Zhang Kui did indeed feel a violent urge to kill this bastard.
But just as Bai Liu had said, killing him now would bring Zhang Kui no benefit at all.
Bai Liu’s personal skill had already been activated. Whether Zhang Kui killed him or not, it would not stop. And if he killed Bai Liu, he would lose the clever puppet he had gone to such lengths to capture.
The most urgent priority was to obtain the Siren’s Amulet and halt Bai Liu’s personal skill. After that, Zhang Kui would have a hundred ways to torment this damned Bai Liu and vent the fury of having been toyed with.
But the sunk cost of killing Bai Liu was too high.
He had spent so much effort capturing a puppet with such a high mental value. If he killed Bai Liu now without absorbing even a shred of it, that would go against Zhang Kui’s usual principle of maximizing every possible gain.
Zhang Kui forced himself to calm down and loosened the puppet strings strangling Bai Liu’s neck.
Bai Liu collapsed to the floor, clutching his bruised and abraded throat as he coughed violently, gasping for air. His eyes were wet with involuntary tears, yet he actually smiled.
“Thank you, Master, for sparing my life.”
That punchable smile made Zhang Kui immediately want to regret his decision and strangle him to death after all.
Zhang Kui suppressed the anger threatening to spiral out of control. He took a deep breath to clear his mind.
The system prompt had stated that the deadline for the failed transaction was the train’s departure. He looked toward the LED countdown on the carriage wall.
—There were still more than forty seconds left.
It wasn’t a dead end yet.
Killing Bai Liu would only take ten seconds. Once the countdown reached its final ten seconds, it still wouldn’t be too late to kill this bastard with a single thread.
Zhang Kui’s thoughts raced. At the same time, he barked out an order.
“It’s not over yet. If players can’t get in—Liu Huai, lure all the passengers into Mu Shicheng’s carriage! Let those passengers attack him! His mental value should be almost depleted by now! Let them alienate him and kill him!”
Liu Huai replied, “Understood!”
Luring monsters was Liu Huai’s specialty. Both Thief and Assassin skills were highly effective at drawing aggro.
Back when he and Mu Shicheng had worked as a duo, Mu Shicheng would steal items while Liu Huai lured monsters and assassinated them. In truth, they had been partners whose attributes complemented each other extremely well.
Liu Huai’s twin sleeve blades flashed continuously among the passengers. Before long, their aggro had been drawn to him, and they began chasing after him.
Liu Huai hung upside down at the door of the carriage still billowing with flames. As the passengers searched for him, they followed him into the burning carriage. Once inside, they seemed to be drawn by something and began crawling and rolling toward Mu Shicheng’s position.
Previously, the flames from the Thief Didi boss could burn these passengers to death outright. But after fighting Mu Shicheng for so long, Thief Didi’s condition had clearly worsened. Its flames had shrunk considerably. Players still could not withstand them, but the passengers could now enter.
As the flames inside Thief Didi’s carriage gradually weakened, the people in the adjacent carriage could vaguely see what was happening inside.
Mu Shicheng, his eyes blank and empty, was gritting his teeth while clinging to the giant monster’s neck, refusing to let go no matter how violently it shook.
Meanwhile, the Exploding Passengers seemed to be attracted by the mirror fragments on the giant monster. They surged into the carriage in an endless stream, roaring as they scrambled up the monster’s body. Charred corpses piled over one another.
The giant monster twisted violently and flung Mu Shicheng off with a backhanded blow.
Mu Shicheng finally seemed to have reached his limit. He coughed twice, his monkey claws loosening, and fell backward into the mound of Exploding Passengers stacked atop Thief Didi.
Those blackened, carbonized passengers grabbed at Mu Shicheng’s limbs with clawing hands. Their pitch-black fingers scraped bloody marks across his pale face. More passengers ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) continued to flood in, burying Mu Shicheng beneath them like a mountain.
Only his exhausted face remained visible in the sea of corpses. He tilted his head back, gasping for breath as though suffocating, but soon even his mouth was covered by the charred bodies beneath him.
Mu Shicheng was dragged into the mountain of corpses and the sea of fire, leaving no trace behind.
Thief Didi threw back its head and let out a deafening roar. Flames ignited around its fists as it raised one hand, clearly preparing to deliver a fatal blow to Mu Shicheng, who was buried beneath the passengers.
Mu Shicheng lay among the pile of charred corpses, staring vacantly as though he had lost all awareness of his surroundings. Only the faint rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive.
But it did not look as if he would remain alive for long.
The monster’s fist came crashing down.
Du Sanying saw what was happening to Mu Shicheng and let out a piercing scream.
