Chapter 39: Zhao Jun

Ying Zixin caught the white-haired youth, not caring that his clothes were now stained with blood.

The bone-chilling cold emanating from the skin he touched froze him to his very soul. For a moment, he almost felt like he was holding a frozen corpse dug out of ice, not a living, breathing person.

“Who are you?”

The group looked at the short-skirted girl who had suddenly appeared.

No strange aura could be detected from her body. She was completely clean, her clothing chosen for style and trendiness. She looked nothing like a player who prioritized survival above all else. She seemed much more like an ordinary girl who had wandered into this place by mistake while shopping at the Dome Mall.

But an ordinary person couldn’t have silently approached that version of Yin Luo in that state.

Nor would they appear in a place like this at a time like this.

Man Yue had no intention of answering that kind of question. She glanced at the white-haired youth, his body covered in blood and wounds, and the rabbit doll that hadn’t budged. Then she stretched lazily. “Finally, it’s over. Can go back and rest now. Got it?”

The group was startled, then realized she wasn’t talking to them.

“Yeah.” A tall man in a white suit appeared out of thin air and tossed what he was holding to her.

It was a brain, half constructed of reflective plastic, half flowing with disgusting, viscous liquid.

From its base grew fleshy buds that squirmed like wriggling worms, like the tentacles of a mollusk. Most were now severed, looking as if they had been forcibly ripped out of something.

The thing hadn’t given up struggling. The fleshy buds continued trying to burrow into any living thing they touched.

But no matter how hard it tried, a gap of less than a centimeter remained between it and the skin of the short-skirted girl’s palm.

That tiny gap seemed like an insurmountable chasm.

“Ugh, disgusting.” Man Yue’s face showed pure disgust as she immediately tossed the thing towards the group opposite her. “It’s yours.”

He Yaokun’s eyes flickered slightly, but in the end, he said nothing.

With Ying Zixin still supporting Yin Luo, Zhang Hengheng, being the closest, had to scramble to catch it.

Not daring to make direct contact, he simply speared it with a slightly longer dagger he pulled out.

It looked a bit like grilled brain flower.

He thought.

“Thank you.” Ying Zixin glanced at the thing, his gratitude sincere.

Regardless of their motives, this brain was clearly the most special plastic person they had been searching for—the final monster behind the scenes.

This was a key quest item, and it was still alive! Not only could it be sold to the game for points, but the game’s final score and rewards were also based on these factors.

To think the last two players to appear had just so casually given it to them.

“After all, my junior here did most of the work. Consider it a gift for our first meeting.” The short-skirted girl said with a beaming smile.

She looked towards Lin Rudong and Lei Jue, who were slowly making their way back, and gestured with her chin. “From Situ too?”

Lin Rudong and Lei Jue stiffened like students called upon to answer a question in class. “Yes!”

“Ah, interesting.” Man Yue waved a hand dismissively. “Let’s go.”

The man in the suit gave the unconscious Yin Luo one last look, committing his face to memory, then turned away with a smile that held an ambiguous meaning.

“What does that mean? Those two big shots are also from our school?” Lei Jue watched their retreating backs, bewildered.

“Yes… probably? This is too much of a coincidence.” Lin Rudong was equally at a loss.

“My quest is just… over?” Zhang Hengheng, still skewering the Plastic Brain, wore the same expression of utter confusion.

It was true that Reality Quests weren’t designed specifically to send players to their deaths, but this was his first time experiencing such an anticlimactic ending. The most difficult part of the whole Instance had turned out to be surviving his own teammate.

Thinking of this, the group’s gazes fell upon Yin Luo, who was in Ying Zixin’s arms, their expressions complex.

Honestly, just looking at that head of white hair was enough to trigger some mild PTSD now.

Especially for Lei Jue. He sat as far away from Yin Luo as possible, feeling a shiver of fear just looking at that rabbit doll. He’d probably have a psychological aversion to fluffy things like that for a while.

Dawn hadn’t broken yet, and the game hadn’t officially ended. They couldn’t come and go freely like those two major players, so the young people simply sat on the ground and started talking.

“Let’s add each other as friends, add each other. Even if it’s not much use, at least you can see if you guys are still alive or not, right?” Lei Jue called out.

He quite liked adding friends. Seeing those lit-up avatars on the APP’s friends list always gave him a feeling that he wasn’t an anomaly, that the path of a player wasn’t a lonely one.

“Those two just now were High-Level Players, right? They seemed so powerful.” Lin Rudong’s mind conjured the image of the short-skirted girl. “That’s the first time I’ve ever friended a High-Level Player in real life.”

They hadn’t acted arrogantly, nor displayed any intention of treating low-level players like dirt.

But they possessed a specific kind of arrogance unique to high-level players—the arrogance of holding their own life and death within their own hands.

“They’re probably among the really formidable high-level players at that.” Zhang Hengheng, having seen a bit more of the world, said lazily. “We got pretty lucky. Turned out they were acquaintances with Alice, so we got to benefit from it too.”

“They probably don’t care much for a reward of this level anyway.”

“Whether they care or not is one thing, being willing to give it to you is another.” Zhang Hengheng shrugged, then nudged the silent Ying Zixin. “Hey, Old Ying, any thoughts you want to share?”

