial]
The entire area resembled a storage hall for funeral urns. Even the footage on the screens played in black and white.
Half the players displayed there already looked miserable enough on their own. Combined with the monochrome filters, they resembled funeral portraits more than live broadcasters.
Nothing about this place felt bright or lively.
The atmosphere was heavy. Yin. Oppressive.
There were very few viewers as well.
Most watched anxiously or irritably, shouting encouragement at the screens with expressions full of frustrated disappointment—the exact same expression Wang Shun wore now.
This place was also known as the [Fallen Star Zone].
Players whose data had once soared but later collapsed would be judged by the system as “not taking the game seriously” and exiled here.
In other words, it was the game lobby’s Cold Palace.
Many players were banished to the Cold Palace.
Very few ever escaped.
To leave the [Grave Dancing Area], a player had to surpass the data from their previous game while still trapped inside this zone. Only then would the system grant them another promotion opportunity.
But Bai Liu’s comprehensive data from his last game had exceeded one hundred thousand.
Since entering the game, Wang Shun had never once heard of someone achieving broadcast data above one hundred thousand from inside the Grave Dancing Area.
If Bai Liu got trapped here...
He would very likely sink into [No Man’s Land].
And once that happened, climbing back out would be nearly impossible.
Still, while Wang Shun felt deeply uneasy, the forums were celebrating.
Low-level players who disliked Bai Liu were practically having a carnival.
[Warm congratulations to the “new star” Bai Liu for earning an eight-heart eight-arrow grave screen!]
[I’m anxious, I’m anxious—how long until Bai Liu falls into No Man’s Land? Place your bets! I’m calling three hours!]
[Where are all the people who kept hyping Bai Liu before? Didn’t you worship him like crazy? What happened? All hiding in the Cold Palace with “Lady Bai” now? Come out and say something!]
Meanwhile, Bai Liu himself knew absolutely nothing about the uproar surrounding him.
At the moment, he had a much more immediate problem to deal with.
The charred corpses outside had begun flooding into the carriage.
Or rather—it.
They crawled across the floor in grotesque postures, heads bent backward until they practically touched their own spines, necks twisted like snapped branches. They moved on all fours like giant human-faced spiders.
And yet their burned faces still wore ordinary commuter expressions.
Blank.
Numb.
As though they were merely exhausted office workers cramming into the subway while scrolling through their phones.
Several fleeing passengers failed to escape in time. The incoming tide slammed them against the train windows hard enough to burst them into mangled blood and flesh.
For a moment, Bai Liu felt as though he were trapped in rush hour traffic.
Du Sanying barely dodged one corpse passenger that lunged at him. Pale-faced, he slapped a hand to his chest.
“These monsters are way too fast—and way too strong!”
As he spoke, he rapidly equipped items.
[System Notification: Player Du Sanying has used the item (Lucky Bumper Car), movement speed +1890. You can luckily avoid all creatures attempting to collide with you! Duration: 1 hour.]
A pink bumper car covered in My Little Pony stickers instantly appeared around Du Sanying.
It looked ridiculously childish.
Oddly enough, the thin and delicate-looking Du Sanying fit inside it perfectly.
“Bai Liu, hurry up!” Du Sanying waved frantically. “I’ll drive you out of here! The monsters are coming!”
He wasn’t helping Bai Liu out of kindness alone.
His instincts were screaming at him that Bai Liu was the key to clearing this game.
No matter what happened, Bai Liu absolutely could not die.
Bai Liu, however, remained composed.
He politely declined Du Sanying’s offer and equipped one of his own items instead.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu has equipped the item (Statue’s Outer Shell), defense +100. Because this is a heavy item, player Bai Liu’s movement speed -13.]
“Pff—!”
Seeing Bai Liu equip a bulky marble shell so heavy it forced him onto one knee, Du Sanying nearly spat blood.
“Bai Liu!” he shrieked. “You equipped the wrong item! That’s a defense item! It lowers your speed! Take it off already!”
The dozens of kilograms of marble pressed Bai Liu to the ground so heavily he couldn’t even stand, yet he still replied stubbornly:
“I didn’t equip the wrong thing. I’m not taking it off.”
The viewers on Du Sanying’s screen exploded.
“What the hell is he doing?! Did entering the Graveyard Area make him give up on life?!”
“In a chase scene, this man chose to carry a giant rock on his back. Honestly, legendary behavior.”
“I’m dying of anxiety for Du Sanying! Stop trying to save this idiot! Leave him there and run!”
Du Sanying himself was close to tears.
His intuition was screaming at him to save Bai Liu.
“Do you have any transportation items?! Anything that boosts speed?! Forget it—just take off the armor first! It’s too late already! Get in the car!”
