MMPS Ch. 23

Content Warning: Physical Ab*se and R*pe mentioned

Chapter 23: Are There Words?

After a few rounds of gameplay, Yu An had mastered the basics, his movements fluid and precise, as though the controls were an extension of himself.

The scene he explored was grim—a medieval village ravaged by plague, hidden in a barren mountain valley. The only exit was blocked by a sinister little cottage. Its owner, tasked with containing the sickness, stood as a guardian of the narrow passage. Inside the valley, chaos reigned. Villagers were left to their fate, succumbing to disease, madness, and despair. Survivors clung to life in a relentless purgatory, unable to escape the cursed wilderness where generations were doomed to rot, forgotten by the outside world.

The final boss of the scenario was the Screaming Warden, the ominous figure who inhabited the cottage. The challenge began when players knocked on her door, waking her from her eerie silence. Striking the pale hand she extended from the threshold signaled the start of the fight.

The Warden was no easy foe. Her health bar loomed at a staggering 50,000 points. By contrast, the player’s health—without upgrades—was a pitiful 100. A single casual swipe from the Warden would spell instant death. To stand a chance, players needed to explore the village, scavenging and crafting items until they were strong enough to face her.

Yu An’s first find was a hatchet, retrieved from a pile of firewood. He gripped it firmly, testing its weight as he prepared to scour the village.

The muddy paths twisted unpredictably, weaving between crumbling structures and debris. Before long, Yu An stumbled upon the map’s centerpiece—a raised, circular stone platform, etched with crude patterns. It faced east, and at its heart stood a charred wooden cross. Nailed to the blackened post was a scorched corpse, its form twisted in eternal agony.

The platform reeked of recent violence. The villagers, consumed by desperation, had selected an innocent victim—one of their own—to bear the weight of their misfortune. Declaring the condemned as the devil responsible for their suffering, they offered them to the flames in a futile bid for divine mercy.

Nearby, Yu An discovered a makeshift flintlock pistol. Its description read:
“A terrifying weapon brought by an outsider, likely contaminated with disease.”

The pistol came loaded with two bullets, its worn frame hinting at devastating close-range power.

Any other player might have rejoiced at the find, but not Yu An. His focus remained razor-sharp. With deliberate intent, he raised his hatchet and swung it at the charred corpse.

The body shuddered under the impact, and from its torn abdomen fell a single bullet.

He struck again. The corpse sagged further, its burnt remains yielding another bullet. Yet Yu An didn’t stop. A third swing reduced the body to ash, leaving nothing but dust and silence in its place.

A hidden mechanic. Destroying the corpse rewarded extra ammunition—a clever detail, easily missed by those inexperienced.

From his perch nearby, Zhao Ran watched the scene unfold with mild amusement, propping his chin on his hand. “You’ve clearly played your share of games. How are you this good on your first try?”

“Just a thought experiment,” Yu An replied, his focus unbroken. “If I were one of the villagers—ignorant of guns but filled with rage—I’d shove the bullets down the gunman’s throat before burning him alive. It’d be more satisfying.”

Zhao Ran blinked, twirling a lock of hair around his finger. “…I doubt the developers thought that far ahead,” he said dryly. “By the way, did you hear something just now?”

Yu An paused, his brows furrowing. “No. What sound?”

Hours of gameplay had yielded no signs of anything unusual. The mysterious knocking Gray Crow Games’s manager had mentioned remained conspicuously absent.

Zhao Ran briefly summarized the manager’s report. Yu An listened as he played, his silence deceptive. Just when Zhao Ran assumed he wasn’t paying attention, Yu An spoke up.

“So, this only happens to streamers? Maybe the anomaly only appears during live broadcasts. We’re playing offline now. Let’s try using a streamer account.”

The suggestion hung in the air, strangely plausible. Zhao Ran nodded, forwarding the idea to his team for further investigation.

The weekend bled into monotony. Yu An remained confined to Zhao Ran’s home under the guise of supervision. Between supplemental lessons and relentless gaming, he found himself begrudgingly resigned to his circumstances. Morning wake-ups came not from cold alarms but languid nudges or teasing pinches at his waist. It was, in its way, almost tolerable—warmer than his usual routine. And the cooking? Far better than takeout.

Saturday’s lessons had a sharper edge. Zhao Ran hauled Yu An from bed to the villa’s second floor, where the unexpected awaited.

The space was cavernous, devoid of walls or furniture. Eight load-bearing columns divided the floor, and a red anti-slip mat stretched wall to wall. Overhead, there was no ceiling—only steel beams, from which heavy punching bags hung, their chains thick as arms.

The space was divided into different areas, each one filled with equipment. Exercise equipment stood ready alongside gear meant for combat training.

