PFRG: Chapter 95

“T-Thank you.” Wu Ruici had seen many teams working hard to obtain the qualification certificate before, but those people often considered forming their own teams because they couldn’t receive information from top teams. Their strength had always been mediocre. He didn’t expect Chi Ting to show such high strength so easily.

But now obviously wasn’t the time to show surprise. Wu Ruici took advantage of Chi Ting’s control to observe Ma Pian’s situation. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that the things inside Ma Pian’s face seemed to be alive and ready to move. “Are these… strings?”

The things that were wandering in Ma Pian’s skin like living things vaguely showed various shapes. These thin and long shapes actually looked more like some huge insects. It wasn’t until a few pores were punctured and the things inside seeped out that Wu Ruici noticed the still twisting thread.

Pink thick wool, like…

Wu Ruici suddenly looked back and saw the staff member in a doll costume standing quietly not far away.

He was aware of this person’s presence when they first came here, but didn’t take it too seriously. Now looking at this person again in comparison, he noticed the dense lines at the seams of the doll clothes—exactly the same as the lines struggling to break through Ma Pian’s skin.

Wu Ruici felt a layer of sweat instantly seeping down his back.

It wasn’t until he heard a voice ringing in his ears that his mind returned.

“How much time is left until it is ten minutes?” Chi Ting asked.

“Ah, there should be around six minutes left.” Wu Ruici was a veteran at instances. He might’ve been distracted for a short time, but he always paid attention to the passage of time. After a pause, he added, “It has been five minutes.”

It wasn’t known if Ma Pian heard the countdown. The bulging skin all over his body made him look particularly bloated and weird. Indistinctly, more and more pink lines broke through the restrictions and emerged, making him gradually become like a large toy stitched together with human skin.

He tried to break free and escape, but his whole body was stuck in front of the claw machine and he couldn’t move at all.

The incident was so large that Ji Xingque, who had already walked past, turned back. Even Song Xuefeng brought a chair over. He leaned on the back of the chair and watched listlessly as if he was waiting for a final result.

Wu Ruici originally came here to get free information, but now his own team member had become the trial and error prop. This made him feel a bit uncomfortable. However, now Ma Pian was completely dependent on Chi Ting’s strength to be controlled in place. This meant Wu Ruici didn’t say much until he heard the pink-haired young man ask curiously, “I remember that these rules might be wrong. What if waiting in place for ten minutes is a death rule?”

Ji Xingque asked sincerely and Yue Ren answered directly, “Didn’t your captain say it before. This is the so-called trial and error cost.”

Ji Xingque hesitated. “Using a living person for trial and error? Isn’t that bad?”

Yue Ren replied, “Now that you have come to this unlimited world, you must understand the truth that you can’t catch a wolf without sacrificing a child.”

“Is that so?” Ji Xingque thought about it. He couldn’t find the problem, but he still felt that something was wrong.

Wu Ruici, who was listening next to him: “……”

What f*king cost of trial and error?

There was a swear word, but he didn’t know if it was appropriate to say it.

Chi Ting knew that Ji Xingque felt uncomfortable with Yue Ren’s words, mainly due to the unbalanced sense of morality.

Obviously, he couldn’t really use such a cute human as a guinea pig. As he waited for the 10 minute time limit to end, he also kept an eye on Ma Pian in the process.

The process of the threads gradually occupying the body did lead to a certain degree in the decrease of human content, but judging from the current situation, it was basically still within the controllable range.

If Chi Ting found that the safety threshold had been exceeded and determined that this was a wrong rule, he would naturally not hesitate to let Ma Pian flee from here and run to freedom.

“10 minutes are up.”

Finally, as Wu Ruici finished his words, the struggling Ma Pian became like a drowning man who just came ashore. He lay exhausted on the claw machine and gasped heavily.

In front of him, the clamp of the claw machine that had been stuck in mid-air finally moved again. Due to the force pressed on the joystick, it went straight to the glass case on the right side of the machine.

Ma Pian’s eyes were obviously still a bit vacant. This caused the whites of his eyes around his pupils to appear slightly larger.

