“Rumors are completely untrustworthy!”
Mu Li told the woman in front of him with a solemn expression: “He saved me.”
In Pei Kanyan’s understanding, soul-ferrying was a fantastical notion, yet he had still helped the player channel his blood, asked for no reward, and even tossed the player a card.
That was twenty thousand!
Mu Li’s eyes lit up the moment he saw it, and he hurriedly tucked it away. The player had instantly become wealthy.
“Saved you?” Bingwei looked at Mu Li as if he were telling a fairy tale. “Take a look at yourself right now. You are hurt to this extent, is it not all his fault?”
In yesterday’s classroom surveillance footage, he had still been fine; although frail, he had not been this weak. But what about now?
The youth’s complexion was frighteningly pale, his palms had been deeply slashed by a sharp weapon, his limbs were awkwardly twisted as if dislocated, and even his heartbeat was barely perceptible.
From his wrists down to his neck, he was tightly wrapped in gauze, and beneath those bandages, goodness knows how many wounds were hidden. Was that not enough to explain everything?
“These injuries were caused by evil spirits.” Mu Li raised his hand. His health points simply would not go back up, meaning these wounds refused to heal. This was genuinely troublesome.
“You have been tricked by him!” Bingwei was so furious she nearly crushed her phone. “That is his habitual tactic! He does not even care about the lives of his own subordinates, let alone someone he just met.”
Just what kind of bewitching soup had Pei Kanyan poured down the youth’s throat to make him trust him this much, refusing to believe the obvious facts right in front of him?
She opened her phone to show him the evidence, but as she accidentally brushed against the youth’s sleeve, her entire body froze.
The woman’s eyes widened in utter shock as she stared at the top of the youth’s head, as if some sort of text were written there. After looking left and right for a long moment, she suddenly broke down:
“What on earth did he do?! Quick, come with me to the hospital. No, wait, I am calling an ambulance right now!”
Bingwei was so anxious her hands trembled as she dialed the phone.
An ambulance?
“Surely it is not that serious.”
Mu Li scratched his cheek, wondering why the conversation had shifted so abruptly. “My injuries look pretty severe, but they really do not matter at all.”
Yet the NPC in front of him stubbornly refused to let him go.
Amid this tug-of-war, the moment she saw an ambulance flashing its warning lights right at the entrance, Mu Li hurriedly scrambled backward inside.
The moment the doctor laid eyes on the severely injured youth, he gasped:
“Where is the stretcher? Hurry up!”
Before he knew what was happening, the player was pinned onto a stretcher in a daze. He tried to sit up: “No, wait, I just have some external scrapes.”
Only to be forcibly pushed back down.
He was about to be loaded into the ambulance.
The player thrashed about wildly: “Going to the hospital is completely useless!”
Whereupon an oxygen mask was clapped over his face.
Mu Li stared up at the ceiling of the ambulance and murmured mournfully: “I will let you in on a secret. Actually, I cannot die at all.”
He tried to sit up again, only to be pushed down once more as he caught a single sentence:
“The patient is already starting to lose touch with reality.”
Mu Li: (The patient is speechless.)
And then he was wheeled straight into a major hospital in the downtown area.
After completing a series of emergency medical procedures, the doctors exchanged solemn glances.
They wheeled him directly into the intensive care unit and issued a critical condition notice.
“The patient has suffered severe trauma to all five internal organs, especially the heart, compounded by massive blood loss. Making it this far is already a miracle. If you have anything to say, you should say it now.”
Bingwei had mentally prepared herself beforehand, but she still looked completely dazed: “There is no saving him?”
She stood in the hallway corner to catch her breath for a good while before picking up her phone to dial a number. Shortly afterward, a young man with dyed red hair arrived outside the hospital room.
The man was dressed quite trendy, sporting a jacket with eight hundred pockets and silver chains draped all over his body, clinking and clattering loudly.
Lying in the hospital bed with an oxygen tube attached, Mu Li pricked up his ears to listen to the two of them talking outside.
Hesitantly, Bingwei said to the red-haired man: “There is only twenty-four hours left. I finally understand why Pei Kanyan did not bring him into the organization.”
“Because this youth has already been thoroughly exploited.”
