My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 90
by Little PandaSetting Fire
The two cells held women—one an esper, the other an ordinary person. Both still carried the “drug addiction” debuff1, and their health bars had been tortured down to less than a third.
If the Fan family had abused them for a few more days, both girls would have met their end in that cell.
“They’re familiar with Qi Sheng? Then why are they in the Fan family dungeon?”
“I don’t know that either. I only know that the ordinary one is called Liang Ke, a top student2 in pharmaceuticals—supposedly a genius at developing various medicines. When Qi Sheng brought that woman back to the base, he happily introduced her to a few of us. But just a few days later, she defected to the Fan family. According to her at the time, the Fan family offered her more than Qi Sheng did—food, shelter, everything. She wasn’t stupid; why settle for less when she could choose better conditions? So she went with the Fan family. Who would’ve thought she’d end up locked in their dungeon?”
“Most likely, she didn’t actually join the Fan family because they offered better conditions…”
“She might have been hit by Fan Juntian’s poison smoke too!”
“Exactly!” Ren Chenxi looked with some regret at the ordinary woman without esper abilities. Ordinary, yes, but… she was a pharmaceutical genius! The Fan family would only want someone like her for one reason—to help Fan Juntian develop better drugs! A medical prodigy, reduced to manufacturing those harmful drugs—this woman must have been deeply unwilling. Perhaps she refused to make drugs for the Fan family, which was why they locked her in that dungeon and tortured her. Otherwise, look at the other espers the Fan family recruited—like that lightning-system esper. As long as he obediently provided electricity, he ate well, drank well, lived well!
Clearly, Mu Ning had reached the same conclusion.
“Should we rescue this woman? Then hand her to Qi Sheng and use the opportunity to make him go against the Fan family? Qi Sheng and the Fan family don’t get along anyway.”
“Mm, rescue the esper across from her too. Didn’t you say they both know Qi Sheng? I don’t know what her ability is, but she’s already 4th-order. Adding another powerful enemy for the Fan family can’t hurt.”
“That esper—when Qi Sheng introduced her, I heard she’s a spatial esper. Her name is Liang Xiu, Liang Ke’s younger sister.”
A spatial esper? Her personal inventory probably held quite a stock of medicine and food—enough to help her sister and herself survive all that torture from the Fan family. And…
“Her inventory might also contain the drugs her sister developed? Because she refused to hand them over, she was also thrown in the dungeon and tortured?”
“Probably.”
“Whatever. Let’s just rescue both of them.”
“What about… the others?” Mu Ning was a bit surprised. She had assumed Ren Chenxi would want to rescue everyone still alive in that dungeon.
“Can’t do it for now. Too many people, and we don’t have much invisibility time left. Hand these two women to Qi Sheng—they’ll definitely tell him about the Fan family dungeon. As for the rest, let’s see if Qi Sheng brings people to rescue them. If he doesn’t act, we’ll figure something else out.”
“So how do we get these two out? There are so many patrol teams outside. Should we… make them invisible too?”
“That’s the only way. No problem—I still have crystal cores left. I can synthesize more cards when we get back.” As she spoke, Ren Chenxi pulled out that gaudy long blade from her inventory and slashed through the chains on the cell door. She used the same method to open the other cell door.
Ren Chenxi, the card holder herself, didn’t seem to mind using up her cards, so Mu Ning naturally had nothing more to say. Besides, she was happy to rescue these two women and spark conflict between Qi Sheng and the Fan family. What Mu Ning didn’t tell Ren Chenxi was that Qi Sheng seemed to have feelings for this Liang Ke.
Having already cut the chains on two cells, Ren Chenxi decided to go all the way3—she simply opened all the other cell doors too. The long blade floated in midair, yet it didn’t wake any of the “prisoners” in the dungeon. These prisoners, whether asleep or unconscious, had all been affected by Fan Juntian’s poison smoke. They must have been tormented severely by drug addiction before passing out, so Ren Chenxi’s movements didn’t wake them.
Even when Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning each carried one of the Liang sisters—who had been made invisible with Invisibility Cards—the sisters still showed no reaction. Besides applying Invisibility Cards to both sisters, Ren Chenxi sneakily4 gave each of them a Recovery Card. As for the other prisoners with drug addiction, Ren Chenxi could only leave them for now.
After all, she only had 8 Recovery Cards left, while the number of addicted prisoners far exceeded that. And even if she cured them now, tomorrow those Fan family scum would just drug them again. Ren Chenxi could only hope that after rescuing Liang Ke, Qi Sheng would lead people to raid the Fan family and rescue all those prisoners—and that Liang Ke could help detoxify them.
After all, these people were Liang Ke’s “fellow inmates.” Hopefully, after being rescued herself, Liang Ke would turn back to help those who had suffered alongside her.
Liang Ke, tortured in every way by the Fan family, weighed almost nothing—so light that Ren Chenxi suspected the Fan family had never given her food. Carrying Liang Ke, with Mu Ning carrying Liang Xiu, both women still had one free hand. Mu Ning held Ren Chenxi’s sleeve, and they slowly made their way out of that dark dungeon.
At the stairwell to the first basement level, Ren Chenxi turned off the lights. The two esper guards upstairs were still sleeping and didn’t notice that two prisoners were already missing from the dungeon.
