I've Gone All-In, You Do As You Please

"Li Laosi, oh Li Laosi, why did you have to be such a hero!"

On the mountain behind the timber yard, several old men looked down at Li Laosi, who lay wrapped in a straw mat inside the pit, their hearts heavy with lament.

They remembered when they first arrived; this place had been nothing but a desolate, barren hill. Now, after all these years, the trees they had planted back then stood tall and straight.

Yet, the prime of their own lives had long since faded. Li Laosi had no heirs and no legacy; the only things left to keep him company were the trees he had planted with his own hands.

After a brief mourning, the old men turned and left. They were old now, and having spent their days facing these trees and this vast, empty grassland, they had long since made peace with the questions of life and death.

Xu Tong and a few young men hurriedly shoveled the dirt to cover the grave.

"You all go ahead. Let me keep Old Master Li company a little longer."

Xu Tong sat on a nearby rock, covering his face. The young men who had eaten his beef pancakes earlier exchanged glances. Some wanted to console him, knowing full well that this wasn't his fault.

But they were inexperienced in the ways of the world and didn't know what to say, so they could only offer, "Don't take too long. If we're late, the mutton stew will be gone."

With that, they headed down the mountain.

Seeing that everyone had left, he finally lifted his head, glanced left and right, and let out a long, relieved breath.

He reached for the shovel, ready to get to work.

Suddenly, Xu Tong's heart tightened. He turned around vigilantly, only to see a figure sitting on a nearby tree branch, munching on a large apple with great relish.

"It's you!"

The guy before him was one of the three who had come with Zhou Huasheng. He was also the one responsible for inspecting Mad Dog's corpse today.

Had he noticed something?

Xu Tong gripped the shovel tightly, while his other hand quietly tucked a Paper Doll into his palm.

"It's me. We've met before—well, I mean back in the game lobby."

Zhang Hu leaped down from the branch in one fluid motion. From a height of six or seven meters, he landed firmly without needing to absorb the impact.

Seeing that he didn't speak, Zhang Hu chuckled. "Don't worry, I mean no harm. You must be a newbie, right? I'm a veteran player who has already survived five Script Worlds."

Xu Tong's heart stirred at these words, and the tense expression on his face gradually relaxed.

"So, you're a senior."

"Heh!" Seeing him acknowledge it, Zhang Hu's smile grew even brighter. "We lost a teammate in the last script, and we have an opening. Are you interested in joining our team?"

As he spoke, he walked over to Mad Dog's grave and stepped on the mound, looking down at the pile of dirt with disdain. "I trust you realized the difficulty of this script last night. If you lack strength, you have to use your brain. Being a brute is just a shortcut to death."

"This..." He lowered his head, appearing to weigh the pros and cons.

"Don't worry, join our team and you'll have long-term security. Oh, right, you don't have any prop cards yet, do you? Take this as a welcoming gift. How about it?"

Zhang Hu pinched a prop card between his fingers and held it out to Xu Tong.

It was a black-and-white card depicting a paper lantern; it looked like some kind of item prop card.

Greed flashed across Xu Tong's face. "If that's the case, of course I'm willing to join you."

He reached out to take it, but Zhang Hu pulled his hand back. "Hey, you can have it, but it's not free. Once you join the team, if I see you slacking off, hmph..."

"Don't you worry about that. Oh, by the way, what should I call you?"

Xu Tong snatched the prop card, his face full of excitement.

"Just call me Third Brother. We have an operation at eight tonight. Don't be late; come to our room to gather as soon as you can."

"Yes, yes, of course."

He nodded repeatedly, his eyes never leaving the prop card in his hand, his greedy gaze looking as if he'd just picked up a windfall from the sky.

Zhang Hu took all of this in, a look of contempt crossing his face as he thought to himself, Go ahead and be happy. You'll learn soon enough that things from Third Brother aren't so easy to keep.

With that thought, Zhang Hu sauntered down the mountain.

Xu Tong sat on the mound, fiddling with the prop card before casually placing it into his Prop Catalog.

[Red Mandarin Lantern]

Human skin for the shade, human spine for the frame, human hair for the rope, human blood for the oil...

Passive Skill 1: Red Mandarin Lady.

Consumes five Script Points to summon the vengeful spirit residing within the lantern to assist in combat, though the price is often heavy.

Duration: 10 minutes.

Cooldown: 24 hours.

(Note: After summoning the vengeful spirit, it will randomly claim one of your organs as payment.)

Not a good item at all, as expected.

