Liu Xing leaned against the second-floor railing, his hands rising involuntarily. For a moment, he did not know what to say. After all, this was the first time Liu Xing had had a handgun pointed at his head... well, possibly the last time too.
But at that moment, Liu Xing noticed that Gary had somehow put on a pair of sunglasses, completely hiding his blood-red eyes.
"What do you know? Or rather, what exactly do you know?!" Gary had calmed down by then and spoke to Liu Xing in an icy tone.
Liu Xing knew that Persuasion was his only option now. "KP, I want to use Persuasion on Gary!"
KP004 also knew the situation was urgent, so he did not waste any words and immediately began the check.
Persuasion, 15/20 (This really wasn't rigged. I didn't expect the protagonist to be this lucky either; I had already prepared the failure scenario), Success.
Because the situation was urgent and Gary was deeply suspicious of Liu Xing, this had been a Hard Persuasion check. The result delighted Liu Xing. He had not expected his luck to be so good that he would pass a check with only a twenty percent success rate.
But this was not the time to celebrate. Liu Xing quickly gathered his thoughts and said to Gary, "Mr. Gary, please don't get worked up. If possible, could you put the gun down first? When I was leaving the study, I heard some strange noises coming from this room, so I came over to take a look. Then I saw what happened just now. I hate seeing people hit children more than anything, so I wanted to come in and stop you. I didn't expect you to get so agitated that you even pulled out a gun."
Because the Persuasion had succeeded, Liu Xing knew that as long as he did not say anything wrong or provoke Gary's sensitive nerves, Gary would not point a gun at him again. That made Liu Xing's tone much more relaxed and natural.
In a Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, the result of a check was like the decree of a god—no one could defy it. Liu Xing remembered a joke Wu Lei had told him about a Persuasion check: an investigator had been cornered by a fanatical NPC and was about to be killed when he rolled a Critical Success on Persuasion. He successfully convinced the fanatic that he was the investigator's son, even though the investigator was only in his twenties while the fanatic was already in his thirties...
So, even though Liu Xing's explanation still had plenty of holes if examined closely, Gary already believed him. He put away the handgun and said with a chuckle, "Mr. Liu Xing, I gave you quite a scare. I was only trying to play a joke on you. This handgun in my hand is just a lighter."
Liu Xing wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said with a bitter smile, "Uh, Mr. Gary, you really scared me this time. You know, back in China, we only get to see guns on television and in movies. If you hadn't said so, I would have thought the gun in your hand was real."
Of course, Liu Xing had to keep going along with Gary's story. He could hardly say outright that he knew the handgun was real. Still, having escaped disaster, Liu Xing could not help grumbling inwardly, Aren't you supposed to be a wizard-type boss? Why are you using a handgun? That's not magical at all!
"All Players, please note: the Main Quest for this tabletop RPG session has changed. All Players may now leave Ains Castle, but the mission will only be officially completed once you are ten kilometers away from Ains Town!"
Liu Xing raised an eyebrow. He knew that his actions had changed the Main Quest. After all, Players in a Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG had a great deal of freedom, but every action still had to be "reasonable." For example, although KP004's announcement said that Players could choose to leave Ains Castle, aside from Liu Xing, Bai He Cheng and the others could not leave the castle right now because none of them had a suitable "reason" to do so. Liu Xing, however, could use "Gary threatened me with a gun, so I fear for my life" as his reason for leaving Ains Castle.
So, although Liu Xing could choose to leave Ains Castle alone, he had no intention of abandoning his teammates... Well, if it meant only selling out Bai He Cheng, Liu Xing thought he could consider it...
After all, Liu Xing was no saint. Bai He Cheng had caused trouble again and again, and Liu Xing's patience with him had already reached its limit. Liu Xing had made up his mind that if there came a time when Bai He Cheng needed to be sacrificed, he would sell him out without the slightest hesitation.
"Mr. Liu Xing, please return to your room first. I have some matters to deal with here." After saying that, Gary hurried away once more.
"Liu Xing, you can choose to make a Listen check here," KP004 said to Liu Xing as Gary went down the stairs.
Naturally, Liu Xing would not refuse. KP004 was obviously handing him information. However, Liu Xing had not spent any Skill Points on Listen, so his Listen skill only had a base value of 20.
Listen, 42/20, Failure.
Liu Xing shrugged helplessly. This was within his expectations, but what he had not expected was that KP004 still gave him some information. "Although you could not make out what Gary was muttering, you vaguely heard words like 'child,' 'stupid,' and 'ridiculous.'"
Liu Xing could only think that the Listen check had indeed failed. Put together, those words could only mean that Gary was mocking his actions just now.
Liu Xing had originally planned to return to his room and tell Bai He Cheng and the others everything that had happened here. That way, Bai He Cheng and the others would have a reason to leave Ains Castle with Liu Xing.
But just as Liu Xing was about to head back to his room, Isabella suddenly came to mind. He opened the door and saw Isabella sitting on the bed, crying.
Liu Xing hurried over and comforted her. "Miss Isabella, are you all right?"
When Isabella saw that it was Liu Xing, she hurriedly wiped the tears from her face and pretended that nothing had happened. Smiling at Liu Xing, she said, "I'm fine, Mr. Liu Xing."
Looking at Isabella's tear-streaked face, Liu Xing did not know why, but the words slipped out. "Miss Isabella, would you like to leave here with me? Mr. Gary's treatment of you has been far too cruel."
Liu Xing suddenly felt as though he had awakened some rather alarming trait.
After staring blankly for a moment, Isabella smiled and nodded. "All right. If it's with Mr. Liu Xing, I'm willing."
Liu Xing felt as if he had successfully kidnapped a little girl.
Today, I received a site message saying that I'll be getting a featured promotion on Sunday. I definitely have to thank everyone for your support for achieving these results, so after the recommendation goes live on Sunday afternoon, I'll post three updates. Next week, there will also be two updates every day. Of course, let me have one final day of rest with a single update tomorrow.
By the way, the protagonist's next session is one I ran as KP for the Reader Group. Because there were power outages for two consecutive days—both for me and another reader—it became known as the Power Outage Session. The entertainment value was explosive... in every sense of the word...
Finally, please bookmark and recommend. Thank you, everyone.
Before you continue