Narrow Road

After the preliminaries concluded, several teams had already left overnight. Aside from the ten teams that made it to the finals, the remaining teams were mostly those with players in need of medical treatment.

Taking into account that some teams might have life-and-death feuds with each other, Christopher arranged each team in different areas of the island that were far apart, and did not disclose any location information.

After comforting the team members, Shi Youchen left the lakeside villa and headed towards the other half of the island.

Although he told Yan Zhiyuan that the association team was most likely to win him over rather than target him at this time, there was another team on the island that he was somewhat concerned about - Mai Erjin's Zone D, and the four-person team that came out with her.

Among the ten teams that entered the finals, only the team led by the graceful woman was beyond his comprehension.

After defeating ten opponents alone in the arena match, Shi Youchen knew that everyone would investigate his background, but he was not worried at all that the family teams would cause trouble for him, nor did he think that the association team would choose to attack him at this time.

He was only concerned about that team, because he could only see chaos in those people - chaos with deviations in his predictions.

To reach the other half of the island, other routes besides teleporting directly required passing through a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff was a narrow path that Christopher called "Ghost Cry."

Shi Youchen was now standing in front of the ghost crying, and the sound of the squeezed wind was in his ears, just like a sharp howl.

"Are you sure you want to do it here?" Shi Youchen asked towards the open space in front.

A figure walked out from the ghost crying. It was a middle-aged man he had never seen before.

"You're quite brave, kid." The man's voice was like rolling over sand, very rough and grainy. "You knew you'd be targeted, yet you still dared to take this road."

"Are you afraid of dragging down your teammates?"

The future Shi Youchen saw in this person, like the team he cared about, was also a chaotic one. So he asked, "Did you kill those people in Area D?"

The man chuckled, "Can't you kill them? Didn't you kill all the people in Area C?"

Shi Youchen: "You followed me and killed those incapacitated people." That's why he was the only one out of Area C. "You're not a contestant, nor a team leader, and certainly not a member of the association."

"You're from the Maintenance Bureau."

Man: "Oh? Sometimes being too smart isn't a good thing."

Shi Youchen twitched his toes and said, "It seems the prizes in this competition are indeed very attractive, making some people willing to collude with hostile forces."

There is no one in power in the Maintenance Bureau, and there are more than one or two strong people. There have always been many secret struggles, but in the past, because there was a common association to deal with, there was no conflict on the surface.

Once the time comes to compete for interests, who cares about superficial harmony?

07 has a great reputation in the Maintenance Bureau, and it is well known that he has two apprentices.

Shi Youchen knew in his heart that this person definitely knew the relationship between him and 07.

"Stop talking nonsense and take action." The entire island is covered by an uninterrupted monitoring area, but there is no alarm at this time, which already explains a lot of problems.

Shi Youchen prepared for the worst.

Unexpectedly, the man suddenly put away his hostility and asked, "Boy, do you dare to make a bet with me?"

The moonlight was blocked for a moment by a large cloud passing by.

Shi Youchen: "What do you want to bet on?" The moment he finished speaking, he felt as if his shoulders were pressed down by something heavy, and his whole body became heavier.

The man chuckled and held out his hand. "Aren't you curious about who's colluding with me? I can tell you, he's one of the ten teams in the finals. Take a guess, maybe if you're right, he can even turn me against me."

Shi Youchen seemed to have heard a joke: "As long as I kill you, what else do I need to guess?"

The man's laughter turned sinister: "So, you don't want to bet with me anymore?"

Shi Youchen did not answer, which was considered as his consent.

After five seconds of silence, a golden scale suddenly appeared in the open space between the two of them.

"The trial begins." The man looked at Shi Youchen and said.

The two ends of the scale began to slowly rise and fall, gradually, the end toward the man sinking, while the end toward Shi Youchen rose. The clock in the middle of the scale rang three times.

The man whistled and said, "The trial is over, the verdict begins."

The entire face of the clock turned black, and some golden patterns appeared on it. Youchen couldn't see clearly from a distance, and could only vaguely see that the largest one was a heart.

The pointer began to rotate at a constant speed and soon pointed to one of the patterns.

The man didn't seem very satisfied after seeing this and tutted. At the same time, Shi Youchen felt a pain in his left hand. He raised it and found that his little finger had been cut off.

Shi Youchen frowned slightly as he looked at the jagged cross-section. The bone was still in his palm, but after losing the flesh of his pinky finger, it bulged out, looking eerie in the cold moonlight.

He watched expressionlessly as the flesh on the broken part grew back together, without saying a single word from beginning to end.

The man also noticed Shi Youchen's reaction and said, "As expected of his disciple, he's calm and ruthless enough to himself. But this time it was just one finger, but next time it won't be so simple."

"You, dare to bet with me?"

Shi Youchen put down his hand, looked up at him, and smiled: "Okay, let's make a bet."

...

Shi Youchen had lost part of his little finger, left ear and right foot, but he seemed to have no sense of pain and no fear, and still stood straight at the entrance of the Ghost Cry.

