Tan Feng’s initial skill

 

When Xing Ye saw the twin-ponytail girl, he was still thinking about how to quietly ditch the meal cart and the clothes he was wearing. Shao Lin and the others had probably already discovered that the chef had been replaced. Xing Ye’s move was a gamble, testing the limits of the rules. What he was betting on was whether the “Civilized and Harmonious Train” required strict evidence for everything. After attacking the chef and switching clothes on the spot, he wondered whether the train police would immediately lock him up.

It was a pretty big gamble, but Xing Ye had already prepared for the worst. Even if the train police could directly identify him, he wouldn’t be in real danger.

He brushed past the pink-haired girl without any change in expression, as if he hadn’t noticed her at all. Lu Mingze couldn’t hold it in anymore and shouted in Xing Ye’s mind: “That’s Cao Qian! Cao Qian! Why aren’t you acknowledging her? Are you afraid she’ll betray you? I think even if Yan Hebi betrayed you, Cao Qian never would! Otherwise she would’ve used her points to exchange for money long ago!”

Xing Ye was still stunned and asked in confusion, “Where’s Cao Qian? I didn’t see her.”

Lu Mingze roared anxiously, “That pink-haired girl! After Cao Qian’s initial ability merged with Linlin’s, she got the ability ‘Transformation Girl.’ That short-skirt outfit, that one-meter-fifty height—if that’s not Cao Qian, who else would it be!”

Xing Ye finally understood. Just now he’d practically been blind, completely unaware that the girl in front of him could be Cao Qian. Only after Lu Mingze reminded him did he snap out of it.

But by then he had already walked past Cao Qian and was pushing the meal cart toward the connecting area between Cars 15 and 16.

He had just thought of a way to ditch the uniform when a voice came from behind: “How much is a lunch-box? What dishes are there?”

Xing Ye turned around and saw the pink-haired girl staring at his cart.

Just as Lu Mingze said, Xing Ye had never worried that Cao Qian would betray him. If she were someone driven by greed, she would have converted the 400,000 points she earned in the last world into cash long ago.

Cao Qian was a very clear-headed person. After surviving the hardships of the game worlds, she was no longer the same girl he’d first met. She knew how to distinguish between game-world points and real-world money. She understood that no matter how many points she had, they were just data—and that exchanging them for cash was seeking death.

She would not let immediate benefit blind her. She was a teammate Xing Ye could trust.

This was the smoking area of Car 15. There was no one else around. This time, Cao Qian didn’t draw their agreed-upon recognition symbol on her chest. Instead, she simply took out a 20-yuan note and looked up at Xing Ye.

Xing Ye accepted the money and drew the symbol on his own chest.

He understood what Cao Qian meant. When they brushed past each other earlier, she had already suspected that this “chef” was Xing Ye. So she called out to him in a deserted spot.

But in this world, they weren’t teammates. Xing Ye was the target everyone was hunting. Cao Qian couldn’t be sure if he still trusted her, so she didn’t take the initiative to identify herself, leaving the choice to Xing Ye. Whether to team up again, whether to trust—this time, it was up to him.

After seeing Xing Ye draw the recognition mark, the pink-haired girl showed a knowing smile. She stepped forward, picked up a lunch-box from the cart, and said softly, “Thank you for still trusting me.”

Xing Ye smiled faintly and didn’t say any empty words. Instead, he confirmed his trust in the most practical way: “Cover for me.”

As soon as he spoke, a flash of pink light flickered in front of him, and the doors to Cars 15 and 16 closed instantly. Even with Xing Ye’s eyesight, he couldn’t see how Cao Qian had done it.

This was no longer just agility—it was practically teleportation.

It was like those moments in anime: a cold flash, a cut to a new scene, and the girl has already finished what she intended to do—while the enemy has no idea how it happened.

Standing in front of the door to Car 15, Cao Qian nodded and said, “I’ll keep watch.”