At that critical moment, the sound seemed to jolt Mu Shicheng awake. He blinked with difficulty and barely managed to tilt his head aside, avoiding Thief Didi’s massive fist. But the force of the blow still made Mu Shicheng vomit a mouthful of blood. His eyelids drooped weakly, and he sank even deeper into the pile of charred corpses.
[System Warning: Player Mu Shicheng, please escape immediately! Your mental value is at a critical level! You have approached the boundary of death!]
Mu Shicheng clearly could not hold out much longer.
“Mu Shicheng is as good as dead.” Zhang Kui narrowed his eyes. “Bai Liu, even with your berserk attribute panel, you may not be able to withstand that monster. Liu Huai, the moment Mu Shicheng dies, throw me the Siren’s Amulet from his dropped items!”
“I can’t withstand it even with my berserk attribute panel?” Bai Liu’s thoughtful voice suddenly sounded. “Then what if my berserk attribute panel is doubled?”
“How could your berserk attribute panel double?” Zhang Kui sneered. “Looks like Mu Shicheng told you about my personal skill, Puppet Enhancement.”
“I’ll tell you directly, Bai Liu. Theoretically, doubling a berserk attribute panel is impossible. First, entering berserk state requires your mental value to fall below 20. Then my personal skill, Puppet Enhancement, requires sacrificing 50 points of your mental value. But by that point, you would have less than 20 points remaining. You wouldn’t be able to use Puppet Enhancement.”
“What if I insist?” Bai Liu asked softly.
Zhang Kui sneered. “You won’t die, but your mental value will snap completely. You’ll enter a state worse than death.”
At this point, Zhang Kui actually felt like talking to Bai Liu.
He looked at Bai Liu with a half-smile, his expression filled with the triumph and satisfaction of having fought another clever person and won.
“The departure countdown on the LED screen shows thirty-six seconds. Mu Shicheng won’t last thirty-six seconds. You’ve lost this time, Bai Liu. I will definitely get—”
The Siren’s Amulet.
[System Hint: The train has started. Player Zhang Kui has broken his agreement with Player Bai Liu and failed to complete the transaction regarding the (Siren’s Amulet). Player Zhang Kui has received the system’s credit penalty and has become a Soul Coin in Player Bai Liu’s old wallet.]
Zhang Kui’s eyes widened.
He instinctively looked toward the LED countdown and retorted in disbelief, “How could the train have started?! There were clearly thirty-six seconds left—”
The train began to tremble and move.
Liu Huai also froze in place, stunned, in the middle of chasing Du Sanying.
Du Sanying, who had been running all over the carriage, finally let out a long sigh of relief and collapsed into a corner. His limbs had gone weak, his face was streaked with tears, and he sobbed as he peeled a sheet of semi-transparent fabric off the LED screen.
Exhausted and crying, he leaned against the door.
“Bai Liu, I’m never cooperating with you again. That was too terrifying. I really thought I was going to die, uwaaaah.”
The fabric drifted to the floor, revealing the true screen beneath it.
[Countdown: 0 seconds. The train is about to depart. Passengers, please be prepared.]
Zhang Kui’s face darkened. He threw a reconnaissance item at the fallen fabric.
[Reconnaissance Result: Player Du Sanying used the item (Disguise Fabric) to tamper with the time displayed on the LED screen.]
“Du Sanying!!” Zhang Kui lost control and shouted at him in utter breakdown. “When did you use that item?! I have no memory of it at all—”
He abruptly stopped.
Zhang Kui remembered now.
When Du Sanying had been chased by them, he had been frantically throwing out items to stall for time. Back then, a piece of fabric had indeed flown out and stuck to the screen.
But at that moment, Zhang Kui had been completely blinded by the joy of imminent victory.
His plan had progressed too smoothly from start to finish. He had never imagined that Du Sanying’s terrified crying had been an act.
Actually, it had not been entirely an act.
Du Sanying truly had been frightened to tears by Bai Liu. Bai Liu played the villain so convincingly that Du Sanying had genuinely thought he and Mu Shicheng were about to be sold out. When Du Sanying called Bai Liu inhuman, he had meant it from the bottom of his terrified heart.
After realizing everything, Zhang Kui staggered two steps back. He looked at Bai Liu in disbelief.
“How is this possible? Your mental value is 89, and mine is 93. How could you be smarter than me? How could you predict what I would do one step ahead...”
“Maybe mine is all natural?” Bai Liu shrugged.
As he spoke casually, his movements were lightning-fast. He pulled a brand-new coin from his old wallet—Zhang Kui’s Soul Coin—and pressed it against his system panel.
