Shao Lin Failed Yet Again

 

Qiao Yuxin retreated a step back, while Shao Lin and Ye Zirou—two “female” players—bravely charged into Car No. 1. Without saying a word, Ye Zirou activated her second initial skill, “The Real Culprit Behind the Scenes.”

She had discovered a QR code on the final page of a detective novel riddled with errors and inconsistencies. After scanning it and entering the game, she obtained two initial skills: “When the water recedes, the rocks appear” and “The Real Culprit Behind the Scenes.”

“When the water recedes, the rocks appear” was the ability to dispel visual illusions. Worlds filled with fog, or supernatural and ghostly realms involving disorientation loops like “ghost hitting walls” (NT: being trapped in a repeating path by supernatural forces), all fell within the scope of what “The Real Culprit Behind the Scenes” could break.

“The Real Culprit Behind the Scenes,” on the other hand, was a rather special ability. In most detective novels, before the mastermind’s identity is exposed, the real culprit can remain mysterious at all times, making it impossible for others to clearly see their methods or alibis. They can even commit serial murders, killing people through countless bizarre, reality-defying methods that completely violate the laws of physics (this specifically refered to certain poorly written detective novels and comics—after all, the one Ye Zirou read was full of errors).

Before the truth is uncovered, the real culprit possesses abilities such as exploiting visual blind spots and simplifying murder. This can be considered a kind of physical enhancement, yet it also carries some utterly unbelievable elements.

At the instant Ye Zirou launched her attack, she shouted to Shao Lin, “Cover me!”

Shao Lin had many QR codes in his possession. With Qiao Yuxin’s luck on his side, he casually clicked one—and it turned out to be “Absolute Defence .” He applied this QR code to Ye Zirou. Now immune to physical attacks, Ye Zirou could fight without restraint.

The three opponents saw Shao Lin and Ye Zirou enter Car No. 1, but they seemed unable to react in time; their movements were unusually slow. Ye Zirou’s first target was the man wearing the driver’s uniform. According to Shao Lin, this man had no resistance to women and was the easiest to deal with.

Ye Zirou held two fishing lines in her hands, each end fitted with a hook. She hooked them onto seats on both sides, then leapt into the air and kicked the driver hard in the back, sending him crashing into the fishing lines. By some bizarre, inexplicable principle, the lines suddenly tightened, lifting the driver up and suspending him from the ceiling.

The driver struggled frantically, kicking his legs wildly, but Ye Zirou ignored him. It was said that the driver’s initial skills were “computer hacking” and “picking up girls”—neither had any combat capability. As long as his QR codes were sealed, he was completely unable to fight.

Moreover, Ye Zirou wasn’t afraid of the other three players using QR codes. It was said they were all Fate-defying Players, who didn’t even know what abilities their QR codes had. Given their luck, there was no chance they would draw a QR code that posed any threat to Ye Zirou.

After dealing with the driver, Ye Zirou charged toward the burly man. Shao Lin told her that the burly man’s abilities included blocking vision and spewing high-pressure gas from his mouth as an attack. He also had a thermos cup as an item, which could be used to attack with water streams. All of these were physical attacks, and “Absolute Defense” could block them entirely—Ye Zirou could attack him without restraint.

At this point, Shao Lin only needed to focus on dealing with the Thirty Million player.

Staring at the trendy man covered in shattered diamonds, Shao Lin felt tense. This time, he had consumed his initial skill—victory was assured!

Instead of attacking, he pulled out a camera and quickly pressed the flash toward the trendy man. The man vanished, and a photograph slid out of the camera. In the photo was the very same fashionable man.

Shao Lin said, “I’ve already captured Thirty Million. He won’t be able to fight for five minutes, and we can’t harm him either. But that’s fine—we’ll use this opportunity to take out his companions!”

Looking at the photo in his hand, Shao Lin felt a wave of unease. Was this really Xing Ye? Would Xing Ye be caught so easily?

The burly man was stronger than Ye Zirou had expected. Just as she was setting up a trap, a piano suddenly fell from the ceiling, slamming directly into her. Thanks to her physical defence and a timely evasive jump, Ye Zirou avoided serious injury—but the carefully prepared killing trap she had just set was completely smashed by the piano.

The burly man stood there, holding his phone, staring at Ye Zirou without saying a word.

“You’ve got some skills,” Ye Zirou said.

She also took out her phone, preparing to use a powerful attack QR code. She wasn’t limited to just her initial skills.

But no one knew how the burly man did it—after Ye Zirou dodged, five enormous rings of fire suddenly appeared inside the carriage!

Shao Lin immediately shouted, “This is bad—get out, now!”

As he spoke, he turned and ran. Ye Zirou reacted half a beat too late, and by then it was already too late to escape. She immediately dropped flat to the ground.

Originally, the “fire rings” could only attack non-human entities and were useless against humans. However, the composition of the air had already been altered by Qiao Yuxin’s initial skill, “Chemical Reaction.” Carbon monoxide is flammable!

Under the intense heat of the fire rings, the newly formed carbon monoxide ignited with the oxygen in the air, producing blue flames!

Fortunately, the concentration of carbon monoxide in Car No. 1 was not high enough to cause an explosion. Still, the combustion was extremely violent. With a thunderous “boom,” everything inside Car No. 1 was reduced to charred remains.

At the doorway of Car No. 1, Qiao Yuxin—who had been watching the fight—was just about to flee when she suddenly found a pile of ping-pong balls bouncing chaotically under her feet. She stepped on them and had no time to dodge, and was instantly engulfed by the tongues of flame.

