TL: Hua

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Chapter 25

Lance should have realized sooner that Ji Xuan had no intention of letting him off.

The Zerg tide they had struggled to escape being attracted back, the female Zerg gland inducing Pei Yingye’s rut, and the mecha they were forced to abandon—to some extent, all of it stemmed from him hoarding that test tube.

Wanting to eliminate an unstable factor like him from the team was perfectly normal.

Ji Xuan’s blatant actions were like telling him openly: I can move against you at any time. I’m just not sure when, so you can take your time thinking about it.

Like the Sword of Damocles, every slight look and tiny movement from Ji Xuan from now on would feel like a slow execution.

The sound of fabric rubbing reached his ears, like Ji Xuan touching his pocket. Lance’s nerves snapped tight instantly; he whipped his head around like a startled bird.

But Ji Xuan wasn’t paying attention to him at all. Instead, he walked over to Pei Yingye to examine a Zerg corpse on the ground.

There was a small nest in one of the rooms off the main corridor. While Pei Yingye was clearing it out, a Zerg broke through the line of fire and lunged at Lance. Before Lai Zhou could even raise his handgun, Ji Xuan’s combat knife was already there, brutally pinning the Zerg’s carapace. Splattered slime hit Lance’s shoulder, and the cold glint of the knife reflected in his face, scaring him into shutting his eyes tight.

Ji Xuan pulled the knife out, flicked off the slime, and looked at the shaken Lance, saying flatly, “Be careful.”

Lance’s combat vest was already soaked in cold sweat. He opened his eyes slowly, unsure if this was a kind reminder or a death warrant.

The deeper they went into the training center, the damper the air became. The narrow corridors were filled with a faint scent of blood and the sickly-sweet smell of decay. Every gust of wind felt like it was tearing at his sensitive, fragile psyche.

Lai Zhou noticed Lance’s strange behavior and shot him a curious look but said nothing, simply switching magazines. In contrast, Pei Yingye, leading the way, seemed far more at ease. With his submachine gun propped against his shoulder, he even had the leisure to hum a cheerful little tune while sweeping the area.

Lance was swept forward by the sound of the wind and footsteps. He didn’t dare walk in front of Ji Xuan, fearing the man’s combat knife would pierce through his shoulder as easily as it did a Zerg’s carapace; he only dared to trail at the back of the team, keeping several paces of distance. The sounds of rubbing fabric and clinking metal echoed through the empty corridor. He was becoming unable to distinguish which were actual dangers and which were hallucinations born of his own mind.

Suddenly—

Beep!

A notification tone rang out abruptly, causing everyone to freeze at the same time.

Immediately following, the cold, mechanical voice of the system rang out:

[Hidden Quest: East District Limited-Time Kill]

[Target: S-grade Mimic Zerg ??? (Coordinates shifting randomly)]

[Eligibility: All squads currently in the area]

[Reward: 3,000 Points]

[Countdown: 02:59:59]

“Three thousand points!?” Lai Zhou gasped. They had killed so many Zerg along the way and had barely reached two thousand points!

“Otherwise, why would it be a hidden quest?” Pei Yingye licked his dry lips, his eyes excessively bright. He flicked his muzzle and gunned down a Zerg falling from the ceiling. “It’s like fighting a map boss.”

Seeing the look of confusion on Ji Xuan’s face, he leaned in with interest to explain: “A few years ago, there were many holographic games popular on the StarNet that basically had similar settings—map bosses appearing randomly for players to hunt within a time limit. I don’t know who the examiner is this year, but they’re actually playing that game too.”

Looking at him, Ji Xuan figured he must have played many games like that. A young, aggressive Alpha in his teens would surely have been restless and passionate, curious about everything, trying every new game with high spirits.

“So, are we going?” Lai Zhou asked.

“Why wouldn’t we?” Pei Yingye said. “A quest like this…”

He cut himself off almost instantly. His casual expression flipped, and he lowered his brow as he looked at Ji Xuan, who shared the same expression.

The next second, the ground shuddered violently. Dust fell from the ceiling of the corridor as rustling sounds surged from all directions like a rising tide or the friction of shifting sand—

Clack… clack…

Dense, piercing, hurried, and chaotic.

