Ch37 - Sha, Sha, Sha

Nan Zhou stood still and didn’t move. He didn’t fight back, talk back or intend to hand over his items. The man was in a stalemate with him for a while before realizing that he was being ignored.

“…Fuck, this weak guy is stuck.” He cursed in a dirty manner and took two steps up, pressing the tip of his knife against Nan Zhou’s abdomen and saying with a grin, “Make a deal. Everyone wants to live. Don’t fail to appreciate my kindness.” 

Nan Zhou lowered his head and looked at the cold blade. He sincerely praised, “This knife is good. It is better than mine.”

The man, “?”

Before he could show his hideous face any further, he suddenly felt soreness and numbness from the wrist holding the knife. The next second, he found that the knife he held in his hand had actually fallen into Nan Zhou’s hand.

Before he could digest this fact, a huge force hit the right side of his head, pushing his head directly into the handrail of the stairs. The iron handrail was hit and made a low buzzing sound that rang through the entire stairwell, from the sixth floor to the first floor. 

Nan Zhou folded the blade back in place and threw it to Jiang Fang behind him. “Take this and defend yourself.”

Then he walked sideways around the man hanging weakly against the handrail of the stairs, covering his bleeding ears while unable to speak. Nan Zhou started to undo the cufflinks of his shirt and folded up the sleeves a few times, revealing a small arm with radial scars.

Contra No. 1 saw that it was bad and immediately selected an item. Then he raised his fist and rushed toward Nan Zhou! Nan Zhou was dazzled by the light shining from the other person’s fingertips. He reached out to grab the man’s wrist but just as he was about to touch the skin, Nan Zhou seemed to notice something. He suddenly pulled back his hand, bent his knees and directly ducked.

Contra No. 1 had been delighted after discovering that Nan Zhou wanted to grab his wrist and put all the strength of his body into this fist. Unexpectedly, Nan Zhou only made superficial contact and the move was in vain.

No. 1 couldn’t stop. It was hard to pull back. Thus, his punch hit the stairs. The place where his shining fingers fell caused a semi-circular crack to appear on the stairs! Incredibly, they only heard the muffled sound of a fist touching a hard object. There wasn’t a loud sound when the stairs cracked. It just cracked silently.

[Item: Silent Burst]

[Item Level: S]

[Item Nature: Limited number of uses (limited to 5 times). Time limit: 10 seconds.] 

[Usage Description: Do you feel a power being injected into your body?]

[This power has no sound.]

[They can’t hear, they can’t see and they can’t feel the power of this punch.]

[By the time they discover it, they would’ve already burst silently.] 

No. 1 felt unwilling after the punch failed. This was their only S-grade item. By the time it reached their hands, there had only been two more opportunities to use it. He wondered why Nan Zhou could dodge so fast.

Meanwhile, Nan Zhou was also very puzzled. He didn’t understand why such a powerful skill would be used by someone who could only charge and punch.

Before No. 1 could get up, he felt a hand pinching an acupuncture point on the back of his neck. Silent Burst only increased the power output for 10 seconds. If the body’s defense was weak then it would still be weak.

Contra No. 1 was pinched and collapsed on the spot, revealing Nan Zhou who had flashed behind him and pinched his neck. In the eyes of outsiders, Contra No. 1 was a fool. After his powerful punch, he plunged face down into the cracks he had created. It was really shameful. 

No. 1’s leg was numb and his waist was soft. He wanted to use his energy to resist but he suddenly felt one hand holding his throat from behind while the other hand rested on his chin. For a time, his animal instincts made his hands and feet cold and his blood flow backwards.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

He intuitively felt that Nan Zhou wanted to break his neck. The fear of dying and the adrenaline running through him made his limbs stiffen. He didn’t even feel the pain in his chin that was smashed against the corner of the stairs. In the midst of the tinnitus caused by high-speed blood flow, he heard Nan Zhou say, “Sorry, it is a habit.”

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Li Yinhang, who had been symbolically scared before, was now lying against the handrail of the stairs. She watched No. 2 stumbling while fleeing and only had a few words in her heart, ‘Moving to your grave.’

Nan Zhou jumped over the handrail of the stairs and stepped on the tile seam on the opposite side of the stairs. He used his strength to step on the tile seams on the opposite side of the intersection between the upper stairs and this floor. He took a total of five steps down and knocked down Contra No. 2 who had already gone down two and a half floors.

Nan Zhou crouched down curiously, asking No. 2 who had fallen to the ground and was twitching slightly. “Why are you running? You can’t run away.”

