Thank you @daz for the Kofi. (1/6)
Yuying University
Chapter 483: “Go to hell.”
Between the library bookshelves, the surrounding smell of blood was so thick it was suffocating.
Several people stood at the edge of the shelves, cautiously maintaining a distance from the person in the center of the open space, as if she were not a slender little girl with a cute, angelic face, but some kind of monstrous beast that could easily tear them to shreds.
After all, no one could ignore the still-warm pool of blood at the seemingly harmless little girl’s feet, along with a severed head and limbs that had rolled to the ground.
“…”
A dead silence fell in the darkness.
Time seemed to stop flowing, turning into some kind of sticky gel.
Suddenly, Orange Candy laughed:
“Haha.”
She looked towards the distant Mason, her small, fair face already showing a hint of transparency. “Want to replace me?”
The next second, Orange Candy’s eyes suddenly turned fierce:
“Are you even worthy?”
The moment her words fell, the rusted longsword flared with a bloody light in the darkness.
Almost too fast to blink, it was already upon them. The slender little girl was wreathed in a murderous, blood-soaked intent, her entire being like a drawn blade, crushing down like a thunderbolt.
Unfortunately, Mason had long anticipated this.
He had known all along that Orange Candy would never accept her fate so easily.
With her madness and bloodlust, she would either drag everyone down with her or self-destructively pull the most threatening person to hell with her—and that person would undoubtedly be him.
However, Mason wasn’t about to let that happen.
He sneered.
Orange Candy was indeed difficult to deal with; her crazed attacks ranked among the top ten most terrifying. But that didn’t mean Mason had no countermeasures.
After all, he didn’t need to win this duel. He just needed to stall for as long as possible.
The rules of the instance would do the rest of the work for him.
The entire thought process happened in an instant. Before Orange Candy’s blade reached his face, Mason had already prepared for a direct confrontation.
The cold gleam of the sword tore through the darkness, arriving silently.
Behind it was Orange Candy’s pale face.
Her face was almost transparent, as if about to melt into the darkness behind her, but her eyes burned like a raging fire, the terrible pressure making it almost impossible to breathe.
Now—
Mason stared intently at her, his muscles tensing.
Behind the blade, the little girl suddenly let out a laugh.
A soft, ghostly laugh.
“Hee hee.”
“?!”
Mason was startled.
Wait, this—
The blade rushing towards his face abruptly changed direction just millimeters away, soft as a bolt of silk, and gracefully swept towards his back.
The next second, the sharp sound of a blade tearing through flesh reached his ears.
Mason’s pupils shrank, and he whipped his head around.
Beside him, a crimson line of blood slowly appeared down the center of a teammate’s face. The line gradually widened, the two sides of his face becoming asymmetrical.
His eyes rolled, and his mouth opened:
“Cap…”
Before the word “tain” could escape his lips, crimson blood gushed out. With the bloodline as a boundary, the two halves of his body slid to the ground at different speeds.
Head, neck, torso—
All brutally split open from top to bottom.
The smell of blood in the air grew heavier, so pungent it was almost impossible to open one’s eyes.
Another one dead.
And right under his nose.
Mason narrowed his eyes grimly, his face contorting slightly.
He turned his head to look where Orange Candy should have landed.
The spot was empty.
Orange Candy had vanished.
Amidst the severed limbs and pools of blood, the little girl’s figure had disappeared without a trace, like a gust of wind, a wisp of cloud, melting into the darkness without leaving a single mark.
All around, only the sound of rising and falling breaths could be heard.
Other than that, there was only a dead silence.
“Captain, she…”
A teammate spoke hesitantly, his gaze fixed on the spot where Orange Candy had last been seen, his face still showing lingering shock, as if he couldn’t believe that such a terrifying girl who had killed two and maimed one could be erased so easily…?
Was this really not an illusion?
A chill still lingered on his back, as if the Reaper’s scythe was still held against it.
“Don’t worry, she’s dead,” Mason said coldly.
He looked at the remaining “Orange Candy” not far away, a perfect copy of the original, and smiled coldly. “Now, this one is ours.”
“Orange Candy” lowered her head, seemingly examining her own hands with fresh curiosity. Her angelic, cute face wore the exact same innocent expression as the original Orange Candy.
She turned her head to look at Mason and complained in a whining tone:
“I’m hungry.”
