Free Web NovelBecause of the [Mute] mechanism, Bai Liu couldn’t directly tell Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu about the existence of the game. All he could say was:
“You’re going to run into some sudden situations, but don’t panic. I’ll help you and make sure you survive. But you have to find a way to tell me your situation and where you are. Use your panel to buy items that can tell me your location.”
So after entering the game, Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu followed Bai Liu’s instructions exactly. The moment they completed the first task, they used every remaining point they had to purchase the four cheapest items in sequence—[Wooden Plug], [Blade], [Small Flashlight], and [Paperweight]. Liu Fu also bought the [Pendulum]. Put together, the names of those items spelled out—
[Siren Town].
But they were terrified too. They had no idea whether Bai Liu would understand what they meant, yet this was the only thing they could think to do. Buying those useless cheap items that nobody else wanted consumed nearly all of their points, causing many viewers to ridicule them for wasting resources. In the end, they were shoved into a near-deserted sub-division where hardly anyone watched.
Fortunately, their systems soon began to lag and glitch, as though someone else had taken control. Their panels would occasionally move on their own, automatically purchasing items for them. Trembling, they used the items that appeared—flashlights, 3D projectors, alcohol—as if another player were remotely operating the panel alongside them. Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu rarely played games, but fortunately, both possessed an exceptionally strong will to survive. Sometimes Bai Liu would buy items for them before they even understood how to use them, yet the couple still gritted their teeth and pushed through.
After surviving the chase sequence, their progress became much smoother, and in the end, they actually cleared the game together.
That’s right. While Bai Liu himself was narrowly escaping death inside the Level 2 game [The Last Train to Blast Off], he was simultaneously finding openings in that life-and-death struggle to help Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu clear theirs.
In gaming terms, this was known as “triple-boxing.”
Still, despite Bai Liu’s help, they had mostly relied on themselves.
Bai Liu was trapped in a high-risk game of his own, and his unreliable system would periodically “disconnect” or stop responding altogether. On top of that, he had no way of knowing Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu’s exact progress. Most of the time, the couple had to stumble through the game blindly, forcing themselves onward until they finally cleared it. Even after exiting, they were still shaking with lingering terror, holding each other up as they cried.
Ordinarily, when confronted with something so bizarre and incomprehensible, most people would instinctively reject it in disbelief and desperately want to escape.
But Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu—two ordinary adults who had never truly believed in ghosts or gods—reacted differently after clearing the game.
Standing at the exit, the couple clung to each other and broke down in tears of relief.
“That young man... what he said was true.” Xiang Chunhua’s hand trembled as she gripped Liu Fu’s arm. In the short weeks since losing Guoguo, she looked as though she had aged decades. Tears rolled down the deepened creases of her face as she bent over, choking back sobs. “Tell me... will Guoguo really be saved? Can that beast truly be punished?”
Liu Fu wiped frantically at his tears. The old man sobbed openly, his face soaked.
“It will happen. It can happen. He said he’d help us.”
Before entering the game, on the night the June college entrance exams ended, Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu had sat across from one another in numb silence.
Three sets of bowls and chopsticks sat on the table alongside a large bowl of braised pork. Beside the untouched extra bowl lay Liu Guoguo’s exam admission ticket. In the attached photo, the girl in her school uniform looked restrained yet hopeful as she faced the camera, wearing the small, nervous smile of someone about to take an important exam.
Xiang Chunhua’s house stood close to the street, and through the open windows they could hear students who had just finished their exams discussing answers—some excited, others dejected.
Among those voices, there should have been the laughter of a seventeen-year-old girl.
But that voice had vanished forever in a dark alleyway, reduced to a black-and-white photograph on a distant gravestone. The hand that should have been holding a pen had been chopped into scraps alongside pork and pig trotters. To dispose of it quickly, Li Gou had mixed it in with cheap meat and sold it by the pound to unknown buyers.
Liu Fu had nearly gone mad digging through sewers in search of Guoguo’s right hand. Yet even by the time she was buried, they had never managed to recover it whole. His daughter’s hand had become scattered flesh and minced meat flowing beneath the city underground.
“I heard this year’s physics exam was difficult,” Xiang Chunhua muttered dully. “But wasn’t physics Guoguo’s best subject? Maybe she would’ve liked this year’s paper.”
“Yeah... maybe she really could’ve gotten into the university she wanted...” Halfway through the sentence, Liu Fu completely broke down. Covering his eyes, he folded in on himself as though the sky had collapsed, letting out a muffled howl filled with grief and fury. He slammed his fists against the table again and again, carefully avoiding Guoguo’s admission ticket. “That beast!!! She was only seventeen!! It’s all my fault—I never should’ve let her go downstairs!!!”
