Chapter 28: Tied Up

In the past two or three times the players had been suspicious of her, Huang Wei had already imagined the day they might just kill her outright. This situation wasn’t entirely unexpected, though it still held a few surprises.

She’d guessed the players might target her, but she hadn’t expected to be left alive — tied up and dumped on the ground.

There was a blanket spread beneath her, but she could feel the rough, uneven ground underneath. A small stone pressed uncomfortably against her waist. After waking, Huang Wei stayed silent for a moment. Wang Ling looked at her with a hint of surprise before Huang Wei finally spoke. “Why are you tying me up?”

“My family is poor — just me, my wife, and child. If you’re after money, you’ve got the wrong house. The village chief’s place is a better bet.” Huang Wei rationally analyzed their situation for them, and even sneakily ratted out the village chief.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell the players the truth… Well, partly she didn’t, but the bigger reason was that if she did, both Cheng Luyun and the system would kill her on the spot.

Right in front of her face, the system had been flashing a line of text over and over: 【Please remember your duty as an NPC】…

Fine. That was a clear warning to watch her words and know what she should and shouldn’t say. Huang Wei had no choice but to act as much like an NPC as possible. Her spiel sounded plausible enough, but Wang Ling wasn’t buying it.

“Do you remember what your gender is?”

Huang Wei widened her eyes in astonishment. “I’m a woman — can’t you tell?”

As she spoke, the youngest girl in their team pressed a dagger against her neck again. Huang Wei glanced down at the blade, then at Wang Ling, the complexity in her eyes clear for Wang Ling to see.

Huang Wei’s acting was actually quite good; she’d fooled these players completely, hadn’t she? Being highly observant, she could easily tell when someone was performing or lying. By reverse logic, she could also convincingly present something as truth.

Wang Ling held the girl back, a smile on her face. Her smile was reminiscent of Cheng Luyun’s, though much less mature. If anyone besides Huang Wei saw Cheng Luyun’s smile, they’d swear it was genuine warmth and tenderness. Wang Ling’s smile, besides gentleness, carried a pressure — more like a smiling tiger.

Her voice was unhurried, every word enunciated clearly, as if afraid Huang Wei might pretend she couldn’t hear and use it as an excuse.

“Right, we all know you’re a woman. When we first addressed you, you didn’t deny it. But in the village, everyone calls you ‘Brother Wei.’ ‘Brother’ — we all know what that means. And on top of that, as a woman, you have a wife and child. How do you explain that?”

— Why couldn’t a woman have a wife and child? Was that discrimination? Couldn’t Huang Wei and Cheng Luyun be a trendy lesbian couple?

Huang Wei really wanted to say that, but it would break character too much. Besides, that flashing line 【Please remember your duty as an NPC】 kept blinking before her eyes, offering no hints at all. Huang Wei was at her wit’s end; she racked her brain and wove a story on the fly.

“You just don’t know the story.”

“Then please, ‘Brother Wei,’ tell us — let us understand.”

Huang Wei sighed and began speaking while fabricating. “When I was little, a fortune-teller said my fate was weak, that I might die before reaching adulthood. But if I were raised as a boy, there was still a sliver of hope. Because my mother was in poor health and couldn’t bear any more children after me, the family had no choice but to keep me and raise me as a boy. When I grew up, they wanted me to return to living as a girl, but as soon as I did, I got a high fever that nearly killed me. The fortune-teller said I had to live as a man until death. My parents believed him completely — not only did they continue raising me as a man, they even got me a wife.”

“As for the child — you can see she looks like me, but she’s actually adopted from my cousin’s family.”

Huang Wei’s explanation sounded watertight on the surface but was riddled with holes. Ask a single villager, and the whole thing would collapse. But now that Wang Ling’s group had kidnapped Huang Wei, they couldn’t go back to the village. Though this was their first visit to the 【Whisper】 instance, just gathering intel, the longer they survived the better. Kidnapping an NPC would likely draw hostility from other NPCs in the instance. Going back now wouldn’t necessarily mean open war, but it certainly wouldn’t end well.

Whether Wang Ling believed her or not was unclear. Her expression hovered between doubt and suspicion, but the system was clearly pleased with Huang Wei’s performance. The flashing line of text dimmed, evidently satisfied with her current actions and confident she wouldn’t accidentally reveal things she shouldn’t.

The players moved away to discuss among themselves. Huang Wei couldn’t hear a word, but she could guess.