Mason smiled. “Oh?”
“Orange Candy” pointed behind him and said with a grin, “Can I eat him?”
The man she pointed at froze, his face, pale from blood loss, filled with unconcealed shock. He clutched the stump where Orange Candy had severed his arm and looked at Mason for help:
“Cap-Captain, I—”
Mason didn’t look at him.
He simply smiled and nodded:
“You may.”
“…”
The man was stunned, a look of utter terror appearing on his face.
“No, no—”
Mason apathetically shifted his gaze away from him, ignoring all of the man’s pleas.
—Since he had lost his combat ability, he was just a burden to the team, so there was naturally no need to keep him.
Mason turned around, looking down at the severed limbs, the head, the blood on the ground, a trace of genuine regret on his pale, blurred face.
His team originally had seven members. After one died fighting security in the administration building, only six were left.
And now, Orange Candy, all by herself, had managed to kill half of his team…
That was half!
Even though he had long known how terrifying she was in PvP, seeing the damage Orange Candy could inflict with his own eyes made even Mason feel the sting of loss.
He took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Forget it. Trading three people for a top-ten Nightmare-ranker wasn’t too bad a deal overall.
Behind him came the grotesque sounds of flesh being sucked and bones being chewed.
When Mason turned back, the injured teammate was gone, leaving only an empty skin sack lying limply in a pool of blood.
“Orange Candy” licked her fingers with a sated look, her expression innocent and satisfied.
Mason: “Full?”
“Orange Candy” nodded with a grin. “Yep, yep.”
Mason: “Then you’d better get ready. The next one isn’t so easy to deceive.”
“Orange Candy” tilted her head:
“Huh? Deceive what?”
The shape of a longsword appeared in her palm, and she smiled sweetly. “Aren’t I just myself?”
Mason’s Livestream Room:
[!!!]
[Holy crap? This thing can even copy Orange Candy’s items? For real?]
[I don’t think it could do that in the mirror before…]
[Absolutely not!]
[Damn it, I’m really getting confused. Her speech patterns, her movements… isn’t this a bit too much like the real Orange Candy?]
[I think I know what’s going on… No wonder these ‘people’ from the mirror were willing to save people just to get out. It seems they undergo a qualitative change after leaving the mirror.]
[Yeah, when they were in the mirror, they were good mimics, but not this creepy.]
[My god… what kind of monsters did the anchor unleash?]
Looking at “Orange Candy’s” state, Mason nodded with satisfaction.
Then, he turned to his remaining teammate and said calmly:
“Let’s go. We need to leave this place quickly.”
“…?” The teammate was taken aback. “But, Captain, didn’t you say the next person isn’t so easy to deceive? Shouldn’t we stay and discuss a strategy first?”
“There’s no time.”
Mason said with a blank expression.
While his combat power wasn’t as outstanding as Orange Candy’s, as a veteran anchor, he was sharp.
Orange Candy was acting alone, without her teammates. On one hand, this was due to their extraordinary luck. On the other hand…
It could be that her teammates had also run into some danger, forcing them to separate.
Mason narrowed his eyes. “Besides, that Orange Candy was also stalling for time.”
With her abilities, she could have chosen not to fight and just left the moment she saw them. Even though Orange Candy wasn’t one to shy away from a fight, facing an overwhelming number of enemies and her own unknown mirror image, staying to fight was still an unwise choice.
Mason had even prepared a contingency plan for that.
But she didn’t do it.
Combining this with his earlier suspicions, Mason came to a terrifying but highly probable conclusion:
Orange Candy might know some rule that they didn’t, which is why she was stalling for time.
Mason sneered:
“Let’s go. We’re leaving.”
Mason’s Livestream Room:
[Hiss, he figured it out.]
[Never thought that Orange Candy wouldn’t be able to keep Mason here for more than ten minutes in the end…]
[Sigh, honestly, it’s a bit of a shame.]
[I have to say, even though Orange Candy fought brilliantly this round, she still fell short at the last moment!]
*
Forty seconds short of ten minutes.
Mason and his group appeared in the reading room.
“!”
Not far away, Wen Jianyan shot to his feet, on high alert, staring intently at the approaching group.
“Calm down, calm down,” Mason said, raising a hand placatingly.
“I assure you, I’m just here to talk.”
