Shao Lin’s companion.

 

After the chocolate man entered, Xing Ye adjusted his cap, turned around, left Carriage No. 9, and entered Carriage No. 8.
Carriage No. 9, which had just experienced an armed murder incident, rang again with screams. Xing Ye let out a slight laugh, sat down in the dining car, and said to the dining car staff: “I would like to order food.”

It was now 9:45 in the morning, not yet lunchtime. Apart from Xing Ye, there were no other passengers in the dining car, only a few staff members preparing the lunchbox meals for noon.
Xing Ye casually ordered scrambled eggs with tomatoes and stir-fried cauliflower, and also asked for a bottle of mineral water. He drank water while listening to the wailing and howling coming from Carriage No. 9.

At that moment, a chef walked out from the back kitchen. He did not look at Xing Ye but instead craned his neck toward Carriage No. 9 and said to the other staff in the dining area: “There was someone with a gun earlier. What is happening now?”

The other staff members were not very interested. Just like the passengers, they were indifferent to what happened inside the train, like highly advanced artificial intelligence that only reacts to specific things.
Only this chef kept glancing around nonstop, and another chef kicked him: “Stop watching the commotion, hurry and pack the lunch-boxes. You were the one who insisted on delivering meals!”

“A murder just happened. Don’t you all care?” the chef said excitedly. “We should be going to help!”
He looked as though he very much wanted to rush to Carriage No. 9 to join the commotion, yet seemed restricted by something, unable to leave.

“There must be a role restriction,” Xing Ye thought. “He is a chef, so he must meet the requirements of his role in order to obtain some kind of clue. So he doesn’t dare move freely through the carriages and can only use the meal-delivery opportunity to look for the thirty million.”

The food in the dining car was prepared quickly. After waiting for about five minutes, two plates of side dishes and a bowl of rice were brought to Xing Ye. He removed his mask and ate slowly, watching as the train police once again hurried toward Carriage No. 9.

How difficult their job is, Xing Ye thought silently while eating.

The “Hypnosis” effect copied by the “Repainting Brush” lasted only five minutes. The chocolate man had frantically slashed with the knife for five minutes before regaining his senses. He froze, recalled what he had just done, and threw away the scalpel in fright.
His two companions both had the ability to protect themselves. They had only been cut once at the beginning, when they were unprepared, and were not seriously injured. When the train police arrived, one of the players immediately said: “Officer, I am his friend. He did not injure anyone intentionally. He has a mental illness and just had an episode. And he did not attack anyone else, he only scratched the two of us. We will not press charges, so could you please not arrest him?”

This player was a beautiful young woman. She spoke slowly and elegantly, with a piece of cake placed on the table before her.
The train police replied sternly: “No. Even if you do not pursue the matter, he still violated train regulations by bringing dangerous items on board. The arrest order has been issued. We must arrest him!”

The young woman frowned slightly. Seeing the chocolate man’s pleading gaze, she relaxed her hand. At this point there was nothing more to be done—this player was eliminated.

After the chocolate man was taken away, the young woman’s companion stepped forward and asked: “That man in the baseball cap he touched earlier—was he the one with the thirty million?”

The young woman nodded. “To be able to see through the game’s hidden rules immediately, to use the rules to eliminate players, and to act in ways that no one can predict—if you can see through ten steps, he can see through a hundred. Unless there is a second player in the game who obtained thirty million points from the system, it must be him!”

“You really think highly of him, huh?” the young woman’s companion said. “But to avoid confronting people directly and instead use system rules to harm others—sounds like a coward to me. Shao Lin, weren’t you the one he tricked into owing tens of millions of points?”

This young woman was precisely Shao Lin, who had escaped from the casino world; this time his identity was female. He raised his hand to press down his companion’s arm and said in a low voice: “Do not be impulsive. He is not easy to deal with. Even now, I still do not know whether he is a fate defying player or a fate following one, nor what his initial skill is. But I do know his initial skill is extremely special. You cannot defeat him in a direct confrontation.”

“Heh.” The companion pulled Shao Lin back to the seat, wrapped an arm around Shao Lin’s slender waist, and said carelessly: “I have killed countless people in the game and earned the title ‘Player Slayer’. I refuse to believe I cannot kill one player. A baseball cap, right? I will make my move when the train police leave.”

“Do not be impulsive!” Shao Lin swallowed a piece of cake. “He might have accomplices. We need to be careful.”

While eating the cake, Shao Lin used “Spike of Words” to calm his companion. The “Player Slayer” settled down, pinched Shao Lin’s waist, and said: “Stop eating sweets. If you keep eating you will get a belly.”

“You can shut up now!” Shao Lin frowned. “We have been working together for so long. You know perfectly well that my real identity is male.”

The “Player Slayer” smiled. “It is exactly because I know that your female form is especially charming.”

He buried his head at the base of Shao Lin’s neck, sniffed lightly, and whispered: “You smell wonderful.”

