INSIDER Chapter 113

At the strong insistence of those five individuals, and after considering their own situation, Lu Chu and his team chose not to tie those men to the car roof.

Staying on the roof was indeed dangerous, with a real risk of being shot and killed.

These men clearly knew something, but they wanted to keep their knowledge as a trump card to ensure their own safety, so they wouldn’t fully disclose all their secrets to Lu Chu and his team. Given this, Lu Chu’s group not only couldn’t deal with them directly, but also had to ensure their safety to protect the integrity of the information.

Anyone who could survive this long in the game wasn’t foolish; most were quite sharp mentally.

Song Gui shifted his focus to the off-road vehicle that the five had driven earlier.

Yuan Kejie also followed his gaze to the vehicle and suddenly had an idea, suggesting, “In that case, why don’t you guys send two people with your off-road vehicle, and we will send three of our people to follow inside it?”

Song Gui nodded in agreement, “That’s what I was thinking too. Of the five of you, three will stay in the tank, and must have both hands handcuffed. The other two: one can have their handcuffs removed to drive, while the other stays handcuffed in the back seat for monitoring.”

The five men listened attentively.

Luo Qi and Qian Zhen usually didn’t speak on such matters, fully trusting their teammates.

Number 7 was mainly for output.

Lu Chu looked at the leader of the group, “We all agree that this is the best way forward; what do you think?”

The leader nodded, but then seemed to remember something and quickly asked, “But if we are all handcuffed, what if there’s danger or we need to fight? You brothers and sisters go out to fight, leaving us on the car— we can’t help you storm the front lines, and could potentially be captured or killed by the enemy, which would be quite troublesome…”

Lu Chu exchanged looks with Number 7.

Luo Qi scowled, “So troublesome, it’s driving me crazy.”

Song Gui smiled, “It is indeed an issue.”

Yuan Kejie whispered a few words in Song Gui’s ear, then turned to the men and loudly suggested, “Indeed troublesome; why not just kill them already?”

The five men immediately begged, “No! No! We brought up this issue, isn’t it for everyone’s consideration? We can’t just hold you back, big brothers and sisters, right…”

“You can bring up your conditions later; what I need to know now is—” Lu Chu said seriously, “What do the words on the bedsheet mean? Who is ‘it’? What is it?”

Song Gui smiled in agreement, “Exactly. If what you’re calling ‘it’ isn’t what we want to know, then we’ll have to reassess your value. At that point, you won’t have the right to make any more demands.”

Though Song Gui said this, the five men knew that if the information they provided wasn’t what they wanted, it wasn’t just about losing the right to make demands—they might not even have the right to live.

The leader looked warily around and lowered his voice, “It’s about the ‘rules’ and the ‘game’.”

Song Gui raised an eyebrow, “Okay, that’s something we’re interested in. Your initial test has passed; now let’s move on to the second phase.”

The men were surprised, “There’s a second phase?”

“Of course,” Yuan Kejie added, “You have to tell us something, so we know you’re not deceiving us. If you give us a blank check, we’d be in big trouble.”

The leader said, “If it’s a blank check, you can just kill us.”

Luo Qi snorted, “Wait until you realize it’s fake? Why bother wasting our time and lives, and taking all five of you along, only to settle this at the end? If it’s fake, we might as well kill you now.”

As she spoke, she shook the chainsaw in her hand, smirking, clearly eager to kill them.

Luo Qi’s words were logical and convincing, laced with disdain for the five men, leaving them with no room to argue.

The handcuffed men exchanged glances, and finally, the leader stepped forward and said, “We should tell you. I’m the captain of our team, my name is Dai Chenggong. But we also have to consider our own lives, so how about this? We’ll tell you half of the information now, and the other half when this round is nearly over—what do you brothers think?”

Song Gui and Yuan Kejie showed approving expressions.

Lu Chu nodded, “Alright, let’s hear it.”