His gaze lingered for a moment on Wen Jianyan’s color-changed hair, but he showed no surprise.
After all, as an anchor far more experienced than Wen Jianyan, Mason obviously knew that this must be some side effect of wearing a title.
“…”
Wen Jianyan said nothing, his gaze shifting past Mason to what was behind him.
“Orange Candy” was struggling like a little leopard. It took two people to barely hold her down. Her eyes roared with a blazing fire, as if she wanted to eat them.
“She’s fine,” Mason said, shaking his head and spreading his hands helplessly. “—As you can see, we’re the ones who aren’t doing so well.”
“You should know, we lost three people just to catch her.”
When Mason said this, the anger and regret in his eyes were genuine.
Wen Jianyan still said nothing.
“So, let’s make a deal.” Mason put on his smiling mask again, his cold, slimy gaze falling on Wen Jianyan and slowly roaming over him. “I promise, my offer of cooperation is very sincere.”
Wen Jianyan slowly retracted his gaze.
He looked at Mason. “…Speak.”
Mason: “You should have the graduation certificate by now, right?”
Of course, they had gotten it with their help.
They were just ditched as soon as it was over.
Although Mason wanted more than just the graduation certificate, his team was now severely weakened, and it was essential to plan an escape route early.
Wen Jianyan: “Yes.”
His gaze slowly swept over the few people before him.
“But there are two problems,” he said calmly.
“First, there’s only one graduation certificate.”
“That’s easy to solve.”
Mason pondered for a moment before looking up. “If there weren’t enough certificates, that would be a serious problem. But if there’s only one, it’s easy.”
The logic was simple. If the number of certificates was greater than one, it would mean everyone needed a certificate to leave. If they didn’t want to go back to the administration building, they would have to resort to more extreme methods to reduce their numbers.
However, if the item was unique, then it could potentially be used repeatedly.
“Since we’re all here, we can brainstorm and see how it can be used multiple times,” Mason said with a slight smile. “Three heads are better than one, after all.”
“That brings us to the second problem,” Wen Jianyan said.
“Oh?” Mason remained composed.
“The graduation certificate is not with me,” Wen Jianyan replied.
Hearing this, Mason’s heart tightened.
Not with Wen Jianyan? Could it be with Orange Candy?
No, impossible.
In an instance of this difficulty, to prevent a key item from disappearing and causing a dead end, unique key items couldn’t be placed in an anchor’s system backpack, nor would they disappear with the anchor’s death.
Orange Candy had disappeared, but no other items were left where she had been, which meant the graduation certificate shouldn’t have been on her.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze lingered on “Orange Candy” for a moment before he turned back to Mason:
“My teammates have it.”
Mason remained expressionless. “Oh?”
“But they’re in danger now and can’t move.” Wen Jianyan retracted his gaze and pointed into the reading room. Mason looked and quickly recognized a few familiar figures.
Just as he had guessed, the reason Orange Candy was acting alone was indeed because her teammates were in danger.
Mason narrowed his eyes.
Indeed, one could never be too careful when dealing with someone like Orange Candy.
If they hadn’t left that place in time, they would have most likely ended up like these people sitting motionlessly at the tables.
Wen Jianyan continued:
“So, if you help me rescue my teammates, I don’t mind sharing the graduation certificate with you.”
Mason came back to his senses and nodded. “Of course. This request is very reasonable.”
“So, what exactly needs to be done?”
“To save them, we need to enter the librarian’s office and get the library lending slips from there,” Wen Jianyan said.
Mason had a thoughtful expression. “Lending slips?”
“Yes,” Wen Jianyan’s gaze swept over the people in front of him. “We failed before because we didn’t have enough living people. Now, you can help fill that gap.”
“No problem,” Mason agreed.
Wen Jianyan was about to say more, but Mason interrupted him. “However…”
“You don’t think that a shared graduation certificate,” Mason was still smiling, his cold eyes fixed on Wen Jianyan, “is enough for me to let your friend go and also help you retrieve items from the library office, do you?”
Wen Jianyan looked at him. “What else do you want?”
“Simple.” Mason’s smile seemed to grow more sincere. “You.”
Wen Jianyan repeated impassively, “Me?”
“Yes,” Mason nodded slowly, his cold, slimy gaze licking over the young man before him as he said with a smile, “When this is over, you come with me. Any objections?”
