Chapter 92

Chapter 92

After a long while, the tentacle withdrew.

Shu Yan keenly sensed that this matter would not be settled so simply.

Sure enough, a sharp pain suddenly shot through the back of his head. Shu Yan instinctively tried to grab the thing drilling into his brain, but his hand closed on nothing.

His eyes flew wide as he turned back-just in time to see a blue data-tail burrow inside.

The Optical Brain’s voice was insidious. “Since you have a clear conscience, then you won’t mind if I place a Surveillance Anchor on you, right?”

003 had a naturally cold face. When he was expressionless, the narrow corners of his eyes looked even more cutting. “Is your brain broken, or are you blind? You call something this long a ‘point’?”

The Optical Brain: “…”

“Also, what’s the difference between your Surveillance Anchor and your surveillance Camera? Can’t you usually see me? Or do you already need me so badly that it’s not enough to put a Camera outside my body-you have to put one inside me too?”

“You…”

“Don’t try to argue. You already watch them even when they take a shit, and now you want to observe the inside of my body-”

Before he could finish, Shu Yan’s gaze went abruptly rigid, like a wind-up puppet whose spring had been pinned down.

A faint blue light flickered at the back of his head, pausing every thought in his mind in an instant.

The Optical Brain said darkly, “Do you think an anchor is the same as a Camera? I won’t completely control you, but if I discover that you really have betrayed me, the anchor is enough to make you brain-dead on the spot.”

“Also,” the Optical Brain added, in a tone so proper it was as if this were genuinely Shu Yan’s fault and not its own loss of composure, “003, the way you talk really stinks.”

As though it had seen something, the Optical Brain’s voice seemed to brighten again. “003, even if you want to betray me, it’s useless now. They already believe you’re loyal to me, so you can only be loyal to me.”

“Otherwise, you’ll be the bat in the night, pleasing neither side.”

The blue light went out. Shu Yan gulped in air, then lowered his head respectfully. “…All right.”

Triggered Bro.

It was just because what he said had made it lose face that it had gotten triggered and shoved this thing into him.

The fact that his allegiance was unclear had long been obvious to the Optical Brain.

Otherwise, it would not have locked him into one Script after another for two whole years.

Still… Surveillance Anchor.

Only after Shu Yan turned to leave did the upward curve of his lips slowly flatten, making him look even more unapproachable.

Though he had known that 002’s death was the Optical Brain’s doing, so this was the cause of death-the Surveillance Anchor.

…

Song Zhu said, “Every Joker was created by the System. Before the System’s Internal Upheaval, every Joker was uniformly called a ‘Judge.’ Although the name has changed now, the System itself is still used to the term from several years ago.

“Some exceptional Judge units develop self-awareness. Some even name themselves according to their own wishes. Before the Internal Upheaval, the System didn’t care-or rather, it was too lazy to bother with our behavior. It thought these things were just useless play, like children messing around, and it would even occasionally call us by the names we had chosen for ourselves.”

He paused, then said, “I don’t remember what happened during that Internal Upheaval. I only know that after it, the System began strictly monitoring every Judge, Script NPC, and Player, especially the Judge units. Even when it came to names, it would only call us by our Judge code numbers.”

“In Lolita’s words, the System turns a blind eye to major things like Hidden Rule, but nitpicks endlessly over trivial matters.”

“However, everything after the Internal Upheaval is something I learned later. During that Internal Upheaval, I was disconnected from the System, and I’ve forgotten most things, big and small. This is what I can still remember for now.”
There were two days left. At present, the Two Nings were the only ones in the team who had completed their mission.

Since the Murderer setting pointed in the same direction for both sides, the main missions for the two factions should be more or less the same.

Qin Genan’s character setting was that she was a rare hopeless romantic in Aotianli, but the one she loved was Zhuang Yao, whose Script role was currently someone else’s wife. Her mission was also to protect Zhuang Yao until the mission ended. In other words, she would leave whenever Zhuang Yao left.

Rao Lin and Song Zhu’s mission was simple and brutal: survive seven days.

Zhuang Yao and Luo Li’s mission was more abstract: overturn Aotianli.

Ning Shuo asked, “Have you seen the Ghost Bride from the Tian Family ancestral hall’s ghost marriage yet?”

Song Zhu nodded. “She’s extremely aggressive.”

“Only aggressive?”

Song Zhu looked puzzled. “An NPC in charge of killing people would only be aggressive, of course. They’re different from plot NPCs. They don’t think on their own.”

Ning Shuo told them about Mingzhi, who had already developed self-awareness, then described what had happened during Spirit Tracing. “Looking at it that way, the fragment I’m looking for should be on her.”

Since the Spirit Tracing had shown a memory from Ning Shuo’s first-person perspective, that fragment was definitely deeply connected to him.

With practiced ease, Ning Shuo hooked an arm around Ning Wang’s neck, then just as smoothly lifted his legs onto him. Once he had successfully settled into a princess carry, he gave an equally practiced order: “Ningning, to the Sun Family!”

After the two of them left, Zhuang Yao said, “I feel like Ning Wang is like an ox.”

Song Zhu shook his head and said seriously, “A horse would be more accurate. A means of transportation.”

“An ox-horse, then. He’s really being worked like a beast of burden.”

“One handles the brainwork, the other handles the physical labor.”

“Ning Wang doesn’t look like someone without a brain.”

“The two of them think more or less the same way. Since Ning Shuo has already said it, Ning Wang is happy to take it easy. Division of labor and cooperation. Pretty good, actually.”

…

This was not the hardest Script Rao Lin had ever been through, but it was absolutely one of the few exceptionally irritating ones.

The drawn-out timeline was not the most irritating part. The most irritating part was that a bride had come knocking at his door.

To be precise, she should be the Ghost Bride, and also the Mingzhi Ning Shuo had mentioned.

But at first, Rao Lin did not know what Mingzhi looked like. He thought she was just a minor monster in Aotianli, so when she showed up at his door, Rao Lin was still firmly sticking to his character setting. He was even hesitating, nearly about to start verbally humiliating her, when-

The Ghost Bride spoke.

Oh. So she was Mingzhi. No need to maintain his character setting in front of her.

Mingzhi’s appearance was still the tragic state she had been in before death, but she did not care in the slightest. She sat down on Rao Lin’s bed with complete nonchalance. “Where is Ning Banxian?”

Rao Lin poured her a cup of tea. “He’s with the Number One Swordsman in the World. What do you need him for?”

Mingzhi looked him up and down. “How strange. As the Sun Family’s eldest young master, and a man at that, you actually addressed me so politely.”

“Gender equality, gender equality.”

At that, Mingzhi gave a cold snort. “When will they be back?”

Their mission was complete, so right now they were probably interfering with the other side’s mission.

Rao Lin said, “Perhaps… in two days?”

The candle flame went out abruptly. Rao Lin instinctively dodged to the side, but a bloody cut had already appeared on his face.

In the faint moonlight, Mingzhi licked the blood from her fingers. A faint red glimmer flickered in her eyes. “Two days is too slow. Why don’t I eat you instead? Once they hear that the Sun Family’s eldest young master is dead, they should hurry back, shouldn’t they?”