The woman in red high heels, now missing an arm, went berserk, unleashing her full fighting power. Wherever she passed, blood threads spread like a web, turning the entire train carriage into something resembling a spider’s lair.
She began attacking indiscriminately, assaulting players while demanding her arm back.
The players were on the verge of breaking down, shouting, “Who the hell took her arm? Give it back already!!!”
Although the woman in red high heels had been attacking indiscriminately when they first encountered her, she hadn’t been this relentless, this desperate.
Some players were busy hacking away at the blood threads, yelling in frustration, “We just got on the train! How could we have taken her arm? It must’ve been someone else!”
They soon pieced it together: another, stronger, and more ruthless player must have had a run-in with the woman earlier, fought her, and taken her arm. Now she was on a rampage trying to get it back. Unfortunately for them, they’d stumbled into her path.
It was pure bad luck.
Thankfully, the players had numbers on their side. Plus, with one arm missing, the woman’s combat ability had taken a significant hit. With sheer determination, they managed to hold out until the train arrived at the next station.
The moment the train doors opened, the players worked together to force the woman off the train.
The one-armed woman roared at the departing train, waving her remaining arm as her figure was slowly left behind.
The players wiped away their cold sweat, sat down to catch their breath, and began treating the injuries they’d sustained during the battle.
Wu Yang and Wan Xingzhou ended up as a pair of unlucky brothers-in-arms this time. Both of their wounds reopened during the fight, though Wan Xingzhou’s injuries were more severe.
Wan Xingzhou sighed in despair. “What bad luck. Without the young miss here, I’m doomed to this endless streak of misfortune.”
Wu Yang muttered quietly, “Next time we board the train, we’ll need to be on guard in case that woman shows up looking for her arm again.”
The rest of the group was also discussing the incident.
“Who’s the big shot that managed to take one of the red high-heeled woman’s arms?”
“Do you think she’s going to be like little Sasha? Constantly asking everyone for Lisa’s hand? At least we were lucky this time and didn’t run into Sasha.”
“Lucky? Don’t tell me you think the Hunter is less terrifying than Sasha?”
“I’d say they’re equally terrifying.”
“You’re missing the point! We’re talking about the red high-heeled woman. Who would’ve thought that losing an arm would weaken her so much? That’s actually great for us.”
In previous encounters, the woman in red high heels had used her blood threads to bind players while simultaneously attacking them with both hands. Her hands were incredibly deadly weapons. Her crimson nails, seemingly soaked in blood, could easily slice a player in half, making her a formidable foe.
This time, however, without one arm, even her ferocity couldn’t make up for the gap in her combat ability. The players realized that as long as they could endure the blood threads and avoid being torn apart by her remaining hand, they had a chance to hold out until their companions could rescue them.
“True. Without one arm, she’s much easier to handle,” someone agreed.
By the end of the discussion, the players were filled with newfound determination.
They realized that even the monsters on the train weren’t invincible. If they could find a way to weaken these creatures, they might just have a chance to survive.
The mood in the train quickly turned optimistic and lively.
Wan Xingzhou listened for a moment and said to Wu Yang, “I wonder who took the red high-heeled woman’s arm. We should probably thank them.”
Wu Yang gave a soft hum of agreement, his expression visibly more relaxed.
—
Gu Jiu suddenly turned over and sat up from her mattress.
The subway station had no designated rest areas, so players either collapsed where they stood or spread out whatever they had on the ground to sleep. Comfort was a luxury no one could afford.
However, Gu Jiu was someone who paid attention to comfort. She wasn’t about to sleep on the cold, hard ground. From her personal inventory, she pulled out a mattress.
It was 1.8 meters wide and 10 centimeters thick. Once laid out, it rivaled the comfort of a proper bed.
When Old Hei and the others saw her mattress, they weren’t particularly surprised. Gu Jiu’s aura always gave them the impression that she would do things differently. No matter what she did, it somehow seemed in character.
Still, the mattress looked undeniably inviting. It was hard not to imagine how great it would feel to sleep on it.
But they were all grown men, and none of them dared approach her to share the mattress. On top of that, Gu Jiu had mentioned before that she liked women. This only made them more cautious, lest they give her the wrong idea about their intentions.
In this day and age, it wasn’t uncommon for women to prefer dating other women over men. Some said it was a reflection of how disappointing men could be—women would rather date someone of the same gender than deal with the risks and burdens of marriage. A relationship with a woman meant no childbirth risks, no serving an entire family’s needs, and no juggling work, childcare, and household duties, all while dealing with a disengaged husband.
People often joked that many married women ended up doing both a man’s and a woman’s share of the work in the relationship.
So, while it was rare to see someone as beautiful and charismatic as Gu Jiu, the fact that she was into women didn’t shock anyone. It just left the men feeling a bit regretful.
For ordinary men, finding a wife wasn’t easy. For male players, finding a girlfriend was even harder—most of them were destined for lifelong bachelorhood.
—
Gu Jiu sat up. The subway station was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Apart from herself, there were no other players in sight. Old Hei and the others seemed to have vanished into thin air.
This kind of dead silence, coupled with complete solitude, was enough to unnerve most players.
She checked the time: 3 a.m.
The subway station was underground, so there was no distinction between day and night. Players had to rely on their internal clocks to guess the time, and even then, they could be wrong.
Without Lu Ji by her side, Gu Jiu found that her sleep quality wasn’t as good as she had thought. Even with her paper doll companions keeping watch, something felt off.
Of course, it was Lu Ji’s presence she missed.
In the past, during their journeys through countless game worlds, they had always been together—sharing the same bed, living side by side. Back then, it didn’t feel like much. But now, separated and uncertain of when they might reunite, Gu Jiu couldn’t help but feel unsettled.
This frustration made her mood worse, and her temper flared.