The man went from being contemptuous at first to having anger in his eyes, and finally couldn't help but increase the stakes during the fourth bet.

He said to Shi Youchen, "One of your teammates is making a deal with someone from another team without telling you."

Shi Youchen tilted his chin up a little and said, "Impossible."

This was the fourth time the scales had tipped in favor of the man, and the fourth time the golden pattern had appeared on the black disk.

This time, the pointer pointed to an eye.

Shi Youchen's vision instantly turned pitch black. This time, he lost his sight.

The man was finally satisfied and looked at the restored scale. He thought to himself: I have one more chance. This time I must find this guy's vital point and kill him in one fell swoop.

So he spoke: "Sasa, your teacher never intended to save you, and he has been lying to you."

Shi Youchen: “…” He was silent for a moment.

Shi Youchen: "I bet he will come."

The two ends of the scale began to rise and fall slowly, and this time the swing lasted particularly long, so long that the man had lost his patience. He took out a knife from his pocket and held it across Shi Youchen's neck.

Shi Youchen couldn't see. The balance swung more and more violently, but it never stopped. The man seemed to have not expected this to happen, his eyes full of surprise.

If the scales don't tip in his favor, it means - 07 will come.

But how is that possible?

"Fuck." The man planned to forcibly stop the trial and do it himself.

"It seems that I made the right bet and you lost." Shi Youchen didn't feel like he had lost anything anymore, so he understood.

The knife stabbed diagonally into Shi Youchen's neck, blood gushing out. The man twisted his hand hard twice.

The moonlight was momentarily blocked by passing clouds.

When the moonlight fell on the ground again, the two returned to their original distance.

One is at the entrance of Ghost Cry, and the other is inside Ghost Cry.

Shi Youchen's little finger, left ear, and right foot were all intact, and there was no knife stuck in his neck. His entire body was clean.

The man stood in the ghost's cry, looking at the pale moonlight on the tip of his shoe, and said, "He even taught you this. It seems that he really likes you."

Time goes back to the moment when the anchor was dropped.

In the entire maintenance bureau, only 07 could do this. But now he is no longer the only one.

"Then let's see how many times you can go back."

The man paused as he saw a shadow cast from above.

Ying Yungui landed between the two, stepped onto the golden scale, and faced Shi Youchen. "The domain has been successfully deployed."

"Don't try. Your anchor point doesn't exist in my domain." Ying Yungui said.

Then he turned to the man and said, "Take back your clone trick and let me be your real self." He instantly appeared in front of the man, locked onto him, and squeezed his entire body with air.

"Huh..." The man's face quickly turned purple and red, his eyeballs bulged out, and he stared at Ying Yungui. He couldn't even speak, let alone use his ability to save himself.

Shi Youchen's body was locked in place, and he could only watch helplessly as the man suffocated to death. His body fell to the ground, and his face slowly changed in the moonlight.

He was the team leader who came out of Area A with Luo Zhao.

The scale under his feet disappeared. Ying Yungui confirmed that the man had completely lost all vital signs, turned around and walked towards Shi Youchen.

"Zhao. Is that your name?" With every step closer, the tightness in his throat grew tighter. "I remember warning you this day that I won't let you go easily the next time we meet."

Shi Youchen's body remained immobile. Within Ying Yungui's domain, he was temporarily unable to break free from the spatial lock.

"Captain Ying, are you planning to kill me to pave the way for your own team?" Shi Youchen looked deeply at the man approaching. Although Ying Yungui's appearance was not exactly the same as before, his most obvious features had not changed.

What is completely different is the eyes.

In the past, Ying Yungui's eyes were usually bright, bold, and even somewhat endearingly affectionate. But now, Shi Youchen saw only gloom and cruelty.

Ying Yungui stopped in front of Shi Youchen, reached out, and pinched the upper part of his neck. He leaned in close and said, "You have a disgusting smell of wood ash. It smells a lot like one of my enemies."

Shi Youchen felt the hand on his neck gradually exerting force.

"I didn't find any information about your leader."

"Tell me, who are you?"

"Who sent it?"

Ying Yungui already understood that Sasa's special ability had nothing to do with the results of Lin Zhouze's analysis, because he deliberately guided it in that direction.

Ying Yungui's nails scratched a long bloody mark on the side of Shi Youchen's face and said, "Healing, right?"

Shi Youchen's eyes changed for a moment, and Ying Yungui, who was standing very close to him, caught the moment. "Why, are you surprised?"

At this moment, a trace of pain suddenly appeared on Ying Yungui's face, and he took a few steps back.

It was at this time that Shi Youchen broke through the space blockade, took a few steps forward, and slapped Ying Yungui in the heart.

But it didn't touch him. It was blocked by an invisible shield.

"You have indeed realized this." Shi Youchen had a complicated expression.

The Infinite Barrier, by continuously compressing and expanding the space around him, formed an uninterrupted, limitless shield on the surface of his body. Unless Ying Yungui actively touched him, nothing could touch him.

Shi Youchen's wrist was grabbed by Ying Yungui.

"No one should stand in the way."

"Whoever stands in the way will die."