My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 97
by Little PandaHostage
The three of them hurried to the base gates, finding a large crowd already gathered there. Many people were cursing non-stop. Pushing their way through the throng, they saw exactly what they expected—Fan Juntian was standing just outside the base. In his tight grasp, he held a hostage, a dagger pressed flat against the man’s neck.
Looking closely at the hostage’s face, apart from him being somewhat haggard and emaciated, he actually looked exactly like Ren Muhui!
Seeing the survivors who had once been incredibly respectful to him suddenly acting so hostile, and Qi Sheng bringing a group of men to capture him, Fan Juntian immediately guessed what had happened inside the base. He absolutely refused to take a single step inside. At the same time, he sneakily kept “Ren Muhui” under his control, arrogantly yelling at Qi Sheng, “Qi Sheng! You’ve really outdone yourself! You definitely sent someone to steal my engine, trapping me outside the base so you could take the opportunity to make a move against the Fan family, right? Let me guess! You’ve already succeeded, and now you want to deal with me next? Well, I’m warning you—do you see the man in my hands? This is the person Mu Ning cares about most. You’ve known for the past two years that Mu Ning has been searching for someone, haven’t you? This weakling1 in my hands is exactly the man she’s looking for! I advise you not to act rashly, Qi Sheng. Otherwise, if this guy accidentally dies, I’m afraid Mu Ning will flip this entire base upside down!”
Since Fan Juntian had put it like that, Qi Sheng genuinely didn’t dare to make a move. For the past two years, he certainly knew Mu Ning had been relentlessly searching for someone. Others said she was looking for her boyfriend, but he hadn’t expected that such a powerful 6th-order esper would have a boyfriend who was so… delicate??? No, wait. Looking at the man’s build, he was actually quite tall; the reason he was so gaunt and frail was definitely because he had also been afflicted by Fan Juntian’s poison smoke.
This Fan Juntian!!!
Being inexplicably slapped with an unwarranted accusation, Qi Sheng couldn’t even be bothered to explain himself. After all, he really had made a move against the Fan family. Recalling the miserable state Liang Ke had been in while tortured by the poison smoke, Qi Sheng truly wished he could step forward and punch Fan Juntian a few times right then and there. However, constrained by the man Fan Juntian held hostage, he could only endure it and urge the bystanders to quickly go fetch Mu Ning.
Seeing Qi Sheng’s vicious expression, looking as though he wanted to tear him apart but was forced to hold back and do nothing, Fan Juntian felt incredibly smug. Fortunately, he had been smart and quick-witted enough. The moment he spotted this loathsome Ren Muhui on the road back to H City, he had immediately used the poison smoke to control him and bring him back to the base.
To be honest, when he first saw Ren Muhui being chased down the road by several zombies, Fan Juntian had merely felt it was bad luck. Throughout this entire journey, Fan Juntian genuinely felt he had been plagued by constant misfortune. First, after arriving at P City in the neighboring province, they had only stepped away for a short while to scavenge for supplies, but the engine on their RV had been stolen! The thief’s skills were superb; even the esper left behind to guard the vehicle was completely baffled as to how it happened. Just thinking about the engine that had cost him 400,000 Level 1 crystal cores sent a sharp sting of loss2 through Fan Juntian.
Without an engine, the RV was useless, and Fan Juntian had to humble himself by riding in an ordinary car. Fortunately, P City had already become a dead city. Abandoned vehicles were everywhere, and some still had residual gas in them. Scavenging bits and pieces together, they managed to scrape by.
The dead city was thoroughly overgrown with weeds, its plant coverage far exceeding that of H City. Fan Juntian actually managed to find some poisonous grass and flowers here, and he immediately dug them up with great care. However, while he was engrossed in searching the underbrush for various toxic plants, they were suddenly attacked by a swarm of mutated rats. It was a massive horde of them, each one the size of an adult domestic cat. The leader of the mutated rats was practically the size of a domestic pig! It was so fat and robust that if not for its long tail, Fan Juntian would have genuinely thought they had encountered a regular, unmutated wild boar!
But these mutated rats were far more ferocious than any normal wild boar! There were so many of them, and their attacks were exceptionally vicious. By the time Fan Juntian was escorted to a safe location, his group of over twenty espers had been reduced to just five. During their desperate escape, the poisonous grass and flowers that Fan Juntian had painstakingly dug up and carefully planted into pots were all left behind. Even his precious plant espers had died under the attacks of the mutated rats.
