Chapter 48.1
After swinging the whip, Bai Liu was exhausted by this high-level fishbone. He panted and half knelt on the hood of the car, his face pale and his shirt soaked with sweat.
[System tip: Player Bai Liu’s physical strength has dropped by 80 due to the use of the item Siren’s Fishbone. Please replenish your physical strength in time! Avoid running out of energy!]
The passenger hit by Bai Liu let out a pained roar from his throat. The eyeballs fixed in his eye sockets by scorched nerves swayed. He immediately turned and ran toward Bai Liu on all fours.
Bai Liu raised his head and drank a physical strength supplement. His eyes were calm as his whip hit another passenger who was about to attack Mu Sicheng. His voice was hoarse, “The second one. There are three more.”
[System tip: Player Bai Liu has used the Siren’s Fishbone to hit the passenger. The target’s aggro is transferred. It has decided to catch the naughty player Bai Liu…]
His whip moved one after another. Bai Liu poured the bottle of physical supplements in his mouth. He used the corner of his eyes to aim at the passengers with the whip. The rapid consumption of his physical strength made Bai Liu’s status drop visibly to the naked eye.
His face was white and sweat dripped all over his body. His hand holding the whip was shaking so badly that he could barely stand on the car. He was barely holding on due to the seat belt tying his ankle to the car.
In this weak state that was like a terminally ill patient, Bai Liu’s whip didn’t fail. Every whip happened to hit the back of the passengers’ hands as they were about to attack Mu Sicheng. Moreover, Bai Liu seemed to be maintaining his judgment. The position of almost every whip strike was the same.
Du Sanying stared almost blankly. Too strong… Was the quality of newcomers so outrageous now?!
Du Sanying really wanted to know why Bai Liu could aim like a sharpshooter. This person had all his values of his attributes panel falling crazily and his physical strength was repeatedly jumping around 0. If it was Du Sanying then he would already be out of his mind and like a dead dog, yet—
Bai Liu’s concentration on Mu Sicheng’s body was never once dispersed at all.
“The fifth one.” Bai Liu’s entire body was like a fish out of water. His hair on his forehead was wet and his eyes were darker under the sweat. They only had Mu Sicheng reflected in them. He smiled and let out a breath. “Go on, Mu Sicheng. The plan is effective. Continue to implement it.”
After this, his physical strength was exhausted again. His legs were soft and sweaty and he almost slipped off the car. Du Sanying’s eyes were quick and he grabbed Bai Liu’s ankle to pull him up. Bai Liu lay on the hood of the car, gasping. Then he took a bottle of physical supplement and drank it.
Du Sanying drove the car around the carriage with the five passengers chasing behind them while looking worriedly at Bai Liu who could hardly stand up. “Bai Liu, your situation is too bad! Do you want to take a break?!”
“No, the train is about to leave.” Bai Liu was cruel to himself while giving an order to Mu Sicheng at the same time. He staggered and stood up on the hood of the car, his eyes calm. “Go on, Mu Sicheng. Don’t try to steal from every passenger or your health will drop too fast. Try to find the one who has a lens.”
“I don’t want to either!” Mu Sicheng was very irritated. He would be burned by flames if he grabbed one and his health dropped by 1 point. There were so many passengers and it was impossible to steal from each one. That was just looking for death. “However, I can’t tell which one has a lens!”
All the passengers were a scorched mass and were still burning. Who the hell could find broken lenses the size of a few carats from them!
“Isn’t looking for stolen goods what thieves are best at?” Bai Liu was still in the mood to tease Mu Sicheng at this time.
As he spoke, he looked away from Mu Sicheng for the first time and glanced over the passengers. The flames were releasing smoke and ashes were scattered, gradually affecting people’s vision. Bai Liu couldn’t simply determine who had the lenses.
Since he was unable to come to a conclusion from the passengers, he worked backwards from the results. Bai Liu’s eyes shifted quickly to the five passengers following behind the small car, one of which Mu Sicheng had found a lens on. Then Bai Liu’s eyes narrowed.
