He sat down and ordered a drink.
A card was placed on the table, and Ren Yifei pressed his finger against one end: "This map of the exchange dungeon must have everything it needs."
The players glanced at the card: nail gun, a fairly useful item with a wide range of applications.
"This item has too many limitations." One player took a liking to it and tried to bargain with him.
"The principle of voluntariness and fair trade," Ren Yifei emphasized.
Exchanging props for clues, or clues for clues, were basic common sense tips for high-level games mentioned in the materials Saman gave him. This was Ren Yifei's first time practicing, but he acted like a veteran.
Cooperation between players is extremely complex because they don't trust each other and there's no oversight. Therefore, sometimes deep cooperation results in being betrayed and left feeling utterly cheated.
"Players don't need friends." This unspoken rule should be engraved on a stone tablet in the desolate corner.
Therefore, these people choose to cooperate by exchanging information and tools, but without sharing their own plans. They might eventually clash, or they might unintentionally achieve a brilliant collaboration—it all depends.
"Map." A folded piece of paper was moved over, and the speaker was a player who looked very well-behaved, about seventeen or eighteen years old, with thin, soft, fluffy hair like feathers.
Ren Yifei hesitated for a moment. This thing was like opening a blind box; once opened, it couldn't be returned.
In the end, he let go of the card and picked up the piece of paper.
It really was a map! It had regional divisions, routes, and famous buildings all on it—small but complete. Highly confidential locations, such as laboratories and special entertainment venues, were also included, and even the locations of security cameras in each area were marked.
It was so complete that he couldn't help but doubt its authenticity.
The player over there had already taken the cards and said, "My personal resources are insufficient." This explains why he was willing to make this somewhat unprofitable deal.
"Thanks." Ren Yifei put away the map, took a sip of his drink, and left the bustling bar.
As soon as he stepped out, he spat out the wine he had been holding in his mouth and turned to walk into another alley.
A little tail followed him out of the bar, but after searching for a long time, he couldn't find the person who had just left: "Hey, I lost him. But I just took a picture of him, a front-facing photo."
Ren Yifei entered an internet cafe, and at that moment he was a completely different person.
The base has a small local area network (LAN) where residents can chat and play games to pass the time. Ren Yifei paid a little money to use the network for an hour.
The laboratory marked on the map was located underground in a research institute, so he was looking for information on the researchers who were publicly known at that institute.
Age, gender, home address, basic information... these are all readily available. Ren Yifei noted them down and got up to leave the internet cafe.
He and a person wearing a mask stepped out of the internet cafe one after the other, the air filled with a slightly burnt, bitter aroma that made people feel uncomfortable.
Ren Yifei glanced at the figure again, only to see it walk towards a coffee shop. He then turned and left as well.
Following the clues on the map, he walked to a special residential area inhabited by either high-ranking officials or people who had made special contributions.
After waiting for five minutes, someone came out; it was a middle-aged man with a large belly.
The guard at the gate checked his identification, and the middle-aged man left with his bag. He hadn't gone far when Ren Yifei, who had been lying in wait, knocked him unconscious, stripped him of his clothes and all his identification, and stuffed them into a trash can.
"You're back?" the guard at the door asked, puzzled.
Ren Yifei simply nodded with an annoyed expression.
The guards didn't dare ask what was going on. After checking the documents and finding no problems, they let them through.
More than half an hour later, a researcher from a research institute who lived in their community came out, greeted him with a smile, and left.
Entering the lab requires passing through many checkpoints. First, your credentials are checked, and you are inspected for any prohibited electronic devices. Then, you need to verify your iris and fingerprints.
It will take him about three to five minutes to get into the lab.
No, he hadn't reached the actual laboratory yet. There was a corridor about ten meters long from the entrance to the inside.
"Hello." A tall, bespectacled researcher walked towards them.
"Hello." Ren Yifei greeted him with a smile, casually wiping away the saline solution from the corner of his eye—the light made him feel very uncomfortable.
They passed each other, and then he caught a whiff of the scent of poppy berries.
Oh, it's that player, Ren Yifei thought of him.
The face was different; it was unclear what kind of disguise skill or prop had been used. Ren Yifei also detected a faint smell of blood.
He guessed that the player was either injured or had someone else's blood on him.
I really met quite a few people on this trip.
Ren Yifei walked all the way to the laboratory door. The sensor door opened silently, and a strong smell of blood hit him. He was stunned.
The laboratory was quiet; those who should have died and those who shouldn't have seemed to be dead. Researchers in white lab coats lay either slumped over their desks or on the floor, fatally wounded with a single blow, without a second chance.
Judging from the bloodstains, they had just died, and not from knife wounds, but from poisoning.
"Tap tap, tap tap." Ren Yifei adjusted his glasses and walked in as if nothing had happened. He slowly walked past the still-warm corpses and headed towards a small glass room.
In a space of about one square meter, sat a short-haired, naked monster, the size of a young man. His whole body was convulsing, his skin was bluish-black, and he looked like he was about to die.
The dying monster had a human face and was emaciated. It also had a long tail, a pair of furry triangular ears, and many fine, short, yellowish-brown hairs on its body, with stitches and scars on most of its body.
I don't know why, but seeing him felt very familiar.
Ren Yifei walked over uncontrollably.
"Xiao Ba," the monster suddenly spoke, looking at Ren Yifei, "the scent on you is Xiao Ba's. Why are you back?"
Ren Yifei walked over, leaned over the glass enclosure, and looked at him.
"Hurry up..." the monster gasped for breath.
"How can I save you?" Ren Yifei asked.