“It’s my fault too. If I hadn’t wanted to make braised pork for Guoguo, then she wouldn’t have...” Xiang Chunhua’s eyes were ringed with dried tear stains. She cried numbly, whispering as though trying to comfort herself. “Go to sleep. Once we fall asleep, everything will be okay.”
And when they woke up, they found themselves inside the game.
The couple supported each other as they moved through the unfamiliar place. They carried the wariness of frightened animals, but also the instinctive streetwise caution of adults who had spent their whole lives among ordinary people. The only person they trusted was the young man named Bai Liu—the one who had supposedly “bought their souls” and helped them survive the game.
When someone passed by, Xiang Chunhua carefully stepped forward.
“Excuse me, young man... do you know someone named Bai Liu?”
The man looked at them strangely.
“You’re Bai Liu fans? Then head to the central hall’s core screen. Bai Liu’s likes and points just exploded. The audience is cheering like crazy. Looks like he’s about to break onto the Nightmare Rising Star Board. If you want to support him, you’d better hurry.”
Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu exchanged glances, thanked him, and hurried toward the central hall he pointed out.
Game Lobby — Central Hall Core Screen
Wang Shun stood directly in front of Bai Liu’s small TV screen, his expression grim. Although Bai Liu had just received a massive surge of likes and “charging” thanks to his spectacular performance, not a single person watching looked relieved.
Because Bai Liu’s health had dropped to 1.
One more hit—any hit at all—and he would die.
“Hold on! Bai Liu absolutely can’t take another attack head-on! Not even once!”
“God, I’m starting to feel like I need oxygen again. Last time I watched Bai Liu’s stream I felt like I was suffocating near the end, and now it’s happening again!”
When Xiang Chunhua and Liu Fu arrived, they found everyone staring tensely at the screen. Instinctively, they looked over as well. Relief had barely surfaced at the sight of Bai Liu’s familiar face before, in the very next second, both of them froze.
The man who flashed past the corner of the screen made their eyes go bloodshot.
“Li Gou!! You beast!!!”
Li Gou sat collapsed on the floor, shoulders hunched, gasping for breath in exhaustion.
Bai Liu, whose health sat at a single point, remained protected in the center by Du Sanying and Mu Shicheng. His lips were pale, but his gaze was still steady and clear.
“I’ll explain the plan for the next station. We’ve collected 360 fragments so far, which means we’re still missing 40. But I don’t think the next station will allow us to collect all of them.”
“We can’t collect them all at the next station?” Zhang Kui frowned. “But if we don’t finish collecting them there, we’ll have to return to the starting station, [Antique City]. The train explosion is supposed to happen between Antique City and the second-to-last station. If we still don’t have all the fragments by then, we’ll be caught in the explosion. Everyone dies.”
Bai Liu spoke calmly, though weakness had softened his voice slightly.
“The reason I say we won’t finish collecting the fragments at the next station is because there’s still one monster in the [Monster Book] that hasn’t appeared yet. Judging from the pattern of the game so far, every monster—the Exploding Passengers, the Thief Brothers—has carried fragments. So I’m guessing the final monster carries fragments too.”
Zhang Kui immediately followed his reasoning. Narrowing his eyes, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“That makes sense. But Bai Liu, what if we trigger that monster at the next station? Then we could collect all the fragments and clear the game immediately.”
“Do you remember the minimum death rate for this game?” Bai Liu suddenly asked.
Everyone paused.
Lowering his gaze, Bai Liu continued: ƒreewebɳovel.com
“The death rate for a Level 2 game ranges from fifty to eighty percent. Which means that even at the minimum threshold, with seven players, around half of us should die. In other words, approximately three and a half players.”
“But so far, not a single one of us has died. That’s why the system was forced to reduce Du Sanying’s luck value in order to maintain balance.”
He abruptly turned toward Du Sanying.
“Xiao Du, what’s your current luck stat?”
Caught off guard, Du Sanying awkwardly pointed at himself. After confirming Bai Liu really was asking him, he immediately opened his panel and checked.
“Eighty.”
“Which means the system only reduced your luck by twenty points.” Bai Liu reached his conclusion almost instantly. “If the game truly intended to kill three and a half of us, that adjustment is far too minor.”
“In [Siren Town], the system interfered with me far more aggressively to maintain balance. But in [The Last Train to Blast Off], it only reduced Du Sanying’s luck by twenty and then stopped. The adjustment is extremely mild.”
Bai Liu slowly raised his eyes.
“And the fact that we all survived the previous station without the system lowering his luck any further can only mean one thing.”
