His entire body went numb, and he collapsed weakly to the ground, where he was seized by the train police

 

Seeing the pocket watch, Cao Qian’s heart jolted, and the crystal on her chest began to shake incessantly.

Cao Qian pressed down on Linlin to calm her, stopping her from impulsively using “idleness”. This ability was indeed very strong, but it was not without ways to counter it, and with so many people in the carriage right now, she could not act rashly.

More importantly, Cao Qian had no confidence in defeating Randy. The pocket watch’s time-stopping ability was far too powerful—once it was used, Cao Qian would be eliminated immediately.

Besides, it was still not certain that this person was Randy.

Cao Qian slowly walked toward the two of them, recalling Randy’s abilities in her mind.

His initial skills were “tender as water” and “passionate like fire”. “Tender as water” could turn the body into a liquid state, completely countering Cao Qian’s physical attacks, while “passionate like fire” covered the exterior of the body in flames, enhancing physical offence. Both abilities lasted ten minutes.

His destiny-aligned item, the pocket watch, had two abilities. One of them was to absorb a player’s life time and convert it into frozen time. However, this time-stopping effect was different from Xing Ye’s “Kua Fu chases the sun”. It could only stop time within a limited range—essentially a localized pause button—whereas Xing Ye’s “Kua Fu” could completely stop the entire game’s time for one minute. Absorbing a player’s life time also had conditions: the player had to agree to obey Randy in everything; without consent, it could not be done.

The pocket watch’s other ability was to accelerate the flow of a player’s game time. This ability did not require the player’s consent, but the player’s body had to come into contact with the pocket watch to activate it. Accelerating game time would at most cause the player to fail this game, but if it was used on a player like Linlin who tended to muddle through, it would turn the player into an item.

Cao Qian considered whether this second ability could harm Xing Ye, and the answer was no.

If Xing Ye endured for ten hours, he would naturally win; accelerating his game time would only hasten Xing Ye’s victory.

The pocket watch was certainly powerful, but its activation conditions were harsh. If Randy wanted to accumulate time for the pocket watch, he would have to use sweet talk to deceive other players into teaming up with him and agreeing to follow all his commands.

Moreover, even the pocket watch’s time-stopping power required Randy to physically touch the item and manually activate it. Unlike following fate items with souls, following fate items that had lost consciousness were completely incapable of protecting their owners on their own.

Calm thinking really was useful. Cao Qian, whose heart had been pounding like a drum, gradually calmed down.

She was no longer the Cao Qian from the Puppet City world. Whether in combat strength or analytical ability, she had improved by more than one level. Linlin was also different—after two upgrades to her abilities, she was long past being the idle Linlin who could only use “Lack of ambition”.

“We are very strong,” Cao Qian silently said to herself as she gripped the crystal on her chest.

Sensing her resolve, Linlin also quieted down. They were very strong.

Cao Qian briefly thought through her plan. She lowered her head and glanced at the nails she had after transforming into a magical girl. These nails were an increase to her attack power after transformation; a girl’s beautiful nails could also serve as self-defence tools. Though they were not as sharp as a scalpel, at certain times they could work wonders.

Coupled with the boost in physical strength from “Transforming Girl,” Cao Qian quietly encouraged herself. After quickly reviewing her setup, she naturally walked over to Qian Daniu.

Originally, Cao Qian could not be certain whether these two were truly Randy and Qian Daniu, but Linlin’s constantly trembling body told her that the suited man was definitely Randy. Qian Daniu had many subtle habitual movements that Cao Qian remembered clearly from the previous world—there was a ninety percent chance it was her.

Suit-clad Randy was sitting on the outer seat. The pocket watch appeared to be placed on the table, but in reality his hand rested casually on it, his thumb pressed against the button.

Cao Qian remembered that as long as this button was pressed, time would stop—on the premise that Randy had already absorbed a player’s life time.

Thinking of how the number of hunters had inexplicably dropped from thirteen to twelve, Cao Qian felt that she had to be mentally prepared at all times for the enemy to be at their strongest.

