Yin Chen was silent for a long moment before turning off the faucet.
He pulled out two paper towels and carefully wiped away the remaining droplets between his fingers. Without raising his head, he asked in a voice carrying the faintest hint of grievance, “Are you insulting me?”
“…Huh? No, I’m seriously asking!” Song Zang froze, then hurriedly explained, “You were amazing today. Why would I insult you?”
“That’s more like it.” Yin Chen raised his eyes and gave him a gloomy look. “Take off all the disposable clothing you wore inside the operating room, throw it into that yellow bin, and come wash your hands.”
“Okay.”
Song Zang obediently did as he was told, though he did not forget to tilt his head and continue asking, “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Mm. I know.”
Yin Chen looked perfectly composed.
He calmly caught Song Zang by the wrist and helped roll his sleeve higher, exposing a short length of pale arm.
The rushing sound of water filled the room again.
Yin Chen held Song Zang by the wrist and pulled him toward the sink.
It took Song Zang a moment to realize that Yin Chen was personally washing and disinfecting his hands for him.
…Just how obsessed with cleanliness is this man?
Yin Chen happily dispensed more disinfectant and leaned close to whisper beside his ear, “You guessed correctly. I’m half human.”
Song Zang blinked. “Really?”
“Aberrants can copy my appearance, but they can’t parasitize me or control my body. They aren’t capable of it.”
Yin Chen spoke softly, his attitude carrying obvious contempt and arrogance.
Of course, he had always possessed more than enough strength to justify his arrogance.
“Okay. Thank you for telling me this secret… My hands should be clean by now, right?”
Song Zang curled his fingers slightly.
His pale skin had been rubbed until it turned faintly red, showing a fragile wash of pink.
Yin Chen glanced at him, turned off the faucet, then took out a paper towel and carefully dried Song Zang’s hands.
“Let’s go.”
The postoperative suturing would still take some time.
Lin Wen Jing would also need someone watching over her before and after she woke from general anesthesia, so Chang Mei Jiang would not be leaving anytime soon.
Song Zang obediently followed Yin Chen.
The two walked silently for a while.
Then Yin Chen suddenly said, “It wasn’t a secret in the first place.”
Song Zang paused. “It wasn’t?”
Yin Chen sneered. “I’m this powerful. Do I really seem human to you?”
That rhetorical question sounded remarkably convincing.
Yet Song Zang still hesitated for a second or two before hurriedly pretending to have an epiphany.
Because Song Zang thought he was pretty powerful too.
And he really was human.
Of course, they could save that discussion for later.
Song Zang quickened his pace and expertly linked his arm through Yin Chen’s, asking curiously, “Then what exactly are you?”
“Not telling you.” Yin Chen did not pull away, but his tone was teasing. “If you’re capable enough, figure it out yourself.”
“I can’t even figure out who I am. Now I have to investigate your identity too? That sounds exhausting… So much work.”
Song Zang refused to take the bait and continued complaining softly while pretending to be pitiful.
But Yin Chen did not seem inclined to indulge him this time.
He suddenly lowered his eyes and stared at Song Zang, saying slowly, “Stop pretending to be pitiful so you can manipulate me, bad person.”
Why was he calling him a bad person again for no reason?
Song Zang was almost used to it now.
He even wanted to laugh.
Those two words always sounded especially aggrieved and strangely out of place coming from Yin Chen.
Forget it.
Yin Chen obviously had no intention of revealing anything more.
Song Zang’s lips curved. He widened his eyes innocently. “I’m not pretending. I really am tired today. I want cheese-baked shrimp. Buy me some…”
“…Fine.”
Yin Chen glanced at him as though helpless, but the faint pleasure rising in his eyes had already betrayed his mood.
He really did like it when Song Zang asked him for things.
Outside the medical station, Chi Yan and Lu Xing You were smoking as they waited for them.
There was no need to keep the craniotomy secret. The entire procedure had been recorded by the production team’s fixed cameras.
The players waiting outside had not rested either, keeping watch the whole time in case a crisis arose.
When Chi Yan spotted Song Zang, she casually extinguished her cigarette and asked with concern, “How was it? Neither of you got hurt, right?”
“We’re fine. Yin Chen crushed the monster to death immediately.”
Song Zang proudly swung Yin Chen’s arm.
“That’s good.”
