Chapter 27
Chapter 27
She had no interest in continuing where she’d left off. Her gaze swept over the biker, showing unmistakable understanding and hostility.
A faint aggression colored Zhang Xueya’s innocent face. Her tone turned mocking. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Silent, who never shows his face.”
“Just because you won’t open your mouth, you think you can police everyone else’s?”
Zhao Xiuming genuinely hadn’t expected the biker to have such a nickname. Still less had he expected the man’s black goggles to display text.
Bold red lettering appeared on the digital display in a Song-style serif font, one word at a time, as though each were leaping out at them:
[NOW] [YOU’RE] [FUCKING] [JUDGING] [ME?]
It was quite the revelation. Zhao Xiuming couldn’t help cupping the biker’s head in his hands. “Hahaha! That’s so weird.”
Seeing Zhang Xueya’s darkening face, Zhou Qingyan whispered to Zhao Xiuming, “Can’t you read people’s faces?”
He pointed at the biker’s mask and goggles, deliberately evading her question. “What face?”
Zhou Qingyan wanted to say she’d meant Zhang Xueya’s, but was afraid of embarrassing her. She hurriedly changed the subject. “Stop fooling around. How are you not worried at all? Shouldn’t we be thinking about how to get out?”
“If Assistant Li’s injuries aren’t treated soon, he’ll die.”
Assistant Li remained composed. “Sorry to interrupt you young people flirting, but I do need medical attention.”
“And how much longer do you intend to keep up this happy gathering?”
“Zhao Xiuming, Zhang Xueya threatened me just now. You made it clear you’d save me. So what’s going on between you now?”
“Are you enemies on opposing sides, bound to fight sooner or later?”
“Or did you join forces long ago and decide to kill the protagonist together?”
Zhou Qingyan’s scalp prickled. “What are you talking about, Assistant Li?”
“How are they on opposing sides? I’ve been wanting to ask: what do you mean by ‘protagonist’? All I know is you’re still suspicious of Xueya.”
“She just saved you and me. She saved Zhao Xiuming too.”
“If things really are as you say, why save us? Why not simply let us die here?”
She hurriedly reached for the others. “Xueya, Zhao Xiuming, say something. We’re all going to get out alive, aren’t we?”
“Xueya, you chose Zhao Xiuming over Li Zhehan. That means you like Zhao Xiuming, right?”
“Enough,” Assistant Li snapped at her.
“I don’t know whether she likes him. But I do know she’s determined to kill my young master.”
Assistant Li had been an orphan adopted by the Li family, indoctrinated and trained from childhood. As an adult, he’d become the intermediary who kept their dirty dealings off their hands. He owed them his upbringing.
After the chaos of this instance, he’d sorted out his thoughts and gradually accepted the “insane” worldview Zhao Xiuming had presented.
Dependent on others, he had no choice but to submit. He didn’t dare wager on whether Zhao Xiuming or Zhang Xueya would have the last laugh.
One thing was certain, though: right now, only Zhao Xiuming would help him.
He struggled up and moved toward Zhao Xiuming. He had so little strength that he fell back down before reaching him.
All he could do was reach out and grasp Zhao Xiuming’s calf. “I don’t know what your aim is. I don’t know Zhang Xueya’s, either. Maybe you’re both mad. I’m betting you’ll save me, but I can’t be sure.”
“If I’m going to die, can you at least let me understand why?”
Zhao Xiuming crouched down and tilted his head. “Ask away. You know I’ve never lied to you.”
Assistant Li gave a short laugh. It was hard to tell whether he believed him.
Beside them, the biker bent down, seized Assistant Li by the back of his collar, and lifted him before setting him down to one side.
At least that spared Assistant Li from lying on the floor while also putting some distance between him and Zhao Xiuming.
Assistant Li thanked him politely, then asked Zhao Xiuming urgently, “Did you plan everything that’s happened since we entered the hospital?”
As soon as he asked, he felt that was unlikely. “Or… did you make it up as you went along?”
“I’d guess the latter. You seem to enjoy that.”
His expression grew serious. Prolonged tension, lack of food and water, and abuse at the players’ hands had left him terribly weak. He simply didn’t have the energy to disguise his emotions anymore.
“At first I thought the biker had impersonated you to abduct Young Master Zhehan, deliberately leaving Zhou Qingyan to bring word so he could lure us here.”
“But Zhang Xueya was the one behind it. Even without the biker, she would have kept Zhehan here.”
“The biker seems to have used her plan to his own advantage. He deliberately left clues, determined to involve you.”
“Without him, Zhou Qingyan would simply have had a supernatural encounter. Zhang Xueya and my young master would have vanished. No one would know what had happened, and I’d have no leads to follow.”
“In that sense, I should thank you and the biker.”
Zhao Xiuming didn’t deny it. The biker had deliberately dragged him into this. That was precisely why he’d asked what right the man had to be angry.
Why he’d been so certain he wouldn’t die. Why he’d dared to jump from the roof.
He’d known the biker would probably appear. If he hadn’t, that would have been fine too. Zhao Xiuming took great delight in courting death.
He leaned closer. “Anything else? Keep going.”
Assistant Li frowned and pointed at Zhang Xueya. “She never expected me to find this place, let alone bring you and Zhou Qingyan.”
“You said Young Master Zhehan and Zhang Xueya were the male and female leads. The rest of us were supporting characters. The anomalies in the instance couldn’t kill us.”
