“I was reborn from the future!”

 

Yan Hebi being chased and cornered by a female passenger suddenly reminded Xing Ye of something— something that had been right under his nose all along, yet he had consistently overlooked it.

That was what several players had once mentioned: by completing tasks assigned by passengers within the train cars, one could obtain clues about the Thirty-million-point player.

In fact, the system should have known that he had not chosen the option proposed by the system. Even the identity of this “trendy guy” would not be maintained permanently—he had many sets of clothes in his bag and could change his appearance at any time.

The system’s so-called “tasks,” in the end, would only turn into interference meant to toy with the hunters. Doing so would merely help Xing Ye eliminate some players and would actually make it harder to reclaim the thirty million points.

If that was the case, then why would the system do this at all?

Xing Ye’s initial conclusion was rules—the system was constrained by certain rules and had to maintain balance within the world. It could not only sabotage the hunted players; the hunters also had to face the same level of difficulty.

But when the “To burn both jade and stone together” option appeared, Xing Ye suddenly realized that the system did not actually need to focus on the hunters at all. It could fully exploit the game rules to kill him and reclaim the points from his hands.

Therefore, the true focus of this world was the mutual loss ending, not the nineteen hunters.

If the other nineteen hunters were not important, then why deliberately provide interference for them? That became very strange.

There was only one answer: these interference elements were not only disrupting the hunters’ judgment, but also using the same method to blind Xing Ye’s own perception.

In this world, Xing Ye had consistently regarded the passengers as NPCs provided by the system—unlike in other worlds, he believed they had no independent thought. As a result, he would ignore strange phenomena occurring around the passengers. He would unconsciously treat these odd behaviours as task triggers for players: when players found the passengers’ actions strange and went to ask, they would receive tasks, and upon completing them, the passengers would tell them who might be the Thirty-million-point player.

But what if this task-reward model itself existed precisely to prevent Xing Ye from investigating the secrets hidden among the passengers inside the train cars?

Since entering this game, Xing Ye had been busy dealing with the other nineteen players and had not searched for a single clue related to world information. Even when encountering strange details, he selectively ignored them. This was completely unlike his former self—and all of it stemmed from the initial choice and the interference of “task completion.”

“Well played,” Xing Ye murmured softly.

This was the first time since entering the game that he had been misled so thoroughly. If not for Yan Hebi’s encounter, he would still have been focusing all his attention on Shao Lin, completely overlooking the danger hidden in the shadows.

Thus, Xing Ye replied to Yan Hebi: “Come out of the restroom. Find that female passenger, placate her, and bring her to Car No. 1.”

Yan Hebi, inside the restroom of Car No. 15: “……”

He reread Xing Ye’s message more than ten times, and from between the lines, he clearly read the word “indifference.” His heart ached instantly.

Yan Hebi had not even activated his initial skill “Central air conditioning,”. He simply did not want to go back to the dining car—he still needed to secretly monitor the remaining players. For convenience, he casually handed the cucumber to the woman beside him, which earned him her goodwill. When she dragged him to the sink area, he genuinely thought his traits had triggered some hidden plot and that he might gain some secret information.

Who would have thought it would turn into this?

If it were some men with weaker willpower, thinking that it wasn’t the real world anyway and that they wouldn’t be losing anything, they might have gone along with it and enjoyed themselves. But Yan Hebi was not that kind of person. In his heart… well, forget it—he didn’t have anyone he liked. He was just a single dog with principles who disliked one-night stands.

Clutching his torn clothes tightly, Yan Hebi stepped out of the restroom with difficulty. As soon as he opened the door, he saw that beautiful yet domineering girl standing right in front of him.

“You finally came out?” she said.

With that, she grabbed Yan Hebi and pressed him against the sink beside them, saying, “Have you thought it through?”

This time, Yan Hebi wasn’t afraid. He looked straight into her eyes and said, “I’ve thought it through. No.”

“Why?” the girl asked. “Am I not pretty? Not sexy? Is my figure not good enough? Why do you men reject me one after another? Or do you have a powerful girlfriend who won’t let you cheat? Don’t worry, I’m very well-behaved—I won’t say anything.”

As she spoke, she even lifted her leg and rubbed it against Yan Hebi.

Yan Hebi recoiled in fright, took two steps back, and said seriously, “No. I don’t have a girlfriend. I’ve been single since birth. No one controls me, and I don’t need to hide anything. I can make my own decisions.”

“Then why?” the girl frowned.

Yan Hebi replied, “I want to be responsible to myself—and that’s also a form of responsibility toward you. Meeting by chance on a train, having a brief encounter in a crowded place, secretly tasting excitement, then going our separate ways after getting off the train, leaving behind no trouble—this sounds like all benefits and no downsides, but that’s not true. In the process, I would lose things.”

“Lose what?” the girl stopped tearing at his clothes and asked seriously.

“I would lose my principles and bottom line, lose self-control, and lose a sense of responsibility. If today I do something unspeakable with you on this train, then in the future, when I encounter the same situation again, I’ll probably make the same choice. Over time, I’ll get used to it. Some things—you can’t let them have a beginning.”

The girl stared at Yan Hebi for a while, then suddenly burst into tears with a “wah,” squatting on the ground and crying, “If only he were like you… wuwuwu…”

Yan Hebi squatted down with her, patted her shoulder, and said, “There are too many people here. Car No. 1 has fewer people and is business class. How about you go rest there for a bit?”

