Lin Mo climbed out first.
Chen Xijian hurriedly reached out to stop her. “Lin Mo, it's raining too hard! It's very dangerous outside!”
[Go around to the back. There's a breach blasted into the wall. Once you're out, circle around and enter through the main gate.]
Braving the pouring rain, once she arrived at her destination, she found a rusty iron shovel in the yard, plunged it into the soft dirt, and began digging downward.
Soon, a corner of her own phone poked out from the damp soil.
Lin Mo squatted down to pull it out, wiped the screen with her thumb, and tentatively turned it on.
Why did A9 want her to find her phone? Were there any clues inside that could help her?
The first things that caught her eye were several messages.
Blackheart Agency's #1 Genius: [Still alive?]
Blackheart Agency's #1 Genius: [You're not doing so great, huh? How'd you get so unlucky? But I believe you can handle a little thing like this. I'm beyond reach to lend a hand anyway.]
Rain soaked the screen, sliding down across the lines of small black text. It seemed her newly bought phone wouldn't last much longer.
Wild winds lashed against her face, water flowing into her eye sockets like countless tiny needles, pricking her eyes with sharp pain.
How did he know everything?
Her movements were completely exposed to a stranger's view—not just her whereabouts, but even her exact condition was crystal clear to him.
How horrifying.
Looking at it this way, compared to the threat he posed to her, the opportunity he offered wasn't nearly as important. She had to find a time to...
Was the address he gave real? Would she be able to find him?
Next, something even worse and more terrible happened.
Blackheart Agency's #1 Genius: [Ah, you found your phone? I've been waiting so long.]
[25.0432°N, 121.5368°E]
[No need to thank me.]
Lin Mo...
A9 was speechless.
Talk about arrogant. It doubted whether this guy was really the famous mastermind in the comic who made every organization tremble.
Was Canglan Agency about to go bankrupt? Is that why he was letting loose like this? Did they communicate with the Tourist like this in the past too?
Lin Mo already feared being watched. Now that everything about her was completely known to someone else with zero secrets remaining—even her turning on the phone was under surveillance—wouldn't her immediate thought be that this guy couldn't be left alive?
Couldn't the sixth sense and high IQ that the guy was so proud of warn him that his life was hanging by a thread?
A9 knew full well that the address provided by "#1 Genius" contained completely real information!
If Lin Mo came knocking on his door while the agency's powerful members were away, with his pathetic five-combat-power level, wouldn't he be dead meat?
Although "#1 Genius" was one of only two characters in the entire comic with a designated intelligence stat, facing Lin Mo head-on meant he would get instantly obliterated.
It could practically feel Lin Mo's killing intent surging up in waves, yet this guy was still provoking her.
The person on the other side of the phone failed to detect the undercurrents swirling on this end.
Blackheart Agency's #1 Genius: [Hey, I just thought of something. Do you know how to read coordinates? If not, I can send you a location drop.]
“Ahhh!”
A scream pierced the quiet of the dark night. It was Chen Xijian.
Lin Mo snapped her head around, set aside her phone for the moment, and rushed back.
...
“Even now, do you still believe what the broadcast said!” The cold glint of a blade flashed as someone stepped closer. Chen Xijian pressed tightly against the wall behind her, her body slowly sliding down as her eyes widened in disbelief. “Wake up! We can't keep letting ourselves be pulled around like marionettes by the real enemy!”
Zhang Qiumin's nerves were stretched to the limit, her breakdown mixed with anger. “I still have things I want to do that I haven't finished! I'm still so young, I can't die here! If that's the case, why shouldn't you be the one to die?”
“I won't tell anyone about your past, I won't! You have leverage on me too!” Chen Xijian shook her head wildly. “The broadcast is lying to you all, harboring bad intentions—we've known that all along!”
“So what! If we're all going to die like you say, then what difference does it make whether we die sooner or later?” Zhang Qiumin could no longer stomach her excuses.
Trapped on a deserted island with no boat and no signal, what chance of survival was there other than doing what the broadcast said?