He was lying on the claw machine and gasping heavily. His whole body trembled slightly, and he was obviously still in shock. After a long time, he finally remembered something. As if to confirm something, he touched himself from head to toe repeatedly to make sure that all the threads were indeed gone. Then he slid down with a sense of relief and sat on the ground.

Chi Ting stood there very considerately and waited until he recovered a bit before asking, “What did you see just now?”

Ma Pian was still in a daze and didn’t notice who asked the question. He answered with lingering fear, “Dolls… I saw that they wanted to turn me into a doll like them.”

Chi Ting keenly grasped the key point in the words. “Them?”

Wu Ruici wasn’t happy about his team member being questioned by others, but he also looked over when he heard this question.

Ma Pian seemed to have finally come to his senses. Hearing this, he slowly raised his eyes and looked at the claw machine flashing with colorful lights. His voice trembled slightly. “Yes, the dolls in the claw machine.”

Chi Ting followed his gaze and paused before concluding, “You mean, the dolls want to turn us all into dolls?”

There was a brief silence once these words came out.

At this moment, the dreamy lights reflected from the glass windows of the claw machines seemed to become extremely subtle.

Wu Ruici felt a chill rushing from his feet to his head in an instant.

His scalp tingled, but he finally adjusted his mood after a long time. He smiled and tried to ease the atmosphere. “But everything wasn’t real, right? We followed the rule from the user guide and waited for 10 minutes. Now it is safe again. So Ma Pian, what you saw was an illusion to confuse you. Don’t worry too much.”

This really did help ease Ma Pian’s mood.

Yes, an illusion.

At least for now, he was still alive and well after triggering the rule. This meant that all the images he saw before were just illusions to stimulate him to leave here.

Chi Ting looked at Ma Pian, whose expression had eased a bit and remained silent.

His intuition told him that now wasn’t the right time for him to offer comfort. But an illusion… was this really the case?

He looked back and saw that the staff member wearing the doll uniform was still there. If he remembered correctly, the corners of the doll’s mouth, which were always curved up, seemed to have unknowingly dropped a few degrees.

It was like he regretted this development.

Chi Ting retracted his gaze and checked Ma Pian’s condition one last time before saying, “There shouldn’t be anything else. Then we will continue playing.”

Wu Ruici heard him use ‘playing’ to describe the projects in this instance and was speechless for a moment. He paused before saying, “Thank you.”

Chi Ting waved his hand and walked away.

The two members of the Blue Mountain team stood beside Wu Ruici without saying a word. It wasn’t until they saw Chi Ting and the others walking away that the member called Yu Cui spoke up. “Captain, this guy called Chi Ting seems quite powerful.”

“He isn’t just powerful.” Wu Ruici kept looking in the direction where those people had left. He didn’t know what to say for a moment. After a pause, he gave a conclusion. “I think it is better for us to not provoke them too much.”

Yu Gui and Ma Pian, who had just recovered, looked over in surprise.

It wasn’t just them who were surprised. The audience in Wu Ruici’s live stream room were also surprised.

After following him for a while, everyone knew Wu Ruici’s behavior very well. At the same time, they posted messages.

[Brother Wu actually gave up the challenge? I thought he would use this team to the limit.]

[Is the Dawn team that powerful? I remember that the last time he met a team in the top 100, Captain Wu showed no mercy at all.]

[Really. The only time I saw Wu Ruici actively show goodwill to a team was when he was with the Yefutu team.]

[But how much is the person next door charging? Even Brother Wu doesn’t have the permission to see the news over there?]

[Oh no, do you really not know who these people are? Haven’t you heard of the first batch of players from the 13th World entering the Sanctuary?]

[Huh? I didn’t pay much attention to it. They are actually from the 13th World?]

[Spend 5,000 points to go to the live stream room next door and you will know. All members of the Watchtower team are online to support the show. It is very lively. By the way, don’t ask me why you have to spend 5,000 points. Just go there, and you will understand immediately.]

