Chapter 106: City-Wide Wanted
After Lin Huai’s three sharp, soul-searching questions, the tattooed man froze in his tracks.
He turned slowly, his scarred face twisting in outrage as his bloodshot eyes locked onto Lin Huai. “Where did a little wretch like you crawl out of, daring to curse at me? Are you tired of breathing?!”
Lin Huai did not show a shred of fear.
Channeling the rough street insults she had heard Old Wang and Blue Knight exchange on the road, she fired back at the top of her lungs: “If you have the guts, come over and lay a single finger on me! I’m in the middle of a match with this elder. If you dare smash his board, he won’t let you off!”
Hearing her drag him into the mess, the old man snatched his wooden cane from the dirt and scurried down the stone steps with surprising agility. “Don’t pin your disasters on me! You wicked girl—how can someone so young be so utterly rotten?!”
The tattooed brute sneered. Marching over with heavy stomps, he brought his boot down hard on the edge of the stone table, smashing it to pieces and sending the wooden chess pieces flying across the pavement.
“Still want to play chess? I’ll show you how to play!”
With a vicious roar, he threw a heavy, bone-crushing punch straight at her jaw.
Lin Huai ducked sideways, letting the fist whistle past her ear, before spinning on her heels and sprinting down the alleyway.
To her surprise, the brute chased after her without letting up.
She sprinted through three full blocks, and he tore through all three behind her, his eyes blazing red as if slaughtering her had become his only purpose in life.
Left with no other choice, Lin Huai ducked into a small clothing shop along the road and crouched down behind the front wooden counter.
Before she could catch her breath, the shop doors were kicked open. The brute strode inside, his heavy stomps shaking the floorboards.
The second he crossed the threshold, the other spirits browsing the racks shrieked in terror and scrambled out the back door.
Crouched in the narrow gap beside Lin Huai was a little girl NPC. The child was trembling violently, hugging her bruised knees with tears welling in her eyes.
“Big Sister,” the girl whimpered in a tiny, terrified voice, “that monster is called Buddha Head. He’s awful… He kills anyone he runs into. Everyone in the city is terrified of him.”
Lin Huai was taken aback. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she asked, “Don’t the Yaksha patrols maintain order?”
The little girl shook her head miserably. “He has piles of money. The Yakshas take his bribes and look the other way, no matter what horrors he commits.”
Suddenly, the child reached out and grabbed Lin Huai’s sleeve, her eyes brimming with desperate hope. “Big Sister, can you please kill him for us? If you put an end to him, I promise I’ll tell you the real secret to passing through Ghost Gate Pass!”
A quest notification arrived without warning.
Killing an NPC was one of the ultimate taboos in the game world. Lin Huai was still weighing the risks when the heavy wooden counter above her head splintered with an explosive crack.
A massive fist tore through the wood, followed by Buddha Head’s snarling sneer: “Found you, you little rat!”
Through the shattered boards, a heavy iron wood-chopping axe cleaved straight down toward her face.
In the nick of time, Lin Huai wrapped an arm around the little girl, kicking off the floorboards to roll sideways into the open aisle.
Crash!
The axe blade buried itself deep into the stone floor, spraying splinters and dust.
Lin Huai sprang to her feet, instinctively shoving the child behind her back. Her eyes turned ice-cold as she met the brute’s murderous glare.
Players were forbidden from murdering NPCs, but when an NPC turned into a lethal assailant, defending oneself was basic common sense.
Her fingers tightened, and the violet war scythe materialized in her grip. Without a word of warning, she launched herself straight forward.
In close-quarters combat, weapon length dictated the flow of battle.
Lin Huai’s war scythe stood nearly two meters long, with a curved, crescent blade measuring a full meter of polished steel. The crude hand axe Buddha Head had snatched from a street forge was barely forty centimeters long. Within three quick exchanges, the heavy polearm swatted the iron tool clean out of his hands.
The instant the axe clattered to the floor, Lin Huai shifted her grip. The scythe spun in a clean, blinding half-circle, slicing through the air like a streak of purple lightning.
Schwing!
A clean line appeared across the brute’s neck. The massive, tattooed head slid from his shoulders, tumbling onto the floor with a dull thud.
Lin Huai pulled back her weapon, flicking the dark blood from the steel. “All that noise, and your blade work was this sloppy? You really thought you could run this city?”
She turned back to the trembling child crouched behind the counter. “He’s gone. Now, fulfill your end of the deal. What is the secret to passing Ghost Gate Pass?”
The little girl looked up from the shadows. Slowly, her lips curled into a wide, unnatural grin.