Were they supposed to swim out?! In just one afternoon, two people had already died. Who knew if the next one to die would be her?
With nowhere left to retreat, Chen Xijian clawed helplessly behind her, her fingertips touching damp wooden boards. She gasped heavily for air, incoherent sounds breaking from her throat.
Madness—the dead had driven the living insane. None of them were altruistic saints. If presented with an opportunity to let someone else die so they themselves could live, of course none of them would pass it up.
The man on the shabby sofa had fallen into an eternal sleep, while the corpse downstairs still hung like a skewer. The suffocating, terrifying atmosphere was stoked further by the sudden bursts from the broadcast.
Dangling survival like bait on a hook that everyone needed to seize, the broadcast was driving every last person out of their minds.
Chen Xijian let out a shrill scream, “It wasn't me, it really wasn't me!”
“I don't care anymore,” Zhang Qiumin's chest heaved up and down. “Since everything's out in the open now, it's not like I'm killing an innocent!”
Chen Xijian dodged with all her strength as the edge of the blade grazed her cheek and plunged into the rotten wallboard behind her. If she hadn't moved quickly, the tip of that knife would have driven straight through her eye socket.
Zhang Qiumin gave a hard yank, pulling the blade free from the wooden wall structure with a sharp snap.
Taking advantage of this momentary window, Chen Xijian scrambled on hands and knees a few paces in the other direction, groping frantically along the floor in search of a tool to fight back.
Outside the window, the rainstorm beat furiously against the glass, water continuously seeping in through the gaps around the frame.
Thud!
An impact resounded from outside the boarded-up window, piercing clearly through the sound of wind and rain to shatter the tense atmosphere in the room.
Inside, Zhang Qiumin's movements froze. She thought she was hallucinating—a torrential rainstorm, the third floor, an unidentified thud... could it be debris whipped up by the gale hitting the window?
Amidst the chaos, Chen Xijian stared intently at the room's only window.
Another thud.
It couldn't possibly be someone outside...
Right after came the sound of snapping timber. A dark shadow, carrying the chill of rain, burst violently forth from the darkness.
“Bam—Crash!”
The dark figure expanded rapidly in everyone's sight.
The shattered window and wooden boards split apart simultaneously, smashed through head-on by a tremendous force from the outside, sending wood splinters blasting into the room.
Zhang Qiumin, standing too close, was kicked flat onto the floor.
The dark figure had already vaulted inside off the broken window frame, landing on the floor strewn with debris and water stains. Her messy black hair clung to her skin, and rain streamed down her hair and clothes in rivulets, forming a small puddle beneath her feet like a silent ghost.
Except for the dripping of rain constantly falling from her, the world seemed to instantly fall silent.
The pant leg of Lin Mo's right leg was sliced open by wood splinters, revealing a long, thin bloody mark on her exposed calf that was oozing blood. She briefly scanned the scene inside the room, then looked at the knife lying on the floor, feeling somewhat bewildered.
A9: [Why do major events always happen when I'm not around?]
“You...” Zhang Qiumin sprawled on the ground, staring up at her, a look of disbelief slowly emerging in her eyes, her face twisted.
She once again recalled the man who was strangled to death by Lin Mo in the car on the way to the Security Bureau at the very beginning, and then looked at the wooden boards kicked through just now.
Zhang Qiumin miserably closed her eyes and played dead, completely drained of any thought of resisting.
Lin Mo asked, “Are you guys okay?”
Chen Xijian's shoulders trembled violently. Looking at Lin Mo's back, her tears gushed uncontrollably as she nodded frantically, then shook her head just as frantically.
Wind poured in relentlessly from the hole. Her voice sounded strained and raspy. “Y-You... did you climb up from the outside?”
To escape being hunted down, she had fled to the third floor. Climbing up to the third floor barehanded in the middle of a rainstorm was practically no different from seeking death.
How on earth had Lin Mo accomplished that?
Rate on N.U.