“…”
Wen Jianyan didn’t answer immediately.
His gaze moved from Mason and finally landed on the “Orange Candy” behind him.
“Mmph, mmph!”
Orange Candy kicked and struggled.
Wen Jianyan retracted his gaze. “Fine.”
“Of course, I believe you understand your little team captain’s temper. For the sake of our smooth cooperation, you’ll come in with me later. There’s no need for her to participate,” Mason said with a smile. “I trust you can understand, right?”
From any angle, this was a necessary decision.
For Mason, even if this “Orange Candy” was convincing enough, the information gap between them still existed, and he wasn’t willing to risk them coming into contact.
Moreover, Orange Candy was inherently uncontrollable, and Mason’s numbers had already been halved by the real one. If he were to easily allow “Orange Candy” to participate in the operation, it would seem strange.
Wen Jianyan said expressionlessly, “…Fine.”
“Very good,” Mason walked forward and extended his hand with a smile. “A pleasure working with you.”
Wen Jianyan paused, then raised his hand, slowly shook the other’s palm, and said calmly:
“A pleasure working with you.”
“Alright.” Mason looked up towards the office behind the curved front desk. “Tell me, what exactly do we need to do?”
“I’ve only been in the office once,” Wen Jianyan said. “But that was after Orange Candy left. I went in by myself.”
Mason: “Go on.”
Wen Jianyan: “The library lending slips are in the drawer under the desk. There’s no danger until you touch them. But the moment you take the slips, the librarian’s killing rule will activate—but don’t worry too much. Although it’s terrifying, it won’t chase you out of the office. With your abilities, it should be a piece of cake.”
Mason didn’t react to Wen Jianyan’s subtle flattery.
“To save all my teammates, we need four in total,” Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and said slowly, “but you can only take a maximum of two at a time. If we exceed that number, we might face a risk we can’t handle.”
Strictly speaking, this was a conclusion Orange Candy had reached.
With her style, she would have definitely taken as many lending slips as possible if she had the chance.
There was a reason Orange Candy only took two slips the first time she came to the library.
That was the maximum number they could take at once.
Mason nodded. “Alright, I understand.”
After gathering enough information, he left one of his teammates and the restrained “Orange Candy” outside, while he and his remaining teammate walked towards the office.
Mason stopped in front of the office door.
He turned to Wen Jianyan and made the same gesture as he had in the administration building. “Please.”
Mason’s Livestream Room:
[Lmao, does the other anchor really think he’ll be left outside?]
[Whether this Orange Candy is real or fake, that’s not happening. Mason probably still remembers what happened in the administration building.]
[Speaking of which, I thought the anchor would just let the mirror image replace the person… I didn’t expect him to go to such lengths to keep her in the reading area.]
[Well, the other anchor has information he wants.]
The audience in the livestream room laughed maliciously.
[Hahahaha!]
[Hee hee hee, actually, the information is probably secondary.]
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, nodded, and followed him towards the office.
With a creak.
The office door was opened.
A musty smell of old books wafted from the dark room, mixed with a dark, cold, and intimidating scent of blood.
However, the few people outside the office were already used to it.
The three slowly walked in.
The office door closed behind them.
The office was narrow, windowless, and extremely dark, with only a dimly lit oil lamp hanging by the door.
All four walls were lined with bookshelves filled with books.
At the far end of the office was a messy desk piled with clutter, but for some reason, a small corner in the upper right was empty—this must be the desk Wen Jianyan had mentioned.
But just before walking over, Mason stopped and turned to Wen Jianyan. “You’d better stand right here.”
Mason clearly remembered how Wen Jianyan had held him back last time.
Wen Jianyan was apparently self-aware.
He obediently stopped a step away from the desk.
“So, where is it?” Mason asked.
“The second drawer under the desk. You’ll see it when you pull it open,” Wen Jianyan answered.
Mason leaned down, supporting himself on the desk with one hand, and pulled open the drawer.
Sure enough, as soon as the drawer was open, a thick stack of old, yellowed rectangular papers came into view. In the faint light from the door, he could make out the words on them.
[Library Borrowing Slip]
Mason reached out.
The moment his fingertips touched the lending slip, a cold sensation instantly spread from the paper. It was the familiar aura of death from the instance.
Rustle.
