Card Room (Rebirth)

Lu Jiuchuan stared at him with red eyes. “I’m not drunk. Xiao Nian, don’t leave me…”

As he held onto Bai Jinyu, he reached out a hand toward the other person’s mask. “What is this on your face?”

Yet just moments before he came into contact with the silver mask, Bai Jinyu suddenly made a move! His hands were as fast as lightning, his fingers grabbing Lu Jiuchuan’s wrist forcefully while the smiling eyes turned extremely cold. Lu Jiuchuan was pinched by the opponent and didn’t dare to move, so he continued to act. “Xiao Nian?”

Bai Jinyu spoke lightly. “You are drunk.”

He sent a look at the security guards around him. Two tall security guards grabbed Lu Jiuchuan and sent him out of the bar.

Qu Wanyue looked frightened as she whispered, “Is this handsome guy lovelorn?”

Long Sen looked sympathetic. “He probably just broke up with his girlfriend and ran to the bar to get drunk.”

Qu Wanyue took a few sips of her drink. Then the boss handed her a glass of tequila sunrise like Lu Jiuchuan. She took a sip but the alcoholic nature was so strong that she coughed. Long Sen laughed and took it. “I said that this alcohol is strong but you still insisted on drinking it…”

The two of them continued to drink at the bar to drag out time.

Currently, Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou had already figured out the layout of the bar. The bar had two floors. The upper floor was a small VIP room while the lower floor was the lobby. The middle had a hollow structure, so the upper private room could see the resident singers on the first floor. Yu Hanjiang went around the second floor but found nothing suspicious.

Meanwhile, Xiao Lou came around to the back of the bar on the first floor. In the corner was a door which should lead to the storage room. The strange thing was that the door was locked and could only be opened by using a fingerprint.

Xiao Lou pressed his ear to it and heard a rustling noise from inside. It sounded like a mouse in a hole. It was like… someone struggling?

He looked around. At this time, the eyes of the people at the bar were all on Qu Wanyue and Long Sen. From Xiao Lou’s position, he could only vaguely see Bai Jinyu’s back. Xiao Lou quickly placed the drone monitoring in an inconspicuous place at the crossbeam above the door. Then he went back to the bar and signaled for Long Sen to withdraw first.

The 30 minutes time limit of the invisibility cloak was approaching soon. Long Sen noticed someone touching his back lightly. He knew it was Xiao Lou and downed the remaining alcohol in his glass. “Thank you, Boss. Your mixed drinks are very delicious. I will come again next time.”

He pulled Qu Wanyue out the door and Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou immediately followed.

Outside the door, Lu Jiuchuan hugged a tree and vomited. Of course, he wasn’t really drunk. He was just pretending to be drunk. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the other people coming out and he stumbled toward the parking lot. Since there was no one around, Yu Hanjiang unlocked the car and everyone quickly got in.

Qu Wanyue asked, “What did you find?”

Lu Jiuchuan was the first to speak. “This White Fox has very good skills and can react faster than Chu Huaying. Chu Huaying’s physical fitness has been strengthened by many S-grade cards and her reaction ability is very fast. Meanwhile, White Fox gave me a sense of threat that was stronger than Huaying. Just now, I deliberately tested him. If I hadn’t been pretending to be drunk, my wrist probably would’ve been broken the moment he acted.”

As the captain of the naval special forces, Lu Jiuchuan’s fighting skills were already top-notch. Bai Jinyu could actually make him feel threatened so this person must not be underestimated.

Yu Hanjiang nodded solemnly. “I also saw it. His moves should be the result of professional training. Most people can’t reach this level even if they have cards to increase their strength.”

He turned toward Xiao Lou. “What did you find on the first floor?”

“There was a door at the back of the bar with a fingerprint lock. I couldn’t open it. There was also a strange sound from behind the door. It sounded like someone struggling. So I left the drone in an inconspicuous position on the crossbeam for monitoring.”

Lu Jiuchuan praised him. “You are truly careful. Let’s wait and see if the drone captures anything.”

The identity of White Fox was unknown and they couldn’t easily alert the enemy. They could only investigate this way.

Moments later, a picture appeared on Xiao Lou’s surveillance card.

Bai Jinyu used his fingerprint to unlock the door, which was confirmed with a ‘di’ sound and the door opened. He walked inside with a takeout box and closed the door behind him.

Naturally the vision of the drone was now obstructed, but it still faithfully transmitted the sounds coming from behind the door. They heard the leather shoes slowly stepping on the ground and the takeout box being put on a table. At the same time, a conversation started between the people inside the room.

A man asked coldly, “How long do you think you can keep me here?”

Then another similar voice was heard. “You don’t want to stay here? You get something to eat and drink and nobody will disturb your rest. Isn’t that nice?”

The other person spoke mockingly. “Then should I thank you for your hospitality, Brother?”

The footsteps suddenly stopped, only to become clearer again. Then a noise entered their ears as the man opened the door and looked up at the drone. His masked face was magnified on the screen and Xiao Lou saw those eyes curve slightly, as if he was smiling. “Interesting. Someone actually installed monitoring at my place.”