Chi Yan opened an online-shopping app as she spoke. “Then let’s talk business. Electricity is one of its weaknesses. It can’t kill the thing, but it can drive it out quickly… We finally found something useful! From now on, everyone needs to carry a stun gun. I’ll order some for immediate local delivery. One for every person, no exceptions.”
At that moment, Lu Xing You wandered over and sniffed suspiciously. “You two smell kind of bad.”
Song Zang immediately grimaced and waved his hands. “Don’t mention it. Don’t mention it. The operating room smelled even worse. Like five hundred people had died at the same time.”
“That bad?!” Lu Xing You’s eyes widened.
Song Zang nodded vigorously. “Really, really!”
The two had barely started chatting when Yin Chen, who had remained silent, suddenly asked, “Chi Yan, is Wang Ming Yue still fishing?”
“Hm? Let me check. She should be coming back soon.”
Chi Yan lowered her phone, narrowed her eyes, and looked toward the distant coastline.
Beneath the blazing sun, the sea was calm and warm.
A black speck gradually becoming clearer in the distance drifted slowly toward shore, leaving overlapping ripples behind it.
“Maybe another ten minutes and she’ll reach shore,” Chi Yan estimated. Then she sighed softly. “That sweet little idiot hasn’t had an easy life either. Before she turned eighteen, she’d never left her fishing village. She only looks delicate and helpless because she’s sickly. She’s actually much more capable than most people.”
“Definitely hasn’t had it easy. Her dad isn’t her dad anymore,” Lu Xing You suddenly added.
“What did you find?”
“Chairman Wang announced today that he’s publicly campaigning to become the next mayor of City A. He proposed several tax-cutting and public-benefit policies, and the citizens of City A have responded positively…” Lu Xing You said eerily. “What incredibly niche news.”
“Wait. How is he even eligible to run for mayor?” Chi Yan looked genuinely astonished. “Government officials aren’t allowed to conduct business. Isn’t that an ironclad rule?”
“Right. Logically speaking, that provision has always existed in the law… until today.”
Lu Xing You’s expression became strange.
He turned his tablet toward the three of them, displaying the government regulations he had just searched.
Lowering his voice, he said meaningfully, “Ridiculous, right? In a single day, that law vanished into thin air. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
Any information ever published online left behind something equivalent to a deeply branded mark.
Those traces were almost impossible to erase completely.
Even if the person who originally published something deleted it themselves, countless methods existed to recover it.
Yet the provision forbidding government officials from engaging in business, a rule extremely unfavorable to Chairman Wang, had disappeared without warning.
Refusing to believe it, Chi Yan took out her phone and tried several combinations of keywords across multiple search engines.
She could not find anything.
She opened the trending topic about Chairman Wang’s mayoral campaign and refreshed the comments.
Several new comments appeared from netizens familiar with the law who had apparently not yet “forgotten.”
They were asking exactly the same question.
But when Chi Yan refreshed again, those comments had been completely erased.
Opening the users’ profiles revealed only gray avatars and usernames made of garbled strings of characters.
Every account now carried the same new red warning.
【This account has been permanently banned for spreading large amounts of false information and posting hateful content that caused serious harmful consequences.】
Chi Yan scrolled through the comments.
Without exception, everyone who questioned the situation was rapidly banned.
“Damn. So this isn’t some supernatural phenomenon. Someone is deliberately silencing people… Who the hell is arrogant enough to do this?”
“Aberrants, obviously.” Lu Xing You shrugged. “They can even alter our system interfaces, never mind infiltrating government agencies. Controlling speech on social media would be even easier. Something this minor would be effortless.”
Chi Yan became thoughtful. “Can you track down whoever’s hiding behind the network by yourself?”
“I can. It’ll just take a while. Ms. Chi Yan, I desperately require adequate sleep!” Lu Xing You emphasized seriously.
“Fine. Sleep as much as you want.”
Chi Yan spread her hands, then looked toward Yin Chen. “Big shot, what do you think about just assassinating Chairman Wang?”
“My suggestion is to monitor him for now and move the next episode’s filming location to City A. We can investigate personally once we’re there.”
Yin Chen did not appear surprised by any of this, almost as though he had expected it.
“Agreed.” Lu Xing You rubbed his hair and yawned before continuing. “We’re very far from City A. Every piece of information I investigate remotely could already have been secretly altered, so it isn’t reliable enough. Better to see things with our own eyes.”
Chi Yan did not object.
