Chapter 87: “I can redeem the favor you owe me, right?”
The efficiency of the exchange machine was so slow that it seemed like a relic from another century.
Standing in front of the machine, a member of the Yellow Team secretly complained.
Their Yellow Team captain, Maguire, had agreed to Zhou Yijue’s proposal to give him another chance and cooperate with him. After all, it was only after Zhou Yijue explained the real rules of this game that he managed to step out of his own misunderstanding.
Zhou Yijue asked him to bring the entire Yellow Team to the exchange area, and to avoid any unexpected incidents, both teams had preemptively agreed to exchange their chips.
Maguire agreed, but on the condition that the Yellow Team would exchange first.
Since Zhou Yijue had fewer people and needed more heads to hold the line, he had no choice but to agree.
Thus, the two teams were confined to the exchange room on the first floor, falling into a long wait. Naturally, Maguire was the first, followed by the rest of the Yellow Team, waiting for the huge coin pusher machine to operate its gears, gradually pushing down the gold coins that belonged to them.
The Yellow Team exchanged all their points, with each person keeping their coins. One coin was worth five hundred chips, and some people had fought hard to earn just one or two by now.
“You guys go ahead.” Maguire stepped aside, allowing Zhou Yijue to exchange.
As Zhou Yijue waited for his coins to be exchanged, he explained the defense plan to everyone. Under the operation of the machine, numerous gold coins fell from the pipes, making Maguire a bit envious.
This kid was now the second-highest chip holder in the game, and as his coins accumulated, Maguire couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable.
These points might just be the final rewards when the game ends…
Zhou Yijue collected all his coins and suddenly heard a commotion. Turning his head, he saw the person originally assigned to watch An Wujiu rushing back, shouting at the door of the exchange room, “He’s coming down!”
Several members of the Purple Team tensed up immediately, “What do we do? We haven’t exchanged yet!”
Zhou Yijue frowned, then relaxed, “Stick to the plan; we’ll exchange later.”
“But…”
“No buts.” Zhou Yijue decisively cut off his teammate’s thoughts: “I said, first capture An Wujiu.”
Following Zhou Yijue’s plan, both teams purchased the necessary tools and set up their ambush. Zhou Yijue himself exchanged for a gun, having seen the bloodstains on the ground when he arrived, he guessed that Shen Ti must have used a gun.
In that case, he would return the favor in kind.
Just as he expected, An Wujiu planned to exchange his points when the exchange room was empty, for he must have understood the purpose of this game too.
Every smart person likes to be self-assured.
No one is exempt.
Especially those like An Wujiu, who are both self-assured and kind, often fail because of excessive compassion.
In a mire like this altar, why burden oneself by trying to be a savior?
Following Zhou Yijue’s plan, they ambushed An Wujiu after he exchanged his points, then separated the two and hung them from the ceiling, ensuring they couldn’t contact each other.
After all this was done, Maguire was almost ready to celebrate their victory in advance.
An Wujiu was tied with a thick, long rope around his back and waist, suspended from the ceiling, swaying slightly.
Zhou Yijue looked up at him, as if admiring a dead butterfly tied to a window frame—beautiful but beyond saving.
Everyone was curious about An Wujiu, but Zhou Yijue was not.
At this moment, he seemed to have seen through this person, losing interest.
“With him dealt with, the others are small fry.” Maguire sneered. He originally felt a bit of pity—pity that An Wujiu, with such a beautiful face, had to die here and that his points would become theirs, leaving him only one dead end.
It was rare to encounter such a good-looking face in the altar, and he didn’t even get to try it before the other couldn’t survive.
The coin pusher machine continued to make its operational noises, with one coin after another emerging from the top hole, clinking down, their paths altered by various obstacles, winding their way down.
An Wujiu was awakened by this noise.
His neck hurt a lot, knowing that they had used a sneak attack on his neck to knock him out. His right shoulder was being squeezed by the rope, causing intense pain in the wound that had barely stopped bleeding, quickly waking him up from his coma.
So far, everything was still within expectations.
An Wujiu tried to move his legs, but it was futile. Zhou Yijue and Maguire clearly just wanted to make him helplessly watch, unable to intervene, so they tied him up tightly, even binding his only free hand behind him.
Blindfolded, An Wujiu was surrounded by darkness, making his hearing particularly sharp.
He could hear their conversations, mocking him as a “caught fish,” and the sound of coins falling.
