The moment her finger pressed down on the trigger, hurried footsteps were heard outside the toilet.
The next second, a gunshot rang out, but the bullet went sideways. Deng Kai rushed towards Zhao Leya and asked in surprise, "What are you doing?!"
Zhao Leya's eyes were filled with tears as she struggled and said sharply, "She's not my mother! She's not my mother! She's a monster!"
Zhao Mingjing stared at Zhao Leya with her eyes wide open. After a while, her gaze returned to the soil in front of her.
The whites of his eyes gradually filled with bloodshot.
She seemed to be possessed by a demon, not caring about anything else. She just gasped for breath and dug out two more handfuls of soil.
Beneath the soil, a corpse with its skin completely peeled off and covered in blood and flesh was exposed to everyone's sight.
Apart from being a woman, almost nothing else can be seen.
The horrific sight of the corpse made everyone gasp.
Zhao Leya turned pale and cried hysterically, "You actually killed my mother... I'm going to kill you! Deng Kai, let me go!"
Xia Jing and Song Yang stood aside, watching the scene in silence.
Zhao Mingjing knelt there blankly, looking at the corpse, her whole body trembling slightly.
Her back and hands were so stiff that she couldn't move, as if her soul had left her body and her body had weathered away.
At this moment, she died here completely.
The moment Zhao Leya shook off Deng Kai, Zhao Mingjing suddenly bent down and screamed.
The shrill scream resounded through the clouds on the top of the mountain, like a sharp arrow piercing everyone's heart.
Then, Zhao Mingjing climbed up from the ground, his eyes red, and he drew his gun and rushed towards Zhao Leya fiercely.
This mother has been gentle and beautiful since the moment she appeared in front of everyone.
Her hair was tied up at the back of her head. In order to move around in the dungeon more easily, she wore casual jeans and sneakers, but her every move still showed her elegance and restraint.
However, at this moment, she seemed like a completely different person.
Her hair was messy, with strands hanging on both sides of her cheeks.
Her white shirt, jeans and sneakers were covered with dirty mud, and there was dirt embedded in the cracks between her fingernails, but she seemed to feel nothing and just pounced on her daughter like a madman!
Zhao Leya was startled and waved her hand to knock the gun out of Zhao Mingjing's hand. Zhao Mingjing also slammed her gun away and strangled Zhao Leya's neck with a roar!
Deng Kai was so frightened that he stepped back repeatedly.
Of the two guns, one flew to the ground two or three meters away, and the other flew towards the people standing at the back door of the toilet.
The slender arms were raised.
A hand caught the gun.
Zhao Leya cried out for help in fear: "Help! Help!"
Deng Kai looked shocked and doubtful, as if he was not sure who to believe at this moment. After all, the body was beyond recognition and it was impossible to tell whether it was Zhao Mingjing or Zhao Leya. The mother and daughter were of similar height and build.
Zhao Leya seemed to know what they were hesitating about, and shouted desperately: "I can prove myself to you, I can prove myself!"
Deng Kai looked at everyone confusedly, then at the mother and daughter, and said incoherently: "Prove yourselves...you will prove yourselves now?"
Zhao Leya screamed, "I can cut my wrists and show you! I'm human, and she's a monster. She's the one who killed my mother!"
At this moment, Song Yang suddenly said, "Xia Jing."
Zhao Leya's gaze immediately turned to Xia Jing. She cried, "Kill her! Kill this monster quickly, please! I beg you! I can prove my guilt to you after I kill her. Seriously!"
But the moment she shouted this out, Zhao Leya suddenly stopped, as if the computer had jammed.
Then, her eyelids drooped, the corners of her mouth drooped, her facial muscles relaxed, and her face became expressionless.
She looked at the group expressionlessly.
The drastic changes in expression gave everyone goosebumps.
Chai Feng's voice echoed softly in the open space: "...Xia Jing, who is that?"
Almost everyone present only knew "Jing Qiu" and did not know "Xia Jing".
——Except for Tang Yi, who heard Song Yang shout out Xia Jing's name at the critical moment when he was attacked by "Zhang Yan" in the UFO just now, and "Zhang Yan" himself who was restrained by Xia Jing at that time.
