Players, Please Board the Train

”After the explosion, you took the chance to kill Kong Cheng. Once you came ashore, your plan was likely to first take Dr. Deng to the laboratory, and then deal with Chu Yuan and Gan Qing.”

”With Tong Jian and Qiu Xiangdong coordinating from outside, and Chu Yuan and the others having no guard up against you, keeping them or killing them would have been easy.”

”If I’m thinking correctly, you originally planned to make your move last night.”

Having things spelled out so clearly, Chu Yuan and Dr. Deng had already mentally placed Miao Yu in the enemy camp. However, Miao Yu obviously had no intention of admitting it. Instead, she laughed. ”Are you saying all this to cover up the fact that you got the potion?”

”I came ashore right after killing Kong Cheng. You were the only one left underwater. Kong Hui was also killed by you. There’s no one else besides you.”

”But there’s no point in talking about this now. You’re not in the dungeon and can leave Deep Blue Island anytime. I don’t want to waste time arguing with you either.”

”However, I am very interested in the potion the Bolun Family has been searching for. Why don’t you take it out and let me have a look?”

”This bitch is treating us like idiots,” Chu Yuan said with a fierce expression. ”Someone who even kills their own allies, do you think she’ll just ’have a look’ and be done with it?”

”What else can I do then?” Miao Yu simply put her Tang sword back into her item slot, spread her hands, and said, ”Can I forcibly keep a player who has a train ticket?”

The reality was, even if they tore off all pretenses, neither side could do anything to the other, except for the rather unlucky Tong Jian.”Why bother with her?” Chu Yuan went to take out his train ticket, saying as he did, ”Let’s go.”

However, Xu Huo, under the gaze of the others, had no intention of leaving just yet. Instead, he said, ”Alright.”

”What did you say?!” Dr. Deng looked at him in shock, unable to stop himself from asking, ”You really found the potion?”

Xu Huo didn’t answer his question. He said to Miao Yu, ”Letting you have a look is fine, but you have to trade something valuable for it.”

Hearing this, Miao Yu’s face instead turned serious. ”Are you serious?”

”Not willing?” Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.

Miao Yu hesitated for a few seconds before asking, ”What do you want?”

”Professor Wu’s information,” Xu Huo said. ”I want the content that Dr. Deng doesn’t know.”

”Professor Wu worked at Deep Blue Laboratory for so long, and the Bolun Family has full control here. There must be a lot of information about Professor Wu.”

”You bring it out, and I can let you take a look at the potion.”

”I don’t have it,” Miao Yu said bluntly. ”The Bolun Family hasn’t disclosed any information about Professor Wu to me. What I know might even be less than Dr. Deng.”

”You’re being modest,” Xu Huo smiled. ”I believe you are a member of the Bolun Family.”

Different from those two thugs, the Kong siblings.

”The Kong siblings even killed Zhu Rumin. Killing one more of you wouldn’t be a problem either.”

Only at this point did Tong Jian finally couldn’t help but glance at Miao Yu.

Miao Yu’s expression turned serious. ”You really are a smart person. However, I am not a core figure within the family. What I know is limited.”

”It’s fine,” Xu Huo said. ”The information you give me doesn’t necessarily have to be real, and the potion I show you might not be real either.”

Chu Yuan, listening nearby, felt his eyelids twitch. ”Is this a negotiation?”

Both sides seemed to lack tangible bargaining chips. They couldn’t even determine what was true or false, yet they were already sitting at the negotiating table. Is this how negotiations are done?

Even a smart person like Dr. Deng couldn’t understand this maneuver.

It was obvious that even if Xu Huo had obtained the real potion, he would absolutely not take it out. Only things placed in the game panel were absolutely safe. Taking it out carried the risk of being snatched away.

This way, Miao Yu was definitely at a disadvantage. Of course, the information she provided might not be real either. But was such a transaction really necessary?

However, the thoughts of the parties involved were different.

For Xu Huo, no matter what information Miao Yu provided, he wouldn’t lose out, because he wouldn’t bring out the real potion. On the contrary, he wanted to use this to conceal the fact that the real potion was in his possession.

Similarly, Miao Yu didn’t expect to get the real potion from Xu Huo’s hands either. But if he really had found the potion, without her knowing whether she had seen the real potion before, in order to exchange for the information in her possession, he might bring out a potion similar to the real one.

And the Bolun Family had been rummaging through the laboratory for years without even knowing what Professor Wu’s potion looked like. At the very least, this was a channel to obtain information about the potion’s color and appearance.

Of course, this had to be based on the premise that Xu Huo had obtained the real potion.

Miao Yu wasn’t completely unprepared either.

She took out a stack of paper documents from her luggage compartment. ”All the information about Professor Wu that I could find is here. Photocopied versions. I only need to ask you a few questions, and I can give you the information.”

Xu Huo similarly took out a tube of P0 Evolution Serum, shaking the pale blue liquid slightly. ”I can’t determine if your information is real, but at least let me flip through it.”

”Fine,” Miao Yu said. She picked up the documents and, right in front of him, let the pages slip through her fingers from beginning to end, then began asking questions: ”Is this the real potion?”

”No.”

”Is the real potion this color?”

”Not sure.”

”Did you really find the potion in the cavity wall?”

”That question is not within the scope of the transaction I acknowledge.”

Miao Yu paused, then took out another, thinner set of documents. ”Encrypted files. They contain content that Dr. Deng doesn’t know.”

”Letting you flip through them would put me at a disadvantage. I can only let you see one page first.”

”Two pages,” Xu Huo bargained.

Miao Yu showed him two pages. Xu Huo nodded and answered the question: ”No. I went to check the cavity wall. There was no discovery at all.”

He paused and looked at Tong Jian. ”Are you sure the traces you discovered weren’t left by sea creatures?”

This question actually made Tong Jian freeze for a moment.

”With such a huge explosion, it’s impossible for sea creatures to return,” Miao Yu said with a dark expression. ”You’re lying.”

”You don’t believe the truth,” Xu Huo said without changing his expression. ”Why not use the lie-detecting item or instrument you have on you to confirm it?”

It was precisely because of this that Miao Yu felt a surge of anger. Her intuition told her Xu Huo was lying, but the lie-detecting item gave a contradictory result.

”She brought a lie-detecting item?” Chu Yuan asked, looking her over.

”Otherwise, why would she agree to the transaction,” Xu Huo said. In reality, the questions themselves were traps. Answers with specific directions could expose whether he had obtained the potion or not. Even if she couldn’t get the potion, she could still obtain information about the potion from his answers.

”This is the first time I’ve encountered someone a lie-detecting item can’t determine the truth from,” Miao Yu took a deep breath. ”Body language, breathing rhythm, heart rate—they can all reveal a person’s current psychological state. This method has never failed me before. I never expected it to be completely useless against you.”

”If you weren’t holding a D-level train ticket, I would have thought you were at least a B-rank or higher advanced player.”

”Thanks for the compliment,” Xu Huo said. He tossed the P0 potion in his hand to her. ”It’s yours.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he vanished from his spot. With a flick of the kite string, he also harvested Tong Jian’s life.

And almost at the same moment he moved, Miao Yu also transformed into a shadow and lunged straight at him. Perhaps due to some mindset, she caught the potion instead of opening it directly. However, during that split second of delay, Dr. Deng and Chu Yuan on the opposite side also disappeared one after the other.