[System Tip: Player Li Gou has been burned by flames. HP -15, Mental Value -15. Due to severe psychological shock, his Mental Value will continue to decrease… Mental Value has dropped below 40.]
[System Warning: Player Li Gou is about to experience subconscious horror hallucinations! Please cleanse Mental Value immediately!]
Li Gou screamed amid the flames, unable to hear the system warnings at all. Even if he had heard them, there was nothing he could have done. All his points had been taken by Bai Liu. He didn't have enough to purchase mental cleansing items.
Soon, Li Gou felt the bomb strapped to his back turn wet and fleshy. Blood dripped onto his neck.
It was hot—just like the surrounding fire. Even so, he began to shiver uncontrollably.
A warm, metallic-smelling liquid quickly soaked his back. Long, wet black hair—heavy and sticky with blood—slid over his shoulder and dangled down, swaying beside him. Drops of blood fell and splattered against his heels.
A pair of pale hands wrapped gently around his neck. On the back of one hand, written in black oil-based ink, were the words:
[Countdown to the university entrance exam: (blurred) days left! Guoguo, jiayou! The teacher is waiting for you!]
A young girl began humming softly, her legs swaying against his back.
"Where is the world full of flowers?If it exists, I will definitely go~."
The song Chasing the Dreams of the Heart had been the chorus piece for Liu Guoguo's senior-year oath ceremony.
Every day, Li Gou watched her walk through the alley with headphones on, humming that same tune. She had been a pure and beautiful sight.
But he had only ever stared with greasy, covetous eyes at a beauty that did not belong to him.
In the end, he had used his butcher's knife to destroy that fragile, innocent brightness.
Li Gou swallowed stiffly. He didn't dare look back.
"This is an illusion… this is an illusion…" he muttered over and over.
"I want to stand on the highest mountain—"
The girl's sweet voice cut through his whispers. She giggled as she sang. Her cold fingers tightened slowly around his throat.
"I don't care if it's a cliff—"
A mutilated face suddenly leaned out beside his. Her nose was sunken, her skin hacked apart by a machete. Yet she smiled brightly at him.
"Uncle Li," Liu Guoguo greeted sweetly. "Long time no see."
"AHHHHHHH—!" Li Gou completely broke down and bolted forward. If not for Puppet Zhang's silk threads controlling him, he would have lost all sense of direction.
He struggled desperately, trying to shake Liu Guoguo off his back. He was clearly running through the burning subway station—
Yet in the next moment, the station became the narrow alley where he had worked. No matter where he ran, he saw her blood-stained face.
She sang as she approached him. Smiling. Relentless.
Suddenly, Liu Guoguo grew several times larger.
Still smiling, she seized his hands and feet as he screamed. She placed him onto a chopping board and hummed lightly while plunging a sharp knife into his abdomen again and again—removing bones, pulling out organs.
Exactly as he had done to her.
"Ahhh—! It hurts! It hurts! Stop! Don't cut me!" Li Gou screamed so miserably that his eyes bulged.
Seemingly annoyed, Liu Guoguo placed the tip of the knife against his throat. She traced circles lightly along his skin as she sang in a cheerful voice:
"That is the performance of a coward~."
The blade sliced in. Blood sprayed out. Li Gou retched violently from the agony. His legs shook uncontrollably. He was on the verge of collapse. Yet the puppet threads dragged him forward. Vomiting blood, Li Gou staggered toward the reservoir.
In his hallucination, his limbs had already been severed. He dragged himself forward blankly, unable to escape the illusion of being endlessly dismembered.
He crossed the burning station with empty eyes.
Liu Guoguo lay against his back, carving into his flesh with her knife. Even at the height of pain, he could no longer scream.
He could only cry. His eyes were wide and hollow. Blood filled his throat.
In the illusion, his clothes and chin were soaked red.
In reality, the man twitched violently on the ground, his eyes rolled back white. Nothing had physically happened to him.
He was simply being devoured by his own subconscious terror.
Li Gou had never considered Liu Guoguo a person when he killed her. To him, it had been no different from slaughtering livestock.
He had felt no guilt. He had never feared her. He had always known he could decide her fate as easily as crushing a stray kitten.
But Bai Liu had changed that. He had turned Liu Guoguo from something powerless in Li Gou's memory—into someone capable of sending him to death.
His buried fear awakened. And for the first time—
He realized what he had done. He had killed a person. Liu Guoguo had been a person. And she had suffered unimaginable pain.
Li Gou crawled forward, elbows scraping against the ground, finally reaching the reservoir with immense difficulty. He gasped for air.