Their drastic measure of tying her up likely meant they suspected she was the big boss. The dagger that young girl still held at her throat showed they hadn’t fully bought her story either. But the fact that they were conferring, debating, meant her words had at least shaken them — from firmly believing she was the final boss to having doubts. That was good news for Huang Wei.

And indeed, Wang Ling frowned as she led her team to a spot out of Huang Wei’s sight, leaving two members to guard her. Via the players’ private voice chat, Wang Ling spoke with her teammates. “I think this NPC is problematic. She defies logic, and the way she acted last night — you all saw it — was nothing like an ordinary NPC.”

“But Captain, nothing happened after we tied her up and brought her here. Whether it’s her physical strength or behavior, she seems like just a regular NPC.”

“We’ve been here almost a full day and still don’t even know where the big boss is, let alone how to take ‘it’ down.”

Wang Ling sighed. “We can’t rush this. This instance definitely won’t be cleared in a day or two. Even the most basic mission that awards points requires surviving seven days — so completing it will take much longer than a week. This instance isn’t simple, as everyone’s noticed. Many of our items don’t work here. That only happens in high-level instances involving rules. That means 【Whisper】 is at minimum a rules-based instance. In that case, we have to prepare for every contingency.”

While they conferred, Huang Wei wasn’t idle either. She shrank her neck back, but the young girl’s knife followed relentlessly, never budging from her throat. Huang Wei had to stay perfectly still. “Um… could you ease up a bit? I’m afraid you might actually cut my throat.”

At this, the young girl just snorted, the blade not moving a millimeter. Huang Wei understood: getting this girl to back off was pure fantasy.

Huang Wei fell silent. But not long after, she felt the small stone digging into her waist shift, making her wince in pain. She sucked in a sharp breath — and the next instant, the dagger at her neck drew a thin line of blood.

“Don’t move.”

Huang Wei wanted to cry but had no tears. She could feel blood trickling down her neck, but right now, the most pressing issue wasn’t her neck — it was this strange place they were in. She swallowed hard, her throat moving with the dagger’s tip, and couldn’t help asking, “Where are we?”

She’d wanted to ask this earlier. They were clearly inside a cave, surrounded by stone walls. The players had set up lighting inside, but the illuminated area was nowhere near any village. Looking deeper in, you couldn’t see the end; looking out, you couldn’t see the exit — they were obviously deep inside the cave. Huang Family Village was surrounded by small hills; any one of them could contain a cave.

Last instance, those players had subtly tried to push her toward the back mountain, likely intending to use her as a pathfinder, stepping on mines for them.

Players shared intel. Now Huang Wei was fairly certain… they were in the back mountain.

The young girl didn’t answer, but from the flicker in her eyes, Huang Wei knew she’d guessed right. Huang Wei gave a very forced smile and asked, “Do you feel that? The ground is shaking?” The girl tensed and signaled the other male team member left to guard Huang Wei. He immediately dropped to the ground, pressing his ear to the earth.

A moment later, he shook his head, indicating he hadn’t heard anything.

The girl’s temper flared. She was about to give Huang Wei a lesson when she noticed the male player’s arm had been severed. His arm flew through the air, trailing blood, and landed motionless on the ground. The man froze for a second, then clamped his hand over his shoulder. In one swift motion, he pulled out a small spray bottle and misted the wound — the bleeding stopped instantly.

High-grade stuff. Liquid bandage.

The girl froze, gripping her dagger tight, no longer paying attention to Huang Wei. Her eyes locked onto the darkness behind the male player.

The dagger left Huang Wei’s neck, and she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She felt a warm, wet sensation at her throat — probably bleeding. The male player bandaged his wound and hurried behind the girl. At almost the same moment, the other team members returned as well. Wang Ling’s expression was grim as she asked what happened. The girl, still on high alert, rapidly explained the recent events.

Wang Ling looked at Huang Wei. “How did you know the ground shook just now?”

Huang Wei answered, “I felt the little stone wedged under my waist move.”

That hardly convinced Wang Ling. Her eyes were full of doubt, distrust. She trusted her own teammates over Huang Wei. The one-armed male player, face ashen, steadied his breathing and recounted his experience. “I confirmed there was no movement around us. But not long after, I was attacked.”

His words had barely finished when Wang Ling sensed danger. A bad feeling surged in her heart. She decided their best move was to retreat.

As players, they moved with incredible speed. In no time, they vanished from Huang Wei’s sight. Clearly, a single NPC wasn’t worth their concern. A Huang Wei of unknown friend or foe status would only slow them down — better to abandon her.

Huang Wei stared, dumbfounded, at their instant disappearance. At least… untie me first!