Among the five passengers selected by Mu Sicheng, one had a much slower running speed and less flames than the other. It was like a headless fly swaying around. This was the passenger that Mu Sicheng had stolen the broken lens from. Yet Bai Liu remembered that previously, the passenger had moved much faster when it had the broken lens.
“Mu Sicheng, the weakness of the passengers with the broken lens is the broken lens!” Bai Liu spoke quickly. “The broken lens seems to have a bonus effect on these passengers. Find the passengers with a relatively fast movement speed and strong flames and steal from them. Can you see from your perspective who is moving faster and who has more flames?!”
“No!” Mu Sicheng hung from the ring and attached his back to the top of the carriage. He waved away the ashes flying in front of him and squinted, trying to distinguish between the red and black masses below him.
Mu Sicheng coughed. “All I can see is the fire and a bunch of passengers sticking together. I grabbed it blindly before!”
Then Mu Sicheng suddenly hung his tail on the ring and sank his body into the flames. He gritted his teeth and reached out to a passenger.
[System tip: Player Mu Sicheng has been burned by fire. Health value -1, mental value -1.]
“Stop, Mu Sicheng. You can’t continue to grab them randomly. Your health will drop too seriously and it will be easy for you to die if they catch you. Last time, you found one among five passengers. This is an 80% failure rate. It is likely to be invalid this time…” Bai Liu swung his whip at almost the moment Mu Sicheng pulled out his paw and distracted the passenger who tried to attack Mu Sicheng.
Mu Sicheng raised an eyebrow and gestured to Bai Liu that he had stolen another broken lens. He grinned and interrupted Bai Liu’s word, “I’m sorry, it was effective this time.”
[System tip: Player Mu Sicheng has got the broken lens (2/???).]
Bai Liu quickly raised his head to the person hanging from the rings. “Can you tell?”
“I can see it once I completely fall into the pile of passengers.” Mu Sicheng wiped the smoke marks on his face and raised an eyebrow as he slightly smiled at Bai Liu. “You attack very accurately or else I wouldn’t do this. It is too easy to fall in and be counter-killed by the passenger once their aggro is locked on me.”
“I promise I’ll hit them accurately every time.” Bai Liu smiled and waved his whip with a ‘please’ gesture. “Go on.”
Mu Sicheng hung from the ring with his tail. Like a monkey fishing for the moon, he descended into the sea of fire and scorched corpses time and time again, passing by the passengers who wanted to bite him because their aggro was locked on him.
Sometimes passengers would open their mouths when facing him and the flames from their mouths burned Mu Sicheng’s face. Before Mu Sicheng could feel fear, a white bone whip would cut through everything and strike the hideous passenger about to bite Mu Sicheng’s shoulder.
It was thieving without any worries.
In the later stages, Mu Sicheng didn’t have to think about anything. He might even steal from two or three passengers at a time without worrying that these passengers would attack him in time.
It was just as Bai Liu said. He struck accurately every time and could always hold the upper limit of Mu Sicheng’s actions. No matter how many passengers Mu Sicheng stole from at a time, Bai Liu could easily remove these passengers to give Mu Sicheng a safe environment to steal.
Bai Liu’s extremely assured anti-monster performance meant Mu Sicheng’s attention gradually focused on stealing the lenses. Perhaps Mu Sicheng had completely forgotten that he was entrusting his back to a player with an F-grade panel who was participating in the game for the second time.
Every time this player swung his whip, 60% of his physical strength was consumed. All the passengers Mu Sicheng had stolen from were now following behind Bai Liu and the small car so the pressure Mu Sicheng felt was reduced. Stealing lenses became easier and easier.
Correspondingly, on Bai Liu’s side, the pressure on Du Sanying was much stronger.
Du Sanying’s go-kart car moved very fast and it could also drive on the walls. There was also the lucky buff bonus. Even if a few passengers tried to collide head-on, most of them would miss the car. Nevertheless, Du Sanying’s face was white now. He had a long string of charred bodies behind him, some of whom were so fast that they could possibly get into the car. Du Sanying screamed at Bai Liu who was waving his whip.
