Lin Qingyue’s senses were razor sharp, but not sharp enough. He reacted a heartbeat too late—the Obedience Talisman landed squarely on his back and vanished.
[Ding! S-rank item, Obedience Talisman, has instantly taken effect. Bound target—Lin Qingyue!!]
As the owner of such a powerful artifact, Ye Shu alone could hear the artificial voice announcing its effect.
"As you can see, I haven’t done anything at all."
Lin Qingyue watched the eerily smiling woman across from him with a growing sense of dread. For the first time in his life, his guard had dropped long enough for someone to get this close. This could only mean trouble.
With a sudden twist, he clamped his hand around Ye Shu’s throat—hard enough to almost rob her of breath. She gasped, straining to force words out: "Let go of me."
A heartbeat later, to his own shock, Lin Qingyue released her immediately, his coal-black eyes nearly shooting sparks, glaring as though demanding an answer.
"Lin Qingyue, how dare you! On your knees to your father!"
Darkness clouded Lin Qingyue’s face; with a heavy thud, he dropped to his knees.
"What have you done to me? Ning Die?"
He ground out the words through clenched teeth, but Ye Shu simply lifted her slanted eyes in sly delight. "Curious? If you kowtow a few more times for your father, maybe I’ll tell you."
Bang, bang, bang—
Lin Qingyue bowed heavily, forehead striking the filthy deck so hard his temple bloomed red. When he looked up, frost coated his unnaturally beautiful face, lips a thin, angry line.
Ye Shu, finally able to breathe again, sprawled on the deck with a sly, enigmatic smile painted on her striking features. Catching the edge of wariness in his eyes, she hurried through her instructions: "From this moment, Lin Qingyue, you are forbidden from harming so much as a hair on my head, you will answer whatever I ask, and if I die, you will use this blade to end yourself. Understood?"
She kicked a short dagger toward him—the very one that had been driven into her heart in the previous timeline.
"Well? Cat got your tongue? If you stay silent, you’ll strip and dance for me."
Lin Qingyue’s eyes snapped upward, black irises glazed with a cold sheen. He shot Ye Shu a look loaded with meaning, the words that escaped his throat taut with humiliation: "I understand, my master."
Seeing that look of utter humiliation in his eyes, Ye Shu felt a secret joy rise within her.
No wonder—those villains always went to such lengths to torment the protagonists, always missing their shot at killing them for the sake of humiliation. What an experience! Who could resist?
This S-rank artifact... It really works!
"You’re not a player. What are you? Why do you appear in all three dungeons?"
Failure in the game means death. Clearly, he couldn’t be an ordinary player.
Ye Shu was certain Lin Qingyue had died completely in the previous round. She hadn’t the faintest clue why he kept appearing in these subsequent games.
"I am not a player. I am an entity within the game’s dungeons—an NPC. As for how I can move between instances—that’s tied to my abilities."
Lin Qingyue’s words came slow, deliberate.
Ye Shu, never one for patience, pressed on, "What’s your ability?"
"Don’t answer and you’ll have to dance naked."
Her threat made his body jerk. He threw her a poisonous glare, then replied with grudging precision: "My power is immortality. Even if you kill me now, I will resurrect in the next dungeon."
Ye Shu was dumbstruck.
Was it still possible for her to cut and run now?
His endless resurrection was eerily similar to her own save-point resetting...
Collecting herself, she absentmindedly continued, "How long will the torrential rains in the game last?"
"Ten years."
This time Lin Qingyue’s answer was sharp and clear.
Ten years—worse than she’d feared. Just two weeks of rain had nearly destroyed human civilization. Who could possibly survive a decade?
Ye Shu’s gaze dimmed. If she had a choice, she’d sooner be stuck in one of those cheesy heiress-dramas, clawing her way through petty rivalries, than live trapped in a virtual world. She looked to the silent man across from her, firing one more question: "Did you have anything to do with the survival game’s appearance on Blue Star? When will this boring nightmare end?"
"That’s classified information. I can’t answer. As for an ending? There may be none. Once the game begins, there’s no stopping it."
Lin Qingyue narrowed his eyes. This woman... there was something hauntingly familiar about her.
Ye Shu asked twice more, but the answer was always the same.
Lin Qingyue became like a dispassionate machine, repeating his line again and again.
"Last question. Why did you chase me through all three games?"
The moment Ye Shu realized his undying talent, her sense of danger skyrocketed. Out of all the players, why single her out?
"You?"
"&*#@￥%"
A flash of realization flickered in Lin Qingyue’s eyes. So she was that woman. No wonder she seemed so familiar.
Ye Shu frowned. Was he barking gibberish?
"Pick one—answer or strip and dance."
"￥@!@￥）（*……）"
All that came out of Lin Qingyue’s mouth was discordant nonsense, repeating over and over until Ye Shu’s ears rang.
"Is that classified too? If you dare lie to me, I’ll kill you."
Lin Qingyue nodded sagely. He had no doubt of her ruthlessness—his eyes glinted with repressed rage.
If not for the severe constraints exerted by the Survival Game— constraints even he, as one of its creators, could not break—he’d have ended this brazen woman ages ago.
A flicker of madness and bloodlust passed through Ye Shu’s lowered eyes. She’d been murdered six times already. She was already quite insane... In her heart, only one urge remained: Kill. Kill this lunatic...
Her lips curled, and she murmured, ice-cold: "In that case, go die. May I never see you in the next game."
With that, Ye Shu drove the broken blade straight into his heart. Lin Qingyue gasped, tumbling from the deck. Just before death, his eyes stretched wide in disbelief.
What he didn’t know was that once he was dead, Ye Shu stabbed him once more in the right side of his chest, just to be sure.
……
Ye Shu gazed at the corpse, crimson slowly fading from her eyes.
She spared no further glance for the dead body and moved to leave—when a prompt shimmered before her eyes.
[A damaged, dilapidated large fishing boat detected. Would you like to optimize and upgrade it?]
[Yes.]
[Optimizing... Complete!]
With a tap on the screen, the muddy, junk-littered vessel transformed—good as new, with a shiny unmanned driving system to boot. Just enter coordinates, and it would navigate on its own.
Ye Shu entered the coordinates for National Shelter No. 10. The boat adjusted course, cruising steadily over the floodwaters. Passing the outskirts of Jade Lake City, she caught sight of the once-proud skyline now reduced to rubble. The whole city was a wasteland, trash, animal carcasses, and human corpses drifting on the waves.