It was so crowded it made one’s scalp tingle.

Lai Zhou turned pale and cursed, “…Fuck! Is E-43 some kind of spider nest?!”

Pei Yingye raised his gun quickly, the tongue of fire from the bullets illuminating the darkness and repelling the first wave of the swarming Zerg. Countless bright gold Zerg approached rapidly from one side of the corridor, occupying not just the floor but also the walls and ceiling like a sprawling, fuzzy carpet. No one knew what would happen if they touched that carpet.

“Move!” Pei Yingye said in a deep voice. “Too many of them, the corridor is too narrow to spread our firepower.”

The three retreated simultaneously. The gunfire in the narrow passage was deafening, the screeching of the swarm mixing with the sound of skittering legs, pressing down like a tide.

Lance followed at the very back, his breathing in shambles and his mind filled with chaotic thoughts.

“Left fork!”

Pei Yingye grabbed Lai Zhou first and broke through toward the side passage. Right at the moment they turned the corner, a massive Zerg lunged out from a sewer opening, blocking their path!

Bullets tore through the Zerg’s body. The corridor was stained with slime and firelight, and the gunfire made their eardrums ring. The team was split up; Pei Yingye and Lai Zhou were pushed down another fork by the swarm, their shouts gradually fading into the distance.

Only Lance and Ji Xuan remained.

The passageway fell silent abruptly, save for distant roars and nearby footsteps. In the dim light, Ji Xuan’s shadow stretched long, and the combat dagger in his hand reflected several cold glints onto the pipe wall.

They were gone.

Lance thought to himself that the swarm of Zerg chasing them had suddenly vanished.

In the dozens of meters of space before and behind them, only he and Ji Xuan were left. Their footsteps slowed, echoing one after another in the long, narrow corridor.

Tap. Tap.

One sound after another hammered on his nerves on the verge of snapping.

Being alone with Ji Xuan in this enclosed space was now more terrifying to Lance than facing a thousand Zerg.

“How are we going to regroup with them…” he finally couldn’t help but ask. “Ji Xuan, are we too deep? It’s too quiet here…”

“Doesn’t quiet mean there’s no danger?” Ji Xuan said softly. “You should feel at peace.”

How could I possibly feel at peace! Lance screamed internally.

Ji Xuan, walking in front, suddenly stopped.

Lance’s heart skipped a beat.

Ji Xuan turned around slowly. A sliver of weak light through a crack in the pipe outlined the cold lines of half his face, while the other half was submerged in deep shadow.

“What is it?” Lance asked, forcing himself to stay calm. “Did you find something?”

Ji Xuan didn’t answer. He just looked at Lance silently. His pitch-black eyes in the dim environment were like two bottomless ancient wells.

Then, he slowly took the test tube he had picked up earlier in the hall from his combat jacket pocket. The murky amber liquid shimmered with an eerie light.

Everything seemed to shift into slow motion. Lance could even clearly see the glandular tissue and the tiny blood vessels floating in the liquid. Boundless terror instantly saturated his entire being!

Ji Xuan was going to move against him!

“No, no… you can’t!” he shrieked, instinctively trying to back away, but his body hit the cold pipe wall. There was nowhere to run. Ji Xuan looked at him, his lips twitching into a slight curve as he said, “What are you afraid of? Worried I’ll drop it here?”

“I didn’t drop it on purpose back then; the mecha was too bumpy… it was just an accident; I didn’t mean to…” Lance tried to explain, but he met only Ji Xuan’s cold, calm gaze.

“But besides that, we actually have a lot of scores to settle.” Ji Xuan’s eyes crinkled, showing the same expression he had in the aircraft. He seemed to always smile when angry, but those flirtatious peach blossom eyes held a cold, inorganic light, as if he were observing a dead object.

As if worried Lance wouldn’t remember their history, Ji Xuan even raised his hand leisurely: “The first time, you wet my bedding. But I paid you back, so we won’t count that. The second time, you went to Zhou Lin and the others to set a trap for me during training…”

He spoke in a gentle tone, but Lance’s breathing grew uncontrollably faster.