“This armor is useful,” Bai Liu answered calmly as he clicked open his personal skill panel. “And I do have transportation. Don’t worry about me.”
Du Sanying was frantic. “How fast is it?! If it’s slower than 1890, just use my car!”
“Movement speed?” Bai Liu selected the personal skill [Old Wallet] and finally revealed a rather strange smile. “Probably around the same speed as Mu Shicheng.”
Du Sanying froze.
“A transportation item with seven thousand movement speed?! Those exist?!”
Behind Bai Liu, the burning passengers charged toward him in twisted, unnatural motions. Countless charred hands crackling with sparks reached for his back.
Firelight scattered across Bai Liu’s pale face.
His eyes never wavered.
At that critical moment—seconds from death—Bai Liu suddenly cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted lazily:
“Mu Shicheng, I need your help! HEEELP—!”
Du Sanying: “??????”
Hadn’t Mu Shicheng just robbed him and run away?!
Why on earth was he asking Mu Shicheng for help?!
No matter how anyone looked at it, there was absolutely no reason for Mu Shicheng to come back!
The viewers on Du Sanying’s screen were equally speechless.
At this point, they had become numb to Bai Liu’s bizarre behavior and were beginning to suspect he might genuinely be insane.
Otherwise, how could anyone explain these operations?
But the people most covered in question marks were actually the viewers watching Mu Shicheng’s stream.
They watched, dumbfounded, as Mu Shicheng—who had been happily escaping the scene—suddenly stiffened the instant he heard:
[Mu Shicheng, I need your help.]
It was as though something had violently yanked on him mid-stride.
He stopped dead.
[System Notification: Because player Bai Liu has activated a personal skill, player Mu Shicheng must cooperate with all of player Bai Liu’s actions.]
[—Player Bai Liu now demands that you turn back. Fulfill his wishes, assist him with everything you have, and guide him safely out of danger—]
“FUCK YOUR MOTHER!!!”
Mu Shicheng’s face twisted black with fury as his body turned around against his will.
He shot back toward the carriage he’d just escaped from at terrifying speed.
“Fuck you, Bai Liu!!!”
“You used a personal skill to control me?! Isn’t your personal skill supposed to be stealing?!!!”
Pure rage exploded across Mu Shicheng’s face.
Being manipulated by someone like Bai Liu—a “loser” in his eyes—was humiliating beyond words.
In almost less than a breath, just as Du Sanying watched Bai Liu on the verge of being swallowed by monsters and nearly clawed his own hair out in panic—
Bai Liu simply lowered his head with a smile.
Still wearing the massive marble shell, he knelt calmly on the floor with his arms slightly open, as though waiting for someone to come pick him up.
Du Sanying became even more bewildered.
“What is the point of that armor?!”
“It increases defense.” Bai Liu attempted a shrug, only to fail because the shell was too heavy. “I’m worried my transportation might hit me out of anger later, so I equipped it first. Makes me a bit sturdier.”
“?????”
Du Sanying’s soul practically left his body.
A transportation item that hit people?!
What kind of deranged nonsense was this?!
Right as Du Sanying was about to scream, a figure moving so fast it was nearly invisible rushed in with a furious roar, grabbed Bai Liu by the collar, and yanked him up.
“Bai Liu—you fucking animal—what the hell did you do to me?! Why the fuck am I being controlled by you?!”
Mu Shicheng hauled him backward violently.
The flaming corpse passengers lunged past them with snapping jaws and burning arms, barely missing Bai Liu’s face. The heat scorched the tips of his eyelashes.
Bai Liu merely blinked twice to extinguish the sparks on them and looked up with an infuriating smile.
“I just asked for your help, Mu Shicheng. Didn’t we make a deal?”
“When I ask for help, you help me. Wasn’t that your promise? How is that control? That sounds way too formal.”
Mu Shicheng’s expression darkened savagely.
Carrying Bai Liu, he tore through several train cars before finally throwing him onto the floor like discarded trash.
Then he stepped directly on Bai Liu’s throat.
Blood vessels bulged violently across Mu Shicheng’s forehead and arms. His eyes were bloodshot, breathing ragged with fury.
He laughed—a low, skin-crawling sound—and stared down into Bai Liu’s eyes beneath his foot.
“Very impressive, Bai Liu.”
“In my entire life, the thing I hate most is being controlled.”
“You really know how to piss me off.”
Then he punched him.
The marble armor exploded apart like brittle plaster.
Fragments scattered across the floor.
Blood slid from the corner of Bai Liu’s lips, yet he still smiled calmly, as though he had anticipated the punch from the very beginning.
[System Notification: Player Bai Liu’s armor has been completely destroyed after blocking one attack from player Mu Shicheng. The armor cannot ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) be repaired. Player Bai Liu’s HP has dropped to 40.]
