Book 4 Chapter 57: Counterattack (Part 1)
On a wasteland in Los Angeles, there were two more graves which belonged to Jing 12 and Lu De.
Although these two people once tried to be unfavorable to him, Shen Yi still let them rest in peace, even if this homecoming journey looked so distant.
They used flares instead of incense and inserted them in the grave of the two men.
Not far from there, Kyle stood still. He could not understand the behavior of these adventurers – they fought side by side, then killed each other, then mourned the dead.
At the same time, he couldn’t understand Marcus – why a man could suddenly become a machine.
Shen Yi put his hand in the pocket of his trousers, and the windbreaker stalked in the wind. His eyes were slightly gazing as if waiting for something.
Jin Gang stood beside Shen Yi and looked at the two graves. He whispered, “What a pity.”
It was indeed a pity.
Two adventurers died. Zhou Yiyu and The Monk left, causing the fighting power of the adventurers to drop. In the next round, if there were no accidents, they could only flee.
“Do you know what I think?” Hong Lang suddenly said: “Perhaps they did not really die. Maybe they just returned to the previous world. Their memory and ability would be erased. Then, they continued to live like ordinary people. Perhaps death is not a real death, but a relief.”
Wen Rou was somewhat surprised, looked at Hong Lang: “When did you become so philosophical?”
Hong Lang shrugged: “It’s just a kind of self-comfort for those who are afraid of failure and death. If one day I’m going to die, at least I can use this reason to comfort myself before I die, and tell myself not to be afraid. It’s just a game; now that the game is over, I finally can go home.”
Shen Yi leisurely said: “You are implying that if one day, I leave Bloody City and return to Earth, will I find myself only a heap of decayed flesh?”
Everyone laughed.
Laughter blew away everyone’s bad mood, which had been brought about by the loss of strength and leakage of information.
After laughing, Shen Yi looked at everyone: “Is there anyone who has figured out why I let Zhou Yiyu leave?”
Jin Gang shook his head: “I still can’t figure it out. I only know that we are in a contest with team Strike The Blood and it’s like a game. Once a player’s card is seen by the other person, we’re going to fall into passive state. Even if we can draw new cards, that can’t replace the part that has already been exposed…more trump cards are always better, aren’t they?”
Shen Yi laughed: “If it’s a match between two people, of course, it’s better to keep the cards in your hands as secret as possible. It’s necessary to desperately see each other’s cards. Under such circumstances, it is indeed a big problem for one party to expose most of its own cards. Unfortunately, this is not a duel between two players but a multiplayer match. The biggest mistake you make is that you think if there is no one spy on us, our cards will not be exposed, but you have forgotten one thing.”
“What?”
Shen Yi sighed. “I remember telling you that Xie Rongjun also had detect skills.”
When this was said, everyone was suddenly dumbfounded.
That’s right.
In Bloody City, when Shen Yi went to inform Xie Rongjun about the death of his younger brother, he used Appraisal on the latter. The result was that Xie Rongjun called out his ID. This fully showed that Xie Rongjun also has investigative skills and can see the details of the other party.
The problem became clear.
Since Xie Rongjun had investigative skills, why did he has to spend so much time and money to get their data at any cost?
It is important to know that Shen Yi was doing this because his investigative skill was blocked by team Strike The Blood, which made it impossible to find other people’s information with it. There was no ability for the team 641 to seal off the other side’s investigative skills. The team Strike The Blood did not have to pay such a high price.
However, he still did so, and showed more generosity than Shen Yi, made the momentum much greater.
Looking at everyone’s frightened faces, Shen Yi slowly said: “Actually, there is no information that can’t be kept secret foraver. Even without Xie Rongjun’s investigative skills, we have cooperated with other adventurers in the previous two missions. As long as Xie Rongjun is interested, he will always find some news. So Xie Rongjun’s purpose, or his ultimate goal, is not to collect information.”
“What is its goal?” Jin Gang hurriedly asked.
There was a hint of helplessness in Shen Yi’s eyes: “What else can it be? Looking at what has just happened, do you still not understand? That is exactly what Xie Rongjun hopes… He is actually setting us up to make enemies everywhere!”
Xie Rongjun’s offer of rewards, on the surface, seemed to be just a way to get information on team #641, but its real purpose was hidden in the dark.
That is, he was using this method to turn all Slums District adventurers into Shen Yi’s enemies.