The red-haired man’s eyes rimmed red as he punched the wall with a fist, his gaze burning with deep hatred: “Pei Kanyan, I will definitely kill you!”
Mu Li blinked, thinking to himself that their train of thought seemed a bit off target.
Still, twenty-four hours?
Was that Bingwei’s ability? Was this a player’s death countdown, or a quest countdown?
The red-haired man calmed himself down, scratched his shock of red hair, and asked: “What kind of mission did he take this time?”
Bingwei showed him the page on her phone: “It is the Ghost Train.”
The red-haired man nodded: “I understand. I will make a trip there.”
Just as he turned around, he was startled so badly that he jumped three meters into the air, nearly sending his silver chains flying off.
“Can I come with you?” The youth suddenly appeared behind him.
At that exact moment, the hospital room began to emit a shrill alarm.
The patient, the patient is gone!
Bingwei drew in a sharp breath: “How did you get up?!”
Mu Li feigned wiping away tears: “Wuuu, I only have one day left. Staying in the hospital room is death, and going outside is also death. Take me with you!”
As he raised his hand, however, he bumped into his sunglasses. Ah, right. He quickly lowered his hand back down.
Bingwei and the red-haired man exchanged glances, both reading the exact same four characters in each other’s eyes: “Final flash of brilliance.”
A false burst of vitality before death.
A fleeting illusion.
“That is the Ghost Train; anyone who goes up never comes back down. If you run into an accident, your soul will be imprisoned there forever.”
Mu Li put on a serious face: “I will not hide it from you, my older brother boarded that train and never came back. I have to go find him, it is my only wish left, or else I will die with everlasting regret.”
“You do not have an older brother.” The red-haired man interjected at that point, puncturing the lie.
Mu Li was momentarily at a loss for words. Were NPCs really this smart? Just as he wanted to argue, “I recognized him as an older brother at the orphanage…”
“But I do not care.” Before he could finish, he heard the red-haired man speak again, pointing to himself with his thumb: “Pei Kanyan’s enemy is my friend. You must have heard that he is going, so you want revenge, right?”
A giant question mark popped up over Mu Li’s head: “Huh?”
Just as he wanted to object, he caught sight of the red-haired man’s expression of understanding, causing the words of denial to swallow themselves back down.
Bingwei still wanted to dissuade him: “But…”
The red-haired man tapped a fist against his chest: “It is fine, Sister Weiwei, do not worry. At least for this single day, I will protect him.”
Right.
After all, he only had a single day of lifespan left.
Bingwei opened her mouth, but ultimately emitted no sound.
Zhunan Station.
Mu Li followed the red-haired man to this platform.
It was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, heels pressed against toes, and the two of them were nearly squeezed into meat patties.
Finally pushing their way to the front, a train slowly came to a halt before them.
“Is this the Ghost Train?”
It looked entirely too high-tech; it did not look like one at all.
“Not sure.” The red-haired man looked it over carefully, finding nothing unusual from the outside, then lifted a foot to step right in: “The appearance time of the Ghost Train is unpredictable, so we just have to keep trying.”
“Wait, wait.” Mu Li stopped the red-haired man, who looked back at him in puzzlement.
Mu Li dug around inside his crossbody bag, fishing out the umbrella dropped by the female spirit earlier.
“Holy shit!” The red-haired man was dumbfounded. “How on earth did you pull something this long out of such a tiny bag?”
Mu Li offered an enigmatic smile: “Magic!”
He tapped the tip of the umbrella against the platform twice to leave a mark, just in case he got stuck in the instance later and needed to teleport straight back.
“We are about to board the train, why are you holding an umbrella?” The red-haired man stared at the white lace umbrella with an indescribable expression. “Besides, is this not something girls use?”
“Better safe than sorry.”
Mu Li snapped the umbrella open with a flourish, pulling the red-haired man underneath it.
After all, he was now the player’s temporary teammate; they could not afford to get separated.
The red-haired man was rendered speechless. What was there to be safe against, was it going to rain inside the train carriage?
Just as he wanted to step aside to distance himself from such an embarrassing spectacle, a thought suddenly struck him.
According to the doctor, the youth’s massive blood loss had caused brain damage, leaving him out of his wits most of the time. It seemed his common sense had faded completely.
