Being the Wife of a Fluffy Creature [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 15

Chapter 15: The First World (15)

Time.

It is the most intriguing thing; people are always worrying about how to kill time, yet when life is truly on the line, there is never enough of it. A couple of days ago, Wu Yao had been so bored that he downloaded a local Paradise Island multiplayer game and spent the whole night playing it with the System.

Thinking about it now, rather than using that time to torture the System, he should have used it to plot against the Mayor.

Wu Yao thought of seven or eight ways to break the stalemate, but each one required time, and the less-than-five-minute limit was far from enough. He filtered out the options that would take too long, removed those that required team coordination, and discarded the high-risk ones.

An image of Wu Shi Yi’s “Holy Saint” smile flashed through his mind. Wu Yao pondered for a moment and decided to gamble. The “idiot dog” was different from the idiotic villains he had served in the past, he should be able to trust it.

With his mind made up, Wu Yao did not hesitate.

He casually tossed the still-bleeding head toward a thug in the distance. The thug screamed in terror and fired frantically at the head. With the thugs’ attention focused on the head, Wu Yao threw the unconscious manager to the ground, fumbling through his pockets while speaking to the System: “Brother, can I customize props?”

“Props? What do you mean? You found a way, Xiao Yao? Holy crap, you’re amazing!”

“No time for chitchat. Brother, make heads modeled after the manager and those two thugs. Make them look like they’ve been shot. Don’t worry about them being realistic; the more horrifying, the better.”

“Got it! Leave it to me. This is my specialty,  I guarantee they’ll be beautiful!” The small ball of light stiffened, put down the half-finished kidney it had been crafting, and picked up a handful of meat paste to start molding heads. Wu Yao spoke quickly, and the System, being a chatterbox, was even faster. By the time he finished his instructions, the thugs had not yet finished firing.

The manager was carrying several things that looked useful. Wu Yao didn’t have time to inspect them carefully, so he shoved everything into his clothes. When the gunfire finally subsided, Wu Yao raised his gun and sneered, “This kind of trash is allowed to be lackeys and watch the floor? The competition here is really non-existent.”

The thugs looked at him, stunned, suddenly feeling that the skinny man before them was one of their own. Perhaps he was just disguising his harmlessness, and in secret, he had committed more crimes and killed more people than they ever had.

Gunshots continued to ring out on the second floor. The audience, forcibly held on the first floor, huddled together, shivering. Wu Shi Yi had one arm looped around the socialite’s neck and a gun in the other hand to intimidate the crowd. It was tall and muscular; when it deliberately kept a cold face, its mere appearance was enough to exert significant pressure.

Some spectators secretly called the police, but Wu Shi Yi didn’t stop them. Before the gunshots started, its mind had been filled with how to handle the impending crisis. After the shots rang out, its thoughts were entirely on Wu Yao. Wu Yao showered diligently, often walking in front of it wrapped only in a bath towel. It knew Wu Yao only looked slender and thin, but there were muscles hidden beneath his clothes.

But that body wasn’t bulletproof. The gun had gone off so many times; if even one shot hit a vital organ, Wu Yao would be dead. There hadn’t been a soul visible at the second-floor window for a long time. Wu Shi Yi withdrew its gaze, gritting its teeth as it looked at the audience. Some of them had bodyguards, and the only reason they were crouching obediently on the ground was the threat of the gun barrel.

Just then, the previously restless audience suddenly fell silent in unison. The gunfire on the second floor also stopped. The entire dog-fighting arena fell into a deathly silence, as if someone had pressed a mute button.

The next second, the crowd erupted into panicked screams.

“Murder! There’s been a murder!!!”

“I was tricked into coming to the arena, I didn’t want to watch, believe me, I’m a good person!”

“I do community service, I’ve even donated to charity! This time I was just momentarily possessed by the devil, please, spare my life!”

Wu Shi Yi fired two shots into the air, keeping the panicked crowd under control.

Murder. Someone was dead.

Someone had returned to the window on the second floor, but it didn’t know if the person who survived was Wu Yao. Wu Shi Yi turned its head, and the moment it saw the scene on the second floor, its eyes widened in shock.

A long-haired man covered in blood stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, holding several mangled heads, one of which could vaguely be identified as the arena manager’s. The man awkwardly adjusted his glasses, tossed the heads away, and pulled over a microphone. During this, his right hand remained tightly clenched, as if he were holding something crucial.

The man’s raspy voice came over the broadcast: “Hey, can you hear me?”

“It’s fate that brought us all together today. Please spare one minute to listen to a story. I don’t want anyone to leave halfway, my dog is downstairs, and it will kill anyone who moves without permission.”

Wu Shi Yi looked at the heads on the floor for a moment before baring its teeth in cooperation.

“There was an orphan who was cowardly, timid, and unlovable. Everyone bullied him, but luckily, he was adopted. He thought that leaving the orphanage would mark a fresh start, but his foster parents only wanted to use him to make money. They deliberately burned him to scam netizens for sympathy and received huge donations.”

“Later, when the truth was exposed and no one donated to them anymore, the two quickly thought of another way. They found people to assault the orphan and posted the videos online; people love watching things like that. This torment lasted for ten full years, that really was…that really was a large sum of money.”

The man’s delicate face grew increasingly twisted. “Once the orphan reached adulthood, there were fewer viewers, and they couldn’t make money like before. Since that was the case, they might as well sell him. Corneas, liver, kidneys, bone marrow, sperm. He was a commodity, and every part of him from head to toe was priced!”

A strange laughter echoed over the broadcast, the kind of sound one could only hear in a mental asylum.

“The orphan killed his parents and fled to an island. He thought he could gain a new life, but he didn’t expect the people on the island to be the same trash as his foster parents. Less than a week after arriving on the island, he was kidnapped. He knew that sooner or later, he would become a commodity again.”