Then he grabbed the man by the collar and dragged him back. The three robbers who blocked the road were gathered together by him and achieved ‘the most awkward gathering’ in history. 

The muscular man who was the leader had a buzzing brain. He didn’t have the near death experience of Contra No. 1 whose neck was twisted and he was ready to fight back. However, Jiang Fang stopped him with just one look. Jiang Fang didn’t do anything. He just held the Swiss army knife and stared at the man with a smile.

The man’s muscles might’ve grown into his brain but he instinctively sensed something. Nan Zhou made quick moves but he wouldn’t kill people. However, it was possible for this foreigner.

Nan Zhou asked them, “What are your names?”

The muscular man glanced at his two dispirited companions and said in a hard voice, “Kill us if you dare! You won’t get any items if you kill us.” 

Nan Zhou told him, “…I didn’t want your items.”

“Are you fucking coaxing a ghost?”

Nan Zhou sighed softly, took out a dagger from his warehouse and placed it under the man’s chin. “Hand over all your items and tell me your names. Otherwise, I don’t want the items.”

One minute later, the trio’s items were thrown to the ground. Li Yinhang crouched beside them and took inventory one by one like a worker at a logistics sorting center. Nan Zhou sat on the steps, casually holding a knife toward the three people dying of grief and anger, striking a symbolic, non-threatening pose. 

According to their own explanation, the muscular male who was the leader was called Sun Guojing. Contra No. 1 was called Luo Ge and No. 2 was called Qi Tianyun. In the real world, they were close friends. They graduated from the same university and after graduation, they pooled their money together to open a barbecue stand on the snack street.

Not long after their business started, Forces of Temptation packed them up and shipped the three of them into the game together. They quickly developed a new way to make money in the game. Rob the players. They preferred PVE scripts because the players wouldn’t be too wary of their teammates. They used their strength rating of 7 to rob seven or eight players.

The central idea of their robbery was to bully the soft and fear the strong, while picking up any mistakes. The needle called Silent Burst was snatched from a player who was seriously injured by a ghost and unable to resist.

This time, they dared to act rashly. Firstly, they thought that a person who used the broadcast and the real name system to openly say they were lost in the school must be a fool. Secondly, they saw there was a woman in the team. The three of them fighting against two and a half people must have no problems. 

Nan Zhou asked, “How did you think about waiting for us here?”

Sun Guojing replied, “…We were afraid there would be problems taking the elevator and wouldn’t be able to hide when avoiding ghosts.” Then they heard Nan Zhou discussing the mission.

Nan Zhou let out an ‘ah.’ “In other words, you accidentally bumped into us here. You weren’t waiting?”

The three men were silent. 

Nan Zhou used the power of his level 8 taunting. “Then you are really unlucky.”

The opposite three people choked on the blood in their throats but they didn’t dare express their anger. Sun Guojing’s heart felt like death. “The items have been handed in. What else do you want?”

Nan Zhou put away the dagger. “You can go. Don’t rob others in the future.”’

Sun Guojing declined to comment. 

Nan Zhou thought about it and added a sentence. “If you really want to rob someone, you can come with two people and leave your items with the third person. Otherwise, what will you do if you are robbed by others just like today?”

Sun Guojing, Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun, “……”

They failed in their robbery and were insulted and humiliated again. They had mixed feelings and wanted to leave as soon as possible.

Nan Zhou turned back to Li Yinhang and exchanged a few words before saying, “Wait a minute.” 

The three people started sweating as they wondered if Nan Zhou would go back on his words. Unexpectedly, Nan Zhou pushed a few C-grade and D-grade items to them. “We don’t have enough space. Take them back.”

The three men took the items and quickly got lost. They were afraid that if they didn’t get lost quickly, they wouldn’t be able to control their emotions and would rush to fight with Nan Zhou who was constantly taunting them.

***

The boulevard on the campus was full of maple trees. 

Nan Zhou, Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang were sitting on the bench by the boulevard. It was late autumn and the red sky isolated most of the warm afternoon sun. The leaves turned the sunlight into trivial warmth, sprinkling it on the shoulders of the three people like gold.

After some comparisons, Li Yinhang left the S-grade Silent Burst and A-grade Sixth Sense Cross to Nan Zhou. The cross was sensitive and fragile. It was aimed at non-physical monsters and would immediately shatter in the event of danger.

Li Yinhang originally wanted to leave two A-grade items with Jiang Fang but Jiang Fang only picked one A-grade item and picked another C-grade item for himself.