Xia Jing's gentle voice rang out.
"So that's how it is. It seems the robots' brains are interconnected," the young man observed her with interest and said slowly, "As long as one robot knows the player's information, all the other robots will share it instantly.
"Zhao Leya" not only knew Xia Jing's real name, she also apparently knew that players who killed other players would be punished by the system.
——She knew how to kill two birds with one stone.
This small open space fell into a frozen silence for a moment.
Zhao Leya moved her lips, and this time, her voice was cold and mechanical.
"...You already knew which of us was the monster?"
"...Last night, Sister Zhao mentioned something..." Deng Kai said weakly.
When the three of them came back last night, Zhao Mingjing whispered to Deng Kai that there were a lot of mosquitoes in the mountains. Zhao Leya helped Zhang Yan into the toilet and fiddled with it for a long time while she waited outside and was bitten by mosquitoes several times.
——The person who entered the toilet with "Zhang Yan" at that time was Zhao Leya.
The moment Deng Kai finished speaking, a gunshot rang out. Zhao Leya let go of Zhao Mingjing and flew up, and the bullet hit the position between her and Zhao Mingjing a second ago.
Zhao Mingjing's emotions had not yet calmed down. She raised her head, her chest heaving, and her whole body trembling as she stared at the figure of "Zhao Leya".
She must have noticed something was wrong after coming back from the bathroom last night, but it was not until she discovered the identity of "Zhang Yan" just now that she realized the truth of the matter.
She was very smart and immediately guessed the location and time of her daughter's murder.
But the pain of losing a daughter is not so easy to heal, not to mention that her death was so tragic -
She was panting, staring at the path "Zhao Leya" took to escape, and wanted to chase after her, but Deng Kai and Pei Guang immediately stepped forward to stop her.
On the other side, Xia Jing raised his arm and fired continuously along the jumping trajectory of "Zhao Leya", but each shot hit the grass and tree trunks. The last shot hit "Zhao Leya's" leg!
"..." Deng Kai whispered, "Brother Jing's shooting skills don't seem to be very good?"
Only suitable for tearing monsters apart with bare hands.
Chai Feng also coughed lightly and took the opportunity to step forward, but Song Yang stood in front of him.
Chai Feng's expression changed slightly, and he forced a smile and said, "Song Yang, what do you mean? Don't forget that the most important thing for us now is to kill the monsters, not to kill people!"
As soon as Chai Feng said this, several eyes fell on the backs of Song Yang and Xia Jing.
Song Yang didn't say anything, just stared at Xia Jing.
Xia Jing took two steps forward and continued to aim at Zhao Leya's back as she fled into the mountains.
The young man fired the gun with one hand and remained very calm throughout.
The shot hit Zhao Leya's right arm. She fell into the grass, then struggled to get up, gasping for breath and trying to jump up.
With a "bang", her other leg was also shot!
She turned around and glared at Xia Jing fiercely, then began to transform while roaring!
The skin on her body suddenly wrinkled and became loose, as if her inner body had melted and was hanging down.
Under everyone's horrified gaze, the layer of human skin on the top of the head was torn open again, and then a... silver mechanical spider crawled out from it.
Its movements became more flexible, and it leaped onto the tree with a light leap. With the cover of dense leaves, its whereabouts were no longer difficult to track!
Chai Feng pushed Song Yang away and said angrily, "It's trying to escape, get out of the way!"
"Is this your initial form?"
A light word reached everyone's ears.
This time, a crisp gunshot rang out, and then, more than ten meters away, a silver shadow fell from the trees accompanied by a sharp scream.
Everyone was stunned.
Xia Jing put down the gun.
They looked at the young man in disbelief—
Was that guy's poor shooting skills just an act?! Was he just trying to force the monster to reveal its true form?!
Before they rushed over, they had only briefly finalized a plan to test the mechanical monster's intelligence.
According to Tang Yi, a certain mechanical area of "Zhang Yan" was damaged when it fell yesterday, so it triggered the "ghostly" mode in the end.
And how cunning can the monsters in this dungeon be that remain unscathed in the mechanical area?
They must have this information.
Now they know.
They can not only share information, but also perform exquisite drama.