Thinking about it carefully, there had to be even more Aberrants hiding behind Chairman Wang. Otherwise, he could never have suddenly launched a mayoral campaign.
The resources and power concealed in the shadows were probably like an underground river beneath a mountain valley, vast beyond what ordinary people could imagine.
The players therefore reached a temporary agreement.
Lu Xing You and Yin Chen, whose roles both gave them considerable resources, would each dispatch a separate team to monitor Chairman Wang.
The teams would report in real time, while the players cross-checked the information received from both sides.
If Chairman Wang displayed any malicious intent toward humanity during surveillance, they would stop waiting and assassinate him immediately.
If significant discrepancies appeared between the reports from the two teams…
That would mean their own subordinates had already been infiltrated by monsters, making remote information unreliable.
In that case, Chairman Wang could also be assassinated immediately.
By the time they finished settling the broad details, the sun hanging in the sky was beginning to sink toward the west.
The buzzing roar of an engine mingled with the waves.
Wang Ming Yue’s powerful speedboat would soon reach shore.
Yin Chen took Song Zang’s hand. “Come on. Let’s buy some fresh shrimp from her.”
“Okay!”
Song Zang obediently followed with obvious anticipation, then could not resist asking curiously, “Do you really have professional assassins working for you?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Of course it’s illegal.” Yin Chen smiled ambiguously. “But the laws of this world are already a joke. Aberrants can change them whenever they want.”
“…Fair point. But you already employed assassins before the Aberrants appeared, didn’t you?”
Before Yin Chen could answer, Song Zang continued, “If you were in another world, you’d be one of those rich, obsessive, ruthless, dangerously charming supervillains who spends the entire story fighting the protagonist and doesn’t finally go down until the ending.”
Yin Chen listened in silence for a moment before saying darkly, “You should stop reading those romance novels with Chi Yan and the others.”
“But you can’t control me.” Song Zang smiled and answered rather arrogantly.
Yin Chen’s steps halted.
He abruptly turned around and stared coldly at Song Zang. “Why can’t I?”
Seriously. He can’t hear a single provocative sentence without getting all fierce.
“Because you never come looking for me at Helin Manor.” Song Zang was completely unafraid. He innocently displayed his beautiful dimples. “For an entire month, I can do whatever I want. You can’t control me.”
“…”
Yin Chen abruptly fell silent.
His thin lips pressed together, frost coating his long, narrow eyes.
Without warning, he reached out and pinched the flesh of Song Zang’s cheek, using slightly more force than usual.
He looked vicious.
But in Song Zang’s eyes, the entire sequence only made Yin Chen look extraordinarily aggrieved, even carrying a faint resentment he clearly wanted to express but could not.
Song Zang stared at him for a long moment.
Suddenly, a counterintuitive possibility occurred to him.
Meeting Yin Chen’s “cold and vicious” gaze, Song Zang blinked and spoke indistinctly through his pinched cheek.
“Could it be that… you can’t leave the game worlds? Because you aren’t human.”
In the next instant, his aching cheek was finally released from Yin Chen’s clutches and regained its freedom.
Yin Chen gave a quiet “Mm.”
His expression remained faintly icy, but his tone had softened. “I’m working on solving that problem. It isn’t difficult.”
“That’s good.”
Song Zang was actually somewhat worried.
“If you ever need my help, you absolutely cannot hide it from me.”
“I won’t need it.”
Yin Chen chuckled and pinched his cheek again.
“You only know how to bully people…”
Song Zang was quietly complaining and wanted to continue clinging to Yin Chen for another few minutes when a sudden commotion erupted near the beach cottages.
The roar of a chainsaw starting.
Screams and sobbing from multiple directions.
And Li Jun’s hysterical shouting.
“Someone died!!! Someone died!”
The chaos was happening in more than one place.
Before either of them could go investigate, another series of tremendous crashes exploded beside them.
The speedboat Wang Ming Yue was driving hurtled toward shore like a runaway horse and slammed violently into the wooden walkway, nearly flipping both boat and passenger into the waves.
“Help! Teachers, please save me!”
Wang Ming Yue cried as she struggled upright, somehow remembering to bring both enormous buckets of freshly caught fish and shrimp with her.
Carrying the metal buckets, she stumbled off the boat without even bothering to put on shoes and ran toward them in tears.
Her bare foot landed on a slippery shell.
Wang Ming Yue swayed, lost her balance, and nearly crashed onto the sand.
But she did not fall.
