Chapter 224 - Battle Royale: Survival of the Jedi (XIV)

Lou Ying hit the nail on the head: “Are you not, or are you just used to it?”

Chi Xiaochi warms his hands with the cup: “When you get used to it, it’s gone.”

Lou Ying stopped talking and raised her hand to flick him in the forehead.

It didn’t hurt too much, but Chi Xiaochi was surprised and hissed, just as he was about to say something, when Lou Ying zipped up his sleeping bag with a swift movement.

Chi Xiaochi, suddenly plunged into darkness and confused for a moment, raised her hand to scratch her sleeping bag: “Brother, what is this?”

Lou Ying said from outside, “Lock you up.”

Chi Xiaochi would have laughed if he hadn’t known the mood was wrong.

To avoid another beating, Chi Xiaochi lies flat and stops talking.

But Lou Ying reached out and took the whole sleeping bag into her arms.

Chi Xiaochi, wrapped in a green ball, was caught off guard and leaned her head on Lou Ying’s shoulder.

Chi Xiaochi’s mind was calmed by the warmth, so she picked a comfortable place to rest her head.

He offered to explain, “I was trying to solve the task as early and as quickly as possible …… I’m sorry, I didn’t think about your feelings.”

”Well, that’s an apology, and I can accept it.” Chi Xiaochi could only faintly feel Lou Ying’s warm breath against her ear, gliding over it as if it were nothing, “And?”

Chi Xiaochi : “Well?”

Lou Ying stroked Chi Xiaochi’s brow where it had just been flicked and nudged it with his fingertips, “What’s the apology for this man going to be?”

Chi Xiaochi’s heart stirred as she listened to Lou Ying’s rational and gentle whispers.

”The mission is important to you, it’s important to me, it’s important to Bai Anyi. But there’s no logical relationship between that and the fact that you’re ‘treating this person as expendable’.”

Lou Ying was never very good at getting angry in the first place.

He tends to be extremely tolerant and understanding of people and events, and unless his boundaries are violated, he will not attack and criticise them indiscriminately, even if he personally disagrees with them.

”Things like ‘death’ are very draining on the spirit. I’ve seen a lot of people die and I know that ‘death’ is numbing when you’ve experienced it a lot.”

Lou Ying closes her eyes with a stoic expression, thinking back to the two hosts she had taken before Chi Xiaochi.

…… At first, they were bewildered and devastated after committing suicide when they left the world, but after experiencing death again and again, they gradually adapted and stopped taking “death” seriously, even joking with Lou Ying about how they should die more creatively this time.

Such a monstrous spirit should not exist in Chi Xiaochi.

Even the mere thought of it is intolerable to Lou Ying.

However, even so, Lou Ying could not be too hard on Chi Xiaochi.

It seems to be a very bad habit now too.

”I know he is a very strong man, and I do not ask him to become weak and dependent on me. But, at least, I want him to learn to be weak and afraid in this matter, for my sake as well as his own.”

Lou Ying rubbed Chi Xiaochi’s brow repeatedly through her sleeping bag and said, “All in all, this man is very important to me. Can you be nice to him.”

Chi Xiaochi shrugged a little in his arms, as if nodding.

Lou Ying sighed, shielding his head and asking him down, “Scared.”

The big ball in his arms lifted his head, supposedly looking at him.

Lou Ying raises her hand and traces the outline of Chi Xiaochi’s features inside with her fingertips half a centimetre from the sleeping bag.

He added: “Do you get scared when you’re in the water.”

Chi Xiaochi’s muffled voice came from the sleeping bag, “Just the thought of seeing you when I open my eyes is …… okay.”

At these words, Lou Ying’s heart completely softened.

He pinches the zip on the outside of the sleeping bag and gently pulls it open, with a movement as meticulous as opening a present.

