Shoot Me!

Chu Guang turned his head.

A burly man stood in the doorway, his left arm tightly locking Ye Shi's neck and bound hands, while his right hand held a pistol pressed against Ye Shi's temple.

Yet the instant he finished saying, "Let her go," two guns swiftly trained on him.

Seeing this, the burly man instinctively ducked behind Ye Shi and hurriedly shouted.

"Don't fucking move! Your companion is in my hands! I know you're strong, but are you faster than a bullet?"

Chu Guang, holding his gun, paused, the corners of his mouth curling upward awkwardly.

I'm strong?

Heh, that's embarrassing.

After more than five months scraping by in the wasteland, this was the first time anyone had called him strong.

"Chen Yang? You're not dead?!" Xia Yan stared wide-eyed at the man in the doorway.

The burly man looked visibly embarrassed, but he still forced a smile onto his face.

"Heh, I'm not that easy to kill. Just wait—I'll get you out first!"

Hope for survival reignited in Xia Yan's eyes.

If she had a choice, of course she did not want to fall into the hands of these "primitives." Even with her remaining five toes, she could imagine what kind of treatment she would receive as a captive.

From time to time, captured mercenaries were ransomed back from slave traders by their teammates or insurance companies, provided they had happened to be sold to Boulder City.

But even if they were still alive, they were no different from the dead.

Whether mentally or physically.

Finally wrenching out a sliver of space from beneath the burly man's arm, Ye Shi, who had nearly been suffocated, did not even pause to catch his breath.

He struggled desperately as he shouted.

"Shoot! Open fire on me! What are you waiting for?!"

"Fuck... this idiot has body odor too. It's choking me to death!"

If the burly man had known what he was shouting, he might really have accidentally fired and blown his head off.

But unfortunately.

The man could not understand him and only found the hostage unbearably noisy.

He raised the pistol grip and viciously smashed it into the hostage's back of the head. Chen Yang barked.

"Behave yourself!"

How could Ye Shi behave himself?

He could not feel pain beyond his limit at all. Instead, the blow only made him even angrier, and he shouted even harder.

"Open fire on me! Administrator, don't worry about me—I can't die!"

Bullshit.

Of course I know you can't die.

Who do you think keeps paying to revive you guys?!

Chu Guang rolled his eyes inwardly, but his face revealed nothing. He calmly watched the burly man named Chen Yang in the doorway and said casually.

"I don't like being threatened. You'd better put down the gun, raise your hands over your head, and stand against the wall. I can spare your life."

Chen Yang said agitatedly.

"I'm not joking with you! I'll really shoot!"

"So will I," Chu Guang said calmly, looking at him. "Want to try? We'll both act on three."

Xia Yan, leaning beneath the bar, could not stand it any longer. She did not want her teammate, who had barely escaped death, to die here because of her.

"That's enough, Chen Yang. You can leave by yourself... Don't worry about me."

Chu Guang ignored her and softly said the first number.

"Three."

Watching Chu Guang begin the countdown, a bead of cold sweat slid down Chen Yang's forehead.

This lunatic!

Didn't he care about his companion's life at all?!

And the hostage in his hands wore an expression of righteous willingness to die, nothing like a hostage should.

"Two."

Mad.

They were all mad!

"Wait, stop! I don't mean to threaten you! You can have the person back, no problem. I only want one thing!"

Chen Yang admitted that he had chickened out.

He hurriedly glanced at Xia Yan sitting on the ground and continued at a rapid pace. "Give me the key on her. The moment I get it, I'll let him go!"

Chu Guang raised an eyebrow, somewhat curious.

"A key?"

"A magnetic card! She knows what I mean!"

Chu Guang looked at Xia Yan lying on the ground. However, the woman did not look at him, only staring blankly at her former teammate.

"So it was for the key..."

"Think whatever you want. Rather than dying here for nothing, I might as well complete part of the job."

Teammates?

This was the wasteland.

He had originally planned to wait for the Crawlers to leave before searching his teammates' corpses. Otherwise, he would not have played dead to save himself, watching coldly from the sidelines until now before coming to help her.

Ignoring the disappointment in his former teammate's eyes, Chen Yang slowly backed away with his gun pressed to the hostage's temple, his gaze fixed firmly on Chu Guang's expression.

"Well? A woman, and your companion. All I want is a card from her! It's not like it's any use to you anyway."

Chu Guang nodded.

"Fair enough."

So that meant I was even making a profit?

But...

There was no need.

Chu Guang looked at Xia Yan.

"Give it to him."

Seeing that the Administrator had not fired for so long and was instead bargaining with the kidnapper, Ye Shi struggled even harder, terrified that this NPC would compromise with the kidnapper for his sake.

"Don't worry about me! Fang Chang, are you fucking stupid? Shoot him!"

I'm a player.

What the hell am I afraid of?!

If I died here, it'd still count as a glorious sacrifice. Wouldn't my favorability shoot right up?!

"Fuck... stop moving around and let me aim."

Fang Chang was nervous as hell.

How could he dare move recklessly?

It was not that he could not pull the trigger. It was not like he had never finished off teammates while playing battle royale games before. But this game was not a battle royale game. If the Administrator had not acted, how could he dare act on his own?

What if he missed some crucial plot point?!