Ying Zixin said, “I was thinking…”

Everyone turned their attention to him.

Ying Zixin finished, “How are we going to get out of here later?”

Lei Jue paused. “What do you mean, how? We leave the same way we came in.”

The crew-cut boy looked down at the white-haired youth in his arms, covered in blood and eyes tightly shut, and at the equally filthy rabbit doll nestled motionless in the crook of his neck. “…How did you come in?”

Lei Jue answered frankly. “We found a place to hide in the Dome Mall, waited for the time to be right, then avoided the cameras and went to the fourth-floor corner to enter.”

“…”

Ying Zixin said, “And you plan to leave the same way later?”

“Yeah, why not?” Lei Jue scratched his head, not grasping his point. “When this game ends, the sun probably won’t even be up yet. We can just slip out then.”

Ying Zixin countered, “But we have Yin Luo with us.”

“What’s the issue with having Yin Luo? Don’t tell me you can’t carry him? We’ll just find somewhere to wait for him to wake up.” Lei Jue’s voice was a bit loud. He hated it when people left their sentences half-finished the most.

Zhang Hengheng, however, suddenly understood his implication and started panicking. “Oh crap, that’s right, how are we supposed to leave later?!”

“Reality Quests aren’t like Instance Worlds. Time flows in sync with the Real World. How are we supposed to explain that right after we met up with him, Alice disappeared from his own family’s property, and then a few hours later, we show up with him, his entire body injured?” Ying Zixin could only hope that Yin Luo would wake up soon.

“Why does it feel like we’ve kidnapped him!!” Zhang Hengheng was numb. “In his state, doesn’t he look exactly like someone we’ve just tortured?!”

“I’m terrified that tomorrow morning when I go outside, every telephone pole will have my wanted poster plastered on it.”

“…”

The two exchanged a look, then shifted their gaze towards Lin Rudong and Lei Jue.

“Wh-What?” Lin Rudong felt that look was rather strange and reflexively stepped back.

Zhang Hengheng grabbed her warmly. “You two and Alice are classmates, right? So you’re our classmates too. When we leave later, you’re coming with us.”

Lin Rudong was flabbergasted. “Huh? Huhhh?”

Lei Jue didn’t grasp the point of their despair. “Is it really that serious? If it’s really a problem, we’ll just take him away first and explain things after he wakes up.”

Zhang Hengheng glared at him. “Do you not know what his family background is?”

Lin Rudong replied, “No, I don’t.”

“Haven’t you been classmates for a year?”

“Do you know the family details of all your classmates?”

“Alright, fine.” Zhang Hengheng smacked his lips. “I guess you don’t.”

“Exactly. I just know his family’s financial situation is decent. I honestly don’t know anything beyond that. His family information section is usually blank, and I’ve never seen his parents at any parent-teacher meeting. How would I know his family background?” Lin Rudong explained.

Ying Zixin succinctly laid out their current predicament. “His mother is Luo Xian, that superstar. This Dome Mall is his family’s property. The last people seen with him before we entered were us. Now he’s seriously injured and unconscious, and you two are added to the group bringing him back. On top of that, all of us were missing for several hours in between.”

Lin Rudong and Lei Jue: ???

Suddenly, they didn’t really feel like going back anymore.

In the midst of the silence, light finally dawned outside the window.

“It’s over.”

The scenery before their eyes shifted. The old mall, reeking of rot and blood, transformed back into the familiar stairwell.

Lei Jue had already steadied his nerves. “It’s fine. We’re players, after all. We can’t possibly be unable to even get away from ordinary people.”

Even as he spoke, the light suddenly brightened. A dozen or so burly men in black suits had already set up an ambush right across from them, pointing guns at him.

???

Lei Jue’s face froze, and then he raised his hands with utmost decisiveness. “I surrender.”

“What the heck?! What kind of setup is this? Is this a movie scene?” He quickly retreated a few steps, getting closer to Ying Zixin and Zhang Hengheng.

“What’s this? Kidnapping someone on someone else’s turf—aren’t you disrespecting the family members a little too much?”

It was like a scene straight out of a movie. The men in black parted ways, and a handsome man emerged, his attire so impeccably styled it bordered on flamboyant for a man his age.

He scanned the four tense players and the blood-soaked Yin Luo. “Oh, a group operation, is it? You guys have zero professional ethics. Can’t even properly take care of your hostage? If my sister saw this, I’d get caught in the crossfire too.”

For a moment, the players were at a loss for words.

This man’s tone of voice was utterly different from the others, yet his presence was exceptionally powerful. It gave the distinct impression that whoever responded to him would be forcibly dragged into his particular brand of absurdity.

“Um, you’ve misunderstood. We didn’t hurt him.” Feeling that a stalemate wouldn’t help, Lin Rudong eventually forced a smile and attempted friendly communication. “May I ask who you are?”

The handsome man in the black suit and sunglasses brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “Me? My name is Zhao Jun. Maybe you’ve heard the name. But for now…”

The group exchanged glances, communicating with their eyes.

Lin Rudong: Have any of you heard that name?

Zhang Hengheng, Lei Jue, Ying Zixin: No.

“I’m the hostage’s uncle.” After a long, dramatic pause, he finally finished the rest of his sentence.