Chi Xiaochi has long since removed Bai Anyi’s gold-rimmed spectacles, his dark hair moistened by a slight sweat that clings to his cheeks, and sweat parting from his forehead at the corners of his eyes, which look unusually bright in the dim light.

He looked at Lou Ying with a smile on his face.

Lou Ying tried his best to look serious: “What are you laughing at?”

Chi Xiaochi : “…… I think of the old days.”

”I used to fall out with you unilaterally and say I’d never come to your house again, but every time I’d come back to your door and beg to make up.” Chi Xiaochi couldn’t hide the novelty in his voice, “This is the first time I’ve seen you lose your temper like this. …… But I guess that’s not really anger.”

With that, Chi Xiaochi turned sideways and propped one hand on her cheek, “Brother, take a serious look at being angry with me, will you?”

Lou Ying takes a deep breath at this aggressive behaviour.

He said, “Come here. I’ll show you how angry I am.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Chi Xiaochi really knows how to piss people off, so he brazenly pushes his way in, wrapped up in his sleeping bag, because Lou Ying knows what he’s doing and knows he’s not going to do anything about it.

Lou Ying wasn’t shy about creating a table in front of Chi Xiaochi: “I’ve written down all the things you’ve done.”

Chi Xiaochi, already prepared to be pulled out of Lou Ying’s body with a card and kissed, was stunned at the words, “…… ha?”

Lou Ying said, “Hurt yourself at any cost, and take a twenty point deduction from your quantitative assessment first.”

Chi Xiaochi : “……” He had mixed emotions as he was backfired by a move he was familiar with.

He humbly asked for advice, “Teacher, what if you fail the exam.”

”Punishment.” Lou Ying said, “I haven’t thought about what the punishment will be. I will let you know when you fail the course. Now you will be given homework. If you don’t do it well, you will also be deducted points.”

”What kind of homework?”

Lou Ying pulled the open sleeping bag a little tighter and pinned his wet hair behind his ear, “Sleep.”

Chi Xiaochi is indeed tired, and his eyelids soon fight as his spirit relaxes.

But he couldn’t bear to be in such a good mood, so he squinted and talked nonsense to Lou Ying: “Can’t sleep. I’ll use a hypnosis card.”

Lou Ying held him down, “Don’t get too attached to the card. Otherwise what do you want me to do.”

Chi Xiaochi deliberately asked, “What do I want you to do?”

Chi Xiaochi’s little mind is not hidden from Lou Ying.

He pulled out a book of fairy tales and looked down to turn the pages, a smile on his lips, “I am whatever you want me to be.”

However, Lou Ying had just put Chi Xiaochi to sleep when Zhao Rou came limping in.

Her hair was dishevelled and she looked like she had just had a nightmare.

Lou Ying quickly got up and held her back three paces away from Chi Xiaochi.

Zhao Rou’s lips were pale and without a word, as if she was afraid that someone would hear her, she grabbed Lou Ying’s sleeve and wrote in a single stroke on his sleeve: “…… Someone’s coming over …… in about half an hour… …”

Lou Ying gestures for her to ‘take it easy’ and is about to pull her out of the tent when he hears a rustling behind him.

Chi Xiaochi rose from his sleeping bag, stretched and rubbed his eyes, “We have visitors.”

When Zhao Rou saw how heartless he was, he became even more anxious, but he was afraid of making too much noise and attracting attention.

You know, after a fight during the day, there are now countless pairs of invisible eyes watching their every move.

Zhao Rou did not dare to go into detail about what she had seen in her precognition, either for fear of having an ear to the ground or because she did not even dare to recall the horror of the dream.

…… That’s what happened when she didn’t come to see Chi Xiaochi.

She woke up to the sound of a blazing fire, and when she ran out, the meadow was in flames, a charred corpse laying on the ground, muscles curled, a burning dice in her hand, and Dan Shuang, his face blackened by the fire, was using his jacket to fight the flames that had spread all the way to his feet.

–Someone set the fire!