Without a word, Xia Yan pulled a bloodstained magnetic card from her pocket. It was what the captain had handed her before he died.

Logically, Chen Yang could not possibly have known that she had this card on her.

Unless he had already searched the captain's corpse.

In an instant, she understood everything.

Xia Yan looked expressionlessly at her former teammate. Compared with sorrow or fear, all she felt was numbness.

Perhaps her fate from now on would be miserable.

Like a filthy rag, she would be tossed into a corner to rot, or sold off by these savages to other slave traders until she could no longer work.

But all of a sudden, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

"Take it."

Pinching the card between two fingers, she tossed it out.

Seeing the card land by his feet, Chen Yang's eyes flashed with wild joy and barely concealed greed. He stretched out his foot, intending to kick it out the door.

But at that moment, something happened that he had never expected.

Almost the instant he extended his right foot, the hostage struggling fiercely in his arms suddenly went limp and slipped out from under his elbow, dropping to one knee on the ground.

Before Chen Yang could even figure out what had happened, two gunshots rang out from beside him. One of the bullets went straight through his forehead.

A spray of blood burst from his brow.

Chen Yang's eyes flew wide as he fell stiffly backward. Even at death, he never understood what had happened in that instant.

"Fuck! It hit!"

A headshot!

Lowering his gun, Fang Chang shouted excitedly.

"That was my shot. Your bullet flew into the streetlamp outside... Practice some more." Chu Guang reloaded his rifle with a speechless expression.

He had already stopped expecting anything from these players' marksmanship.

Come to think of it, this was his first time using his "GM" privileges to forcibly kick a player out of the game.

He hadn't expected the feature to be so useful.

Of course, if the players asked, he wouldn't admit it. At most, he would explain it away as a network fluctuation in his capacity as a developer.

"You... killed him..."

Xia Yan stared blankly at Chu Guang, clearly not expecting him to suddenly pull the trigger.

Chu Guang said impatiently.

"I told you, I hate being threatened. Besides, I gave him a chance."

Not to mention that guy had pointed a gun at his people.

As they spoke, Ye Shi, who had slid to his knees on the floor, suddenly twitched and woke up with a bewildered expression.

"Why did I disconnect just now?"

His dazed gaze shifted and landed on the corpse behind him. Ye Shi jolted, then reflexively sprang to his feet.

"Holy shit, how did this guy die?"

Did I skip another cutscene?!

Fang Chang walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

"Probably a network fluctuation. It's good that you managed to log back in... One shot to the head. Heh heh, pretty badass, right, bro?"

"Badass, badass! Fucking awesome!"

All right.

It looked like he could even skip the explanation.

Withdrawing his gaze from the two players, Chu Guang felt that he had recovered enough. He rose from the chair in the dining room.

Walking over to Chen Yang's corpse, Chu Guang bent down and picked up the bloodstained card by his feet, along with the dropped pistol.

The former was useless for now, but the latter was a good find.

Chu Guang turned the pistol over in his hands for a while. It looked like a semi-automatic. He didn't know how powerful it was yet, but it was probably no joke.

"I'm leaving. Good luck to you."

Realizing Chu Guang was speaking to her, Xia Yan blankly raised her head.

"You're not taking me with you?"

Chu Guang answered with a question.

"Did I say I was taking you?"

Xia Yan froze.

This was completely different from what she had imagined, and utterly beyond her expectations.

But she had no time left to think.

Seeing that the man named Chu Guang was not joking and was leading his two fiercely loyal subordinates toward the door, panic rose within her.

"You... really aren't raiders?"

Chu Guang stopped and looked at her teasingly.

"Are you disappointed?"

"I..." Xia Yan opened her mouth, awkwardly hesitated for a while, then gave a dry cough and continued. "What I mean is, are you survivors from nearby? Can you take me to your settlement?"

She had nowhere else to go anyway.

Trying to walk back to Boulder City on one leg was even more absurd than taking on a crawler alone, not to mention she couldn't go back anyway.

Since this group in front of her weren't raiders or slavers, going with them wouldn't be so bad.

However, Chu Guang didn't want to bring along this deadweight.

The shelter's current medical facilities definitely couldn't fit her with a mechanical prosthesis. At most, he could have the carpenter make her a crutch.

With one leg gone, she certainly couldn't do heavy labor, yet she would add another mouth to feed for nothing. With that food, he might as well recruit another player.

But just then, he heard the two players whispering to each other.

"Is that woman a new NPC?"

"Maybe, but it's hard to say... Looks like the Administrator doesn't plan to take her."

"But I think she can still be saved."

"True. She looks like some kind of mercenary. Even with one leg gone, she should still be able to make guns, weapons, and stuff, right?"

Emmm...

That actually made some sense.

After giving it some thought, Chu Guang looked at Xia Yan.

"I'll be blunt. Right now, you're dead weight. Even if I dropped you off at a nearby survivor settlement, your fate wouldn't be much better than death."

Xia Yan bit her lip and lowered her head.

It was the truth.

She didn't need him to tell her to imagine what would happen to her.

Looking at the silent woman, Chu Guang continued.

"Of course, if you have any useful skills, I wouldn't be opposed to taking you with me..."

"As long as you're willing to work for me."