Having witnessed the savagery of the mutated rats firsthand, Fan Juntian didn’t dare turn back to search for the discarded poisonous grass and flowers. He couldn’t even be bothered to complain about how uncomfortable the sedan was to sit in, just urging the driver to hurry up and leave this dangerous dead city. The only problem was that without the Crystal Core Engine, a journey that originally took a little over two days from H City to P City was no longer so easy to make in reverse.
Fan Juntian had already wasted a considerable amount of time in P City looking for toxic plants. After the engine was lost, they spent even more time searching for cars and gasoline. Later on, they ran out of gas and food on the road, forcing his group to turn around and head to nearby towns and villages to scavenge for supplies. It was during this sluggish, piecemeal trek back toward H City that Fan Juntian encountered Ren Muhui, who was screaming at the top of his lungs while being chased by a few zombies.
Upon first laying eyes on Ren Muhui, Fan Juntian was naturally brimming with intense hatred. His intuition told him that his initial drug addiction had something to do with Ren Muhui. However, at that time, hindered by the torment of his withdrawals and warned by his family not to act too wildly lest his drug use be discovered, he could only unwillingly let Ren Muhui off the hook for the time being. Now, seeing Ren Muhui being chased by zombies, Fan Juntian couldn’t wait to watch him get torn limb from limb.
It was a former xuedi3 from S University—who was now a 3rd-order spatial esper—that reminded Fan Juntian from the sidelines that they no longer had any wood-system espers. If they returned to the base, they would have to find other wood-system espers. Since Mu Ning was a water-wood dual-system esper, if they could control Ren Muhui, they wouldn’t have to worry about being unable to threaten her.
Hearing this xuedi’s proposal, Fan Juntian’s eyes immediately lit up. He ordered the driver to pull the car up alongside Ren Muhui. Before helping drive off the zombies, he first blasted Ren Muhui with an attack of poison smoke. Ren Muhui had been entirely focused on fleeing and hadn’t expected a car to suddenly rush out beside him—much less that it would, without a word, release a cloud of glowing green smoke in his face. Panting heavily from his frantic sprint, he had no time to hold his breath and inhaled several mouthfuls of the toxic fumes in succession.
Thus, Ren Muhui was thoroughly afflicted with the drug addiction. Unhurriedly, Fan Juntian toyed with him for a good while before finally killing the zombies and dragging Ren Muhui into the car.
With Ren Muhui on board, the sedan—already crammed with six grown men—became even more suffocatingly tight. Fan Juntian’s group bumped and jostled their way along until they finally had to abandon the relatively stylish little car, swapping it for a rustic 7-seat commercial vehicle whose taillights were completely smashed and front end dented in. Dawdling the whole way and having to deal with various dangers every day, Fan Juntian had long since bottled up a belly full of rage. Whenever he had nothing to do, he would take his anger out on Ren Muhui; when things went wrong, he would beat him savagely, kicking and stomping him into the ground.
As their food grew increasingly scarce, there were several times when Fan Juntian didn’t even want to share any rations with Ren Muhui. However, when he thought about how, upon returning to the base, Mu Ning would be threatened by him because of Ren Muhui, succumb to his poison smoke, and then fall under his control… Heh! The very thought of that cold, arrogant, and untouchable goddess submitting beneath him made Fan Juntian tremble with excitement.
Pushing forward with great difficulty, Fan Juntian finally made it back to Nanhai Base.
However, the moment he stepped out of the car and was intercepted, he immediately sensed that something was wrong. The base gate guards who stopped him—whom he used to pass by on his way in and out—had never possessed stellar attitudes, but they had absolutely never worn expressions that looked ready to beat him to a pulp. Taking a closer look at the other people in the base, some immediately turned and sprinted inside upon recognizing who was in the vehicle—clearly going to fetch someone. Sure enough, not long after, Qi Sheng stormed out aggressively with a group of espers.
Seeing Qi Sheng’s murderous glare, even someone as dense as Fan Juntian would realize things had gone sideways. When he noticed the woman standing beside Qi Sheng, Fan Juntian nearly fainted. That woman… wasn’t she locked up in the Fan family dungeon?! Why was she here?! Could the Fan family have… At that thought, his heart sank completely, and he immediately tacked on his stolen engine to the conspiracy theory against Qi Sheng. But quickly, he seized Ren Muhui, gripping his one and only lifeline, pressed a dagger to his neck, and began issuing all sorts of threats against Qi Sheng.
Just as expected, upon hearing that Ren Muhui was the man Mu Ning had been searching for over the past two years, Qi Sheng truly didn’t dare to act. Fan Juntian became smug once again. Looking at Qi Sheng’s attitude toward him and the woman beside him, Fan Juntian guessed that while he had been away, Qi Sheng must have done something to the Fan family. But that didn’t matter. As long as he used this piece of trash he controlled to seize Mu Ning, he could still bring the Fan family back from the dead!
