Chapter 662: You Play Me, I Play You

Bai Mu Yun gritted his teeth; in reality he had once met this world's Lei Zhao, and the version of him in the game was already dead, dying in full view of everyone.

We can't let the Special Department discover the current Lu Mu, that only—

Bai Mu Yun stood up, without deliberately crouching, stepped out of the shadows, and all the horns on his head and every nonhuman feature were concealed by illusion, including the wounds that Lu Mu had inflicted.

"I‑is it you......?!"

Lei Zhao was stunned the moment he saw him.

He expected Lu Mu to appear, but the one who materialized before him was Bai Mu Yun, and moreover, this world's Bai Mu Yun?

But those students said the person who fought Lu Mu clearly grew a pair of horns!

Lei Zhao immediately looked up at Bai Mu Yun's head and, of course, saw nothing; he tried to employ his Aberrant Arts, and if Bai Mu Yun was using illusion, some flaw would show under his energy shock.

Unless Bai Mu Yun has already become stronger than him.

"We meet again......" Bai Mu Yun still tried to put on a front, restraining Lei Zhao and leading him elsewhere, but Lei Zhao shattered his illusion the moment he opened his mouth.

"How could you be together with Lu Mu?"

An eerie silence.

The two stared at each other, and after both spoke, they fell back into the same eerie silence.

A flood of thoughts flashed through Bai Mu Yun's mind; many fragmented pieces of information clicked together. In fact, they hadn't hidden much from each other, only because they were confident the other could never appear in this world, they never considered the least‑probable possibility.

"...... Before that, answer me a question first."

Bai Mu Yun's eyes narrowed slightly, a faint golden glint flashing in his black pupils.

"Which Lei Zhao are you? Did you come from the game...... to reality?"

The words landed, and Lei Zhao was taken aback.

He looked at the cold, sharp eyes before him, which made him equate this Bai Mu Yun with the Bai Mu Yun he knew.

But wasn't he already dead—?

In other words, they were both the people who originally knew each other, yet they forced a show in front of Yang Yixie of what it means to be mutually unknown, and what it means to feel like old friends at first sight.

Oh, back then, to win the trust of Yang Yixie's mother, they had also staged such a scene in front of Lei Zhao.

Looking at it that way, Bai Mu Yun's schedule is really full.

No need to say more; each other's reactions are the best answer.

"...... How did you come to work for the Special Department?"

Bai Mu Yun lowered his voice, shrank further into the shadows, and looked at the dust and grime covering his body—either from the recent fight with Lu Mu or from hastily dragging Lu Mu to a hiding place.

A bit overwhelming.

Lei Zhao was silent for a moment, then recounted how he had been swept into the temporal vortex of Tianmian City and directly arrived in the real world.

By that account, Lei Zhao even arrived in this world before Bai Mu Yun.

Bai Mu Yun's eyes darkened slightly, his gaze landing on Lei Zhao's uniform.

He never witnessed Lei Zhao at his most spirited, during the few years when he still served the Church. When he got to know Lei Zhao, Lei Zhao had already become completely disillusioned with the Church; at that time, Fang Zhiyan admired Lei Zhao's physical qualities and wanted him to invite Lei Zhao to join an experiment.

After all, Lei Zhao was strong enough then, but the death of the city's citizens left him despondent; the once spirited youth grew a scruffy beard, his eyes dimmed, as if his soul had been drained.

Even after allying with the Dome, Lei Zhao could not tolerate Fang Zhiyan's callous disregard for lives, yet his attitude toward Bai Mu Yun, who was being used by Fang Zhiyan as a weapon, was much better.

Neither Lei Zhao nor Bai Mu Yun enjoy being mired in the Dome's factional struggles, but they have no choice; in their spare time, they can occasionally find a place to share a few drinks.

It started as a chance meeting in a bar, but later, people inexplicably multiplied, only to dwindle down to a few in the end.

"........ Lu Mu cannot fall into official hands," Bai Mu Yun said, his eyes fixed on Lei Zhao.

"His current condition is very off; he seems to have completely lost his sanity and is rampaging. I saw many injection marks on his arm, probably just released from some laboratory."

Lei Zhao's brow twitched, but he gave no rebuttal, because Bai Mu Yun's words were indeed factual.

This sudden surge of Mutation, with Mutation disasters erupting throughout the city like a natural calamity, fell upon the city, yet Lu Mu bore obvious signs of human tampering.

Who hid Lu Mu for so long, and what experiments did they perform on him?

"...... So how do you plan to deal with him? I know you don't understand the experiments, or do you have a way to suppress him?"

Bai Mu Yun glanced down at Lu Mu's feet; he couldn't assess Lu Mu's condition, so he could only have Yang Yixie try. The problem is, although Yang Yixie is nominally Fang Zhiyan's student, as far as he knows Yang Yixie mainly studies Rune weapons.

Heh, it's laughable; Fang Zhiyan only ever took two students—a Ying Duo and a Xing Ke—and neither inherited his mad research project.

"In any case, we must never let him fall into official hands. As for the rest...... we can only wait for him to wake up and see if he regains his sanity."

"Then......" Lei Zhao spoke instinctively, then hesitated, after a moment of inner conflict continued, "Have you ever considered cooperating with this world's officials?"

Though that sounded like a pipe dream, at that moment the first thought that sprang to Lei Zhao's mind was exactly that.

When the idea first surfaced, even he thought it was somewhat absurd.

He hadn't been in this world long at all, and he could very well become a high‑alert target of the Special Department the next second, yet Lei Zhao's first reaction was this.

"...... Are you serious?"

Bai Mu Yun thought Lei Zhao was probably insane.

Even Yang Yixie, the so‑called "local", chose to conceal his own identity, and the usually clear‑headed Lei Zhao actually urged them to "surrender" to the Special Department?

Lei Zhao has always been an idealist, and the Lei Zhao they knew was the one whose ideals had been shattered; this world bears a striking resemblance to the world of his ideals.

But that is impossible.

Fundamentally they are different; even if Lei Zhao is from the Dome, he is still a human.

Bai Mu Yun cannot, and must not, hand the current Lu Mu over to those completely unknown to him; having been betrayed by humanity before, how could he dare gamble on humanity again.