Liu Guoguo clung to his back. Her blood mingled with his. Her long black hair coiled around his throat.
Rationally, he knew it was the bomb strapped to him. But in his mind, it was Liu Guoguo—
Raped. Murdered. Dismembered.
She sang brightly on his back, like a carefree bird. Only he could hear her voice.
"I may have no talent, but I have dreams.I will use my life to prove it.Maybe my hands and feet are clumsy,But I am willing to keep exploring…"
"Even if blood stains my arms,I will keep running.I will carry my pride."
Liu Guoguo had been a beautiful, hardworking, sensible seventeen-year-old girl who loved pork. She was preparing for the university entrance examination. She wanted to attend a normal university and become a teacher.
She loved singing Chasing the Dreams of the Heart.
When she laughed, she would tuck her long hair behind her ears.
Even if she had survived the assault, she might have cried, cursed hysterically, or hidden at home.
But there would still have been a chance. It wasn't her fault. She didn't deserve to suffer for it. She could have turned it into a scar. But that possibility had been stolen from her.
Li Gou closed his eyes as muddy tears streamed down his face. He tried to speak. In the end, nothing came out. Only blood poured from his throat.
He opened his eyes unwillingly. Liu Guoguo wrapped her arms around his neck. After finishing her song, she leaned lightly forward—
And fell into the reservoir with him. Countless bubbles rose to the surface.
Boom!
The bomb exploded.
Li Gou shattered into countless bloody fragments. Just like Liu Guoguo once had.
The reservoir walls cracked and collapsed. Water surged through the ruptured structure.
For a brief moment, a girl's clear laughter seemed to echo along the edge of the reservoir. It sounds cold. Then it soon disappeared without a trace.
[System Prompt (All Players): Player Li Gou's HP has reached zero. Death confirmed. Player has exited the game.]
-----------------
Inside the Train
The group being chased by the Thief Brothers ran at full speed. Mu Sicheng led Bai Liu at the front, pulling him forward.
Behind them, the puppets scrambled to collect the fragments. They just wouldn't be able to hold on much longer.
Without Du Sanying holding back the Thief Brothers, everyone's items and stats were being rapidly depleted. Meanwhile, the brothers' attacks had grown especially ferocious after being robbed. If the chase continued much longer, they would likely be wiped out the moment Younger Brother Thief's ultimate skill came off cooldown.
Mu Sicheng dodged another attack and glanced at Bai Liu. His breathing was uneven, his face pale.
"Bai Liu—I can't hold on much longer!"
Bai Liu looked out the carriage window. His own breathing was unsteady, yet he smiled faintly. "There's no need," he said calmly. "The water is coming."
Water began cascading down the subway stairs. The sizzling sound of flames being extinguished mixed with the crash of rushing water. In seconds, rising steam filled the station, and the train was swallowed by a hazy, semi-transparent mist.
The passengers who had been chasing them so viciously were instantly drenched. The flames burning on their bodies were snuffed out at once.
The charred corpses seemed to soften and melt in the floodwater. They became lodged beneath the train, unable to move forward. Their heads swayed as they wailed, shriveled hands waving helplessly in the current—but they could no longer advance.
They were trapped in place.
Younger Brother Thief, who had been hot on Bai Liu's heels, was soaked through and slammed heavily onto the ground. The massive fireball he had been charging plunged into the water and instantly turned into a lump of blackened charcoal.
Older Brother Thief stopped chasing them. Instead, he rushed to help his younger brother up. Unfortunately, even after shrinking, Younger Brother Thief was still far too heavy for him to carry.
The two brothers clung to each other, crying pitifully. It sounded as if they were trying to encourage one another, but soaked to the bone, they looked like two drenched chickens huddling together and shivering in the downpour.
Mu Sicheng finally set Bai Liu down and slumped beside him to rest. With the brothers' attack power greatly reduced, it was nearly impossible for them to catch up now.
He looked at Bai Liu—his white shirt stained with blood, his face pale and fragile—and then at the Thief Brothers, who were trembling in the heavy "rain."
His emotions were complicated.
Who would have thought that the Thief Brothers, who had nearly annihilated them moments ago, would end up in such a miserable state at Bai Liu's hands?
"Put on your submersible," Bai Liu reminded him.
He adjusted his own diving mask and exhaled, fogging the glass. Only his dark, steady eyes were visible behind it.
"Just wait. This section of the track might collapse. When it does, all the water will rush in."
The mechanical broadcast echoed through the station:
"The train is about to depart. Passengers, please disembark promptly. The next stop—the terminal station: Antique City."