Thinking of Mu Ning, he couldn’t help but urge Qi Sheng again, “Hurry up and call Mu Ning out here! Let’s see if she still cares about the man she’s spent two years looking for! If she doesn’t come out soon, she won’t be seeing him alive!”
While Fan Juntian was incessantly rushing them, Mu Ning swiftly arrived on the scene with Ren Chenxi and the rest of their group. The moment Mu Ning appeared, the onlooking survivors consciously parted to make way for her. Naturally, Fan Juntian spotted Mu Ning at a glance, along with Ren Chenxi beside her, who bore a slight resemblance to Ren Muhui. Looking at Mu Ning, and then at Ren Chenxi, a burning heat surged in Fan Juntian’s heart.
Heh, two grand beauties coming to welcome him back to the base! In a moment, he would use Ren Muhui to threaten these two beauties over, lock them down with poison smoke, and then, right in front of this useless trash Ren Muhui, he would take his goddess first, and then his sister! Ha! When that time came, it would definitely feel amazing!
Watching Mu Ning and Ren Chenxi step closer and closer, only to stop about five meters away, Fan Juntian couldn’t help but feel anxious.
“Mu Ning! What are you doing? Do you really not care about Ren Muhui’s life? And you, Ren-meimei, don’t you care about your brother? Get over here right now, or else…” As Fan Juntian threatened them, he pressed down harder with the dagger in his hand. Soon, a bloody scratch was drawn across Ren Muhui’s neck. However, the injured Ren Muhui didn’t seem to care about the threat against his throat at all. He merely stared in astonishment at Ren Chenxi for a long moment before suddenly roaring in fury, “Ren Chenxi, and you said you weren’t sneaking around playing this father4‘s game!!!”
“…” Okay, well. Ren Chenxi, who had still been repeatedly trying to confirm whether the hostage in Fan Juntian’s hands was actually some shape-shifting esper, heard Ren Muhui’s roar and immediately came to a conclusion. That thoroughly tormented hostage really was her idiotic twin brother!
So, how did Ren Muhui—who had been perfectly enjoying his peaceful life in the real world—somehow end up running into the game? Don’t tell her he had a momentary lapse of judgment and went back to sneakily play that brain-dead dating game again!
While Ren Muhui was bellowing, Mu Ning, who had been carefully observing him the entire time, found her expression darkening.
Something was wrong, really wrong! In Mu Ning’s memory, Ren Muhui had been so clean and gentle. He was absolutely nothing like this crude, filthy, and utterly classless Ren Muhui standing before her! Yet, this Ren Muhui in front of her genuinely did feel a little familiar… as if she had seen him somewhere before. But where on earth had she seen him?
Just as Mu Ning frowned in recollection, Ren Chenxi took the opportunity to toss a Shield Card onto Ren Muhui, then leaned in close to whisper in Mu Ning’s ear. “Can you use your vines to help pull my brother back? Don’t worry, I’ve already put a Shield Card on him.”
“Are you sure he’s your brother?” Mu Ning asked, a little dissatisfied that Ren Chenxi would acknowledge her brother so hastily.
“I’m sure! After all, we’re twins!” Ren Chenxi found it a bit strange. The real Ren Muhui had appeared right in front of Mu Ning, yet why didn’t she show the slightest sign of happiness? Ah! It must be because Ren Muhui was currently being held hostage by Fan Juntian, so she was upset!
The author has something to say:
Xixi: You feel bad for him, don’t you! You’re upset that my brother is being held hostage by Fan Juntian, aren’t you!
Mutou: As if I care whether he lives or dies! You know perfectly well the only person I’ve ever cared about is…
Xixi: I’m not listening, I’m not listening! The Ren Muhui you’ve been pining for is back, so go to him!
Mutou: No, I don’t want to, I don’t want to! He isn’t the Ren Muhui I’ve been pining for at all!
Fan & Ren: Is it really appropriate for you two to be flirting5 at a time like this!!!
Footnotes
- A common Chinese slang term ('ruò jī') for a physically weak or incapable person.
- A slang term ('ròuténg', literally 'flesh hurting') referring to the physical pang or sting of spending or losing valuable resources.
- A generic address for a junior male student ('xuédì').
- An arrogant male self-referential term ('lǎozi', literally 'this father').
- An idiom ('dǎ qíng mà qiào') meaning to tease each other playfully or flirt.
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