Safe Driving, but Still Two Streams of Tears

Wang Bangzheng's words left Xu Kai stunned. The player was a weird? Wasn't that completely backward?

Xu Kai was certain Wang Hua was a player. She lacked the dusty smell of this world, and Xu Kai could see Weird Energy. Wang Bangzheng said Wang Hua was a weird, but she was completely clean, without a trace of Weird Energy.

"Uncle Wang, you must miss her so much that you're hallucinating. There are no weirds in this world."

Xu Kai forced a smile and stepped out of the vehicle, keeping his tone light. Seeing that Xu Kai didn't believe him, Wang Bangzheng froze for a moment. He sighed inwardly and got out as well.

Click!

After locking the rear doors, Xu Kai opened the doors to the front of the hearse and invited Wang Bangzheng and the player inside.

"Uncle, would you sit in the passenger seat? You get carsick."

Wang Hua's eyes smiled as she stared at Wang Bangzheng. He didn't dare meet her gaze and climbed into the passenger seat with his head down.

Xu Kai watched the scene with amusement. Was this player really that scary?

"You're very filial, Miss Wang."

"As I should be, as I should be. Let's get going. Oh, why is it so hot in here?"

"Oh, right, I forgot to turn off the air conditioning earlier. You can open a window."

Xu Kai smiled as he spoke.

That was a lie. After all, even Xu Kai's sight and sense of taste had changed, so he suspected his body temperature might differ from that of an ordinary person. To avoid any mishaps, he had no choice but to turn the heat up full blast and warm his skin, hoping the player wouldn't notice anything amiss during their brief contact and cause him to fail at playing his role.

"All right, everyone, buckle up. Everything we'll need along the way has been arranged. When we come to mountain roads and bridges, don't forget what you're supposed to do."

After a few reminders, Xu Kai started the vehicle and slowly drove away from Big Tree Street. In the rearview mirror, he saw several vehicles carrying relatives fall in behind the hearse once it started moving. Xu Kai switched on the loudspeaker on the side of the vehicle, which played some Taoist hymns. These hymns were sung by Taoist priests during rituals to mourn the dead and soothe their souls.

Unfortunately, they were all in the local dialect, and he didn't understand a word. The Weird Energy inside him remained calm as well; the hymns had no effect on him.

They gradually left the city, and the sky went completely dark. There were no lights or people along the road, so Xu Kai switched on the high beams, barely able to make out the pale road surface.

He drove steadily, and the air conditioning kept the vehicle warm. The female player actually fell asleep. In the interior mirror, Xu Kai saw her head tilted back against the headrest, drool already trickling from the corner of her mouth.

Was she that carefree, or was it a trap?

Xu Kai couldn't be sure. He decided to complete his role's task first and play the driver well, then look for a chance to seriously injure or kill the female player.

He had long since prepared himself for this. After all, either the female player died or he did. This was a game, a game arranged by a game master raised on dog food.

As he was thinking this, a mass of red Weird Energy suddenly spread across the windshield like a red film, completely covering Xu Kai's view.

"A weird! It's a weird! The roadblocking weird is here! Help, help!"

Wang Bangzheng, a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, cried out in terror, clutching his head in both hands, utterly unable to accept what was happening.

Xu Kai could only see the Weird Energy, not the weird figure Wang Bangzheng had described. He felt no fear either, but his expression grew grave all the same. There was a bend ahead, with a bottomless cliff beyond it, and the windshield was completely covered in red Weird Energy.

"What weird, weird, weird? Ah! It's a weird! Talent, hurry up and activate!"

Xu Kai was about to slow down and shift gears when a voice even shriller than Wang Bangzheng's exploded beside his ear. His hearing was already keen, and it nearly deafened him.

But he remained calm enough to press the clutch and shift into second, then press it again and shift into first, before finally braking.

Something was wrong, however. The vehicle still wasn't slowing down. Xu Kai didn't dare slam on the brakes; if the wheels locked, he would lose control. He had no choice but to keep hold of the steering wheel.

Just then, a terrified little face leaned forward from the back and said:

"Driver Xu, why are you pressing the accelerator on the right? We're going to fly off the road!"

"Huh?"

Xu Kai was certain he was pressing the clutch and the foot brake; it couldn't be the brake. Besides, the vehicle had been working normally ever since he came to Gate No. 3.

But there was no time to figure it out. Xu Kai could feel that the vehicle wasn't slowing down. It was speeding up instead.

He tried to control the steering wheel, but a powerful force came through it, pulling the vehicle toward the cliff.

Crash! Click, click, click.

The vehicle smashed through the guardrail and flew off the cliff. The red Weird Energy hadn't been idle either. Xu Kai clearly heard three clicks as everyone's seat belts came undone.

The airbag burst out and slammed into Xu Kai's head. At that moment, he realized he could still feel pain.

The vehicle rolled down the mountainside and crashed upside down at the bottom of the valley.

"I don't want to die! Game, log me out! Log out! Why isn't it working? Ah..."

[Mission complete. Reward: Weird Energy limit increased by 10%]

When the voice sounded, Wang Bangzheng in the passenger seat and Wang Hua in the back were silent.

Xu Kai finally understood why Wang Hua, the player, had been so strange. She had taken all of this for a game she was playing.

He was sorry to say that it was indeed a game, but the game was playing all of them, including him, its accomplice.

If it had been a foolish "evil" in his place, the moment it saw the Weird Energy, it would surely have mistaken it for an ally and happily gone along with it, rushing to its death.

Unfortunately, the pain in his body and the sensation of being at death's door and losing consciousness all told Xu Kai that evils like them weren't on the weirds' side for now. They were merely expendable pieces.

