No one could answer her question.
Mu Anqi silently sighed. If the reverse wish really succeeded… that would be even sadder.
Watching the black bear demon bring over a handcuff, with a long rope tied in the middle, clearly meant for leading her, Mu Anqi hesitated for a moment between "immediately turning hostile" and "waiting to turn hostile after going back with the ugly lizard." Not knowing the situation in the Underworld nor the abilities of the demons, she chose the latter.
After all, if a fight broke out… and she discovered a hundred or so demons gathered outside the pet shop, then things would really get interesting.
Resigned, Mu Anqi stretched out her hand and let the handcuff lock onto her. Then she saw the black bear demon hand the rope to the ugly lizard, and the ugly lizard pulled out a Guansi bank card very familiar to Mu Anqi and went to the counter to swipe it.
The layout of this pet shop was no different from those Mu Anqi had seen while alive. The shop also displayed various clothes and leashes, as well as human snacks, candies, and the like, looking quite proper. Mu Anqi glanced at the giant lizard swiping the card, walked over, poked the lizard with her shrunken candy cane, and pointed at a bag of spicy hot pot–flavored chips hanging on the wall. "This one!"
Giant Lizard: "?" The giant lizard blinked its small eyes, looked at Mu Anqi, then at the chips. Acting as if nothing had happened, it ignored Mu Anqi's words anyway—since it couldn't understand her.
"This one! I want this one!" Mu Anqi walked a few steps forward until the rope could stretch no further. She stopped at the spot closest to the chips, pointing at the bag on the wall. "This one!"
The giant lizard stared at her gloomily.
But soon, as if it had thought of a way to torment her, the giant lizard showed a pleased smile. Not minding spending that little bit of Guansi, it walked over, took down the chips, and paid for them together.
He left the pet shop. Outside was a black car, and Mu Anqi saw the giant lizard take out the car keys. It seemed this was the lizard's car. When getting in, Mu Anqi noticed something like a little bug also following along. She stared at it curiously and tentatively spoke a blessing spell toward it, but there was no reaction. This… wasn't a living thing?
A surveillance device?
The giant lizard drove the car and brought Mu Anqi into a residential complex. He parked the car skillfully, then tugged on the rope to pull Mu Anqi into the elevator… finally entering a shabby one-bedroom unit. The furnishings were incomplete, making it look like a temporarily rented place.
The giant lizard tied the other end of the rope to the head of the bed. He walked to the window and pulled the curtains shut, then locked the door tight. After making sure no one could see inside, he gave Mu Anqi a ferocious grin, then opened the wardrobe and took out a large trunk. After that, he dragged another large trunk out from under the bed.
Mu Anqi glanced at the little flying bug that had followed her in, then at the giant lizard, and suddenly felt this demon NPC didn't seem very smart. Was this also part of the script?
Playing the role of an idiot?
The giant lizard looked up, only to meet Mu Anqi's complicated gaze, its meaning unclear. He was instantly enraged. "Trash like you dares to look at me with that kind of expression? Ha… doesn't matter, doesn't matter, soon you'll become my very first work of art. Too bad you players can't die… but luckily, your screams are far more pleasant than those of animals, and they sell for a good price too."
Inside one trunk were all kinds of blades, from large to small, even a saw, each one incomparably sharp. Inside the other were recording devices. The giant lizard was clearly experienced, he skillfully set up the tripod, then adjusted the room's lighting. Throughout the whole process, Mu Anqi quietly watched him. She seemed to have realized what this demon used to do before.
It was really hard to understand, could there really be such demons in the Shattered Mirror Continent? Well, then again, most of the demons and monsters here were filled with malice. Most of them saw players as mere playthings, so when it came to the animals of this world that lacked intelligence…
Mu Anqi had thought they would treat those unintelligent animals as their own kind to be cared for.
Unfortunately, the creatures in the Nirvana Game's Shattered Mirror couldn't die. Mu Anqi sighed softly. She glanced at the little bug that had settled motionless on the wardrobe, if she hadn't kept an eye on it all this time, she might not have noticed it at all. She didn't quite understand what this little thing was; it didn't seem to be something from the script. After all, the camcorder on the shelf was clearly what the giant lizard had prepared.
