Yan Hebi: “I’m hiding in the restroom of Car No. 15.”

After the darkness dissipated, the passengers inside the carriage gradually calmed down again. Everyone looked around, and under Yang Zhuang’s “No one in sight” cover, they failed to notice anything unusual. They soon returned to their original state, as if nothing at all had happened.

This was the biggest difference between the Train World and other worlds. The passengers were fake—nothing more than artificial intelligence placed on the train by the system. The only real humans on the train were the twenty players.

Xing Ye understood the system’s reasoning. Back in the Casino World, it was precisely because all the cruise ship passengers were real that Xing Ye had found a loophole and used external factors to defeat the system. This time, to prevent a similar situation, the system used human data from other worlds instead.

According to what Yan Hebi had said, the passengers were actually data replicas. They had their own personalities and preferences, but they could be deleted at any time.

Xing Ye first opened his phone and scanned Tan Feng’s corpse. Tan Feng’s body and the bloodstains instantly vanished.

This was something Cao Qian had taught Xing Ye back in the Campus World. The prerequisite was that only the winner could scan the corpse to absorb the data and obtain the defeated player’s information. Tan Feng had been eliminated by Xing Ye personally, so Xing Ye was able to erase his body.

Xing Ye opened the “Loser Information” interface in the Challengin Fate game app and saw Tan Feng’s basic profile:

Player Name: Tan Feng
Faction: Fate-defying Faction
Points: 503723 (after failure deduction)
Initial Skills: Heightened Sense of Smell, Seize by force and steal
Achievement Title: Player Killer (earned after hunting more than one thousand players in the game)
Special QR Codes: 2
Worlds Experienced: 173
Players Defeated: 1,151
Players Whose Consciousness Was Erased: 2

This information surprised Xing Ye somewhat. Tan Feng had given off the impression that he completely disregarded players’ lives in the real world. He possessed Fate-following items, and the Shadow Puppet’s power was strong enough to kill players outright. Xing Ye had assumed Tan Feng had erased the consciousness of at least a dozen players. Unexpectedly, the statistics said otherwise.

Of course, crossing the line was still crossing the line. There was only a difference between zero and one; once it exceeded zero, whether it was one or ten, the nature was the same—only the degree differed.

Yet judging from Tan Feng’s attitude, he should have killed far more people and cared even less about human life. But the facts contradicted that assumption.

One world per week—Tan Feng had experienced 173 worlds, meaning he had been trapped in the game for over three years. And yet he still had not reached the Final Stage. Was that even possible?

Xing Ye thought back to Tan Feng’s abilities and silently shook his head. It was impossible. While the real Final Stage was extremely difficult to reach, fake ones were plentiful. With Tan Feng’s strength, he should have cleared high-level worlds long ago.

But he hadn’t. Instead, he had remained in the game for an extended period, deliberately controlling his number of victories, doing his utmost to prevent the appearance of the Final Stage.

Why would he do this?

Xing Ye could think of only one answer: Tan Feng knew that once a player erased another player’s consciousness, they could never win the game. Xing Shuo had chosen to perish at the Final Stage, while Tan Feng trapped himself inside the game world. As a Fate-defying player, he would not be turned into an item due to negative performance, so he simply continued like this indefinitely.

More than three years, 173 worlds…

Xing Ye recalled the smile on Tan Feng’s corpse and suddenly understood. Tan Feng did not truly care whether he obtained the thirty million points. To him, even gaining those points would merely make him a ferocious beast locked in a cage, doomed to never escape.

During his fight with Tan Feng, Xing Ye had found it strange—how could someone like Tan Feng willingly allow Shao Lin to use him? Both were powerful individuals; who would willingly live under another’s command?

Now Xing Ye understood. Tan Feng simply didn’t care. Thirty million points were meaningless. Failure meant only losing points. And if his consciousness were erased… for someone who had experienced 173 worlds, that might even be a form of release.

Just as Xing Ye finished dealing with Tan Feng’s body, Wang Sipang’s “Three Thousand Worlds” expired. The Thermos Cup had been watching him closely; the moment the effect vanished, water threads instantly wrapped around Wang Sipang, giving him no chance to tap a QR code.

Naturally, this was also because Wang Sipang didn’t dare to use one. As a Fate-defying player, using the wrong QR code was equivalent to not using one at all. Perhaps he had been badly burned by QR codes in the past—Wang Sipang hesitated with his phone for a fraction of a second, and that tiny hesitation was enough for the Thermos Cup to bind him completely.

Xing Ye asked Wang Sipang, “Did you use ‘Cause and Effect Reincarnation’ to turn a Fate-following player into an item?”

Wang Sipang exclaimed in shock, “How did you know?”

Xing Ye didn’t answer. Toward Tan Feng, Xing Ye still retained a measure of respect for a powerful opponent. As for Wang Sipang…

Xing Ye looked at Yang Zhuang. “I’ll leave him to you. Don’t use items. Fate-following items erase a player’s consciousness.”

Yang Zhuang nodded. “I wouldn’t bear to let my wife kill someone. We’re just law-abiding ordinary citizens—we wouldn’t dare kill anyone.”

Hearing this, Xing Ye smiled, a rare smile, and said, “Once you use a Fate-following item to kill someone, it’s equivalent to handing the system leverage over you. The system will exploit that leverage at the Final Stage. That’s why anyone who has erased a player’s consciousness is destined to never clear the game.”

“What?!” This was the first time Yang Zhuang had heard this. He clutched his chest in fright and said to the Thermos Cup, “Honey, good thing we’ve always followed the rules and stayed within our bottom line!”

