Chapter 220 - Battle Royale: Survival of the Jedi (X)

Chi Xiaochi and Lou Ying replied in unison, “Twisted.”

The two men lied so tightly that they both froze for a moment.

Lou Ying wasn’t slow to react and added the unfinished sentence in a natural tone, “Uh …… I can only distort hard substances like steel, there’s no way to kill a human body.”

That’s not really a lie.

The human body is as complex and intricate as a supercomputer capable of performing a billion floating point operations per second. Even if Lou Ying could maintain peak computing speed, it would take eight hours of sleepless computing on a human being to remove one of his arms.

”Offensive psychic powers!” Wei Shiliu’s eyes lit up, “Awesome!”

”…… also has limits.”

Lou Ying raised his hand and unmasked the left side of his face a little.

”This is what happens when you use it without restraint.”

Wei Shiliu drew a breath of cold air at the sight of the scars beneath, touched his own face with empathy, and turned to Chi Xiaochi, waiting for his answer.

Chi Xiaochi replied, “Teleportation.”

Wei Shiliu gave a high five with a smug look on his face, “I guess so! You disappeared in a blink of an eye that time, so I guessed you could have been a transient ……”

As we speak, Wei Shiliu intends to head out into the forest.

As he passed by the body, Wei Shiliu gave a look of regret, sighed slightly and picked up a leaf, sprinkling it on the ground where it was impossible to tell whether it was a head or an ass.

”Dude, you want to live, but so do we.”

Probably in Wei Shiliu’s eyes, the two men who appeared out of nowhere with the express purpose of killing him were two contestants who wanted a chance to stay alive.

Like a pawn on a chessboard, he thinks he is escaping with his own strength, unaware that there is a hand at the top of the board.

After a short burial, Wei Shiliu skillfully launched into the porcelain business: “Where are you from? I’m from A-town, and I’m a programmer. Haha, you can’t tell I’m working, can you? People say I look young. Guess what, I used to work part-time and deliver to high schools, and the janitor took me for a high school student and asked me which class I was in ……”

In his stand-up comedy, Wei Shiliu doesn’t need to be spoken to.

Lou Ying carries Chi Xiaochi on her back and follows quietly behind the noisy Wei Magpie.

He looked back at Chi Xiaochi with half a face, resting his left hand on the crook of his knee while raising his right hand and waving it in front of Chi Xiaochi’s eyes.

Chi Xiaochi understood that he wanted to give the two a high five for the tacit agreement they had just shared in the same breath.

Chi Xiaochi clamps her legs around his waist and raises her left hand, touching his right palm, but subconsciously misplacing it, her fingers landing between Lou Ying’s fingers.

Lou Ying’s fingertips snapped forward just in time to catch a hand.

He doesn’t force him either, only grips loosely.

Chi Xiaochi can escape whenever he wants to.

Chi Xiaochi, however, did not pull back.

Lou Ying felt Chi Xiaochi’s fingertips stiffen for a few seconds before returning to softness, her index finger poking forward and pecking the back of Lou Ying’s hand as if knocking on the door.

He whispered in his ear, “…… I’m going to drop it.”

Lou Ying laughed and withdrew his hand in a gentlemanly manner, holding Chi Xiaochi’s clearly securely coiled knees, “Hold me.”

Chi Xiaochi rested her face on his back to cool down and muttered, “It’s fine.”

As we were walking, Wei Shiliu suddenly turned back to us: “I’d like to ask you about ……”

Lou Ying and Chi Xiaochi look up at the same time.

He said, “You two are a couple, huh?”

Lou Ying : “……”

Chi Xiaochi : “……”

Wei Shiliu also found the question a bit abrupt: “I don’t discriminate against homosexuals. Ah, I mean, compared to hetero discrimination, homosexuality has long been less of an issue now. ……”

After realizing that he was getting darker, he simply broke down: “…… I’ll just ask.”

Chi Xiaochi : “No.”

Lou Ying : “Yes.”

The …… duo’s tacit understanding has officially broken down.

Wei Shiliu looks back and forth between the two, a little silly.

Lou Ying, with a stern attitude, said, “I think so. But clearly there is work to be done.”

This is also a way of giving Chi Xiaochi a leg up.

Wei Shiliu’s reflexes are a bit long, and he gives a long “oh” and starts to analyse the main points.

”You ……” he pointed a finger at Lou Ying and then at Chi Xiaochi with a fussed nod, “are chasing him.”