The man’s clothes were bulging; dangerous items seemed hidden beneath them. He shook his hands. The distance was too great, and the people downstairs could only barely make out the black object he held.

“I’ve hidden bombs in the arena. If I let go, the bombs will explode. Everyone here will be blown to the sky, myself included.”

“The story is over. Next is game time. Let’s play hide-and-seek; it’s the game I loved to play most as a child. You have one minute to hide, the area is the entire first floor. When the countdown ends, my dog will start hunting people. Anyone it sees will be shot on sight.”

“I will be monitoring everything from the second floor. If I discover anyone trying to escape, I’ll detonate the bombs. If anyone resists, I will also let go. When that happens, we can watch the fireworks together.”

“Now, the game begins.”

The man had explosives wrapped around his waist, his clothes were stained with blood, and mangled, unrecognizable heads lay at his feet. In the eyes of the audience, this was a lunatic driven to madness by fate. He had just killed people; no one dared to gamble on the authenticity of the bombs.

The man’s soft, gentle countdown echoed over the broadcast. The audience scattered in a panic, using every ounce of strength to find places to hide. Wu Shi Yi was assigned a position near the entrance; that area was wide open, and since it was the “hunter,” no one dared to hide near it.

The crowd instinctively moved away from the entrance, completely scattering and hiding throughout the venue. This was hide-and-seek; everyone chose to hide behind cover. Some, fearing Wu Yao might see them, even collaborated to move stone slabs on the ground and hide inside the collapsed floor.

The shorter the time, the greater the pressure, leaving less room for people to think. But it couldn’t be too short, or if people felt hope was slim, they would give up entirely. Many challenges in life are set to “one minute”—one-minute noodle challenges, one-minute breath-holding challenges, one-minute record-breaking challenges—people hear “one minute” often and are more accepting of the time limit. As for whether it’s actually enough time to hide, that wasn’t their concern. Wu Yao was controlling the countdown manually; the speed was entirely up to him.

One minute and forty seconds later, everyone was hidden in places they deemed safe. Fearing they might reveal their positions, no one dared to make a sound. The entire dog-fighting arena was deathly silent. Even if the True Knowledge Society were to rush in now to drag them out and execute them one by one, it would take a significant amount of time.

Wu Yao scanned the area and decided it was enough. He temporarily turned off the microphone and called Officer Xiao Liu, demanding to know exactly when the police would arrive, forcing them to give him an accurate time. Officer Xiao Liu’s anxious voice came over the phone: “Sister Qin! Brother Wang! It’s going to be too late over there, let’s go faster!!!”

Having received confirmation, Wu Yao signaled to Wu Shi Yi; he didn’t know if the dog understood. The man in the trench coat was hiding behind cover near the entrance, looking at him with a complex expression, as if he were seeing Wu Yao for the first time. This time, it didn’t immediately follow his order, but pondered for a moment before turning and walking toward a corner of the arena.

Wu Yao licked his lower lip. “So annoying.”

The System, which usually loved to chime in, stayed silent this time. Wu Yao sighed softly.

So annoying.

No matter how fierce the fighting became, the True Knowledge Society members sitting at the four corners of the arena did not make a move; they neither stopped Wu Yao nor attempted to flee. Wu Shi Yi walked up to one of the members and reached out to remove their plague doctor mask, revealing a bloodless face. It touched the man lightly, and the body lost its balance, falling to the ground with a thud.

Just as Wu Yao had predicted, these four members of the True Knowledge Society had long since become corpses. The plague doctor uniforms they wore were exactly like the protective suits Wang and his men had worn. As long as one put them on, they would temporarily lose their status as townspeople, giving the Mayor the opportunity to kill them.

The Mayor was no fool. The moment Wu Yao proposed the game of hide-and-seek, he realized that tonight’s plan had failed and decisively chose to kill his pawns. Wu Shi Yi understood Wu Yao’s plan; it feigned terrifying the crowd while signaling him.

Wu Yao was stunned.

Was that a standard military tactical hand signal?

Now was not the time to look into that. Wu Yao steadied himself and gave Wu Shi Yi a reassuring smile. Everyone present was hidden tightly behind cover; the Society would take too long to kill them with guns, and bombs would make too much of a commotion.

As long as the Mayor didn’t want to completely abandon this chess piece, even if the Society members reached the door of the arena, they would be urgently recalled to avoid crossing paths with the police.

The situation had changed: only the police would charge in tonight. Since the police didn’t do “dirty work,” there would be no chaotic brawl, meaning bullets wouldn’t have a chance to hit the people here accidentally. They were safe.

Tapping his fingertips against the glass, Wu Yao whispered: “I know you can monitor the arena, Mayor.”

“I’ve said I’m just here on this island for a vacation. You don’t make things difficult for me, and I won’t target you. Wu Shi Yi is my dog; I just want to protect it well. You shouldn’t find this request difficult to accept.”

The private room fell into deathly silence. After a long while, a line of blood-red text slowly appeared on the floor-to-ceiling window in front of Wu Yao.

“Welcome to Paradise Island.”

At the same time, Wu Yao heard a ding—the sound of a completed mission.

The Mayor had ultimately taken him off the chessboard. As long as he didn’t cause trouble, the Mayor’s future plans would not affect him or Wu Shi Yi. Unless, of course, the Mayor came up with a way to ensure Wu Yao’s death with one hundred percent certainty.

The compromise was within Wu Yao’s expectations. Now, another trouble lay before him. The chatterbox System remained unusually silent, and Wu Yao turned to look at the first floor, where Wu Shi Yi was still staring at him, fixedly, with a complex expression in its eyes.