Zhao Ran tossed Yu An a training outfit: “Warm up. You don’t want to pull something.”

Yu An accepted the training clothes cautiously, his gaze darting to the various pieces of equipment surrounding him. A creeping sense of unease settled in his chest—today’s training might prove far harsher than he’d anticipated.

Yet, he wondered, did someone as skilled as Zhao Ran really need a fully equipped training ground in his own home?

Surely, Zhao Ran had trained others before. Maybe even several.

“This feels pointless,” Yu An muttered, his voice heavy with disinterest. “What can anyone even accomplish in just a day or two?”

“It’s better than lying around. Kids like you need to stretch their joints now and then, or they’ll seize up like rusted hinges.”

Dressed casually in loungewear, Zhao Ran perched himself on a stack of protective mats, exuding an air of casual authority. “For the intern evaluation, the second part is always a strength test. Participants are allowed to bring their own preferred equipment. Don’t underestimate it—before entering, you’ll have to sign a death waiver.”

“A death waiver? Sounds like a free-for-all.” Yu An remarked, an eyebrow quirking.

“Close enough. Normally, these tests aren’t overly competitive, but this year is different. Among your peers, there are two standouts—a young man and a woman. Both are exceptionally talented. I suggest you take this seriously.”

“I’d rather not go.” Yu An declared, leaning against a punching bag as he examined the perfectly tailored training clothes in his hands. “It sounds like too many people.”

Zhao Ran smirked faintly: “I’ve got a secret for you. Come closer—you’ll find it interesting.”

Yu An hesitated, biting his lip before leaning down to hear Zhao Ran’s whisper.

“One of the candidates,” Zhao Ran murmured, showing Yu An a photo on his phone—a blue-background résumé picture of an unremarkable-looking young man. “The boss has ordered his death in the arena. You can decide how to handle it.”

Yu An’s brows lifted, his voice sharpening with curiosity: “Why?”

“He’s from a rival company,” Zhao Ran explained, his tone steady. “They captured one of our covert agents, tortured them for eighteen hours, and dismembered the body before dumping it into a sewer. Now, they’ve sent someone to infiltrate us, thinking they’ll go unnoticed. They don’t take us seriously.”

“He looks so… harmless.”

“Not everyone wears their ‘don’t mess with me’ sign on their face like you.” Zhao Ran quipped with a low chuckle. “The boss wants to send a message—let them know even our interns can eliminate their top personnel.”

“…” For once, Yu An’s face lit up with genuine, almost childish excitement, his chin tilting upward in triumph.

But Zhao Ran watched him with unease. Yu An’s enthusiasm was a double-edged sword, one that Zhao Ran had to carefully temper. He needed Yu An sharp and ruthless but not uncontrollable—a precarious balance that left Zhao Ran walking on thin ice.

This time, he couldn’t afford to let things spiral out of control.

For now, all he could do was take it one step at a time.

Though Zhao Ran masked his concerns well, Yu An seemed to sense his inner turmoil. For the next few hours of grueling training, he behaved unusually well, obediently following Zhao Ran’s instructions without provoking his temper.

As they trained, Yu An began noticing subtle details—details that rekindled dormant suspicions.

Zhao Ran was left-handed. His fighting style revolved around his right side as a pivot, with most attacks delivered from his left. He also avoided punching, favoring kicks instead—a clear effort to protect his hands.

Since the moment his instinctive reactions at the Xiliu Beauty Salon awakened his muscle memory, Yu An had suspected that his former combat instructor shared similar traits.

Coincidence? No. It couldn’t be.

“You’re distracted again.” Zhao Ran’s sharp voice broke Yu An’s reverie. “That habit needs to go.”

“Ah!”

Before Yu An could react, Zhao Ran sent him sprawling with a single, effortless move. Pain radiated through Yu An’s chest as he lay curled on the ground, sweat streaming down his face.

Crouching before him, Zhao Ran brushed a damp strand of hair from Yu An’s forehead: “Take a break.”

“Wait.”

Ignoring the throbbing in his ribs, Yu An pushed himself up on trembling arms. His legs barely held steady as he ran downstairs, returning moments later with a crumpled stack of paper.

Panting, Yu An smoothed out the diary he’d retrieved from his bag and held it up. “This—is this describing you?”

Zhao Ran blinked, his expression unreadable as he examined the page.

Yu An waited, his heart pounding in his chest.

“This…” Zhao Ran tilted his head thoughtfully, as though considering. “Does this page even have words on it?”

What?

Yu An stared at him, stunned. He flipped the diary over, inspecting it again. The inked words stood out clearly, bold against the white paper. How could Zhao Ran not see them?