Chi Xiaochi : “……”

Lou Ying : “Right.”

Chi Xiaochi : “…… is gone.”

Wei Shiliu : “Wow, shy.”

Chi Xiaochi : “…… Can I suffocate you if I don’t talk.”

Wei Shiliu was incredibly serious: “Yes.”

Chi Xiaochi began to think seriously about which formula would increase the viscosity of the air and would stick to his mouth with unerring accuracy.

Lou Ying, knowing that the one on his back was not to be teased, spoke up to relieve him, “Where are we going?”

By now, the trio had made it out of the woods, just before the road ahead became clear.

Chi Xiaochi jumps off Lou Ying, takes two steps out against the heavy air pressure, sets his wrist watch to casino mode and stares in awe.

Lou Ying made the same move as him.

Only Wei Shiliu, confused, saw that both of them were looking at their watches and raised them for a moment to see what they were looking at, so he simply came up to them: “What are you all looking at?”

Chi Xiaochi didn’t even look up: “Seeking protection.”

Wei Shiliu : “Huh?”

Chi Xiaochi tapped the screen with his knuckles, “Look at the existing death toll and see if there are any of the people who just tried to kill you.”

Wei Shiliu takes a closer look.

From noon yesterday to now, six people have committed suicide and 12 have been killed.

Out of 101 people, 83 remain.

Each person’s area of death and time of death is marked by a line in red.

And in the D20 area, it shows 0 deaths.

In the live pop-up section, everyone was betting on the game, but no one was discussing a fiasco that had just occurred in D20.

Wei Shiliu : “Wait, that’s not right.”

Chi Xiaochi said, “It’s not right. Your odds themselves are not bad, which proves that quite a few people found your powers interesting after seeing them, and that’s why they put a small bet on you. Since the bet was placed, you have value to them. The fight just now was not a small one, but neither did your odds change in the slightest, nor did anyone discuss the value of your fight or your psychic abilities, or even talk about the two of us ……”

He paused, “I think the only explanation is that these gamblers, with a large number of participants in the early stages, would only choose areas where battles were taking place to watch. If you take a macro overview of the whole picture from their perspective, we might just be a scattered and constantly moving group of red dots.”

”…… It looked to them like you were the only red dot moving in the D20 area when the battle took place and nothing was happening.”

Wei Shiliu is a rough man with a little bit of intelligence, and with Chi Xiaochi’s analysis, how could he not understand what was going on?

He said in shock, “Those two people who came to kill me were not participants in the game?”

Chi Xiaochi : “Not to mention the first person you killed, do you think that the second person who went after you looked like a rookie in his first killing game.”

Wei Shiliu frowned, “I thought he had been a soldier ……”

The only people who could unwittingly transport an alien alien into this world were the “organisers” of the killing show.

He was getting confused: “No, I haven’t broken any rules, so why would the agency want to kill me? Besides, if they really want to kill me, they could just stick a needle in my neck.”

Chi Xiaochi said without blinking an eye, “That’s your business,” without mentioning that Lou Ying had managed to block the poison injection on his collar.

Lou Ying watches in silence as Chi Xiaochi coaxes Wei Shiliu around step by step.

As early as when they were waiting for “Bai Anyi” to return and accidentally found Wei Shiliu entering the D20 area, Chi Xiaochi suggested that he would take Wei Shiliu’s back.

At first Lou Ying wasn’t so keen on the idea: “We can let him know when we’re leaving and leave together.”

Chi Xiaochi said, “If the agency finds no one in D20, they will most likely pull past footage to see who killed the three of them.”

Lou Ying: “With the video, I don’t think it’s very likely to exist. I’ve seen Bai Anyi’s memories and the technology in this world is not that advanced. The map of this virtual world is huge, and it’s already at the top of its game to be able to watch it in real time without lagging, so if we were to record it in real time, the information flow that would need to be processed would be too huge for the servers to support.”

Chi Xiaochi: “‘Not very likely to exist’ is still the same as yes.”

Lou Ying is speechless.

Chi Xiaochi says: “So I couldn’t take the risk.”

”Beyond that, I have reasons why I must do this.”