“Let us get on.” The red-haired man scratched his head irritably.
Mu Li boarded the train with his red-haired teammate, taking a look around. Yep, it was just a regular train.
Then getting off, waiting for a train, boarding it, getting off again.
After going up and down dozens of times, even the station staff started giving them weird looks.
Finally, on this attempt.
The moment Mu Li stepped onto the train, he sensed a faint fishy odor lingering in the air. The red-haired man, who had clearly boarded right alongside him, was nowhere to be found.
Lifting his gaze, he spotted a dispirited young man.
He looked unmistakably like a young office worker, wearing an ill-fitting suit, donning oversized glasses, and clutching an old-fashioned briefcase. His dejected expression screamed that he had just been chewed out by his boss.
This carriage was completely empty save for this single man, who stared straight ahead as soon as he saw the youth step aboard.
Mu Li glanced at the top of the man’s head and instantly narrowed his eyes.
Wait, why did this game have so many yellow-named targets?
Let alone a yellow-named target with infinity level and an infinity health bar?
Mu Li decided to test the waters with a bluff: “Mr. Pei?”
If he happened to guess wrong.
Well, then he guessed wrong.
Yet the man simply removed his glasses, revealing a pair of stern, sharp eyes that looked completely discordant on that ordinary-looking face.
He stood up and strode toward Mu Li, his hunched back straightening out instantly as an overwhelming wave of pressure washed over him.
“Get off the train!”
That magnetic voice tinged with a hint of irritation made it obvious at once, it was definitely him!
“I paid for my ticket, why should I get off?” Mu Li planted one hand on his hip, looking completely righteous.
The man in front of him let out a cold sound, reached out, grabbed the back of the youth’s collar, turned him around, and shoved him toward the exit.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Mu Li was pushed forward by a massive force, and right as he was about to reach the train doors, he stuck a foot out to jam the gap.
“The doors are about to close. If you push me out now, I am going to get cut right in half.”
The man was just about to say the doors had not closed yet when the red light on the train flashed a few times, and the doors slammed shut with a heavy bang.
With a speed reminiscent of a guillotine.
Pei Kanyan drew in a deep breath and shoved the youth onto a seat: “I told you not to follow me.”
“I am not following you,” Mu Li lifted his chin defiantly. “This train does not belong to your family; I can come whenever I want.”
“But you cannot leave anymore.” Pei Kanyan leaned down, closing the distance to the youth’s face, before a sudden realization hit him: “Wait, how did you even know about this train?”
“That is not important. I came here to tell you I want to be your partner!” Mu Li announced loudly, his expression dead serious.
“Shut your mouth!”
The moment the word partner left his lips, Pei Kanyan’s gaze turned icy. He glared straight into the youth’s eyes through his sunglasses: “Never say those two words to me again.”
“Why?” Mu Li tilted his head.
Pei Kanyan pressed his lips into a thin line. He knew the youth’s stubborn temperament; without a convincing reason, he would never give up.
“I am not joking with you. There is a curse upon me; anyone who partners with me will undoubtedly die.”
An understanding expression washed over Mu Li’s face as his eyes rolled around craftily: “Then let us make a bet. If I survive this time, you have to admit that I am your partner.”
Becoming a partner was only the first step. If they teamed up to do quests together first, one thing would lead to another, and joining the organization would be just around the corner, would it not?
“Impossible!”
Pei Kanyan flatly refused.
Just as he opened his mouth to say more, the door to the next carriage clicked open. His back instantly hunched over, his expression grew gloomy, and he slipped right back into the persona of a weary corporate slave.
Mu Li stared at Pei Kanyan in absolute wonder, letting out an impressed whistle as he thought to himself that this guy played his role well; it was clearly not his first time doing this.
“So you are here. Did I not tell you to stick close to me?” The person opening the door turned out to be the red-haired man, who visibly relaxed upon spotting Mu Li.
Noticing another person in the carriage, he pivoted: “Hey, bespectacled buddy, you have got terrible luck.”
Mu Li almost snorted out a laugh, hurriedly forcing the corners of his mouth down.
Bespectacled buddy: (The bespectacled passenger remains silent.)
Tsk, another trouble had arrived.