She took a deep breath—be fast, be steady, be calm, be casual.

Cao Qian was extremely nervous inside, but her expression did not change, nor did her steps falter.

Wearing a miniskirt, under the sidelong glances of many passengers in the carriage, she walked to Randy’s side and deliberately twisted her foot.

“Ow!” she let out a delicate cry. Taking advantage of the stumble, her palm lightly braced itself on the small table in front of Randy. Her fingers accurately found their target, deftly flicking away Randy’s thumb that was pressing the pocket watch’s button.

With a flick of her wrist, the pocket watch slipped free of Randy’s fingers and was flung by Cao Qian to some unknown corner. At the same time, her long nails scraped across the back of Randy’s hand.

All of this happened in a flash. Though it looked complicated, under the anime-like speed granted by “Transformation Girl,” Cao Qian completed the entire sequence of actions in just 0.01 seconds.

By the time Randy realized that the pocket watch had been forcibly snatched away by a surge of strength, it had already been thrown by Cao Qian under some seat.

Randy’s face turned green. He nearly activated “Passionate like fire” on the spot to punch this girl who was clearly a player, but with so many people in the carriage, he dared not act rashly.

After successfully staging a tactical fake fall, Cao Qian leaned against the back of Randy’s seat, grabbed his hand, and said in a sweet, delicate voice, “Oh no, I accidentally scratched your arm just now. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry!”

After spending so much time with Xing Ye, Cao Qian had picked up a bit of acting skill. Tears streamed down her face at once, her expression full of guilt, as she held Randy’s hand and said, “I—I’ll take you to find the conductor. There should be an emergency medical kit on the train. I’ll help you bandage the wound, and when we get off, I’ll go with you to get a tetanus shot. I’m really, really sorry.”

She even pulled out a cute white handkerchief embroidered with butterflies from her pocket and pressed it firmly against Randy’s wound. For a moment, his hand hurt so badly it felt as if it were about to break.

Gritting his teeth, he said, “That’s not necessary. You made me lose my pocket watch—I’m going to look for it now.”

Just as Cao Qian had expected, under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Randy did not dare to casually use the “Passionate like fire” skill. “Passionate like fire” was a very strong initial skill, but its drawback was that it was far too conspicuous, making it extremely unsuitable for this environment. From Carriage No. 13, he could not see the distance to Xing Ye, which also made Randy extremely tense, fearing that he might be discovered by the Thirty million player, or be taken away by the train police as a spontaneous combustion case.

And with his palm pinned down by Cao Qian, he could not even use the QR code on his phone.

More importantly, Randy was even more anxious about the pocket watch that had been flung aside.

Cao Qian had the intention while Randy was unguarded; with one seemingly casual move she snatched away the pocket watch, stripping him of most of his combat power.

At this moment, Qian Daniu cautiously leaned over and said, “Did you do that …?”

She was about to say “on purpose” when she saw that the pendant at Cao Qian’s neck had been exposed when she fell—it was a tiny swan crystal.

Randy also saw the swan crystal, and it stirred up unbearable memories for him. That had been back in a low-level melee world, when he had encountered several puppets who did not know their own limits. Those puppets had actually joined forces to kill him and had even extracted a great deal of information from him.

That experience of capsizing in the gutter became Randy’s shadow. He still remembered that one of the female matchstick figures had been incredibly strong; if he had not used “Tender as water”, he would probably have been beaten to death by her long ago.

“It’s you…” Randy said out through clenched teeth. With his one remaining free hand, he grabbed his phone, feeling an overwhelming fury surge from deep within. Whenever he thought of that humiliation, he wanted to kill.

Randy did not even have the presence of mind to consider why anger was devouring his heart. In any case, he remembered this woman’s abilities: great strength and agility. She had not touched her phone at all and thus could not use a QR code, which made Randy see nothing strange in the sudden, inexplicable rise of his rage.

“Infection of Anger”—the QR code Cao Qian had obtained in the mental world—had been found by Xiao Jingzi and handed directly to her, and she had never had a chance to use it.