”First.” Chi Xiaochi raised a finger, “Assuming the video does exist, whatever action we take, Wei Shiliu will be implicated once we enter D20 at this time: if we alert him now, the agency is likely to see him as our accomplice; if we don’t, he is unlikely to leave D20 of his own accord, and in the end, the agency If we don’t warn him now, he is unlikely to leave D20 of his own accord, and in the end, the agency may still kill him once and for all. So it’s better to let his unexpected intrusion be an opportunity to take us out of the picture.”

”Secondly, we need an ally. I believe that an alliance after experiencing life and death is stronger than a nodding acquaintance in a state of peace.”

”The third ……” Chi Xiaochi held up a third finger, “I suspect him.”

Lou Ying, startled, peeks out from their hiding place and looks over at Wei Shiliu, who is drinking from the stream: “What happened to him?”

Chi Xiaochi said, “Do you remember how far the mobile card moved us out?”

At his reminder, Lou Ying immediately understood: “…… fifty kilometres.”

”Yes, fifty kilometres.” Chi Xiaochi said, “How did he manage to walk those fifty kilometres in less than 12 hours?”

At that time, Lou Ying did not know about Wei Shiliu’s powers.

He said, “Suppose he could teleport? Or run as fast as that ‘observer’?”

Chi Xiaochi : “That’s too much of a coincidence. How did someone sitting across from me in a car with such a big map manage to find me here?”

”Is he so suspicious that you still want to pull him as an ally?”

”Isn’t it good to pull suspicious people out of the shadows and into the light?”

Lou Ying is still more used to speculating about people from a position of goodness: “…… If, if he really is a good person, aren’t you afraid that his life is in danger if you pull him down like that?”

”If so ah ……” Chi Xiaochi leaned against a tree, closing his eyes slightly, “I will not let him die since he is in my game.”

……

Lou Ying, who has been distracted from his memories, looks at Chi Xiaochi, who is fiddling with his watch with a certain amount of indifference.

And I don’t know whether this man is thin-skinned or heavy-handed.

”The truth is that you were targeted by the agency for unknown reasons. And now, the news of those two deaths has probably reached the agency as well. And we, who saved you, have become grasshoppers in the same boat.”

Chi Xiaochi made a brief closing statement.

Wei Shiliu was straightforward enough to skip the unnecessary questioning and ask his main concern: “So what should we do next?”

Chi Xiaochi said, “Didn’t I say, seek protection.”

Wei Shiliu : “…… to whom? Who can protect us?”

Chi Xiaochi flipped his wrist and lit up the gambling information on his watch, “They.”

Wei Shiliu : “Who are they?”

Chi Xiaochi : “Money.”

He asked a bewildered Wei Shiliu, “Do you know how much each bet they placed was worth?”

Wei Shiliu: “I’ve seen them chatting. At the exchange rate in our country, it’s at least a thousand dollars per bet.”

Chi Xiaochi sighed, “Quite a lot.”

Wei Shiliu was a little anxious: “Yes, yes, yes, quite a lot. How do we get them to protect us?”

”Those people, aren’t they paying for their lives.” Chi Xiaochi said, “Then I have to make them notice how much our lives are worth. The more people who buy our lives, the more eyes there will be on us. That way, the agencies won’t find an opportunity to get at us even if they want to.”

For some reason, Wei Shiliu had a bad feeling: “How are you going to …… get them to notice us?”

Chi Xiaochi: “It’s easy. Just make them lose all their money.”

With that said, he clicked on the names of those with the best odds, while paying close attention to the pop-ups on the sidelines, seemingly weighing up his choices.

Wei Shiliu drifted off and drew in a breath: “You’re going to kill the people they paid a lot of money for?”

Chi Xiaochi raised her eyebrows and asked in return, “No?”

Wei Shiliu : “…… What is the difference between your …… words and those who kill with impunity? We just need to form squads and be ready to defend ourselves ……”

”Oh, when these activists kill everyone else and finally come to kill you, and you kill them, you’ll be defending yourself and won’t have to be condemned by your conscience.” Chi Xiaochi said, “That will comfort that good heart of yours, won’t it.”

Wei Shiliu chokes.

”Keeping those people will only create more death. Most of these 101 people are from the peaceful world, how many people do you think would really enjoy killing if these shit-stirrers didn’t exist?”

Wei Shiliu hesitates: “Are you …… trying to settle the top of the queue and everyone gets along peacefully?”

Chi Xiaochi is not saying anything.

