Chapter 255: Ice Age

After reading all the faxes and lab reports, Muke's expression became more and more serious as he turned to Liu Jiayi: "Is it possible that they can't be reached by satellite phone?"

"I couldn't get in touch with them." Liu Jiayi didn't look too good either, but remained calm, "With Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda following, it won't be easy for Bai Liu to encounter these monsters, you keep watching, I'll go outside and deal with that monster in the basement."

According to the lab report, this monster cannot be killed by a gun, so the one in the basement is still alive.

Bai Liu had left a barrel of fuel next to the basement, she had her own corrosive poison and wondered if a double whammy would work.

Muke said, "After we've dealt with it we head for Tarzan station, they need to know about it."

When the door opened, three weathered men hurried in from outside, Mu Sicheng exhaling and stamping his feet, Tang Erda taking off her gun and placing it by the door, Bai Liu walking at the front, snow on his eyelashes, looking sideways.

"We're back."

Muke raised his gun without hesitation, Liu Jiayi raised his poison and looked warily at the sudden return of his teammates, who took two steps back to put some distance between them and the three men and questioned in a low voice: "What are you doing back here?"

Bai Liu sidestepped slightly to make way for a ragged group of Tarzan Station members behind him, freshly dug out of the ice chasm.

The group had been walking in the snow for so long, shivering and uncovered, that they should have frozen to death, but now they were only blue and their vital signs were stable, but their faces were dull and dull, as if they had been subjected to some unbearable ordeal and their souls had been taken out of their shells.

"We found this group of Tarzan Station crew buried in the ice crevice and were going to take them straight to confront the crew in Tarzan Station, but found that they were all in a very questionable mental state and were not able to communicate properly, one of them was slightly more mentally sound, this Fang Xiaoxiao."

A man stood out behind Bai Liu and greeted them with a forced smile, "Hello, I'm Fang Xiaoxiao."

"He told me these team members needed psychiatric medication, so he took them back first to turn around and get it." Bai Liu raised his eyes and looked over calmly.

Muke's blackened gun was pointed right at him, his tone cold: "I don't believe you, pull up your system panel and show me."

"You can't see my system panel." Bai Liu retorted blandly, giving Muke his approval, "That was a good use of the verbal trap set for me."

Due to the league format used in the pool, the players' system panels are not only devoid of the shop function, they are also kept secret from each other, meaning that even if one player brings up their system panel, the other player cannot see it.

Muke glances suspiciously at Liu Jiayi and withdraws the gun at the suggestion of Liu Jiayi's eyes, but keeps his fingers on the handle so that he can lift it at any time.

They sidled out of the way and Liu Jiayi hid the poison behind her, saying softly, "Come in first."

------

The other end.

Bai Liu led the ragged crew, who had been dug out of the ice crevasse, towards Tarzan Station.

At a distance of less than five hundred metres they spotted another aircraft parked on the helicopter hangar immediately outside Tarzan Station next to their aircraft, with markings identical to those of their aircraft.

"It's another helicopter from the Edmond Observatory." Tang Erda recognises it at a glance and frowns, "How did it get here? Muke, they're coming?"

Bai Liu glanced at the plane, narrowed his eyes at something, then turned to Fang Xiaoxiao behind him and said, "You guys stay outside and find a place to hide while we take care of some team business."

After the team had obediently left, Bai Liu gave a look to Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda, both of whom raised their guns with understanding.

Mu Sicheng's grip on his gun flickered as he gulped nervously, "Holy shit! They're not monsters, are they? And where are they? The monsters didn't steal their homes, did they?"

Tang Erda walked behind Bai Liu with his gun in his hand, but Bai Liu did not have his gun and walked like he was at the entrance to Tarzan Station.

The sentry at the gate let them in after another extraction of their oral mucosa, and although they were questioned about where they had been last night, they were simply muddled by Bai Liu.

Although they knew Bai Liu was being perfunctory, the sentries did not dwell on it, as there were more important and exciting matters at hand for Bai Liu.

Turning down a ventilation shaft through the doorway, the high-pitched, excited voice of Fang Xiaoxiao from the Tai Shan station could be heard from far away, coming from the cabin where Bai Liu and the others had briefly taken up residence last night.

"Oh my God! How did you find all this information on Mr Edmond!"

"With this first-hand information about the climate anomalies and those creatures, we can work on a solution to the dilemma at hand!"

Bai Liu pushes open the door of the cabin and Fang Xiaoxiao is sitting cross-legged on the bunk bed, tearfully holding a paper document, choking back tears as she reads it softly.

The word written on the header of the document is [fax record], which Bai Liu does know.

Liu Jiayi stood close to the door, smiling politely and courteously, Muke was sitting on the top bunk, his eyes lit up for a moment when he saw Bai Liu enter, then cooled down quickly as he jumped straight down from the top bunk and held the gun behind Liu Jiayi's back without moving.