In the claw machine area, the four people turned a corner and left the sight of the Blue Mountain team.

Ji Xingque picked a device, swiped the card and paid the coins.

Yue Ren stood by and watched. He thought back to what just happened and concluded, “So, the current situation is that the second rule is also correct.”

[2. All the machines in this area are operating normally. If you find a problem after inserting a coin, please stay in front of the claw machine and wait patiently. It will return to normal after 10 minutes.]

He smiled and glanced at Chi Ting. “We have tested more and more rules. Do you think the circuit failure is next?”

Chi Ting asked sincerely, “Do you want to test if you have the ability of a crow’s mouth?”

Yue Ren raised an eyebrow slightly and tactfully made a gesture of sewing his mouth shut.

Meanwhile, Ji Xingque had completed 10 attempts on a machine in the blink of an eye. Since he still got nothing, he became more and more courageous. He was about to move onto the next machine. However, a figure flashed before him, and a striking head of gray hair caught his eye.

Song Xuefeng waved a hand very naturally and signaled for him to move aside. “Go and rest.”

Ji Xingque looked at him and was shocked by Song Xuefeng’s initiative. “You aren’t sleepy any longer?”

“Yes, I’ve slept enough,” Song Xuefeng replied lazily. Then he repeated, “Go and take a rest.”

Ji Xingque: “……”

For some reason, this tone always made him feel that Song Xuefeng didn’t really want to participate. He just didn’t want Ji Xingque to continue wasting game coins.

Ji Xingque also felt a pang of pain when looking at the current amount of coins on his card.

He turned around and looked at Yue Ren with an innocent and frustrated look on his face. “Okay, I admit that you won.”

It seemed he really had no talent with the claw machine. But he remembered that there should be some shooting games in this type of arcade. It should be his home turf then.

Just as Ji Xingque was thinking this, a clicking sound entered his ears.

He realized something and turned around. He saw Song Xuefeng bending down and taking out a small octopus doll from the exit.

Ji Xingque: “……”

Song Xuefeng noticed the gaze on him and glanced at the doll in his hand. Then he stuffed it into Ji Xingque’s arms very smoothly.

He didn’t forget to say, “It was a 2 coin attempt.”

Ji Xingque: “………”

He looked down at the thing in his hand. “5,000?!”

Song Xuefeng’s luck was much better compared to Yue Ren’s 800 coins. He actually got 5,000 game coins directly!

“What a talent.” Yue Ren was also amazed. After comparing the two dolls, he slowly said, “But…”

Chi Ting also wanted to hear what else this person would say, so he looked over. He heard Yue Ren say, “But I think our baby dolphin is a bit cuter.”

In some ways, this statement could be considered shameless. But strangely, Chi Ting’s first reaction was that Yue Ren was right.

The dolphin doll in his hand was indeed much cuter than the orange octopus.

At present, two people in the team had already gained rewards. Chi Ting looked at the card in his hand and felt a bit playful.

He was just about to change to a different colored doll to catch when he heard a ‘click.’ There were a few flashes of light before the surroundings suddenly fell into darkness.

The other areas of the Starry Sky Arcade were brightly lit, making everything here seem as if it had been completely swallowed up by an endless abyss.

The power was out in the entire claw machine area.

During this period, none of them had done anything. This meant the circuit malfunction had to be caused by the team next door…

Ji Xingque was speechless. “What did that Blue Mountain team do?”

Chi Ting’s first reaction in the darkness was to turn around and look in someone’s direction.

As expected, this type of crow’s mouth would be happy sooner or later.

He couldn’t see it, but Yue Ren could feel Chi Ting’s gaze in the darkness.

He cleared his throat quietly and pretended to be ignorant. “Let’s focus on the current problem. Should we remind the people in the team next door to stay where they are and not move? After all, we should’ve found the first wrong rule.”

His tone was nonchalant, but the moment the words came out of his mouth, he realized that something was wrong.

It was as if he had fallen into a very empty environment. There was no response for a long time after he finished speaking.

It was as if he was completely swallowed up by the surrounding darkness.