Chapter 103

Chapter 104: We Are Good People, We Don’t Do Bad Things~

At first light, Qian Qi came back to the spot where Li Hai Sheng had spent the night.

Li Hai Sheng looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Puffy eyelids hung over two dark circles, and he was shoving a hard, still-dry compressed biscuit into his mouth with shaking hands. Clearly, without fire, he had frozen all night.

The moment he saw Qian Qi, he exploded like a lit firecracker and yelled: “Qian Qi! Where the heck did you go? You still remember how to come back?”

He had waited the whole night, scared a passing Magibeast might ambush him, so he didn’t dare close his eyes. On top of that, a night without fire had left him freezing and hungry.

Holding an armful of firewood, Qian Qi ran over and refused to admit any fault, saying with a straight face: “It’s really not my fault! You don’t know how dark it was up there. I was picking up wood, turned around, and realized I was lost. Then my flashlight died!”

She piled on the complaints as if she were the victim, grumbling: “I looked for you all night, I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t eat. But you? You secretly ate cookies without me!”

[Are you seriously blaming me now?] Li Hai Sheng stared, speechless.

Thick-skinned as ever, Qian Qi held out her hand and said: “Give me some too!”

Seeing her reach for his food, Li Hai Sheng instantly forgot she had left him to freeze. He twisted away and snapped: “I only have this pack. Solve your own problem!”

Qian Qi pouted and muttered under her breath: “I gave you your chance…”

“What?” Li Hai Sheng didn’t catch it and looked back, suspicious.

“I said, you’re the big shot, so you should eat more,” Qian Qi raised her voice, then added briskly, “Boss, you must be frozen stiff. Let’s start a fire right now.”

She dropped the wood onto the stone circle he had built for a campfire and motioned for him to light it. He was freezing, so he pulled out a lighter and set the wood ablaze.

Warmth rolled off the flames, and with it his stored-up sleepiness crashed down on him.

“You must be exhausted,” Qian Qi said kindly as she rubbed her chilly hands, adding, “You sleep first. I’ll keep watch.”

For once, Li Hai Sheng felt satisfied with her attitude. He nodded and lay down in a comfortable spot.

He was dead tired. Yesterday he had fought Magibeasts and rushed along the road, stayed up all night, and eaten only awful compressed biscuits. He needed real rest before he could keep fighting.

“If a Magibeast shows up, wake me at once,” he warned, pointing a finger at her as he settled in, “Without me, you won’t survive. If I find out you dare abandon me, I’ll make sure you die miserably.”

“Yes, yes,” Qian Qi said with an obedient little bow, looking like a total coward.

She waited a bit. After five or six minutes, Li Hai Sheng sank into heavy sleep. Qian Qi immediately set down her small backpack, unzipped it, and started rummaging.

If you looked closely, you would see her bag stuffed with all kinds of things: Hemostatic Potion, Defense Fruit, a flashlight, antibiotics, and lots of little medicine packets. Most were colorful powders that looked like sugared candy. She had made them on purpose to “win,” special Magiplant Powder she had researched herself.

Qian Qi pulled out an orange powder packet, glanced at the sleeping Li Hai Sheng, and sprinkled the powder straight into the flames.

A faint sweet smell spread at once. Qian Qi covered her nose and slipped far away without a sound. Only after ten minutes did she trot back.

She walked up and kicked Li Hai Sheng sharply in the calf.

He didn’t move at all, showing no sign of waking. If not for the breath at his nose, he would have looked exactly like a corpse.

“Hee hee, it kicked in,” Qian Qi said with a crooked smile. She crouched and unclasped the Light-Brain from his wrist.

“Let me see,” she said, flipping open the contacts. She found Li Hai Sheng’s chat with Chen Tong. The messages showed Chen Tong wanted to hire him to kill someone, with details to be discussed face to face.

“Hm…” Qian Qi rubbed her chin, fingers flying over the Light-Brain until she opened the audio app.

