Players, Please Board the Train

Team Leader Song hung up the phone and asked the surveillance personnel beside him with lingering hope, ”Are you absolutely sure he suddenly disappeared from the room?”

”Yes,” the surveillance staff replied. ”His thermal imaging vanished right in the middle of the room.”

Team Leader Song let out a long sigh. ”What a shame. If only this person could be of use to me...”

Dai Wenqian stood behind him, adjusting his glasses. ”Does Xu Huo really have a spatial teleportation item?”

”We haven’t received any feedback from the facial recognition system yet, so he should have already left Capital City,” Team Leader Song said. ”His fearless attitude probably stems from becoming a D-level player.”

”Becoming a D-level player in such a short time does prove his capability,” Dai Wenqian remarked. ”But if I may be blunt, Team Leader, Xu Huo isn’t someone who can cooperate with others. To put it plainly, he trusts no one but himself and considers everyone else dead weight. Even if he joined the Special Defense Department, he wouldn’t follow orders.”

Team Leader Song naturally understood this logic. Just look at Team Leader Wu—despite all his efforts, he still failed to recruit him, didn’t he?

”I’m just regretting that such a fine item can’t be used where it’s truly needed.”

Dai Wenqian offered a gentle smile. ”The item Xu Huo possesses probably isn’t that high-level. Showing it off was likely just a display of strength—his intention is simply mutual non-interference.”

”Besides, there are plenty of good items in the game. There’s no need for you to envy him, Team Leader. Once the Special Defense Department has more players, what item couldn’t we obtain?”Team Leader Song’s expression relaxed as he patted Dai Wenqian’s shoulder. ”Wenqian, I have high hopes for you. Keep pushing forward.”

Dai Wenqian nodded with a smile and left the room with his fellow player subordinates.

”Brother Qian, it seems Team Leader Song isn’t willing to let Xu Huo go. Will he send us to capture him?” a young player with an eyebrow piercing asked in a hushed voice.

”How would we capture him?” Dai Wenqian chuckled. ”By carrying cannons to blast residential buildings? Not only has Xu Huo gained support from many ordinary people and Evolvers now, but even without the video incident, the Special Defense Department wouldn’t dare use lethal force to arrest him. What if he escapes into the game, levels up, then returns for revenge? Who’d suffer then but the higher-ups in the Special Defense Department?”

”For the sake of their own lives, they won’t do that. They can only obediently help with the cleanup.”

”But I really admire Xu Huo,” the eyebrow-pierced player said. ”Actually, I heard rumors a few days ago that someone was offering high prices for information on Evolvers and players. I just never expected those people would go so far. I always thought only Player-Eaters treated fellow humans as less than human, but never imagined... He’s basically venting anger on behalf of us players.”

”This is completely normal,” Dai Wenqian stated. ”Throughout civilization’s development, those above have always stepped on those below. Anyone who could be captured with just a few doses of anesthesia is simply foolish—such people wouldn’t survive long in the game anyway.”

”Contact the others and secretly look after those Evolvers who are hiding everywhere. If you find any who are imprisoned, find a way to release them. I want to ride this wave of momentum.”

The eyebrow-pierced player looked puzzled. ”Why save them?”

”While civilization’s development does involve those above stepping on those below, who exactly stands above remains uncertain,” Dai Wenqian said, adjusting his glasses.

*

The Fifty-Fifty Air Window could only be used once within the same space and outside of dungeons. Xu Huo used this item to demonstrate one thing: that he could easily escape the Special Defense Department’s encirclement without relying on train tickets. The more trump cards he revealed, the more cautious the Special Defense Department would become—not just regarding the higher-ups, but other players as well.

So using this one opportunity wasn’t a waste.

The conditions Jiang Qiao proposed might seem more advantageous than him searching aimlessly alone in the game, but in reality, the Special Defense Department knew far less about Seventeenth Hospital than he did. They only knew the hospital’s name, while the real clue was the doctor sealed within his memories.

So this was essentially an empty promise from them. Exchanging Special Defense Department membership for vague clues offered more disadvantages than advantages, and information could still be obtained through trading methods anyway.

Additionally, finding one specific person within the vast game was extremely difficult. A better approach was to make the other party come to him—as long as he became a famous high-level player in the game.

As long as both parties remained in the game, they would eventually meet someday.

Therefore, what he needed to do now was calmly focus on improving his evolution rate and player level.

”Biu!” Xu Huo felt like he had only been inside the Fifty-Fifty Air Window for an instant before being spat out, but outside, the sky had already darkened. For a moment, he thought he had been teleported abroad, but as the air window behind him emitted its absurd sound effect, he realized he was mid-air, with the rooftop still dozens of meters below.

Quickly adjusting his posture in the air, he grabbed the Omnipresent String to halt his descent, landing steadily on the rooftop a few seconds later.

The air window had already shrunk into a small ball. Xu Huo reached out to catch it, but the ball spat out a plastic tongue accompanied by a game voice: ”Was it fun? Exciting enough?”

It was certainly thrilling. Fortunately, he had a suitable item; otherwise, falling from that height would have smashed his face to pulp.

Storing the air window in his item slot, Xu Huo glanced back at the distant buildings before heading downstairs.

He hadn’t fully figured out the Fifty-Fifty Air Window’s teleportation pattern yet, but it seemed the time interval was quite long, and the location was random. He wasn’t sure if it would be the same every time.

Coincidentally, he had arrived in Flower City, near Ting City, in the old town area. The buildings and streets here were aged, with few people around. After descending, Xu Huo found a nearby noodle shop to eat.

”...Are you sure you saw it? That young girl has twenty thousand cash on her?” someone was speaking at the end of a blind alley.

”In that plastic bag tucked in her clothes—brand new twenty thousand,” another person said. ”I think she might have mental issues. She’s been guarding that broken mannequin in the park for several days straight, eating steamed buns and drinking bottled water when hungry.”

”Clutching cash while nibbling steamed buns—utterly unreasonable. The park should be empty by now...”

”Definitely empty. The place is remote, and they say it’s haunted. Nobody dares go in even during daytime... Hehe, and that girl looks quite tender...”

The conversation faded as they moved away. Xu Huo paid for his noodles and stepped into the alley.

In the dimly lit park, Yan Jiayu crouched before a merry-go-round, staring intently at a tilted mannequin nearby. After a long while, she sighed, ”My eyes are getting sore from staring. When will it light up?”

”Little sister’s eyes hurt? Let big brother rub them for you?” Two delinquent-looking young men with dyed hair approached with leering expressions.

Yan Jiayu stood up, simultaneously lifting the stone staff at her feet, and turned toward them. ”What did you say?”

One of them tried to speak, but before his mouth could open, he saw the stone staff swinging toward him. Raising his arm to block, his forearm snapped and bent outward at an unnatural angle, and he howled as he dropped to his knees.

The other fared no better, immediately receiving a stone staff blow to his leg that sent him sprawling to the ground.

Yan Jiayu then delivered several additional strikes to their arms and legs, dragged the two broken-limbed individuals together, and crouched before them. ”My master said that people who do bad things deserve society’s harsh punishment.”

”We weren’t going to do anything bad...” they protested frantically.

”You were thinking about it, even if you didn’t say it,” Yan Jiayu stated firmly. ”I could see it in your eyes—when someone’s heart isn’t right, their eyes aren’t right either. Today, I’ll deliver society’s harsh punishment on its behalf.”