MMPS Ch. 61

Chapter 61: Verification

Cha Eunjae raised the flashlight, illuminating the other person’s face. Where the light swept, the colors quickly faded. His hair, eyelashes, and even his pink irises were filled with pigment cells that turned snow-white under the stimulation of light.

Zhao Ran squinted, raising a hand to shield his face from the light. Cha Eunjae immediately moved the flashlight away. “Sorry, Team Leader.”

The appearance of Team Leader Zhao finally put the interns at ease. They no longer had to worry about dying in this cursed place.

“Your hand… seems like a prosthetic?” Zhao Ran noticed Cha Eunjae’s left hand, its skin tone unnatural.

Cha Eunjae frowned slightly, touching the elbow where the prosthetic was attached. He didn’t want to bring up the accident and replied lightly. “I was injured in a car accident last year.”

“I see.” Zhao Ran patted his shoulder in comfort, then turned to Wei Chiyue, who had rushed over to help. “And you?”

Being personally questioned by the leader of the Emergency Order Unit, Wei Chiyue stood at attention, nervous but clear in his response. “Report! Two years ago, my mother had kidney failure. I was a match, so I donated one of my kidneys.”

He spoke without hesitation, introducing himself with pride as if recounting a heroic deed.

So, they were all physically incomplete but not yet embedded with Aberrant Cores—potential carriers. No wonder they had been singled out from the masses by talent scouts and recommended to Underground Metro’s interviewers.

“Let’s check the person tied to the chair first. He seems to still be breathing.”

The two investigators naturally had no objections to Team Leader Zhao’s orders. They turned and cautiously approached the chair to investigate.

Zhao Ran turned to face the two technicians standing in the darkness further away. The brass decorations on the chair acted like a blurry mirror, reflecting Zhao Ran’s eyes for a brief moment—a pair of heterochromatic gold and blue eyes, flashing on the brass surface.

He scratched the back of his hand through his glove, feeling an intense, uncomfortable sensitivity from patting someone’s shoulder earlier.

Yu An stood in place, feeling ignored and annoyed.

When Cha Eunjae had nearly fallen off the cliff and grabbed his hand, Yu An had noticed the prosthetic but hadn’t asked about it. Didn’t that meet the interviewer’s expectations? Wasn’t it worth a special mention?

It seemed that even among the interns, he wasn’t special. He wasn’t even the first one Zhao Ran paid attention to. It felt like his one-sided breakup and one-sided reconciliation had all been in his head. Zhao Ran had never acknowledged it.

Meeting Zhao Ran’s gaze from afar, Yu An stepped forward but was pulled back by Ji Nian.

“Wait.” Ji Nian said, his tone cautious. “When Yong Zheng and I were debugging the equipment, we thought it would be hard to establish a link before reaching the save point. There’s no reason for them to appear halfway. Is there something only you and your team leader know?”

Yu An was momentarily stunned, his eyes darting to the side as he quickly thought it over. He then hurried over to Zhao Ran.

To his surprise, Zhao Ran, with his hands in his coat pockets, leaned down slightly, bringing his face close to Yu An’s. “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”

The posture was intimate. Usually, due to their height difference, Zhao Ran would look down when speaking to him, creating a sense of authority and pressure. But now, leaning in like this, he seemed unusually gentle.

This caught Yu An off guard, and he forgot the question he had prepared. Instead, he lowered his head and coldly asked. “Why do you only want to do it with me when the lights are off?”

Zhao Ran’s fingers twitched, and a look of surprise flashed in his eyes.

He patiently crouched down, looking up at Yu An’s awkward expression, smoothing out the hem of his raincoat. He explained softly. “Look at my pupils. They’re dilated and pale, with little melanin. That’s why I’m sensitive to light. I can’t see your face clearly under bright light.”

Yu An’s eyes widened. This was an angle he had never considered. The distance and sharp edges between them naturally softened.

He then asked. “Why aren’t you wearing the ring?”

Zhao Ran pursed his lips, gently tugging the thin chain around Yu An’s neck. “Isn’t it right here? Besides, we’re at work.”

A ring? How could this body wear a ring? He rubbed his fingertips, feeling a pang of unease.

Yu An’s expression darkened. “You can’t wear it at work? You don’t want to acknowledge it?”

“No, no, no…” Zhao Ran wiped away a drop of sweat, flustered as he tried to calm Yu An down. “Don’t make a scene.”

