Rebirth

"Did he... did he think he wasn't dying fast enough?"

Cheng Xin wiped his mouth under Lin Shiming's disdainful gaze, looking utterly incredulous.

Then something even more unbelievable happened.

Li Xian really seemed to have a death wish. After shouting that, he kept yelling:

"Marriage-scammer gay-scumbag-fucking perv-mmph!"

Zhou Shan sprang out of bed as fast as he could and clamped a hand over Li Xian's mouth.

"You motherfucker..."

Zhou Shan's eyes were bloodshot. Rage and fear surged through him together, leaving him unsure what to do next. He could only keep his hand pressed firmly over Li Xian's mouth.

Yet Li Xian still seemed unsatisfied. He desperately pried at Zhou Shan's fingers, even scratching several bloody marks into his skin.

This time, even Lin Shiming knitted his brows tightly, unable to understand why Li Xian was so determined to take them both down.

On the screen, Zhou Shan was clearly about to lose himself to rage, but Li Xian kept struggling desperately.

Cheng Xin clicked his tongue. "...Has this kid gone insane?"

"Doesn't look like it."

Lin Shiming adjusted his glasses.

He had seen plenty of players driven to extreme behavior as they neared a breakdown in the face of death, but none of them had eyes like Li Xian's.

Clear. Resolute.

Still, he had no idea what Li Xian was trying to do.

A sharp clatter suddenly rang out.

In his struggles, Li Xian had knocked the knife off the table.

That accident gave Zhou Shan an idea instead. He picked up the knife from the floor and plunged it toward Li Xian's chest-

The sharp blade easily pierced Li Xian's bare chest, leaving the viewers no room for wishful thinking.

A muffled grunt escaped Li Xian's throat. Notifications of his falling Health Points kept ringing in his mind. Trapped in Zhou Shan's arms, he gradually stopped struggling.

"Hah... hah..."

The knife's handle fell to the floor. Zhou Shan's hands were slick with cold sweat.

He looked up. At some point, the Village Chief had appeared by the window.

"What's all this noise?"

Zhou Shan's hair stood on end. He knew the Village Chief had heard Li Xian's shouts.

"He... he was spouting nonsense in his death throes... see? I've already dealt with him."

Zhou Shan kicked Li Xian's "corpse," desperately trying to defend himself.

"I... I'll throw him into the river right now."

Stammering, Zhou Shan hoisted Li Xian onto his shoulder under the Village Chief's gaze and fled toward the river.

He moved quickly, as though desperate to prove something, and soon reached the riverbank.

[Is the streamer dead... or not? We can't see his Health Points.]

[How could he survive getting stabbed in the chest?]

[Does it matter? Even if he's still breathing, he'll die once he's thrown into the river.]

[Sigh, the stream closes two minutes after the streamer dies. Lighting a candle.]

Zhou Shan dumped Li Xian on the ground. Seemingly unwilling to get too close to the water, he spread his legs and stretched out a foot to kick him into the river.

His shoe touched Li Xian, but just as he was about to push, the man on the ground suddenly opened his eyes.

Zhou Shan's breath caught. His mind went blank for an instant, then he felt a sudden grip around his ankle.

Li Xian pulled, using the momentum of Zhou Shan's raised foot.

With his legs spread too far apart, Zhou Shan immediately lost his balance under that tug. Li Xian rolled away and delivered another fierce blow to his knee.

Whether by coincidence or not, the river surged outward as if sensing something. Zhou Shan's foot slipped, and he lost his balance completely.

Before the river swallowed him, the last things he saw were Li Xian's deathly pale face and the crimson stab wound in his chest.

Why hadn't he died?

No one answered that question.

[????]

[Am I hallucinating? Not only did the streamer survive, he turned the tables and killed Zhou Shan???]

[Holy shit, what's going on? Why isn't he dead??]

[Is it a skill? That would be insanely overpowered!]

If Li Xian's unknown health bar had merely added a touch of mystery for the viewers, his feigned death now had their hearts pounding with excitement.

He had turned the tables and killed an instance character! That wasn't something they saw every day!

Tips flooded the screen, as though the viewers had finally acknowledged Li Xian's ability as a newcomer.

"Fuck, he really is a lunatic-"

Cheng Xin seemed to have figured something out, his voice tinged with disbelief.

"He provoked Zhou Shan so he'd get killed."

"No, that's not quite right. He knew he wouldn't die, so he was pretending to get killed."

"But what normal person would think of doing that? Never mind the pain of a fatal wound-didn't he consider what would happen if Zhou Shan just twisted his head off?"

Momentarily speechless at Li Xian's astonishing actions, Lin Shiming looked at the pale, silent young man on the screen and contradicted Cheng Xin:

"That wouldn't have happened. Zhou Shan's method of killing him was part of his plan, too."

Cheng Xin's pupils trembled as he remembered the knife Li Xian had "accidentally" knocked to the floor.

Alongside his shock, a trace of fear arose, as though he were looking at a monster.

"How can anyone scheme against himself to that extent?"

The "monster," Li Xian, forced himself upright and clutched his chest, making his way step by step toward the tiled-roof house by the river as he cursed inwardly.

Fucking pervert. He really drove that knife in hard.

This hurt much worse than the last time I nearly died.

Who knew whether Ji Xie's health bar could hold out?

His unfathomable amount of health did nothing to ease his physical agony. Every step sent pain through his heart, as though it were being tugged apart.

Li Xian finally understood why, after he had successfully pulled off his "marriage scam," Ji Xie had shown a trace of pity alongside his irritation.

The walk was only a few steps, but it took Li Xian twice as long as usual.

Sweat brought on by the pain slid down the side of his face. Li Xian couldn't even spare the strength to wipe it away. Once inside, he collapsed onto the floor.

"Hiss-"

At last, he couldn't hold back a sharp intake of breath.

[Help, my heart's getting phantom pains too...]

[The streamer's really good at enduring pain. He hasn't even made a sound.]

[His face looks as white as paper. It's like he could drop dead any second.]

Li Xian leaned against the bed and took a long moment to recover before reaching up to pull down the sheet.

I have to stop the bleeding. Even if I don't die, I'll pass out from blood loss.

Li Xian dug out the scissors he had used to trim the wig earlier, cut the sheet into strips, and wrapped them around his wound.

The pure white sheet was very thin. Even though Li Xian wrapped it around several times, blood still seeped through to the outermost layer.

Once he had finished, Li Xian's eyelids began to flutter before finally closing against his will.

His consciousness sank into darkness. He didn't know whether he had fallen asleep or passed out.

[Health Points -20]

[Health Points -20]

[Health Points -20]

Ji Xie clicked his tongue.

Stupid system. After all this time, it still didn't have an option to turn off notifications.

At this rate of health loss, he must have suffered a fatal wound, right?

He was probably regretting it bitterly by now.

On a whim, he decided to pay Li Xian a visit.

Through the haze of his consciousness, Li Xian seemed to hear footsteps.

He jolted awake. When he opened his eyes again, a face was right in front of him.