Xing Ye nodded back and, under her cover, quickly drew the QR code for “Magician’s hat.”

This was a QR code Yan Hebi had obtained during more than sixty chaotic worlds. When Xing Ye met him in the Hospital World, he had “The Fire Ring of the Unlucky Beast-Tamer,” “The Stage-Cutting Saw of the Magician,” “The Often-Leaking Battery,” “The Carbon Monoxide Leak,” and “Magician’s hat.” He had shown all five to Xing Ye.

Yan Hebi had once used “Magician’s hat” in the Casino World to entertain Madam Lin. Although he could have used it to cheat, he chose not to. Instead, he honestly told her his luck wasn’t great and used the QR code to perform a small trick, earning him the “Friend of Women” QR code from the leadership badge.

“Magician's Hat” was a delayed-effect QR code. After using it, one would temporarily become a prepared magician capable of simple tricks to fool people. But it only lasted ten minutes—only five minutes if redrawn. After those five minutes, all magic effects vanished, returning to normal.

But five minutes was enough!

Xing Ye quickly took off the chef’s clothes, tossed them into the cart, and snapped his fingers. The cart vanished into thin air.

It was only a magical effect—the real cart hadn’t disappeared but was simply hidden by misdirection. But that was enough.

He snapped his fingers again, and a full attendant’s uniform appeared on his body. He had transformed into a train attendant, holding several packs of watermelon-flavoured gum in his hand.

He nodded to Cao Qian, telling her to go wait for him in Car 12. But Xing Ye did not return to Car 15. Instead, still disguised as a train attendant, he entered Car 16 and handed out chewing gum to some passengers, saying it was a complimentary gift from the train.

He continued until Car 18. When the “magician” time limit expired, Xing Ye turned back into the baseball cap man.

Since before this, Xing Ye had been sitting in Car 12, Cars 18, 19, and 20 were unlikely to have any players, so he could relax a little here.

Wearing the baseball cap, he walked all the way to Car 20.

At this moment, Xing Ye glanced at his phone. There were still three minutes before the next stop.

It had been half an hour since he left Car 12. In that time, he had changed his disguise four times—from the baseball cap man to the chef, to the train attendant, and then back to the baseball cap man. Changing outfits every few cars was also a way to prevent anyone from tracking him.

Most importantly, neither the baseball cap man, nor the chef, nor the attendant had any connection to the fashionable young man sitting motionless in Car 12.

It had been about fifteen minutes since he knocked out the chef, yet he had never seen the train police pursue him. It seemed his earlier setup had taken effect, and he could make some preliminary deductions about the rules of this high-speed train.

First, without evidence, the train police would not rashly determine that someone violated the regulations or arrest him lightly.

Second, aside from extremely serious behaviours that endangered passenger safety and property—such as murder, arson, carrying controlled knives, firearms, contraband, or flammable and explosive materials—when it came to actions involving only one individual, as long as both parties agreed, the train police would not easily arrest the aggressor.

He reached this second conclusion because before Xing Ye knocked out the chef, Little mirror used “Unparalleled beauty” on him and triggered “Beacon Fires to Amuse the Lords”. In the latter skill, the request Lu Mingze gave to a player was irreversible; even after the “Unparalleled beauty” effect ended, the player still couldn’t refuse the request made during “Beacon Fires to Amuse the Lords ,” but only one request ias allowed, and it couldn’t cause harm to the player.

Lu Mingze’s request to the chef was to tell the train police that he voluntarily gave his clothes and meal cart to a passenger because he was tired and wanted someone to take his shift. There was no robbery involved. As for who knocked him out in the restroom, the chef said he didn’t know, but it definitely wasn’t the passenger who took the cart, because he fainted only after the cart had already left.

Of course this was a lie—meant to mislead the train police. Xing Ye wanted to use this method to probe the police’s limits.

Now that no one was pursuing him, it meant that for minor injuries, as long as the victim did not press charges, the police would not make a big fuss.

