Chapter 3 A Loud Bang in the Sky
"..." Li Ziyue was silent for a while, "Nothing."
"The inspector is temporarily paralyzed. Let's go down first. Staying in the warehouse will cause the space to collapse again." Li Ziyue turned on the ventilation fan, stepped on the stacked wooden boxes below, and said calmly.
Sun Yuancheng subconsciously followed and climbed out. When he was about to leave the vent, he suddenly said, "Brother, you are weird."
There was a hint of vigilance in his eyes.
"What?" Li Ziyue turned his back and didn't look at him. He urged him again in a flat tone, "Come down first."
Sun Yuancheng rarely responded. Instead, he shrank back behind the ventilation duct. He looked nervously at Yang Hu, who had just dealt with the inspector and was now leaning in the corner staring at the two of them darkly, and spoke in a low voice.
"You don't believe Yang Hu. We hid in the ventilation duct before, and Yang Hu didn't find us. Although the space will collapse, this little time is not a big deal. Why would we take the initiative to come down and be discovered by Yang Hu..."
"Yang Hu helped us get rid of the inspectors. He is our savior. What are you talking about?" Li Ziyue laughed twice and looked at Yang Hu. "I'm really sorry. I wrongly blamed you before."
Although Yang Hu said nothing, his expression was much more relaxed and the atmosphere was not as tense as before.
Li Ziyue changed the subject and said to Sun Yuancheng: "You are smarter now. You don't believe me like before, but——"
He only said half of his words when he suddenly reached out and grabbed Sun Yuancheng's wrist, then exerted force.
Sun Yuancheng was caught off guard and was dragged out by him. When he landed, he was still in a daze. Before he could stand firmly, Li Ziyue slapped him hard from behind. He staggered and ran several meters away.
"Run," Li Ziyue leaped to his side with a stern look, "Yang Hu is a fake!"
"What?!"
"There is an inconspicuous fingernail on the back of him." Li Ziyue threw the scimitar in his hand backwards. The scimitar brushed past the neck of Yang Hu who was chasing them. Yang Hu subconsciously turned his face away, just enough for Sun Yuancheng to see the abnormality.
Sure enough, a transparent nail inexplicably grew on the back of Yang Hu's neck, which was half-covered by his clothes. In the light from outside the door, the nail flashed slightly and was easy to see.
Yang Hu, as his name suggests, is a sturdy man over two meters tall. Unless he deliberately exposes himself, most people cannot see the abnormality on the back of his neck. Fortunately, Li Ziyue and the other man were hiding in a high place, and Yang Hu had no intention of covering up his physical defect during the battle with the patroller, which allowed Li Ziyue to discover it.
Li Ziyue retracted his scimitar and took Sun Yuancheng to move flexibly between the rooms.
“Brother… since we know Yang Hu is a fake person, why don’t we just kill him, so that we can have one more confirmed player…”
"I do think," Li Ziyue said, "Don't forget that this game is time-limited. Yang Hu's strength should not be underestimated. I'm not sure if I can win or lose in a head-on fight with him, but it will definitely take a lot of time. It's better to save other players than to use this time to exchange for an uncertain result."
"So are we just going to keep running away? That's too cowardly..."
Li Ziyue paused, glanced at Sun Yuancheng, and laughed: "You are very similar to me in the past."
"It's okay to be a coward, as long as I can get through in the end," he lowered his eyelashes and spoke in a low voice, "It's better than a rash attack that resulted in the death of three of my four companions on the spot."
Sun Yuancheng was stunned, obviously realizing that Li Ziyue had something else to say.
Li Ziyue said nothing more, but tightened his grip on Sun Yuancheng's wrist and led him into an empty room: "We're here, in the hall."
The hall was as big as a small gymnasium, but there weren't many things placed inside. The white-painted walls still had a pungent smell, probably because they had not been ventilated for years. There were a few old wooden benches and long tables scattered around, and a one-meter-long and -wide square electronic screen was hung on the ceiling at the innermost end of the hall.
Because they were too far away, Sun Yuancheng only knew that there was something on the electronic screen but couldn't see clearly what it was.