The fire, which is carried by the wind, spreads very quickly, like a ferocious serpent, and lunges endlessly towards Zhao Rou.

The fire, roiling the sky and the earth, scorches the face and rapidly depletes the air of oxygen, and the gas inhaled and exhaled gradually becomes hot and thin.

Bai Anyi and Chi Jiangyu are nowhere to be found.

Their bodies are probably strewn across whichever fire is blazing.

With images of hell spinning in his head, Zhao Rou’s tongue stiffened and all he could do was burst out of his teeth in a piteous and slurred plea, “Go. …… Let’s go.”

Whatever Bai Anyi’s powers are, teleportation should be one of them.

With this ability, they can at least get away with it ……

Fortunately Chi Xiaochi was quick to understand her intentions, “Of course you have to go.”

Zhao Rou breathed a huge sigh of relief and was about to go and inform the other two when he heard Chi Xiaochi say behind him, “…… but it will have to wait until tomorrow morning. I’m too tired today and I want to get some rest.”

”You don’t want to die?!” Zhao Rou was eager, and not caring if he would reveal the fact that his powers had increased, he said sharply, “Someone -”

Chi Xiaochi said, “I know, someone is coming to start a fire.”

The word “fire” startled Zhao Rou, who looked at Chi Xiaochi incredulously.

”What a great piece of grass.” Chi Xiaochi said, “…… is simply too good for setting fires, isn’t it?”

With that, he looked up at a jaw-dropping Zhao Rou and smiled brightly, “You’ve had a hard time. Go back to sleep. You were just having a bad dream.”

Zhao Rou : “But I saw ……”

Chi Xiaochi asked indifferently, “How can you be sure that what you see with your eyes is the truth?”

……

Two figures dive into the grass when the moon is dark and windy.

One man moved his wrist after ascertaining that the wind was currently from the south-east: “Come on, don’t delay.”

The other man looked at his watch and couldn’t hide his joy, “Look at the odds on both of us! They’ve even put up this much ‘bounty’ …… If I get out of here alive, I’ll make a fucking fortune!”

The former frowned: “Don’t be fooled, there’s one among them who can teleport, and when the fire burns up, they might run away.”

The latter smiled and said, “Escape? They won’t be able to escape. Look at the pop-up analysis, that man’s instantaneous teleportation ability hasn’t been used again after he used it three times today. If his ability was still usable, they could have moved further away, why would they have to walk to A8 to land on their own?”

The former looked at his watch; it was just 11 o’clock.

The latter said, “The pop-up said that many of the powers of the shifter, which are affected by the tides, can only be used a fixed number of times a day. Before midnight zero is the best time for us to do it.”

The former approved of this judgement: “They’ve all gone to bed?”

”Well, they’re all asleep. Even Chi Jiangyu, the most powerful one, has gone into the tent. Probably thinks there are five of them and the other psychics don’t dare to fight them hard.”

He sounded smug, as if the idea had been his alone.

Needless to say, with the pop-up guide, they are playing the game with the full map cheat on.

The latter sounded certain, and the former looked at the pop-ups and found that they were also mostly encouraging, telling the two of them to work together and give the bunch of assholes a piece of their mind.

With a surge of boundless confidence, he evened out his breath and a strong stream of air erupted from his mouth, piercing through the grass and leaves and attacking the camp!

The latter was not slow in snapping his fingers and sending the ball of fire rubbed from his fingertips forward as if he were bowling –

In a flash, the stars were alight.

At this point, Zhao Rou, who had been persuaded by Chi Xiaochi to return to his tent, was unable to sleep soundly.

The precognition time was extended and much more restricted. She could not activate it again any time soon, so she had to toss and turn in her sleeping bag, calculating that it was almost half an hour, so she raised her feet and walked out of the tent.

Who would have thought that what she saw was exactly what she had dreamed!

As usual, the fire burns, black smoke rolls, bodies are strewn about, and Dan Shuang is frantically trying to put out the flames with his clothes in hand.