Even when they have enough time, they know to peel off the skin of the victim player to temporarily blur the vision of the other players.
In addition, "Zhao Leya" just boldly offered to prove her identity.
The only way to prove himself is through self-mutilation. When the skin of the corpse has been taken away by the monster, the player who wants to prove himself may even need to cut his skin completely until the bones are exposed, perhaps to truly prove himself.
They haven't been able to examine the real Zhao Leya's body yet, but since the monster can so confidently prove itself, it must have taken a piece of Zhao Leya's bones and grafted it onto its own body!
At this point, everyone has deeply felt the horror of this copy.
Their brains were almost overloaded, but Song Yang and Xia Jing actually thought of taking advantage of this opportunity to force the monster to reveal its true form!
At this time, Song Yang finally spoke.
He said calmly, "There are probably ten monsters in this dungeon. One for each of us is fair. Xia Jing and I don't plan to fight over them."
Their focus from the beginning to the end was to extract as much information about the monster as possible.
Hearing this, Deng Kai stuttered, "You, you guys are too strong, Brother Song! Yeah, actually, I didn't even think about stealing heads or anything like that..."
At this critical moment, who would still think about these things? Everyone's mind was blank.
Chai Feng almost lost face and his expression twisted for a moment.
At this moment, Xia Jing had already walked into the grass alone and brought back the silver spider.
Zhao Mingjing stared at the spider that had no strength to struggle anymore, and finally couldn't help sobbing and crying with her hands covering her face.
Pei Guang and Deng Kai let her go in silence.
She staggered towards the bloody corpse not far away, crying bitterly. She tripped over a stone and crawled over, calling her daughter's name.
Just now, on the way here, she kept praying in her heart that it would not be what she thought, it must not be what she thought.
She recalled the strange things that happened to her daughter after she came back from the bathroom last night.
It's so weird that I can't describe it.
The daughter beside her behaved in every way that was most familiar to her, but Zhao Mingjing felt something was wrong.
Is the curvature of your mouth corners different when you smile?
Or is the tone of your voice slightly higher than usual?
This strangeness left Zhao Mingjing puzzled and very depressed.
Last night in the tent, Zhang Yan and Zhao Leya went to bed early, but she felt inexplicably uneasy and couldn't sleep, so she could only stare blankly outside.
When she met Song Yang's eyes in the next tent, she could only smile helplessly.
——Until just now she saw Zhang Yan's body.
A great fear came over her.
She tried hard to tell herself that she was overthinking it, but she didn't dare to look at her "daughter" beside her.
Then she found the area outside the toilet's back door, which was slightly raised above the surrounding soft soil.
At that moment, Zhao Mingjing was killed by the intuition that arose in his heart.
She was crying so hard that her whole body was shaking. Pei Guang couldn't bear to see it, so he went forward and helped her up.
Zhao Leya died so tragically that Zhao Mingjing couldn't let her see the body for too long.
He advised, "We will take care of Le Ya... Sister Zhao, I'll help you to the side, you can rest for a while."
Zhao Mingjing was completely exhausted. She said in a hoarse voice, "I want to take Le Ya away... I can't leave her in a place like this..."
"Okay, once we're done packing, we'll put it in the space bag and hand it over to you. Don't worry, we'll be careful..."
Pei Guang helped the man to the corner. The two were still in their sight, but at least Zhao Mingjing could no longer see Zhao Leya's body.
The clearing was silent for a moment.
Everyone was caught in a heavy atmosphere and no one could speak.
This copy is really terrible.
"Robots can share information. The more they know about us, the more cunning their behavior will be." Xia Jing said calmly.
Everyone's eyes were focused on him.
He picked up the spider and said thoughtfully, "If you fold up its legs, it's just the right size to fit in our backpacks."
"Backpack!" Shen Bai said in surprise, as if waking from a dream. "Yesterday, after that woman Zhang Yan and I had an argument, she went to the restroom with her backpack. I thought she was treating us like thieves!"
But in the final analysis, their backpacks are filled with supplies uniformly distributed by NPCs, so what are the treasures there?
At that time, Shen Bai despised Zhang Yan even more and thought she had a mental problem.