Her fragile, pale skin began to darken with sickening purplish-blue bruises. The flesh along her back split open, exposing raw bone and torn muscle as black blood trickled down her clothes. Even her delicate cheeks split with deep, jagged gashes, transforming her into a horrifying specter of an abused child.
She broke into a high, shrill giggle that made the hairs on Lin Huai’s neck stand up.
“You grown-ups… you always think it’s so easy to lie to children,” the little ghost chirped, her voice dripping with eerie malice. “Now you get to learn what it feels like when a child plays you for a fool!”
She tilted her broken head, her dark, empty eyes fixed on Lin Huai with wicked glee. “Big Sister, you better start running! The Yakshas are coming for your head!”
Before her voice had even faded, sharp, piercing alarm horns sounded across the district outside.
Heavy, synchronized boots thundered over the cobblestones as a large detachment of armored guards closed in from the main boulevard.
Roughened, booming voices echoed down the street: “Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice! You have openly murdered a soul within the City of Wrongful Death, committing the gravest taboo! Drop your weapons and surrender on the spot!”
Lin Huai didn’t waste a single breath considering surrender. The moment the horns blared, she burst through the rear window, sprinting into the twisting maze of back alleys.
Before climbing through the frame, she cast one cold, lingering glance at the five-year-old specter.
Behind her, heavy tridents scraped against stone as squads of Yakshas flooded the street.
Lin Huai darted from one dark passage to another, desperately trying to shake her pursuers. Yet no matter which alley she ducked into, passing spirits pointed and screamed, drawing fresh patrols of guards almost instantly.
She had initially hoped to push through to the outer boundary and force her way through Ghost Gate Pass using brute strength or bribes, but the tightening dragnet made it impossible to get within three blocks of the gate.
Just then, her system screen lit up with urgent pings from the Elite Squad channel.
Old Wang sounded completely flabbergasted: “Holy mother of god… Boss, what on earth did you do?! The entire city is covered in bright red wanted posters with your face on them!”
Jiangzhehu Inheritor chimed in quickly, reading out the details: “I’m looking at one right now, Boss! It says: Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice, convicted of unprovoked murder against a citizen soul. Crime unforgivable, fugitive actively resisting arrest. City-wide bounty declared. A reward of three underworld coins will be granted to anyone offering verified intelligence on her location.“
Lin Huai dodged behind a stack of wooden crates, her breath coming in short, controlled gasps.
“Got it,” she typed quickly. “Young Miss, put out a counter-bounty immediately: anyone who conceals my whereabouts or misdirects the guards will receive five underworld coins!”
Nobody from Zone 444 would ever sell her out for three miserable coins. Her bounty was aimed strictly at the local spirit population.
While not every player in the district was blindly devoted to her, the veteran drivers who had raced across the wasteland to back her up during the Ghost Mother trial would never betray her for pocket change. As for the newly merged survivors from Zone 398, they had just watched her squads execute their old leaders; none of them would dare risk their lives for three coins either.
Whether in the living world or the realm of the dead, the sheer power of capital was absolute.
The moment word of her counter-bounty spread, several spectral residents stepped in to misdirect the patrols, allowing Lin Huai to slip through a gap in the perimeter and shake the guards.
Turning down a quiet side street, she slipped into a small, fragrant flower shop, sliding down the back wall behind a tall display of dried reeds to catch her breath.
Her chest heaved from the sprint. Even with her high physical stats, maintaining a dead run while dodging patrols had pushed her stamina to its limits.
The elderly shopkeeper, a soft-spoken woman with a gentle face, carried over a rough earthenware bowl filled with clear water. “Drink some water, child. You must be exhausted from all that running. To tell the truth, plenty of folks in this neighborhood are glad to see Buddha Head gone. He was a plague on this street.”
Lin Huai did not touch the bowl.
Instead, she retrieved a sealed bottle of mineral water from her spatial bangle, drinking half of it in long, measured gulps before wiping her chin. “Thank you. If you truly wish to help, keeping your door closed and forgetting my face would be the greatest kindness.”
Standing up from behind the reeds, she reached into her pouch, pulled out a pure Yin energy crystal, and placed it gently into the woman’s withered hand. “Thank you for misdirecting that patrol just now. Consider this a proper consultation fee.”
The old shopkeeper froze, staring down at the glowing gemstone in her palm with wide, trembling eyes.
Pure Yin energy crystals were refined spiritual treasures held exclusively by underworld officials and high-ranking envoys. Lowly wandering souls trapped in the City of Wrongful Death almost never laid eyes on something so pure.
To her, this was like an ordinary peasant who had only ever handled copper coins suddenly being handed an uncut, shimmering bar of solid gold.
