Chapter 55
Chapter 55
Yu Lingling walked right out of the hospital with Song Siyuan and Tongyu in tow, making no attempt to hide what she was doing.
Song Siyuan still had reservations. “Actually, after Yu…” Worried that mentioning Yu Huan might upset Yu Lingling, he hurriedly glossed over the name. “After he brought it up, the Chief Commander decided that Tongyu would only be allowed to use the Puppet Function. The resurrection aspect would no longer be used.”
“That isn’t resurrection. It’s Death Substitution.” The end result might be the same, but the meaning was entirely different. Spotting the car the Special Department had arranged at the hospital entrance, Yu Lingling calmly climbed inside. “The fact that Tongyu awakened an Exclusive Skill like that proves he isn’t the fragile glass ornament you all take him for – the kind that needs to be locked away in a display case.”
Having awakened an Exclusive Skill of her own, Yu Lingling had a deeper understanding of what an Exclusive Skill represented.
She looked at Tongyu, who was sitting beside her. “All you’re doing is crippling him. Besides, without Death Substitution, would the people in the Special Department really be willing to spend that many Game Coins supporting him?”
Tongyu understood what Yu Lingling was implying.
Song Siyuan thought she was talking nonsense. “Of course they would.”
Yu Lingling chuckled. At that moment, she did not seem like a thirteen-year-old girl at all. “They’ll support him until they need him, then have him use Death Substitution again.”
Song Siyuan drew a deep breath. “No one will force him.”
Yu Lingling bluntly shattered his naïveté. “After living off the Special Department’s Game Coins all that time, will Tongyu really have the right to refuse?”
Song Siyuan instinctively looked at Tongyu.
Tongyu lowered his head and said nothing.
It wasn’t that Song Siyuan understood nothing. Sometimes, he simply refused to consider the worst possibilities.
Yu Lingling couldn’t make sense of it. “I really don’t understand how you awakened an Exclusive Skill like yours.”
Song Siyuan avoided her gaze and turned to look out the window.
How had he awakened it?
Maybe it was because he never wanted to be deceived or betrayed again.
Since Yu Lingling planned to team up with them in the future, she knew when to stop and did not prod at his wounds any further. “I imagine the Chief Commander approves of me taking Tongyu away. She sees more clearly and thinks further ahead than any of us.”
Even though Yu Lingling knew everything had been her brother’s own choice, she still disliked those people.
And considering what she intended to do next, there was no chance she would join the Special Department.
Yu Lingling asked directly, “Tell me about Instances of different ranks.”
Unable to do anything but fume, Song Siyuan snapped, “Go read the forums yourself.”
“The information on the forums is too fragmentary. I’ve already read it.” Yu Lingling continued, “Foreign elements only start appearing in a C-rank Instance. Instances below C-rank contain only elements from our own country, and you can’t encounter foreign players until a B-rank Instance.”
“To advance your player rank, you need enough Experience Points and must clear an instance of the rank you’re trying to advance to at least three times. You can challenge an instance above your current rank, but if a higher-ranked player teams up with lower-ranked players and enters a lower-ranked Instance, the instance becomes more difficult.”
Yu Lingling asked curiously, “Tongyu and I are both at the lowest Full-fledged Player rank. What about you?”
“C-rank,” Song Siyuan replied.
Yu Lingling thought for a moment. “Do you know what your greatest weakness is?”
Song Siyuan looked at her in surprise. Yu Lingling might be powerful and her Exclusive Skill might be uncanny, but he refused to believe she could know his weakness before she had ever seen him in action.
Yu Lingling had not been joking when she said she would keep Song Siyuan safe. “You place too much trust in the conclusions your Exclusive Skill gives you.”
Song Siyuan froze.
“I’ve deceived you countless times.” For once, Yu Lingling did not hide the truth. “Yet whenever your Exclusive Skill told you I wasn’t lying, you believed it and made the wrong judgment.”
Even the driver assigned to them had not expected to overhear such a revelation.
Yu Lingling looked at Song Siyuan with rare seriousness. “If you keep placing blind faith in the information your Exclusive Skill gives you, it will eventually get you killed. People can use tools, but they must never let tools make decisions or judgments for them – and they can never trust a tool completely.”
