Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo’s suggestion was something the bald man agreed to almost without thinking, quickly saying, ”Absolutely no problem, I’ll contact them right away!”

Xu Huo gestured for him to go ahead. ”Make it convincing.”

The bald man took out his phone, dialed a number, and the other party answered quickly. He immediately roared angrily, ”Hou Song, we suffered huge losses this time! You didn’t say Xu Huo and his crew were that powerful! Half our people are dead! How are you going to settle this debt?”

Hou Song’s voice was clearly audible from the other end of the line. ”If it was that easy to catch them, I’d have gone myself. Why would I spend money hiring you? You should have known the risks before going... Alright, are they dead or not?”

”They’re dead,” the bald man said, his anger not subsiding. ”But the price we agreed on earlier needs to be renegotiated.”

Hou Song fell silent for a moment. ”Bring the person to me first, then we’ll talk. You know the place.”

”You...” The bald man wanted to say more, but the other end had already hung up. He looked up at Xu Huo, holding the phone. ”Not sure if he believed it or not...”

Whether he believed it or not wasn’t important. Someone had taken the bait, and that was enough.

The group restarted the car. Liu Jia took out a headset and put it on the bald man. ”Now he can’t hear us talking.”

”Your characteristic is so amazing,” Yuan Yao said. ”Just shout and someone goes blind.”Liu Jia smiled. ”The duration is too short. For experienced players, even temporarily blinding and deafening them makes it difficult to succeed.”

”It’s still plenty powerful,” Shen Xin said. ”Actually, in the game, how you use your characteristics and items is sometimes more important than pure combat power. If you get some powerful items, you can kill people without making a sound.”

As she said this, the people in the car couldn’t help but glance at Xu Huo in the front seat. If he hadn’t taken out a whole carload of people right from the start, they wouldn’t have won so easily. That was the beauty of using items effectively.

”Speaking of which, are we still going to fight Hou Song’s people?” Yuan Yao asked. ”Since they’re also heading to Ting City anyway, why not just leave them to the Special Defense Department?”

Sima Xiao Er didn’t rush to take on the task himself, but Xu Huo said, ”If they were ordinary players, the Special Defense Department could handle the arrest. But Hou Song is also a member of the Special Defense Department. The procedures would be very troublesome, and the results would be slow.”

Hu Wenhu perked up upon hearing this. ”Didn’t we cooperate pretty well? With Brother Xu and Sister Jiayu here, dealing with a few players should be a piece of cake!”

”Okay, okay!” Painting Woman raised her phone.

”The other party works for the Special Defense Department but secretly contacts other players. We have to be careful they might come prepared,” Zhou Ning said seriously. ”Player organizations are popping up like bamboo shoots after rain these days. We also need to watch out for someone playing the waiting game behind our backs.”

”Zhou Ning is right,” Shen Xin said. ”We are a bit short on manpower.”

”Brother Xu and Sister Jiayu are worth four people by themselves,” Yuan Yao said dismissively. ”With them taking action, there’s definitely no problem!”

”Aren’t you guys being a bit too confident?” Sima Xiao Er couldn’t help but interject at this point. ”What if Hou Song brings Vanguard Players?”

The car fell silent. Yan Jiayu looked at him and said, ”You can bring people too, can’t you? We have this bald guy here.”

The group turned their attention back to the bald man, who instinctively raised his head and even closed his eyes.

Night fell.

In an industrial area west of Ting City, Hou Song led three people towards the factory building designated by the bald man.

This area hadn’t resumed operations yet, so there were few people around at night. Hou Song walked in and raised his voice, ”We’re here. Come out.”

A few seconds later, a figure emerged from the depths of the factory building. The person spoke, ”Did you bring my money?”

Hou Song signaled to the person behind him. That person opened the briefcase they were carrying, revealing gold bars inside.

”Leave the stuff there. The person is upstairs. Go get him yourselves,” the figure said.

Hou Song paused for a moment, then turned to head for the second floor. However, the moment he turned around, several dark shadows shot towards him from behind. He and his three companions immediately drew their guns. ”We knew you were up to something, you little punk! Trying to double-cross us?”

Several gunshots echoed inside the factory building but didn’t hit anyone. Looking back, the briefcase left on the ground was also gone.

One person quickly went up to the second floor, looked around, and came back to report, ”No one up there!”

At that moment, the sound of a car starting came from outside. Hou Song immediately chased out, only to see a car speeding away. Their own car’s tires had been slashed.

”Think you can run?” Hou Song’s face turned cold as he dialed a number. ”Yes, they’re about to leave the industrial area now. They’ll probably reach your location in about two minutes.”

He then reported the license plate number. The four of them were just heading out when they suddenly heard someone ask from behind, ”If I call your name, dare you answer?”

They instinctively turned around. The next second, their eyes were covered in darkness. Hou Song reacted the fastest, pulling out a card with ”Do Not Disturb” written on it and holding it high. ”Strangers Keep Out!”

Yan Jiayu, who had already swung her staff towards the back of his head, was bounced back by an invisible force. She landed, retreated several steps swiftly, used the momentum to knock aside a nearby player, and then caught the anesthetic net Zhou Ning threw over, flinging it at Hou Song.

Hou Song heard the sound and dodged to the side in advance, but this coincidentally placed him exactly where Xu Huo had predicted. A kick to the chest knocked him down, and Xu Huo cleanly severed one of his feet.

”Ahhhh!” Hou Song screamed in agony. When the grayness faded from his eyes and he saw it was Xu Huo who had cut off his leg, hatred immediately flashed in his eyes. ”I’m a Vanguard Player, Xu Huo! If you kill me, you won’t get away with it! The Special Defense Department knows I came here!”

”Special Defense Department personnel are tied up right now. They can’t save you,” Xu Huo said, throwing him into a rubber barrel. He then tossed the Sound-Muffling Figurine nearby before turning to deal with the other three.

Two of those three were Player-Eaters. Seeing Hou Song captured, they immediately scattered and fled without a word.

One was knocked into the factory building by Shen Xin and was immediately pierced through the temple by a short arrow that followed. The other two, seeing the situation was bad, directly hid inside a dungeon.

”Ran away pretty fast,” Xu Huo said, returning to the barrel. Looking at the empty potion bottle inside, he said calmly, ”Even if you entered a dungeon, it would still be a dead end.”

Hou Song snorted defiantly. ”What’s death? I just pity you. You don’t even realize you’re being used as a bargaining chip by the Special Defense Department and exploited by player organizations. You think my goal was to kill you? You’re wrong! I was saving you!”

Xu Huo chuckled at this. ”Then tell me, how exactly were you planning to save me?”

”In the current environment, neither joining the Special Defense Department nor player organizations can grant true freedom,” Hou Song said quickly, wiping sweat from his face. ”Why can players from other zones openly invade Zone 014? Why did so many countries suffer terribly after that incident? The root cause is that we are not strong enough!”

”Isn’t that normal?” Xu Huo retorted. ”After all, Zone 014 hasn’t been a game partition for long.”

”Who doesn’t understand the principle that the backward will be beaten? That’s why someone needs to make sacrifices now,” Hou Song stared at him. ”As long as you share the method for secondary evolution, you will be a hero for all humanity!”