Dai Chenggong, when starting to speak, always lowered his voice as if being watched, and carefully said, “We didn’t get involved in this never-ending game for no reason; we don’t know which day we’ll die in a round, and surely everyone wants to escape from here. But you know, do you know how to… escape from this game?”

Song Gui had indeed talked to them about this before, and the conclusion was to find an opportunity to escape at the “twenty-four-hour” mark. The details and how to escape still needed to be explored within the game.

But at this point, they obviously couldn’t confirm that directly.

So Yuan Kejie feigned surprise, “What?! Is there such a thing?!”

“Of course,” Dai Chenggong felt more confident now that she seemed unaware, “This is also why the brothers came to this ’round’.”

Lu Chu asked, “So you’re saying the method to escape is related to this ’round’?”

“Yes,” Dai Chenggong affirmed, “There’s a saying that when the game bracelet has at least twenty-four hours of free activity time, you can use the spatial rift during the illusion shift to find an opportunity to escape. But twenty-four hours? Frankly, I don’t think anyone can survive until then, unless they’re not human.”

Lu Chu surreptitiously glanced at the ‘not human’ Number 7.

Number 7 immediately caught Lu Chu’s glance, met his eyes, and smiled slightly. Lu Chu felt caught, a bit embarrassed but didn’t show it, turning his gaze back with a slight flush on his face.

Meanwhile, Luo Qi, listening to Dai Chenggong’s roundabout way of speaking, grew frustrated, grabbed a nearby chainsaw, held it in front of Dai Chenggong, turned it on, and the chainsaw blades started spinning, making a buzzing sound. She waved the running chainsaw in front of Dai Chenggong, impatient, “Annoying! Can’t you just get to the point?”

Dai Chenggong quickly raised his handcuffed hands in surrender, “Cousin, don’t be angry! I need to say everything to avoid misleading you, right… but I’ll get to the point soon, just wait!”

Luo Qi didn’t turn off the chainsaw, letting it buzz incessantly, “Hurry up!”

“I’ll say it!” Dai Chenggong quickly said, “It’s like this, the condition of twenty-four hours is too hard to achieve, so rather than focusing on the twenty-four hours, it’s more about the ‘space rift’. Such a breakthrough can occur not just when switching in the illusion, but if there’s some creature that has transcended the ‘rules’ of the world view, such a breakthrough can also occur.”

Song Gui raised an eyebrow, “Creature that has transcended the ‘rules’ of the world view?”

Dai Chenggong explained, “It’s easy to understand—those NPCs who have broken the script and aren’t following their own plot!”

So it’s us, Lu Chu thought, keeping a straight face, “After finding these NPCs, can we directly escape the game?”

“Of course not,” Dai Chenggong shook his head, then, as if discussing, grinned and whispered, “As for what exactly to do, maybe letting the brothers be your trump cards for survival, we’ll tell you when this round is nearly over?”

Song Gui and Lu Chu exchanged looks and nodded, “Alright, but you still need to tell us why you said the escape method relates to this ’round’.”

Dai Chenggong hesitated, weighing the pros and cons, then spoke softly, “Because I’ve heard that in this round, there might be an NPC who has deviated from the script.”

The others’ faces changed.

Yuan Kejie immediately grasped the crux of the issue, “Who is that NPC? And who did you hear it from?”

Song Gui glanced at Lu Chu, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts.

Luo Qi also raised the chainsaw she had just lowered, holding it menacingly near Dai Chenggong’s neck, raising an eyebrow, her tone authoritative, “Speak up.”

“Eh, little aunt, take it easy… take it easy…” Dai Chenggong, very afraid that Luo Qi’s hand might slip and he’d lose his head, quickly explained, “That NPC is said to be named Zhang Xin, living in the city center, so we’re planning to go find that person.”

“As for how we got this information… I don’t know if you’ve heard of such a person, they’re not quite like us regular players, they said their identity is—”

Dai Chenggong paused here, glanced at the others, then continued:

“Cleaner.”