Chapter 211
Chapter 211
Cheng Miao thought people like Fang Jing had neither shame nor limits. Arguing with her would only drag you down to her level, where she’d beat you with experience.
So she hadn’t intended to use words in the first place.
She meant to dislocate Fang Jing’s jaw and teach her a lesson.
With Zhu Cong there, putting it back would be easy anyway.
But before she could act, Qi Jiajia moved first. She had been so well behaved lately that nobody had realized how dangerous she was.
A dense, surging mass of black hair swept toward Fang Jing in an instant, seeming to blot out the sky.
Fang Jing had time for only one terrified scream. Before she could turn and run, the strands wrapped her entire body into a cocoon.
Zhu Cong knew this was bad. The spiked knuckles on his hand blazed with light at once.
He tore at the hair with all his strength, but it didn’t budge. If anything, it seemed to be wrapping tighter and tighter.
He immediately abandoned the struggle with the hair. Gathering all his strength, he drove his right fist toward Qi Jiajia a short distance away.
In an instant, Qin Musong and Cheng Miao, who had been standing to the side, sprang into action.
Qin Musong ducked low and drove his fist squarely into Zhu Cong’s abdomen.
Cheng Miao didn’t meet him head-on. With an agile leap, she used the moment when the blow forced the air out of Zhu Cong to spring onto his shoulders and clamp her legs around either side of his throat.
With a deft application of force from her feet, she brought him down.
He braced his left hand on the ground. Just as he was about to push off with his palm and flip back up, the choking pressure around his neck abruptly vanished, replaced by a murderous chill.
At the same time, Qin Musong twisted Zhu Cong’s hands, fitted with spiked knuckles, behind Zhu Cong’s back and forced him facedown on the ground.
Judging by the hard object pressed against the back of his head, if Zhu Cong moved, either his neck would break first or his head would be blasted apart.
After weighing his options, he promptly surrendered.
Everything had happened so quickly that the fight was over before the others could react.
Song Guoqiang and his companions, who had somewhat looked down on a team led by a delicate woman like Cheng Miao, immediately revised their views in light of what had just happened.
“Wait, wait! We’re all players. There’s no need to kill him, is there?”
Kong Fan and Ma Yang, who had been unconcerned when Fang Jing was caught in the hair, now showed plenty of concern for Zhu Cong.
Cheng Miao’s usually cool but gentle face was now icy. The deadly menace she radiated made Ma Yang and Kong Fan involuntarily retreat two steps.
“If we’d been a little slower just now, that punch could have killed Jiajia. And now you’re telling me not to use lethal force?”
Cheng Miao spoke each word distinctly. She wasn’t gritting her teeth, but the anger surging through her voice was unmistakable.
Only then did the others present realize that because Cheng Miao had always behaved so gently, they had assumed she was less threatening than Qi Jiajia or Qiudong.
But when she truly lost her temper…
Song Guoqiang and Zhao Jiangong pulled Wang Yang and Shi Biao back a couple of steps. Definitely not someone to mess with.
Ma Yang and Kong Fan opened their mouths but said nothing.
What could they say?
That Zhu Cong thought of Fang Jing as the wife who had died in the game, so his concern had made him lose his head?
But Fang Jing herself had a foul mouth and an unpleasant personality. The fact that nobody had taught her a lesson until now showed remarkable patience.
Were their teammates the only teammates who mattered, while everyone else was irrelevant?
Zhu Cong sighed. Just now, seeing Fang Jing’s terrified face before the hair engulfed her, he’d seemed to see his beloved wife being dragged out of the vehicle by zombies before her death all over again.
For a moment, he had lost control and struck to kill.
Now that he had calmed down, he knew he was in the wrong. His voice was sincere. “I lost control just now. I was the one at fault.”
Cheng Miao stared coldly at Zhu Cong until a chill crept down his back. Only then did she stand. “You have two choices. Hand over your spiked knuckles, or I’ll cut off both your hands.”
She glanced at Ma Yang and Kong Fan, both pale and afraid to speak. “They’ll grow back once you get out anyway. I’m sure you won’t mind.”
Zhu Cong smiled bitterly. What choice did he have at this point? Besides, Qiudong hadn’t even acted yet.
Instinct told him that if that man intervened, he might lose his life.
Without hesitation, Zhu Cong removed the weapon that kept him alive and handed it to Cheng Miao. He brushed the dust off himself, but just as he stood, something struck his ankle.
Looking down, he found a little doll holding a strip of wood as thick as an arm, swaying as he struck Zhu Cong’s ankle.
Zhu Cong was a veteran player. He had seen plenty of items.
He hadn’t expected even a doll to dislike him.
He gave a bitter chuckle and watched Lin Zhu return the doll to his shoulder.
Then he turned to Fang Jing, wrapped in a black cocoon of hair. She had stopped struggling, though her chest still rose and fell.
Cheng Miao glanced at Qi Jiajia. The little girl, her face dark, wrinkled her nose and withdrew her hair.
“Hah… cough, cough!”
Fang Jing sat up, coughing in terror. Fear and disgust still filled her eyes, and a smell of death lingered on her.
“You… you…” She pointed at Qi Jiajia with a trembling hand. Just as she was about to say something else, Zhu Cong’s expression turned icy, and he swung his hand.
Smack!
A heavy slap landed on Fang Jing’s face. Zhu Cong had never even raised his voice to her before. The blow left her stunned.
“You… you dared to hit me?”
Once she’d recovered, Fang Jing didn’t back down in the slightest. Zhu Cong’s prolonged tolerance had made her forget that he wasn’t anything to her and had no obligation to protect her.
“Cause trouble again, and you can clear instances on your own from now on.” Leaving her with that sentence, Zhu Cong took his two teammates back to their room.
Fang Jing sat on the ground, dusty and disheveled, her face red and swollen.
On the verge of crying, she held back her tears and glared fiercely at Cheng Miao. Then Qi Jiajia looked her way, and she scrambled on hands and feet back to Zhu Cong’s room.
Ignoring what was happening on Zhu Cong’s side, Cheng Miao patted Qi Jiajia’s head and resumed her earlier explanation. “I haven’t figured out what receiving the grass bracelets today means, but I found a pattern.”
Chang Qing and Miao Jie, and Tan Ge and Tan Wu, had kept well away during the dispute. Now that Cheng Miao’s tone was normal again, Chang Qing’s pair and Song Guoqiang’s team still didn’t dare move, but Tan Ge brought his sister over.
Cheng Miao didn’t concern herself with them and continued analyzing the situation with her teammates. “Receiving the grass bracelets seems connected to entering the shrine yesterday.”
“The first group to enter didn’t receive any. Everyone who did was waiting outside.”
Tan Ge nodded, agreeing with her idea.
“So there are two possibilities. Either something is wrong with the shrine, and those who entered first don’t receive protection. Or something is wrong with the bracelets. They’re not blessings but marks, marking people who weren’t eager to worship at the shrine.”
After hearing Cheng Miao’s analysis, Tan Wu spoke in her frail, gentle voice. “If it’s the first possibility, that would mean there are two supposed deities in the instance. One is worshipped in the shrine, and the other gives out grass bracelets for protection.”
Cheng Miao looked at her appreciatively and nodded. “I think the second possibility is more likely.”