These two men look like they have suffered a lot from the cold, and the tips of their noses and lips show signs of frostbite that have healed since breaking out - Liu Jiayi must have administered the antidote.

After seeing Bai Liu and the others enter, Fang Xiaoxiao's face changed slightly and she left after putting down the fax reluctantly: "The person you're looking for is back, so let's talk about things first and we'll talk about the information when you're done."

Once Fang Xiaoxiao had gone, Tang Erda Mu Sicheng and Muke Liu Jiayi, opposite, stared at each other for a few seconds, then without hesitation they drew their guns at each other's fatal points.

Bai Liu seated immovable in a small blank compartment surrounded by two teams of four guns.

Both sides of the confrontation tacitly bypassed him, leaving the man free to comment on the scene: "It seems we suspect each other of being monsters and not real people."

"Why don't we see which one of us can convince who first." Bai Liu turned sideways to look at Liu Jiayi, "Why have you brought Muke here?"

Liu Jiayi pursed her lips, "Because Edmond station was overrun by monsters."

"We rummaged through Edmond Station and found fax records that I'm sure are important game clues, but the satellite phone can't reach you guys, and the system panel is blocked between players in the game pool, so we're just going to find a way to get the fax records to you guys over at Tarzan Station after we burn the monsters in the basement."

Tang Erda frowned at the flaw in Liu Jiayi's story: "But you and Muke don't know how to fly a helicopter, and I'm the only one on the team who does.

Liu Jiayi looked up at Tang Erda: "We won't, but just know that you will."

Bai Liu hooked a smile meaningfully, "Nice plan, you guys holding his clone hostage?"

"Right." Muke took a deep breath and added, "But as Jiayi was about to go out and burn the monster in the basement with fuel and poison, the door opened and you came back with a team from Tarzan Station saying you wanted to pick up the medicine, we suspected it was your duplicate and made a false move on them."

"But the mistake was that both Muke and I were underpowered, while these three imitators of you were half as strong and even managed to imitate your skills."

Liu Jiayi added with a grim look on his face, "After killing [Mu Sicheng] with fuel and poison, we tried everything we could to kill [Bai Liu], it was so cunning that we had to settle for the next best thing, taking advantage of [Tang Erda]'s lack of defence and using poison to hold him hostage in a helicopter. We had to take advantage of [Tang Erda]'s lack of defence and use poison to force him to escape in a helicopter and leave the base to them."

Mu Sicheng's hair stood on end as he heard, "What about Tang Erda?"

Liu Jiayi shrugged: "After reaching Tarzan Station, I shot it dead in the pilot seat of the helicopter, and doused it with fuel-burning poison to prevent it from scamming - that should be the creature's weakness, my monster book lit up."

Tang Erda's eyes droop as he notices the blood stains on the cuffs of Liu Jiayi's rash vest from wiping.

At this moment, the Edmond Observatory.

Once inside the observation post, Tang Erda and Mu Sicheng quickly pulled out their guns and aimed them at Liu Jiayi and Muke, who quickly armed themselves with poison and firearms.

Bai Liu walked unhurriedly to the centre of the four men who were comparing guns with each other, "Wow, it looks like the scene that appeared at Tarzan Station has been recreated once again, you suspect us of being monsters too?"

His dark eyes looked straight at Muke and Liu Jiayi: "I suspect you too, that little trick you just pulled to win my trust by using the game's hidden settings was a good one."

"Unfortunately, you've already used it once at Tarzan Station, Muke ."

Muke asked with a quirked brow, "What are you talking about?"

Mu Sicheng side-swiped a mouthful of bloodied spittle, blood oozing from the punches left in his gums, and he turned his head grimly to look at Xiang Muke and Liu Jiayi, showing his teeth in a bloodied grin, "I fucking hate this copy."

"We have already encountered [Liu Jiayi] and [Muke] once at Tarzan Station, they said they were here to deliver information to me and had already experienced a fight with the monster at Edmond Observatory, holding the monster Tang Erda hostage before they managed to escape."

Bai Liu smiled: "But unfortunately, we found out that they were nothing more than creations that had been simulated to deceive us, which is why we flew back with the remaining Tarzan Station crew in the Tarzan Station helicopter after killing them, to see what was going on here, and- "

He raised his eyes, his tone incredibly soft, and there was not a single light in them, they were as dark and deep as the very night, unable to see the edge of the light.

"-Where the hell did my real team members go?"

"It really upsets me slightly that I can't find them hidden by you."

Bai Liu lowered his eyes, lifted his hand and moved his fingers, ordering without an ebb and flow in his tone, "- strike and kill."

Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda raised their guns with expressionless faces, triggers down, the bright red of bullets about to burst into flames faintly visible in the chamber.