His tone remained calm.
“The system already believes the death rate is balanced.”
The others still looked confused, but Zhang Kui suddenly understood. A freezing chill crawled down his spine. He turned toward Bai Liu, his face deathly pale.
“You mean...” His voice tightened. “You mean there’s a mandatory death phase before the end of the game? We’re going to lose three and a half people no matter what?!”
A mandatory death phase.
Stages like that were uncommon in single-player horror games, but relatively common in multiplayer ones. They existed to guarantee difficulty and excitement—sections where players had to die in order for the game to progress.
Put simply, it was sacrificing teammates for victory.
In ordinary horror games, that mechanic was exciting.
Here, it was brutal.
“What kind of mandatory death stage do you think a game called [The Last Train to Blast Off] would have?” Bai Liu asked evenly.
Zhang Kui slumped back in his seat. Staring blankly at the flickering fluorescent lights overhead, he muttered:
“...The explosion. The game wants us to go through the explosion. Which means we probably won’t collect the remaining fragments at the final station.”
“We’ll have to survive the explosion and reach the last station before we can finish collecting them.”
“If three and a half people have to die...” Li Gou’s hoarse voice suddenly cut through the conversation. “...then that means three and a half people can survive, right?”
He crawled forward across the floor and, while everyone else was distracted, shoved a filthy hand through the perimeter formed by Du Sanying and Mu Shicheng. His fingers clamped around Bai Liu’s ankle. His eyes burned with a terrifying desperation to live.
“Then you can decide who lives and who dies, right?! You definitely have a way to make some people survive! Bai Liu, let me live! I’ll do anything!”
Mu Shicheng swore and kicked Li Gou away.
Even after being kicked, Li Gou still tried to crawl back until Mu Shicheng extended his monkey claws threateningly to stop him. But the feverish survival instinct blazing in Li Gou’s eyes made even Mu Shicheng’s scalp crawl. Instinctively, he stepped further in front of Bai Liu, baring his teeth in warning.
Li Gou finally shrank back into the corner unwillingly, but his gaze never left Bai Liu.
“I do have a method to survive the explosion.” Bai Liu looked at Li Gou expressionlessly. “But it requires sacrificing two people.”
That was also why Bai Liu had insisted on saving everyone earlier.
He had anticipated a mandatory death phase from the ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ very beginning.
Everyone—including Mu Shicheng—instinctively held their breath.
Lowering his eyes, Bai Liu explained evenly:
“I checked the system shop earlier. All water-based items and all explosives are banned in this game. I couldn’t even buy a bottle of mineral water or a firecracker.”
“The fact that water items are banned suggests that water is an effective weakness against these post-explosion corpse monsters. My guess is that after being exposed to extremely high temperatures, their bodies react abnormally when submerged. Water is likely one of the strongest counters against them.”
He paused briefly, then let out a faint sigh.
“Unfortunately, there’s no water on the train, and none available in the system shop. And at the next station, we can’t continue relying on Du Sanying to lure monsters anymore. If we use Xiao Du again, the system will definitely reduce his luck further, and then he’ll stop being useful.”
“So we need a massive amount of water to deal with the monsters at the next station.”
“And the explosion itself can also be mitigated with water,” Bai Liu continued clearly. “Most explosion deaths come from shockwaves, heat, and shrapnel. If we flood this section of the subway tunnel with enough water, it would drastically reduce those lethal factors and increase our chances of survival.”
“But where are we supposed to get that much water?” Mu Shicheng frowned deeply. “Even if the system sold bottled water, even if all seven of us emptied every last point we had, we still couldn’t fill an entire subway station. Do you even understand how much water that would take, Bai Liu?”
“Subway tunnels are usually eight to ten meters high, and stations are around one and a half kilometers apart. Filling even a single section would require more than five hundred swimming pools’ worth of water!”
“Well...” Bai Liu’s lips curved slightly into a smile. “It’s not like there isn’t a ready-made source.”
Mu Shicheng froze.
“[Reservoir]!!” Zhang Kui suddenly snapped upright. “I memorized the subway map before boarding! The second-to-last station is called [Reservoir]! That’s where the water is! A reservoir should never be built next to an underground hollow structure like a subway system. It’s completely unnatural—that’s the hint the game is giving us! If the reservoir is even medium-sized, there’d be enough water inside to flood the entire circular subway line!”
Bai Liu remained calm.
“That was my conclusion too. The problem is how to release the water into the subway tunnel. My current idea is explosives.”
“You want to blow up the reservoir?” Zhang Kui immediately understood, but then frowned again as realization struck him. “But explosive items are banned in the system shop. Where are you supposed to get bombs?”
