Really a Joke

"Lam Chin-Ying?"

Su Bai read.

"Chin?"

Liang nodded emphatically when Su Bai asked, "Yes, it’s Chin in my teacher’s name."

Su Bai crouched down with one hand pressing on his forehead. Then he suddenly punched on the rock in front of him.

"Damn it!"

He was pissed off. Now he understood the massage Fatty brought back from Seven, "This story world is merely a joke." It was indeed a joke, but everyone else except the monk was involved in this joke.

And it did look like the Dreadful Radio. It made a joke on all its audiences, and the cost of this joke was their lives. In order to protect an irrelevant person that was not their mission, they had taken a lot of risks and experienced a lot of difficulties. And now there must be greater danger inside that cave.

Su Bai took a deep breath and then breathed it out heavily. He grabbed Liang’s neck with one hand and pulled him up in the air.

"You… said… you won’t… kill me…"

Su Bai smiled and said indifferently:

"Sorry, I changed my mind. Besides, you almost had me killed, and I do bear grudges."

His fangs went into Liang’s neck. After a few minutes, he let go of Liang’s mummified body. Now his lips were extremely rosy. Apparently, nothing would work better than a man’s fresh blood, no matter how much rest or treatment he had taken.

Su Bai felt like a person who had filled his stomach after starving for days. Now his internal wounds from previous injuries were finally healed.

He moved his body to feel the satisfaction and his recovered senses. Then he looked at the cave in distance. There was white steam coming out of that cave, which meant the temperature inside was much lower than that outside. He wondered if Fatty, Gyatso and that Lam Chin-Ying was alright.

But that was not what Su Bai should be concerned about. It was Seven that misled them into that cave, he must had his own plan.

Besides, since Seven knew that this Lam Chin-Ying was not the mission Lam Ching-Ying, he must have had some ideas about the real Lam, or even had found him.

Su Bai left instead of going into the cave to help the others. He deliberately accelerated, but when he was back in the county, there were few people on the street.

He went to the county government. On the opposite of the government gate, there was a pub. It was closed, but on the second floor stood a monk. Seven seemed to be standing there and waiting for Su Bai the whole time.

He stretched his hand out to the monk upstairs. Seven nodded, turned around and walked inside.

Su Bai walked into the pub. The owner was balancing the books and the waiter was cleaning up the room. Seeing Su Bai, the waiter greeted:

"Sorry, sir, but we’re off duty."

Su Bai pointed to the second floor.

"Oh, right. The master has booked the entire floor. This way, please…"

Su Bai refused the waiter leading the way, just went upstairs by himself.

Seven was sitting by a table by the window. On the table was a pot of wine and three dishes: fennel beans, dried tofu and peanuts.

"No meat?" Su Bai sat on the other side of the table.

"Amitabh, I’m a monk."

"Never bothered you before."

Su Bai poured himself a cup of wine and took a sip. It had little alcohol and tasted sweet.

"It’s different in this story world. There are gods above everyone, and even closer than in anywhere else."

Su Bai nodded. He sort of understood. In the real world, ghosts and zombies were nowhere to be seen, which indicated the difference between the real world and story worlds. In here, it was true that there were gods everywhere watching everyone. Even Seven had to be more cautious in this story world.

Actually, Seven was a realist and never dwelled on rules for monks. But he still looked like a great monk. That was his charm.

"You’ve got a lot of questions in your mind, right?" Seven poured himself some wine, smelled it, but didn’t drink.

Su Bai didn’t reply, just picked up two fennel beans and chewed them. It tasted good.

Seven knew what Su Bai meant. He knew Su Bai well, if he couldn’t provide a reasonable explanation, Su Bai would start getting even with him for misleading them into that cave, because it was in Su Bai’s nature to seek revenge for the smallest grievance.

"Actually you don’t have to feel guilty. You didn’t went in for them, did you?" Seven asked.

Su Bai continued eating beans and said nothing, as if he was starving.

