Chapter 54: Turbulent Times Men and Women

The two of them hugged an old aluminum pot as they kept weaving through the city.

Qi Xia had never imagined that a city without lights could be darker than the wilderness.

They had only walked for about ten minutes when the sky darkened like ink dripping into it.

The rustling insect noises around them echoed back and forth, making Qi Xia feel irritated and uneasy.

"Lin Geng, are you still there?" Qi Xia asked.

"I'm still here," Lin Geng replied. "Slow down a bit, be careful not to trip."

"We can't go any slower," Qi Xia said, glancing at the sky. "We can still barely make out the path now. We need to hurry to the convenience store. Grab onto my clothes."

Lin Geng nodded and reached out to hold onto Qi Xia's clothes.

Relying on their memory, the two walked for another twenty minutes or so before finally arriving at the square where they had first appeared.

Fortunately, the square was open and spacious, so they could roughly make out the outlines.

As they entered the square and headed east, they saw a store with a fire burning.

That must be the convenience store.

"They've lit a fire..." Lin Geng said, a bit puzzled. "How did they find a fire source?"

As soon as she said it, she realized: the store had a female clerk, and when the group met her, she was already starting a fire to cook. They must have borrowed the fire source from her.

In the midst of the darkness, the two made their way toward the light of the fire and finally reached the entrance of the convenience store.

What surprised them was that the minotaur that had been standing in front of the restaurant across the street was now gone.

"Li Jingguan, Zhang Lüshi, are you there?" Lin Geng called out tentatively. "Xiao Ran, Zhao Yisheng?"

There were clear sounds of movement from inside the store, but no one answered.

"What's going on?"

Just as Lin Geng was about to go in and check, Qi Xia pulled her back.

"Stay back, I'll go in first," he whispered to Lin Geng.

Accompanied by the rustling insect noises, the two entered the store.

But as soon as Qi Xia stepped through the door, a wooden board flew straight at his face.

Fortunately, Qi Xia was prepared and quickly dodged backward, narrowly avoiding the deadly blow.

"Ah...!" Lin Geng exclaimed, rushing to steady Qi Xia. "Are you okay?"

Only then did they see that the person holding the wooden board was no other than Zhao Yisheng, with Xiao Ran right behind him.

Zhao Yisheng looked at Qi Xia, then at Lin Geng, and forced a smile. "Ah! So it's you two... I thought it was someone else..."

Qi Xia carefully examined the two of them, his expression puzzled.

Zhao Yisheng was wearing only a white coat, completely naked underneath, and even barefoot. He had wrapped the coat around himself like a windbreaker, and his face looked unnatural.

Behind him, Xiao Ran's hair was disheveled, her clothes in disarray, and her makeup smudged.

The two were huddled together like a couple who had just been robbed.

Qi Xia quickly figured out what was happening, but he had no idea why it had come to this.

"Qi, Qi Xia, don't misunderstand..." Zhao Yisheng said with a fawning smile. "Xiao Ran said she might be injured, so I was just checking her."

"Why are you explaining to him?!" Xiao Ran elbowed Zhao Yisheng. "Stammering like that—aren't you supposed to be a man?"

Qi Xia shook his head. "I don't want to get involved in your business. What about Li Jingguan and Zhang Lüshi?"

"Ah..." Zhao Yisheng gave an awkward smile again. "They went out during the day to scout the nearby area and haven't come back yet."

"What?" Qi Xia furrowed his brow. "They haven't come back yet?"

Now that it was fully dark, Li Jingguan had said he would investigate the local area, so it was unlikely they would stay out overnight.

Since they hadn't returned, did that mean they were dead?

Or... were these two lying?

Qi Xia slowly walked into the room and surveyed the situation.

Although the floor was still very messy, there were no fresh bloodstains or signs of a struggle.

A dim bonfire was lit inside, and not far away lay Han Yi Mo's body, making the atmosphere feel both intimate and eerie.

Qi Xia turned back to look at the guilty-looking pair and slowly asked, "Aren't you all on the same team? They haven't come back even after dark, and you're not worried—instead, you're here messing around?"

"Well... worrying won't help," Zhao Yisheng said. "It's so dark out; we can't go looking for them. We'll have to wait until dawn..."

"Mind your own business!" Xiao Ran snapped. "Since when do you get to worry about people in our team?"

Qi Xia didn't respond. He walked to the staff room and gently pushed the door open.

Inside, the female clerk was crouched in the corner, facing the wall, muttering to herself.

It seemed she hadn't moved from there the whole time.

Qi Xia closed the door and turned back to Zhao Yisheng, since he was at least someone you could talk to.

"Is the 'Dao' still here?" Qi Xia asked.

"Well..." Zhao Yisheng's expression turned guarded. "Qi Xia, what exactly are you two here for?"

"I'm here to borrow the 'Dao'," Qi Xia said. "The 'Dao' that was left here during the day—I want to borrow it for a bit and return it double later."

"Borrow the 'Dao'?" Zhao Yisheng thought for a moment, then eyed Qi Xia's even dirtier clothes, stained with a few traces of blood. "What about your own 'Dao'? What happened to that thug and that prostitute?"

"They have names," Lin Geng suddenly interjected. "Don't call them that."

"Oh..." Zhao Yisheng nodded dismissively.

"What's with the holier-than-thou act..." Xiao Ran wrapped her clothes tighter and stepped forward. "They wouldn't have joined the game and died, would they?"

Qi Xia's face grew solemn, and he nodded slightly. "Something like that."

"Ha!" Xiao Ran let out a mocking laugh. "Weren't you so confident about collecting three thousand six hundred 'Dao' to get out of here? Now you've gotten your teammates killed and come to borrow ours?"

Qi Xia lifted his eyelids and looked at the woman. "That's exactly what's happened, but I advise you to know when to stop."

Zhao Yisheng quickly stepped in to mediate. "Come on, come on, let's talk this out..."

Then he turned to Qi Xia. "It's not that we don't want to lend it to you, but Li Jingguan took the 'Dao' with him..."

"Took it?" Qi Xia paused.

"That's right," Zhao Yisheng said, pointing to the restaurant across the street. "After you left, they went there to join a game and seemed to win. Then they went somewhere else."

Qi Xia followed Zhao Yisheng's gaze and quickly spotted the inconsistency. "What do you mean 'seemed' to win? You're right next door—didn't you even know if they won or not?"

"Well..." Zhao Yisheng wrinkled his brow and gave a dry laugh. "Xiao Ran didn't want them to take the 'Dao' out, but Li Jingguan insisted on checking things out... They had different ideas and argued. We didn't bother asking, so we just let them go. After all, who wants to join in on something like that and get themselves killed..."

"Let them go?"

Qi Xia's eyes widened in an instant. He grabbed Zhao Yisheng's collar with tremendous force.

"Ow?"

Xiao Ran was stunned and lunged at Qi Xia. "What are you doing?!"

Qi Xia sidestepped and stuck out his foot, tripping her. Xiao Ran fell flat on the filthy ground, landing with a hard "dog-eat-dirt" thud.

Qi Xia took a deep breath and said fiercely to Zhao Yisheng, "I was being polite to you out of respect for Li Jingguan, but you bastards actually abandoned them?!"