TTGOL CH97

Chapter 97: BS055

With six hours left before their mandatory mission was triggered, Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng arrived at the entrance of Zone G. Zone G bordered Zone A and Zone F, but the entire zone was enclosed by towering walls. The only way in was through the prison gates facing the Central District.

The gate was a massive structure of black iron, fully fifty meters wide. It was perpetually open, yet rarely did anyone trespass. Even the long black stone street outside seemed slightly desolate; players appeared to avoid passing through here, giving it a wide berth from a distance.

Tang Cuo glanced at the sparse scattering of people nearby and had a premonition that once the two of them went in, this place would probably liven up. Perhaps someone would open a betting pool on when they would come out; perhaps someone, sharing their mindset, would want to go in and brave the prison too.

But right now, Tang Cuo only wanted to ask: “Are you sure Leng Miao will come?”

“Probably.” Jin Cheng knew Leng Miao’s personality, but there were no absolute certainties in the world. “We have six hours left. If he doesn’t come, we won’t wait for him.”

Six hours was a perfect window. If they triggered the Warden’s instance, it would absolutely override the mandatory instance. If they didn’t, six hours was enough time to finish their business here and return to the Central District to enter an instance.

If they couldn’t leave the prison after six hours, it meant they were trapped, and the mandatory mission would conveniently pull them out.

They waited another ten minutes. Just as Jin Cheng was about to give up waiting, Leng Miao finally appeared. His expression was cold—true to his name—without a hint of a smile.

Seeing Jin Cheng, he had no intention of greeting him. He merely nodded at Tang Cuo in acknowledgment.

Jin Cheng shrugged. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t joke around, all because Tang Cuo was present. He was afraid Tang Cuo would get jealous, and considering Leng Miao looked rather “gaygay,” if Leng Miao decided to kick him while he was down, it would be hard to explain.

It was fortunate that Leng Miao didn’t know what was going on beneath Jin Cheng’s serious facade; otherwise, he might have jumped up right then and there to take Jin Cheng down with him, saving them the trouble of walking into the prison.

However, the two of them shared one unanimous sentiment: neither wanted to stand next to the other. Thus, Tang Cuo was forced into the middle. Expressionless, Tang Cuo stepped forward and walked inside.

Jin Cheng and Leng Miao flanked him like two imperial bodyguards—one ranked fifth on the Red Board, the other fourth—giving him an immense amount of “face.”

This sight left the onlookers dumbfounded. As the news spread, Tang Cuo’s name rapidly shot to the top of the discussions in the Mission Hall, his spotlight even overshadowing the recently deceased Chong Yanzhang.

But what everyone was more curious about was why Jin Cheng and Leng Miao were together, and why they chose this specific time to enter Zone G. Was it related to Chong Yanzhang’s death?

The development of events was entirely within Tang Cuo’s expectations. As he had mentioned earlier, someone was fishing in troubled waters, and after the three of them stirred things up, the waters were only getting muddier.

At this moment, the trio was standing on the large lawn where Jiang He had initially picked up Zheng Yingying. Countless massive searchlights shining down from the walls illuminated the lawn for them.

Leng Miao looked up at the watchtower at the corner of the wall and finally spoke his first words. “Back then, Jiang He, Chen Liu, and I were locked in the same section. Chen Liu was so annoyingly loud, yet Jiang He didn’t kill him. It’s even more impossible for him to do it now.”

Tang Cuo: “If not Jiang He, who else would harbor such immense hatred for Tianzhi?”

This question was directed at both Jin Cheng and Leng Miao simultaneously. Leng Miao answered bluntly, “For instance, you two.”

Jin Cheng didn’t deny it. Because of the East Cross Street incident, he indeed had a motive to destroy Tianzhi. However, since he was standing right here, his suspicion was naturally cleared.

“It’s a bit slow today.” Jin Cheng crossed his arms and also glanced up at the watchtower.

Tang Cuo could tell that the Warden, Xiao Tong, was supposed to appear up there. But aside from the glaring searchlights and the dark, oppressive, suffocating main prison building before them, there wasn’t a single human voice to be heard.

Leng Miao frowned. “It shouldn’t be the Warden’s playtime yet.”

Hearing this, Tang Cuo suddenly thought of something. He looked at Jin Cheng and asked, “Are we sure the prison riot has ended?”

“I’m not sure.” Reminded by him, the corners of Jin Cheng’s mouth curled into an intrigued smile. “It seems we came at a bad time. No—perhaps it’s the perfect time.”

“Ring, ring, ring—” A frantic alarm bell provided the perfect annotation to Jin Cheng’s words. It came from the prison blocks ahead, sharper and more urgent than what Leng Miao had heard during his imprisonment.

“Let’s go, straight in.” Jin Cheng made a prompt decision.

The electric bell meant the Warden was on patrol.

Leng Miao no longer cared about his mutual disgust with Jin Cheng and rushed in after him. The trio’s figures quickly sped across the lawn to the true entrance of the cellblocks. Without picking a specific area, they entered the first open door they found.

“Creeeak—” The iron door groaned. Instantly, an overwhelming cacophony of screams and footsteps crashed over them, dividing the world inside and outside the door into two completely different realms.

A riot. It was a true riot.

The lighting inside the prison was dim. Chaotic figures like demons and monsters crawling out of hell cast heart-palpitating silhouettes on the walls. The entire cellblock was a steel structure; even the stairs and floors were forged from black steel. The thud, thud, thud of footsteps upon them sounded like heaven-shaking drums—only they weren’t startling celestial immortals, but the evil spirits of the underworld.