"Well...it seems more likely that the second robot was hiding in Zhang Yan's backpack than it was hiding behind the toilet, waiting for an opportunity to strike," Chai Feng said, trying to pretend the awkward moment hadn't happened. He cleared his throat and said, "Zhang Yan was indeed carrying a backpack when he fell down the slope yesterday."
At this moment, Xia Jing suddenly shook the spider in his hand and asked, "Who wants it?"
Everyone:"..."
Tang Yi and Deng Kai took two steps back. Shen Bai was a little envious, but still a little scared, so he shook his head quickly.
So only Chai Feng was left.
He was the one who just scolded Xia Jing and Song Yang for stealing the kill, so he must want it very much.
Tang Yi said this based on the looks in the eyes of Deng Kai, Shen Bai and the others.
Chai Feng almost couldn't control his expression.
He tried hard to raise the corners of his lips, and every word almost came out from between his teeth: "...I was just worried that you missed the monster, not that I meant to compete with you for heads."
"Really?" The young man glanced at him with a half-smile, and said lightly, "There's something I think I need to say in advance. What Song Yang said can only represent him, not me."
The rest of the people focused their attention on Song Yang.
Song Yang: "..."
Song Yang turned his head and looked at the scenery in the distance calmly, as if he heard nothing.
Xia Jing smiled and said, "I will grab the heads, but it's not impossible to share the results occasionally. This is limited to this time."
"Are you sure you don't want it?" the young man asked sincerely.
Deng Kai, Shen Bai, and Tang Yi shook their heads, leaving behind afterimages.
——Not to mention that they couldn't accept the monster's appearance, how could they dare to compete with this brutal guy for heads!
Chai Feng also had to take a deep breath and forced a smile: "...Xiao Jing, keep it for yourself, no one will snatch it from you..."
Xia Jing nodded.
He put the monster into the space bag, and Chai Feng almost broke his teeth.
Chai Feng clenched his fists and took the opportunity to bring up the past: "By the way, maybe we should call you Xiao Xia? Is Xia Jing your real name? Why use a pseudonym? And it seems like Song Yang and you already knew each other? Come to think of it, Xiao Xia, you're wearing a human skin mask, aren't you being too defensive with us?"
The middle-aged man still had a kind face, but the questions he asked were full of thorns. Even someone as slow-witted as Deng Kai could sense his emotions.
Song Yang turned back and answered calmly, "Oh, he just likes to see my silly look when I don't recognize him."
Chai Feng and the others: "...?"
Xia Jing put away the monster, raised his eyebrows and looked at Song Yang with a smile.
Song Yang put his hands in his trouser pockets and said lazily: "It's just a little game between friends. I don't mind. Don't be offended."
Chai Feng and the others: "???"
Is this just a little game between friends? Why does it sound so much like something you'd play with your girlfriend?!
Several people suddenly felt very upset, but they didn't dare to complain in front of the two people. This feeling was extremely frustrating.
At this moment, Song Yang restrained his expression and said, "I'll go check Zhao Leya's body."
It took Song Yang a few minutes to come to a conclusion.
The fatal wound was on the left chest, and he should have been killed in one blow.
The skin was peeled off with an instrument, the cut surface was very smooth, and the monster must have cut off some flesh at the same time.
In addition, a section of Zhao Leya's right hand bone had indeed disappeared.
The monsters have exploited the players' bodies to such an extent that their subsequent self-proclaimed actions will be completely unconvincing unless they are a little more ruthless.
Deng Kai's face paled immediately. "So, do we really have to cut ourselves twice a day, deep into the bones, to prove ourselves?"
Xia Jing calmly said something that nearly drove Deng Kai and Shen Bai crazy: "If the monsters' disguises are further improved and they take away all the player's bones and use them, then their mechanical bodies can even transform and hide in the bone marrow."
"When it comes to that," Xia Jing said slowly, "the only way we can prove ourselves is to cut our own bones and show the cross-section."
But even if there are medical supplies that can save lives, who can afford to have such a surgery every day?!
Deng Kai and Shen Bai hugged their heads, cold sweat pouring down their faces.
This was almost the most brutal copy they had ever seen.
Song Yang said, "Let's start with the first round of self-certification. In addition, everyone's backpack must be checked."