Chapter 27
Chapter 27
Although the message said his attribute had increased, Qin Lan felt no change in his body.
More importantly, he discovered something terrifying–his resurrection checkpoint had been compressed to thirty seconds.
The instant he regained consciousness, he saw Luan Zimo swinging her hammer toward the window.
“What the hell? It’s cheating!”
There was no time to think. Qin Lan could only dodge immediately according to his memory of what had just happened.
Whoosh!
The shard of glass shot toward him again along the exact same trajectory.
Qin Lan tilted his head aside with exaggerated flair, and the shard skimmed past him.
Its wake left a chill across his neck. He touched the spot instinctively, then met Luan Zimo’s astonished gaze.
“How did you…”
Luan Zimo trailed off.
Under the suppression of this unsolvable instance, even someone as strong as her possessed physical abilities little different from an ordinary person’s.
Had she been the one facing that unexpected shard, she knew she could never have evaded it without using her Talent or some other method.
Yet Qin Lan had done exactly that.
He had relied on nothing but his reflexes to perform an extraordinarily precise dodge.
It was as if he had known exactly where the attack would come from and prepared in advance.
“Nothing unusual. I practiced street dance,” Qin Lan replied calmly, offering an excuse not even a pig would believe.
[Special Class Mission Objective: Escape from Death 5 times. (1/5)]
[Death’s interest in you has increased.]
This was bad.
His improbably lucky escape had not only caught Luan Zimo’s attention, but also drawn the attention of the final boss.
“You practiced street dance?” Disbelief filled Luan Zimo’s golden eyes. Her gaze practically said, “Do I look like an idiot to you?”
Qin Lan did not care whether she believed him. He changed the subject immediately.
“Let’s get out of here. Stop wasting time.”
Without waiting for Luan Zimo to answer, he vaulted through the window one-handed with magnificent style.
Then the tip of his shoe caught on the frame, and he landed face-first.
[The bus window threw you over its shoulder. Killer: (Death)]
[Constitution permanently increased by 2.4.]
Qin Lan had never imagined that a window frame would solo-kill him.
Based on his judgment when he leaped, he should have cleared the window perfectly and landed without trouble.
But his body had abruptly slowed, like a muscle cramping in the middle of the night. An uncontrollable mistake ruined the movement.
Then Qin Lan woke again.
A shard of glass hurtled toward his eyes.
[You popped champagne with your neck. Killer: (Death)]
[No attribute increase.]
What?
After his checkpoint reset twice in rapid succession, Qin Lan was utterly bewildered.
What was going on?
Was Death camping his spawn point?
He precisely tilted his head out of the shard’s path once more, his expression exceedingly ugly.
“So this is the pressure of an unsolvable instance?”
The checkpoint’s compression to thirty seconds drastically reduced his margin for error in the face of danger. Worse, it created the trap of consecutive deaths.
The slightest mistake could set off a chain reaction and kill him all the way back to his original checkpoint.
“Fine. So that’s how you want to play.”
Qin Lan’s expression darkened.
“If this were a nineties arcade, I might actually be afraid of you. When I was little, I really couldn’t afford the tokens…”
“But I’ve got all the extra lives I need now. Let’s see how many times you can kill me.”
This time, Qin Lan climbed through the window with painstaking care and in an extremely undignified posture.
He even checked the edges of the frame for any glass that might cut him.
Only after dropping to the ground as inelegantly as a smoked ham dangling from a rope did he reveal a smug smile.
“Heh. I’m being this careful now. Let’s see what else you can–”
Bang!
A motorcyclist shot out from behind the bus and crashed head-on into Qin Lan.
Qin Lan flew through the air and slammed into the trunk of a car ahead.
“Oh, fuck…”
[You wanted to become an astronaut. Your grandparents must be thrilled… Killer: (Death)]
[No attribute increase.]
Qin Lan finally understood Death’s methods.
The world inside this instance was a script woven by Death, and he was merely one of its characters.
The scriptwriter controlled everything within the story. Any circumstance or variable could become material for a lethal trap.
A shard of glass flying out of nowhere. An accidental slip. A speeding motorcyclist forcing his way through the smallest gap…
As long as Death wished it, the attacks could come again and again.
Qin Lan climbed through the window.
Qin Lan landed.
Qin Lan said nothing.
Qin Lan was furious.
He had not been this angry even when those two fat women falsely accused him of taking secret photos.
He could clearly feel Death’s gaze fixed upon him, watching his repeated struggles with mocking amusement before playing with him like a toy and inventing a fresh way for him to die.
It was… deeply unpleasant.
The motorcyclist appeared again, but Qin Lan evaded him with an undignified roll across the ground.
[Special Class Mission Objective: Escape from Death 5 times. (2/5)]
[Death’s interest in you has increased.]
“How did you dodge that one?”
“Street dance again?”
Luan Zimo, who had witnessed everything, could not help questioning him once more.
She had wondered why Qin Lan was being so cautious about climbing through a window–right up until the motorcycle came flying out and startled her.
Yet Qin Lan had dodged it.
This time, Luan Zimo was absolutely certain that there was something wrong with the man named Qin Lan.
Something seriously wrong.
Qin Lan did not answer. He merely spoke with a grave expression.
“You should be careful too…”
“Death’s show has begun. From now on, something could come for our lives at any moment…”
Despite all her questions, Luan Zimo could only swallow them for the time being.
As for Han Chan, he had remained calm throughout.
Neither Qin Lan’s repeated attacks nor his exquisitely timed evasions drew the slightest surprise from him.
He was so calm that even Qin Lan began to feel uneasy.
It was almost as though… everything had gone exactly as Han Chan expected.
Qin Lan surveyed his surroundings. The rain was growing heavier and visibility was poor, but he could still tell that the traffic jam was on a large bridge.
A wide, surging river flowed below. Its violent currents churned like a roaring tiger.
In the distance, a construction crew in orange uniforms was performing maintenance on the bridge.
The moment Qin Lan saw them, his instincts warned him that something terrible would happen there.
He simply did not know what.
Han Chan came up behind him and gave his shoulder a concerned pat.
“Qin, where should we go next?”
Qin Lan looked baffled.
“How would I know? I’m not from around here. Why ask me?”
Han Chan nodded with an expression that said he understood everything.
“I see…”
“It seems I asked too soon.”
Qin Lan instantly went rigid.
“Too… soon?”
“Hold on, Han…” Qin Lan slowly turned toward him, uncertainty and suspicion in his eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you just calmly said something you couldn’t possibly be supposed to say?”
“What exactly do you know?”