The coin sound was so close, which at least meant he was now hanging in the exchange room and hadn’t been moved, with the machine sound behind him.
An Wujiu recalled the scene when he first entered this exchange room. Besides the huge coin pusher machine, the room was decorated very differently, with many spaced steel bars on the ceiling used to secure the large machine.
So now he was suspended from the steel bars in front of the exchange machine.
When choosing to exchange, An Wujiu deliberately picked the largest possible number to prolong the exchange time. If his guess was correct, Zhou Yijue and Maguire should not have taken his coins yet; otherwise, they would already be arguing over the loot.
Where was Shen Ti?
In the still room, amidst the noise of people, An Wujiu’s anxiety about Shen Ti grew and spread, until…
Until he heard the sound of earrings clinking.
Shen Ti was nearby!
He must also be hanging, but it was unclear if he had woken up.
An Wujiu felt a sliver of comfort; at least Shen Ti was still by his side.
In the darkness, the coral earrings were like a spark, turning the vague distance into a tangible point, and An Wujiu, blindfolded, seemed to see that point.
That was Shen Ti’s position.
“This thing is too damn slow.” Maguire couldn’t help but kick the exchange machine, which made a rumbling noise, “How many points are being exchanged?”
But just after he kicked it, suddenly the whole room went dark.
“What’s going on?”
“Why is it dark? Did the power go out?”
“Is there something wrong?”
Maguire felt a bit uneasy. Could it really have been his kick that caused this?
All of Zhou Yijue’s attention was on An Wujiu and Shen Ti. He suspected it was a trick by these two to escape.
However, the darkness didn’t last long. Soon, the lights came back on, and the exchange machine resumed its previous golden glow.
Zhou Yijue stared at the two, squinting slightly. They hadn’t escaped.
At that moment, An Wujiu heard an annoyed voice.
“So noisy.”
Maguire looked up, stunned. It was Shen Ti who had spoken.
He was also blindfolded and hanging in mid-air, but he seemed to have woken up, sighing deeply.
“Going through all this trouble to hang me up so high. It must have been quite an effort for you guys. My height alone probably beats the ladder you used.”
Being mocked like this made the members of both the Yellow and Purple Teams a bit annoyed, and they started voicing their displeasure. It was this noise that confirmed to An Wujiu and Shen Ti that they had gathered everyone from their teams together.
Just to monopolize the exchange area.
“What are you so pleased about?”
Maguire sneered, “Soon, you’ll know what it feels like to have done all that work for nothing!”
“Oh, I see,” Shen Ti smiled, “You guys are really cunning, huh? Knocking us out while we were exchanging chips, hanging us up so we can’t move, and letting the chips be exchanged into coins for you to take.”
“Is that right?”
Shen Ti exposed the whole plan, but Zhou Yijue wasn’t surprised.
“So what if it is?” Maguire laughed, “Regret it now? Each exchange takes ten minutes. You must have exchanged all your chips in one go, right? You lost everything at once; are you scared?”
He knew Shen Ti couldn’t do anything to them now.
Even the gun Shen Ti had was taken away by them.
Shen Ti swayed in the air, “Of course I’m scared, but I just don’t get why you didn’t kill us outright.”
The people below were silent for a moment. After a while, An Wujiu heard Zhou Yijue’s voice.
“We didn’t want the game to end so boringly.”
“Excuses.” Shen Ti quickly interrupted Zhou Yijue, smiling, “Zhou Yijue, you opportunist, you didn’t kill An Wujiu because you know he has an Easter Egg Card.”
Zhou Yijue was stunned by this.
An Easter Egg Card?
Maguire immediately questioned, “What did you say?!” He turned sharply, suppressing his anger at being deceived, and asked, “You knew he had an Easter Egg Card and didn’t kill him?”
“I had no idea,” Zhou Yijue retorted, but at this point, no matter how much he denied it, it was futile. Maguire already didn’t trust him.
Zhou Yijue felt a surge of unease, but remained calm on the surface, “You don’t need to waste your effort trying to sow discord here.”
He had an ominous feeling, sensing that Shen Ti was stalling for time, but he couldn’t be sure.
If there really was an Easter Egg Card that could draw a rare revival card, his greatest wish for entering the altar might come true.
He just wanted one person to be revived.
But Zhou Yijue could never fully trust these two crafty individuals.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether An Wujiu has an Easter Egg Card or not.”
“Really?”
An Wujiu smiled and took over Shen Ti’s act, asking, “If my Easter Egg Card has a chance to draw a rare item card, does that not matter to you?”
