Chapter 142 The Racing God of Mount Akina "Next time, let's wait a little longer, until..."

The little motorcycle followed at a distance that was neither too close nor too far.

007 sat quietly in the back seat, no longer as flamboyant as when he was in the uncle's car, but instead carefully tracing Jiang Yang's back with focused eyes.

The young man's slightly thin back was taut, but his features were more resolute and upright than when he was 18. He gently wrapped his arms around the other person's waist, rested his chin on the other person's shoulder, and said in a voice that was muffled by the wind: "I can ride too. I'll give you a ride next time."

Jiang Yang didn't respond, but slightly raised her eyebrows and met 007's gaze in the rearview mirror.

When he looked up again, the uncle's motorcycle in front of him suddenly turned onto the road. He quickly stepped on the gas to catch up, only to see the uncle weave his way into a gas station, apparently because his motorcycle had run out of gas.

The old Jetta had high fuel consumption. Before the trial, they arranged to meet Nan Yi 008 at a gas station. Jiang Yang waited in front of the car. 007 got out of the car, walked around, and when he came back, he shook his head at him, obviously not finding the two of them.

According to the navigation, Wutou City is a very large area, so it's normal to not be able to find it for a while.

Fortunately, the communication interface between 007 and 008 is still working properly, except that 007 sent a message to 008 but did not receive a response for a long time.

A few minutes later, the uncle filled up the gas tank and got back on the road, and Jiang Yang also twisted the accelerator and set off again.

However, this time, the uncle turned into a small park after walking for a short while.

This time, Jiang Yang didn't go in. He didn't know what the park entrance looked like in the uncle's eyes, but in his and 007's eyes, the park entrance shone with an unusual blue light in the mist.

The sound of the motorcycle engine gradually faded into the distance, and the uncle's figure disappeared into the thick fog; any further and the sound would be lost.

007 murmured, "Is that the real world over there?"

"Maybe..."

Jiang Yang replied thoughtfully, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Perhaps we can give it a try."

Miniature camera: A type of prop, its lens exposes all falsehoods.

【Instructions for use 1: Press the shutter button, and all non-human creatures will be captured in the lens for 1 minute】

[Instructions for use 2: Press the shutter button, and all falsehoods will be exposed under its lens; the effect will take effect once they disappear.]

When Jiang Yang was probing the uncle's identity, he had considered using a camera, but after thinking it over, he felt that taking pictures of people was too abrupt. But now he no longer had that concern.

Jiang Yang took out the camera from the panel, aimed it at the bright light, and pressed the shutter.

Nothing has changed; the door connecting "No Man's Land" and "the real world" still exists.

In a daze, Jiang Yang seemed to hear a few calls coming from afar.

I couldn't hear it very clearly.

It sounded like someone was calling his name.

Xiao Yang...

Our little Yang...

The voice grew clearer and clearer; Jiang Yang had never even dreamed of this person.

He slowly closed his eyes, letting the person's voice linger in his ears; it was very gentle.

Her gentleness made him unable to help but miss her.

At first it looked the same, then it looked completely different, changing so much that he could barely grasp it anymore, leaving only a heavy...sadness...

007 took in his changes, pursed his lips, and asked with difficulty, "If we can go back from here, do you want to go back?"

Jiang Yang quickly pulled himself out of that slightly immersive emotion and shook his head with perfect clarity.

"As long as the no-man's-land exists, as long as the tower exists, I will be pulled back sooner or later no matter where I go."

The only solution is to destroy the no man's land...

A complex expression flashed beneath the 007 mask. Jiang Yang adjusted the mask on her face, turned around, and walked towards the motorcycle: "Let's go."

"Tsk tsk, what a pity."

The crisp sound of applause successfully stopped Jiang Yang from leaving. The two of them became alert at the same time and looked at the source of the sound with great vigilance.

Even from the judge's perspective, this trial was very limited; 007 was not included in the list of players being tried.

But an unexpected figure emerged from the thick fog.

It's the Hanged Man!

Five guilds participated in the auction. Apart from Mouguang and Litanwei, it is unknown which guild's spot the Hanged Man occupied.

Following the Hanged Man was Mr. V, whom Jiang Yang had met a few times in Blackrock City.

Mr. V wore a judge's mask, but his tuxedo was particularly eye-catching. Ji Yang had mentioned to him before that two judges had been added to the bug fixing department, so it seemed that Mr. V had come in as a judge monitoring the Hanged Man.

"Long time no see, Jiang Yang."

The Hanged Man gracefully placed his right hand lightly on his left shoulder and bowed in a standard gentleman's bow. Mr. V did the same, but remained silent.

Jiang Yang replied calmly, "So?"

"So I came to catch up with you."

