Chapter 235 Second Retrospection
During this time, Ruka, Lebery, Carl, and Munakata stayed with her.
Qiao Susu personally arranged his funeral. Just 12 hours after Anubis' death, she collapsed while laying flowers at the funeral and was forced to log out.
After that, I returned to the real world, and this experience was not much different.
After returning to the game world, Qiao Susu learned that Luka had been trying to cross the death line in order to find her, and wanted to go beyond the game world to her world. However, he did not have the chance to see Lan Ze find the location of the bug, and died accidentally in a so-called "suicide".
The difference was that Libery didn't start a war this time. The night before Qiao Sui Sui logged out, Libery, upset that she'd been letting Zong Fang sleep in her room, had said some harsh words against her will. He'd planned to apologize to her the next day, but it all happened so suddenly, and she was gone.
For the next decade or so, he collapsed under the weight of guilt and self-blame, becoming extremely depressed. Unlike Labery in the previous timeline, he made completely different choices: he constantly donated, did good deeds, and took in the homeless, just to alleviate his guilt even a little bit. But in his dreams, he would still return to that scene.
He pulled her wrist and said with red eyes, "No matter how partial you are, there must be a limit. What did I do wrong? Tell me and I will change."
"So what's going on now? You're acquiescing to him accompanying you every day? Then you'll take him and those little snakes back to Sote and leave me and the children in Osland!"
Liberi couldn't get over it no matter what. He slapped himself hard when he missed her the most, and even didn't dare to see her for many years.
Carl's situation is not much better than his, roughly the same as in the previous timeline, alcoholism and hallucinogen addiction.
This time, it was Zongfang and Luka who preserved her body in a crystal coffin, keeping her under extremely low temperatures.
The Qiao Suisui on this timeline gradually merges with the Qiao Suisui at this moment.
She slowly lowered her hand from her forehead. Her whole body was soaked in cold sweat. The sounds in her ears gradually returned. Liberi was nervously checking her condition.
"Sui Sui, look at me, Sui Sui, what's wrong with you? Don't scare me."
Qiao Susu looked at the man in front of her and only then discovered a detail that she had not noticed just now because she was too happy. There was a shallow wrinkle between his eyebrows, which was the mark left by the habitual frown caused by years of melancholy and annoyance.
She gently stroked the lines with her hand, but her eyes had calmed down.
Ash
"I'm here. Sui Sui, are you feeling unwell? Do you have a headache?"
Liberi held her tightly, not daring to let go for a moment.
Qiao Suisui raised her eyes, took a deep breath, and then gave him a gentle hug, "Ash, see you later."
"What?"
While Liberi was still trying to react to her words, he saw the person in his arms break free and run outside.
Ignoring Liberi's shouts behind her, Qiao Suisui used the aircraft to return to the ruins again.
She took out the time rewind device for the second time, adjusted her breathing, and pressed it without hesitation.
This time, she knew what the problem was, so she chose to go back to an earlier point in time.
Southern battlefield.
The night sky is dotted with stars.
Qiao Susu opened her eyes, looked around, and confirmed that the underground experimental base was under her feet. At this time on this timeline, she should be searching for clues down there with Carl.
Instead of running to the entrance, she found a relatively high place, took out the three-claw lasso gun from the system, and fired at that place.
With a "click", the three-claw iron hook firmly hooked the rock above. She wrapped the rope around her hand twice with one hand and climbed up in a few quick moves.
Qiao Suisui stood on the high ground and looked down at the entire area.
Time passed minute by minute. She calmed herself down, squatted motionless on an inconspicuous high ground, and waited quietly.
There was silence all around. After more than ten minutes, she finally saw a familiar figure appear in her field of vision.
The silver-haired man approached with swift steps, his movements silent and ghostlike. He expertly located the underground entrance and positioned a pre-prepared mini-explosive device. This was a Federation-developed explosive, no bigger than a palm, yet incredibly powerful, capable of causing an explosion within a 500-meter radius centered on the device.
Qiao Sui Sui directly took out a sniper rifle from the system. At this moment, she was lying on the ground, watching Zong Fang's actions below through the scope.
Her fingertips rested on the trigger, aiming for 'Munakata's' head, her hand trembling slightly.
Even though she knew this wasn't the real Zong Fang, but Wei Shou in disguise, she still couldn't make up her mind when it came time to pull the trigger. Looking at Zong Fang's face, as long as she imagined blowing his head off, she couldn't calm down.
She let go of the trigger, lowered her head and took a deep breath, then continued to lie down, looking through the scope, trying to distract herself with other things.
She suddenly remembered that it was during the Southern battlefield that Carl liked to tell her bedtime stories.
While other people's bedtime stories were about princes and princesses, his were about the use and maintenance of sniper rifles, the essentials of shooting, the angles and heights of ambush positions, and so on. Whenever Qiao Suisui heard these things, she would fall asleep, just like when her politics teacher lectured on Marx in school. Karl made her bedtime stories profound and technical, ensuring they were boring, because she always fell asleep.
"The first thing to do is to choose a sniper rifle that suits you. I like the M40. It looks cool, isn't heavy, and lets you just run away without any pressure. Then, choose the right bullets, as different bullets have different effects."
"Check your gun and scope to make sure they're all good. Clean the barrel to make sure there's no dirt in it."
"Find a secluded spot, preferably one that's high and has a good view."
Karl’s voice seemed to be right next to her ear. She closed her eyes, calmed down, and imagined that he was by her side at the moment, holding her hand and teaching her.
"Place the target on the crosshairs of the scope and try to keep yourself steady. Control your breathing and usually shoot at the end of your exhale because that's when you're steadiest."
Qiao Susu raised her eyes, her eyes filled with determination and resoluteness. She looked at the crosshairs in the scope and controlled her breathing.
"When you pull the trigger, be slow and don't pull it hard. This way the recoil will be less. After you fire the gun, keep looking at the target to see if you hit it."
Breathing in. Her slender fingertips slowly curled around the trigger, aiming for the back of Munakata's head.
"The recoil will affect your next aim, so you have to kill with one shot. Don't shoot unless you are absolutely sure."
Exhale.
'Bang--'
Just before Zong Fang was about to detonate the device, Qiao Susu shot him in the head.
The bullet passed through the man's brow, and blood instantly flowed through the blood hole in his brow and covered his handsome face.
Qiao Suisui peered through the scope and calmly confirmed she had hit the target accurately. Without hesitation, she quickly stood up, deftly wrapped her gun around the rope, firmly wedging the muzzle above it, forming an impromptu zipline, and then decisively leaped down from the heights.
Gravity pulled her like a nimble night walker, the gun in her hand steadily dragging her down the rope. The wind whistled in her ears, and her figure drew a sharp arc in the air, swift and graceful.
In just a few seconds, she landed steadily on the ground, her feet touching the ground lightly without making a single sound. Qiao Sui Sui stood up straight and stepped forward to examine Zong Fang's body. The man before her was now reduced to a puddle of deflated human skin.
She knew that Wei Shou must be observing the movements here from the dark, and she had to give Karl and herself some hints. But she couldn't show up directly.
She saw many metal pipes embedded in the wall at the entrance, so she hit the pipes vigorously with the gun.
The pipe connected to the entire underground laboratory. She had seen the structure inside, so she was sure that the sound transmitted by the metal would reach directly underground.
When the fourth knock came, a hard object pressed against the back of Qiao Susu's head.
Her movements froze in mid-air, and she slowly turned around, only to see Wei Shou pointing a gun at her head.
(End of this chapter)
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