Xu Tong sighed inwardly, though the greedy expression on his face remained unchanged.

"Tch! A rookie. A piece of trash card, and he's this happy?"

Behind a large tree, Zhang Hu turned his head and muttered to himself before turning to leave. However, Zhang Hu failed to notice that as soon as he cleared the forest, a small Paper Doll silently peeled off from the back of his clothes.

Confirming that the man had truly left, Xu Tong's smile vanished instantly. He grabbed the shovel stuck in the ground and began to dig into Mad Dog's grave with all his might.

"Hoo!!"

He hadn't dug very deep before Mad Dog struggled out of the dirt, impatient and gasping for air: "Damn it, if you had been any slower, I would've been a goner!"

"Couldn't help it. If he hadn't left, digging you out would've caused a huge mess." He reached out and pulled Mad Dog from the hole.

He tossed the shovel to him, telling him to fill the grave back in himself.

"Are you really planning to join their team? Don't say I didn't warn you. These guys talk a big game, but they might just be tricking you into joining so they can raise you like a pig for slaughter."

"Oh? You heard that?"

Xu Tong feigned surprise, looking at Mad Dog and curiously asking: "What's a pig for slaughter?"

Mad Dog frowned, clearly disgusted by the so-called "pig-slaughtering" teams, and said with a grave expression:

"What else could it be? They treat newcomers like pigs kept in a pen. They drag them along into every Script World, use them as cannon fodder when necessary, and once the main quest is complete and they return, they force them to hand over all their script points."

Because they are sustained by these "pigs," the team grows at an incredible speed. Once they've squeezed every last bit of value out of them, they'll even slaughter these pigs directly at the start of a new Script World to create the illusion of massive team casualties.

Legend has it that this can significantly lower the difficulty of the next Script World. Although this theory has never been confirmed by the Script Hall, it is a widely circulated rumor among players.

Many players even refer to this practice as the Pig-Slaughtering Ritual.

The vast majority of players despise such teams, yet they are often helpless to stop them.

After all, there are several types of team contracts, and the contracts used by these teams are usually the most unfair. The captain holds absolute authority, and it is extremely difficult for a "pig" to even leave the team.

This was exactly why Mad Dog felt he had to warn him to think it over carefully.

In truth, these things are hard for a novice player to know, but Mad Dog had once formed his own team and made a name for himself, only for things to go south later...

Thinking of the past, Mad Dog's eyes dimmed significantly.

"So, if they pull me into their team, I'm just meat on the chopping block, right?" he continued to ask, keeping his patience.

"Right. But they can't sign a formal contract with you inside a Script World; they can only sign a temporary one."

After saying this, Mad Dog looked up at Xu Tong, only to find the guy smiling—a brilliant, radiant smile on his gaunt face.

It wasn't the cold, extreme sneer of anger, but a smile bordering on madness. His eyes flickered with a sharp, piercing light, like two scorching flames, revealing a hysterical insanity.

Noticing Mad Dog's strange gaze, Xu Tong slowly lowered his head and whispered: "In other words, they're quite fat, aren't they!"

Mad Dog was stunned, nodding with a bizarre expression. These people were more than just "fat"—they definitely possessed a significant number of script points. Furthermore, the fact that they could casually pull out a prop card as bait, no matter how trashy that card might be, was enough to prove the strength of their team.

"You don't mean to..." Mad Dog wanted to advise Xu Tong against this idea.

However, before he could even finish, Xu Tong had already taken out all the prop cards he had and handed them over, including the [Book of Ghost Craftsman] and the [Ghost-Charming Bell].

Looking at the prop cards being handed to him, Mad Dog's expression turned strange. He roughly understood what Xu Tong was thinking.

Yet, staring at the cards, he still hesitated: "You trust me this much? Aren't you afraid I'll just run off with these things?"

Xu Tong's face was buried in the sunlight, his expression calm as he looked at Mad Dog: "The biggest thrill of gambling is either losing everything or getting rich overnight. I'm going all-in; do as you please."

Confidence? Arrogance? Madness?

In that brief moment, countless thoughts flashed through Mad Dog's mind, and he even doubted whether this guy was a normal human being.

His remaining reason was screaming at him not to play with fire alongside this guy.

Yet, after these thoughts flickered through his mind, they were replaced by an irrepressible impulse, like a flame igniting in his heart that he couldn't control, surging upward.

He snatched the prop cards from his hand, grinned, and said: "You lunatic. Just don't let me lose too badly."