Seeing the villager like this, Xu Xiaoyang didn't dare say another word.
With an awkward laugh, he quietly tugged Du Yong backward toward the gate. Just as they were about to reach it, the man named Bo Yi-whether he genuinely didn't understand or was doing it on purpose-suddenly spoke. "You said there aren't any fish?"
He pointed at the well. "But aren't the fish right there in the well?"
Xu Xiaoyang sucked in a sharp breath. "!"
Did he have a death wish?!
Sure enough, the very next second, the homeowner abruptly turned away from Xu Xiaoyang to look at Bo Yi.
"Did you just say... 'There are fish in the well'?"
The homeowner fixed his eyes on Bo Yi and began advancing toward him, step by step.
The sky gradually darkened, and tension began to fill the air. Time seemed to stretch, every second unbearably long; suddenly, the only sounds echoing through the silence were Xu Xiaoyang's and Du Yong's increasingly rapid breaths and heartbeats. The oppressive stillness weighed on their chests like a mountain.
Yet the man responsible for all this seemed utterly oblivious to the atmosphere. He even turned around and invited the homeowner to look into the well with him. "See, they're right..."
Xu Xiaoyang-Xu Xiaoyang was practically ready to fall to his knees before Bo Yi!
"...Huh?" For once, Bo Yi looked stunned.
The fish were gone.
The black fish that had been swishing their tails and swimming freely in the well had suddenly vanished beneath the surface. All that remained was the still, undisturbed water, reflecting Bo Yi's slightly dazed expression.
It was as though everything he had just seen had been a hallucination.
Xu Xiaoyang let out a small sigh of relief. Since the fish were gone, surely the NPC wouldn't...
"Hey..." Someone suddenly looked his way. Xu Xiaoyang raised his head warily, only for Bo Yi to ask him with an air of easy camaraderie, "You two saw those things in the well just now too, didn't..."
"We didn't see anything!"
Before Bo Yi could utter that word, Xu Xiaoyang hastily cut him off. "Neither of us saw anything just now!"
At those words, the NPC froze halfway through turning his head. After a moment, he slowly turned back and continued staring at Bo Yi.
Xu Xiaoyang breathed a sigh of relief.
Apparently, as long as they didn't say that word, the NPC wouldn't go berserk. He glanced at the NPC, who had begun advancing on Bo Yi again, and could only save his own skin, pulling Du Yong backward toward the gate. "We'll leave you two to talk, then..."
He had finally figured it out. Despite Bo Yi's cool, aloof appearance, as though he stood above worldly concerns, his knack for stirring up trouble-and courting death-surpassed that of every player Xu Xiaoyang had ever met!
Sticking around this long was already more than anyone could ask of him. From here on, Bo Yi would have to fend for himself.
"Well... it's getting late, so we'll... we'll just, just go get something to eat!" Convinced he had found the perfect excuse, Xu Xiaoyang tossed out those words and dragged Du Yong through the gate without looking back.
In an instant, only Bo Yi and the homeowner remained in the courtyard.
The NPC kept advancing. Pressed against the well's outer wall, Bo Yi had nowhere left to retreat. He clicked his tongue inwardly. Sure enough, we were too slow. Not only did we fail to get any fish out of the well, but the NPC came back and caught us red-handed.
The NPC had already picked up the sheet metal they had casually discarded on the ground. Though it was far from thin, he easily crumpled it into the shape of a blade as though it were a sheet of paper, metal creaking in his hands. The long "tip" dragged along the ground with a hair-raising scrape.
"Tell me..."
The homeowner continued pressing him. His shadow stretched long, slowly enveloping Bo Yi like a net; though his approaching footsteps were slow, they cut off every possible escape route.
"Where are the fish?"
He seemed to be forcing Bo Yi to admit-
"There are no fish here."
An ordinary player might have changed his tune long ago, just as Xu Xiaoyang had. Unfortunately, the man standing before him was a meticulous researcher.
Until he had confirmed the presence of something that could induce hallucinations, he preferred to trust his own eyes.
More importantly, of course-
He had evidence that "there are fish here."
So even when the homeowner drew right up to Bo Yi, even when his tall, powerful body enveloped him completely like a heavy shadow, Bo Yi still refused to say what the homeowner wanted to hear.
The NPC seemed to have exhausted his patience, yet the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward. Before Bo Yi's eyes, he finally began raising the "long blade" he had been dragging along the ground.
Bo Yi understood at once.
So this was a "death condition."
Just as the blade was about to come crashing down, Bo Yi suddenly whipped something out of his pocket and waved it in front of the homeowner.
The homeowner's expression changed dramatically. His curling lips instantly dropped, and he stared darkly at the object before him, gritting his teeth. "Where did you get that?!"
The gloves, almost soaked through with blood, lay inside a clear specimen bag, sliding back and forth with Bo Yi's movements and making a soft rustling sound. The blood staining them belonged to the fish Bo Yi had dissected the night before.
Unfortunately, since there had been nothing unusual about the fish's anatomy, Bo Yi had disposed of the dissected flesh and bones afterward. Only the blood remaining on these gloves had been left behind. With so much happening that morning, he hadn't had time to wash them and had simply put them in a bag for the time being. He hadn't expected them to come in handy now.
The homeowner stared fixedly at the gloves, his entire body frozen in place like a statue. Seeing this, Bo Yi considerately set the gloves beside the well, then carefully edged sideways past him.
One step, two steps, three steps...
The NPC remained frozen in place, making no movement at all.
Bo Yi finally relaxed and boldly edged along the well's outer wall. Just as he was about to leave the NPC's attack range, perhaps unwilling to give up, he instinctively glanced into the well again.
There still wasn't a single fish at the bottom, as though the black fish he had seen earlier really had been a hallucination. Disappointed, Bo Yi withdrew his gaze, only to catch a flash of silver on the water's surface out of the corner of his eye.
Hm?
He looked closer.
That was no mere flash of silver. It was the reflection of the raised "long blade"!
He hadn't escaped the death condition at all!
The surrounding air seemed to freeze, leaving only Bo Yi's suddenly racing heartbeat. As a slicing whistle rang out, sharp enough to tear through the air, he nimbly leaned backward, planted a hand on the rim of the well, and vaulted across, his body slipping past almost flush with the blade's sweep.
Clang! The long blade struck the well hard, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Breathing heavily, the homeowner was about to pull his weapon out of the well's rim when a tremendous force suddenly struck him from behind. The last thing he saw before falling into the well was the sole of Bo Yi's raised shoe.
A heavy splash sounded from the bottom of the well.
The next second, bang! A large rock covered the opening.
Bo Yi dusted off the dirt that had clung to his hands while moving the rock, inspected the well's newly sealed opening, and nodded in satisfaction. Then he leisurely picked up the gloves from the ground and left the courtyard without a trace of haste.
Dead silence returned to the courtyard.
An unknown amount of time passed before a crack sounded, and a dense web of fine fissures suddenly appeared across the rocks piled over the well. With a series of faint cracks, the large rocks broke into smaller pieces and splashed into the well one after another.
A dripping hand suddenly appeared at the rim.
Then a figure slowly climbed out of the well.
He first surveyed his surroundings. Upon realizing what a sorry state he was in, he abruptly lowered his head-and laughed aloud.
"He really is fierce..."
Before you continue