Yin Chen reacted instantly and grabbed her firmly by the shoulder.
Without hesitation, he snatched away the metal bucket filled with shrimp, ensuring that not a single shrimp or crab could take advantage of the chaos to escape.
Song Zang: …
He understood now.
At this particular moment, the most important item on Yin Chen’s mental to-do list was apparently preserving the clean, fresh ingredients for their cheese-baked seafood.
Song Zang suppressed the urge to comment, hurriedly took the other bucket, and steadied Wang Ming Yue.
“What happened? Where’s the cameraman following you?”
He remembered that Wang Ming Yue’s cameraman was Liu Da Shan, the poor NPC whom Yin Chen had tormented especially badly.
Asking only made Wang Ming Yue collapse even harder.
Tears streamed down her face. “I hooked a woman’s corpse while fishing, waaah… The cameraman tried to help me pull her aboard, but she suddenly came back to life! She grabbed him by the throat and dragged him into the sea!
“He told me to come back and get someone to save him. What do we do? He has a life jacket, but he can’t hold on much longer, waaah…”
At that moment, the violent roar of another engine completely drowned out Wang Ming Yue’s crying.
It was Chi Yan.
She came racing from the other end of the beach on an extremely fast jet ski.
As she passed the three of them, Chi Yan did not even turn around. She merely waved and shouted, “I see him! I’ll save him! Yin Chen, leave it alone and hurry up and knock Li Jun unconscious!”
Hearing this, Yin Chen took the other bucket from Song Zang and immediately headed toward the sound of Li Jun’s screaming.
“Waaah, Sister Chi is amazing. It’s all because I’m useless. I couldn’t help the cameraman at all…”
Wang Ming Yue cried even harder, almost hyperventilating, her face white as paper.
Song Zang was terrible at dealing with situations like this.
All he could do was comfort her stiffly. “Don’t cry, don’t cry. It’ll be okay… I need to go help Yin Chen now. Do you want to come with me?”
“I want to wait for Sister Chi to come back.”
Wang Ming Yue sniffled and shook her head.
“Okay. Be careful.”
Song Zang did not force her.
He hurried after Yin Chen.
By the time he arrived, Li Jun was already unconscious.
His long-suffering nasal bone had been broken yet again, blood pouring from his nose and covering the ground.
Apparently, even Yin Chen’s gentle punch was a little too destructive.
Xiao Xiao was bandaging him.
Beside her stood a pale-faced Xia Zhi Zhi, holding a damaged chainsaw that had likewise been destroyed with one punch.
Seeing Yin Chen stride toward the staff dining hall, Song Zang stopped and asked them, “What happened?”
“Two things.” Xiao Xiao did not raise her head, her voice grave. “Someone poisoned the kitchen. Every staff member who ate the cupcakes is dead. And then there’s Li Jun. He went crazy again and insisted on hacking an innocent girl to death.”
“An innocent girl?”
“The employee who wears the Cupid mascot costume. She ate a cupcake too… Looks like she’s about to die.”
Xiao Xiao sighed quietly.
“Okay. I understand.”
Song Zang did not argue.
But he knew perfectly well that things could not be so simple.
If Li Jun wanted to kill this person, there was an extremely high chance she had already been replaced, or had been harboring malicious intentions all along.
Song Zang therefore heightened his vigilance and quietly pushed open the dining-hall door.
The rich metallic stench of blood, absent for far too long, crashed over him.
Yin Chen had entered the kitchen alone and was examining how the cupcakes had been poisoned.
Meanwhile, the two televisions in the dining area were still turned on, broadcasting the first episode of Cupid’s Kiss in real time.
The editing was polished, the music romantic, and the entire screen overflowed with pink bubbles.
But more than a dozen poisoned corpses lay scattered across the restaurant’s fresh white wooden floor.
Their expressions were peaceful.
Blood had poured from every orifice, drying layer upon layer until their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears were clogged with it.
The sight was miserable and grotesque.
The “innocent girl” Xiao Xiao had mentioned appeared perfectly innocent too.
Because she really was dead.
Song Zang spotted the petite girl immediately.
She had only just stopped breathing.
Her body lay on its side near the dining-hall entrance, already gradually stiffening.
The heavy Cupid angel mascot head had rolled aside.
Its beautiful, fluffy golden curls were stained with blood, but its expression remained pure and innocent, its eyes as lovely as sapphires.
