That evening.
Yu Hanjiang rode the small truck he had borrowed from the Construction Site that afternoon to move a large amount of supplies.
The two who had been keeping an eye on Challenger's movements spotted him immediately.
As Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou moved the supplies, they whispered to each other, "We don't have enough food, so I went and got five boxes of milk, five boxes of biscuits, a box of chocolate, and a box of canned fruit."
The young man saw this from the window and said excitedly, " Brother Xu, he really went to get the stuff, including canned fruit! That's luxury food! Let's grab the goods in room 207 tonight and move them later, okay?"
The middle-aged man nodded: "Okay, we'll talk about it tonight."
**
As night fell, the entire street became exceptionally quiet, and all the rooms at Shanshui B&B turned off their lights one after another.
People fell asleep.
Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou remained hidden in the darkness, patiently waiting for the thief to come to their door.
2 AM...
2:30 AM...
Time passed extremely slowly, but neither Xiao Lou nor Yu Hanjiang felt sleepy. They sat on the edge of the bed waiting, worried that their voices would alert the thief. They tacitly silenced their phones and communicated by texting.
Xiao Lou: "Aren't they coming yet? This thief is being way too cautious."
Yu Hanjiang: "Wait a little longer."
Xiao Lou: " Captain Yu, did you really go to the warehouse and bring back so many canned fruits? When I was carrying them just now, I noticed that the boxes were very heavy."
Yu Hanjiang: "The box doesn't contain canned fruit."
Xiao Lou looked up at him in confusion.
By the light of the streetlamp, Yu Hanjiang's handsome face could be seen. The man's eyes were exceptionally deep. He looked at Xiao Lou, the corners of his lips slightly raised, and said, "They are bricks from the Construction Site."
Xiao Lou: "..."
No wonder it was so heavy when I lifted it!
Captain Yu actually went to the construction site and brought back several boxes of bricks to lure thieves into a trap. That's brilliant!
At three in the morning, Xiao Lou was very sleepy.
But just then, the two suddenly heard the sound of the door being opened.
Xiao Lou immediately perked up and, in perfect unison with Yu Hanjiang, simultaneously used Invisibility Cloak.
The door was clearly open, but the other person was nowhere to be seen, as if a gust of wind had blown the door open.
The two thieves approached the bed, but were taken aback when they found no one in the room.
The young man asked, "Where are they? I clearly saw them go inside."
Another middle-aged man, his voice slightly hoarse, said coldly, "Maybe they climbed out the window and escaped. That saves us trouble; finding supplies is the priority."
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang could hear their conversation, but couldn't see where they were—the two wearing Invisibility Cloaks simply flipped the bed up, and to Xiao Lou, it looked as if the bed had been lifted up by an invisible hand, creating a very surreal scene.
A large number of cardboard boxes were revealed under the bed. The young man exclaimed excitedly, "So many! Brother Xu, you guessed right, these three really did put the food elsewhere. Great, today's haul is truly bountiful!"
He bent down to try and move the box, only to find it was extremely heavy.
The man gritted his teeth and said, "Could it be a box of canned fruit?"
The other person seemed to sense something was wrong and whispered, "Open the box and take a look."
The transparent tape sealing the opening was forcefully torn open, and the two of them leaned over to take a look...
A box of bricks, neatly arranged.
It's still brand new red brick.
The two men's faces turned green instantly. They turned to run, but the door slammed shut and locked with a bang. A deep, cold voice echoed in the air: "I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Another voice, tinged with a gentle chuckle, said, "We also have an Invisibility Cloak, and we perfectly completed Red Heart 3's escape room, which is why we guessed your methods." Xiao Lou's tone shifted abruptly, his smile vanishing, and he said seriously, "How many Challengers did you steal? This method of completing the game by starving others while enriching yourselves—you really managed to come up with it!"
The two panicked for a few seconds at first, but quickly calmed down.
The middle-aged man said calmly, "Since you're also friends from Heart 3, you should know the principle of 'making the most of resources.' The [Invisibility Card] and [Key Card] are extremely useful in this world. Why don't we cooperate and the four of us complete the game together—I promise."
When they left the Spade 3 secret room, the two of them had no less than ten million gold coins.