Any adventurer would not mind selling the news after he received a reward. However, if team #641 wanted to keep a secret of their strength, they would have to kill anyone who knew, like what happened with Jing 12 and Lu De.
This actually had a very large impact on Shen Yi; after all, he was best at using other people.
In previous missions, he had used his various means to make other adventurers his allies, his tools, even his cannon fodder, and his cash machines… Shen Yi was good at leveraging other strength, so he would not make enemies easily.
However, Xie Rongjun’s action has caused Shen Yi’s speciality to vanish, causing him to become a public enemy.
This is just like playing cards between the two sides. One of the parties has openly released a manifesto stating, “whoever tells me what the other guy has in his hand, I will give him a sum of money”. So a bunch of spectators are rushing together and peeking at your cards. If you are angry or embarrassed, or you even fight back, you will find yourself in an embattled position.
At that time, you face not only opponents in the game, but also a large group of people outside the game.
The latter was even more terrible—Jing 12 died, Lu De died, The Monk fled, and team #641 had one more enemy. If Jing 12 and Lu De had friends in this world, then maybe there was more than one.
If this situation was allowed to continue, the 641 team would soon be the enemy of everyone.
Moreover, their opponent was team Strike The Blood, one of the strongest teams in the Common District. In terms of strength and financial resources, they would only be stronger than the team #641.
If other adventurers were allowed to choose a side, 80% of people would choose team Strike The Blood instead of team #641.
It can be said that Xie Rongjun’s approach took full advantage of his fame and strength. At the beginning of the war, he let team #641 fall into desperation.
Therefore, Xie Rongjun’s real intention behind issuing a reward was not to know the details of the 641 team, but to deliberately use it as a bait to create trouble for the 641 team and establish enemies for them.
For example, due to the death of Jing 12 and others, the difficulty of completing their quests had suddenly increased. This was exactly what Xie Rongjun had caused from the shadows.
Under this circumstance, Shen Yi realized that if he wanted to finish the game well with the team Strike The Blood, he first had to solve the issue of the spectators who had kept peeping behind them.
Even if they couldn’t be used for their own use, at least he had to let them return to a neutral position.
How could you keep the bystanders out of the game?
The best way was to open the cards.
At this moment, Shen Yi slowly turned to face everyone:
“To be honest, if I knew earlier that they were killing me because of Xie Rongjun, and that man was using a rewarding order, I wouldn’t have chosen to kill them. The information is certainly important, but the allies are even more important. Overwhelming opponents with numbers is the oldest, yet most effective tactic in war. Fighting alone with dozens of handfuls of enemies … not to mention no hope of winning. Even if we can win, I will feel that I have failed too.”
“As for Zhou Yiyu, I don’t know if he would sell us out, but this is not important anymore. Let’s just treat this as a test for him. If he doesn’t sell us out, maybe we will have another comrade in the future. Even if he betrayed us, and it would be a bit apologetic to him as a man….”
“This battle has only just begun. Our opponent … is far more cunning than we think.”
Shen Yi’s answer made everyone realize it.
They could not help but admit that Shen Yi was more comprehensive than they think.
It is also because of this consideration that Shen Yi let Zhou Yiyu go. For him, killing Zhou Yiyu actually had no meaning. On the contrary, if Zhou Yiyu did not sell them out, he would have another trusted friend. From an emotional point of view, this was the best choice for him to accept.
As for The Monk…the hatred that had already been laid down to the point could not be turned back; it could only be calmly faced.
Jin Gang asked: “Why aren’t they directly rewarding for our heads with a higher price tag? Isn’t that easier and more convenient?”
“Because they didn’t want to use someone else’s hand to kill us, that’s just a disguise for their purpose. For Xie Rongjun, all he needs is to use this to instigate other people into being hostile to us, stimulate our resistance, and intensify our conflicts with others. For adventurers, to spy on the information of the five adventurers for 10,000 BP, it is obviously the better choice than to kill five adventurers for 15,000 BP. And this is in line with the needs of Xie Rongjun. If he really wants to use his BP to buy our lives, he must at least double the price he has paid. Even for those adventurers in the Common District, 30,000 BP is not a small number. Strike The Blood don’t have to pay such a big price. It’s better to have the money to strengthen themselves and then kill us by their own hand.”
Wen Rou also asked: “What shall we do later?”