“B-Bai Liu!” Du Sanying looked at the long string of corpses chasing behind them. Each one had a ferocious expression and they stared at Bai Liu with maliciousness. A group of passengers got together and the flames grew a lot, so that the tail of Du Sanying’s car was burned. Du Sanying was frightened and stammered, “B-Bai Liu, we can’t hold on anymore. There are more monsters and we are about to roll over!”
“Someone else might roll over but you won’t.” Bai Liu indifferently continued to clean up Mu Sicheng’s passengers without glancing at Du Sanying, but there was praise in his tone. “Believe in yourself. You are 100% lucky.”
For the first time, Du Sanying heard a player in the same game as him say he was lucky in a tone of praise. However, Du Sanying wasn’t happy at all. Du Sanying held the steering wheel and wanted to cry. “I am 100% lucky but I’m not always invincible! Bai Liu, I can roll over and die too! The 100% luck only ensures that the probability of my death is smaller. There is no guarantee that I won’t die!”
“No! I can’t drive anymore!” Du Sanying’s face was pale. He had just almost been bitten on the neck by a passenger who attacked from the side. If it wasn’t for him having a strong hunch and dodging instinctively, he would be dead now. “Bai Liu! I will give you the car. I want to get off!”
Just then, Du Sanying had a very strong unlucky feeling. Du Sanying had always been an intuitive person and his intuition had always been accurate. It allowed him to avoid disasters several times. Generally speaking, the appearance of this feeling meant something very bad was going to happen and he had to run!
“I said to believe in yourself, Du Sanying.” Bai Liu stood on the car and gave people a cold feeling when he stared at them. His eyes were black as carbon burned to the extreme. There was no excess heat and combined with the seemingly kind smile on his face, he looked even stranger. An eerie feeling shot down Du Sanying’s back as Bai Liu smiled and whispered to Du Sanying, “I need you, Du Sanying.”
All of Du Sanying’s hairs stood up an in instant. The feeling of ‘Danger! Run!’ reached its peak. Du Sanying had never experienced such a strong sense of crisis after entering the game, especially from a player. He instinctively wanted to jump out of the car to escape but—
[System tip: Player Bai Liu needs player Du Sanying’s help. Player Du Sanying needs to help player Bai Liu. Please cooperate with player Bai Liu’s actions!]
Du Sanying collapsed. “!!! When did you control me? I wore ‘prevent control’ clothing. After wearing this, even the puppet master can’t control me! Why can you control me?!”
“I’m not controlling you.” Bai Liu coughed weakly. He wiped away the physical supplement that had spilled from his mouth and smiled. “I’m just a collaborator asking you for help. Just in case, I used a small trick.”
“Keep driving.” Bai Liu ordered as he stared at Du Sanying. “Du Sanying, if you run away now, Mu Sicheng and I will die. So you must be stable, understood?”
Bai Liu looked down at the trembling Du Sanying. “Don’t worry. I won’t let Mu Sicheng die and I won’t let you die.”
He smiled. The blood stains and ashes on his face gave the otherwise kind smile a cruel feeling. “You are all valuable to me.”
“The train is about to leave. Passengers who want to get off, please line up and leave the train in turn—”
The group of burnt corpses left the bloody carriage in turn, leaving behind three people collapsed close to each other.
Du Sanying had no vitality in his eyes. He lay on his back in the unrecognizable small car and felt like he would start foaming at the mouth in the next second. “I don’t want to drive anymore…”
Mu Sicheng was on one knee, leaning his head back against a carriage door. He had changed from the Capuchin Monkey state to a normal human form. His entire body was burned. The corners of his mouth, his cheekbones and the skin on the back of both hands were severely burned, revealing red flesh. The monkey on the headphones seemed to be dying. It curled up in a pitiful ball and wailed, the red light in its eyes faint.
