126. Which Comes First: Misfortune or Bad Luck?

Their eyes met—her clear, sharp gaze like cut water, and Chen Sheng’s own eyes. Then, on his smooth forehead, faint lines appeared as his eyebrows knitted together slightly.

“Old Chen, why do you suddenly look like a bandit chief?” she asked, puzzled.

Her soft and gentle voice carried unmistakable doubt.

“No way!” Chen Sheng denied instantly, without hesitation.

After all, the thought that had just crossed his mind about “eliminating teammates to take their gear” was hardly something a decent person would entertain.

But thinking it and saying it aloud were two very different things.

Merely entertaining such a thought might be ill-intentioned, but voicing it would be outright provocation and deliberate. And sometimes, those two could even serve as grounds for accusation. Of course, it depended on the setting and to whom such words were spoken.

“But... Old Chen, your gaze just now was definitely off. It looked like you wanted to take me out...” Yu Youxin’s small face was skeptical; she still didn’t quite believe Chen Sheng.

Chen Sheng: “...”

Had his desire for the girl's “novice gear” been that obvious?

After a moment of silence, Chen Sheng showed a hint of embarrassment and admitted, “I was just thinking if I could get a teammate’s gear by taking them out.”

Suddenly, Yu Youxin felt a chill run down her spine: “...”

Had she just narrowly escaped death’s door?

Was teaming up with “Old Chen” really this dangerous?

With that thought, the young girl took several steps back, eyes wide and face slightly raised. She looked at Chen Sheng and said, “Old Chen, this is actually a single-player game. It’s more fun playing alone, so maybe we shouldn’t play together.”

Though she knew she could withstand the revival of a certain cursed weapon—even a strong one—she did not want to end up in a strange fight with a resurrected weapon.

Especially that weapon, which Chen Sheng had redefined completely.

The weapon’s temporal stripping was unbearably painful even if one could withstand it.

Previously, a fierce spirit in Sanjiang City had lost a great deal of time and was left unable to fully recover. Unless the spirit was destroyed and then reappeared due to its intrinsic value, true healing was impossible.

That was a wound of time.

A conceptual injury, almost unending and relentless.

As soon as one was attacked by the revival power of that weapon, it was as if a “time acceleration” debuff was applied, and no amount of “living energy” could counterbalance this temporal debuff.

Having said this, the young girl immediately left this eerie world right before Chen Sheng’s eyes.

After all, she had only pretended to be Chen Sheng’s teammate on a whim.

To Chen Sheng, this scene simply looked like Yu Youxin “logging out” of the game.

He didn’t suspect a thing.

This was the terrifying influence of preconceived notions.

Of course, it also had to do with the weapon being overly servile and a certain pair of golden-rimmed glasses possessing overwhelmingly dominant power. Otherwise, Chen Sheng would have been severely punished by this strange world long ago.

True players—the so-called “great desire seekers”—regarded that city and that small wooden house with dread, yet Chen Sheng was allowed to come and go freely, never summoned back even once.

Seeing the place suddenly empty before him, Chen Sheng thought: “...”

He wished he had just held his ground and denied everything.

Now that he had confessed, the girl had immediately left.

Wait!

Could she be angry?

A belated realization dawned on Chen Sheng, and the more he thought about it, the more he believed this was likely. Otherwise, why would Yu Youxin just “log out” like that?

This thought made Chen Sheng anxious and somewhat helpless, unsure of what to do next.

“It’s a terrible feeling to be self-deluded and yet suspect you’re self-deluded...” Chen Sheng wanted to force a wry smile, but considering how many disliked that expression over the years, he decided to follow the crowd and keep a straight, expressionless face.

“Maybe I should log out and apologize to her?”

With that idea, his mind suddenly became active again.

So, Chen Sheng immediately chose to “log out.”

Wrapped in intricate incantations, Chen Sheng disappeared just like the young girl had. His departure rendered the town’s “lockdown order” pointless.

By then, Xu Guanyan’s corpse had already been discovered.

Xu Guanyan’s other trusted subordinate found the body, but she had been deliberately sent away by Xu Guanyan for a reason. This subordinate was actually an undercover agent, ordered to infiltrate Xu Guanyan’s ranks.

When Xu Guanyan suddenly sought out a junior officer named Chen Jueshen, the undercover agent grew suspicious. While being sent away, she secretly investigated, hoping to prevent Xu Guanyan from recruiting or turning this Chen Jueshen.

Unexpectedly, when the undercover arrived, she found nothing but a pile of corpses.

Among them was Xu Guanyan’s own.

This terrified the undercover agent. Although betraying Xu Guanyan, she certainly did not want her dead.

Moreover, as Xu Guanyan’s subordinate, her master’s death implicated her heavily.

Her old boss would not necessarily protect her.

So, she hastily pinned Xu Guanyan’s death on Chen Jueshen and ordered the town sealed off to capture him.

But now that Chen Sheng had vanished into another world, how could they catch him?

After failing to find him, suspicions naturally turned toward the undercover agent’s story. After all, many believed Chen Jueshen was just a lucky junior officer who had hitched a ride on a powerful patron.

Could such a junior officer really have the capability or courage to do something like this?

The Xu family was not to be trifled with.

Thus, under the direction of a senior officer, they arrested the undercover agent.

Compared to the “missing, fate unknown, and suspected murdered Chen Jueshen,” this undercover agent was far more suspicious.

Of course, the primary reason was that they needed to provide an explanation to the Xu family.

Whether or not she was the true culprit was of little importance.

“It’s not me! It really isn’t me!” the strikingly beautiful female officer screamed in terror, her face pale as death and utterly helpless.

She could never have imagined that despite her swift reaction, that Chen Jueshen, or Chu Jinyuan, had escaped.

Could it be that this Chen Jueshen was not the real killer but had already been killed by the true culprit?