Shen Yi lightly laughed: “Everything has two sides. Nothing can provide positive effect without a negative effect. Since Xie Rongjun doesn’t need information about us, but he deliberately made a reward, then don’t blame me for getting a good deal from him. After we’ve completed this mission, we’ll commission A Li to sell our intelligence and make a net profit. Isn’t it good? It is better for us to earn money than to let others take this reward.”
This sentence was one everyone could not help but listen to.
This move of Shen Yi was wicked. Since Xie Rongjun wanted to get information about him with rewards, he would simply sell his own information. If team Strike The Blood wanted to keep their reputation, they had no choice but to pay. Whether they really wanted to buy it or not, this reward had to be sustained at the expense of a high cost of BP.
If they did not want to continue to spend BP unnecessarily, they had to cancel the offering reward. As soon as the offering reward was cleared, team #641 would naturally not have to worry about enemies.
However, Jin Gang still wrinkled his brow: “Anyway, to expose our details like this, always has a great influence on our strength. Is there any way to eliminate this influence?”
Jin Gang’s worry was not without reason.
Although Xie Rongjun has the investigative skills, he was only able to use it if he saw the target, and it was definitely not omniscient. In other words, selling too much of their own intelligence would still be very detrimental to them.
Shen Yi smiled. “Of course. There are two ways to eliminate unfavorable factors. One: Also peep at the opponent’s cards. We all know each other well, so isn’t it very good? We have already asked A Li to do it, and that’s everything we can do now, besides wait for the decision of fate. As for the second point… it is to make yourself as new as possible and not to reveal your cards.”
Speaking of this, Shen Yi’s voice became cold as the chill of winter, and made everyone’s heart jump.
Wen Rou instinctively asked: “How can we get a new card?”
“Get a good reward from completing a difficult quest, of course.” Shen Yi quickly answered.
Difficult quest? Everyone looked at each other.
Jin Gang asked tentatively: “Are you saying that you should eliminate the Terminator of the fourth round?”
“No!” Shen Yi denied: “The difficulty is not high enough!”
His eyes circled his partners, and he smiled and said: “Is anyone interested in going and having a look at Skynet’s headquarters?”
Book 4 Chapter 57: Counterattack (Part 1)
On a wasteland in Los Angeles, there were two more graves which belonged to Jing 12 and Lu De.
Although these two people once tried to be unfavorable to him, Shen Yi still let them rest in peace, even if this homecoming journey looked so distant.
They used flares instead of incense and inserted them in the grave of the two men.
Not far from there, Kyle stood still. He could not understand the behavior of these adventurers – they fought side by side, then killed each other, then mourned the dead.
At the same time, he couldn’t understand Marcus – why a man could suddenly become a machine.
Shen Yi put his hand in the pocket of his trousers, and the windbreaker stalked in the wind. His eyes were slightly gazing as if waiting for something.
Jin Gang stood beside Shen Yi and looked at the two graves. He whispered, “What a pity.”
It was indeed a pity.
Two adventurers died. Zhou Yiyu and The Monk left, causing the fighting power of the adventurers to drop. In the next round, if there were no accidents, they could only flee.
“Do you know what I think?” Hong Lang suddenly said: “Perhaps they did not really die. Maybe they just returned to the previous world. Their memory and ability would be erased. Then, they continued to live like ordinary people. Perhaps death is not a real death, but a relief.”
Wen Rou was somewhat surprised, looked at Hong Lang: “When did you become so philosophical?”
Hong Lang shrugged: “It’s just a kind of self-comfort for those who are afraid of failure and death. If one day I’m going to die, at least I can use this reason to comfort myself before I die, and tell myself not to be afraid. It’s just a game; now that the game is over, I finally can go home.”
Shen Yi leisurely said: “You are implying that if one day, I leave Bloody City and return to Earth, will I find myself only a heap of decayed flesh?”
Everyone laughed.
Laughter blew away everyone’s bad mood, which had been brought about by the loss of strength and leakage of information.
After laughing, Shen Yi looked at everyone: “Is there anyone who has figured out why I let Zhou Yiyu leave?”
Jin Gang shook his head: “I still can’t figure it out. I only know that we are in a contest with team Strike The Blood and it’s like a game. Once a player’s card is seen by the other person, we’re going to fall into passive state. Even if we can draw new cards, that can’t replace the part that has already been exposed…more trump cards are always better, aren’t they?”