“Because the leads hadn’t gotten together yet. We still had roles to play.”
“Zhang Xueya understood that too. So she had the anomaly doctors turn the bodyguards and driver into a three-headed monster to hunt us down.”
“Two groups of players and one monster. She didn’t intend for us to survive.”
“Yet all of us characters still ended up meeting. You were the variable, Zhao Xiuming.”
Assistant Li had spent most of his life above others. He might not have thrown his weight around, but he had the mindset of someone in power.
Rising from orphan to the Li family’s adopted son, crossing class boundaries and receiving an education that way, he had naturally seen cruelty. Now, in the end, his entire worldview lay in pieces.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like what’s happened over these past few days.”
He didn’t indulge in self-pity. He simply said, “I want to know what Zhang Xueya wants, and what you want.”
Zhao Xiuming greatly admired people like him. Even in desperate straits, he’d keep searching for a way out and looking for advantages, playing the long game.
He claimed to want to understand before he died. In reality, he was thinking about how to profit afterward if he managed to survive.
“Guilt-tripping me again?” Zhao Xiuming’s smile stretched wider and wider, exposing slender, pointed teeth. He looked dangerous. “Fishing for information in that roundabout way, hmm?”
“That’s really quite hurtful.”
“But what can I do? I spoil you. The truth is, I just find it fun.”
“Simply put, I guessed something, but didn’t know whether I was right. So I kept playing along to find out.”
“As for Zhang Xueya’s motives, those are a girl’s private affairs. I can’t tell you.”
“Xueya.” He turned, offering a cheerful suggestion. “You’re stalling for time anyway. Why not tell Assistant Li about it?”
Zhou Qingyan was too bewildered to interrupt. Zhang Xueya, meanwhile, found it funny, in the way something became funny when it left you speechless with rage.
“So you know I’m stalling.” Her tone was hostile. “If you want my secrets, trade me yours.”
Zhao Xiuming spread his hands. “Nope. Assistant Li is the one who wants to know.”
“Oh, please!” She pointed at him accusingly. “You’ve been completely different since the hot pot restaurant. You think I haven’t noticed?”
“Something must have happened to you!”
“And who’s the guy with the huge pecs behind you?”
“You expect me to tell you about myself when you won’t tell me anything? Dream on.”
Zhao Xiuming looked even more innocent, his voice aggrieved. “Don’t be angry.”
“Didn’t you say I knew everything? You were right.”
“Since I already know, of course I’m not curious about you.”
“A girl’s private affairs are better left for her to explain herself.”
Hands on her hips, she snapped, “You said it yourself: they’re private. Can’t I choose not to talk?”
Zhou Qingyan found it extraordinary. For the first time, she truly felt that Zhao Xiuming and Zhang Xueya had grown up together.
They bickered like grade-school children. The usually indifferent, lazy Zhao Xiuming seemed like a little boy, while the normally gentle Zhang Xueya had become hot-tempered.
Something felt off in Zhou Qingyan’s heart. Before she could examine it, Zhao Xiuming retorted, “I’m starting to ship you two.”
“You and Zhou Qingyan are so moving together. When you lured Li Zhehan here, you still made sure she got out safely, even with the biker attacking.”
“Assistant Li didn’t kidnap Zhou Qingyan. Despite being scared out of her mind, she never changed her story. Even after being taken for a psychiatric patient, she came back of her own accord to save you.”
“Even now, with the evidence staring her in the face, she’s on your side. She won’t believe you planned it all.”
“She was the first person you saved just now. And you’re trying to kill every one of us except her.”
“If you don’t explain, aren’t you afraid she’ll get the wrong idea about you?”
It was the first time Zhao Xiuming had said so much. He stood and draped himself bonelessly against the biker beside him.
Then he gave her a thumbs-up. “Zhang Xueya, you really love her.”
Zhou Qingyan pointed shakily at herself. After a long moment, she said, “Huh? I love Xueya a lot too…”
“That’s why we’re best friends.”
Zhao Xiuming watched with relaxed amusement as Zhang Xueya lost her composure.
She took a deep breath and calmed herself. Then, with a faint smile, she went straight for the killing blow. “You’re the one I like, Zhao Xiuming.”
He was about to respond when the masked biker slipped an arm around his waist and quietly tightened his hold.
Zhang Xueya opened her mouth. “Look at that. I’m starting to ship you two as well.”
Then she couldn’t help adding, “I really do like you quite a bit, Zhao Xiuming.”
He shook his head, utterly certain. “No, you don’t.”
She was briefly silenced, but didn’t argue further.
Instead, she smiled as if a weight had lifted. “You really do understand me.”
“You’re right. My feelings for you aren’t strong enough to make me change my plans. I can sacrifice you for my own sake.”
“I won’t fall into the same trap twice. When I said I liked you, I was trying to use those feelings to make myself look better.”
“But judging by your attitude, that won’t work.”
“Then let me put it another way. Don’t stand against me, Zhao Xiuming.”
“I’m not a bad person.”
Zhang Xueya looked up at the cocoon overhead. The little life inside was still digesting Li Zhehan’s protagonist halo.
She had no idea how many moves ahead Zhao Xiuming’s mind was operating. Exasperated, she said, “You really are so full of yourself.”
He looked up at the cocoon too and shrugged. “I’m just trying to undo my own interference as much as possible, so your original plan can go ahead.”
The others couldn’t understand the riddles they were trading. Zhang Xueya stopped hiding it. “I’ve been reborn.”