Free Web NovelChapter 36: Chapter 36: You Still Think I’m Throwing the Match?!
Tuantuan saw that Jiang Che had already entered the area, and found her way over, following the sense he gave her.
Tuantuan gritted her teeth and cut off her connection to Jiang Che—she could still keep the call on, though.
She would keep telling Jiang Che that she was fine, telling him not to worry.
If Jiang Che was bound to others, they’d have the initiative—others couldn’t sever the connection, but this skill was something he’d gotten from her. While she couldn’t control Jiang Che’s skill, she could at least prevent herself from being controlled.
Jiang Che sprinted in his mind toward the point, but halfway there, he suddenly found that Tuantuan’s shadow in his mind vanished.
Jiang Che’s eyes instantly reddened—he saw it!
He saw the three of them open fire, saw the screen on Tuantuan’s side cut off immediately.
She must be hurt!
She’s still just a kid, how could she take a gunshot!
Now, even Tuantuan’s location info disappeared—Jiang Che was in complete panic. How could these people shoot at a child?!
Whatever Jiang Che thought, Tuantuan received all the info instantly.
The two of them could read each other’s minds now; whatever Jiang Che was thinking, she knew clearly.
At the moment, Tuantuan stood inside the flames of the music box, with fire burning along her surface—yet her body was perfectly unscathed.
This flame was pretty interesting—there were two kinds of evil spirits, one that, like her, didn’t have a real body, and one that did.
Tuantuan’s "body" wasn’t like the other evil spirits; hers was more like a mass of grudge energy from a cemetery, condensed into shape.
Normal fire burns physical bodies first,
To ignite things in a virtual space requires a higher temperature, twisted enough to distort the space,
Right now, the fire from that lighter still wasn’t hot enough.
Tuantuan smiled. The guy holding the baseball bat was still busy picking up rocks and hurling them at her.
Earlier, bullets had passed through her chest as if through thin air.
Now, the baseball bat in his hand was a special item—even if the stones were ordinary, by hitting them with the bat, he could coat them with a weird substance.
He kept swinging over and over, whacking stones so they pierced through the music box’s flames and struck at Tuantuan.
The pebbles were strong—they landed with a heavy force.
But this human’s strength was way too low. If he’d cleared three dungeons and gotten buffs to his attributes, smacking her with that bat would at least do a little damage.
At the moment, other than being trapped by the music box, none of the other two’s attacks could do her any harm.
"Is that all you’ve got?" Tuantuan stared coldly at the three of them.
Even the three attackers sensed something was wrong. The one controlling the music box watched as the first segment of winding neared its end and glanced urgently at the other two.
"Are you two trying to screw each other over?!"
"You start messing with each other now and I’m not using my second control. If we die, we die together!" The music box guy was panicking—he’d been doing his best to keep control, and till now their combo had never messed up.
But he instantly realized what was happening: their plan had been for the woman to land the killing blow and gain the skill, but clearly, she didn’t trust the batter.
She was afraid that if she went all out, the batter would steal the last hit.
"No, dude, there’s nothing I can do! Why do you think that about me?" The batter got anxious. "Bro, my hand’s about to break from swinging, and you think I’m throwing the game?!"
Fire Machine Girl could feel the helplessness herself—the lighter’s temperature couldn’t be adjusted at all.
She’d used this trick on other evil spirits; it always worked. Only here—it was like boiling a frog in warm water, except the frog was free to swim laps around the pot.
The difference was, in the real ’boiling frog,’ you can keep raising the temperature.
Here, she couldn’t do anything!
"Bro, we really can’t do anything. Keep my rhythm up one more time, and let’s all just run."
"Yeah, yeah, let’s head back and replan how to deal with this. We still have a day left." The two panicked. They never thought this evil spirit would be so damn strong!
This move didn’t do shit to her.
"So, she gets the skill, and you take my music box?"
In a second, he figured out how the other two might split things unfairly.
"Hey, it’s not like that! Sure, your music box is sick, but now’s really not the time." The batter quickly explained.
His bat wasn’t an active item—it was like Jiang Che’s white lab coat. His bat’s passive effect: strike anything and it gets coated with an eerie essence, which damages evil spirits.
So using the bat was pure manual labor.
That’s why he’d always wanted that music box.
Right now, the best survivor setup was active item + a bunch of passives.
Passives didn’t cost any "mana," so he’d been after that music box for a while now.
But the three of them had kept a triangle equilibrium—if he tried to steal something, Fire Machine Girl would be on guard, and the team would split up.
Going solo in a dungeon was never a good idea. Sometimes you really need teammates—especially since he needed Fire Machine Girl’s fire to coordinate attacks.
Tuantuan looked on as time ticked by, listening to them argue. The corners of her mouth curled up unconsciously—this was humanity: so easy to backstab, so quick to doubt each other.
Not like Jiang Che. At the first sign she was in danger, he ran to her without a care for himself, not worrying he’d fall into danger too.
Besides, Jiang Che knew these people had guns—but he still came for her without batting an eye!
The livestream viewers were also stunned. No one saw it coming—this "hotblood" combo turning on each other at a critical moment!
[Honestly, can’t really blame the bro. He can only use it twice, and after that he’s basically a blank. The other two could take him out whenever.]
[If he still had a use left, if these two tried anything, he could just trap them with the music box and bail.]
[I mean, sure, it looks like the other two’s skills aren’t working, but no wonder he suspects they’re baiting him to burn his charges.]
[So you can’t even trust people you cleared dungeons with?]
[Skills aren’t working—just run already!]
[Not much time left. If he doesn’t wind it up for another round, they’re gonna get caught fast.]
...
The whole situation froze for a second. Fire Machine Girl kept the flames up, but she was turning pale—using her fire was draining her mana bar nonstop.
Listening to their argument, she got even more pissed.
Without hesitating, she shoved her lighter into the hand of the guy holding the music box.
"Li, give it back later. Let’s run for now—this evil spirit is way too strong. Our skills are useless."
The bullet comments exploded:
[Damn, savage! The best combo is three people in a team, and this chick cancels out any suspicion with a single move.]
