LWGP - Chapter 81
Chapter 81: Red and Black
"Are they crazy?! It's almost six o'clock, and they still want to kill and rob people?!" Wang Shu grumbled while shooting arrows.
Dao Dao, amidst the ground-shaking, also cursed angrily: "Have they no common decency? A sneak attack, and they even surrounded us!"
Qiao Xuejing, however, didn't say anything, just glanced at the people in front of them.
It was a team.
The team's captain, Chu Xiangsui, had wanted to make a move on Lin Fengmian's group earlier, but was delayed by the incident with the boss inside the mountain. It was a coincidence that as soon as they left the mountain, they saw the conspicuous trio of two people and a pig by the mouth of a mountain stream.
There was no helping it. The fat one was too fat, the beautiful one was too beautiful, and they had a pig with them. Even with quite a few people nearby, they were just too eye-catching.
He had a hunch—they had good stuff on them.
So, Chu Xiangsui decisively had his subordinates discreetly surround them, then launched a sudden attack!
Statistically speaking, humans are truly highly adaptable creatures. In an era of peace and safety, upon seeing a woman like Qiao Xuejing, if not fawning, they would at least be polite and kind. But after less than a day in the game, surrounded by danger and fierce competition, many people had quickly adapted to the new state of affairs.
Was there anything more important than survival and getting stronger?
Not even a beauty!
When they were being surrounded, Qiao Xuejing had vaguely sensed that something was wrong. By the time she thought of leaving, the other party had already made their move.
Once attacked, one had to fight back.
However, this team's average strength was high, and their coordination was seamless. The captain, Chu Xiangsui, was not weak, with all his attributes over 70. He had thought it would be an easy catch, but to his surprise, Qiao Xuejing killed one of his people the moment she acted. After all, her attributes were nearly all 90. The gap was too large.
"So strong!" Chu Xiangsui's men were shocked. They had been prejudiced, assuming the gentle-looking beauty wouldn't be much of a fighter, but they were proven wrong. However, Chu Xiangsui wasn't without his trump cards. Seeing his misjudgment, he immediately began to correct his course. Otherwise, failing to pull off a sneak attack in front of so many people and losing a man instead would result in even greater losses.
So, Chu Xiangsui directly threw out a Puppet Card. A mini-boss appeared—a grizzled tiger with armored paws, exceptionally fierce, with all attributes at 100. The moment it appeared, it pounced toward Qiao Xuejing.
Before, Wang Shu and Dao Dao had thought this group was blind to dare rob them, which was why they had dared to grumble. They never expected the other party to be so desperate as to throw out a card directly.
Even with her high attributes, Qiao Xuejing wasn't yet at the level where she could go head-to-head with a puppet boss. With Chu Xiangsui providing support from the side, she was suddenly in peril.
They weren't the only ones here. Besides the scattered teams in the vicinity, there were also some capable ones.
He Ming's group had also just fled the mountain, scared out by Liao Luo. They didn't know what had happened afterward, let alone of Wang Jiu's existence, but they saw the situation up ahead.
Now, they actually had more people than the last time they ran a dungeon with Qiao Xuejing. After all, He Ruguang had always been someone skilled at cultivating relationships. Plus, his team was already well-formed and quite strong. Some individuals or small groups of two or three who had distinguished themselves in the mountains had joined them, so their strength was considerable.
"It's Miss Qiao!"
"Brother, it's that fatty! He's with Wang Jiu!"
He Ruguang had initially wanted to help, but after He Ming's reminder, he saw Wang Shu.
He still remembered that day...
So Qiao Xuejing had run a dungeon with Wang Jiu?
No wonder he could never find her.
Knowing full well about the old grudge between him and that Wang Jiu, yet still making such a choice could only mean... she still didn't take him seriously, just like before.
He had actually expected it, but why did it have to be his enemy?
Without He Ming needing to run his mouth, He Ruguang's eyes flickered. He didn't offer to help, and the others naturally wouldn't meddle. They even suspected He Ruguang might be waiting for Qiao Xuejing to ask for help herself.