At last, Bai Liu smiled.
He took out a gigantic oval mirror with only a single triangular piece missing from its center.
“Simple,” he said lightly. “I source them locally.”
“This mirror was formed by combining 360 mirror fragments.”
Zhang Kui stared at the broken mirror in confusion. He couldn’t understand why Bai Liu had suddenly brought it out while discussing explosives.
“A while ago, I discussed something with a friend,” Bai Liu said softly. “In the [Jingcheng Explosion Case], how did those two thieves smuggle explosives onto the train? Enough explosives to destroy several carriages would’ve taken up a huge amount of space. So where did they hide them to get past security?”
“The news reports claimed they hid them inside mirrors, but I always thought that sounded strange. What kind of mirror could possibly conceal that much explosive material...?”
As he spoke, Bai Liu placed his hand against the mirror’s smooth surface.
The silver surface rippled instantly like disturbed water, spreading outward until it became a pool of liquid mercury.
The smile at the corner of Bai Liu’s lips deepened.
Under everyone’s stunned gaze, he slowly plunged his arm into the mirror.
It was as though he were searching around underwater. Then, as if he had found something, satisfaction flashed across his face. Without hesitation, he pulled.
A gigantic black bomb—several times larger than the mirror itself—emerged from the liquid surface.
It slammed heavily onto the floor, kicking up dust and filling the carriage with the pungent smell of gunpowder.
“So that’s how it worked.” Bai Liu dusted ash off his hands and clicked his tongue softly. “The explosives really were hidden inside the mirror.”
After a moment of stunned silence, Zhang Kui’s thoughts immediately began racing.
“If you’ve already removed the explosives from the mirror...” He stared at the pile of bombs. “Doesn’t that mean the train no longer has to explode?”
Bai Liu said nothing. He simply reached back into the mirror and pulled out another massive explosive.
Shrugging casually, he replied:
“There. Which means the explosives are probably infinite. So the train—and the mirror—are both destined to explode.”
Zhang Kui’s face darkened immediately.
“So the plan requires two sacrificial players.” Bai Liu raised two fingers and explained calmly. “The first person will carry the explosives to the reservoir. I estimate they won’t be able to make it back within two minutes.”
“That’s the first sacrifice.”
Zhang Kui frowned so hard it looked painful.
“That only requires one sacrifice. What’s the second one for?”
Bai Liu smiled faintly.
“The second sacrificial player needs to use Du Sanying’s item, [Deceptive Fabric], to wrap this mirror and hold onto it. The fabric is ‘false’ to a certain extent, meaning it technically doesn’t exist and therefore can’t be destroyed. It should be able to catch and preserve the mirror fragments after the explosion, saving us from having to gather them all over again.”
“But the fabric only works while someone is holding it. Which means the holder would remain too close to the mirror.”
“And they’d most likely be blown apart.”
Bai Liu slowly curled down the two fingers he had raised.
“So the only question now is...”
He lifted his eyes, his smile turning faintly meaningful.
“Which two of you are going to die?”
“To be honest,” Bai Liu continued casually, “aside from Mu Shicheng and Du Sanying, who are still useful to me, the rest of you don’t really have much value.”
Spreading his hands, he went on:
“Zhang Kui, your health and the health of your three puppets have already dropped too low. The combat ability you can still provide is extremely limited. At the next station, it makes no difference to me which two out of the four of you die.”
His lips curved into a regretful, almost hypocritical sigh.
“Because right now, all of you are useless to me.”
Zhang Kui and the three puppets froze.
Slowly, their gazes shifted toward Bai Liu’s smiling face.
The expressions on their faces gradually stiffened. Bai Liu’s attitude of discarding people the moment they stopped being useful was far too practiced.
And worse—
He meant every word.
But what Bai Liu said was also true.
Even Zhang Kui, whose soul Bai Liu had purchased and whose strength ranked highest among them, would provide little benefit to Bai Liu after leaving the game.
In fact, he’d become a liability.
Zhang Kui was a high-ranking player within the Kings Guild. Once word spread through the small TVs that he had been controlled by Bai Liu, a major guild like the Kings Guild would never allow someone like Zhang Kui to retain a high position. Nor would they tolerate Bai Liu controlling someone who knew so many internal secrets about the guild.
In other words, Zhang Kui was trouble.
The cleanest solution would be for him to die inside the game.
That way, the Kings Guild wouldn’t necessarily seek revenge against Bai Liu—it would simply be written off as another in-game conflict.
But killing Zhang Kui also created a difficult problem.
