Jealousy Makes You Unrecognizable-Look, Your Face Has Changed

Zhang Anzai and the Official Division players watching the live feed had been on edge ever since this unusual situation began.

But in reality, less than a minute had passed since Mr. Li had limped in and confronted him wearing the Wolf-Head Mask.

The guy really knew how to keep his cool. Then again, he'd been badly injured just moments ago and needed time to recover. During their brief standoff, the wounds he'd brought to life had already healed most of the way.

Even the bruising around the wound on his leg had faded considerably as a result.

"I really underestimated you. From the looks of it, you must have a high-level talent that boosts your mental abilities." Mr. Li finally spotted the clue. He spoke between ragged breaths.

All of Zhang Anzai's unusual moves and abilities so far were secondary. What mattered most was his composure.

This was only his third time on the front lines, but he'd been through far more instances than an ordinary newcomer. And the first two had been especially brutal. So even though his opponent was one of the Ten Evils, he was still able to stay calm.

"So that's why you have a decent administrator..." Mr. Li said, gripping the cleaver in his left hand and the Pointed Knife in his right.

"I fucking hate people like you!"

Zhang Anzai took a deep breath and held it. At the same time, from his real body came a series of shouts: "Left shoulder! Right leg!..."

Zhang Anzai turned without hesitation, drove his legs into the ground, and rammed his back hard against the heavy dissection table.

"Grr..." The Wolf-Head Mask's neural connection seemed to have altered his physical abilities a little, just as the Burn Mask had changed Mr. Li's build. His body seemed to have grown stronger as well.

That was why, despite the table's immense weight, he managed to shove it away along with the corpse on top, clearing some space for himself.

Behind him stood a rack without a glass cover.

A freak mask with yellow, misshapen teeth and pale skin; an Old Man Mask with blood covering much of its skin and a wild, unkempt head of hair; and a Stitched Mask made from the skin of several different people.

Still attached to the plastic mannequin heads they covered, all three tumbled off the shelf, mouths gaping as they lunged for him.

"Ah!!"

Since much of their internal structure remained intact, the masks could even scream.

Zhang Anzai had expected this move, but his heart still lurched. He quickly glanced over them. Each was a fresh mask, and it was probably because they were still so active that they could be remotely controlled to attack.

Fortunately, the reminders from his real body kept coming at his ear.

"Upper right! Left leg, in front..." Hearing the warnings one after another, Zhang Anzai swung the Bronze Sword and the Meat-Sawing Blade without hesitation.

"Bang! Splurt!" The bald mask with strange teeth was struck head-on by the Bronze Sword and sent flying. It crashed into the wall, then rolled to the floor.

The Stitched Mask by his legs was in even worse shape. The Meat-Sawing Blade hit it squarely, cleaving through its skin and the model beneath it. The head was even left impaled on the blade.

The problem was, three heads had fallen from the shelf at once. He could use the Official Division's warnings to knock away the first two, but there was still one more behind them.

What he hadn't expected was that before he could pull his arms back, his head moved on its own.

"Grr..." A low growl rose from his throat.

The last head was the bloodstained Old Man Mask, its hair wild and matted, as if it had been chopped off the neck of some vicious serial killer.

Yet faced with the terrifying mask, Zhang Anzai found himself growling back at it, his own wolf's mouth opening wide.

"Fuck!" Zhang Anzai swore involuntarily when he realized what his first instinct had been.

Under the mask's influence, he'd actually wanted to bite straight into the top of the head and rip off the skull.

"Clack!" His long, wolfish jaws snapped shut. But under the influence of his own will, he stopped himself from biting into the flesh. Instead, he caught the head by its hair and flung it away.

"Phew..." Zhang Anzai let out a long breath and shook his hands.

"Rumble..." The Stitched Mask head that had been stuck on the Meat-Sawing Blade rolled to the floor.

At that moment, Zhang Anzai turned around and looked at Mr. Li, who had taken the opportunity to approach him, with a pair of chilling wolf's eyes.

"Smack!" Mr. Li caught the Old Man Mask head Zhang Anzai had flung at him. The impact had clearly left his hands numb, but he still had no intention of avoiding his own creation.

Instead, he held it in his tool-wielding hand and lowered his head to admire it for a moment.

"Quite a performance..." Standing beside the dissection table that had been shoved aside, he examined his handiwork, then lifted the mask by its wild hair and turned its face back around.

"Do you know the story behind this mask?" The shriveled, burned flesh around Mr. Li's mouth stretched into a wide grin.

"This old man was a senior researcher. Meticulous and naturally brilliant, he could master in a glance the sort of material ordinary people like me had to cram endlessly to barely understand...

"He had no real ambitions in life, but people were always lining up to flatter him. He never had to worry about food or clothing... Just like people like you, he was a genius, and I hated him!"

Zhang Anzai stood there, panting as he watched Mr. Li perform his little Sichuan folk-art routine. Mr. Li's face shifted in an instant from a proud sneer to jealous fury.

But honestly, it didn't intimidate Zhang Anzai much.

If anything, after the tense fight had pushed him into a rather irrational state, Mr. Li's performance suddenly brought him back to his senses.

"Am I a genius? I'd say I'm just average..." Zhang Anzai's real body hadn't spent much effort controlling this body, and the corners of his mouth were already twitching.

"Man, this guy's had a rough time. Jealousy makes you unrecognizable. Look, your face has changed from being so mad..."

Zhang Anzai understood, and so did more or less everyone from the Official Division watching from the sidelines.

From what Mr. Li had said, it wasn't hard to guess that Bi Gan had no particular strengths and hadn't gained any even moderately high-level talents after entering the game.

He probably couldn't meet the game's harsh requirements, and was rather mediocre in real life too, rarely receiving any recognition.

That was probably why he had such a fragile ego. But his abilities were poor, so he likely wasn't valued by his administrator—maybe he was even ignored.

From his words, it sounded like his administrator had also used other players with high-level talents to compare against him and undermine his confidence.

After going through all that with such a poor mindset, of course he'd become twisted.

His motive was actually quite similar to that of the original instance boss. One was insecure about his appearance, the other about his abilities. Both enjoyed making the people who looked down on them helpless prey beneath their blades.