“You sure you want to kill me?” Bai Liu asked with a bloodstained smile. “The skill I used can bind my health to yours. If I die, you might die too, Mu Shicheng.”
It was a bluff.
Many control-type skills did bind the health of the controller and controlled target together.
Mu Shicheng’s expression flattened instantly.
He inhaled several times, forcing himself to calm down, though rage still churned violently in his eyes.
“I’ll find a way to sever this connection after the game ends,” he said through clenched teeth. “Then I’ll kill you, Bai Liu.”
Bai Liu smiled.
The bluff had worked.
“That’s a problem for later,” he replied mildly. “What about now?”
Mu Shicheng stared at him for several long seconds before finally snarling:
“I seriously fucking want to kill you.”
Then he glanced at the charred corpses catching up again, grabbed Bai Liu by the back of his collar, and took off once more with icy fury written across his face.
[System Notification: Player Mu Shicheng has used the skill (Thief’s Stealth), movement speed +7000. Due to carrying player Bai Liu (57kg, lightly injured), speed reduced—Final movement speed bonus: +6900.]
Du Sanying stood there in complete shock.
He stared blankly at Mu Shicheng carrying Bai Liu away, then looked down at the shattered armor scattered across the train floor.
“...So the transportation item with seven thousand speed that likes hitting people...”
“...was Mu Shicheng?”
Du Sanying had always relied almost entirely on luck to clear games.
He had never witnessed such a savage playstyle before—using another player as transportation.
Watching Mu Shicheng sprint away while dragging Bai Liu along through sheer murderous fury, Du Sanying felt a chill run down his spine.
For some reason, he suddenly had a terrible premonition.
A future where he, too, would one day be used as a tool by Bai Liu exactly like this.
Terrifying.
Was Bai Liu not afraid of getting beaten to death by an enraged Mu Shicheng?
The man had nearly killed him moments ago, and Bai Liu could still calmly joke that his “vehicle” liked hitting people.
Soul thoroughly shaken, Du Sanying drove his My Little Pony bumper car after them in a daze.
The audience was equally shaken.
For a long while, nobody spoke.
Everyone simply stared at the screen in silence, because after mocking Bai Liu earlier, anything they said now would sound like a slap to their own faces.
Eventually, someone coughed awkwardly.
“...This Bai Liu guy really does have some tricks.”
“‘Some’ tricks?” another viewer said with a complicated expression. “He controlled God Mu. Even the Puppet Master couldn’t pull that off despite using the entire King’s Guild.”
“So Bai Liu’s personal skill is also some kind of player manipulation?”
“Probably. This is getting interesting now. Two manipulation-type players going head-to-head. The Puppet Master has three puppets over there, but Bai Liu has God Mu here. Four against two. I still think the Puppet Master has better odds, but Bai Liu just raised his chances to at least forty percent...”
“Poor God Mu. Escaped one disaster only to fall into another. In the end, he still became somebody else’s puppet.”
“I’m switching to Bai Liu’s stream. There’s too much we can’t see from Mu Shicheng’s perspective.”
“Same. Isn’t Bai Liu in the Grave Dancing Area? What a shame. If he’d pulled this off a little earlier, he never would’ve gotten dropped there...”
Viewers from Mu Shicheng’s stream began pouring into Bai Liu’s.
Gradually, more and more people gathered around the small screen in the [Grave Dancing Area].
But Wang Shun barely noticed any of it.
He was staring fixedly at Bai Liu.
After several seconds, he froze.
Bai Liu’s personal skill was supposed to be stealing... wasn’t it?
At last, Wang Shun slowly shook his head, lingering fear surfacing in his eyes.
Could it be...
Could Bai Liu have started laying this trap from the very beginning?
Deliberately misleading Mu Shicheng into believing his personal skill was stealing—just so Mu Shicheng would completely lower his guard before Bai Liu revealed the ability to control him?
Because if Bai Liu had displayed any other kind of skill, Mu Shicheng would have been vigilant immediately.
Only a stealing-type skill could completely fool him.
After all—
Mu Shicheng possessed the strongest [Stealing Skill] judgment in the entire game.
He had once even stolen something from Spades himself.
He was the undisputed king of thieves.
And yet Bai Liu had repeatedly stolen from Mu Shicheng.
The first time, it was the Mental Bleach.
The second time, the Stamina Replenishment Agent.
The third time—
Bai Liu stole Mu Shicheng himself.
And now, for the fourth—
Wang Shun looked at the rapidly increasing audience gathering around Bai Liu’s screen, emotions impossibly complicated—
Bai Liu had stolen Mu Shicheng’s viewers too.
