Chapter 39: The Last Train of the Burst

Bai Liu's silhouette disappears under Mu Sicheng's frantic jumping feet.

Mu Sicheng bit his nail caps and circled anxiously around the spot where Bai Liu had disappeared, crouching down and pulling his hair out a few times, crushing the lollipop in his mouth, before finally stifling and gnashing his teeth as he clicked on the "Burst Last Train" icon on the screen and entered the game right after Bai Liu.

Mu Sicheng, a second before entering the game, was mumbling to himself in a depressed voice: "Shit, this Bai Liu guy, he's got me curious too, I've never entered a secondary game without any preparation!"

Two players have been added to the game, five more players are needed to start the game].

Two minutes after Mu Sicheng disappeared, four players of almost identical height, build and appearance appeared outside the screen.

Their faces were covered in those bizarre oil-painted puppet masks, and they walked as if they were puppets on strings, their limbs stopping at each step in a strange way, as if they were four identical puppet toys made by one skilled craftsman, the difference barely discernible to the naked eye.

The man at the head, or puppet, inquired in a low tone, " Bai Liu is into this game?"

The 'puppet' speaks with a wide curve of his mouth moving up and down, much like a puppet show in which the lower lip pretends to move and speak while the low, hoarse voice emanates from the string-bearer behind him.

The other puppet, who carried a butcher's knife behind his back, had a flash of vengeance in his eyes as he answered him with a respectful arch of his hand, "Yes, Lord [Puppeteer]."

"Bursting Last Train, is it?" The ink eyes painted on the puppet's face narrowed realistically, eventually giving an evil laugh, "A level 2 game, it seems that even if I don't lay a hand on Bai Liu, Bai Liu is unlikely to come out of this game alive, such a high talent, what a shame to die, just the thing to use as my puppet."

"Go!"

In one neat movement, the four puppets tapped the screen for Burst Last Train and disappeared in unison to the boarding gate.

[The game "Burst Last Train" has 6 players and needs one more player to start]

A man in a pullover jumper, with thick flat glasses and a very thick, large part in his hand, a student boy at first glance, appeared on the screen next to the boarding entrance.

His beer-bottle-thick, square-framed glasses are so large they cover half of his face, and the bottom half of his face, with scattered freckles on the bridge of his nose and his head cowering under his jumper, might, if Bai Liu were to look at him, identify this player as Jeff from Siren.

But he looks a little softer and more normal than Jeff, and seems to be a normal student.

But it's in the game, a normally dressed student, that seems surprisingly out of place.

"Eh, let's see, which game do I pick ......" The player pushed his glasses, looking closer to the screen as if he was wearing presbyopic glasses, tapping on his Game Manager's admin panel as he did so.

The personal panel on his game manager clearly shows.

[Player name: Du Sanying].

[Today's Rising Star Ranking: 3rd place - You have surpassed Mu Sicheng, the 4th place player in the Rising Star Ranking, by 170,000 points, he will never be able to catch up with you in the near future.

[Achieved: The winner who did nothing, the lucky one who survived, the player who was inexplicably ignored by the monster, the fighter who missed a hundred shots against your attacks]

[The items you bought in the game shop are being discounted from 10,000 points to one point, do you want to buy them?

[Congratulations to player Du Sanying who has won the top player prize pack with a 1 in 100,000 chance of winning! Will you collect it now?

......

Du Sanying seemed to have grown accustomed to these skyrocketing fortunes to the point of numbness. He did not claim any of the rewards or freebies and crossed off the screens all the way to the last page of his personal panel. Du Sanying pushed his glasses on and almost put his face to the panel squinting his eyes searching for the information he wanted on the panel.

[Luck Value: 100 (You are also the luckiest person in the world today, you are the favored one by the god of luck, follow your intuition and choose the game you want! Choose the one that makes you the luckiest!

"Is the luck value a hundred today too?" Du Sanying scanned the entire screen a little hesitantly, "In that case, then it's best to go with your gut instinct and pick, then-"

Du Sanying's hand hovered over the icon, and he had a sudden, creepy feeling that something very lucky and very unlucky would happen if he clicked on it, something he had never felt before when Du Sanying was 100% lucky to choose a game.

He's always had the feeling of being very sure that he'll be lucky if he picks it before, how this time it feels like if he picks this game something will happen that will make him suffer a lot but make him very lucky at the same time ......

Du Sanying tossed his head and hesitated for a long time before double-clicking on the game icon for "Last Train to Burst".

[Game "Explosive Last Train" is complete, the game begins -]

A [FULL] mark pops up in the bottom right corner of the icon of the train under fire on the big screen in "Explosive Last Train", and the next second, Bai Liu opens his eyes in a crowded underground station.

At the same time, seven small TV screens lit up in the hall, one of which showed Bai Liu's calm, unmoving face in a crowded underground station.

Wang Shun's game manager, standing in the hall looking for Bai Liu, suddenly vibrated in quick succession.

[System Alert: Your favorite player Bai Liu has logged in to the game~ Please go and watch~]

[System Alert: You have collected the small TV player Mu Sicheng ......]

[System Alert: You have bookmarked ...... player Zhang Gui Login to the game ......]

