Trouble

Shen Hao looked down at his chest. The bloody wound was healing rapidly. This was the power of the Immortal Body.

Unless his body suffered multiple fatal injuries in a short period of time, he would not die.

But the man had not been so lucky. To make sure he was dead, Shen Hao had chopped off his head with an axe.

Even if he was an ability user, he probably couldn't recover from an injury like that.

"Are you okay? Should I take you to the hospital?" a girl asked, fear in her voice.

Shen Hao turned to look behind him. It was the girl from last night, watching him cautiously.

After what had happened last night, she seemed much braver. The gore before her hadn't scared her off. Everyone else on the bus had gotten off in a panic, even her companion, but she had stayed.

Shen Hao glanced at her. Fortunately, she hadn't seen the axe just now. If she had, she might have grown suspicious.

"I'm fine."

"You're fine after getting hurt that badly?" The girl looked horrified.

"An injury like this is nothing to me."

"You're an ability user too?" the girl asked enviously.

"Yeah." Shen Hao nodded. Strictly speaking, he wasn't an ability user. He was still far from being one.

"My name's Xu Xiaonan. I'm a player in Thriller Paradise too, but I'm a newcomer. I'm so jealous that you've already become an ability user."

She had good reason to be jealous. They had been in the same instance just last night, but today, there was an enormous gap between them.

"I'm Shen Hao."

Xu Xiaonan glanced again at Shen Hao's wound. It had stopped bleeding and already scabbed over. The speed of his recovery astonished her.

Just then, a woman boarded the bus. She wore a white blouse and black leggings. Her long, slender legs and curvaceous figure were striking.

The woman glanced at the scene on the bus and asked, "Did you kill him?"

The woman wore a serious expression, and her voice was somewhat cold. For a moment, the atmosphere on the bus grew tense.

"No, he was trying to kill us..."

Xu Xiaonan was about to explain when Shen Hao admitted it outright.

"That's right. I killed him."

"Good job." A faint smile appeared on the woman's face. "If it weren't for you, a lot of people on this bus might have died."

"Actually, I had nothing to do with it. He did it," Xu Xiaonan said, embarrassed.

Shen Hao looked at the woman before him. She was probably the one who had attacked and wounded the man on the ground. If not for that, he would have been no match for the man.

"If you hadn't wounded him, I couldn't have done it."

"I'm Xia Bing, a member of the Paradise Player Alliance," the woman said. "You're players in Thriller Paradise too, right?"

"Yeah," Shen Hao said with a nod.

Xia Bing took out a business card and handed it to Shen Hao. "If you want to join the alliance guild, you can contact me."

After a pause, she added, "You can also contact me if you encounter anything unusual or dangerous."

Shen Hao immediately accepted the card and glanced at it. "Okay."

He was interested in joining the Player Alliance. After all, the benefits really were good. More importantly, he could go undercover. Knowing both yourself and your enemy was the key to winning every battle.

Xia Bing added, "Go downstairs and register your information. You can leave afterward. Our people will handle the rest."

Shen Hao had thought he would get into trouble for killing someone. Although he had a perfectly valid reason, he had still killed someone.

Now, it seemed he might have worried too much.

After they got off the bus, they saw that the police had already cordoned off the area. Shen Hao and Xu Xiaonan registered their personal information, and the police let them leave without giving them any trouble.

After all, the ability user he had killed was wanted by the authorities. An ability user like that was an extremely dangerous, unpredictable factor. If not for Shen Hao, everyone on the bus would have been in danger.

So Shen Hao's actions were entirely righteous. He deserved a reward for them, and the police had no reason to give him trouble.

Shen Hao took off his blood-soaked jacket, but his neck and face were also covered in blood. Xu Xiaonan kindly bought several bottles of water from a shop so he could wash the blood off his face.

"Are you still in school?" Xu Xiaonan asked.

"Yeah, I go to No. 1 High School. I'm in my senior year."

"No wonder you look so familiar," Xu Xiaonan said. "Which class are you in?"

"Class Three. So we go to the same school!" Shen Hao said, pretending to be surprised. "What a coincidence."

Xu Xiaonan looked at Shen Hao with a hint of admiration.

Shen Hao said modestly, "I'm nothing special. My grades aren't that good either. Sometimes I don't even make the top ten in my year."

Xu Xiaonan gave him a strange look. What a humblebrag. But she admired Shen Hao even more now. Not only was he good at school, he was also an ability user.

If only I could latch onto this big shot.

"I'm so jealous. You're already an ability user, but I've only just entered Paradise, and I even failed my first mission!"

"It's okay. As long as you stay alive, you'll become an ability user too."

The two continued walking as they talked.

"It'd be great if we got matched into the same instance," Xu Xiaonan said. "It might not be so hard with you guiding me."

"Believe me, you definitely don't want to get matched into the same instance as me."

Shen Hao also wanted to be matched into the same instance as her. After all, she had given him a lot of fear points. But if they really did end up together, Xu Xiaonan would be crying.

"That's true. You're an ability user, so the instances you go through must be really difficult."

Shen Hao smiled without saying anything. Difficulty wasn't even the issue. With a walkthrough, there was still a chance of clearing an instance.

But if she was in the same instance as him, her chances of clearing it would be slim.

"What's your phone number?" Xu Xiaonan asked as they were about to part. "I could ask you some questions sometime. You won't refuse, will you?"

"Of course not. I'm always happy to help," Shen Hao immediately said with a smile.

In the eyes of everyone who knew him, he was a gentle, caring person. He never refused a reasonable request for help.

Everyone who had interacted with him sincerely believed he was a good person.

But only Shen Hao himself knew that he was anything but a good person. It was all a disguise.

If those people knew of his extreme craving for bloodshed and violence, and his past acts of torturing small animals to death, they would be shocked.

He even had the urge to kill. If he hadn't entered Thriller Paradise as a demon and satisfied his inner desires, he had no idea what he might have done.

The two exchanged contact information and parted ways.

By the time he entered the classroom, the homeroom teacher was already there and morning study was almost over. He was more than half an hour late.

But he wasn't scolded, because he had always behaved well.

By the same token, as long as he kept up his disguise and pretended to be a good person, no one would suspect that he was the demon in the instance.

That evening, after classes ended, Shen Hao returned home as usual. As soon as he entered and turned on the light, he saw that the walls were covered in blood-red handprints.

Some were on the ceiling, some were on the walls. They were everywhere, a shocking sight.

Who could it be?

Shen Hao didn't think he had ever offended anyone. Everyone who had interacted with him thought he was a good person. He couldn't have made an enemy of anyone.

"Does this have something to do with what happened today?"

Shen Hao thought of what Xia Bing had said. "You can also contact me if you encounter anything unusual or dangerous."

It seemed this was what she had meant by anything unusual or dangerous.

The man he had killed on the bus today was probably no ordinary person. His accomplices were coming for revenge.