"No need," Jiang Yang said, not intending to continue dealing with the Hanged Man. After refusing him without any politeness, she turned to 007 and said, "Get in the car and let's go."

"If he just leaves like this, what will happen to him?"

The Hanged Man chuckled and waved his hand, and suddenly the reflection of the Well of Despair appeared in the mist.

In the well water, the uncle's face was flushed red from the water pressure as he desperately struggled.

A well of despair where time flows backward, an unbreakable prison, where the Hanged Man enjoys his playthings and his own struggles and sacrifices.

"Are you fucking crazy?!"

Jiang Yang's roar was accompanied by a trembling, broken voice. 007 swiftly grabbed his wrist, the force in his palm steady but not rough.

007's gaze fell on the Hanged Man's metal mask, the corners of the mask's mouth sculpted with extreme irony. He reminded him, neither humble nor arrogant, "He's just an ordinary man."

"So what?"

The Hanged Man's mask simultaneously crackled into a playful smile, his fingertips slowly tapping the back of his hand twice, his tone dismissive: "007, have you been spending too much time with Jiang Yang and can't tell the difference anymore?"

"The living and the dead."

Jiang Yang clenched his fist, his knuckles making a soft clicking sound from the force: "What exactly do you want!"

"He can hold on for another ten minutes."

The Hanged Man casually uttered these words, as if they were about something insignificant.

The smile on the mask vanished, replaced by scrutiny and indifference. The Hanged Man asked, "Can we catch up now?"

"There's no need to talk to him, I'll take you away."

Unable to fathom the Hanged Man's intentions, 007 instinctively stepped in front of Jiang Yang, shielding him behind him.

"You know me, I won't just leave like this."

Jiang Yang brushed past 007, accidentally bumping into 007's shoulder and swaying. He straightened his back again as he staggered and walked step by step toward the Hanged Man.

“Jiang Yang, Jiang Yang,” the Hanged Man sighed meaningfully, the patterns on his mask flowing with his voice, full of irony: “So many years have passed, and you are still as soft-hearted as ever.”

Jiang Yang stopped in front of him: "You called me to catch up, but you didn't come here to talk about these things, did you?"

The Hanged Man shrugged nonchalantly: "Fine, if you don't want to hear this, then I'll get straight to the point: have you really lost your memory?"

Jiang Yang remained expressionless: "Sorry, I don't understand what you mean."

“What I mean is,” the Hanged Man said, enunciating each word clearly, “I suspect your amnesia is fake.”

"..."

Jiang Yang's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

After Train Zero ended, the Hanged Man reported him to the bug fix department once, but I didn't expect that he still hasn't given up.

He knew all too well what was hidden in those few memories, but the Hanged Man's repeated persistence led him to unexpectedly catch a strange clue even on the verge of being exposed.

Ji Yang is 007.

Yuejiang is 008.

Xiong Bingxin has now become a high-level agent.

So... what is the Hanged Man's hidden identity...?

The trials in No Man's Land are based on each person's own real-life experiences, modified, adjusted, and exacerbated.

Aside from accepting mercenary missions like Mou Guang, or certain specific trials issued by the Tower, it's difficult for players without real-world connections to get involved in the same trial.

His life revolved entirely around Un Entertainment and the Bright Sanatorium, so he rarely had the opportunity to go to trial with the Hanged Man.

To be more precise, apart from Ji Yang and Nan Ke, he had almost no one else in the entire No Man's Land.

So what did the Hanged Man use to reminisce with him?

Jiang Yang slightly lifted her eyelids and asked in return, "Then what do you want to get from my memories?"

The Hanged Man: "Jiang Yang, is this another one of your clever tricks?"

Jiang Yang: "No, I just don't understand what you're thinking about."

"I do have amnesia."

"Using my talent to seal my memories within the rules shouldn't be a problem, right?"

The Hanged Man pressed, "Why seal away your memories?"

Jiang Yang's fingertip stopped on the memory card in the [Memory of Hatred] panel.

"Don't you think it's ridiculous to ask someone who has lost their memory this question? But it's okay, I added a note above, so I can tell you."

"Ex-boyfriend, Wu Yibai, disgusting."

The trial plaque shattered for the first time when he had just graduated from high school, and Wu Yibai was his boyfriend at the time.

To be precise, they were his monitors.

However, Wu Yibai used their relationship to interfere with the trial, and he was drawn into Un Entertainment, which led to the scenes that Nan Ke later witnessed.

The boy stood on the stage wearing a tailcoat. The spotlight was very bright, and the coils of hemp rope wrapped around the tailcoat were clearly visible.

He must have been 17 years old at that time.

Wu Yibai was utterly disgusting.

