Chapter 132: The Difference

Won't die.

Elliot swept a glance at the length of the nails atop the drop tower ride and reached his conclusion in an instant.

Just as he had figured, Wu Hengcai screamed in terror the whole way as the seat carried him straight up toward the top of the drop tower—crack! —reaching maximum height. He missed the nails by about half a meter.

Wu Hengcai had no mood to enjoy the view from on high. The seat dragged him back down toward the ground, and through his tears he shouted at Elliot, "Help! Help me."

Elliot stood rooted to the spot, staring fixedly at the top of the drop tower. He noticed those nails had abruptly dropped down a notch and called out a warning: "Duck your head!"

Under the Doppler effect, his voice came across faint and tiny. Wu Hengcai did it on reflex, dodging the spikes by a hair's breadth.

So that's how it is. Understanding dawned on Elliot. This so-called attraction was indeed harboring ill intent, aimed at tormenting visitors—or even killing them. The strange thing was this situation wasn't explained in the Visitor Rules.

Hmmm—

The lift mechanism emitted a clattering operational noise, carrying Wu Hengcai skyward for the third time. This time those iron nails dropped down another large section. Even though Wu Hengcai strained with all his might to press his upper body down, his back was still pierced by the spikes, leaving a series of bloody holes—neither deep nor shallow.

The searing pain turned his vision pitch-black. Worse, the drop tower gave him no chance to catch his breath and began its fourth ascent.

The nails had now dropped over two meters—a length nearly enough to pierce straight through the seat itself. There was nowhere to hide.

In his desperation, Wu Hengcai grew vicious. He unbuckled the safety belt at his waist, wrapped both arms tightly around the seat's armrests, slid his whole body off the seat, and dangled unsteadily in mid-air.

Thud!

A dense cluster of iron nails stabbed through the seat, gouging out a large chunk of flesh from Wu Hengcai's arm along the way. He gritted his teeth hard, stubbornly refusing to let go of the armrests, and descended slowly along with the drop tower.

When he was still seven meters from the ground, he finally couldn't hold on any longer and plummeted toward the earth.

Elliot, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, finally made his move. He pulled a suitcase-sized yellow rescue air cushion from his backpack slot and tossed it beneath the drop tower.

The rescue cushion's surface bore the Prometheus Company logo, and its interior contained a built-in inflation device that released a large volume of gas in a short time, rapidly expanding in volume to catch the falling Wu Hengcai.

Elliot strode forward. His first act was not to check Wu Hengcai's injuries, but to open his clothing pocket and take out that visitor card.

After watching a stamp slowly appear on the card, he breathed a sigh of relief. With a flick of his wrist he produced a syringe and jabbed it into Wu Hengcai's neck.

The syringe contained a cell catalyst with severe side effects, generally used only in the most critical situations.

The cold liquid flowed through his blood vessels to every part of his body. The flesh inside the bloody holes on Wu Hengcai's back writhed violently, sprouting fresh granulation tissue.

The intense itching and pain stimulated spasms all over his body. Elliot clamped a hand firmly over his mouth, preventing any wretched screams from escaping.

"Tch."

Elliot glanced at his palm, smeared with the man's snot, tears, and saliva, gave his hand an disgusted shake, and said coldly, "Get up. Time is limited."

"." Wu Hengcai lay motionless on the inflated cushion, his voice as thin as a mosquito's hum: "You won't let me off the hook."

Elliot didn't catch it and frowned. "What?"

"Rule Three: do not hand your visitor card to anyone. In other words, visitors can escape the park by snatching someone else's visitor card."

Wu Hengcai said weakly, "You won't let me off the hook, right? You'll force me to take attraction after attraction. If I pass, you'll take my visitor card. If I don't pass and die inside, you can still recover the card and learn the trap's contents along the way."

"What are you talking about?"

Elliot frowned and said, "If it weren't for me, you think you could've escaped easily? Su Jie is from the Special Affairs Bureau—didn't he ditch you all the same and leave you to fend for yourself? I even gave you an injection to stop the bleeding."

"No difference, no difference."

Wu Hengcai seemed to be muttering to himself, burying his head lower and lower. The wounds that had just healed on his body suddenly burst open, and from the spray of fresh blood, brown fur emerged. The brown fur spread across his entire body, his overall frame rapidly swelled, and the sudden increase in weight collapsed the rescue cushion, which let out a sharp hissing of escaping air.

In just a few seconds, Wu Hengcai transformed from a living person into a two-meter-tall stuffed bear with an enormous head. By its appearance, it was the Duffy Bear from the Duffy family.

"."

The tall brown bear stuffed toy slowly rose from the cushion, looking down at Elliot from above. Its eyes were pitch-black and lightless, with no pupils to be seen.

Beware all relatives and friends who have been separated from you once or more.

This rule flashed through Elliot's mind. The next second, the Duffy Bear abruptly raised its burly arm and brought its palm down toward his skull with the speed of lightning.

————

Smack!

A watermelon burst apart on the spot, its crimson flesh spraying everywhere and tumbling into the river.

Father Andre lowered his still-smoking revolver, took out his own visitor card, and glanced at it. A second stamp had appeared on it.

Where he was at this moment was the Pirate Ship Drift indoor attraction in the amusement park's Pirate Cove area. The attraction required riding a pirate ship, drifting downriver, and finding a way to survive an exchange of fire with the Victorian-era British Royal Navy vessels along the route.

The British Navy ships on the opposite side would fire watermelons, bananas, apples, and the like—things that looked like fruit but were in fact full-power cannon shells.

Father Andre used the cutlasses, cannons, and pistols provided on the pirate ship, and after considerable effort, smashed the fruit cannonballs along the way, thus completing the drift journey and reaching the endpoint to finish the attraction.

He stepped off the ship, took out paper and a pen from his backpack slot, and jotted down the precautions for this attraction.

Tap-tap-tap.

Footsteps came from outside. Father Andre unhesitatingly raised his gun and whipped around to aim behind him.

Master Pi Fu.

The young man wearing a light Maoshan Daoist robe stepped into the room. Unafraid in the face of the gun barrel, he said casually, "It's you."

"."

Andre said nothing, carefully observing the other's shifting expression. Although as an lv11 player he was two levels higher than Master Pi Fu, players at this level did not have an absolute strong-versus-weak relationship.

One or two premium item props could turn the tables.

"I thought I'd be the first to arrive."

Li Cheng cast a composed glance at the paper in Andre's hand, raised an eyebrow, and asked knowingly, "Writing hints for the players who arrive after you? How kind of you."

Anyone who could survive to lv11 in a hellish environment like the Killing Grounds could be kind, but not stupid.

Being selfless about it, writing hints for later players was an attempt to save as many people as possible. Being selfish about it, it was also helping himself—players could snatch each other's visitor cards, and the more people who cleared one more attraction, the better one's own chances of survival.

Father Andre remained unmoved, still holding his gun, not even blinking. "What can you use to prove you're a living human?"