Free Web NovelChapter 71: Chapter 71: Are You Serious?
Jiang Che tossed the mud ball in his hand aside. After he absorbed the skill inside, the mud ball lost its shape, turning into running muddy water which slipped from his palm.
He kept walking forward, then reached down and felt around at his feet again.
Xiong Jie was dumbfounded. He pulled out another skill orb?
This time, Jiang Che didn’t say what kind of skill it was, and after he absorbed the skill, the mud ball again reverted to ordinary mud and disappeared.
Now, even Xiong Jie’s composure began to crack.
He felt like this wasn’t something arranged by the Master, after all, the Master wanted an inside agent among the humans and preferred to keep things low-key.
Just making it out alive would already be a big coincidence—and quite a flashy thing. But this guy had just picked up two skill orbs in a row—so much for keeping a low profile!
Jiang Che didn’t care. The two balls Tuantuan mentioned to him, he’d gotten both.
He’d been exposed to lots of new things during this period, but he’d seen even stranger companions back at the psychiatric hospital.
He hadn’t encountered these things before, but he could adapt. He’d learn them gradually.
To Jiang Che, these things were just stuff he hadn’t run into yet; didn’t mean they weren’t normal.
And besides, all of these had been put here by his own family. He didn’t see any issue with it.
After getting the two skill orbs, he suddenly felt moving through the mud became effortless, like all he needed was a thought and he could walk through the swamp as easily as a fish in water.
He focused, activating both [Earth Escape] and [Gravity Field] at the same time. Xiong Jie suddenly felt his legs get lighter, not sluggish like before.
He glanced at Jiang Che. The kid neither looked surprised nor pleased about acquiring the skills.
"You really are lucky," Xiong Jie said, unable to hide his envy.
The ’Skill Book’ type item couldn’t be traded, because anyone except the spirit who owned the skill would automatically absorb it upon contact.
"Yeah, I think I’m pretty lucky," Jiang Che replied, feeling his wife’s gifts. He didn’t care about hardship and was willing to slog through the muddy, heavy swamp with Xiong Jie, but with the two skills, he could feel his wife’s love and concern for him.
This time going to work, he definitely wouldn’t let his family down.
Initially, Jiang Che’s stream didn’t have many viewers. Compared to Jiang Huai’s messy struggle to survive, Sister Xia’s crew’s hard work was much more relatable to most.
But now that Jiang Che had picked up two skills, the viewers were getting restless.
[Last second: "My luck is trash." Next second: "Just grabbed two skills."]
[That luck is insane! Obviously, they found the evil spirit’s lair right as the evil spirit went out hunting Sister Xia’s group—otherwise how would they get to do whatever they wanted?]
[Just wait—when the evil spirit gets home, and finds their house cleaned out.]
[This ain’t just luck anymore—this is total Chosen One vibes!]
[Is he really gonna make it out alive this time? Bro, team up with me!]
[Team up? God-tier luck needs sacrifices from others. Are you sure you can handle that?]
...
Corro Leaf sensed the two skill orbs disappear and finally breathed easy. They’re gone. He was really tired of playing with these humans.
The surviving players didn’t know how long they’d been trudging, just felt the exit was still far away.
"I really can’t run anymore..." someone behind Sister Xia said.
"Haha, me neither." Sister Xia looked at the music box in her hand. Both chances had been used, so she tossed it on the ground like trash.
"Give me my lighter back." She eyed someone next to her. She’d used up her turns for today, and now she was about to use her soul to ignite the lighter and go down with the evil spirit in front of her!
The person handing over the lighter didn’t hesitate, pulling it out of their pocket and handing it over.
Sister Xia flicked the lighter a couple times, trying to set the muddy ground on fire, wanting to burn out the hidden evil spirit.
But as soon as the flame touched the ground, it vanished—no warmth lingered at all.
Click—
Sister Xia tried again. She felt like even her soul was catching fire, but the muddy ground showed no signs of drying.
So tough?
She tossed the lighter aside, feeling her soul being eroded—a backlash from overusing dungeon items.
All this chasing... was it really just a cat-and-mouse game, a cruel joke?
Sister Xia’s consciousness began to fade, until her live stream vanished from the viewers’ screens.
In an instant, only two streams remained—one for Jiang Che, one for Xiong Jie.
The two traveled together—their streams showed the exact same view.
Ding Ning felt Jiang Che moving forward and couldn’t help but smile.
She was waiting for Jiang Che in Hua’s territory; the exit would open here.
At that moment, Hua’s illusion would block out all the viewers, replacing the footage with a fabricated display.
Hua watched her friend giggling and asked worriedly, "Do you really mean it?"
If possible, she wanted to wake her friend up, snap her out of that human’s spell.
Because forcibly breaking the spell after killing that human would damage the victim’s mind—that’s the power of Illusion Technique.
She kept asking: Are you really serious?
The answers were always the same.
’I’m serious. I know I really like him.’ Both Ding Ning and Tuantuan said it.
Once Hua got that answer, she knew this fight would be brutal.
"Hua, pretend you’re hunting him when he comes, then swap the stream view, then we’ll hand over the rest of the skills." The two balls she gave Jiang Che were for him to show off to human audiences, so they knew making it out alive was largely thanks to the Earth Escape skill.
The rest of the skills, she planned to slip over under Hua’s illusion cover.
This would be their last meeting.
Hua nodded. "Relax, my acting is top notch."
"Just don’t tell him I’m good at illusion. If you don’t let me expose it, I can still use Illusion Technique on him later for fun." The huge flower stalk shook Ding Ning’s hand, acting cute.
She simply didn’t want that human to know she’d seen through his spell—didn’t want him to suspect her.
Hua snickered. Her acting really was excellent.
Pretend to play around, but deliver the real attack—one shot, one kill!
Her friend would surely tell the human she’s just playing around, just acting, but Hua would use that moment when his guard drops to take his life—and wake her friend up!
"Hahaha, Illusion Technique will totally spin him silly. He’s so dumb." Ding Ning was barely holding back laughter.
Hua watched her friend falling so deep, feeling utterly hopeless.
Who’s really easy to fool here?
The mighty Lord, in the end, got bewitched by one mere human!
"He’s almost here, Hua, are you ready?"
"Don’t worry, I’ll just chomp down and scare him shitless!" Hua sneered.
"He won’t. I asked him to come over—he definitely won’t be scared." Ding Ning stroked a petal.
Hua looked off into the distance. Seemed like two human silhouettes were inching closer.
Heh. Hope he’s not scared—she’d pretend to act, then just eat him whole.
