Chapter 195: The Ones Who Can’t Be Shaken Off (14)
When Su Mingxiu’s voice faded, at the moment Wei Shang made a move, the sleeves of Rong Rong, who was encircled in her arms and was clinging to her like a dodder vine, fell down.
Then, the person who was holding her suddenly went limp, and her voice only had enough time to pass through the mask and say one word:
“You…”
Rong Rong caught her directly. She placed the person who had fainted because she was unprepared on the booth. She deliberately avoided the dogs, who were baring their teeth and starting to show hostility to her. She stood on the steps of the passageway on the other side and said to the people below, “Of course.”
She said, “The owner here has already agreed to your request, and everyone has seen your performance—”
“Now, I’m yours.”
Su Mingxiu stared at the mask on her face. After a long time, she chuckled softly. Only Rong Rong could see the mist that surrounded her.
When the mist had dispersed, the person in the cage had turned back into the ordinary-looking woman from before. There were no longer any of those blurry color blocks that deliberately made the image quality look inferior.
Rong Rong relied on the anesthetic that she had gotten from the hospital to knock out the dangerous Wei Shang. Taking advantage of the fact that no one had discovered her actions yet, she brazenly walked through the VIP passageway and left the sinful underground second level.
If nothing unexpected happened, then for the rest of the time in the game, she shouldn’t get close to this underground fighting ring again.
Who knew that plans couldn’t keep up with changes? Just as she had walked out of the fighting ring and was standing under the deep night sky, preparing to take off her mask, she suddenly saw Tang Yiyi’s figure appear not far from her.
The other person was sitting in the back seat of a luxurious car, examining the luxurious building in front of her. She was holding her phone to her ear, and Rong Rong didn’t know who she was talking to. But her gaze had already met Rong Rong’s, who had suddenly rushed out of the corner passageway—
The woman in the suit in the car frowned. Her gaze scanned her strange mask and her very fashionable clothes, and then she looked away uninterestedly.
Tang Yiyi had had the driver follow the car that had stopped at the entrance of this fighting ring, which made her feel very strange.
Because the Rong Rong that she had in her memory, who was like an obedient little girl, would never be associated with such a chaotic place.
But…
Thinking about the exorbitant amount of money that the other person had asked to borrow earlier, and the way she had acted as if she would give everything for that unrelated distant relative, she couldn’t help but have some bad thoughts…
She had heard that there were always those underground black fighting rings. When she thought about the way that Rong Rong had lost her mind and said that she would break up with her if she didn’t lend her money, Tang Yiyi had to consider this possibility.
Because she usually never got close to a place like this, she was now calling someone that she knew, wanting to ask if they had seen a girl who looked like Rong Rong.
The person who had suddenly rushed out from outside the car window made her feel that her figure was a bit familiar. At first, she had thought it was Rong Rong.
But after carefully looking at the other person’s clothes, Tang Yiyi knew that she was just worrying too much.
Just as Rong Rong had subconsciously stopped and her heart had skipped a beat because of Tang Yiyi’s sudden gaze, a hand suddenly reached out from the alley and pressed on her shoulder.
“Ah!” Her figure was pulled back into the world that was shrouded in shadows. Rong Rong subconsciously turned around to look.
Because the mask was limiting her vision, she had to raise her head. But quicker than her actions was the temperature of the other person’s grip on her wrist and her slightly helpless voice, “Your moves can’t be so obvious, especially when you don’t know if the other person is prepared.”
It was… Su Mingxiu.
Rong Rong subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. The breath she exhaled was on her mask. It was Su Mingxiu who led her through an alley and away from Tang Yiyi’s vehicle. Then, she helped her take off that strange Queen of Hearts mask and casually threw it into the trash can next to them.
“You’re okay?”
After asking this question, Rong Rong felt that it was completely pointless. And… she quickly suppressed her previous relieved look and became wary again.
Su Mingxiu could sense the change in her mood from her aura. She sized her up and, after warning her not to be so obvious next time she took action against that dog-raising person, she found that the person in front of her didn’t seem to be injured. After nodding her head, she released her grip on Rong Rong’s hand and turned to walk out of the alley without saying a word.
The night lights of the bustling city couldn’t reach over the high walls of the alley, allowing the cold and narrow road to be swallowed by the dark world.
When Rong Rong saw her back about to blend into the night and disappear from her sight, she couldn’t help but say, “Wait!”