Thinking about this, Xing Ye opened his phone to check the remaining number of hunters and was surprised to find only thirteen left.

There were nineteen hunters. At the first station, two players who killed NPCs were eliminated. Xing Ye used the train police to eliminate two hunters. Lu Mingze “hypnotized” one player, causing him to injure someone with a knife and get eliminated. That should leave fourteen—why were there only thirteen?

Xing Ye recalled the man and woman he had seen in Car 9 when selling lunch-boxes. They both had scalpel wounds—the same surgical scalpel he had given to the chocolate man, using “hypnosis” to lock onto the chocolate man’s companion when looking for Shao Lin.

He had deliberately asked those two injured people whether they wanted to buy lunch-boxes, using the opportunity to observe them closely. He noticed that the man kept twitching his nose—clearly his sense of smell was extremely sharp—and the man carried a dangerous aura.

That man was definitely not Shao Lin, but the elegant, beautiful, long-haired woman beside him might have been.

Thinking of that man, Xing Ye frowned slightly. This time, it seemed Shao Lin might have found an extremely powerful teammate. That tall man made even Xing Ye feel danger.

While Xing Ye waited in Car 20 for the train to arrive at the station, in Car 9, the cross-dressed Shao Lin said, “Since the chef claimed he voluntarily gave up the cart, the train police stopped pursuing Xing Ye. It seems Xing Ye not only fooled us with this trick but also figured out two rules. But it’s fine—we’ve now learned these two rules as well.”

The man beside him picked up a plastic fork, took a bite of instant noodles, and frowned. “Bleh. When you smell others eating noodles on the train, it seems so delicious, but when you eat it yourself, why is it so awful?”

Shao Lin nudged him with a slender arm and whispered, “Tan Feng, did you hear what I said? As long as someone is suspicious, you can make a move. But remember, you must stay hidden—you can’t be caught by the police on the spot. As long as they can’t find evidence, whether they’re players or passengers, you can kill as many as you want. As long as we’re the ones who survive in the end, that’s all that matters.”

“Player Slayer” Tan Feng grabbed Shao Lin’s arm and said, “Careful, you almost made me spill my noodles.”

Shao Lin was about to get angry—his delicate brows had just started to furrow—when Tan Feng pressed a finger between his eyebrows, smoothing the crease.

“I know,” Tan Feng said. “Do you think my achievement title was given for nothing? Go check Car 8. I already ran an experiment.”

What experiment?

Shao Lin got up and walked to Car 8. In the corridor lay a fat chef. Several staff members approached, checked his breathing, then shook their heads. “Go get the train police—this man suddenly died from an illness.”

Shao Lin retreated back into Car 9 and sat beside Tan Feng, who leisurely drank the last mouthful of instant-noodle soup. After finishing, he even shook his head and said, “Still not full.”

“How did he die?” Shao Lin asked.

Tan Feng tapped Shao Lin’s chest, his hand clenched into a fist, and said with a light laugh, “The heart—boom!”

As he spoke, Tan Feng opened his fist-shaped hand.

“How did you do it?” Shao Lin asked.

He and Tan Feng were merely acquaintances who had crossed paths by chance. They had met in other worlds before, and Shao Lin had once cooperated with Tan Feng to achieve victory. At that time, Shao Lin knew that Tan Feng was a player-killer, but he did not know his abilities—only that Tan Feng had killed many people.

“I won’t hide it from you,” Tan Feng said. “My other initial skill is “Seize by force and steal”. It allows me to take another player’s initial skill, but I can only take one at a time; if I want a new one, I have to discard the old one. The last skill I seized was “Hidden murderous intent”. It lets me silently damage someone’s heart through physical contact, but it can only be used three times within 24 hours, and it has a delayed effect — it takes twenty minutes to trigger. Don’t you think… this skill is perfect for this world?”

Shao Lin looked at Tan Feng’s hand and revealed a smile.

 

Translator : DarNan