Shen Yi laughed: “If it’s a match between two people, of course, it’s better to keep the cards in your hands as secret as possible. It’s necessary to desperately see each other’s cards. Under such circumstances, it is indeed a big problem for one party to expose most of its own cards. Unfortunately, this is not a duel between two players but a multiplayer match. The biggest mistake you make is that you think if there is no one spy on us, our cards will not be exposed, but you have forgotten one thing.”
“What?”
Shen Yi sighed. “I remember telling you that Xie Rongjun also had detect skills.”
When this was said, everyone was suddenly dumbfounded.
That’s right.
In Bloody City, when Shen Yi went to inform Xie Rongjun about the death of his younger brother, he used Appraisal on the latter. The result was that Xie Rongjun called out his ID. This fully showed that Xie Rongjun also has investigative skills and can see the details of the other party.
The problem became clear.
Since Xie Rongjun had investigative skills, why did he has to spend so much time and money to get their data at any cost?
It is important to know that Shen Yi was doing this because his investigative skill was blocked by team Strike The Blood, which made it impossible to find other people’s information with it. There was no ability for the team 641 to seal off the other side’s investigative skills. The team Strike The Blood did not have to pay such a high price.
However, he still did so, and showed more generosity than Shen Yi, made the momentum much greater.
Looking at everyone’s frightened faces, Shen Yi slowly said: “Actually, there is no information that can’t be kept secret foraver. Even without Xie Rongjun’s investigative skills, we have cooperated with other adventurers in the previous two missions. As long as Xie Rongjun is interested, he will always find some news. So Xie Rongjun’s purpose, or his ultimate goal, is not to collect information.”
“What is its goal?” Jin Gang hurriedly asked.
There was a hint of helplessness in Shen Yi’s eyes: “What else can it be? Looking at what has just happened, do you still not understand? That is exactly what Xie Rongjun hopes… He is actually setting us up to make enemies everywhere!”
Xie Rongjun’s offer of rewards, on the surface, seemed to be just a way to get information on team #641, but its real purpose was hidden in the dark.
That is, he was using this method to turn all Slums District adventurers into Shen Yi’s enemies.
Any adventurer would not mind selling the news after he received a reward. However, if team #641 wanted to keep a secret of their strength, they would have to kill anyone who knew, like what happened with Jing 12 and Lu De.
This actually had a very large impact on Shen Yi; after all, he was best at using other people.
In previous missions, he had used his various means to make other adventurers his allies, his tools, even his cannon fodder, and his cash machines… Shen Yi was good at leveraging other strength, so he would not make enemies easily.
However, Xie Rongjun’s action has caused Shen Yi’s speciality to vanish, causing him to become a public enemy.
This is just like playing cards between the two sides. One of the parties has openly released a manifesto stating, “whoever tells me what the other guy has in his hand, I will give him a sum of money”. So a bunch of spectators are rushing together and peeking at your cards. If you are angry or embarrassed, or you even fight back, you will find yourself in an embattled position.
At that time, you face not only opponents in the game, but also a large group of people outside the game.
The latter was even more terrible—Jing 12 died, Lu De died, The Monk fled, and team #641 had one more enemy. If Jing 12 and Lu De had friends in this world, then maybe there was more than one.
If this situation was allowed to continue, the 641 team would soon be the enemy of everyone.
Moreover, their opponent was team Strike The Blood, one of the strongest teams in the Common District. In terms of strength and financial resources, they would only be stronger than the team #641.
If other adventurers were allowed to choose a side, 80% of people would choose team Strike The Blood instead of team #641.
It can be said that Xie Rongjun’s approach took full advantage of his fame and strength. At the beginning of the war, he let team #641 fall into desperation.
Therefore, Xie Rongjun’s real intention behind issuing a reward was not to know the details of the 641 team, but to deliberately use it as a bait to create trouble for the 641 team and establish enemies for them.
For example, due to the death of Jing 12 and others, the difficulty of completing their quests had suddenly increased. This was exactly what Xie Rongjun had caused from the shadows.
Under this circumstance, Shen Yi realized that if he wanted to finish the game well with the team Strike The Blood, he first had to solve the issue of the spectators who had kept peeping behind them.
Even if they couldn’t be used for their own use, at least he had to let them return to a neutral position.