“Aha, I knew you might have recorded it,” she said. She tapped the recording from yesterday and played it. Chen Tong and Li Hai Sheng’s voices came through.

Chen Tong said in a cold voice: “Take her out. When it’s done, I’ll transfer the remaining 20 million to your account.”

Li Hai Sheng said flatly: “No problem. She’s just an ordinary person. Crushing her is as easy as crushing an ant.”

Chen Tong’s tone turned harsh as he hammered the warning: “She’s tricky. Don’t underestimate her. Do you hear me? And don’t let her trick you for money. If she tries to flip you, remember this: she can’t pay double, and she might even cheat you. Do not fall for it. Don’t talk to her. Kill her right away.”

Chen Tong repeated, voice nearly tearing apart: “Do not talk to her. Don’t give her the chance to speak!”

Qian Qi couldn’t help laughing: “No wonder he’s my good boy. He really knows me.”

“It seems this guy really came to kill me,” she said as she kept listening. When she heard Chen Tong was willing to pay 40 million in total just to kill her, she suddenly felt moved to the core.

“This is true love. This has to be true love,” she said with shining eyes as warmth surged through her chest and turned sweet.

Who else in the world would spend such a huge price for her tiny life?

Only Chen Tong.

Only he would spare no effort, rack his brain, and keep paying top price without giving up to buy her life.

If this isn’t love, then what is it?

Just for that, she decided she would give Classmate Chen Tong more care, more comfort, and more tricks.

Right away, Qian Qi pulled out a dagger and sliced a line across Li Hai Sheng’s face. She smeared the blood on herself in messy streaks.

Then she opened the camera on Li Hai Sheng’s Light-Brain. Using forced perspective, she set the dagger upright so it looked like it was stuck in her chest.

She scrubbed at her face until her features looked totally warped, then made a painful, twisted expression.

“How is it, System, do I look like I died horribly?” she asked with pride.

System said nothing. [This looks a bit too real. If Chen Tong sees it, he’ll probably wake up laughing from his dreams.]

Qian Qi happily snapped her “death photo,” added some edits, and sent it to Chen Tong. The screen flashed her handle and message: Sea King Great Sage: [Image]!

A red exclamation mark popped up. Clicking her tongue, she said: “Right, I forgot. There’s no signal in this dungeon.”

Reluctantly, she tucked away Li Hai Sheng’s Light-Brain, glanced at the man snoring like a dead pig, and started giggling again.

A few minutes later, hugging her things and shouldering her small backpack, she hopped into the white morning mist and vanished.

Soon, in the dim, deep canyon, Qian Qi and the System’s voices drifted through the cold air as they moved away.

System asked in a low voice: “Why didn’t you just kill him?”

“Heavens, System, why are you so cruel?” Qian Qi said with mock shock, adding, “We are good citizens. We don’t do murder.”

System sniffed: “If you want to say that, then return his Defense Armor, Light-Brain, retractable long knife, lighter, compressed biscuits, and those stinky shoes.”

“Hee hee hee, not a chance,” Qian Qi sang.

Her silver-bell yet sly laughter spread through the empty canyon, making the place, which might have buried who knew how many bones, feel even colder and creepier.

When Li Hai Sheng finally woke, his face burned with sudden pain. He raised a hand to wipe and came away with sticky clumps of blood.

A stab of agony made him cry out. He started to check his face, then realized his Defense Armor was gone.

“Where is my Defense Armor?” he rasped. Shock and blood loss made his head swim. He patted himself down and discovered everything he needed to survive in the wild was missing: long knife, lighter, compressed biscuits, all of it.

Not only that, he shouted: “Where are my shoes?”

Without shoes, in a canyon full of sharp rocks and jagged gravel, he could hardly take a step.

Qian Qi. Where was Qian Qi?

He looked toward the fire pit in a panic, but of course there was no sign of Qian Qi at all.