[System Alert: Your Collection ...... Du Sanying Login to the game ......]

"No way ......" Wang Shun fell into an unprecedented trance after checking the message alerts on his game manager, "This nigga, Bai Liu, 3rd and 4th on the Rising Stars list, and [Lift the Line Puppet Master] actually got into a multiplayer game, this is going to be a godsend ......"

--------

As soon as Bai Liu opened his eyes, he received a system alert.

[Welcome players to "Bursting Last Train"]

[You are a passenger, now, please use the ticket in your pocket to enter the station in ten minutes and wait to board the last train that will explode]

Bai Liu reached into his suit trouser pocket and took out a thin rigid metro ticket which read [Metro Line 4: Antique City → Antique City], Bai Liu raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, the starting and ending stations on this ticket were actually the same name, if not for the fact that the two platforms were renamed... ...

Bai Liu glanced at the interior of the station, trying to find a map of the line inside this station, and soon Bai Liu saw it next to the ticket counter.

Line 4 is a very eye-catching red line, which Bai Liu instantly found on the line map.

"It's true, Line 4 is a closed loop metro line." Bai Liu looked knowingly at the red Line 4 that wrapped around the city, "The starting and ending stations overlap, they're both the same, they're both this station called Antique City."

Bai Liu wandered around the station and found no extra information other than a few more advertisements. The only thing he found a bit out of place was the design of the station, which normally has escalators at both the exit and entry points.

Normally, the escalators at the exit should go up for the convenience of passengers, while the escalators at the entrance should go down, but here the design of the station is reversed, which is slightly unnatural for Bai Liu.

Another thing that struck Bai Liu as odd - he glanced at the electronic LED clock hanging on top of the station.

[07:34].

It seemed relatively normal, but Bai Liu looked at the time a few more times and realised that it was not going forward, but backwards, and Bai Liu's eyes blinked and it became [07:12], which made him react quickly.

"It's a countdown clock watch, not a clock." Bai Liu pondered, "And it still looks like a countdown for me, meaning I have six minutes left before I have to enter the station."

Bai Liu was in no hurry, even though there were only six or seven minutes left in the countdown. He exited the station once and found that it was pitch black outside, no sound, no light, nothing.

Bai Liu took his time to look at the map again, this time focusing on the names of the stations on Line 4.

"The name Mirror Museum ......" Bai Liu's eyes fell on it, caught up in a seemingly enlightened memory, "Why do I feel like I've heard that name before... ..."

Bai Liu was trying to remember where he'd heard that name before when a male voice interrupted his memory: "Shit! Bai Liu! Why aren't you inside yet!" Mu Sicheng glanced back from the platform to see a pervert stroking his chin and squinting at the underground map, and walked over to him while speechless: "Only a minute or so left, what are you doing here? Remembering the map?"

Bai Liu was not surprised that Mu Sicheng had followed him in. He glanced at the red LED light, which was already counting down the seconds, and replied to Mu Sicheng with a nonchalant "hmm": "I was wondering if I had been to this place before. ......"

Mu Sicheng was stunned: "You've played this game?" But he quickly denied it again, "No way, you are indeed new."

"Yes, I haven't been to this place in the game." Bai Liu admits.

Mu Sicheng frowned at Bai Liu: "Then how could you have been to this place ......"

"Just because I haven't been here in the game doesn't mean I can't have been to this place, I think I should have been to this place in reality." Bai Liu withdrew his gaze from the underground line.

"Reality?!" Mu Sicheng was shocked, "You've been to this underground station in reality? How do you know?"

"If I'm right, it's supposed to be a horror game based on real life events, have you heard of [Mirror City Bombing]?"

"Just social news about two thieves hiding a bomb in an antique mirror and robbing the museum by threatening it when they were about to deliver it to the local museum, only for the bomb to go out of control on the way and the whole underground to explode?"

Bai Liu talks to Mu Sicheng as he walks, he pulls out his ticket and [beeps] at the entry point and enters the station without a hitch: "I studied the underground station distribution and the underground map just now, and it's very likely that the game was designed after [the Mirror City bombing]."

"I've heard of it ......" Mu Sicheng also pulled out his ticket and followed him into the station, "but it's useless even if we knew, right? That case is so important because of its implications and it's still not known how the perpetrators hid the bomb The case is not known because of its implications and it is still unknown how the perpetrators hid the bomb in the mirror to avoid security checks, and a lot of information has not been released to the public."

Mu Sicheng, after analyzing it, mocked with a noncommittal show of hands, "Even if we knew that the game was based on this case, we still don't know anything about what's going to happen on this last train that's going to explode, we don't know the details, we just know a source of inspiration, it's not useful at all, okay?"

"I might actually know what's going to happen on this train ......" Bai Liu rubbed his nose and gave Mu Sicheng an amiable smile, "I was on that underground train that day, I got off at the explosion the stop before the explosion."

Mu Sicheng: "......"

Bai Liu shrugged innocently and said kindly to a stunned Mu Sicheng, "Am I, in fact, getting important information that makes this game passable?"

"Sure, Mu Sicheng, I can tell you all the information I know, but not give it to you for free. If you don't believe me, you can verify if what I'm saying is true, I remember you have a prop to take a lie detector test."