Players, Please Board the Train

The temporary companion died horribly, and that player slammed on the brakes atop the roof. Without a second word, he spun around and fled. Xu Huo glanced at him but didn’t bother chasing—though he hadn’t expected the man to stop again before getting far.

The next second, figures emerged in twos and threes from both sides of the street, encircling Xu Huo in a pincer formation.

Leaving easily was out of the question.

Xu Huo slowly unfurled a black umbrella.

Rain began to drizzle from the sky.

On the other side, Teacher Pan’s group—except for Eagle and Lin Zhenhuai—hadn’t yet decided to leave Museum City. They’d only vacated the hotel and were now taking shelter inside a shop.

”How exactly did the Mirror Hotel get cracked?” Sun Bo was still dazed. ”All I know is the space shifted twice, and suddenly we were outside!”

Teacher Pan and the others were pretty much in the same boat, but they’d prepared in advance, splitting up to keep an eye on Xiao Ling, Xu Huo, and the other two. They hadn’t expected a pleasant surprise at the end.

”What kind of potion is this?” Peng Fengnian stared at the green syringe in Teacher Pan’s hand. ”Looks like a boosted version of the evolution agent.”

Evolution agents came in all sorts of colors. The basic blue ones the game handed out to players were the standard issue. The more dungeons you ran, the better the potions you could get. Agents at the same tier came in basic, boosted, and super-boosted versions. Besides the officially released potions, different pharmaceutical companies also crafted tailored evolution agents, but overall, their effects were pretty similar.”The more evolution agents you use, the weaker the effect gets. My evolution rate is slowing down,” Sun Bo said. ”That syringe was something Yu Huo found at the hotel. It was hidden so well it’s got to be some special potion, right? Let’s take it back and see if it can be mass-produced.”

”It looks like just an ordinary boosted agent,” Peng Fengnian paused, then said, ”Teacher Pan, I don’t understand why we’re doing this. I’ve dealt with Yu Huo before. He’s a very capable player—he even wrecked a Random Dungeon. A player like that is a talent in any Game Partition. Even if we can’t get on his good side, we shouldn’t be making an enemy out of him. It’s not worth it for a potion.”

Teacher Pan was examining the potion with a magnifying glass-like item, not sparing him a single glance. He only said, ”Old Zheng hunted him all the way to the Corpse Hotel. Do you really think this can end as neatly as you imagine? Once he gets out, the first person he’ll kill is Old Zheng. As his allies, we won’t escape either. Rather than leaving a ticking time bomb, it’s better to strike first.”

Peng Fengnian’s expression darkened. He’d been sidelined by Teacher Pan and the others from the start. The words they’d discussed were just meant to placate Xu Huo through his mouth.

”Don’t be naive,” Gao Xiaoyue said. ”You and he are only passing acquaintances. You don’t even know his background. If we trust him, and we’ve been stuck in the Mirror Hotel for days, weak and exhausted, what happens if he makes the first move against us?”

Peng Fengnian fell silent. After a long moment, he finally said, ”You’re right. I can’t ask you all to take this risk for me either. I just think this feels a bit like burning the bridge after crossing the river.”

”It’s already a done deal. Regrets won’t help now.” Sun Bo drained the water from his cup. ”In the game, if you’re not ruthless, you don’t survive long.”

Peng Fengnian twitched the corner of his mouth and changed the subject. ”There are no items at the hotel. Where do we look next?”

”We can’t leave the dungeon just yet,” Teacher Pan looked up. ”Even though we didn’t get the item, we still got something out of it. After Old Zheng and his two men deal with that player, they’ll head out first to report back. Once the higher-ups confirm the value of Museum City, they’ll send more players.”

”Right now, all the major families are busy diving into dungeons to grab items,” Gao Xiaoyue said. ”I doubt anyone would care about a D-rank Dungeon. From what I’ve seen, the ones who ran in here are all useless rookies. Plus, this dungeon’s situation is pretty strange, so I bet not many players will come. We’re already halfway done—rather than letting someone else reap the rewards, we should finish it ourselves.”

This was from the team’s collective interest, but Teacher Pan just smiled and said, ”Based on the known information, we’ve done everything we can. Blind searching is just a waste of time. What we need to do now is recover our strength and reduce the threats inside the dungeon.”

The other three present fell silent at that. But Teacher Pan clearly didn’t care about their opinions and went back to studying the potion.

After a while, Sun Bo looked out at the drizzling rain and muttered, ”I wonder if Old Zheng managed to get the effects out.”

*

The rain wasn’t heavy. It only made a faint sound against the umbrella. The ground was wet, and if you looked closely, you could see liquid flowing—though it didn’t reflect any light. It was just thick and slow, oozing along the uneven surface.

A pair of leather boots stepped through the liquid, stopping in front of a black umbrella lying slanted on the ground. Then a hand reached down and picked it up. A white cloth wiped the handle clean before being tossed aside, revealing dark red traces on the fluttering fabric.

A few onlookers lingered in the distance. Xu Huo didn’t pay them any attention. He opened the umbrella and left the street littered with corpses.

He didn’t head straight for the Museum City gate. Instead, he confirmed nearby that Eagle and Lin Zhenhuai hadn’t left yet, then doubled back into the city. Wrapping himself in the Invisibility Cloak, he gripped the scanner and moved quickly between the buildings. Finally, he spotted Teacher Pan’s group in a shop wedged between the Wax Figure Hall and Beheaded Cemetery.

Nighttime was when Museum City came alive. Xu Huo saw mannequins running wild, skeletons letting loose, and several wax figures prowling nearby.

He estimated the distances between the shops, then picked an alley a bit to the left of center. First, he tied ”Hurt Others, Not Yourself” together with the loose photo strings inside the shop, then ran the other end of the line to the doorway. He scattered some adhesive stickers not far from the window, and splashed some diluted venom haphazardly around the room.

After a simple setup, he returned to the entrance, placing the ”Counting Squares” in the alley and the shop across the street.

When that was done, he smeared some adhesive mucus on the main road, then used a few pebbles to lure over those dim-witted wax figures. Two of them got stuck to the ground, their stiff limbs writhing helplessly.

Seeing that they wouldn’t break free anytime soon, Xu Huo turned and circled behind Teacher Pan and the others. He landed silently in an alley, then used the ”Crimson Sword” to slice clean through this row of small shops!

The sword energy’s cutting surface expanded and vanished. The next second, Teacher Pan and his group jumped out of the shop one after another, avoiding the open main street and leaping between the arranged storefronts.

Xu Huo swiftly cut in behind them. The Crimson Sword and the water jet gun took turns. Twice he blocked Gao Xiaoyue and Sun Bo from splitting off, his attacks alternating between near and far, making it impossible for Sun Bo and the others to use their items. As they scrambled, Teacher Pan suddenly came to his senses and shouted, ”Split up—!”

Before he could finish, Xu Huo yelled, ”Venom rain falling from the sky!”