Was this a judgment?

He didn’t know.

Because after Ji Xuan finished speaking, he simply twirled the test tube in his hand and then calmly put it back in his pocket.

This action was more despair-inducing for Lance than if he had shattered it. It meant his judgment was postponed indefinitely; until the Full-domain Simulation ended, fear would follow him like a shadow.

Rustle—rustle, rustle—

The faint, dense sound of crawling seeped through the pipes again. Lance could no longer tell if these Zerg were activated by the hidden quest and following naturally, or if they were attracted by the female Zerg gland that might have leaked—or was about to be used.

But he could almost smell the strong, sweet odor that came from the bursting of the sealed tube, see countless crimson compound eyes lighting up in the darkness, and feel the excruciating pain of being corroded by the slime and torn apart by countless Zergs.

He even began to suspect that perhaps their separation from Pei Yingye and Lai Zhou had been orchestrated by Ji Xuan, just to find a deserted place to lure the Zerg to finish him off.

“No!” Lance clutched his head and let out a shrill scream.

Rather than enduring this constant paranoia and the infinite agony of being torn apart by Zerg, it was better to…

—

Ji Xuan jumped down from the ventilation duct outlet and easily brushed the dust off his clothes.

Pei Yingye, who had been leaning against the wall, turned his head the moment Ji Xuan landed. His gaze was like a burning searchlight, scanning him from head to toe. After confirming that not a single hair was out of place, his tense posture vanished, and he leaned back lazily, cradling his gun.

He wasn’t surprised that Ji Xuan was alone, because a few minutes ago, they had received a notification of a point deduction.

Aside from the fifty points deducted for Ji Xuan discarding the female Zerg gland, the remaining hundred points were for Lance’s elimination, indicating it wasn’t a teammate who had done the deed.

Whether Lance had died to the Zerg through his own mistake, or…

Lai Zhou rubbed his nose uneasily, hearing Ji Xuan ask in his usual level tone, “What’s the ranking now?”

He snapped out of it and opened the leaderboard: “…Dropped to fifth.”

“Mm,” Ji Xuan responded faintly, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “We’ll get them back.”

“Three thousand points means extreme danger. Whether from the perspective of a personal grudge or considering team coordination, I didn’t want to leave an unstable factor behind.” As if explaining to Lai Zhou, his voice was extremely gentle. “It will just be a bit more work if someone gets injured later.”

Hearing this, Lai Zhou looked at his face and nodded firmly: “I understand.”

Pei Yingye’s eyes swept over the hand resting on Lai Zhou’s shoulder, his gaze obscure. He deliberately leaned back with his gun, the muzzle clinking sharply against the pipe wall.

Ji Xuan turned his head at the sound and looked at him.

“Uncomfortable?”

An appropriate amount of soft concern appeared on his face. Pei Yingye didn’t know if it was real or if he was playing along with his own childish antics. But he licked his lips and said nonchalantly, “It’s nothing. Maybe the rut hasn’t fully passed yet.”

The moment he said this, Lai Zhou stood at attention in shock: “Don’t say that! Please don’t let it be ongoing! We haven’t found the Mimic Zerg yet; you can’t suddenly drop the ball!”

Pei Yingye gave a harsh sneer and hooked his arm around Lai Zhou’s neck to pull him down: “Even if it hasn’t passed, I can still grab those three thousand points…”

But all his movements froze the moment his peripheral vision caught Ji Xuan’s expression.

Ji Xuan was smiling.

A very faint, knowing curve hung at the corners of his mouth. His peach blossom eyes were slightly crinkled, as if he were enjoying a funny scene. Pei Yingye felt as though his heart had been lightly scratched, and then it began to beat out of control.

He suddenly felt that his casual joke might actually be true.

His rut had indeed not fully passed.

“Let’s go. 97 minutes left.” Ji Xuan opened his panel to take a look, his expression pausing.

“What is it?”

“The target location was updated. It’s…” Ji Xuan frowned. “Below us?”

As if to confirm his judgment, the moment Ji Xuan finished speaking, the sound of footsteps rang out from behind them.

“What a coincidence to run into you here, Brother.”

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