"You can't save him," the monster said, its face contorted with rage. "Don't waste our efforts. Escape and do what you're supposed to do."
"What should I do?"
"Bang!" The monster slammed its last strength against the glass door. "You are hope. Third Sister said you are hope."
"You are the end, and you are the beginning."
The monster was excited for a moment, then shrank back. His voice was weak as he asked, "Little Eight, is the moon beautiful? Does it look like Third Sister? That human praised Third Sister as the moon of the human world; she must be very beautiful."
"She's beautiful," Ren Yifei replied, though he didn't know what his third sister was like.
"When the moon's silvery light quietly falls on the sea, the world is vast and all is silent. The soul seems to sit on a piece of paper, floating lightly up to the sky, swaying in the evening breeze."
Ren Yifei's fingers tensed, but a smile appeared on his face, and his voice was gentle.
"Good, you see the moon." As if using up all his remaining strength, the monster sat down, closed his eyes, and stopped breathing.
He sat there in the glass room, hugging his knees, a faint, satisfied smile on his face, as if he were asleep.
Looking at the dead little monster, Ren Yifei pressed his hands tightly against the glass. A bittersweet emotion flowed through his body, but he didn't know why he felt sad.
He stood there for a while, taking two minutes to compose himself. Ren Yifei walked forward again and saw an open computer with a notification that the transfer was complete. Undoubtedly, the USB drive or similar device had been removed.
He bent down and opened one of them.
A familiar face appeared on the screen: the Scarlet Witch.
However, he was much younger than he was at this moment, at most five or six years old. They were injecting him with something unknown, and his small chest was breathing violently at an inhuman speed.
The child's eyes turned red under the influence of the medication, and his sharp teeth protruded from his gums. He struggled violently, his face contorted with hunger.
The medication was still being injected, and the bound child was in great pain. His breathing was even more violent and painful than before, and his skin began to turn blue, shrink, and dehydrate, making him look like a little old man.
The once adorable child has been transformed into a complete monster, yet the researchers haven't stopped what they're doing; liquid continues to be injected into the thin tubes.
Until one moment, the child on the platform stopped breathing.
"Quick! Dilute it." At this moment, the researchers finally took action, and they quickly injected another drug.
One second, two seconds, three seconds, and the heart, which had stopped beating, started beating again. The small chest began to rise and fall.
The child stared blankly at the light, tears welling in his red eyes, but no one noticed. The researchers were busy recording the experimental results.
"That's enough, take it away."
With those words, the entire video went black.
"What's going on?" Ren Yifei was about to open the second video when someone arrived.
After a series of hurried footsteps, the person appeared behind Ren Yifei. He seemed to recognize him: "Xiao Zhang, what's going on? What happened to them? What's wrong with Number Seven?"
Through another computer with a black screen, Ren Yifei saw the person's face; he had seen it on the website. This person was the nominal director of the research institute, and perhaps also the main person in charge of the laboratory. He looked middle-aged, but his hair was completely white.
The NPC from last time seemed to have mentioned that a researcher in the lab once helped a test subject escape, but ultimately died. That researcher was the only son of the institute's director; could that white hair have come from back then?
So, would the lab director know more?
"Xiao Zhang." The lab director had barely opened his mouth when he saw 'Xiao Zhang,' who had been facing away from him, turn around, revealing a pair of clearly red eyes.
Fifteen minutes later, at the base entrance.
"Mr. Zhang, what are you doing here?" The old man guarding the gate was quite puzzled. This gentleman was a privileged person who could enter and leave the base at any time without a quota. But it was already past nine o'clock, and outside was a world of monsters. What was he doing out there?
"Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask." Mr. Zhang, sitting in his private car, said coldly.
The old gatekeeper shut his mouth sheepishly and raised his hand to signal the other side to open the door.
Mr. Zhang retrieved his documents, stepped on the gas, and drove the car through the gate, heading straight into the darkness.
"Dean Zhang of the lab killed his colleague and Subject Seven and escaped from the base?" The base leader slammed his cup down. "Are you kidding me?"
He simply didn't believe it, and had no reason to believe it.
"But," Dean Zhang's deputy said anxiously, showing the base leader the surveillance footage from the base gate, "you see, after the accident in the lab, he quietly left."
The base leader was even more skeptical upon seeing this, and he was furious: "Dean Zhang can't drive! You keep saying you're Dean Zhang, but what about the surveillance footage from the lab?"
"The surveillance footage from the lab has been deleted." The vice dean said, his head bowed.
It would have been better if he hadn't said anything, because the leader became even angrier: "What are the people in charge of security doing?"
"The video footage has been replaced; they've been seeing yesterday's surveillance video." The security personnel were only watching yesterday's footage, so naturally they were completely unaware of today's incident.
"I don't care what you say, get someone to fix it! And immediately send someone to chase that car, get out!"
The vice president quickly scrambled out of the leader's office.
"Waaah—"
Outside the base, fully inflated tires rolled over the ground strewn with flying plastic sheets, speeding towards the city.
A quiet night, an empty road, a car, two people.
Ren Yifei had reverted to her Scarlet Witch form, except that instead of a red robe, she was wearing a slightly oversized white lab coat, typical of researchers.
His expression was calm, one hand gripping the steering wheel, the other smoothing the wrinkles in his cuffs.
To his right was a laptop, but due to time constraints, he had only downloaded a small portion of the data.
In his trunk, a man bound hand and foot was slowly waking up.
"Clang, clang, clang." A crashing sound came from the trunk, and the car shook slightly. Ren Yifei held the steering wheel with one hand and rested his face on the car window with the other elbow.
The car drove into the depths of
the night.
Author's Note: Afei: I'm leaving.