Who Chen Yun was, Bai Yu didn’t know.
What she did know was that the woman she was holding right now had just been about to drive a wisp of ghostly Resentment into Zhao Mingyue’s body. To a living person, this substance was a deadly poison. This person’s heart was malicious enough to warrant death.
“Mingyue.”
“I’m here.” Zhao Mingyue responded softly upon hearing Bai Yu call her name.
In truth, she hadn’t been controlled for long. Chen Yun’s attack couldn’t have possibly hit her. Even if Bai Yu hadn’t appeared, she had the strength to counterattack.
Of course, Bai Yu coming to the rescue was a good thing. Just in case.
“Turn around.”
“Huh?” Zhao Mingyue blinked, a little puzzled, but obediently turned her back nonetheless.
Squelch!
A few drops of blood splattered. Chen Yun’s pupils constricted violently.
She didn’t even see the attack. She only felt something slash across her throat. A split second before she felt the warm liquid streaming down her neck, a heart-wrenching agony erupted from her throat.
Her breathing sounded like a leaky, broken bellows. She had the illusion that her entire body was “leaking air,” unable to suck any back in. Her life force was draining away fiercely.
Her body collapsed powerlessly to the ground. Chen Yun’s eyes rolled upwards. She saw that ghost actually pick up her paper talisman with her bare hand. Even as her fingers were burned and melted away, she calmly finished examining it, her expression not changing a single bit.
She was chilled to the bone, unsure if it was from fear or excessive blood loss.
She knew full well what kind of damage and agony this type of talisman brought to ghosts. Forget direct contact—even if the talisman came within a meter, a ghost would suffer unbearable pain. To look directly at the eye symbol would cause a mental breakdown.
And yet this ghost’s face was expressionless, watching until the talisman’s power completely faded and it disintegrated into ashes mid-air.
Regarding this talisman, the ghost stared at her hand, more than half eroded away, as if pondering something. Countless Blood Threads surged around the wound, intertwining to reconstruct her palm anew.
Chen Yun felt her mind growing sluggish. Suddenly, the ghost glanced sideways at her again.
Her pupils shrank. It was too late to close her eyes.
Squelch!
A prismatic spike formed of Blood Threads pierced out from her chest—right at the position of her heart, not a millimeter off, a perfectly fatal blow.
One slash to the throat, one stab to the heart. Two fatal wounds. Bai Yu paid no more attention to Chen Yun. She flexed the hand that had been corroded moments ago. It didn’t seem to have any major issues, just a slight depletion of the blood threads within her body.
“This thing is not simple. It’s more like some entity’s power transmitted through the talisman and symbol as a medium to harm Ghostly Monsters.”
“Paper Talisman… So this person is the Chen Yun Lu Liangting mentioned? A Game Participant?”
Bai Yu hadn’t expected to find Chen Yun so easily, nor to dispatch her so smoothly.
Compared to Chen Yun herself, Bai Yu was far more interested in the origin of this paper talisman.
Did Chen Yun draw it herself?
Then this person was far too weak. Would the entity providing that power willingly lend it to someone like Chen Yun?
After a moment’s hesitation, under Bai Yu’s suggestion, Zhao Mingyue ignored Chen Yun’s body. She went over and removed the dancing shoes from the female corpse’s feet. After Bai Yu arranged some Blood Threads inside them, she put them on.
Perhaps because the Ghostly Monster had been eliminated prematurely, nothing happened to Zhao Mingyue once she wore the shoes. The quest was considered a success, and she even gained a point in the Speed attribute.
“We’re just leaving like this?” At the stairway entrance, Zhao Mingyue glanced back at Chen Yun.
“Yes, let’s go.”
“I meant, should we… you know, double-tap or something.”
“No need.”
“Ahem.” Zhao Mingyue herself felt her remark was a bit morbid. She coughed to change the subject. “A few ghosts are coming up from outside.”
“It’s fine. Someone can handle it.”
Shen Shuyun had also been brought along. Bai Yu mainly wanted to observe her transformation, and conveniently deal with those ghost parents.
Zhao Mingyue had other quests to do. On the way, she told Bai Yu about her own experiences inside the Children’s Palace.
She had been scared, quite scared. But thinking about her future gave her motivation.
“This time, I really have to thank Miss Rabbit properly. She gave me courage.”
Taking the Rabbit Doll out of her pocket, she gave it a smooch. Grinning, Zhao Mingyue asked, “And you? Did you two get anything over there?”
“Some gains. But we won’t know what exactly until we get out.”
The gain was naturally Shen Shuyun’s memories.
That could be considered a quest completed. As for the reward, Bai Yu didn’t know yet.
Actually, whether there was a reward or not wasn’t important. What mattered was the matter itself.
If every Game Participant had a memory like this, then things would truly get interesting.
·
·
“Who?!”
On the third floor of the Children’s Palace, the moment Lu Liangting came up, he saw someone lying on the ground. Shining his flashlight over, he realized it was a corpse.
And when he saw the face of this “corpse,” his entire composure shattered.
“Chen Yun!”
Looking at Chen Yun’s slashed throat and pierced heart, Lu Liangting felt a chill surge straight to his core.
Perhaps by some stroke of luck, Chen Yun hadn’t died even from such horrific injuries.
Realizing this, Lu Liangting frantically used his portable medical kit to perform emergency first aid. To him, this was Chen Yun’s luck. And in reality, it was indeed so. Chen Yun’s heart was different from normal people—hers was on the right side. As for the throat wound, a clump of black, foul-smelling blood was wrapped around it.
This clot of black, putrid blood sustained the last vestiges of Chen Yun’s life force, sealing the fatal wound on her throat.
And as coincidence would have it…
While administering first aid, Lu Liangting discovered this blood clot. Instinctively believing this putrid blood was left behind by the “killer,” he frowned and casually cleaned it off.
Thus, the final thread of life hanging over Chen Yun completely vanished.
She had already lost too much blood and consciousness. If she knew that Lu Liangting, in his well-meaning attempt to save her, had cleaned away her life-preserving Curse as if it were some foreign contaminant, she would have coughed up another two mouthfuls of blood for sure.
And this “killer,” Lu Liangting, was now silent, his fists clenched tightly.
Twice now. It had already happened twice.
The first time was at Sunshine Apartment, Xia Han had been killed.
And this time, his good friend Chen Yun had also died at a Mission Location.
Her residual body heat didn’t last until the ambulance could arrive, fading into silence. She died in his arms.
The only clue left to him was that black, putrid blood clot.
This thing definitely wasn’t from Chen Yun’s body. If she had just been murdered recently, how could her blood already be rotting and stinking?
“A bug?”
Crushing the blood clot open, Lu Liangting saw a black, squirming worm inside.
He didn’t disdain this worm, soaked in rotting blood. He even wrapped it in a strip of cloth and placed it close to his body.
Because to him, this was the only lead to finding the murderer.