"Once a fake person enters the hall, his combat power will drop sharply, but the player will not be affected. That's why Yang Hu won't enter the hall. Once he enters, only death will be waiting for him."
Li Ziyue explained calmly.
"Then why don't we stay in the hall forever?" Sun Yuancheng said happily.
"If a player stays in a room for too long, the room will self-destruct, and the lobby is no exception. We came to the lobby for two reasons. One is to temporarily avoid Yang Hu's pursuit, and the other is that I want to understand the current battle situation."
Li Ziyue walked slowly towards the electronic screen hanging in the hall. "There are electronic screens hanging in every room here, but the screens in those places only serve as a reminder of the exchange of identities between pseudo-humans and players. Only the electronic screen in the hall will display the specific number of pseudo-humans and real players in the game."
He suddenly stopped moving and then let out a long sigh.
"Sun Yuancheng, did you hear any broadcast just now?"
Sun Yuancheng didn't understand and just scratched his head: "No."
"That's a blessing in disguise." Li Ziyue looked disgusted and looked towards the corner of the electronic screen.
[Beijing time: 5:45]
There are still fifteen minutes until the entire copy ends at six o'clock.
"Brother, what's wrong?" Sun Yuancheng also came over.
"Each hour in the game is evenly divided into two halves. The first half hour is the 'long night'. If a pseudo-human or player is killed during this period, there will be no system announcement. The second half hour is the 'long day'. There will be real-time announcements of the killing of pseudo-humans or players."
"The survival data of players and pseudo-humans on the electronic screen in the lobby is updated every [half an hour]."
"Right now, there is bad news and good news. Time is running out, so I won't let you choose which one to hear first." Li Ziyue turned around and patted Sun Yuancheng on the shoulder. "The bad news is--"
He pointed at the electronic screen, which read in red letters:
[As of 5:30 Beijing time]
[Number of surviving players: VI]
[Number of surviving pseudo-humans: VI]
The number of players and pseudo-people is the same, and the situation is deadlocked.
"If the number is still the same at six o'clock, we will enter overtime and the game time will be extended by one hour. The original six o'clock end of the game will become seven o'clock."
"Oh," Sun Yuancheng didn't think it was difficult, "It's just an extra hour. It's not like we can't go out."
"No," Li Ziyue shook his head slowly, his expression serious, "I'm a student."
"Ah?" Sun Yuancheng blurted out, "Give you two hundred?"
"Ouch!" Sun Yuancheng said aggrievedly as his forehead hit him. "What's wrong, brother?"
"I am a student who has to stand in the classroom to read at 6:30 in the morning. I cannot accept the extension of the copy time."
"Oh...ah?" Sun Yuancheng didn't understand and was greatly shocked.
"Back to the topic, the good news is that now we know that Yang Hu is a fake person."
"Didn't you think we were too cowardly to keep running away?" Li Ziyue coughed, the sharp blade rubbed against his slender fingertips, the smooth blade reflected half of his graceful profile, his eyes were slightly curved, but the smile did not reach his eyes, "Sometimes it's not that we don't want to fight, it's that the time has not come yet."
His brows were cold, and he held the scimitar in his hand, with the tip of the knife lightly sinking into his palm.
"There are 14 minutes left, which is enough to deal with Yang Hu."
"But brother, we don't know where Yang Hu is."
"I know." Li Ziyue walked out of the hall, "Apart from being more brutal than ordinary people, the fake people are no different from ordinary people in terms of logical thinking.
"Now the number of pseudo-humans is equal to that of real players. If the pseudo-humans want to win, they must kill one more player."
"We know that Yang Hu is a fake person, and Yang Hu also knows that we are players. If a player stays in a room for too long, the room will automatically collapse and he must leave the room."
"So now you think," Li Ziyue pushed open the door of the hall without hesitation. Before he took a step, a violent gust of wind blew towards him. Li Ziyue leaned slightly, still smiling, "Where will Yang Hu be?"
The long broad knife and the short blade collided with each other in the dim corridor in an instant. A brief but bright spark lit up where the blades met, and the sound of "swish" was heard continuously. At the same time, the sound of cloth rubbing against the air at high speed sounded around people one after another.