After all, there was an old grudge between them... He Ming even wanted to pick up his newly bought bow and shoot Wang Shu, but he didn't dare act, uncertain of his brother's current attitude toward Qiao Xuejing.
Dao Dao and Wang Shu wanted to help, but they were also under siege.
They had plenty of resources, including cards in the team inventory, but they weren't authorized to use them. Besides, they wouldn't have used them anyway, since they belonged to Wang Jiu.
So what could they do? At worst, they'd die. It was just a matter of dropping equipment and losing a level, which wasn't really a big deal.
In any case, Qiao Xuejing felt this wasn't an unacceptable outcome, so she decided to withstand the boss's attacks and try her best to kill Chu Xiangsui.
She made her choice, and she acted on it.
Chu Xiangsui almost thought he would be severely wounded, but Qiao Xuejing would also surely be severely wounded by the boss attacking from behind her.
But… Swish! An arrow tore through the air.
Ah—
A single arrow pierced through the vital parts of Chu Xiangsui's lower body. It didn't kill him, but it crippled him.
Chu Xiangsui screamed, knelt on the ground, and clutched the area between his legs. On the verge of death, he looked toward where the arrow had come from. He saw a woman and a bow.
And a continuous stream of arrows.
One arrow, one kill. If their positions lined up, one arrow, two kills.
She didn't even change her position, just stood on a rock by the stream, slaughtering them madly.
But strangely, despite her terrifying damage, she never touched Chu Xiangsui or the puppet boss. She just let him scream and wail there, ignoring Qiao Xuejing's plight of having to face the puppet boss alone. She only swiftly killed the other nine people, as easily as slaughtering chickens. Her name turned red at a visible rate.
Enraged, Chu Xiangsui roared, "Her name is red! Why aren't you attacking her?"
He wanted to incite the others, but they weren't fools. They were already watching from the sidelines, either in fear and retreat, or...
"Brother, it's her again!" Lin Wumian's group of eight also found it incredible. Why did they always see this girl going on a killing spree?
"Run, she's terrifying!"
Lin Wumian: "Don't move."
Fuck, brother, every time you run into this woman, you tell us not to move!?
The point was, they really didn't dare to move. But would staying still be enough?
After Wang Jiu shot the ninth person on Chu Xiangsui's team, she didn't lower her bow. The newly nocked arrow wasn't aimed at Chu Xiangsui; instead, she turned her arm.
Voom!
It shot toward the sky. Just as Lin Wumian and the others, their hearts pounding, thought they were about to be killed, it passed through the gaps between their bodies and, in an instant, pierced the center of He Ruguang's forehead among the crowd behind them.
Armor-piercing, instant kill.
In the instant of his death, He Ruguang should have been thinking—his attributes were 80, 75, and 75, and his strength had advanced by leaps and bounds. How high must her attributes be to instantly kill him?
How long had it been since their last fight?
But he didn't. He only saw Wang Jiu's glance and understood in a second—I didn't kill you last time, so I'm making up for it now.
Thud!
The moment He Ruguang died and his body hit the ground, dropping items, He Ming screamed, "Brother!" He tried to grab the items and run, but then he died too.
"We didn't do anything!"
"Miss, we didn't..."
"Ah!"
The rest didn't even have time to consider whether to flee or to grab the dropped items before fleeing. Amidst their cries for mercy, they fell one by one.
Against a ranged attacker with such an absolute power gap, they were like lambs to the slaughter.
The terrifying part was that she didn't care about their explanations at all. She wiped out the entire team without even bothering to listen.
As Wang Jiu went on her killing spree, her name grew more and more blood-red. The others scattered and fled, but before they could get far, Wang Jiu was finished.
There was no need to fight the puppet boss, because after resisting it to her limit, Qiao Xuejing finished off Chu Xiangsui with an arrow, ending it.
Wang Shu was still savoring the battle that had just occurred.
The feeling of fighting and killing people was truly different from fighting monsters. How to put it... he felt a little guilty and didn't dare to look at Wang Jiu.
"What are you spacing out for? Let's go." Wang Jiu had already swept up all the loot from her kills, not leaving a single item for them. After all, she had made the kills. But she didn't lecture them about anything. Her tone was ordinary as she turned to leave, and the others immediately followed.