The sound of paper rubbing together was heard.
He calmly picked up a second lending slip.
The coldness instantly doubled, like sharp steel needles stabbing into his back.
The already dim light was swallowed by some invisible force, pressing down even lower. Boundless darkness began to spread, and at the center of the darkness, something extremely terrifying seemed to be awakening, stirring restlessly.
Even without Wen Jianyan’s prior warning, Mason knew this was the maximum number he could take at once.
“Go!”
He made a split-second decision.
Four minutes later.
The three left the office.
It was close, indeed.
The librarian’s terror level was definitely on par with the security guard’s, if not even greater.
Fortunately, Wen Jianyan provided a great deal of help during the process. He seemed to know the opponent’s attack patterns, style, and evasion methods very well. So, although the whole process was extremely dangerous, they successfully returned to the reading room.
Wen Jianyan caught his breath and looked at Mason:
“Where are the borrowing slips?”
Mason paused and looked at him.
Wen Jianyan stared back expressionlessly. The two locked eyes for a moment.
Clearly, neither of them trusted the other.
Mason had been tricked before and was now even more cautious.
However…
Mason thought for a moment, then smiled nonchalantly and handed the two lending slips to Wen Jianyan.
—The situation was different now.
Because this time, the other party couldn’t get away.
Wen Jianyan took the lending slips and said, “Two more to go.”
“Alright,” Mason agreed readily.
After a brief half-minute rest, the group of three once again headed back to the office.
With a faint click, the office door closed behind them again.
Mason took two steps forward when he suddenly heard his teammate suck in a breath:
“Hiss.”
“?” Mason paused. “What’s wrong?”
“Captain, look,” the teammate pointed to the doorway.
The office was very dark, with only the flickering oil lamp at the entrance providing a faint light. Following his teammate’s direction, Mason discovered that the lamp wasn’t hanging from a shelf…
But from a charred, twisted corpse.
Its face was contorted in a grimace, mouth wide open, as if it had suffered extreme pain before death, but its blackened arm was still raised high, holding the lamp aloft.
It was a terrifying sight that sent a chill down the spine.
However, for anchors like them, who had been through so many increasingly twisted and perverted instances, such scenes were already commonplace.
Mason’s gaze darkened.
“Let’s go.”
The three looked away and walked deeper into the office.
This time, just like before, Wen Jianyan stopped a step away from the desk. Mason walked up, placed one hand on the desk, and leaned down towards the drawer below.
The drawer was pulled open, and the familiar yellowed lending slips appeared.
Mason reached for the slips.
But just as his fingertips were about to touch them, his peripheral vision suddenly caught sight of the desktop next to his hand.
Just like the last time he came in, the desktop was very messy, piled with junk.
But in the upper right corner of the desk, it was unexpectedly empty.
Mason’s movement involuntarily paused slightly.
He subconsciously narrowed his eyes, and in the extremely faint light, he peered at the empty space—
In the darkness, he vaguely saw a perfect circle on the grimy, greasy desktop, like the mark left by a water glass on a dirty table for too long. But the size of the circle was much larger than a water glass.
Mason looked away and pinched the edge of a lending slip.
He thought distractedly.
…What could it be?
Suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, an answer leaped into his mind.
It’s the lamp!
The base of the oil lamp hanging at the office door must be that size!
But why—
As if suddenly sensing something, Mason jerked his head up and looked towards Wen Jianyan.
The young man who should have been standing by the desk, only a meter or two away, seemed to be standing a little farther away than last time. Not by much, but… the office wasn’t large to begin with.
He suddenly realized that the distance between the other party and the office door was much closer than he had imagined.
As if sensing Mason’s gaze, Wen Jianyan looked over.
Half of his face was in the light, the other half sunk in darkness.
The flickering flames were reflected in the depths of his light-colored pupils.
He seemed to smile silently in this direction, his lips moving: “—”
In an instant, Mason’s pupils contracted violently, a shout tearing from his throat:
“Stop him!!!”
But it was already too late.
The cold killing intent of the librarian had already arrived silently. Even if he let go of the lending slips now, the crisis that had already appeared would not disappear.
Under his watchful eyes, Wen Jianyan raised his hand and deftly took the oil lamp from the charred corpse.