Perhaps it was only an illusion, but Song Zang felt an extraordinarily ominous aura coming from the mascot head.
It almost seemed to be staring directly at him.
Song Zang lightly bit his lip, his frail body seemingly trembling with fear.
Yet he did not stop walking.
Carefully, he approached the mascot head.
The little angel’s inorganic glass eyes glittered beneath the dining-hall lights.
Once again, Song Zang came face-to-face with the phantom reflected in the glass.
The face slowly curled its lips.
Its eyes revealed barely suppressed greed and hunger, along with a faint trace of mockery.
Song Zang’s frail body swayed.
A sudden, vicious stab of agony pierced his temple, like an invisible blade brutally thrust directly into his soul.
For a moment, he could barely breathe.
In the next instant, the concrete wall separating the kitchen from the dining hall collapsed with a deafening crash.
Yin Chen charged through the falling chunks of masonry.
He raised his hand and summoned that long-absent snow-white blade.
Without the slightest hesitation, he hurled it viciously toward the Cupid mascot head.
But Song Zang’s attention was no longer on the mascot.
A blue screen abruptly lit up before his eyes.
Immediately afterward, a long string of brilliant golden text appeared inside an extraordinarily ornate decorative dialogue box, looking absurdly prestigious.
【Special Title: Gorgeous Mask (2300/100000)
Deception is a sweet poison; lies are a magnificent trap. Nail the veil of falsehood onto your face. Let them speculate and misunderstand, let them waver between love and hate, and let them believe without doubt.
Title Bonuses:
1. Every statement you make has a 99% chance of being believed by others. (Targets with Resistance above 10,000 are immune.)
2. Upon entering a new instance, you may discover one NPC who is full of lies in advance. (Cannot be used on characters ranked above stage boss.)
3. Upon entering a new instance, you may actively bind one stage boss and immediately obtain its sincere and loyal affection. (The binding is immediately removed once the main mission is cleared.)】
【Congratulations, Player. Your Special Title has successfully upgraded. Would you like to experience its newest bonus effect now? (Note: To avoid revealing instance content in advance, you may only bind a stage boss you have already encountered, or the stage boss currently closest to you.)】
Song Zang rapidly finished reading the instructions and answered without hesitation, “Bind, bind! Whoever’s closest to me, bind that one!”
【Activating Title Bonus…】
【Congratulations, Player. Binding successful.】
The instant the blue screen disappeared, the Cupid mascot head had already been split cleanly in two by Yin Chen’s blade, exploding into fragments that scattered across the floor.
Yin Chen pulled Song Zang into his arms and held his head still to examine his pupils.
Then he raised his voice with a dark expression. “Wake up. Why are you spacing out?”
“Mm…”
The sharp agony had inexplicably disappeared.
Only a faint, exhausting soreness remained.
The bound boss did not immediately appear.
Song Zang waited quietly for a moment, but nothing in their surroundings changed.
“Song Zang. Talk to me.”
Yin Chen’s handsome, expressionless face was covered in frost, his voice cold enough to have been tempered in ice.
Forget waiting.
The highest priority right now was placating an angry Yin Chen.
Song Zang blinked blankly, voluntarily raised his face, and met Yin Chen’s gloomy gaze, which was suppressing both anxiety and anger.
Aggrieved, he said, “My head hurts. Rub it for me.”
“…Where?”
“My temple.”
Yin Chen’s expression remained awful.
He roughly raised a hand and began rubbing Song Zang’s head, but the bone-chilling cold surrounding him quietly began to recede.
“From now on, don’t go near things you don’t recognize.”
Song Zang defended himself softly. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t actually touch it…”
“I really want to cut you to pieces.” Yin Chen gritted his teeth as he interrupted him. “Are you only happy if you get hurt in every single instance?”
“Who said that? I’m not hurt. Stop being mean to me.” Song Zang became even more aggrieved. “I really want to cry now.”
Yin Chen sneered. “I’m not even crying. What do you have to cry about?”
“Because we both stink! We’re getting stinkier and stinkier!”
Yin Chen: ?!
Song Zang’s eyes reddened.
His emotions suddenly became even more intense than Yin Chen’s, his voice thick with tears. “Just washing our hands didn’t work at all. The smell has soaked completely into our clothes! Yin Chen, my head is spinning.”
“Okay, okay.”
Yin Chen hurriedly pulled him close, suddenly flustered.
“We’ll go back and shower right now. Don’t cry…”
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