She spoke coldly into the silence: “Get out here on your own, or I’ll make you come out.”
The subway station remained quiet. There was no response.
Standing up, Gu Jiu’s hand conjured a blade, thin as a cicada’s wing. The weapon, the Lingyuan Blade, was so translucent it looked like a layer of skin fused with her palm, nearly invisible unless you looked closely.
Gu Jiu leapt forward, swinging the blade. The space in front of her tore open like a thin sheet of paper, revealing a rift. Beyond the rift was another space entirely. She grabbed the edges of the tear and pulled it wider.
Stepping through the rift, she found herself in a different subway station.
This subway station was pristine, untouched by destruction. It resembled what the subway might have looked like before everything went wrong. Gu Jiu wandered through the space, exploring both the B1 and B2 levels of the station.
All the facilities were intact, without a single sign of damage. The only similarity to the regular subway station was the absence of people.
The station was empty, as if it had yet to begin operations. Not even the sound of an approaching train could be heard.
Gu Jiu entered the subway’s control room. She rummaged through it but ignored the documents and other items inside. Eventually, she opened a narrow cabinet and pulled out a little ghost.
“Was this your doing?” she asked the ghost.
The little ghost appeared quite normal—a pair of clear black-and-white eyes, rosy cheeks, and an utterly adorable face.
In this space, the little boy was no longer a ghost but had taken on the appearance of a regular human.
Seeing that he wasn’t responding, Gu Jiu patted his head and suddenly asked, “Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” She took out a large lunchbox. When she opened it, the fragrant aroma of hot food wafted out.
The boy’s eyes locked onto the lunchbox, and he swallowed his saliva.
Gu Jiu generously handed it to him, watching as he buried his head into the box and began wolfing down the food. She sat down nearby, casually playing with a silver cigarette pipe.
The pipe had a bikini-clad woman engraved on it, her sultry red lips especially captivating as they moved between Gu Jiu’s pale, delicate fingers.
After the boy finished the food, he looked at her with lingering hunger in his eyes. Gu Jiu asked, “What’s the deal with this space?”
“This is my domain,” the boy replied in a crisp, clear voice. “It’s safe here. No monsters will attack you.”
Gu Jiu chuckled softly. “What kind of monsters?”
The boy remained silent, staring at her with his innocent black-and-white eyes.
“And the others?” she asked.
“They’re still outside.”
“Will the monsters eat them?”
The boy smiled at her, a pure, angelic grin. Gu Jiu smiled back, her expression gentle. Suddenly, a wisp of blue smoke shot out of her cigarette pipe, directly into the boy.
As soon as he inhaled the smoke, his form reverted to that of a ghostly creature, and the pristine space around them began to warp and shift, transforming into a bloodstained subway station.
Gu Jiu stood up and walked out.
The little ghost, now back to his eerie, obedient self, followed her closely.
—
When Gu Jiu stepped out of the control room, she saw Old Hei and the others battling ghosts.
One of the ghosts, an elderly woman dragging half her body, lunged viciously at Li Jing. He barely managed to block her attack. Looking up, he spotted Gu Jiu emerging from the control room.
“Gu Jiu!” he called out in surprise and relief.
Gu Jiu didn’t waste words. She sent a swarm of her paper doll companions to assist the fleeing players. Holding her cigarette pipe, she led the little ghost into the fray.
The Hypnotic Smoke Pipe could only daze one ghost at a time, so it wasn’t effective for large-scale attacks.
But it was enough. As long as the strongest ghost was incapacitated, the others were much easier to handle.
Gu Jiu turned to the little ghost. “Round up all these ghosts and trap them in your domain.”
The boy nodded obediently and darted off. Everywhere he passed, the ghosts vanished without a trace.
In just a short while, all the ghosts in the subway station had disappeared, leaving only the players behind, gasping for breath.
Old Hei walked over, glancing at the little boy following Gu Jiu, and remarked, “I thought he was just a pitiful little thing. Who would’ve guessed he’s actually the big boss? Why didn’t he attack us earlier?”
When he first encountered the little ghost under the desk in the control room, Old Hei thought he was prepared. But he quickly realized the ghosts in this place were far more numerous and dangerous than expected.
Gu Jiu replied, “We were on guard then, so he wouldn’t dare. Waiting until we let our guard down during rest was the smartest move.” She paused before adding, “This little ghost probably intended to take us all out at once. That’s why he separated us and put us in different spaces.”
Curious, Old Hei asked, “How did you figure him out?”
When he realized his teammates had vanished, Old Hei had scoured the subway station from top to bottom but found nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until the ghosts began attacking that he finally encountered his teammates again. Gu Jiu, however, was nowhere to be seen, and he’d feared the worst.
“He was hiding in another dimension of the subway station,” Gu Jiu explained. “That version of the station was completely untouched. I got lucky and managed to tear open his space to get inside and find him.”
Although Old Hei had arranged for people to stand guard, Gu Jiu didn’t trust strangers. Before she went to sleep, she had set up a protective perimeter, stationing her paper dolls around the area. She knew exactly where each doll was and how many there should be.
When she woke up and discovered some of her paper dolls missing, she realized something was wrong with the space. She had used the Lingyuan Blade to test her suspicions by attacking the environment.
As for the little boy’s explanations, Gu Jiu didn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts were full of lies—why should she trust him? No matter how safe that alternate space appeared, she had no intention of staying there.
Gu Jiu spoke casually, but Old Hei felt the situation wasn’t as simple as she made it seem.
He couldn’t help but reflect that surviving in this game world required extraordinary skill. While Gu Jiu had only recently entered, her actions proved she was no exception to this rule.
“What do we do with the little ghost?” Old Hei asked.
Gu Jiu smiled faintly. “Take him along.”
Old Hei: “???!!!”