The Thermos Cup added, “Exactly! From now on I’ll be careful—binding people is fine, injuring them is fine, but killing is absolutely off-limits. Leave this Wang Sipang to you. Killing him still gets half the points—recovering even a little is better than nothing.”

Hearing this, Yang Zhuang slapped his belly and activated “too big a breath”, blowing a mouthful of air onto the bound Wang Sipang, severely injuring him instantly.

Seeing that Wang Sipang did not resist, Yang Zhuang confirmed that he had no defensive or offensive initial skills left. He boldly approached with a surgical knife and slit Wang Sipang’s throat in a single strike.

After Wang Sipang was eliminated, Yang Zhuang gained forty thousand points, recovering a portion of his losses. He scanned Wang Sipang’s corpse and saw that his initial skills were “Paper tactics” and “Painting Cakes to Satisfy Hunger”. The latter worked exactly as its name implied: in worlds lacking food, Wang Sipang could draw cakes and eat them, preventing starvation.

Yang Zhuang: “……”

Fate-defying players truly had abilities as unlucky as possible. This skill was utterly useless.

While Yang Zhuang dealt with Wang Sipang, Xing Ye had already helped Cao Qian out of the control room. He placed the severely wounded corpse of the pink twin-tailed girl onto a seat, then casually dragged the steward out with one hand and piled him at Cao Qian’s feet.

Yang Zhuang, who had just finished handling Wang Sipang: “……”

Xing Ye’s differential treatment was obvious at a glance.

That said, Yang Zhuang truly admired Cao Qian. In the darkness he had not seen what kind of battle Cao Qian had gone through, but merely by looking at her corpse, he could imagine how brutal the fight had been, and how hard-won that battle was.

Yang Zhuang was bound by the effect of a QR code ability. Before fulfilling the agreement between Cao Qian and himself, he was unable to attack Xing Ye. Even after Cao Qian’s death, she still left Xing Ye with this teammate.

Xing Ye said to Yang Zhuang, “You have two choices. The first is to take these two corpses and turn yourself in, claiming that you killed them. The train police will arrest you for this, and you will be eliminated. The second is to continuously use ‘No one in sight’. You still have 45 minutes remaining on your current ‘No one in sight,’ plus one additional use. That makes a total of 1 hour and 45 minutes. There are still 1 hour and 20 minutes until the fifth stop. That’s enough time. Once the train arrives at the platform, you take these two corpses off the train and destroy the evidence.”

“Huh?” Yang Zhuang asked. “You don’t need my help anymore?”

Xing Ye slowly shook his head and said, “No need. For the remaining players, I’ve already thought of a countermeasure.”

At present, only Shao Lin and two female players remained, along with one Fate-following item. The phone showed that there were six players left in total; the other two were Yan Hebi and Yang Zhuang. The train had been running for only five hours, yet the situation of the battle was already very clear.

Yang Zhuang recalled the way Xing Ye and Cao Qian fought and deeply felt that this truly was not a battle he could participate in. Even with his wife’s help, he would be unable to join combat at that level. Someone capable of wresting thirty million points from the system was absolutely someone he could never defeat.

After thinking for a moment, he said, “I’ll take the two corpses and turn myself in, to avoid creating unnecessary complications.”

“Alright,” Xing Ye nodded to him.

Supporting Cao Qian’s corpse with one hand and dragging the steward’s body with the other, Yang Zhuang walked toward the carriage where the train police were stationed.

It was said that the train police had a small compartment in Carriage No. 7 that served as a rest room. Once Yang Zhuang left Carriage No. 1, the effect of ‘No one in sight’ automatically ended.

Xing Ye sat in his seat and picked up his phone. While passing through a tunnel there was no signal, so the phone could not receive messages. After waiting roughly twenty minutes, he finally received a message from Yan Hebi.

Yan Hebi: I made my way all the way to Carriage No. 12 and saw a trendy guy who looks exactly like you sitting there wearing sunglasses. That’s your paper substitute, right? It’s already exposed in front of the players—why did you still leave the paper substitute behind? But I think you must have your reasons. I believe in you!

Yan Hebi: I saw the two girls you mentioned who might be hunters. They’re in Carriage No. 14. They’re not together with Shao Lin. They’re staring intently at their phones, looking very serious.

Xing Ye checked the sending time of this message; it coincided with the moment of Tan Feng’s death. After forming a temporary team, players could see their teammates’ status. The girls had probably realized that Tan Feng was already dead.

Yan Hebi: I’m sitting in an empty seat diagonally across from them, eating instant noodles and cucumbers (the cucumbers were given to me by the auntie from the dining car—after all, I’m the driver), while observing them. One of the girls called someone and talked quietly for a long time. I suspect the person on the other end was Shao Lin. I just don’t know which carriage he’s in.

Yan Hebi: Sitting next to me is a young lady as beautiful as a fairy. She asked me where I bought the cucumbers. I told her they were from the dining car. She asked me to help her buy one, but I didn’t have time, so I gave her the other cucumber I hadn’t eaten yet.

Xing Ye: “……”

Yan Hebi’s reports were really detailed—even this kind of detail was included.

Probably because he was chatting with the young lady, a full ten minutes passed after that message before Yan Hebi sent another one:

Yan Hebi: Scared me to death! Just now that young lady said she had a big secret to tell me and pulled me over to the sink to whisper. I suspected it was a hidden quest in the game, so I followed her. Who knew that in front of the sink, she suddenly grabbed me and said I had to submit to her, or else she’d make me die together with everyone on this train!

Five minutes later, Yan Hebi sent another message:

Yan Hebi: I’m hiding in the restroom of Carriage No. 15 right now. My clothes were torn to shreds—I barely managed to escape. She’s terrifying!

Xing Ye: “……”

 

Translator : DarNan