How could you keep the bystanders out of the game?
The best way was to open the cards.
At this moment, Shen Yi slowly turned to face everyone:
“To be honest, if I knew earlier that they were killing me because of Xie Rongjun, and that man was using a rewarding order, I wouldn’t have chosen to kill them. The information is certainly important, but the allies are even more important. Overwhelming opponents with numbers is the oldest, yet most effective tactic in war. Fighting alone with dozens of handfuls of enemies … not to mention no hope of winning. Even if we can win, I will feel that I have failed too.”
“As for Zhou Yiyu, I don’t know if he would sell us out, but this is not important anymore. Let’s just treat this as a test for him. If he doesn’t sell us out, maybe we will have another comrade in the future. Even if he betrayed us, and it would be a bit apologetic to him as a man….”
“This battle has only just begun. Our opponent … is far more cunning than we think.”
Shen Yi’s answer made everyone realize it.
They could not help but admit that Shen Yi was more comprehensive than they think.
It is also because of this consideration that Shen Yi let Zhou Yiyu go. For him, killing Zhou Yiyu actually had no meaning. On the contrary, if Zhou Yiyu did not sell them out, he would have another trusted friend. From an emotional point of view, this was the best choice for him to accept.
As for The Monk…the hatred that had already been laid down to the point could not be turned back; it could only be calmly faced.
Jin Gang asked: “Why aren’t they directly rewarding for our heads with a higher price tag? Isn’t that easier and more convenient?”
“Because they didn’t want to use someone else’s hand to kill us, that’s just a disguise for their purpose. For Xie Rongjun, all he needs is to use this to instigate other people into being hostile to us, stimulate our resistance, and intensify our conflicts with others. For adventurers, to spy on the information of the five adventurers for 10,000 BP, it is obviously the better choice than to kill five adventurers for 15,000 BP. And this is in line with the needs of Xie Rongjun. If he really wants to use his BP to buy our lives, he must at least double the price he has paid. Even for those adventurers in the Common District, 30,000 BP is not a small number. Strike The Blood don’t have to pay such a big price. It’s better to have the money to strengthen themselves and then kill us by their own hand.”
Wen Rou also asked: “What shall we do later?”
Shen Yi lightly laughed: “Everything has two sides. Nothing can provide positive effect without a negative effect. Since Xie Rongjun doesn’t need information about us, but he deliberately made a reward, then don’t blame me for getting a good deal from him. After we’ve completed this mission, we’ll commission A Li to sell our intelligence and make a net profit. Isn’t it good? It is better for us to earn money than to let others take this reward.”
This sentence was one everyone could not help but listen to.
This move of Shen Yi was wicked. Since Xie Rongjun wanted to get information about him with rewards, he would simply sell his own information. If team Strike The Blood wanted to keep their reputation, they had no choice but to pay. Whether they really wanted to buy it or not, this reward had to be sustained at the expense of a high cost of BP.
If they did not want to continue to spend BP unnecessarily, they had to cancel the offering reward. As soon as the offering reward was cleared, team #641 would naturally not have to worry about enemies.
However, Jin Gang still wrinkled his brow: “Anyway, to expose our details like this, always has a great influence on our strength. Is there any way to eliminate this influence?”
Jin Gang’s worry was not without reason.
Although Xie Rongjun has the investigative skills, he was only able to use it if he saw the target, and it was definitely not omniscient. In other words, selling too much of their own intelligence would still be very detrimental to them.
Shen Yi smiled. “Of course. There are two ways to eliminate unfavorable factors. One: Also peep at the opponent’s cards. We all know each other well, so isn’t it very good? We have already asked A Li to do it, and that’s everything we can do now, besides wait for the decision of fate. As for the second point… it is to make yourself as new as possible and not to reveal your cards.”
Speaking of this, Shen Yi’s voice became cold as the chill of winter, and made everyone’s heart jump.
Wen Rou instinctively asked: “How can we get a new card?”
“Get a good reward from completing a difficult quest, of course.” Shen Yi quickly answered.
Difficult quest? Everyone looked at each other.
Jin Gang asked tentatively: “Are you saying that you should eliminate the Terminator of the fourth round?”
“No!” Shen Yi denied: “The difficulty is not high enough!”
His eyes circled his partners, and he smiled and said: “Is anyone interested in going and having a look at Skynet’s headquarters?”
