"Is the Main God messing with me? Don't tell me my mission suddenly went from incomplete to complete?" Wang Zhen raised an eyebrow and asked with interest. "If that's what it's doing, then I have to thank the Main God!"
"Of course, I have to thank Zheng Zha too!"
"He really is a good Samaritan!"
Hearing Wang Zhen's strange remarks, Zhang Jie knew he had to explain what happened. Otherwise, it was bound to give people the wrong idea!
The three of them had each completed a mission, yet he and Zheng Zha had returned to the God Hall together, with Zheng Zha still in critical condition after being cut in half. If he didn't explain, people could easily accuse him of harming a teammate. He didn't care about that, but damn it, I didn't even do anything, and I'm still getting blamed? What a raw deal!
"You already know your mission wasn't complete because the last Xenomorph was inside Ripley, right? Actually, it wasn't just your mission that was connected to Mission 1, the mandatory mission. My Mission 2 was connected to it too!"
"That biological android spy, Ash, had already taken control of Ripley and forced her to the door of the room where the cryo chambers were kept! When I found Ash, Zheng Zha was already there, confronting Ash and Ripley, who was being held hostage. If that had been all, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. Zheng Zha and I could easily have rescued her and continued the mission. In fact, the two of us working together could have completed both our missions!"
"You and Zheng Zha... probably thought the same thing, right? The temptation of completing two missions at once was pretty strong! And there was only one biological android, Ash. That thing was just a synthetic human and a corporate spy, not a Terminator T-1000 or T-X. It could fight, sure, but it wasn't especially strong! At least, it wasn't as strong as a Xenomorph. You two... got played?" From Zhang Jie's explanation, Wang Zhen immediately guessed that Zheng Zha had fallen into a trap. He wasn't so sure about Zhang Jie.
"Exactly! Just as you guessed!"
"Zheng Zha and I both thought it was a perfect opportunity. So while he talked, Zheng Zha slowly approached Ash to distract it. Then I seized my chance and fired two shots in quick succession, breaking Ash's neck. Zheng Zha hurried over to rescue Ripley, and then..."
"Then Ripley's stomach suddenly began to swell. That was when Zheng Zha and I realized the Xenomorph embryo inside her had activated and grown. We both knew we couldn't let it tear its way out of Ripley's body, so Zheng Zha opened the door to the cryo chamber room, dragged her inside, and put her into a chamber. Just as he pressed the switch to launch it out of the spaceship, Ash turned out not to be dead!"
"Although it had no head, while Zheng Zha and I were focused on Ripley, it crawled into the room where the cryo chambers were kept. Just as Zheng Zha pressed the launch switch and opened the launch tunnel, right before the chamber was about to be fired into space, that headless thing somehow crawled into the room. Then its arm turned into a laser sword, and it cut Zheng Zha in half in one strike. After that, it jumped into another cryo chamber with Zheng Zha's lower half and launched itself out of the spaceship." As Zhang Jie spoke, a strange expression crossed his ugly, scarred face.
"Huh?"
"What the hell?"
"A sci-fi version of the Headless Horseman?"
"Got it! That makes perfect sense!" Wang Zhen fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
What else could he say?
After all, Wang Zhen hadn't been there, so he had no idea what had happened. And Zheng Zha wasn't dead, so Zhang Jie probably hadn't lied about the sequence of events. In other words, that was how it had happened. Only Zhang Jie knew how much he'd held back along the way!
At the very least, Wang Zhen was certain that even if Zhang Jie hadn't realized at first that Ash was still alive after its neck had been broken, he would have sensed it the moment the headless body so much as moved a millimeter! Under those circumstances, for that headless body to crawl in through the door, grab Zheng Zha by the leg, reveal a laser sword, and cut him in half—there was no way it could have pulled that off by surprise within Zhang Jie's range of mental sensing. Even if Ash had been one of Skynet's finest creations, a T-1000 or T-X (meaning their movie versions), it still wouldn't have stood a chance!
Wang Zhen figured Zhang Jie had held back a whole Pacific Ocean's worth, trying to let Zheng Zha die at Ash's hands in a way that would seem legitimate. After all, no one could have predicted that this biological android wouldn't play by the rules at all and wouldn't die even after losing its head!
Then Zheng Zha had been cut in half by the laser sword of that conscientious biological android spy, which carried part of his body back to Earth to complete the mission. Zheng Zha, left with only half his body, had eventually died a miserable death.
That made perfect sense!
Thinking of this, Wang Zhen couldn't help glancing up at Zheng Zha, whose full restoration was nearly complete. His expression grew a little strange. "The Main God's so stingy! It took so many reward points from him, and it couldn't even give him a pair of disposable shorts? (A specialty of bathhouses in Northeast China: disposable underwear or disposable shorts, take your pick—they're free.) What's with leaving him naked? This is a public place!"
Wang Zhen was also using Zheng Zha to distract himself. After all, thinking about how Zhang Jie had held back a whole Pacific Ocean's worth and still hadn't managed to let Zheng Zha die in the mission in a way that made sense was enough to make his voice betray how he really felt. His composure was clearly cracking!
So, really, Wang Zhen wanted to laugh!
But no matter what, he couldn't let it show. Otherwise, Zhang Jie really would flip the table!
So Wang Zhen could only—
"Selene, how long was I gone?"
"Master, you were gone for one second."
"One second? So it was practically as if I never left?" Wang Zhen sighed softly and muttered.
The Main God's control over time and space had completely overturned Wang Zhen's understanding. He felt that he still had a long way to go in Infinite Space and needed something new to help him grow stronger quickly, despite how small and helpless he was, so that other people would speak to him gently and politely!
"Good Luck Cheat, I cleared another story world. Where's my big prize?"
If he relied on the Main God alone, how long would it take before he could overtake it and make it speak to him properly?
So Wang Zhen called out the Good Luck Cheat, which had been hidden for an entire story world!
The only way to surpass it was with a cheat!
"One Golden Blind Box has been delivered... please claim it."
Wang Zhen saw a Dayun Truck gleaming with golden light come roaring through his consciousness space. It slammed on the brakes and came to a stop, its cargo bed shimmering with an intense golden glow.
A Golden Blind Box, just as advertised!
Wang Zhen used his mind to open the cargo bed... the blind box. The Golden Dayun Truck vanished, leaving behind a black coffin.
A coffin that was black all over, with a blood-red cross on its lid.
A coffin that was black all over, with a blood-red cross on its lid and an inscription written in Gothic script beneath it.
"I am the Bird of Hermes. I devour my own wings to master my own heart!"
Before you continue