Screech...
A faint scraping sound suddenly rang out in the room.
Bai Ye, his thoughts interrupted, narrowed his eyes and looked toward the source of the sound—the window!
His window had actually opened by itself!
That was right. He had not seen wrong. There was no one outside, and there was no wind. Yet, bizarrely, the window had slid open on its own, as if an invisible giant hand had gently pushed it aside.
Bai Ye's expression did not change. He remained lying on the bed, calmly watching the window.
Faced with such a supernatural phenomenon, he did not even reach for the [Breath of Bones] beside his pillow, because he knew it would be of little use.
He waited quietly. The slightest hint of danger, and Time Stop would activate immediately.
After about thirty seconds, a yellowed sheet of letter paper drifted in through the window without any wind, floating straight toward him.
The letter hovered before Bai Ye, then slowly came to a stop.
A line of bloody red words was written on it.
[Come alone to the woods north of town at midnight tonight. Do not tell anyone. Your life depends on this.]
"Fuck! Who the hell are you trying to scare?"
The floating letter and bloody writing made for an eerie scene, but rather than frightening Bai Ye, it stirred up his ferocity.
With three minutes and fifty seconds of time at his disposal, even if a god descended before him, he would have dared to slap it across the face. Let alone this.
Time Stop!
Buzz!
A massive golden clock face emerged beneath Bai Ye, freezing the flow of time in an instant like a divine decree.
He sprang from the bed, [Breath of Bones] in hand, and charged out through the window.
Defiant flames burned in his dark eyes!
"Showing up in the middle of the night with a piece of trash paper to scare me? Human or ghost, if I don't squeeze your balls out tonight, I'll count you lucky for hiding your congenital deformity so well!"
Outside the window, Bai Ye raised his Spear and scanned the surroundings. At a glance, he spotted a furtive figure crouching by the wall. His bandage-wrapped right hand was held high, with his thumb and forefinger pinching empty air as though gripping an invisible letter.
Well, well. So it was you, huh?
He rushed over. Once he got closer and took a look under the moonlight, he let out a surprised sound. It was an old acquaintance!
Magic Hand Li You!
Bai Ye had heard about Li You long ago. Supposedly, King Snake had broken his right hand and left him to fend for himself.
He had not expected to find him here in the middle of the night.
A Transcendent?
Those three words surfaced in Bai Ye's mind. Though he had never met a Transcendent, he had heard some rumors. Compared to people such as Genetic Modifiers and Mechanical Augmenters, Transcendents were far more mysterious and rare.
Rumor had it that Transcendents possessed all kinds of miraculous abilities, and what Li You had displayed looked very much like one.
Bai Ye guessed that Li You's ability was related to his right hand. After all, the way he crouched by the wall with his right hand raised was simply too strange. To verify his suspicion, Bai Ye followed the line of Li You's right hand and began feeling around. Sure enough, he found something.
An invisible giant hand extended from Li You's right hand. It was as hard as steel, and it stretched a full three meters.
At that moment, Bai Ye understood everything. Li You had opened the window with that invisible hand, and it had also carried the letter inside, which was why it had floated in midair.
Fine! So you were playing ghost tricks on me, huh?
Time resumed!
Li You rubbed his aching raised right arm with his left hand and muttered, "That kid should have finished reading it by now, right? Why hasn't there been any reaction? He should at least be scared enough to jump out of bed, shouldn't he?
Could he be asleep?"
Suddenly, a cold voice sounded behind Li You.
"I'm not asleep, but I know you'll be sleeping forever soon."
Click!
It was the sound of a bullet being chambered. An icy gun barrel pressed against Li You's head.
Li You's body instantly stiffened, and his expression changed drastically. "Bai Ye!?"
"Don't move. If your right hand so much as drops an inch, I guarantee you won't live to see tomorrow's sun."
Li You stiffened even further. His right hand, which had been about to lower, froze rigidly in midair. Damn it, this kid discovered my ability.
He had originally planned to use his invisible right hand to restrain Bai Ye. He believed that against an invisible giant hand, even if Bai Ye possessed a Taboo Object, he would be caught off guard. Yet he had never expected Bai Ye to see through the basis of his ability at a glance.
"You... weren't asleep?" Li You spoke to stall for time while desperately thinking of a countermeasure.
"Heh." Bai Ye sneered behind him. "Have you never gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night?"
Li You did not believe a single word of that. Before opening the window, he had secretly taken a look, and Bai Ye had still been in bed then. So Bai Ye definitely had not discovered him while going out to use the bathroom.
Instead, the instant he saw the window open, he had rushed out of the room with lightning speed, without a second of hesitation, and quietly come up behind him while he was delivering the letter.
No wonder there had been no movement inside after he held up that letter for so long. Bai Ye had already come outside.
Damn it, this was nothing like what he had expected! Why was Bai Ye's way of thinking so different from a normal person's? When a normal person saw a window opening by itself, shouldn't they freeze, then think about where the anomaly came from?
What kind of hothead charged out without a care the moment he saw something abnormal? In the middle of the night, wasn't he afraid of running into a ghost?
"Li You... oh, no. I suppose I should call you Li Zuo now." Bai Ye leisurely tapped Li You's head with the gun.
The repeated touches of the icy barrel made Li You's entire body go cold. He hurriedly said, "Bai Ye, actually, I—"
"Call me Deputy Commander Bai." Bai Ye kicked him in the ass, cutting him off.
Li You froze for a moment. A flash of anger crossed his face, but he hurriedly changed his words. "Deputy Commander Bai, I actually mean no harm. I only came because I have an important matter to discuss."
"Oh?" A dangerous curve formed at Bai Ye's lips. "Well, isn't that convenient? You don't mean any harm, but I do!
You know, what I hate most in my life is people wasting my time. Because of your unreasonable stunt, you wasted ten precious seconds of mine. Ten whole seconds! How many ten seconds does a person get in life?"
Li You did not know Bai Ye was referring to the duration of Time Stop. He assumed he meant the time it had taken to come out of the house.
He fell silent for a moment, then cautiously said, "Assuming a person lives to sixty, then there are roughly 189,216,000 ten-second intervals in a lifetime."
"You motherfucker!"
Bang!
Bai Ye kicked Li You in the ass again, nearly sending him sprawling face-first onto the ground.
"So you're the only one who's good at math? You think I can't do it myself? Who asked you to tell me?"
Bai Ye could indeed calculate it, but not as quickly as Li You. He would need to find paper and calculate it with a pen.
"I'll give you three seconds. Give me one Li You... reason not to kill you!"
Li You hurriedly said, "I came to help you!"
"You think you're worthy?"
"I'm a Transcendent!"
Bang!
Another kick.
Bai Ye roared, "What the hell are you showing off for? So what if you're a Transcendent?"
Before you continue