Cheng Xi shook her head. “Who knows? It doesn't matter who he is. What is certain is that everything we do is under the watchful eyes of that audience.”
There was a clear edge of anger in her voice, evidently displeased at being put on display like a monkey for others' amusement.
“A game of tag... does that mean we have to hide, and if they find us, we die? Can we fight back? I still have my poison,” Bai Ci asked, cutting straight to the point.
“Oh? My gun is still here too.” Cheng Xi patted her pocket. “That means we can turn the tables and kill them instead.”
“Huh? Wasn't Fu Yan the police officer?” Sun Hao paused, then immediately realized. “Ah, so you guys were fake-claiming.”
“Now is not the time to dwell on that,” Fu Yan spoke up, sounding like the calmest of the group. “Let's leave the stage first, find a safe place, and then discuss our strategy.”
The others nodded. Not daring to linger for even a second, they quickly ran toward the corridor on the side of the stage.
Dim lights flickered in the corridor. Though it was dark, they could barely make out the path ahead. Once they reached the corridor and confirmed there was no danger, the four of them finally stopped to catch their breath.
Sun Hao calmed his breathing and looked at Fu Yan, pouring out all his thoughts and doubts in one breath. “Fu Yan, what do we do now? There are five of them, and we only have one vial of poison and a single bullet. Plus, Fu Liu...”
He paused there, casting a glance at Bai Ci, and did not continue.
Fu Liu was Bai Ci's boyfriend, and the poison was in her hands. Forcing Bai Ci to kill Fu Liu with her own hands was undoubtedly an extremely cruel thing.
“Bai Jiu, can you remember your real name now?” Cheng Xi asked. She was secretly hoping that Fu Liu was just a shameless liar who had made up the girlfriend story out of thin air.
Bai Ci shook her head. Fabricating another story now would serve no purpose.
“We don't necessarily have to kill them with the items from the first half of the game, right?” Cheng Xi changed the subject, avoiding rubbing salt in the wounds of a girl who was already having a hard time. “Or, we could try to snatch their weapons.”
“Let's go big,” Fu Yan said. “The worst-case scenario is just death anyway.”
“Don't they treat us as actors, as tools for their entertainment? Simply killing the other actors would be letting those masterminds behind the scenes off too easily.”
Cheng Xi's eyes lit up, and she immediately nodded in agreement. “Count me in. I absolutely loathe the feeling of being treated like a source of amusement. Since they want to play, we'll play with them to the very end. At worst, we'll all go down together, but we won't let them have their way.”
Bai Ci controlled her expression, letting the sadness on her face gradually fade, replaced by determination. “Yes, count me in too.”
Seeing that all three had agreed, Sun Hao slapped his thigh. “Count me in too! Since you guys are all on board, there's no way I'm staying out.”
“Going big, right? I, Sun Hao, have never been afraid of that. Just tell me what to do. I can die, but we absolutely cannot lose this game. We have to teach them a lesson.”
Fu Yan nodded with satisfaction and pointed toward a certain spot.
Bai Ci followed his finger. There was a faded red sign pasted on the wall, shrouded in shadows. It was impossible to see unless one looked closely.
As everyone knew, if you wanted to blow things out of proportion, the best way was to do exactly what was forbidden.
Sun Hao slapped his forehead, realization dawning on him. “I get it! This is a great idea, I love it!”
Bai Ci considered the feasibility of this plan. Since the Ninth Round had mutated due to a fire, it proved that fire indeed had an impact on this theater. Using this method to deal with the theater was highly feasible.
But...
“We need a source of fire and kindling,” Bai Ci reminded them.
Although there were plenty of wooden props, tables, and chairs in the theater, relying solely on them would make the fire burn too slowly and make it easy to put out. They needed a sufficient amount of accelerants to make the fire spread across the entire theater in a short time.
“Don't worry about the accelerants. This plays right into my hands,” Sun Hao said with a touch of pride in his voice.
He looked left and right, then lowered his voice. “I have fuel canisters. Carloads of them.”
Hearing this, Cheng Xi's face showed surprise, and she couldn't help but ask, “An actual item? Things like that don't just easily become items. What kind of wicked thing did you do to get your hands on something like that?”
After all, the Anomalous Infection was quite strict in distinguishing between items and non-items. Only items could be carried across instances, and not just anything could be converted into an item.
Sun Hao waved his hand. “Keep it down, keep it down. It wasn't really that wicked. I was just playing an instance before, and seeing that we were about to lose, I couldn't accept it. So, I found some fuel canisters and basically had everyone set off fireworks together.”
“In the end, we still lost, but during the final evaluation, this thing became an item. The only drawback is that the whole batch counts as a single, one-time-use item. So, for minor skirmishes, I really couldn't bear to use it.”
His fingers swiped rapidly in midair a few times. “I'll send the fuel canisters to you right now. You just need to agree to accept them.”
“This is my class skill. Once you accept them, the fuel canisters will appear in your inventory. This way, we can split up, and no one has to lug around heavy fuel canisters.”
Fu Yan and Cheng Xi nodded.
Bai Ci stood to the side, watching them. Though she felt a bit helpless inwardly, she put on a puzzled expression. “Are you guys... all those people with special abilities? No wonder your names weren't changed.”
“You know about people with special abilities?” Sun Hao asked. He had only read about instances with special-ability world backgrounds on the forum, but had never participated in one.
Bai Ci shook her head. “I used to believe in science quite a bit, but now that I'm mysteriously trapped in a place like this, I have no choice but to believe that anomalies exist in this world.”
“Besides, you guys didn't try to hide your conversation from me at all, so I heard everything. Of course, I'm glad you trust me.”
“Right, right, that's exactly it.” Sun Hao nodded repeatedly. “Oh, let me see if I can share some with you. Hold on a second.”
Saying that, he tapped in the air again.
After tapping a few times, pausing, and tapping again, repeating the process several times, Sun Hao finally gave up. “No, it seems my skill can only be used on... people with special abilities like us. Sorry about that, Bai Jiu.”
It seems the code of my class skill is prioritized over Sun Hao's, Bai Ci thought. The system had locked down any attempt by other players to smuggle items to her through skills.
She showed a look of regret and said, “It's fine, I'm just not qualified. Is there anything else I can help with? I don't want to just keep relying on your protection.”
Rate on N.U.