The man in the room was surprised. “Who is checking you?”

Bai Jinyu said, “Just now, the drunk guy who was lovelorn had very good acting skills. I heard that Lu Jiuchuan has a card called ‘Mask’ that can change his face at any time.” Bai Jinyu stared at the drone. “Lu Jiuchuan, is that you?” Then he took down the drone, pointing it at a bottle of wine to let the camera get a good shot.

Lu Jiuchuan, “……”

Xiao Lou squeezed his forehead helplessly and put away the drone card. “I hid the drone in a very inconspicuous corner yet he found it so quickly. He is really cautious.”

Lu Jiuchuan smiled. “Don’t blame yourself. At least we got some gains from the investigation this time.”

Yu Hanjiang frowned and thought about it carefully. “The person locked up by him is his twin brother, right? The voices of the two people are very similar. If it wasn’t for a slight difference in tone, it would sound like he was questioning and answering himself.”

Xiao Lou agreed. “I heard that man call him Brother. Why did he lock up his brother?”

Everyone found it strange. The secrets of those two brothers were truly puzzling. Just then, Yu Hanjiang thought of something and said, “We met the masked man in 4 of Spades, in other words, Bai Jinyu’s twin brother. There were also hunters in 3 of Spades.”

Xiao Lou’s spirit shook. “You mean, the brother we met in 4 of Spades was likely a hunter, not a challenger?!”

Yu Hanjiang nodded. “As early as 3 of Spades, there were hunters who killed ‘foreigners’ and took their identity, mixing into the teams. Is this also the case with 4 of Spades? At that time, the masked man used cards and everyone subconsciously regarded him as a challenger. We ignored that he might be a hunter. Each time after killing a challenger, he could have obtained their cards.”

Xiao Lou got a chill at the thought.

Back then, a man wearing a mask suddenly appeared and took everyone’s gems by grabbing things from the air. Later, he joined the team and cleared the secret room with everyone. No one suspected that he was a hunter.

However, it made sense that he was a hunter. Hunters could be found in low level Spades secret rooms. The thieves encountered in 3 of Spades were the evidence. It wasn’t surprising that hunters would also appear in 4 of Spades.

This explained why the twins came to the main city at different times. If the twins were hunters, they could freely enter and exit the low level secret rooms. Therefore, the time when they met the younger brother in 4 of Spades had no reference significance. Perhaps the younger brother, like the older brother, came to the main city half a year ago. Then he happened to receive the mission to kill in 4 of Spades and met Xiao Lou, Yu Hanjiang and their group.

He wasn’t a newcomer who was clearing 4 of Spades. He was a hunter who went to 4 of Spades to kill the newcomers.

He probably became aware that Xiao Lou and the others had teamed up and he couldn’t beat them alone. Thus, he didn’t try to kill them. Instead, he pretended to be a companion of the challengers to pass the level with everyone. The challengers who died in the village might’ve been killed by him.

Qu Wanyue suddenly opened her mouth. “By the way, Long Sen and I escaped the village very early. There were also a few other challengers outside the village. Those who left the village at that time shouldn’t be weak. Yet by the time we met up with Xiao Lou, those challengers had been eaten to the extent where only bones were left. Could it be… the masked man killed them? Then their corpses were eaten by beasts?”

Long Sen added, “In addition, there were the corpses of the challengers found in the village later on. We thought the deaths were caused by infighting among the challengers but we can’t rule out that it was actually done by the masked man.”

The more Xiao Lou thought about it, the more he felt that this speculation was more consistent than their previous conjectures.

By the time they met the younger of the twins, they had already agreed to join forces. In addition to Xiao Lou, Yu Hanjiang, Shao Qingge, Ye Qi, Liu Qiao, Long Sen and Qu Wanyue, there was a team of four who were employees of the same company and had a few cards in their hands.

The temporary alliance formed by the scattered people was large and powerful. The masked man couldn’t easily deal with so many people so he chose to hide his identity and stay with everyone to look for opportunities. However, he never found a chance because Yu Hanjiang was sufficiently alert and didn’t let his teammates act alone. Thus, when they cleared the instance, he went to the City of the Sun when most of the others chose the City of the Moon.

Bai Jinyu and his twin brother might both be members of the Hunter’s League. Tang Ci said that Bai Jinyu’s ID card showed he was a challenger…

It also proved that Xiao Lou’s previous speculation was correct.

There was a large number of challengers among the hunters so they were well aware of the challengers, including the variety of cards and the World Weekly secret rooms. Moreover, they brainwashed the native inhabitants of the world, making people crazily hunt for ‘foreigners’ when they were also ‘foreigners’! This group of people were traitors among the challengers and they were killing their compatriots!

However, this made Xiao Lou wonder. What was the reason that transformed a challenger into a hunter and killer of the opposing camp?

Sixth entry by B.K0036: Young and Handsome Garbage Collector

CG 10K event

Proofreader: Fictional Reality & Paranoid Kitten