As he spoke, Meng Qixi couldn't help feeling somewhat dejected. Although their great vengeance had been exacted, the dead and buried could ultimately never be resurrected.
Li Ang calmly asked Meng Qixi, "What do you plan to do next?"
"Plan…"
Meng Qixi glanced at the Ghost, whose expression of malice had faded, and hesitated before saying, "So many people have died here. We should probably escape to the mountains, the farther the better. Fortunately, I'm a Ghost-type player, so I don't need to worry about running out of yin energy and can even use some of it to maintain her form and consciousness."
"That's good."
Li Ang nodded and, recalling something, said to the Ghost, "By the way, can you spit out Lu Maodian again?"
After thinking it over, the Ghost's distended belly churned and writhed.
Followed by a retching HORK, the malformed infant that was Lu Maodian was vomited out by the Ghost, falling to the ground. He lay in a puddle of yellow-green stomach acid, resembling a wrinkled, deflated pineapple.
Using a streetlight pole, Li Ang propped up the pineapple-Lu Maodian's neck, asked a few questions, and then had the Ghost eat Lu Maodian again. He himself returned to the villa's attic and took the ancient books from the altar that detailed the Dusheng Village Array.
Going down to the second-floor bedroom, he opened a secret door, entered a compartment, and input the code to unlock Lu Maodian's private safe.
After opening the safe, he found stacks of cash, documents, ledgers, property deeds, a small pistol, and several cell phones.
As a moderately successful construction company boss, Lu Maodian naturally encountered some dark dealings in the course of his business. These included delivering benefits, smoothing things over with officials, providing funds for certain "enterprising" social groups, hiring thugs to injure people, threats, extortion, and connections to human trafficking, among other things.
The more evil deeds he committed and the longer he lived, the more he feared the invisible hand of fate.
Fearing a day when his crimes might be exposed, Lu Maodian had documented most of his shady dealings in a notebook. He thought that even if he faced judgment one day, he could drag down a few others with him and possibly negotiate a lighter sentence in prison.
Ever cautious, Lu Maodian had not kept the data in the city but in an alloy safe in his hometown of Dusheng Village.
Among these documents, teeming with corruption and obscenity, were the details of the criminal syndicate that supplied people to Dusheng Village.
The head of this syndicate was a middle-aged man named Gu Gaohong.
Li Ang returned to the villa entrance. Wearing rubber gloves and using Lu Maodian's phone, he registered a temporary account on the player forum.
Subsequently, Li Ang used this temporary account to make a post.
The content of the post was very simple, just one line:
"Lv2 player Gu Gaohong, male, 45 years old, from Lvzhou City, Han East. ID number ***, phone number ***. Currently active in the Lingcheng Suburb."
This post was quickly buried by other threads on the forum. Two minutes later, it was deleted by forum moderators, who also banned the temporary account.
However, Li Ang had already achieved his goal.
Seeing Meng Qixi's puzzled expression, Li Ang smiled and explained, "Player status is an extremely precious commodity, enough to attract the covetous attention of various powers. Simply make a random post disclosing someone's identity information, claim they are a player, and various organizations will be alerted and take action."
They would also employ certain "enterprising" social groups to find him and subject him to threats, coercion, or even abduction.
Now, the personal information of Gu Gaohong, the criminal who supplied "goods" to Dusheng Village, had been exposed on the forum under the "player" label.
Within minutes, operations to capture him would be put on the agenda by numerous major powers.
His personal resume, life experiences, and character traits would be collected and organized. His current specific location would be easily pinpointed.
If official institutions found him first, they would dig up his criminal history, and he would face imprisonment.
If conglomerates, secret societies, or foreign intelligence agencies found him first, then his entire criminal gang, including him, would be bound and relentlessly tortured, compelled to hand over Game Currency and equipment.
If he couldn't produce them, he would still be eliminated by the conglomerates, secret societies, or foreign intelligence agencies—firstly, to silence him, and secondly, to seize any potential player status.
A single forum post could easily eliminate a person far away.
This kind of insidious tactic, using others to do one's dirty work, was not uncommon on the forum. Many players had used this method to eliminate real-world opponents they couldn't conveniently deal with personally.
Read ahead and get updates at *.
No matter how many times they were deceived, official institutions, conglomerates, "enterprising" social groups, secret organizations, and foreign intelligence agencies would still naively "fall for it."
Because under the current circumstances, player status was simply too valuable. Despite the risk of being exploited, it was worth a shot.
When one thought about it, this era was truly a dark comedy. The dire warning of mass extinction from the killing game loomed large, yet players and organizations constantly schemed against each other. Overt and covert conspiracies were rampant, a dazzling array of backstabbing, plotting, and trickery. Perhaps only when doomsday truly arrived would these 'terrifying upright apes' stop their infighting and unite....
Speculating about his future fate offered little help to his current predicament.
As the instigator of the major incident and casualties in Dusheng Village, Li Ang would undoubtedly be targeted by a manhunt and investigation from the Special Affairs Bureau. Even with disguises, he still needed to tie up loose ends.
He returned to the villa and meticulously erased all traces in the surrounding area that could potentially reveal his identity, then bid farewell to Meng Qixi and the Nameless Female Ghost.
He didn't add Meng Qixi as a System friend, and the latter, in tacit understanding, didn't bring up the matter either. This was mainly to prevent the Special Affairs Bureau's pursuit and investigation, to avoid one being caught and the other's information being exposed.
However, the world is vast; if fate decreed, they would meet again.
As long as one lives long enough, they are bound to meet again in the killing game.
After expressing his gratitude to Li Ang once more, Meng Qixi stepped into the misty rain with the Nameless Female Ghost, their figures gradually vanishing into the gentle, pre-dawn night.
[Mysterious event in Dusheng Village has been resolved]
[Regular mission "Six Feet Under" has been completed]
Listening to the System prompt in his ear, Li Ang heaved a sigh.
The mission name "Six Feet Under" probably had a triple meaning. The first referred to the grave, six feet under. The second referred to the six-foot podium Meng Qixi had struggled at all his life. And the third referred to the underground prison in Lu Gui's home. How many people would the resurgence of anomalies, brought about by the unfolding killing games, turn into ghosts? And how many ghosts into people...?