Chapter 142: The Good Person

The pink-furred rabbit, or Elliot, held up the language translation black box and asked in a low, gravelly voice: "Why?"

From a self-interest standpoint, he simply couldn't understand why Master Pi Fu would stand up for Su Jie, for Ding Shaoxia—bringing no additional benefit, only adding unnecessary risk—Master Pi Fu wasn't even from the Special Affairs Bureau.

"The surface reason? Anyone can see that."

Li Cheng pointed at Su Jie: "He's from the Special Affairs Bureau, and he has those Ten-Eye headphones—a bug-level device capable of communicating with the outside world. Right now, the abandoned resort we teleported into, located in the real world, is surely surrounded by the Special Affairs Bureau's Mobile Task Forces. Killing him would only invite retaliation."

As he spoke, Li Cheng's peripheral vision casually flickered toward Bai Ling and Andre—they had remained silent since the beginning, observing passively.

This wasn't because they were too lazy to think, or because they held noble ideals and cared for ordinary people like Ding Shaoxia—they had also realized Su Jie's identity, guessed that Su Jie had already used the Ten-Eye headphones to alert the Special Affairs Bureau, summoning them to surround this teleportation site.

According to the usual convention of the Killing Field game, those who enter from a location typically exit from the same place.

If Su Jie failed to emerge alive, the Special Affairs Bureau, having lost one of their own, would certainly not treat the remaining players gently—they'd follow procedure and launch an investigation into everyone inside.

Precisely because they'd thought of this, Bai Ling and Andre remained silent, maintaining a neutral stance until the situation became clearer.

All of them were Level 10 transcenders, each with eight hundred schemes in mind.

Li Cheng directly exposed this layer of logic, then suddenly smirked, grinning: "As for the real reason? Heh—I've never been a good person."

He raised his palm, gripping a plastic electronic pet egg that looked like a product from last century, and lightly pressed the summon button.

Hum—

The small bulb atop the pet egg emitted a conical beam of light. A thick, viscous, mercury-like gray metallic liquid slowly oozed out from the cone and pooled on the ground.

"I only want to see a grander performance,"

As Li Cheng spoke, the gray metallic liquid rapidly writhed, converged, and reshaped into a metallic humanoid with his exact body type and appearance—expressionless, eyes utterly cold.

"And to gain more profit."

Elliot's proposal, while somewhat attractive, was far too dull. After enduring all these twists and turns in the mission, finally cracking the mystery behind the amusement park, they were now supposed to betray an ordinary person and trade the exit opportunity to Elliot—a transcender who'd been eliminated long ago?

If they were going to play, they'd play big—like dragging everyone onto the same battlefield, and personally witnessing the so-called "Princess" who caused all these tragedies and sparked everything.

He'd also arranged an escape route: in his backpack slot lay a silent Emergency Escape Card. This card's authority far exceeded that of a regular mission—once activated, he could bypass the curse and teleport directly back to the real world.

Precisely because of this card, his negotiations with others had been unequal from the start. As he'd said—he'd never been a good person.

Shh—

Andre and Bai Ling struck simultaneously: Andre hurled his short sword, the blade slicing through air with afterimages, aiming to sever Elliot's furry left ring finger along with the ring.

Meanwhile, Bai Ling swept up his sleeve, and several venomous snakes shot from the shadowed cuff, striking at the glass jar in Su Jie's hand—the focus of Master Pi Fu and Elliot's argument was whether to retrieve Ding Shaoxia's visitor card; if they could kill Ding Shaoxia here and create a fait accompli, they could spare Su Jie and hand Ding Shaoxia's visitor card directly to Elliot.

That way, Bai Ling could leave the park in the most secure manner possible.

As for facing the Special Affairs Bureau's retribution upon returning to the real world—killing an ordinary person, not to mention whether a regular mission even met the conditions for emergency self-defense—

The nature of killing an ordinary person and killing a Mobile Task Force operative like Su Jie was not even on the same scale.

It was a cruel fact: even in the Special Affairs Bureau's propaganda, everyone was equal, but some were more equal than others.

The thought flashed through Bai Ling's mind—the multicolored venomous snakes lunged at the glass jar, but at the final instant, Su Jie firmly gripped their necks.

"Sorry."

Su Jie's eyes flickered; he hurled the snakes backward with one hand, and with the other, placed the glass jar on the ground, sliding it like a curling stone across the marble floor toward the castle's exit.

Thud. Thud.

The glass jar lightly collided with pillars and doorframes, each impact altering its trajectory until it slid out the door and landed on the lawn, perfectly lodged in a blind spot.

Due to the castle's inherent nature, the doll army patrolling outside would not approach to smash the jar and kill Ding Shaoxia inside.

Meanwhile, on the other side—

Ting!

The pink-furred Elliot, with his left palm, precisely and steadily caught the flying short sword mid-air—the blade swung and hummed but could not advance an inch to cut off Elliot's finger.

"Hmm."

From the language translation black box came a sound—whether noise or sigh, it was unclear. The pink-furred rabbit dropped the short sword, clipped the black box to his body fur, and with his right hand, gently spun the crystal-clear, genuine diamond ring.

Hum—hum—

An invisible ripple spread outward from the diamond ring in all directions.

The entire castle trembled slightly; dust rained down, and howling winds burst violently from every window and door.

The shadows on the second floor grew denser—something was about to emerge from within.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The faint footsteps on the stairs now sounded unmistakably clear—even Bai Ling, who was still activating the Snake-Feeding Technique to attack the glass jar again, froze, his eyes locked on that direction.

A doll's hand first emerged from the shadows—the left hand also wore a diamond ring; since its size was only slightly larger than a normal doll, the ring appeared grotesquely oversized.

Then, a multicolored princess skirt slid down the stairs.

The term "princess skirt" might not be accurate—besides resembling a lavish princess gown, each fabric panel differed in color, size, and shape—as if stitched together from scraps cut from multiple princess dresses.

Tap.

The "Princess" herself finally descended the stairs. Her limbs, eyes, nose, mouth, ears—all, like her gown, came from different sources. Clear traces of Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Elsa, and others were visible.

Each part was individually attractive, yet combined, they appeared grotesquely ugly—like a corpse stitched from body parts.

(End of Chapter)