However, the worst one out of the three was Bai Liu. There was no blood on his body and he was as white as a dummy made of snow. He coughed a few times and blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His mouth was full of blood and visceral fragments which were wiped away casually by Bai Liu. His fingers slowly played with the diamond-like broken lenses collected by Mu Sicheng.
Repeated physical fullness and exhaustion had a huge effect on players. This type of consumption was a physical consumption that would reduce the health value. This was the same as decreasing the mental value. A decrease in mental value meant the player’s mental state wasn’t good. A decrease in health value meant that the player’s physical state wasn’t good.
Mu Sicheng knew the feeling of nausea and dizziness after being drained of strength and forcefully replenishing it. It was as if his entire body had been washed in a washing machine for a full cycle and all his internal organs felt like they were cracked and going to burst. There were empty bottles scattered around Bai Liu, all of which were physical supplements. Combined with Bai Liu’s dazed expression, it made it seem like Bai Liu had a hangover.
Mu Sicheng glanced at the empty bottle at Bai Liu’s feet and snorted. This was crazy. After drinking so many physical supplements, he couldn’t stand steadily when the train left the station. Yet the first thing he did was to ask Mu Sicheng to give him the broken lenses.
“Bai Liu, how much do you have left?”
Bai Liu slowly clicked on his panel. His wrist was unable to move quickly due to swinging the whip.
[Player Bai Liu’s Personal Panel]
[Health: 21 (decreased after being attacked by player Mu Sicheng and being burned by flames)]
[Physical strength: 31 (empty, restoring in progress)]
[Mental value: 89 (slightly alienated due to being attacked by passengers)]
“21 health.” Bai Liu replied to Mu Sicheng. “This wave cleared me of 10 health points. Mu Sicheng, what is your health?”
Mu Sicheng clicked on his personal panel and his expression instantly sank.
[Player Mu Sicheng’s Personal Panel]
[Health: 70 (decreased after being burned by fire)]
[Physical strength: 59 (empty, restoring in progress)]
[Mental value: 61 (slightly alienated due to being attacked by passengers)]
“Damn, my health was decreased by 24 points.” Mu Sicheng’s eyes were gloomy. “Although I paid attention later so the flames burning me didn’t lower my mental value too much, it is still on the border. I want to cleanse it.”
“Don’t cleanse it. Your low mental value is useful for me.” Bai Liu spoke while continuing to click on his panel to view the completion progress of the monster book and the main task.
[Main task: Collect the broken lenses on the last train (20/???)]
[The Exploding Last Train Monster Book has refreshed—Exploding Passengers (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Exploding Passengers]
[Features: Extremely fast movement speed (1,000 points in movement speed, flames have a bonus effect)]
[Weaknesses: Broken lenses (1/3)]
[Attack method: After being burned by the exploding passenger’s body, the health and mental value will decrease.]
“It’s not good. I’m in big trouble here…” Bai Liu’s expression became more solemn.
These words made Mu Sicheng and Du Sanying become tense. Bai Liu rarely said such things. In general, this guy was always like ‘Don’t be afraid of any difficulties! The best way to overcome difficulties is to overcome it!.’ This appearance could be called a modern master of gaining benefits. Previously, this person always looked calm and like the ticket to victory was in his hands. Now he actually said that he had encountered a big difficulty!
“What’s the matter?” Both Mu Sicheng and Du Sanying asked with anxious expressions.
“I bought 80 bottles of stamina supplements. I just used 33 bottles and there are 47 bottles left. However, there are still several platforms to go. These 47 bottles aren’t enough…” Bai Liu’s face looked very pained. “However, I just found out that I have no money to buy any more. I am very poor. This is big trouble.”
[System: Bai Liu’s account points balance is 179. You can’t purchase any more physical supplements.]
“I need your help!” Bai Liu eagerly looked at Du Sanying and Mu Sicheng. “Can you support me with a bit of credit! Thank you!”
Du Sanying and Mu Sicheng, “……”
Asking for money while using them. Could this person be any more shameless?!
Proofreader: Purichan