All the cell doors were wide open. The “evil spirits” had broken free, tearing and biting at each other—a true vision of hell.

Leng Miao merely took one step too fast, and splattering blood stained his shoe. With a deeply grave expression, he pulled his foot back, swept his gaze over the scene, and kicked a man who was about to hack at the person in front of him with a sword.

“Bang!” The man crashed into the steel frame, the sound of breaking bones clearly audible.

But this also seemed to bring back a sliver of rationality to him.

Tang Cuo crouched in front of him, while Jin Cheng approached the one Leng Miao had saved, asking simultaneously: “What happened?”

Enduring the pain, the two trembled violently, unable to speak clearly; one was even lying on the ground convulsing. Jin Cheng abruptly materialized a lead-lined bucket, and a bucketful of water splashed over their heads, finally forcing out a sentence—

“BS055! Someone brought BS055 into the prison! They’re crazy; they’ve all gone crazy!”

Hearing this, Tang Cuo didn’t understand, but Jin Cheng and Leng Miao’s expressions instantly changed. Jin Cheng immediately explained to Tang Cuo, “BS055, another masterpiece of the BS series. Its scientific name is ‘Rabies’.”

Rabies?

Tang Cuo raised an eyebrow. That didn’t sound like a good word to him.

Jin Cheng further pressed for Xiao Tong’s whereabouts, but these two were just insignificant small fries and knew nothing more. The trio had no choice but to abandon them and hurry to other areas to investigate.

Fortunately, although BS055 was an inhalable gas, it had already completely dissipated, allowing the trio to walk freely without worrying about being infected.

Walking and observing along the way, there was blood everywhere on the ground, but no corpses. There were only two explanations: either the people were only injured and ran away, or they were already dead and had entered the karma-clearing process.

Given the situation here, it was mostly the latter.

There were also many who had gone mad with bloodlust and attacked the trio. Without Tang Cuo needing to lift a finger, Jin Cheng and Leng Miao dispatched them swiftly and cleanly.

“It looks like everyone was let out.” Jin Cheng opened another cell door, saw the chaotic state inside, and deduced firmly, “Our Lord Warden definitely had a hand in this.”

Tang Cuo now deeply felt it: the Warden truly was a pervert.

“But where is he now?” Leng Miao asked.

“Forget about him. Our goal isn’t actually to confront the Warden,” Jin Cheng replied.

“Then what is your goal? Are you really so kind-hearted as to investigate Tianzhi’s matters?”

“And why did you agree to come here?”

The two hurled questions at each other, but neither answered. They were even.

As they walked, Tang Cuo suddenly asked, “During your last imprisonment, besides the three of you, who else was in the neighboring cells?”

Thinking it over repeatedly, Tang Cuo still felt that Jiang He, whose whereabouts were a mystery, was inevitably connected to this matter. He disappeared, then reappeared in Zone F. Why?

Leng Miao thought for a moment, then said, “No one special, but there was a little girl. She might be dead by now.”

A little girl?

Not just Tang Cuo; even Jin Cheng abruptly looked at Leng Miao, making him freeze. Even if he were stupid, he should know by now that this little girl wasn’t ordinary. Recalling carefully, he said, “She came in before us. She was severely injured, lying in the innermost cell. She never spoke and never showed her face. If there was one unique thing, the Warden seemed to pay special attention to her, taking her out alone several times.”

Finally, he added a sentence: “Chen Liu ridiculed her.”

Verbally bullying a dying little girl did indeed sound like something Chen Liu would do. But would she kill Chen Liu just because of a few ridiculing words?

Tang Cuo’s intuition told him this little girl was the same one he had seen when he first entered Yong Ye City. Otherwise, how could there be a second such sinister little girl in Yong Ye City at the exact same time?

“Was she bald?”

“Yes.”

Then it was confirmed. You couldn’t find that many bald little girls in all of China.

Leng Miao grasped the implication. “You’re here for her? Who is she?”

Getting news of the little girl was a complete, unexpected bonus. Jin Cheng didn’t intend to correct Leng Miao, merely going with the flow. “We don’t know her name, but we’ve crossed paths once. You just need to know she’s a new player, and if you see her, it’s best not to drop your guard.”

Leng Miao was slightly surprised.

He had never imagined that the dying little girl locked next door to him would reappear in his world in such a manner.

Could she have been the one to kill Chen Liu?

Thinking about it now, the Warden taking her out alone multiple times already foreshadowed her extraordinariness. It was a pity that at the time, Leng Miao was being tormented by Jin Cheng to the point of doubting his own life. Seeing the little girl on her last breath, he assumed she wouldn’t make it out alive and paid her no mind.

Then he remembered something else, a flash of realization crossing his cold face. “Jiang He.”

Back in the cell, he found the stench of blood from the next cell unbearable, so he cast an Air Cage. It was Jiang He who stopped him, saying it would suffocate the little girl to death.

Out of respect for Jiang He, Leng Miao dispelled the cage.

“In other words, Jiang He essentially saved her?” After hearing Leng Miao’s account, Tang Cuo finally connected all the clues. The little girl, Jiang He, Chen Liu, Tianzhi, and even Xiao Tong—they were all interconnected.

Whether Chen Liu and Chong Yanzhang’s deaths were related to the little girl or not, since they died in prison, Xiao Tong definitely knew about it.

This also meant the little girl was highly likely still in the prison right now.

And right at this moment, the clack, clack of leather boots suddenly echoed. The three quickly turned toward the sound—the Warden, Xiao Tong, had finally appeared.