Its effect was to transmit one’s own anger to the target, causing the target player to experience the same anger. The angrier the user became, the angrier the other party would be, to the point of losing rationality. The duration was ten minutes.

The one using this QR code was not Cao Qian, but Linlin.

When intimacy exceeded 80, an item could freely use a player’s QR codes, without even needing to touch the player’s phone. This kind of ability could make scheming players feel a sense of crisis, fearing that the item might eventually replace them and erase the item’s consciousness. But once a player and an item fully trusted each other, they could unleash extremely terrifying power.

The anger belonged to Linlin, not Cao Qian. The swan crystal worked together with Cao Qian’s use of “Infection of Anger,” constantly replaying and amplifying in her mind the fury of having been turned into an item. That hatred was simply too intense, and with Linlin able to magnify it—magnify it to the point of losing all reason—Randy’s anger finally reached its peak.

“Get lost!” In the carriage, Randy completely lost control to his rage, slapping at Cao Qian with one hand and activating “Passionate like fire”.

He no longer had any rationality left. He only wanted to kill this pink-haired girl in front of him in the most brutal way possible, to set her entire body ablaze and burn her to death, and while she struggled in the flames, find the pocket watch and absorb her life time.

Randy’s rage, so intense that his eyes were bloodshot, terrified Qian Daniu. At the same time, Qian Daniu saw the girl with the swan crystal around her neck mouth the words “Take What You Can”.

Cao Qian was using lip-reading. Qian Daniu normally did not understand it, but after the previous world she had happened to look into it a bit, and just happened to know some lip movements for her own skills.

She immediately understood Cao Qian’s meaning and, seeing the wound on Randy’s body, used “Steady Stream” and “Take What You Can” on him.

“Steady Stream” healed the already minor wound on Randy’s body, while “Take What You Can” prevented Randy’s flames from harming Qian Daniu.

Cao Qian forcibly took Randy’s slap head-on and said to Qian Daniu, “Help me hold him back for a bit. Just a moment.”

Qian Daniu, ignoring the damage from the flames, reached out and wrapped her arms around Randy’s waist, cooperating with Cao Qian as she said, “Sir, please calm down. Don’t hurt that girl!”

Cao Qian, who had been knocked away, patted out the flames on her body and cried to Randy, “Sir, please don’t be angry. I’ll take you to the hospital right away. You… why is your whole body on fire?”

“I’m going to burn you to death!” Randy slapped Cao Qian across the face again.

Cao Qian seemed to have been knocked down completely, lying helplessly on the ground and crying. The passengers in Carriage No. 13 screamed in fright, and amid the chaos someone called the train police.

At this moment, Randy, who was being held tightly around the waist by Qian Daniu, discovered that he actually could not break free of this girl’s grip. For some reason, as soon as he thought about beating Qian Daniu away, his entire body lost all strength.

Unable to break free of Qian Daniu, he could not go look for the pocket watch to kill the pink-haired girl, and at some unknown moment his phone had also been taken by Qian Daniu.

Randy grew even angrier. Seeing the pink-haired girl lying motionless on the ground after being beaten by him, his rage demanded an outlet, and he began kicking her over and over.

“I’ll beat you to death! I’ll beat you to death!” At this point, he was already a madman completely dominated by anger.

A skinny girl who was only one meter fifty tall was curled up on the ground, enduring the violence, while another girl was trying to stop it—and the assailant was covered head to toe in flames. It was simply too terrifying!

The surrounding passengers did not dare step forward to help either. After about seven or eight minutes, a group of train police rushed in, held up an arrest-warrant QR code, and said to Randy, “Sir, please stop harming that lady. Warning: please stop the violence!”

Randy, dominated by anger, would not stop, so the train police had no choice but to use the “Arrest Warrant.”

The moment the “Arrest Warrant” took effect, all of Randy’s initial skills were sealed. His entire body went numb, and he collapsed weakly to the ground, where he was seized by the train police.

 

Translator : DarNan