Wei Shiliu : “That’s too romantic. Didn’t the agency say that only three people are allowed to go out ……”

”Those are the rules set by the agency.” Chi Xiaochi says, “According to my rules, anyone who is willing to join my squad, I have a way of getting them out alive.”

Wei Shiliu asserted, “That’s impossible, you’re talking in your sleep.”

Chi Xiaochi is noncommittal: “Then you can pretend I’m dreaming.”

At this point, whether Wei Shiliu understands it or not, Lou Ying does.

He used his 061 access, turned on his voice and said to Chi Xiaochi in his head, “I agree with you.”

”Teacher Six.” Chi Xiaochi used that long-lost term of endearment, the endings still rising upwards, sounding almost a little sappy, “You still understand me.”

Lou Ying said in a deep voice, “Your real target, is the ‘catfish’, right?”

Quickly, he amended his statement, “No, it’s not just ‘catfish’ either. You’re hitting multiple birds with one stone.”

Chi Xiaochi wasn’t about to hide anything from Lou Ying and said, “Firstly, killing the top oddsmakers can make those who gamble lose money. They are too happy. Sitting at home, blowing on the air conditioning, making fun of people’s lives and deaths doesn’t sit well with me.”

Lou Ying simply imitated his strong tone and said, “Secondly, killing those who are at the top of the odds will safeguard the personal safety of the other low psychics. I’m afraid these people have already found out the truth about the ‘protection scheme’. The more they kill the Exalts, the more they will discover the progress of their own strength, the more they will understand the meaning of the agency setting up this Great Escape, and the more they will become more aggressive and engage in endless slaughter – solving them will be able to save the lives of more Exalts who are unwilling to kill.”

Chi Xiaochi continued, “Thirdly, fishing for ‘fish’.”

Lou Ying added, “Fishing for ‘catfish’.”

” Bai Anyi” went out on a trip and got valuable information.

He not only brought back information about the Alien Protection Programme, but also confirmed through his investigation that the ‘observer’ named Lu Qingshu was not lying.

The “catfish” are indeed divided into two groups, one officially bred by the institution and one placed among the 101 people. These two groups of “catfish” do not share information with each other and no one knows the identity of the other.

The institution into which ” Bai Anyi ” penetrated is the seat of the official “catfish”.

The “catfish” that are in the group are most likely lying in the same secret place as Bai Anyi’s body in reality, asleep together.

Chi Xiaochi said, “Since the ‘catfish’ in the team have secretly signed a cooperation treaty with the agency, they must be holding the same token as the official ‘catfish’, a teleportation aura that can save their lives in critical moments …… like the ability to pull their virtual consciousness bodies back into their bodies for a short time or something.”

Lou Ying’s thoughts flew, catching up with Chi Xiaochi at the drop of a hat: “You mean, the iron sign?”

Chi Xiaochi: “Think about why Bai Anyi had to die in the last life.”

Lou Ying recalls what happened just before Bai Anyi’s death: “…… because Bai Anyi took the two ‘catfish’ iron plates. The two new ‘catfish’ that came to reclaim the iron plates.”

Chi Xiaochi : “So, our trio is going to kill the top-ranked people and make the noise as big as possible. That way, ‘Catfish’ will come and kill us even if it’s for self-preservation. We’ll have a chance to hold them hostage and see if there’s a chance to use the iron sign to get ‘Bai Anyi’ to teleport once more, go outside, turn off the controller and free all the imprisoned aliens.”

The decisive and determined charm of Chi Xiaochi as he speaks word for word about his plans makes him look as if he is shining.

Lou Ying’s tone was already overwhelmed with admiration and tenderness: “To restore freedom to as many of the Exalted as possible, this is the fourth bird you’ve knocked down with a single stone, isn’t it?”

”There’s one more.” Chi Xiaochi said, “…… fifth to catch all the ‘catfish’ for both ‘Bai Anyi’ and Bai Anyi, avenging a past life. ”

The two of them picked up on each other’s words incredibly smoothly.

By this point, the plan was taking shape and both men were silent.

After a short silence, Chi Xiaochi said, “This plan is still too risky and, as Wei Shiliu said, it will take a dream-like stroke of luck to make it happen. Will you take that risk for me?”

Lou Ying was speechless for a moment.

…… He just hates that he can’t kiss him now.

Chi Xiaochi waited patiently for Lou Ying’s reply until his soft voice sounded in his ears, as if he was kissing them with his voice.

”As long as you want to.” Lou Ying said, “…… as long as I can.”