From the way Zhao Ran answered, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual. Yu An quietly reached into his raincoat pocket, pulling out the corner of the Affection Meter.

Suddenly, a cry interrupted his action. The two investigators were busy rescuing the man tied to the chair. Wei Chiyue used a knife to cut through the black tape covering the man’s mouth and eyes. The man collapsed to the ground, coughing and vomiting a saliva-soaked piece of paper.

Yu An took a closer look. The man looked familiar. Wasn’t he the game streamer Huang Qi who had taught him how to stream?

Huang Qi woke up from his daze, his eyes widening in fear as he saw Yu An bending over to inspect him. “You… the eye-gouging murderer…”

“…” Yu An kicked him.

“Where am I?” Huang Qi frantically touched his face, feeling the large pink bow tied around his neck. “Right, I got transported into my game account. I was sitting at my computer playing the game when a pair of twins appeared on the screen. They walked closer and closer, then reached out and actually passed through the screen, pulling me in. They gave me a card that said ‘Civilian’ and a knife. Where’s my card?”

“Twins? What did they look like?”

“Teenage boys, around sixteen or seventeen? Both had one gold eye and one blue eye, like Persian cats.”

“You’re with Underground Metro, right? Am I saved…” Huang Qi’s voice trailed off as he noticed the others were also wearing stylish raincoats. He froze for a moment, then fainted again in despair.

Only Wei Chiyue wasn’t bothered by the grossness. He used the tip of his knife to unfold the piece of paper Huang Qi had vomited. It read: “The Witch is among you.”

He quickly looked to Zhao Ran, hoping the leader would give them a plan.

Zhao Ran, however, said. “What a coincidence. I also got a card when I came here. The Witch must stay here unless she kills all of us. If we’re all on the same side, this will be tricky.”

Wei Chiyue panicked. “What? You’re the team leader. Aren’t you here to protect the interns?”

“Losing one intern is within the company’s expected range.” Zhao Ran replied calmly. “I’ll do my best to save as many interns as possible.”

The group fell silent. Yu An looked at him, wanting to say something but holding back.

“Let’s hurry and get out of here.” Zhao Ran said, spreading his hands. “Everyone who hasn’t been injured, stab yourselves once. The Witch only has half a heart. If the Witch dies, we win.”

“I disagree.” Ji Nian said loudly, stumbling over to Yu An. “If the note is misleading us and the Witch isn’t among us, we’d be wasting our only chance to make a mistake. How hard will it be to reach the end without taking any damage? I think they’re trying to trick us into killing each other. We shouldn’t fall for it.”

“I agree.” Cha Eunjae said, leaning against the wall. “Why are you so worked up? Are you the Witch?”

Yu An was surprised by Ji Nian’s words but added. “I also disagree. Technicians don’t have many ways to protect themselves. You can’t protect all of us alone.”

Wei Chiyue wanted to say, “Let’s all go together,” but felt he couldn’t take on that responsibility, so he abstained.

“Fine, I’ll listen to you.” Zhao Ran said, ruffling Yu An’s hair. Yu An looked away. “If you were the Witch, would you sacrifice yourself to save us?”

“I would, because there’s someone very important to me among you.”

Yu An hesitated, a sentence stuck in his throat.

“The wall of blades is coming. Let’s move.” Cha Eunjae said, shining the flashlight down the corridor. The brick wall covered in sharp blades was still moving steadily toward them, forcing them to keep going.

“Follow me.” Zhao Ran said, walking ahead effortlessly in the dark. Cha Eunjae led the other interns forward with the flashlight, while Wei Chiyue woke Huang Qi and dragged him along.

As they walked down the corridor, they came to another cliff. Peering down, they could barely see the faint glint of blades in the pitch-black abyss. Countless ropes hung from steel beams on the ceiling, some with hanging corpses, others with empty nooses waiting.

The other side of the cliff was about fifty meters away. It was impossible to jump across.

But there was a way. Two iron cables connected the cliffs, allowing them to tightrope across.

However, the cables were obscured by the shadowy hanging corpses. Trying to avoid them while walking the tightrope would surely lead to a fall.

“There’s a mechanism here.” Yu An said, crouching down and brushing away the loose dirt on the ground. He found a square cover plate about a meter wide. Prying it open with his knife, he revealed a dense network of brass gears, interlocking and moving as one.