Zhao Rou, who could not find Chi Xiaochi, thought they had escaped by teleportation and felt a blackout.

With the prospect of death on his side, Zhao Rou took on the fire and grabbed the clothes Dan Shuang was holding: “It’s no use! I still have half a bucket of water in my tent, let’s try and see if we can-”

Before the words are out of her mouth, the ” Dan Shuang” that she grabs is like a painting that has been splashed with water, quickly melting away and fading until it is nothing.

Zhao Rou stands frozen in place, looking around.

Not only has ” Dan Shuang ” disappeared, but the scene around them has also changed.

…… They were not in the meadow, but in a corner of the moor, four tents clustered together, while she stood by a burning campfire, beside which Lou Ying, who was keeping watch, was sitting.

Lou Ying said gently, “Awake?”

Zhao Rou is now really confused between dream and reality: “Where is this …… place?!”

Lou Ying said, “Look at the watch. There’s our locator.”

Zhao Rou was horrified and speechless when he took a good look.

…… They’re actually in B3?

Zhao Rou felt like his head was going to explode: “How did this …… happen? When did we get here? What I saw was clearly ……”

”You were right in your prediction.”

Chi Xiaochi’s voice came from behind him.

He was up and drinking water, his voice still laced with the dry accent of someone who had just woken up: “What you foresaw was a vision I wanted certain people to see, and a picture of what those two arsonists thought they saw.”

”…… hallucinations?”

Name: Illusion Maker Card – Group (Advanced)

Duration: 8 hours

Number of pieces: 1

Quality: Fine

Type: Single use item

Exchange points required: 50 remorse points

Introduction: Don’t eat the mushrooms you buy in Yunnan markets, they are poisonous.

This group attack card was used early on when Chi Xiaochi entered the tent after dinner.

Once inside the tent, he moved the entire camp up in situ and moved it all to area B3.

But in the perception of all but him and Lou Ying, they are still in the meadow.

He anticipated his energy drain after the suicide immersion experience, so his initial intention in moving the illusion-making card was simply to confuse those watching so that he could get a good night’s sleep.

Choosing the dry and flammable A8 meadow was Chi Xiaochi’s second insurance policy.

If someone does come to start a fire in the night, this illusion card will allow them to “see” everything they want.

Extremely smooth winds, unattended tents, and a sleeping quintet.

Whatever they want, they will get.

But whether that is the case or not, well, God only knows.

The only thing Chi Xiaochi hadn’t counted on was that Zhao Rou, who had been hit by the illusion-creation card, would be able to anticipate what would happen in the illusion, leaving her in fear for half an hour.

Lou Ying glanced at his watch in passing as he fiddled with the fire.

Two red dots on the map, silently extinguished in the A8.

He shook his head slightly.

Those two men, immersed in a hallucinatory dream, lit a fire and burned themselves to death with their own hands under the conditions of the headwind and the blind pointing of the pop-ups.

I’m afraid that until they die, they still have fond dreams of making a fortune when they leave.

After the duo who set the fire were engulfed by the rapidly spreading wildfire upwind, the pop-up area gradually realised that something was wrong.

After much discussion, Chi Xiaochi chose to cancel the use of the illusion card.

The pop-up section went into an unprecedented frenzy when the five-man red dot that was supposed to be in A8 was positioned in B3.

Didn’t Chi Jiangyu and the others deserve to be burned?

What powers do they really possess?

What are they up to, what are their tricks?

In the midst of countless curses and abuse, Chi Xiaochi puts down his glass of water and raises his hands above his head.

Someone in the pop-up section wondered, “What’s he doing?”

”What kind of powers are going to be performed?”

”Planning to surrender?”

There are many different opinions.

And Chi Xiaochi ignores anyone.

He spun in place at the countless pairs of peering eyes in the sky and wordlessly raised two middle fingers high in the air.