"You’re somehow sentimental, I know that. I set up the trap in hope that Lam Chin-Ying would go in and get killed. But I didn’t expect you to be left out." Seven was honest.

"Yo." Su Bai poured himself a second cup of wine and waved it in front of Seven. "You’re disappointed that I didn’t get killed in that cave?"

"It won’t make a difference. Won’t make a difference." Seven said.

"I don’t have time for these riddles." Su Bai warned him. "You know I’ve got enough story points."

Su Bai meant that if Seven continue to mess around, then he might be desperate and let main task 1 fail. He could afford the eight hundred story points anyway.

"Don’t say that. Actually, I’ve been looking for an opportunity." Seven took off a string of Buddha beads he found somewhere from his wrist, and started to move the beads to and fro one by one, "An opportunity to take in the largest proportion of the award in a story world."

Hearing this, Su Bai thought of the second story world he went through, in which he met paper men. At the end of that story world, Su Bai got most of the award, Childe Hai and the others were just spooning the soup.

"To get the most story points in one story world, it will be as much as usual income from three story worlds in total. This time, I saw my chance."

"So, you considered me, Gyatso, Fatty and other possible players as your potential enemies. So you wanted to use that cave to kill us first. Right?"

"Right." Seven admitted honestly. "Amitabh, that was a good plan."

"Monk, you sound like ‘punch me, punch me in the face, I can’t wait for the punishment’!"

"Ha ha. I’ve met that fat guy in the demon nest, and I said something to him…"

"This story world is merely a joke?"

"Yes, that’s it." Seven nodded and poured Su Bai a cup of wine in person.

Su Bai drank it up and said:

"So you meant, the Dreadful Radio took advantage of our existing impression, put in someone looking like the actor Lam Ching-Ying in the real world and issued a MT 1 to mislead us. But actually it was a joke. Chin is not Ching, right?"

"That is funny, and very Dreadful Radio Game style." Seven agreed, "But the joke is more than that."

"Out with it. I’m running out of patience. You asked the fox to lead me here. Apparently, you want me to help you with something. So we should be clear with rules and information. Otherwise, even if I am willing to work with you, who has just defrauded me, you won’t trust me anyway."

"Right."

Seven picked up a piece of dried tofu with his chopsticks, put it into him mouth and didn’t talk until he had chewed and swallowed it:

"That demon nest was put down years ago by a batch of master monks. Those demons can’t go out at will."

"I know."

"I was thinking about getting as much Buddhist treasure as I could, but I ran into that fox by accident."

"Heard you two were pretty close. You’re quirky."

"She was doing something."

"What?"

"Trying to have an abortion. She was knocking her stomach against the rocky wall."

"Ha…" Su Bai thought of the real fox demon he had seen. It was hard to imagine that seductive fox doing such thing.

"And?"

"She was not the only senior demon in that nest. There were several other demons and usually they were equally powerful. But her pregnancy was more like a natural conception than a fertilization by others, therefore she would become extremely weak when giving birth. Fearing that the other powerful demons would take advantage of her weakness, she tried everything to get rid of this baby which came from nowhere."

"Go on." Su Bai picked a handful of peanuts, leaned on the chair and ate them while enjoying the story.

"Then, I talked her into leaving the nest with me and giving birth to that baby outside. I know a way to get her out."

"That’s not interesting at all." Su Bai wasn’t satisfied.

Seven was quiet for a moment, then he continued: "She suddenly had an idea and asked me to name her unborn baby. She felt her baby might use a good name, even though she was planning to eat the baby to improve her power as soon as it was born."

"Stylish." Su Bai put one leg over the other and threw a peanut into his mouth.

"I was thinking… since this story world was named Mr. Zombie… I’ve seen the film with this name before, so… I picked a random jade piece which was everywhere in that cave, carved a name and gave it to her unborn baby."

Su Bai was shocked. He took a deep breath and stared at Seven, because an idea had suddenly flashed into his mind:

"Don’t tell me you named it…"