The moment the lamp left its hand, the previously motionless charred corpse suddenly gasped sharply. The blackness receded from its body, and it screamed, stumbling back two steps, twitching.
It was actually a living person!
The moment Wen Jianyan touched the oil lamp, his fingertips also seemed to be eroded by some invisible force, turning black as if burned—however, he didn’t let the lamp stay in his hand for long.
He gave a light toss of his hand.
With a thud, the old, greasy oil lamp smashed into a pile of books.
Hot flames soared up, crackling, their tongues licking the air, and in the blink of an eye, they spread through the dry pile of books.
Wen Jianyan grabbed the newly revived Arnold with one hand and retreated towards the office door.
He smiled, and in a clear voice, enunciated slowly, repeating what he had just said:
“Go to hell.”
Mason’s Livestream Room:
[???]
[Huh??????]
[What the?? What’s happening???]
By the time Mason managed to break free from the librarian’s entanglement and stumbled towards the door, the office door had already been slammed shut by Wen Jianyan.
Only this time, Wen Jianyan was on the outside.
And he was trapped between the flames and death.
Wen Jianyan pressed firmly against the office door. From behind it came a fierce pounding, thud after thud, the violent shaking almost knocking Wen Jianyan away from the door, but he would immediately press back with even greater force.
It was as if he was answering the question of the person behind the door.
But it was more like a kind of lofty, cold, and cruel mockery.
“First, I lied.”
“I only needed two lending slips.”
That’s right, they did have four people trapped and needed four slips to escape.
But before Mason entered the library, Orange Candy had already obtained one from the office. And while she went to return the book and Wen Jianyan stayed in the reading room, he took Arnold back into the librarian’s office.
And this time, he got the second lending slip.
This was why Wen Jianyan was so familiar with the office layout and the librarian’s attack patterns.
“Second, this was indeed a trap for you, but it was also the solution set by the instance.”
As early as in the cafeteria, Wen Jianyan had probed and found that the monsters in this instance were afraid of fire.
Very afraid.
So, why would there be a flammable lamp in the librarian’s office?
This was a library, after all.
This was the one place where fire should be avoided at all costs.
And the moment Arnold touched the oil lamp and his body was also set ablaze, Wen Jianyan suddenly realized something.
Why was the library’s difficulty so high?
Why did it seem to leave no way out?
Why was it a death trap at every turn?
Because, besides waiting for more people to obtain lending slips, the instance had actually left them a second solution.
A simpler, cruder, and more convenient method.
—Burn it.
If the library itself were gone, what was the need for lending slips?
What books were there to return?
Behind the door, the pounding sounds began to weaken and then disappear. The temperature of the door under his palm was gradually rising.
Wen Jianyan let go and slowly backed away.
Watching the flames that gradually licked out from the cracks in the door, he said softly:
“Third, I’m sure you’re dying to know why I had time to set up a trap, right?”
The young man’s pale face was illuminated by the firelight. He raised his hand, his sleeve brushing against his cheekbone.
A hidden knife wound appeared.
The scarlet blood was shocking to the eye.
“—Because I knew you were coming.”
Mason’s Livestream Room:
[????]
[Huh???]
[What is he talking about? The anchor never gave Orange Candy a chance to pass on a message! How could he possibly have known?]
[…Wait a minute, hold on!]
Soon, a viewer pulled up the footage of Orange Candy right before she disappeared.
The slender little girl leaped up in the darkness and rushed towards Mason. But just before the blade was about to fall, she abruptly changed direction.
The next second, she sliced down from above on one of the anchors’ heads.
The overly long blade, completely mismatched with its owner’s size, was lightly pushed forward by Orange Candy the instant it completely split open the anchor’s head.
The blade sliced across “Wen Jianyan’s” face, silently leaving a crimson cut.
A wound left on a mirror image will appear identically on the original body.
Orange Candy had nearly decapitated herself because of this.
That wound was too shallow.
It had already healed long before anyone else could notice it.
At the same time, in the reading room.
The pale lights flickered overhead.
Arnold looked at Wen Jianyan in shock:
“You, you’re bleeding?”
The young man paused, raised his hand, and touched his cheek with his thumb. His fingertip was immediately stained with sticky, scarlet blood.
That’s right.
When Orange Candy changed direction at the last moment, it was never to take one more person down with her.
On the contrary.
She was making a trade for someone to live.