The A-grade Truth Tequila made people tell the truth after ingesting 100 ml of it. There were two restrictions: 1. The other party was willing to drink it. 2. The other party was a human. 

The C-grade item Consequences of Not Having Skates could be used two times and there was a 100% chance of making the opponent slip.

Li Yinhang reluctantly opened two storage slots for herself and became a responsible warehouse keeper. She had the A-grade Don’t Go Out in Sandy Weather which instantly blinded a single opponent. This lasted for 30 seconds and could be used within a range of three meters. The number of uses remaining was one. The reason why this thing didn’t come in handy was because Sun Guojing was holding this item but he was the first to be knocked down.

There was the B-grade Presence Zeroing Device that could instantly reduce her sense of presence. The duration was one minute and the number of uses was one. The B-grade San Value Constant Device could control the falling san value for a short time. The duration was three minutes and the number of uses was one. The B-grade Come and Hit Me could attract all the aggro of the attacker to the holder. The duration was five minutes and the number of uses was one. In addition, there were some useless items that weren’t needed and Li Yinhang returned them.

The battle was fruitful. The thing that made Nan Zhou even happier was that he found a campus card in his pocket with a balance of over 200 yuan. Nan Zhou went to the supermarket to buy a dozen steamed sponge cakes to reward himself. 

After dividing the spoils, Li Yinhang asked the question she had wanted to know just now. “Why did you ask for their names?”

Nan Zhou took a bite of the cake and answered briefly, “I wanted to know if there was a Hu Li among them.”

The dead ‘Hu Li’ mentioned in the death recording?

Jiang Fang gently explained for Nan Zhou. “Teacher Nan wanted to know if the recording was in the past tense or future tense.” 

“The person in the recording called out our names separately, indicating that he knows us. He, Hu Li, and us should be involved in the same incident.”

“We don’t know the name of the person who made the recording. The only information we know is the name Hu Li.”

“The recording said that Hu Li is dead. Only that person remembers Hu Li and the others have forgotten.”

“If the recording is from the future, there must be a person called Hu Li among the players. We could start the investigation from him and find clues that might save his life.” 

Li Yinhang calculated it. “Aren’t there seven players in the game? There should be a solo player who hasn’t showed up yet. Is it possible that he is…”

Nan Zhou interrupted. “He isn’t Hu Li.”

Li Yinhang, “?”

Nan Zhou asked her, “If you were that solo player and were assigned the character name of ‘Hu Li’ only to hear that Hu Li died, what would you do?” 

Li Yinhang answered, “…I would immediately find other teammates to seek protection.” She wouldn’t think of facing that unknown force alone.

Jiang Fang concluded, “Thus, the recording can only be in the past tense.”

Right now, Hu Li was dead. The person who left the recording probably also had bad luck.

The difficulty of this instance probably wasn’t small. Compared to the previous instance, the range had been expanded to the entire campus and there were players who wanted to rob others. Nan Zhou naturally changed his mind and didn’t hope to save anyone. He gave the highest protection priority to his teammates. 

Nan Zhou gave Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang a cake. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Go to the school forum or Tieba.”  Jiang Fang took a gentle bite from the cake. “All the horror legends since the school was built should be on it.”

***

Sun Guojing and the other two returned to their dormitory in a secretive manner with swollen noses. After being sent to this instance, they found they were sorting out the sports warehouse. It could be judged from the student IDs they carried on them that the three of them were sports students and lived in the same dormitory. The dormitory number was also clearly marked on the dormitory keys in their pockets. 

After returning to the dormitory, Sun Guojing looked around the room. There was a room with four beds and all four beds had bedding. However, there was no one else in the room when they came back.

Sun Guojing confirmed that there were no outsiders and relaxed a bit. He sat down on a lower bunk and scolded Nan Zhou. He originally swore to release his anger. For some reason, the more he cursed, the colder he felt.

Perhaps it was because it was now late autumn. His bedroom was in the shade and there was no direct sunlight. The feeling of coldness seeped into Sun Guojing’s bones and made his bones hurt. He couldn’t help hugging his shoulders and shuddering.

“Sha—” 

A clear noise was heard a short distance away from him. At the same time, the quilt on the bed he was sitting on moved. It was as if there was something alive in it.

Sun Guojing knew nothing. He just rubbed his sore ears while wrapping the quilt around himself to keep himself warm. He complained bitterly, “I still fucking have tinnitus.”

The author has something to say:

Nan Zhou, a player who can reproduce the effect perfectly without using the Come and Hit Me item.