A Little Interest

Yu Xunge restored her health to full, then used her Disguise skill to take on Su Yitong's appearance. She did not expect such a low-level frame-up to work, but it was still better than using her own face.

She put on a baseball cap to cover her swim cap, took out a large axe, and drank a Minor Invisibility Potion.

She carefully crawled out from beneath the bed and moved to its side.

She had originally intended to chop off Liang Yuchuan's head, but stopped when she saw the black metal collar around Liang Yuchuan's neck. Liang Yuchuan had worn that collar throughout Yu Xunge's previous life. There was an equipment slot on the neck, and with Liang Yuchuan's abilities, it was impossible for her not to obtain a necklace-type item. There was only one explanation: this collar was equipment, and high-level equipment at that. How had Yu Xunge failed to steal it?!

Even if it was not a collar, with just 7 Strength, she was not confident she could chop through both that obviously high-quality metal collar and Liang Yuchuan's neck in one swing.

Yu Xunge did not hesitate for long. She aimed at Liang Yuchuan's right arm, leapt high into the air, and brought the axe down with every ounce of her strength.

The Assassin God, huh?!

The axe severed Liang Yuchuan's right forearm in an instant, taking less than a second from start to finish.

Blood splattered across Yu Xunge's face, revealing the eyes she had disguised as Su Yitong's. They met Liang Yuchuan's eyes, filled with terror and hatred.

Almost instantly, Liang Yuchuan used her skill to merge into the blood on the bed. Only a forearm remained atop the sheets.

That was why Yu Xunge had given up on killing Liang Yuchuan outright after realizing she was not certain she could cut off her head. Liang Yuchuan was too hard to kill. Whether she turned into water and merged with water or simply stayed in it, she could slowly recover health. It was practically a bug!

Would terror make someone freeze up? No. For someone with a talent for battle, terror and pain would only make them flee faster.

Not only that, there were several cups of water in Liang Yuchuan's room, and even a few bowls of water under the bed. Even if Yu Xunge stabbed her through the heart or knocked her unconscious first, Liang Yuchuan would still have a few seconds to escape.

All she could say was that once a God-given talent reached S-rank, there were no weak ones.

But leaving behind an arm—her right forearm, at that—meant Yu Xunge had not lost out.

After people became datafied, no matter how severe their injuries were, healing could close their wounds. But it could not create missing body parts out of thin air. If an arm or leg was severed, they would remain disabled unless the missing part was recovered, reattached, and then healed.

Now that Liang Yuchuan had lost a forearm, this was merely interest.

Yu Xunge put the severed limb into her game inventory. Before the people outside could burst in, she put on Soros's Eye. The Minor Invisibility Potion was still on cooldown, so she exploited a bug and drank a Medium Invisibility Potion. The two potions naturally had separate cooldowns, and the parts of her body that had been revealed because they were covered in blood turned invisible again.

After downing a Phasing Potion, she calmly walked through the wall and left the room.

Through Soros's Eye, she saw the information of everyone moving about the villa.

There were no players. Even Liang Yuchuan's brothers were not players yet.

They had probably entered the game during the second closed beta at the earliest, with Liang Yuchuan's help.

Yu Xunge ran out of the estate before the invisibility potion wore off.

With Agility as high as 18, she was now faster than the quickest sprinters. She sprinted all the way out of the villa district before even finishing one bottle of invisibility potion. Instead of returning to her own villa, she ran to the nearest lake. Still wearing Su Yitong's face, she washed the blood from her body in the lake, took off her clothes, and burned them to ashes by the shore. Then she shoveled the top layer of soil beneath them into the lake as well.

She turned invisible again and ran toward downtown.

Liang Yuchuan's blood had once been on her body. Yu Xunge did not know whether Liang Yuchuan could sense anything through her blood. God-given talents were far too overpowered; some of their effects went beyond what was written on the skill panel.

Take herself, for instance. In her previous life, her initial Agility had been 5. But after gaining the Thief God's talent in this life, her starting Agility was 11. More than that, even without using a skill, she could steal someone's phone while brushing past them without being noticed. Her hands had also become incredibly nimble and flexible. These were all changes brought about by her talent.

And as the number of her thefts increased, using her skills became increasingly smooth and natural.

Since the Water God could control water, Yu Xunge did not dare gamble on whether Liang Yuchuan could sense her own blood.

Yu Xunge did not return home for the entire day. Once her disguise wore off, she wandered around wearing a cap, mask, and Soros's Eye, once again acting like a street loafer. Wherever there were crowds, she went. Once Disguise came off cooldown, she changed clothes, disguised herself as a man, and showered at a shabby hotel that did not require ID to check in.

In the end, she simply took an unlicensed cab to the neighboring city.

Her new manager even called midway through, saying he wanted to discuss her upcoming work arrangements. Yu Xunge directly told him she was traveling and to wait three days.

She was not sure whether she was simply outwitting the air, but she did not dare take the risk. She would rather look like an idiot than return to her old nest after doing something bad. That was the experience and instinct she had gained from years on the run.

More importantly, her Luck was currently maxed out. Sometimes, intuition was Luck guiding her.

The facts proved that Yu Xunge had made the right bet.

After Yu Xunge left, Liang Yuchuan switched forms, drank a Minor Healing Potion, and was sent to the hospital by helicopter. Her injury was beyond what a family doctor could treat.

She had been sensing her blood the entire time on the helicopter. She could feel the trace of her blood leave the estate and linger by a lake, but her sensing range was too small. Once her severed forearm had been numbed and the bleeding stopped, she boarded the helicopter and began following the trace of her blood.

By the time Yu Xunge left S City, House Liang had already tracked the trail into downtown.

The helicopter flew brazenly back and forth over the city. House Liang's power meant they did not need to apply for a flight path at all.

But the traces were too chaotic. Liang Yuchuan had possessed her talent for less than a week; reaching downtown was already her limit.

She clutched her wound so tightly that it began to bleed again, yet she could not suppress the agony in her heart. Only half of her right arm remained!

She had become disabled!!

Hatred reddened Liang Yuchuan's eyes.

She remembered those eyes. She would find her. She definitely would!

Yu Xunge did not idle around in H City either. If her body had not been datafied, she truly feared she might drop dead from overwork.

She had come to H City for a famous item.

After the game invasion, some things on Earth had a chance of mutating. She had even heard that a machine in a starch factory mutated into an S-rank item capable of mass-producing starch sausages that gave +2 Strength for five minutes after being eaten.

Yu Xunge had no intention of going after something like that. Though she was selfish and would not warn everyone about the game invasion in advance, she would not touch an item that would clearly be more useful on the battlefield in official hands.

What she wanted was a cat bed at a pet hospital. This cat bed had been there ever since the pet hospital opened. Any stray cat passing by could rest in it, and the doctors cleaned it regularly. It was precisely such a cat bed with a history that triggered a mutation chance after the game invasion and became an S-rank item.

[Meow Meow Inn] (S-rank): Place it outside your home for a chance to attract stray animals. If an animal stays the night and you sincerely host it, it will leave behind one of its recent favorite treasures as a gift of thanks.