However, on the way, because Wang Jiu's name was red, many people launched sneak attacks on her, which was like feeding her kills, making her name redder and redder.
It was Wang Shu who couldn't hold it in any longer. While following Wang Jiu back to the novice village, he said, "Master, I was wrong."
"Hm?"
"I shouldn't have been unable to act against them. I shouldn't have thought that if I acted, it would be murder. The world has already changed, yet I'm still so soft-hearted..." Wang Shu paused abruptly here, subconsciously glancing at Wang Jiu. Oh, that description was completely and utterly wrong.
Master is also a woman, but she is never "benevolent"!
"I shouldn't have been so merciful and soft. I definitely won't dare to be in the future!"
Wang Jiu glanced at him and said lazily, "It's the apocalypse, and you're still using so many idioms. Trying to get into grad school? You're screwed then. The System's level is pretty average too. After all, it was the first time I'd ever heard a Puppet Card called 'So-and-so's MA'."
System: Damn!
Wang Jiu then said earnestly, "What's all this about killing or not killing? You couldn't have beaten a single one of those people anyway, so why feel guilty?"
Wang Shu: Fuck!
Wang Jiu had found Wang Shu's behavior baffling from the start. Although she saw through his cautiousness, she had no intention of indulging his speculations and guilt.
This was her family's braised pork trotter; he had to be kept happy in body and mind.
"Don't overthink things in the future. Remember, you're my disciple. As a master, I generally don't kill my disciples."
Her tone was gentle, and she reached out to pat Wang Shu's shoulder lightly. In a tactful, moving, and poetic manner, she asked, "Have you read the book The Red and the Black?"
Wang Shu: "?"
Wang Jiu: "Love, sex, lust for power, the lower class scheming for survival, the upper class playing politics—all of that is secondary. I've always felt its core is actually just one thing."
Wang Shu: "What?"
Wang Jiu smiled. "Personal interest."
I generally don't kill my disciples, unless the braised pork trotter gets burnt black and harms my interests.
Understand, my disciple?
Of course Wang Shu understood. Shivering, he once again stroked his own pork trotters as if caressing a lover.
Watching Wang Jiu's twisted method of simultaneously crushing and comforting Wang Shu, Qiao Xuejing said, "You're quite lenient with him."
It sounded cruel, but it seemed like all he had to do was loot corpses; his combat ability wasn't required.
Wang Jiu looked back at her with a faint smile. "Then am I not good to you?"
When she wasn't fighting, she always maintained the appearance of a quiet, intelligent, and moving beauty.
Qiao Xuejing thought for a moment, then said, "You do have expectations for me, right? I hope you do. So, you didn't kill Chu Xiangsui directly because you intentionally left that puppet boss for me to practice on, to force me to use my full attribute strength. Or maybe it was to force me to learn to be cruel to my enemies, to make me understand that the world has changed... right?"
She had a gentle personality and didn't like to be evasive. Since she had accepted the other person as her captain, she would consider the captain's requirements.
It was probably because she was an architectural designer that she paid attention to frameworks and structures.
If one link wasn't done right, the entire project would collapse.
So she was very particular.
Hearing Qiao Xuejing say this, Wang Shu felt envious: She's different from me. She's recognized for her combat power. Unlike me, apart from being an RNG God, I'm completely useless. Master has no expectations for me at all!
The novice village was just ahead. From this position, they could see the village proper extending inward to the left. Along the edge ran a three-meter-wide river with clear, fairly deep water, but the bottom was visible.
The apocalypse wasn't entirely without its benefits. This place must have been a city river before; that water could have been used as poison.
Wang Jiu paused, stood on high ground to survey the surrounding area, and replied, "Not really. I just wanted to see, with his Stamina attribute, how long he could endure the pain of ruptured balls. It'll be useful for my future battles. If you're interested, we can discuss it."
"Why do you have that look on your faces?"
Qiao Xuejing, a goddess who, for a rare moment in her life, had been presumptuous only to lose out to the pain of ruptured balls: "..."
What kind of expression are you expecting me to have?
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