Chapter 2511: Too Smooth
"You can represent the Mi Family?" Buzz Cut let out a cold laugh. "I want to see someone from the Mi Family."
"I can." Among the three, the oldest Player smiled as he handed over a business card. "I’m from the Mi Family. Whatever you want to say, you can say it to me."
Buzz Cut couldn’t help looking at Xu Huo beside him. Even though they’d agreed to use the Wan Family incident to threaten the Mi Family, he’d actually made up his mind before coming—rather than rely on some vague piece of information, it’d be better to grab two Mi Family members and use them directly as hostages. He hadn’t expected that the few Mi Family politicians wouldn’t show up at all, and Players were nothing like ordinary people when it came to catching them.
"We know the Wan Family massacre is connected to you." Xu Huo went straight to the point. "Right now our friends are waiting outside the Mi Family compound. If we’re not out by the agreed time, this matter will spread everywhere."
The three from the Mi Family didn’t change expression. They only asked, "What do you want?"
"Not much. Just a few Props." Xu Huo said, "Because of your infighting in District 001, we can’t clear the game smoothly. Giving us a bit of compensation isn’t too much to ask, right?"
The older Player nodded. "It’s not too much."
With that, he took a case out of the luggage compartment, opened it, and inside were two Props and five devices. "All Rank-A quality. This should be enough for you to split among yourselves."
The Mi Family being this straightforward was beyond what Xu Huo and the others had expected. It was going a bit too smoothly.
"Wait." Just as Buzz Cut was about to take the case, the older Player stretched out his hand and pressed down on the edge of the lid. "You can’t walk away with these things on just a few words. You have to hand over the evidence."
Xu Huo hadn’t prepared fake evidence in advance, so he turned his gaze to Buzz Cut. Buzz Cut and the others had planned to just snatch the goods by force, so they likewise hadn’t prepared anything. The Mi Family wasn’t giving them a single opening—let alone at the meeting, he could feel that there wasn’t an ordinary person in any of the nearby rooms, and a bit farther away things were cut off by a barrier, making it impossible to know what was going on inside.
After thinking for a moment, Buzz Cut took out a storage device and shook it. "On the day the Wan Family was attacked, someone happened to shoot this video at the Wan Family. It’s proof of those Players making a move. I believe plenty of people would be willing to pay a high price for this storage device."
"As for why we’re not looking for anyone else and specifically came to you, I’m sure Mid knows perfectly well in his own heart."
He closed his fingers around the storage device. "There are several more people outside. Seven items aren’t enough to split. Add three more."
The older Player stared darkly at his hand. After hesitating for two seconds, he still put down three more Props. "Once you’ve taken the items, will you really keep your word and not let this leak?"
Buzz Cut reached out and took the case. "Have your people remove the Defensive Barrier outside. We’ll leave the Mi Family right away, leave Cat Fruit Town, and never come back."
The older Player seemed to be weighing it, but at that moment a sudden boom came from not far away, the ground shuddered, and then alarms blared across the entire town!
The older Player’s expression changed abruptly. He coordinated with the two behind him to attack Xu Huo’s group, mainly going for the evidence in Buzz Cut’s hand.
But Buzz Cut had long anticipated they’d try this. His body folded down like a snake, bending into an eerie arc. He grabbed the case, then used a Defensive Barrier to throw the three of them back, and ran for the outside without looking back.
"March in place!" the older Player shouted. Buzz Cut, who had already run into the courtyard, suddenly froze in place, as if he’d gotten stuck in midair. He couldn’t even lift his feet, and he couldn’t help yelling, "A little help here!"
Xu Huo pulled out a Rank-B longsword and, together with Player One and Player Three, forced the three of them back. After buying enough time, they split up and withdrew. On the way out, Xu Huo grabbed Buzz Cut, and the group climbed over the courtyard wall. Without lingering, they headed straight out of town.
By now the streets were already in chaos. Players from all over the town were rushing toward the Wan Family. With several consecutive explosions, countless photos sprayed out of the Wan Family courtyard like a geyser, then were carried by air currents out of the compound. The Military District Players wanted to stop them, but it was already too late. Quite a few photos had already flown out. The content of the photos was simple: most of them showed Wan Dong standing in front of a man in black with his face covered. Taken alone, the scene didn’t seem particularly noteworthy, but the time specially enlarged on the photos was what mattered—because it showed they had been taken within those few minutes when the Wan Family incident happened!
"The photos are real!" The Law Enforcement Team, which arrived first, collected the photos while testing them. At the very least, they could confirm the content hadn’t been edited. Whether the timestamp was real was another question.
However, the residents of Cat Fruit Town cared about the Wan Family even more than the Players had imagined. Some people actually plucked up their courage to come out and pick up photos, and some recognized Wan Dong. "That’s Xiao Dong. She was wearing this hair clip this morning!"
A single stone stirred up a thousand waves. Besides the Law Enforcement Team and the Military District, the Level 00 Players spontaneously gathering near the Wan Family also turned their eyes to the underground beneath the Wan Family courtyard: someone knew the truth; there was a living eyewitness!
For a while, even the air seemed to freeze. A female officer in uniform shouted an order, "Catch them alive!"
In the underground cave beneath the Wan Family, Bi Qinglian’s legs were trembling. "It’s over, it’s over, I’m dead this time. If I fall into the hands of the Military District, who knows how they’ll torture me!"
The Girl in the painting kicked him forward, signaling him to block the tunnel entrance.
Unless the Military District was ruthless enough to just blast the entire Wan Family compound up, grabbing people from the tunnel entrance was the most time-efficient method. As long as they blocked the entrance, they could buy themselves more time.
Bi Qinglian was helpless. He could only hurl Defense Props outward like his life depended on it—he didn’t even have the courage to go head-to-head with the Military District Players. It wasn’t about being afraid to die; he was mainly afraid of pissing them off and then having no good end if he got caught.
But he was overthinking it. One "Non-Game Field Simulation Device" from the Military District came down, and all the Props in his hands were rendered useless. When he saw someone jumping down, Bi Qinglian instinctively turned back to look for the Girl in the painting—but there was no one behind him anymore. Shocked and enraged, he was just about to run when the Military District Player who’d landed kicked him flat on the ground, stepped on his back to pin him, and drove an anesthetic needle into him.
His body suddenly went limp, but Bi Qinglian hadn’t lost consciousness yet. He stared at the passage ahead, then closed his eyes helplessly.
Seeing they had their target, the Military District Players quickly searched the cave once. Finding nothing else, they dragged him out and said to the comrades outside, "Check this underground passage."
Several more Players jumped down, deployed devices, and followed them, carefully checking every corner of the passage.
By this time, the Girl in the painting had already crawled through a small hole dug in the middle of the passage into the underground pipes of Cat Fruit Town, then followed the pipes back up to the surface and moved against the flow of people toward the Mi Family.