Judging from his voice, the man should be around forty years old and very composed.
Xiao Lou coldly said, "By forcing other Challengers to their deaths to clear the game? Do you have no humanity left?"
The young man chuckled and said, "What are you talking to me about humanity in this world? I just don't want to die, I want to live! What do I care if other people live or die? Enough nonsense. If you're willing to join us, the four of us can make a fortune together. If you're not, then we're not on the same page. We won't touch your supplies anymore, and you two should mind your own business!"
Xiao Lou had long anticipated that in Card World, some people would stop at nothing to survive. Without the constraints of law and morality in reality, the depravity of human nature would exceed his imagination.
He's not good at arguing with people, and besides, since their ideologies differ, there's no need to reason with them.
The idea that "a gentleman uses words, not fists" simply doesn't work in this world.
Therefore, he planned to take direct action.
Xiao Lou whispered a signal in Yu Hanjiang's ear. Yu Hanjiang understood and quickly went to the window to guard it, in case the two of them escaped by climbing out the window. Meanwhile, Xiao Lou activated the Ring that he had drawn earlier.
Before the two thieves entered the house, Xiao Lou drew many rings, forming a dense net of rings, and then used a levitation technique to lift the rings to the ceiling.
The two thieves did not notice that there was actually a huge net on the ceiling.
By the time they realized it, it was too late.
With a flick of Xiao Lou's finger, countless metal rings, each 30cm in diameter, suddenly rained down from the sky!
The two thieves were wearing invisibility cloaks, so Xiao Lou couldn't see them, but they still existed, and were physical entities, not simply turned into air—physical collisions wouldn't directly bypass them.
Countless rings rained down like a storm, but in the corner of the room, two rings were swung away and fell to the ground with a crisp metallic sound.
This is it!
Xiao Lou's precise positioning.
Yu Hanjiang rushed forward and kicked hard with his left foot, and sure enough, a scream was heard.
Immediately afterward, Yu Hanjiang reached out and pulled sharply in the direction of the scream. Although he couldn't see the other person, he could judge the other person's location based on Ring and the scream, accurately grab the other person's arm, and forcefully twist it behind his back!
The man let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.
Yu Hanjiang said coldly, "An invisibility cloak only makes you invisible, not intangible."
He swiftly pinned the man to the ground, and Xiao Lou immediately manipulated several metal rings to form a dense net of rings around him, leaving the man nowhere to hide.
Yu Hanjiang said, "Take off the cloak."
The other person gritted their teeth: "Damn it, you can actually do magic?!"
Xiao Lou said, "This is not magic."
The young man seemed to finally realize what was happening and exclaimed in surprise, "A card? You have such a powerful card?"
He finally realized he had bitten off more than he could chew and was doomed. The man quickly changed his tune, saying, "Brother, please spare us. Let us go. Can you share half of the stolen supplies with us?"
However, before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt a strange chill on his back.
A bone-chilling cold instantly pierced his heart, penetrating from his back to his chest. The man looked down at his chest in disbelief.
It is a knife.
The knife pierced his heart accurately from behind.
Bright red blood was still slowly dripping from the tip of the knife. He stared wide-eyed at the blade, only managing to utter, "Brother Xu..."
The next moment, the body with the bleeding dagger was forcefully pushed forward and pressed down on Yu Hanjiang.
Yu Hanjiang instinctively dodged to the side, and then the window was smashed open with a loud bang, shattering glass everywhere!
The middle-aged man nimbly jumped out of the broken window and disappeared into the night in the blink of an eye.
Having been stabbed to death, the Invisibility Cloak effect was nullified, and the body of a young man lying in a pool of blood gradually appeared on the floor of the room. His eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets, clearly unable to believe that he had been betrayed by his teammates.
Yu Hanjiang looked at the corpse at his feet, his face extremely grim.
Xiao Lou was also stunned into silence by this sudden turn of events.
After a long silence, Xiao Lou finally said in a trembling voice, "In order to escape, he actually stabbed his teammate to death and threw the body over as a shield? Or was he afraid that his teammate would reveal the location of the hidden supplies, so he simply killed him to silence him?"
Yu Hanjiang said with a sullen face, "Damn it! They're not even as good as animals!"