After speaking, he used a voice command to summon the Holy Voice, asking it to display his Easter Egg Cards.
An Wujiu never expected Shen Ti to go to such lengths to save his life.
He clearly didn’t need to accompany him through this ordeal, nor risk his life for him. But at this moment, Shen Ti was entirely focused on finding a way for him to escape the danger.
The next second, a virtual projection of the Easter Egg Cards appeared in front of An Wujiu, three cards floating neatly in the air.
But apart from him, no one had the right to touch these three cards.
There was originally no reason not to kill An Wujiu, but now there truly was.
Maguire snorted, “We can just take these three cards directly.”
Shen Ti laughed, “Take them? These are system-issued cards. If the holder dies, the cards are void. How are you going to take them?”
“Besides…” He swayed, as if enjoying the spectacle, “You guys? Three cards; how are you going to split them?”
During clattering, a large number of coin tokens were pushed down, and new ones appeared from the round hole at the top.
An Wujiu calculated in his mind that this was probably the last batch of tokens.
His remaining left hand was tied behind his back, but it was both his downfall and his salvation.
With only one arm, he couldn’t be tied as securely as someone with both arms intact.
Enduring the intense pain, An Wujiu tried to move his bound arm, attempting to use his fingers to reach the knot they had tied. The rope rubbed against the wound on his severed arm, the pain becoming increasingly clear, like a dull knife slowly grinding against his flesh.
Shen Ti’s words were increasing the rift between the two below, but Zhou Yijue remained clear-headed, saying to Maguire, “He’s trying to sow discord. If you want, Mr. Ephron, I can give you two cards, and I’ll only keep one.”
“Hey.”
Shen Ti’s tone was full of mockery: “When you’re discussing someone else’s property, could you at least show a bit of respect?”
“Who said they would give them to you?”
Zhou Yijue chuckled, “I’m afraid that’s not up to you, Mr. Shen.”
“Exactly!” Maguire sneered, “Do you really think you’re An Wujiu’s lover, and everything you say counts? A guy like you must have slept with many people. He probably doesn’t have any feelings for you either. You’re both the same type and mutually beneficial. Stop pretending.”
Knowing it was malicious, Shen Ti still couldn’t help but get angry.
From the moment he asserted that An Wujiu had no feelings for him.
Seeing Shen Ti’s silence, Maguire continued, “What, did I hit the mark?” He deliberately called out An Wujiu’s name, “Hey, An Wujiu, I think you like him more, but this kid clearly has no feelings for you, otherwise, why would he reveal the secret about your Easter Egg Cards…”
Before he could finish, there was a sudden, loud commotion outside.
It sounded like… many people were coming down the stairs; the overlapping and interwoven footsteps were exceptionally loud.
They were here.
Hearing the anticipated noise, all of An Wujiu’s unease vanished, as if he had taken a calming pill. He forcefully swung his merged legs back and forth, trying to build momentum.
Once.
Twice.
“Check what’s happening outside!”
“Could it be that everyone is here?”
On the third swing, An Wujiu finally managed to sway his whole body like a pendulum, moving from front to back. The knot on the steel bar shifted, moving further back from its initial position.
It should be enough.
An Wujiu made one last effort, swinging back hard, his feet making contact with the glass case of the exchange machine. With a powerful push, he leveraged his whole body forward!
In that instant, the rope around his shoulder slipped off the severed arm, loosening. An Wujiu quickly freed his left arm from the bindings, and as he collided with Shen Ti, he used his left hand to wrap around his shoulder.
In their precarious state, An Wujiu embraced Shen Ti with his only remaining arm, giving him a highly incomplete hug.
He knew that this touch was enough.
“I changed my mind.” An Wujiu wasn’t sure if this sentence was directed at the exchange machine or himself.
He knew clearly that just a touch was enough to forfeit all previous exchanges.
The coins had already been reclaimed, and the machine had restarted.
That was enough.
The tumultuous crowd outside uncontrollably flooded into the corridor, storming into the exchange room.
“Wujiu.”
Shen Ti tried to return the hug, but his hands were tightly bound.
“Shen Ti, the favor you owe me…”
“I can redeem it now, right?”
The blindfolded An Wujiu lowered his head, and in the chaotic darkness, he kissed Shen Ti’s face, forehead, eyelashes, and nose. He fumbled downward, like a child learning how to love, finally stumbling upon the way.
Finally, they kissed.