Xu Kai held on coldly. He had done his best on this save. He needed to use his willpower to stay conscious and try to obtain and think through a little more information.

Thud, thud, thud.

Muffled footsteps came from afar, drawing closer and closer. Listening to them, Xu Kai sensed that their owner seemed to bend down and lean toward the windshield.

Xu Kai forced himself to look. The "person" turned out to be Stone Statue Weird.

"Good material. You completed your task very well. Tsk, tsk, that's quite a lot of Weird Energy. You fell from that height and still didn't die. If you keep growing, you'll become a threat to me."

Stone Statue Weird smiled genially. The bluish color of his face had faded somewhat, and it had actually gained a touch of the human flush of joy at success.

"Material, you really want to live? Unfortunately, this is the Killing Zone. My score goes up with every kill. Lovely night. Thanks for bringing me dinner!"

Boom!

The entire vehicle was crushed flat in an instant, and Xu Kai's consciousness sank into darkness.

On his twenty-sixth Save-Load, Xu Kai awoke as though from a nightmare. The pain of the entire vehicle twisting and his bones being crushed until he bled still lingered, and he felt as though he could still see double at the corners of his eyes.

Screech!

The save point was close. Xu Kai brought the vehicle to a stop, just a hundred meters from the deadly bend.

"Wh-what's wrong?"

Wang Bangzheng turned to ask when he saw Xu Kai stop.

Theirs was the only vehicle on the road. The others that had been following them had vanished who knew where, and there were no lights along the way. The entire country road was so dark he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Xu Kai strained to sense any Weird Energy, but everything ahead was quiet, with nothing unusual.

But he knew that as soon as they reached the bend, Weird Energy would cover the windshield. Then the apes in the vehicle would howl, and he would somehow press the accelerator and plunge off the cliff, only to encounter Stone Statue Weird and be crushed as flat as paper.

There was one thing Xu Kai couldn't understand.

Stone Statue Weird hadn't killed them on the road. He had waited until they fell off the cliff to kill them, which meant the Killing Zone he'd mentioned was down below. Then why had Xu Kai encountered Weird Energy as he went around the bend?

They hadn't encountered anything unusual before the bend, so there had to be something special about this spot.

Having the windshield covered in Weird Energy was far too troublesome. If only he could use his own Weird Energy to fight it off.

Unfortunately, although he was an evil and possessed 110 wisps of Weird Energy, he could only use it passively. At most, he was a little stronger than an ordinary person.

Alternatively, it would also work if he could rely on his Weird Energy to withstand the fall off the cliff and then escape.

Unfortunately, Xu Kai wasn't an athlete. His body was still made of mortal flesh, and he wasn't like Weird Duke, who could bounce around with a bloody hole in him and even teleport.

"Hiss! Young Xu, we can't stop here, we really can't!"

Wang Bangzheng was going to check the situation. But as soon as he opened the door, stepped out and looked up, his expression grew tense. He hurried back into the vehicle and urged Xu Kai to drive on.

"What is it, Uncle Wang? What's so special about this place?"

"Oh, young Xu, just drive on! You've only just arrived, so you don't know. A lot of people once died here, all from flying off the cliff! There are too many wronged-death weirds here, and we've also... The longer we stay, the more can go wrong."

Wang Bangzheng pointed toward the back, his hand clenched tight.

Xu Kai wanted to say that things had gone well beyond the risk of something going wrong. They were already in mortal peril, with little chance of surviving. But he didn't say it. If he did, he couldn't explain why a new hearse driver was so certain of the outcome.

Xu Kai was no saint. When their lives were in danger, people were selfish.

But Stone Statue Weird had borne Xu Kai ill will from the start. He had treated Xu Kai as expendable from the beginning and had never intended to let him live. He only wanted Xu Kai to bring the player to her death while he was still alive.

Malice. This world was truly full of malice.

"Uncle Wang, burn some paper offerings and scatter some along the road too."

"Oh, oh, all right."

Wang Bangzheng fetched the paper, scattered it along the road and burned some before returning to the vehicle. Xu Kai watched the whole process but still couldn't see anything unusual. He had no confidence in it either. After all, the vehicle had been playing Taoist chanting all the way, yet the red Weird Energy had come anyway.

Vroom...

Xu Kai didn't wait. He started the vehicle again and drove toward the bend, fixing its curve firmly in his mind, ready to navigate it by feel as soon as the windshield was covered.

Boom!

As they entered the bend, the red Weird Energy arrived as expected, covering the windshield so completely that he couldn't see a thing.

"Ah! A weird..."

The two ape-like shrieks came right on cue, but Xu Kai ignored them. He was using all his strength to wrestle with the steering wheel, and the Weird Energy in his body was being consumed so quickly that it was about to run out.

The steering wheel groaned and squeaked, finally turning in the direction Xu Kai wanted. Then, instead of pressing the brake, Xu Kai put his foot on the accelerator.

"Driver Xu, wh-why are you pressing the accelerator on the right? Huh? The accelerator on the right turned into the brake on the left!"

Wang Hua's scream broke off, and she froze at the sight of the bizarre change.

"Miss Wang, you need to believe in science. Although I don't understand what you're shrieking about, you have to believe that natural laws govern all these strange phenomena..."

Xu Kai remained calm even in this situation. His feel for the vehicle told him he had made it around the bend. The red Weird Energy had also disappeared, revealing the view through the windshield.

The moment Xu Kai saw what was ahead, he slammed on the brakes, but the force was still too great. The vehicle crashed straight through and fell off the cliff.

There was another bend immediately after the first!