She screamed miserably and tried to flee, but the ping-pong balls kept blocking her path. Qiao Yuxin screamed in agony within the flames. Ye Zirou wanted to help, but at that very moment, the driver she had suspended from the ceiling of the carriage suddenly fell down, smashing into Ye Zirou’s hand and causing her to miss grabbing her phone.

Shao Lin had already used a delayed-type QR code, “Absolute Defense.” Before that protection expired, he could not use a second one. The two of them could only watch helplessly as Qiao Yuxin was burned to death in the fire.

At this moment, Qiao Yuxin’s “Double Damage Reflection” activated. The burly man was also engulfed by the flames, burning even more miserably than Qiao Yuxin. He vanished directly within the fire, leaving not even ashes behind.

Shao Lin, who was hiding to the side, watched the burly man disappear in the flames. The doubt in his heart only grew stronger. No matter how high the temperature, it shouldn’t be possible for a person to evaporate instantly.

After a while, the carbon monoxide in the air finally finished burning. Ye Zirou crawled to Qiao Yuxin’s side and discovered that her companion had already been burned to death. Beside her were charred ping-pong balls, which were still struggling to bounce.

“How could this happen?” Ye Zirou said. She had always enjoyed smooth sailing, and she simply could not imagine how all this had occurred. Qiao Yuxin’s luck was so good—under those circumstances, it should have been impossible for her to be caught by the flames. Yet she had instead become like a Fate-defying Player, with luck so terrible it reached the extreme: her body caught fire, ping-pong balls blocked her escape, and both her companions—and even she herself—were unable to use QR codes to help her at the critical moment.

Qiao Yuxin thus died with extraordinarily bad luck. Ye Zirou found it almost impossible to accept for a moment. Shao Lin could only pat her shoulder and say, “At least I’ve already captured Thirty Million. His two companions are dead as well. We’ll split the thirty million points evenly. After we get the points, we’ll each give her five million.”

After being persuaded by him, Ye Zirou felt much better. She was just about to say something when a battery suddenly appeared beneath her feet, releasing a massive amount of electricity. Ye Zirou had physical defence, and she was currently using her initial skill, so her speed was extremely fast. Her phone screen happened to be displaying a QR code—at the instant she saw the battery, Ye Zirou rapidly tapped the QR code. Her clothes suddenly transformed into an insulating material.

“Insulating Clothing”—an item-type QR code that defended against electric attacks.

The battery failed to injure Ye Zirou, but Shao Lin was standing nearby. However, Shao Lin still had a Fate-Following item!

His Fate-Following item, the “Celestial Shift”, had always been hanging around his neck. The item had two skills: one was “Heaven and Earth Reversal”, a teleportation skill; the other was “Reversal of Fortune”, which allowed him to exchange luck values with another person.

Earlier, he had held the Celestial Shift in one hand and patted Qiao Yuxin once with the other, giving himself the luck of a Fate-Following Player—while Qiao Yuxin, due to Shao Lin’s Fate-defying luck, had been unlucky enough to be burned to death.

At the instant he was being electrocuted, Shao Lin instinctively grasped the Celestial Shift and activated the teleportation skill, moving five meters away and evading the battery’s attack.

“That’s not right,” Ye Zirou said. “We’ve already killed two companions and captured Thirty Million. Who is still using QR codes? And does this person’s QR code not have a cool-down?”

Shao Lin retreated into the carriage. Before he could answer Ye Zirou, he felt the ground beneath his feet sway, and he fell onto a seat. The seats in Car No. 1 seemed to have grown legs—at the moment Shao Lin sat down, the seat beneath him slid forward, the seat in front slid backward, and the two seats clamped him tightly in between, leaving him completely unable to move.

At the same time, the door to Car No. 2 opened automatically. The massive flames from earlier had drawn passengers from Car No. 2 to come watch. When the carriage door opened, they saw a charred corpse and two living people, and they screamed in terror.

At this moment, the train police officer—also drawn by the flames—walked to the entrance of Car No. 1. Looking at the completely blackened carriage, he asked, “What exactly happened here?”

At this time, a person walked out of the restroom in Car No. 1 and said to the police officer, “Before I entered the restroom just now, my phone happened to have the camera turned on. It should have recorded everything, right? Unfortunately, the phone has already been burned.”

Shao Lin and Ye Zirou’s eyes nearly popped out when they saw him. Wasn’t this the trendy man who had been locked inside the camera?

He had been inside the restroom of Car No. 1 the whole time? Then who was the person Shao Lin had sealed inside the camera?

At this moment, another ordinary-looking man walked over holding a laptop and handed it to the train police officer. “I am the driver of this train. I just borrowed a computer and used cloud access to restore the video footage from the phone. I can testify that after these two entered the carriage, they attacked ordinary passengers and set fires that injured people.”

Upon seeing this man, Ye Zirou involuntarily looked at the charred corpse lying on the ground. Wasn’t he the driver she had just hanged to death? How was he alive again?

After watching the blurry phone footage, the train police officer took out an arrest warrant and said, “You two are suspected of murder and arson. Please come with us to the nearest police station to assist with the investigation.”

Once the arrest warrant was issued, players were completely unable to resist. Thus, Shao Lin and Ye Zirou were taken away by the train police in an utterly unbelievable manner.

As he was being arrested, Shao Lin kept thinking about what had happened—when exactly had he fallen into the trap? As he was being escorted past the trendy man, Shao Lin suddenly realized the truth and said, “You have the ability to repeatedly use the same QR code, and you can stack delayed-type QR codes!”

The trendy man said nothing, only smiled at Shao Lin.

Seeing that smile, Shao Lin knew that he had lost once again—and this time, he had lost even more miserably than before.

 

Translator : DarNan