Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 459: Reversal

Even at such a short distance, he managed to dodge it, which caused Xu Huo’s brows to furrow. He threw out the kite string to pin it to the opponent’s heart and swiftly kicked him away!

Tong Jian used his legs to block and was sent flying backward while attempting to pull the string from his chest, but the next second his expression changed, as the string was embedded in his heart and couldn’t be pulled out!

"Kite string," Xu Huo pulled the string up to his chest and smiled, "Mao Wei’s gadget, you are allies, so you should recognize it, I presume."

Apart from the Kong Siblings, the other players had also formed temporary alliances, revealing nothing more than their profession and main characteristics to each other, with gadgets like this remaining undisclosed until the moment of use.

Seeing Tong Jian raise his hand, Xu Huo drew in the string and warned, "Don’t try any tricks."

Tong Jian had no choice but to open his hands, retracting the dagger back into his inventory, "My right hand is bleeding; you’ve got to let me stop the bleeding."

"You won’t die from it in a hurry," Xu Huo turned to Miao Yu and said, "Maybe they still have other players ambushing us on the island, help me keep a lookout."

This caused Miao Yu, who was approaching Xu Huo, to halt and nimbly climb up a tree instead.

Elsewhere, the original group of three had now become two. Chu Yuan who had just managed to clean the glue and sand stuck to his face approached and said, "Gan Qing is missing, he likely ran away."

"Under those circumstances, I was almost tempted to run myself," Dr. Deng’s hands were still stuck together, as he had only been hit with some sand when Xu Huo released the Desert Pinwheel for a short duration.

Xu Huo glanced at the two men without saying anything.

"Brother Xu, why keep him around?" Chu Yuan asked, looking at Tong Jian.

"I’m a bit curious as to why they didn’t leave Deep Blue Island," Xu Huo asked Tong Jian, "It seems that you have no intention of informing the Beren Clan. Is there any other secret on this island?"

Upon hearing this, the few people present all turned their heads to look at Tong Jian. However, Tong Jian just smiled, "I didn’t leave because you didn’t."

"Well, well, he was planning to kill us all," Chu Yuan spat out, "He’s probably waiting here for the opportunity, assessing that we are injured and can’t leave momentarily!"

"Is that so?" Xu Huo was skeptical, "Then waiting for other players to come would have been more convenient, wouldn’t it? Even sailing from Sayre Coast to Deep Blue Island doesn’t take that long, so why take the risk?"

"The Kong Siblings are dead, and the side mission is over, your involvement or otherwise doesn’t matter, but you chose to stay, and you might not even have notified anyone outside. Besides profit, I can’t think of any other reason."

"About the lab, there must be something you know that others do not."

Dr. Deng looked at Tong Jian in surprise, "Are you not from the Beren Clan?"

Tong Jian didn’t reply to that question but instead countered, "Speaking of things others don’t know, last night Qiu Xiangdong and I went back to check the third underground level and discovered that the laboratory’s outer wall had a hidden section, the projected location for a hatch had been blown open, and clearly, there had been something placed inside, but now it’s gone."

"It must have been taken by someone here ahead of time."

His words raised the spirits of everyone present. Dr. Deng couldn’t help but inquire, "Are you telling the truth?"

"If you don’t believe, you can send someone to check," Tong Jian said coldly as he looked at them. "Perhaps the potion is hidden within the walls."

"At the time of the explosion, Dr. Deng, Gan Qing, and I were blown into the sea, without any time—so that leaves..." Chu Yuan didn’t finish his sentence, but a simple process of elimination suggested that the most likely people to have taken something from within the walls were Miao Yu, who killed Kong Cheng, Xu Huo, who killed Kong Hui, Tong Jian who had gone back down to the third sublevel, and the escaped Qiu Xiangdong.

"The potion couldn’t have been taken by them," Dr. Deng said. "Otherwise, they would have left after finding the potion."

"We can’t rule out the possibility that they intentionally stayed to kill and silence witnesses," Miao Yu spoke up. "The third sublevel blew up, the Beren Clan is bound to discover the hidden chamber, lock-on target."

"Don’t you find what you’re saying laughable?" Tong Jian retorted. "The Beren Clan knows the list of participants in this game zone. What’s the point of silencing someone for me? It would be better to flee to another game zone as soon as possible. Can the Beren Clan really search every single game zone?"

Miao Yu was silent for a few seconds before he told Xu Huo and the others, "He makes sense."

That left Xu Huo and Miao Yu as the remaining suspects.

Chu Yuan looked at them and then added, "It’s not necessarily the case, though. If they found the potion, why didn’t they run instead of staying behind? Clearly, Qiu Xiangdong is the most suspicious, as during the explosion Xu Zhi and Miao Yu were entangled with the Kong siblings, leaving him with no trouble at all."

"Isn’t this argument making a fool of everyone else?" Xu Huo said nonchalantly. "If Qiu Xiangdong had gotten the potion right after the explosion yesterday, and he wasn’t injured, why would he stay? To breathe in the sea breeze or wait to be killed?"

Chu Yuan rolled his eyes, "So, by that logic, the item in the wall must have been taken by one of you two."

"It’s not me," Miao Yu was quick to clear himself and added, "Xu Zhi was the last one to come up yesterday."

"It’s true that I was the last one to come up," Xu Huo adjusted the kite string, glanced at Tong Jian who was showing a pained expression, and chuckled. "But at this point, you two can stop pretending."

"What do you mean?" Tong Jian was in pain but dared not pull on the kite string.

"What I mean is, if you two are accomplices, there’s no need to whitewash each other," Xu Huo gestured for Miao Yu to stand back. "Whatever is within the wall, your only reason for not leaving is to commit murder and silence the witness, to kill Dr. Deng to silence him."

Dr. Deng was startled, "You mean Miao Yu and Tong Jian are in cahoots?"

Chu Yuan was stunned as well, "What kind of twist is this? I’m a bit lost now."

"Let’s set Qiu Xiangdong aside for the moment, indeed, Wu Xiaonan, as Miao Yu mentioned, probably boarded the Kong Siblings’ ship later," Xu Huo turned to Miao Yu. "But there’s a big flaw here. You being a hostage are moving around far too freely. If it were me, I would at least strip you of your ability to attack before taking you hostage, otherwise, it’s better to just kill you."

"Moreover, taking a hostage in itself is superfluous. In the game zone, there are no friends, only temporary allies. The experienced Kong siblings wouldn’t engage in such unnecessary actions."

"So, the situation becomes quite clear. It was indeed you who injured Wu Xiaonan, yet you also switched sides temporarily."

"The reason why you did this is that you didn’t trust Dr. Deng, and you wanted to find out if Dr. Deng truly knew where the potion was hidden."

"Later on, with Qiu Xiangdong’s repeated confirmations, the Kong siblings were sure that Dr. Deng had no more clues and came downstairs to finish the job."

"By then, keeping you as a hostage was even more abnormal. Wouldn’t it be better to settle it on the spot?"