Shao Lin pushed him away, displeased. “Since your nose works so well, did you catch that person’s scent earlier? I think Xing Ye will definitely try to conceal his identity. Your nose, comparable to a hunting dog’s, will be useful now.”

“Got it,” the “Player Slayer” said, twitching his nose. “He has… a very sweet scent, like watermelon-flavoured gum.”

“Alright,” Shao Lin nodded, “when the train police leave in a moment, we will go look for him.”

After a while, the train police reassured the passengers in the carriage, then escorted the chocolate man away. As soon as they left, a person wearing a white cap and an oily white chef’s coat pushed a small cart into Carriage No. 9. As he walked, he called out: “Lunchboxes, chicken-leg lunch-boxes, twenty yuan per serving.”

When he passed by Shao Lin and the “Player Slayer,” he lowered his head and asked: “Would you like a lunch-box?”

He carried a strong smell of kitchen grease, along with the scent of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and cauliflower. The “Player Slayer,” uncomfortable, pinched his nose and said: “Stay away from me.”

The benefits and drawbacks of an overly sensitive sense of smell were both extremely obvious. The benefit was being able to remember a person’s scent and see through everyone’s disguises and concealments; this was one of the things that helped him become the “Player Slayer.” The drawback was that foul odours harmed the “Player Slayer” as much as biochemical weapons!

Seeing that the two did not want lunch-boxes, the chef slowly pushed his cart away.

The “Player Slayer” pinched his nose for quite a while. Seeing that Shao Lin kept his head turned in one direction, he asked: “What are you looking at?”

Shao Lin said: “That chef just now—did you smell him?”

The “Player Slayer” rubbed his nose and said: “Do not mention it, all that grease and… hm? When he leaned close to me to speak earlier, besides the smell of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and cauliflower, I think I also smelled a scent of watermelon-flavoured gum.”

“To the dining car!” Shao Lin said immediately.

The two rushed to the dining car. A staff member came to ask whether they needed to order food. Shao Lin shook his head, while the “Player Slayer” sniffed around. In the end, suffering, he sniffed toward the restroom. The Player Slayer pointed at the restroom and said: “Someone is in there!”

“Of course someone is,” the dining car staff said. “One of our chefs went in. Huh? It seems like he has been inside for a long time.”

Shao Lin looked at him and said: “We just saw a chef selling lunch-boxes walk past.”

“That cannot be right,” the staff member said. “Today he is the one responsible for selling lunch-boxes. He has not come out of the restroom yet. So who was selling lunch-boxes?”

The group exchanged glances. The staff called a train attendant to open the restroom door. When they opened it, they found a person unconscious, locked inside the restroom. There was a large bump on the back of his head—he had probably been knocked out.
He was wearing only shorts and a tank top; his chef’s uniform had been stripped off.

Shao Lin slapped his thigh and said angrily: “That person just now was Xing Ye! He even discovered our identities!”

The “Player Slayer” asked: “Carriage No. 9 is second class, there are over a hundred passengers. How could he determine that we are players?”

Shao Lin pointed at the scratch on his arm and said: “Because of this! With so many passengers in the carriage earlier, why did our companion attack only you and me?”

“Probably a mental-control-type skill, item, or QR code,” the “Player Slayer” analysed. “Specifically directing him to attack you and me without harming other passengers. The duration must have been around five minutes.”

Shao Lin said: “He pushed the lunch-box cart into the carriage immediately after the train police left, precisely to check who was injured! When the train police were present, all the passengers’ attention was on us. To avoid alerting any players among the passengers, even if we had healing abilities, we did not dare to use them lightly. He slipped in at that exact moment—first to make us think he could not possibly return that fast, and second, to look for wounds and confirm our identities. You and I are exposed!”

“So what if we are exposed?” the “Player Slayer” said indifferently. “I already remember his scent. I will kill him right now!”

“Can you think about something other than killing?” Shao Lin gritted his teeth. “Why do you think he stood so close to us? It was so he could observe us carefully. You were pinching your nose so hard—do you really think he would not notice that your sense of smell is unusually keen?”

The “Player Slayer” thought about it and said: “Then right now we should go look for someone who smells strong, especially men wearing cologne.”

“That is all we can do,” Shao Lin said. “Your achievement-title skill can only be used once per world. Remember to use it at a crucial moment, and do not act rashly.”

“Do not worry.” The “Player Slayer” took a deep breath and calmed down.

On the other side, Xing Ye pushed the dining cart into Carriage No. 15. If he was not mistaken, this should also be a gathering place for players.

‘Shao Lin’s new companion is quite capable,’ Xing Ye thought. ‘His sense of smell is so sharp. I need to find a way to get rid of this greasy smell. There is perfume in my bag, but they will definitely be looking for whoever applied perfume. I need to think of a method.’

As Xing Ye and Lu Mingze were thinking of ways to mask the scent, a beautiful girl only one meter fifty tall, wearing an extremely short skirt and pink twin ponytails, walked past Xing Ye.

 

Translator : DarNan