Carrying someone, Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning couldn’t easily leave through the second floor of the Fan family’s luxury villa. But they hadn’t planned to. Relying on their invisibility, they walked right out through the main entrance on the first floor. Sure enough, the door could be opened from inside.
Just as a patrol team passed by the entrance, Ren Chenxi waited until they moved away, then opened the door. The Invisibility Card had about twenty minutes left—the Acceleration Card had a few minutes more. Even carrying a woman each, Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning still ran fast. As they ran past a plot of land full of plants, Ren Chenxi slowed down.
Mu Ning, holding tightly to Ren Chenxi’s sleeve, felt her pace slow and turned her head in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking…” Ren Chenxi stared at that lush, green plot of land, the corner of her mouth slowly curving upward. “Since we’ve already caused this much trouble, causing a little more won’t make much difference, right?”
Mu Ning also turned to look at the unfamiliar plants and smiled. “Do whatever you want~”
The Fan family had never been in the habit of growing food crops. Every plot of land in Fan family territory was planted with nothing but various drug-manufacturing plants. In the apocalypse, food crops were already difficult to grow. The Fan family had spent who knows how long collecting these plants, nurturing them with such care—if they all vanished overnight, it would hurt like hell5.
Too bad Old Fan had died in his sleep, never seeing how his precious plants were being destroyed. And fortunately for the remaining Fan family members—like that insufferable Fan Haotian and the still-absent Fan Juntian—Ren Chenxi was already eager to see their pained6 expressions.
Indeed, rather than giving those scum a quick death, it was far more satisfying to let them suffer slowly.
In the base, gasoline was extremely precious. Many survivors, to save fuel, would walk whenever they could on trips outside. But Ren Chenxi was different! Even though she kept using Greasy Cards to synthesize R-rank cards, she still had over 600 Greasy Cards left in her inventory! A few days ago at the beach with Mu Ning, she’d used over 30 Greasy Cards to accumulate more than 30 bottles of gasoline—now it would come in handy.
Carefully setting the two sisters on the ground, Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning each took several bottles of gasoline and doused the entire plot of plants as fast as they could. After pouring the gasoline, Ren Chenxi used the sisters’ health bars to find her way back to them, then shook her empty bottle in the air. Soon, Mu Ning also returned with her empty bottles.
After picking up Liang Ke again, Ren Chenxi took out a lighter and a small piece of candle from her inventory. The candles had been scavenged from that hotel long ago—she’d collected many, to use for lighting when she felt scared at night. This small piece was what remained from one she’d lit before.
“I’ll count to three, then we run. Open the gate and go straight out—our target is where Qi Sheng and his people live. Once this fire starts, everyone will probably be drawn here, and no one will be guarding the gate.”
So that meant no more holding hands—or sleeves—together! Mu Ning was a bit reluctant, but she nodded. “Alright.”
“Then… one, two, three, run!” As soon as Ren Chenxi finished speaking, flames erupted from the nearby plants, growing fiercer by the second. By the time the nearest patrol team saw the fire shooting toward the sky and rushed over, Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning had already reached the gate. The guards in the gatehouse could see that massive blaze too, and now the entire Fan family territory echoed with shrill whistles and people running and shouting: “Fire! Fire! Get a water-system esper over here, quick!”
The Fan family hadn’t recruited any water-system espers. The small amount of water they stored for daily use wouldn’t be enough to put out such a huge fire—they really needed a water-system esper’s help.
But the Fan family was already disliked in the base. And in the apocalypse, water-system espers’ water was sold for crystal cores—who would want to put out a fire for free? But if the Fan family paid crystal cores for firefighting… that would cost quite a lot.
Losing those plants, then losing a pile of crystal cores—this was enough to make those Fan family members cough blood.
Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning, carrying the Liang sisters, ran all the way to the residential area for base leadership—Qi Sheng’s territory. Mu Ning led Ren Chenxi straight to the office where Qi Sheng handled base affairs, deposited the two sisters on the sofa, and hurried away.
If they didn’t leave now, their invisibility would wear off.
As it happened, just as Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning reached the vicinity of the Villa Area, their invisibility faded. But fortunately, it was pitch dark here—the commotion from the Fan family’s side hadn’t reached this Villa Area yet. Everyone around was asleep, quiet. Ren Chenxi and Mu Ning walked back to their small villa normally.
After saying a simple goodnight to Mu Ning, Ren Chenxi went straight to the third floor. But she’d barely climbed into bed when she felt like she’d just lain down when suddenly the floor below grew noisy, accompanied by very heavy banging on the door.
The author has something to say:
Mutou: Well, in the end, still couldn’t hold hands…
Footnotes
- A negative status effect (debuff) in the game-like system of this apocalyptic world, causing withdrawal symptoms and dependency.
- A Chinese term (gāo cái shēng) for an outstanding or gifted student in a particular field.
- A Chinese idiom (yī bù zuò èr bù xiū) meaning since you've started, you might as well go all the way; once begun, see it through to the end.
- A Chinese internet slang term (àn chuōchuō) meaning to do something secretly, furtively, or on the sly.
- A Chinese term (ròu tòng) meaning the pain or sting of spending or losing something valuable; literally 'flesh hurting.'
- A Chinese term (ròu tòng) meaning the pain or sting of spending or losing something valuable; literally 'flesh hurting.'
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