“I’ll be chased away by the conductor,” she said.

“No,” Yan Hebi replied. “I’m a driver. If I bring someone to an empty seat to rest for a short while, even if the conductor sees it, they won’t say anything. But it can’t be for too long. If you still want to stay in Car No. 1 later, I’ll help you buy a ticket.”

The girl looked up, tears still on her face. She reached out and wrapped her arms around Yan Hebi’s neck, whispering, “You’re a good person.”

Yan Hebi: “……”

Sigh. A “good person card” it is. He was already used to it.

After calming down the girl named Zeng Wanshi, Yan Hebi tugged awkwardly at his torn clothes and led her toward Car No. 1, attracting quite a few stares along the way.

He steeled himself and pretended not to hear the whispers. It was a game world anyway—he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to fear. But when they reached Car No. 11, he felt a sharp gaze. Yan Hebi instinctively turned his head and saw a woman wearing sunglasses staring at them.

Although the woman had changed her outfit and deliberately put on sunglasses, Yan Hebi recognized her at once—it was Shao Lin. Little Mirror had previously helped Yan Hebi identify Shao Lin’s appearance in this world.

Yan Hebi’s appearance in this world was rather ordinary, unlike his handsome look in the casino world, but he was still afraid of being recognized by Shao Lin. Xing Ye had once said that Shao Lin originally wanted to use him to harm Xing Ye, but due to some accidents, the plan had failed. Unfortunately, the luck of fate-defying players was truly terrible, and this time he had run into Shao Lin again.

He subconsciously tugged at his clothes, only then realizing they had already been torn into strips. At that moment, Zeng Wanshi stepped forward and shielded Yan Hebi, glaring at Shao Lin and shouting loudly: “What are you staring at? Never seen someone hook up on a train before?!”

Her personality was far too bold—completely mismatched with her gentle name.

But it was precisely Zeng Wanshi’s words that successfully dispelled Shao Lin’s suspicions.

At present, the only player whose face he had not yet seen was Yan Hebi. And Yan Hebi was a coward; there was no way he would have some kind of romantic fling with an NPC inside the train cars. Shao Lin believed he was fairly good at judging people.

After the man and woman left, Shao Lin took out his phone, opened the “Challenging Fate” app, and selected a QR code.

This was a rare-type QR code. QR codes of this type did not conceal their effects or names. This one was called “Death Retrospection.” It could trace back what happened before a player’s death and what kinds of QR-code attacks they had suffered.

This QR code was originally meant to be used in the true ending of a certain large-scale melee world, but Shao Lin had never used it and had kept it instead.

He chose to activate it, quietly closed his eyes, and the scenes before Tan Feng’s and the conductor’s deaths replayed in his mind like a movie.

After a while, Shao Lin opened his eyes and revealed a faint smile.

Xing Ye’s “Kuafu Chasing the Sun” had already been used. His trump card was gone. Now Shao Lin could launch his attack.

Thus, Shao Lin walked toward Car No. 12 and sat together with the two female players to discuss their next course of action.

Sitting diagonally opposite them was the trendy guy’s paper substitute. Shao Lin had observed the trendy guy for some time and had confirmed that Xing Ye had disguised himself as this person when entering Car No. 1.

Shaolin thought to himself: “Xing Ye really can change outfits. And he can do it frequently—this must be thanks to his fate-following item. Turning into a trendy guy was meant to draw my attention, to make me mistakenly believe he is the trendy guy. That way, when he appears next time in ordinary clothes, I’ll overlook him. After all, a trendy guy is far too eye-catching.”

Little did he know that this line of thinking was exactly what Xing Ye wanted. And while Shao Lin was discussing plans with his two teammates, Yan Hebi also brought Zeng Wanshi into Car No. 1.

Zeng Wanshi immediately spotted Xing Ye dressed as a trendy guy and whispered into Yan Hebi’s ear, “This one doesn’t look like a good person at all—definitely a womanizer, very open-minded too. Probably doesn’t care whether it’s men or women.”

After hearing this, Yan Hebi let out a faint, gloomy sigh and said to Zeng Wanshi, “Impossible. If that were possible, I would’ve already… sigh. Fortunately, he’s a devoted man.”

Zeng Wanshi: “???”

The melancholic Yan Hebi led Zeng Wanshi over to Xing Ye and said, “Here. It’s her.”

Xing Ye first swept his gaze across the nine passengers in Car No. 1. Seeing that they neither cared about someone entering the car nor paid attention to what they were saying, he spoke directly: “Why did you threaten my friend earlier, saying that everyone on this train would die?”

Hearing the words “my friend,” Yan Hebi felt a little happy.

Zeng Wanshi glared at Yan Hebi. “You told him about our business?”

Yan Hebi activated the “Friend of Women” halo and said, “Just listen to him. No matter what troubles you have, he can help you solve them.”

With the halo activated, Zeng Wanshi said unwillingly, “Fine. I’ll trust you this once.”

She then turned to Xing Ye and said: “Actually, that was just to scare Yan Hebi. How could I kill anyone? But it is true that everyone on this train will die—because I was reborn from the future!”

 

Translator : DarNan