[System Hint: Player Bai Liu is using Player Zhang Kui’s Soul Coin to intervene in Zhang Kui’s system. Cutting into Zhang Kui’s system panel...]
[System Hint: Player Bai Liu has successfully cut into Player Zhang Kui’s system panel. Operations are now available.]
Bai Liu’s system panel instantly switched to Zhang Kui’s.
Seeing this, Zhang Kui knew he was completely under Bai Liu’s control. He let out a weak, mocking laugh, turned his head aside, and closed his eyes, unwilling to look at his own defeat.
The hunter had finally become the prey.
He had controlled so many people, yet he had never once been controlled by someone else.
Bai Liu.
Heh. Bai Liu.
This person must have known long ago that Zhang Kui wanted to capture him and absorb his intelligence. That was why he had been so fearless, certain that Zhang Kui would not kill him easily.
And it was precisely because of that that Bai Liu had found a loophole.
Clever people were always greedy. Zhang Kui did not believe his greed had been a mistake.
He had merely lost because he had met someone ten times, a hundred times greedier than himself.
[System Hint: Player Bai Liu uses the Soul Coin to intervene in Player Zhang Kui’s system panel. Player Bai Liu uses Player Zhang Kui’s personal skill (Puppet Strings). Player Bai Liu controls Player Zhang Kui and commands him to control Player Liu Huai to attack Player Bai Liu.]
Zhang Kui’s fingers suddenly moved against his will. They danced through the air, tightening the strings wrapped around Liu Huai’s heart.
Liu Huai’s heart clenched sharply.
Both Liu Huai and Zhang Kui looked up at Bai Liu in shock.
Bai Liu gave the order calmly.
“Attack me, Liu Huai. Use the method that depletes mental value the fastest.”
Zhang Kui was stunned. “You’ve already won, Bai Liu! What else are you trying to do?! The train doors are about to open!”
That was right.
The train had started.
The Exploding Passengers and Thief Didi were preparing to leave the train. These burning monsters dragged their spoils behind them—Mu Shicheng, whose struggles had already become negligible—as they prepared to walk out through the carriage doors.
Mu Shicheng seemed to have completely lost consciousness. His pupil-less eyes remained open, looking as though he was both dreaming and awake. Blood dripped from his mouth and eyes.
The only reason Bai Liu could be certain he was not dead was—
—Mu Shicheng had not used the escape item, the Siren’s Amulet, from beginning to end.
[Bai Liu, I’m not sure I’ll definitely be able to stop myself from using the Siren’s Amulet once my mental value drops below 10. Human survival instinct can make people do many strange things, including breaking agreements and betraying teammates.]
[But if... I truly don’t use this item from beginning to end, then that proves I managed to maintain my sanity under a mental value below 10, just as you, lunatic, requested.]
[Mu Shicheng, if you don’t use the Siren’s Amulet, then I promise that as long as I’m alive, I will save you.]
[I hope so, Bai Liu. Someone once said the same thing to me. I agreed to cooperate with you not because I trust you, but because I had no other way out. I don’t want to be controlled by Zhang Kui. I’d rather die. But being controlled by you—so far, I can accept that.]
[You are my most valuable card, Mu Shicheng. I won’t let you die.]
“I’m going to save Mu Shicheng,” Bai Liu repeated flatly. “Liu Huai, use that weapon of yours that rapidly lowers mental value to attack me.”
Liu Huai’s hand thrust forward uncontrollably.
Two sleeve blades pierced Bai Liu’s chest and abdomen.
Bai Liu only frowned slightly.
Liu Huai’s hand trembled as he let go.
[System Hint: Player Bai Liu has been attacked by Player Liu Huai’s (Nightblade). Mental value eroded, decreased by -30. Current mental value: 39. Warning! Warning! You have entered the danger zone!!]
Bai Liu exhaled. He lightly covered his bleeding chest, looked up at Mu Shicheng, who was still struggling faintly, and spoke two words to Liu Huai, as though dissatisfied.
“Not enough. Keep stabbing.”
Liu Huai’s hand, still gripping the sleeve blades, stabbed into Bai Liu’s chest again and again, completely beyond his control. By the end, his entire body was shaking.
Liu Huai looked at the blood-spattered Bai Liu with a dazed, shocked, incomprehending gaze.
“Why go this far for Mu Shicheng...”
Bai Liu casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
Then he shot Liu Huai a cold glance.
“I promised him. I will save him.”
“This is the transaction and cooperation between me and him.”
“And honoring a transaction is the basic morality of a wanderer.”