When he turned one gear, the entire mechanism began to operate. Ji Nian pointed toward the cliff. “The hanging corpses are moving! The gears control the steel beams they’re hanging from. When the beams rotate, the corpses adjust their positions.”

“I see. There’s a latch on the other side of the cliff.” Zhao Ran said, squinting into the darkness to make out the details. “There’s a hook lower than our position. If two people go over first and attach the other end of the cable to the lower hook, the rest can slide across using the slope.”

Yu An quickly calculated on the ground. “Time’s tight. The wall of blades is only a hundred meters away. At its current speed, it’ll reach us in five minutes. Let’s move, now.”

Zhao Ran and Cha Eunjae, the most agile, were the first to step onto the cable. Cha Eunjae held the flashlight in his mouth, stretching his arms out for balance, trying not to look down.

Wei Chiyue followed after Cha Eunjae had moved a certain distance. His large frame made it hard to maintain balance, but the cable was incredibly heavy. Even if Cha Eunjae made it to the other side, he wouldn’t be able to lift the cable and attach it to the lower hook alone. Wei Chiyue had to go to buy time for the technicians to escape.

Zhao Ran, on the other hand, walked effortlessly, hands in his pockets.

“My god.” Huang Qi muttered, looking at the cliff and trembling. He sat down and scooted backward, staying behind with the technicians.

“Hey, don’t just sit there.” Yu An said coldly. “Can you count? Start counting out loud, from one, evenly. Don’t speed up or slow down. Everyone on the cable, take one step for each number Huang Qi calls. It’s too dark in here. Once you’re far enough, we won’t be able to see you. We’ll have to calculate your position based on your pace.”

“Got it!” the people on the cable replied.

Huang Qi didn’t dare argue. He began counting loudly, his voice echoing mournfully across the cliff.

Ji Nian knelt beside Yu An, watching the rotating steel beams and memorizing the positions of the ropes. He relayed the information to Yu An.

Yu An mentally calculated the positions of the three people, making slight adjustments to the gears to ensure no hanging corpses blocked their path.

Stepping onto the cable meant entrusting their lives to the teammates staying behind. Above the bottomless abyss, a single mistake by the technicians could send the tightrope walkers plummeting to their deaths. Cha Eunjae, holding the flashlight in his mouth, couldn’t believe he was doing this. Was it the Refinement Badge that gave him confidence?

As the steel beams rotated, the hanging corpses slowly turned. Cha Eunjae walked steadily forward. A corpse blocked his path two meters ahead, its head hanging from a broken neck, bulging eyes staring at him as if ready to grab him and drag him into the abyss.

Huang Qi continued counting. Cha Eunjae wanted to stop but couldn’t—Wei Chiyue was right behind him. If he changed his pace, it would affect Wei Chiyue.

The distance was closing. Cha Eunjae was about to come face-to-face with the corpse.

Suddenly, the distance increased. The rotating beam carried the corpse away, clearing Cha Eunjae’s path.

He sighed in relief and kept going.

Yu An’s movements grew more proficient. He adjusted the gears forward and backward, testing his finger control, precision, and calculation speed.

Yu An focused intently on the task. Then, Ji Nian leaned in and whispered in his ear. “You’re the Witch, aren’t you?”

Yu An’s fingers paused for a moment but quickly regained their rhythm. He replied in a low voice. “I’m the Hero.”

“No, when a civilian dies, the Hero loses half a heart. When Ai Ke died, you didn’t look up to check your health, which means you don’t have a health bar above your head.”

“After I got my card, I said ‘Prophet’ on purpose to let you see it.” Ji Nian whispered. “If you were a civilian, you wouldn’t have realized so quickly that there’s no Prophet in this game. The word ‘civilian’ easily misleads people into thinking this is related to Werewolf. Only if your card isn’t a civilian would you immediately realize I was lying and then act like a Hero to counter me. Wei Chiyue also saw me say I was the Prophet, and he believed it. Of course, he might just be dumb.”

“But would Team Leader Zhao really abandon you? He’s your team leader. Maybe he just wants to test whether you’d sacrifice yourself for others.”

“Your team leader used you too,” Yu An said, his mind wandering, only his fingers moving out of habit. The sharp teeth of the gears wore down the skin on his fingertips, leaving traces of blood.

“Hmm.” Ji Nian noticed Yu An’s eyelids turning red, a drop of water falling from his nose onto the gears, disappearing into the metal crevices.”Hey, don’t cry. I won’t let you die.”