If Zhang Kui died, the three puppets under his control would immediately be released.
Bai Liu had considered using the [Old Wallet] skill to seize control of those three as well, but he judged the chances of success to be extremely low.
First, all three were already highly wary of him after learning he possessed a control-type skill. Since the transaction skill required voluntary agreement from both sides, tricking all three of them into willingly establishing a “dirty money relationship” within only a few minutes was highly unlikely.
Second—even if he somehow succeeded—the chaos underwater later would make controlling anyone impossible.
Soul notes were still paper.
And paper feared water.
Once submerged, Bai Liu’s skill would essentially become unusable. If others discovered that weakness, his position would become extremely dangerous.
On top of that, before clearing the game, Bai Liu would absolutely keep the mirror fragments on himself in order to maximize his rewards. If the others realized he couldn’t use soul-note control underwater, they would likely turn on him immediately and try to seize the fragments by force.
Unfortunately, Bai Liu suspected Zhang Kui had already figured that out.
Zhang Kui had personally witnessed Bai Liu use soul notes to save Mu Shicheng during an emergency. He already knew Bai Liu relied on paper-based items to control players.
That was another major reason Bai Liu wanted him dead.
By now, Zhang Kui had likely deduced most of the conditions, limitations, and weaknesses behind Bai Liu’s personal skill.
And for Bai Liu, that was dangerous.
If Zhang Kui survived this time, Bai Liu would lose the advantage of his opponent not understanding his ability.
Worse, Zhang Kui would almost certainly spread information about Bai Liu’s skill afterward. Although Bai Liu’s ability had broad applications, its limitations were equally severe—it required a monetary transaction to activate.
If that information became public, Bai Liu’s future would become much more difficult.
Bai Liu’s eyes shifted slightly.
His calm gaze met Zhang Kui’s dark, unreadable stare.
There was something predatory hidden in Zhang Kui’s expression, as though he were quietly waiting for the perfect chance to strike back—
To kill Bai Liu.
To kill the Bai Liu who now had only one point of health remaining.
And that opportunity was rapidly approaching.
“Zhang Kui.” Bai Liu gave the order without hesitation. “You’ll hold the exploding mirror.”
Shock flashed across Zhang Kui’s face. He clearly hadn’t expected Bai Liu to choose him.
But he quickly forced himself calm.
“If I die, the other three puppets will break free!” Zhang Kui snapped sharply. “Bai Liu, you can’t choose me!”
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes slightly and met Zhang Kui’s increasingly ragged gaze.
His smile remained faint and shallow.
“But I think that if I don’t choose you, you’ll eventually try to kill me the moment I let my guard down.”
“After all,” Bai Liu said lightly, “I only have one health point left.”
“And right now, you’re the biggest threat to me.”
Zhang Kui paused for half a second before speaking again.
“Bai Liu, we’ve cooperated this whole time. I really don’t want to turn against you now. Earlier, I even fought to protect you, didn’t I?”
He took a slow breath.
Then Zhang Kui gradually raised both hands in surrender, doing his best to look sincere.
“I know you still don’t trust me. Fine. I can hand over everything I have. I just want to clear the game.”
“And I’m ranked around two hundred among players in terms of strength. You’ve already controlled me. Wouldn’t it be smarter to keep me alive? I’m valuable to you.”
His throat bobbed visibly.
Slowly, Zhang Kui bent down, lowering his head before Bai Liu and exposing the back of his neck in an unmistakably submissive gesture.
In a hoarse voice, he whispered:
“Bai Liu... Master. I swear I won’t kill you.”
“You can even have Mu Shicheng use [The Judge’s Scale] to verify whether I’m lying.”
“You might not trust me, but surely you can trust an item, right?”
It was an extremely submissive posture.
Bai Liu laughed softly.
He bent down as well, tilting his head to examine the expression hidden on Zhang Kui’s lowered face.
“Zhang Kui,” he said with amused interest, “that kind of body language and psychological manipulation doesn’t work on me.”
“I already played that game with you once.”
His gaze drifted lazily downward.
“Do you know why I never once considered cooperating with you from the very beginning?”
“Why I chose to control you immediately instead?”
Still kneeling, Zhang Kui froze.
Then he heard Bai Liu let out a quiet chuckle.
The smile never left Bai Liu’s face, but the coldness in his eyes became sharp enough to pierce flesh.
“Because you’re too much like me,” Bai Liu said almost admiringly. “Or rather, people who want to maximize their own interests all think alike.”
“We’re both greedy.”
“From the very beginning, I wanted to squeeze the greatest possible value out of you.”
“Just like you wanted the greatest possible value out of me.”