Her lips opened and closed, and in the end, she asked, “You… don’t you have anything to say to me?”
Was she just going to leave like this?
Was she not even planning to explain what her agreement with Wei Shang in the octagonal cage had been about?
Was it just that she had seen her in danger, so she had just made up a reason… or did she really want to have her?
This wasn’t Rong Rong being narcissistic and thinking that she had an unparalleled charm. It was just based on her understanding of this broken romance strategy game.
Even if she herself looked more ordinary than the average passerby in the game, according to the usual settings of this kind of game, those special and outstanding existences in the game would always be attracted by the [player].
This was an unchanging law of strategy games.
Although Su Mingxiu was a bug, this state of being able to appear everywhere like a ghost, and her terrifying power of being able to kill over a dozen vicious dogs in the octagonal cage and remain unscathed, despite having such a pitiful identity, all made her worry about her own safety.
—Even though her emotions were always betraying her reason and were silently eroding her thoughts, secretly telling her that this person could be trusted.
Hearing her words, the person who was walking ahead stopped.
Even the sound of footsteps in the alley disappeared. An endless silence came over them, making people feel cold to the bone. Su Mingxiu, who was walking in front of her, remembered something and turned around to look at her. As if she had just remembered something, she said, “I am actually very curious about one thing. How did you recognize me?”
She was able to recognize Rong Rong because the other person’s appearance had never changed, including her figure and aura.
But after appearing as countless passerby identities, and based on the reactions of those around her, Su Mingxiu knew that her appearance in this world must have changed. Either it was being blocked by some kind of disguise, or it was being blocked from the minds of other people.
So… how had Rong Rong recognized her?
“Huh?”
Not expecting her to ask such a question, Rong Rong’s eyes widened slightly. After a moment, she instinctively replied, “Because… it’s just very obvious?”
“Very obvious?”
Rong Rong raised her hand to make a gesture. Then, she realized that she couldn’t describe the difference between Su Mingxiu’s art style and the others. After swallowing for a moment, she said weakly, “It’s just… don’t you look in the mirror? Don’t you realize that your pixels… are different from the people around you? Your pixels… are too low.”
Su Mingxiu: “?”
She was also clearly stunned for a moment. After a while, she couldn’t help but laugh.
“So that’s how it is.”
From her reaction, Rong Rong realized that the way she saw herself was probably different from the way others saw her, so she subconsciously asked, “Then what do you see when you look in the mirror?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“Uh…?” Rong Rong’s expression, which had been left dumbfounded by Su Mingxiu’s answer, was slow to have a question mark pop up above her head.
When she reacted, she realized that this person was about to leave again. She was even facing away from her and waving her hand lazily behind her back. But because the pixels were too low, this handsome gesture had a comedic feel to it, “Next time you need help, tell me beforehand. I’ll be nearby.”
“Wait a minute!”
Rong Rong subconsciously took two steps toward her, “I still have questions I haven’t finished asking.”
The person who had been grabbed by her turned around very patiently, her eyes as gentle as moonlight, “Okay, ask.”
“Why… have you been helping me?”
Even though she was being enveloped by her soft gaze and gentle tone, Rong Rong was determined to ask the question that was in her heart.
“If I tell you the truth, you’d definitely run away, right?” Su Mingxiu looked at her meaningfully. As expected, just as she took two steps toward her, the other person was already trying to retreat.
She didn’t mind it and only chuckled lightly.
“I’m just teasing you.”
The person who was about to turn out of the alleyway, and who was just one step away from stepping into the bustling world outside, had half of her face illuminated by the scattered lights from the outside.
Although it was just blurry color blocks, it made people feel that her skin was definitely as white as snow.
“I’ve promised you many times that I wouldn’t bully you the next time we met—”
“I should also fulfill my promise once.”
In the previous worlds, every time they met, Su Mingxiu would be unable to resist releasing the malicious side of her heart that wanted to bully the other person because of the various immature states that the protagonists of those worlds had shown.
Only this time.
Thinking about the way that the other person had stiffened when she had seen the fruit knife in her hand in the hospital room, Su Mingxiu lowered her eyes. After leaving these words behind, she didn’t care what kind of expression Rong Rong had. She strode into the lights outside and quickly disappeared into the endless stream of traffic.
Even though she already knew what the system’s goal was this time—
And even though she already knew that, out of all the worlds from before until now, the protagonist of this world was the most unlikely to fall in love with her… maybe, this was the last world that she would be able to come to.
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