“You can’t read this?”

“It’s blank.” Zhao Ran shrugged. “What does it say?”

“It says…” Yu An opened his mouth to respond but faltered. The diary’s first-person confessions of intimacy and longing left him speechless, making him unable to read it out loud.

“Forget it.” Yu An quickly stuffed the diary away and fled downstairs with his training clothes in hand.

Zhao Ran followed leisurely to the staircase, resting his arms on the wooden railing as he watched as the brat who refused to read the diary retreat in a fluster.

“Did I really bite him before… Should I file them down?” He tested the sharp edge of his teeth with his thumb, scraping back and forth.

*

Yu An made an excuse to go home and grabbed an opportunity to slip out of the interviewer’s house with the Core Analyzer. He took the subway back to his old neighborhood, hurried up the stairs with three steps at a time, and hastily opened the door. Not bothering to change his shoes, he rushed into the living room and turned the TV cabinet upside down.

He couldn’t hold back anymore. If he didn’t find the diary tonight, there was no way he would be able to sleep.

In his hands, he now had two depleted cores—one was the Blind Core White that had lost its once-proud baseball bat, and the other was the Night Walker Mosquito.

Yu An picked one up, held it in his palm, and pressed it to his lips for a moment before carefully dropping it into the coin slot at the bottom of the cabinet.

A soft mechanical sound echoed inside the cabinet as the coin slot ejected a rolled-up piece of paper. He carefully unfurled it, and a page of the diary appeared before him.

The contents of the diary made Yu An unknowingly hold his breath, his throat tightening.

——

Weather: Windy

College life is even more boring than I imagined. I didn’t like places where large groups of people gather. I like books, but I don’t like libraries.

My weekly coursework usually piles up until the night before the deadline, when I stay up all night to catch up. Only the lab classes are somewhat interesting. In my free time, I look for competitions, whether high or low in prestige, to win small prizes and make him happy.

A shooting club opened near my school, and I often go there to kill time. I could spend an entire afternoon there. The club president thinks my face attracts business, so they gave me a discount on my annual membership, on the condition that they can occasionally take some photos of me and post them on their public account.

During my rest time, I always activate Do Not Disturb mode on my phone. I hate the ringing of the phone and the chime of message notifications—it’s noisy and means I’m being summoned.

The school counselor is the source of the noise, constantly posting unreasonable demands in the class group chat and insisting everyone comply.

Today, I passed by the back door of the cafeteria and saw workers hauling away trash. Large amounts of kitchen waste were piling up in bins. I followed one of the transport carts for a while and discovered that the trash was temporarily stored near the east gate of the school before being transferred by a truck. There was a 10-minute window when no one was guarding it.

Every Wednesday, the cafeteria serves apple juice, and the kitchen throws away a lot of apple cores. During that 10-minute break, I can collect about 0.5 kilograms of apple cores, enough for three weeks.

(Here, I carefully drew a detailed diagram of a glass device to extract cyanide from the apple cores with a pencil.)

The counselor was trying to quit smoking and is very fond of mint lozenges. He always keeps a box in his desk drawer and pockets and occasionally takes one.

I found a way to mold the mint lozenges, and it’s easy to make a special apple-flavored one. But, getting close to the counselor in an environment without surveillance is tricky. It requires patience to wait for the right opportunity.

But my fantasy plan fell apart before it could be carried out. He discovered my murder plan blueprint and slammed the paper in front of me, furious, asking me what it was.

I blinked and lied: “What? Is there something written on this paper?”

He was extremely angry, pressing my face down onto the paper, forcing me to bend over the desk. He hit me with a roll of plastic wrap; I felt no pain and was not afraid. He only pretended to be tough while teaching me a lesson, and when I kissed him back, his face turned completely red.

Later, he took off my pants. I can’t remember the details clearly, I just remember the pain, and a feeling that I didn’t understand but liked very much. But then there was only pain left, and he didn’t allow me to run. His tone was fierce.

The entire night, he was teaching me a lesson, repeatedly emphasizing that I must not do such things. In fact, I never really intended to act on it; I just imagined it in more detail to give myself a thrill. But I was defiant; I wanted to go against him.

I enjoyed provoking him; everyone else’s anger in this world comes from hating me, but his anger comes from loving me.

But over time, I couldn’t bear it anymore. I endured the humiliation and tried to reason with him to make him stop, but his anger seemed to spiral out of control, and the violence kept escalating.

It really hurt so much, and I was so tired. I finally cried out, as if some insignificant, long-standing loneliness poured out with my tears. I held him, and for a long time, I didn’t even know what I was crying about, even though I was the one in the wrong.

——