For a moment, both the driver and Song Siyuan began to wonder who exactly was new to the Horror Game Instance – them, or Yu Lingling?
Song Siyuan asked thoughtfully, “May I tell the Chief Commander about all this?”
Yu Lingling would not join them, but she would not restrict the people around her, nor would she refuse to remain in contact.
Song Siyuan summarized the information and sent it to Wen Ling. Only then did he say solemnly, “Thank you.”
Yu Lingling had the driver stop at a noodle shop, then told Song Siyuan to get an assortment of braised foods to go. She also ordered hot soy milk for herself and Tongyu.
Song Siyuan asked, “Where will we be staying when we get to Z City?”
Yu Lingling bit down on her straw. Before coming here, she had only searched for information related to the instance. Now, she was carefully reading through every post she could find, whether useful or not. “Probably next door to me. They should have finished setting everything up by now.”
The driver could not help asking, “How do you know?”
The moment Song Siyuan heard the question, he knew Yu Lingling had guessed correctly.
Without even looking up, Yu Lingling replied calmly, “Would any of you feel at ease if you weren’t keeping an eye on me?”
After a moment’s thought, she continued, “I don’t know why, but aren’t all of you worried that I’ll lose control?”
“Don’t worry.”
“My brother still has to come back.”
“I won’t lose control.”
Song Siyuan and the driver exchanged a look. They desperately wanted to ask what would happen if Yu Huan never came back.
But neither of them dared.
Yu Lingling was like an unknown box.
Only by opening it would they find out whether it was Pandora’s box or a treasure chest that brought hope.
And now, without Yu Huan there to keep her in check and serve as a fail-safe, no one dared to open it, nor could they afford to.
By the time they arrived home, Yu Lingling had already learned the general type of the instance. Song Siyuan refused to reveal anything more.
His reasoning was one Yu Lingling could accept. “Since your brother never told you any of this and wouldn’t let you receive the Special Department’s training on how to crack Instances, he must have had his reasons. He probably believed there were certain things you needed to discover and understand for yourself.”
Yu Lingling thought that made sense. Besides, the information she had already obtained was enough.
Just as Yu Lingling had predicted, the Special Department had prepared the apartment next door. Song Siyuan’s and Tongyu’s luggage had already been delivered there.
As for Cheng Yu and the others who had lived there before, Yu Lingling did not ask where they had gone, just as she did not ask why all the residents upstairs and nearby had changed.
Yu Lingling clearly had no intention of inviting Song Siyuan and Tongyu inside. After taking the contents from her mailbox, she shut the door right in front of them.
Song Siyuan helped Tongyu, who was physically frail and could not see clearly. “With that lousy temper of hers, how could her brother possibly say she was a good child?”
Tongyu had not known Song Siyuan before, but they had become somewhat familiar over the course of the journey, and he had grown a little bolder. Only after entering the apartment did he ask, “What about her brother?”
Song Siyuan showed Tongyu around and let him choose a room first. At the question, he sighed. “He entered the Grand Slaughter Instance and got trapped inside. He never came out.”
Everyone knew that anyone still alive after clearing an instance would be able to leave. As for those who did not make it out, naturally, they were…
Yu Lingling simply refused to accept it.
Tongyu said softly, “No wonder she’s in such a hurry to grow stronger.”
Song Siyuan was startled. “What?”
Tongyu felt along the wall, getting his bearings inside the apartment. “Lingling is in a hurry to grow stronger so she can go bring her brother back.”
Song Siyuan stood rooted to the spot, deep in thought. “You also think her brother… isn’t dead?”
The last word came out barely above a whisper, cautious yet tinged with hope.
Tongyu tilted his head toward Song Siyuan. “Didn’t Lingling say so herself? Her brother will come back. She wants everything to remain unchanged when he returns, so she keeps us close and keeps an eye on us.”
Song Siyuan could not quite wrap his head around it.
The corners of Tongyu’s lips curved upward. “That means she’ll protect us. She won’t let us die. Otherwise, her brother won’t be able to bring her to visit us when he comes back.”