I've never heard Captain Yu swear before, so he must be really angry this time.
No more than three prisoners have ever managed to escape from his clutches.
Today, due to the invisibility cloak, Yu Hanjiang couldn't accurately locate the other person. However, being tricked like this not only prevented him from catching the thief, but also led to the thief killing his accomplice to silence him…
Yu Hanjiang's face was ashen, and he said in a deep voice, "We need to move as soon as possible."
I never expected things to turn out this way.
Instead of dealing with the thief, they exposed themselves.
Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, "We can't stay here any longer. That beast killed his companions to escape. He was extremely cruel. He might come back and take revenge on us."
Moreover, with an extra body in the house, they would have a hard time explaining themselves if someone called the police tomorrow.
Although they didn't kill the person, he died because of them.
Xiao Lou felt a little upset. He took a deep breath to compose himself and quickly made a phone call to Shao Qingge.
Shao Qingge was sleeping when he was suddenly woken up by a phone call. The man's lazy voice still sounded a little groggy: " Professor Xiao, what's up? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night..."
Xiao Lou said, "We've run into some trouble here and need to move immediately. Do you want to come with us?"
Shao Qingge sat bolt upright in bed with a start: "What's going on?"
Xiao Lou said helplessly, " Captain Yu and I originally wanted to lure the thief out of his hole to catch him, but one of the two thieves killed his companion in order to escape."
Shao Qingge was completely jolted awake: "Murder?! Murder?!"
Xiao Lou briefly recounted what had happened. Upon hearing that someone had died in room 207, Shao Qingge decisively said, "I'll go with you. I don't want to be arrested by the police as a suspect. We'll meet downstairs at the hotel in 10 minutes."
The three of them didn't have much luggage to begin with; each of them carried a bag, and they met downstairs.
Shao Qingge's expression was very serious: "This thief really killed his partner?!"
This person is not only ruthless, but also very decisive, killing teammates without hesitation at crucial moments.
Yu Hanjiang wasn't afraid of retaliation, but Xiao Lou and Shao Qingge rarely faced such thugs, and he was worried that something might happen to them. It's easy to dodge a spear in the open, but hard to guard against an arrow in the dark, so it would be safer to move to a safe place as soon as possible.
He had checked on the construction site that afternoon and found that the workers had gone on strike and the site was completely abandoned. Prices would continue to rise tomorrow, and construction would not resume there. It could serve as a temporary hiding place for the three of them.
Yu Hanjiang pushed the delivery truck, and Shao Qingge and Xiao Lou quickly followed.
They planned to transport the supplies from the underground warehouse overnight.
The streets were eerily quiet in the dead of night, and the expressions of the three people were all serious.
It was almost 4 a.m. when they arrived at the warehouse. Yu Hanjiang opened the door, and Xiao Lou and Shao Qingge came forward to help, quickly moving the boxes.
However, before they had finished moving, they heard a series of hurried footsteps coming from not far away.
Yu Hanjiang immediately put his finger to his lips: "Shh... someone's here."
Xiao Lou and Shao Qingge held their breath and hid behind the door, peeking out through the crack in the warehouse door. They saw a dirty boy walk quickly to the corner, push out the broken tricycle piled with garbage, get on the tricycle, and hurriedly ride away.
Xiao Lou paused for a moment, then said softly, "Is it the little guy Captain Yu saw before, the one who was disguised as a garbage collector?"
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "It's him."
Xiao Lou asked in confusion, "Where is he going in the middle of the night?"
Yu Hanjiang couldn't understand this guy's thinking either, and said, "He's probably a night owl too."
Xiao Lou watched the boy's retreating figure, remained silent for a moment, and then suddenly said, " Captain Yu, don't you think this guy seems to have been keeping an eye on our movements the whole time? The day we checked in, I paid for seven days' accommodation, and he paid for seven days' accommodation too; we hid our supplies in the underground warehouse, and he hid his supplies in the underground warehouse too; we moved in the middle of the night, and he rode off on his bike..."
Yu Hanjiang thought about it carefully and realized it was true: "It's almost four in the morning now, so many coincidences—it can't be a coincidence."
The three exchanged a glance.
Yu Hanjiang decisively said, "Let's follow them and see."