[Akina Mountain Speed ​​King Observation Deck - Jiang Yang's Perspective]

"Damn, who still remembers the days at Un Entertainment?"

"Wow! There's a sequel to the story we followed back then!"

"..."

The discussion in the observation room was lively, and the expression on the upside-down man's face visibly changed.

Jiang Yang keenly noticed his loss of composure, her gaze quickly sweeping over 007's location. With a firm resolve, she suddenly exuded an aggressive aura: "Or is it that, Wu Yibai, you're afraid I'll forget you?"

The mask on the upside-down man's face flashed a blinding red light, and Jiang Yang's composure vanished. He knew he had made the right bet.

At the same time, 007 circled around behind the Hanged Man, taking a step forward to continue drawing his attention: "Speak up, Wu Yibai!"

"Jiang Yang, you deserve to die."

The Hanged Man stared at Jiang Yang with a sinister look, his voice filled with gritted teeth and hatred. He raised his hand and waved his command through the mist: "Kill him."

In an instant, everyone on the field moved.

007 released the Chains of Desire from his hand, which, with a sharp gust of wind, wrapped one end around the Hanged Man's ankle and swung the other end straight at him.

The Hanged Man instinctively raised his hand to block, but the back of his hand bumped into the white rose hanging on the chain.

The Fool's cooldown period hasn't expired, but the new function was activated after the talent was upgraded to S rank.

When used a second time in a short period of time, one cannot choose a person from the memories to replace the Hanged Man. In other words, one cannot replace the Hanged Man in 007's memories by reading 007's memories. The Hanged Man must touch Rose for it to count.

So he deliberately drew the Hanged Man's attention to create an opportunity for 007.

Before Jiang Yang could press the substitute button, at the Hanged Man's command, a knife was plunged into his heart from behind.

With a loud bang.

Jiang Yang fell straight down.

"Huang Er!"

It's 007's voice.

"it's over."

The Hanged Man, high above, was proclaiming his sentence, and Jiang Yang heard the waves of despair rising high from the Well of Despair.

My vision blurred, my consciousness faded, and a sharp pain in my heart surged like a tidal wave, each beat accompanied by a tearing agony.

007 knelt before him, and he desperately wanted to ask, "Was it Huang Er who killed him...? Has Huang Er also taken sides...?"

But the taste of rusty blood stuck in his throat was unpleasant, and he couldn't even manage a complete syllable with his weak breath.

007 is crying.

Don't cry...

007's hands were trembling.

Everyone dies eventually...

007 took out a pill and put it in his mouth.

It's so bitter...

Jiang Yang moved her tongue weakly, and blood gushed out, washing the pill away.

007 forced himself to remain calm, scraped the blood off the pill with his fingertips, carefully crushed it, and brought it to Jiang Yang's lips, coaxing her to feed it to him.

"Yangyang, be a good girl and take your medicine. I'll take you to find 008 in a little while."

Not far away, the upside-down man let out a sneer, as if he had already foreseen Jiang Yang's fate.

He turned to Mr. V beside him and raised his chin: "I gave you a chance. If you can't bring yourself to do it next time, don't blame me for judging you as worthless."

Mr. V followed, turned his head and took a deep look at the young man lying on the ground, his Adam's apple bobbing: "He's a good man."

During the trial in Blackrock City, Jiang Yang had helped him. He always distinguished between gratitude and resentment, so when the Hanged Man asked him to kill Jiang Yang before he came, he frankly said that he could not do it.

That's why the Hanged Man arranged for Huang Er to join him.

The Hanged Man clapped his hands, which were still damp with dew from white roses. His tone was light and airy, yet it carried an indescribable cruelty: "Who doesn't want to be a good person? But people are born different from one another. In the Land of No Man, only by having nothing and wanting nothing can one survive."

Huang Er silently followed behind the two, and the three figures quickly disappeared into the fog.

007 finally finished feeding the medicine, and the bleeding barely stopped, but Jiang Yang's breathing was still weak. The most urgent task was to find 008.

He took off his coat and wrapped Jiang Yang up tightly before picking her up. Once in the car, he carried her like a child, sitting her face to face with him.

Jiang Yang leaned weakly against him. He smiled bitterly and said he would give Jiang Yang a ride, and that was it.

The motorcycle sped along, and Jiang Yang, nestled in 007's arms, felt a bit more awake than before.

The biting cold seemed to penetrate everywhere.

It's so cold...

"Cough...cough cough..."

He hunched his shoulders, his voice weak, and asked blankly, "Winter is over, so why is it still so cold?"

...

Actually, it was only just after the Lantern Festival.

007 held the handlebars with one hand and pulled Jiang Yang closer to him with the other.

"Next time, let's wait a little longer, until springtime when the wind is warm, before going to trial, okay?"