In the dark, Gu Mian pressed the chainsaw, its engine switched off, against the neck of the man in his grasp.
"Sorry, buddy. Your goons ran too fast, and I couldn't catch them, so I had to catch you instead."
As he spoke, he pressed the chainsaw even harder against the man's neck.
The teeth were razor-sharp. They easily pierced the skin, and the man flinched in fright, wanting to move but not daring to.
His watermelon knife had long since been sawed in half by Gu Mian. Now all he had left in his hand was the handle.
"Y-you want what?" he asked weakly.
Gu Mian's demonic voice came from above him. "Let's add each other as friends. Then I'll be able to see how much Game Currency you have."
His intentions were obvious.
"You!" The man struggled at that.
Gu Mian reached out and rubbed a finger over the engine button. The man immediately went still.
"I told you: if you know what's good for you, leave me everything valuable or worthless. If you don't, run faster. It's your own fault for staying so close to me and running so slowly."
Big Brother Zhang, with a chainsaw pressed to his neck, was drenched in cold sweat.
He'd thought tonight would be a night of bountiful loot. He hadn't expected his target to be a wolf in sheep's clothing, turning him from a robber into a victim in an instant.
Now he only regretted being so blind as to not realize what a terrifying person this doctor was.
The Fatty beside him was staring, wide-eyed, too. He whispered to Chu Changge, "Was Doctor Gu always this forceful?"
The Fatty had thought that scaring the men away with a chainsaw would be the end of it. He hadn't expected things to turn out so differently.
Chu Changge replied softly, "He's been like this since he was a kid. If anyone tries to cheat him, he'll think up a hundred different ways to cheat them back, and make them suffer for it."
"Don't try to guess what he's thinking. He's the kind of person who can cry from being moved by a horror movie."
As Chu Changge spoke, he glanced toward Gu Mian again.
Big Brother Zhang had already surrendered to the chainsaw's might and was adding Gu Mian as a friend.
"My Game ID is 1. Hurry up."
Big Brother Zhang froze for a moment, but then tremblingly entered "1" on the friend search page and sent Gu Mian a friend request.
Gu Mian accepted it immediately.
Friends could see how many instances the other person had cleared, how much Game Currency they had, and some of their other Attributes.
Gu Mian spotted Big Brother Zhang's Game Currency at a glance.
38 points?
He couldn't even afford a supermarket ticket. For a gang leader, he was pretty broke...
But a mosquito's leg was still meat, so Gu Mian stripped him of everything he had, deleted him as a friend, and finally kicked him away.
The man who'd been kicked didn't even have time to get angry. As soon as he was free, he bolted into the darkness without looking back. The doctor with a chainsaw seemed far more terrifying than the night behind him.
The Fatty craned his neck to watch the man flee in panic. "Doctor, you're just letting him go? Aren't you worried he'll come back for revenge?"
Gu Mian patted him. "Ever heard of harvesting chives? You have to leave the roots behind. When the next batch grows back, you can harvest them again."
Even if the chives came back for revenge, they'd still be chives. They'd only get harvested again.
The Fatty had heard of harvesting chives, but in his wildest dreams, he'd never expected to see vicious-looking bandits treated like chives and harvested.
With all the chives gone, the three continued down the road without a single obstacle.
January nights were chilly. Every breath came out in a cloud of white.
It wasn't even the coldest part of the year yet, and the temperature was still dropping.
Everything they'd bought at the supermarket had been put away in their inventory. Only the chainsaw was wrapped up and strapped to Gu Mian's back, and he didn't seem to mind the weight.
The Fatty tucked his hands into his sleeves and blew on them. "This weather's getting colder and colder. I don't think it was this cold around this time in previous years."
Gu Mian had noticed it too.
"January really is especially cold this year." He looked up at the pitch-black sky, where not a single star was visible. "Maybe it has something to do with this game."
The Fatty kept his hands tucked away. "It's just over a month until New Year's. If this keeps up, won't it be freezing by then? We might not even be able to leave the house."
As he spoke, he sighed. "We used to have plenty to eat and wear for New Year's. Looks like that won't be the case this year."
Residential buildings lined the street in every direction.
The lights were still off in some of them. Those that were lit had their curtains tightly drawn, with only faint light shining through.
Everyone was staying inside, but they wouldn't be able to keep it up for long.
As the Fatty walked, he muttered to himself, "Things used to be fine. What's the matter with Earth, making all this trouble? Now there's an Evolution Game, and everyone's too scared to go outside... I wonder if things will get any better by New Year's..."
As they spoke, they had already returned to the apartment building where Gu Mian lived.
The lobby was lit. At a glance, they spotted a familiar figure sitting behind the counter.
The Fatty had never seen the landlady before, and his eyes nearly popped out at the sight of her.
Even from far away, her hazy, alluring charm swept over them.
One look made it feel as if they'd traveled through time, back to the pleasure quarters by the river in the 1930s. An old-fashioned, rich scent of rouge lingered at the tip of the nose, and all around them was the bustling world of mortals.
She seemed to notice Gu Mian. She lifted her head slightly to glance at the group, then smiled faintly without saying a word.
That smile was truly beautiful. The Fatty was instantly dazed, and he began grinning foolishly too.
Alarm bells rang in Gu Mian's mind. He grabbed the Fatty, who was staring stupidly, and headed for the stairs.
The landlady was a dangerous woman, to be sure.
Her name was Liu Ruyan, a name as captivating as she was.
She was extremely sophisticated and worldly, never letting the slightest flaw show on the surface. A smile that could make anyone swoon was always on her face, and one blink of her eyes was enough to leave people completely spellbound.
She did have one problem: too many men were chasing after her.
The open space in front of the apartment was often packed with cars of all kinds, their makes impossible to name. There was never anywhere for Gu Mian to park his bicycle, and eventually it was stolen after he left it by the roadside.
But he was an upright man and didn't hold it against the landlady.
That is, until one day, when he came home early and saw Liu Ruyan trying to turn the valve on the natural gas line in his kitchen.
For a moment, he wondered if the landlady was an assassin sent by life to kill him.
Fortunately, he'd already been through plenty of bizarre things. He didn't panic and move away. After all, even if he moved, life wouldn't stop trying to kill him.
With the landlady watching, he simply removed his front door, installed a new, high-grade security door, and even replaced the lock cylinder.
That way, Liu Ruyan couldn't use her spare key to sneak into his kitchen and turn on the gas.
Liu Ruyan didn't say anything about it and simply accepted the change.
After that, the valve on the natural gas line in Gu Mian's home was never mysteriously turned on again.
The Fatty was still savoring the memory as Gu Mian dragged him upstairs. Suddenly, he leaned closer to Gu Mian and spoke in a hushed, mysterious voice. "Doctor, I just figured something out about you."
What? Gu Mian looked at him, puzzled.
The Fatty began:
"Lu Xun once said:
If you have a fat man surnamed Wang by your side;
A bespectacled man with a perpetually cold expression;
A beautiful celebrity you meet by chance;
A sexy landlady;
And parents who mysteriously died—
Then—
You must be the legendary protagonist!"
Before you continue