[Oh my god, I didn't watch for two minutes, how come they started fighting? Stop it, if you want to fight, go to the dance studio (not)]
[Friends in the live broadcast room, deduct 1 to help Brother Li accumulate points. After the dungeon is over, let Brother Li go to the points store to buy a famous sword Siming and a resurrection armor]
[Oh my god! Which zone is in front? What's its name? Let's play together when we have time. This is Sun Wukong in the Chinese server.]
[Do you have any heart? Brother Li is already in danger of death, why are you still farming? I want to come too. I am the village symbol Zhu Bajie. Big brother, please take care of the second junior brother.]
Although the scimitar is small, it is flexible. Li Ziyue moved his hand holding the handle slightly, pointed the tip of the knife downward, and stabbed it down fiercely, just hitting the blade of Yang Hu's butcher knife. Under the impact of the two forces, both sides felt numb in the knuckles. Li Ziyue took advantage of the momentum and had a slight advantage. Then, while Yang Hu was buffering, he crouched down, took a step with his long legs, and swept across Yang Hu's knee.
Yang Hu was unable to react in time, his legs went limp, and he was immediately kicked to the ground by Li Ziyue.
However, Yang Hu was no pushover. He quickly blocked his throat with his arms, then used the wall to kick his legs and flipped backwards, separating himself five meters from Li Ziyue. In the blink of an eye, Li Ziyue appeared in front of him again.
The scimitar cut across, cutting half of Yang Hu's arm. Blood gushed out instantly. The knife was so sharp that the eerie white bones could be vaguely seen between the deep red flesh and blood.
Five minutes left.
Li Ziyue muttered to himself.
At this moment, the system announcement sounded again in the corridor.
[The pseudo-human is confirmed dead, data is being updated, and humans will be resurrected soon]
Li Ziyue's eyes focused. Since a new player has been resurrected, he doesn't need to continue fighting.
Unexpectedly, a familiar sound of running came from a distance. Li Ziyue was stunned and stopped his attack temporarily.
The sword comes out before the figure appears.
A slender iron knight's sword stabbed sharply from behind. The passage was narrow, so Li Ziyue had to step back temporarily and look up.
The whole body was surrounded by smooth and cold iron sheets, except for a gap at the waist that had not yet been repaired. The electric wires wrapped around it occasionally flashed dazzling flames as the object moved.
It was the patrolman who was knocked down by Yang Hu earlier.
Li Ziyue gradually increased the strength of his grip on the scimitar, his face as gloomy as water.
Normally, an inspector would need at least two hours to recover after being paralyzed, so why did he recover so quickly this time?!
In the current three-way confrontation, it would not be easy for him to escape. In this case—
There are still two minutes left. It will not be a problem to deal with Yang Hu, but there will be a disruptive inspector in the middle.
Li Ziyue took a deep breath. It was a rare stalemate.
The corners of his eyes were red. In such an extremely dangerous situation, Li Ziyue's heart was pounding like thunder. He could truly feel the blood flowing in his body at a high speed. His whole body was hot yet numb.
This was not a tremor of fear, but a long-lost excitement.
The current situation is not unsolvable, it just requires a price to be paid.
Li Ziyue slowly closed his eyes.
One minute left.
He felt all the power gathered in his palm, and the handle of the knife against his palm actually began to turn red and hot...
Thirty seconds left.
"Bang!"
Suddenly, there was a sharp whistling sound in the distance, which was as sharp and piercing as thunder and lightning and was imperceptible.
Wherever the sound passed, two sounds of something breaking were heard in succession, one crisp, like the collision of iron, and the other dull, like the friction of a blade cutting a throat.
Blood splattered at Li Ziyue's feet, and Yang Hu's strong body fell down.
[The pseudo-human is confirmed dead, data is being updated, and humans will be resurrected soon]
With two "clangs", the inspector fell to the ground and became paralyzed again.
Li Ziyue suddenly opened his eyes. The scimitar was still in his hand. The previous attack was not caused by him.
Who is it? !
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