"Heh, don't worry, I definitely won't let you die that quickly." The giant lizard pulled out a spray bottle and shook it at Mu Anqi. "I'll make sure you get to watch yourself being dissected." As he spoke, he flicked out his bright red tongue. "I look forward to your screams and begging, I'll be sure to record it all properly."
Mu Anqi looked at her cuffed hands. It wasn't very difficult to reach the pistol charm on her bracelet. Luckily, her wrists were thin and still had some room to move, though it did hurt from being rubbed by the cuffs…
The blades were laid out one by one, and the giant lizard solemnly spread a white blanket over the bed with a sacred air. Holding a small knife, he walked toward Mu Anqi. "I'll cut your tendons first… I know you players have all sorts of strange abilities and items, hehe. If you can resist, you'd better use your tricks now, otherwise you might not get another chance." He grinned hideously, knife in hand, stepping toward Mu Anqi. But strangely, this seemingly frail female player showed not the slightest hint of fear or panic, not even a trace of despair on her face. She only looked at him with the gaze one gives to a fool, as though he had just said something incomprehensibly stupid.
He was completely enraged! That look again! That attitude again! Damn it all, damn it all! Only when such creatures bloomed with blood under his hands would they become obedient—"wailing," "begging"!
He lunged at Mu Anqi.
Mu Anqi looked at this perverse demon and sincerely uttered, "May you be prosperous."
It was truly her favorite blessing.
"Great fortune and success."
"May all your wishes come true."
"Everything goes smoothly."
One phrase after another rolled fluently from her mouth.
These handcuffs were really inconvenient, Mu Anqi thought.
The giant lizard's face twisted with hatred, its neck nearly bulging to the point of bursting, as if it had never suffered such humiliation. It let out furious hissing, laced with vile curses that stung the ears. Mu Anqi couldn't help but glance at it, then immediately showed an expression of disgust. Why would a giant lizard be randomly made to do a "hip-thrust dance"? This was truly a horrifying kind of torment.
She continued uttering several blessing words to restrain the lizard. The rope was long enough that she could move closer to the neatly arranged knives. Mu Anqi first used a small knife to cut the rope, then struggled to set the saw upright, bracing it with her legs, little by little sawing open the handcuffs. She counted the seconds in her heart, about every two or three seconds she had to add another blessing.
Once the cuffs were cut open, Mu Anqi pulled out demon bullets from her backpack, loaded up the pistol, and looked at the giant lizard still doing calisthenics. With a blank expression, she aimed at its left thigh—"Bang."
Mu Anqi didn't pause. Demons were different from ghosts: ghosts, when shot in the head, would dissolve into black shadows and flee. But when demons were shot, bloody holes appeared, blood flowed, screams rang out, and they suffered pain. Mu Anqi shifted to its right thigh and fired another shot. Then at its left shoulder, and right shoulder.
The giant lizard no longer hurled curses at her; all those vile, filthy words had turned into nothing but screams and wails of pain. Mu Anqi glanced at his equipment and couldn't help but say, "Your screams are pretty unpleasant. Probably won't fetch much money."
Unwilling to waste two-point bullets, Mu Anqi switched back to ordinary rounds and fired two shots at the giant lizard. Regular bullets could still injure demons, but the bullet holes quickly vanished, and the bullets were "pushed" out. Special bullets were different, the wounds lingered and were hard to heal.
Mu Anqi nodded thoughtfully, then fired at each of the lizard's limbs before carefully sawing open the cuffs on her wrists and tossing them to the floor.
"You made money by selling videos of live dissections of animals?" Mu Anqi toyed with the gun in her hand and asked curiously.
The giant lizard wailed on the ground, blood pooling around it, but gave no reply.
Mu Anqi wasn't annoyed. She looked at the giant lizard, but found it impossible to feel any "sympathy" for its cries. Still, she didn't want to waste bullets, so she picked up a small knife and hurled it like a dart, hitting the lizard's abdomen. "If you don't cooperate, it's going to be difficult for me too. After all, we have to be together for seven days."
Mu Anqi felt her endurance had truly improved. Not because of the Shattered Mirror Continent's dungeons, but because of the Black Mirror vortex.
With Xia Fenghua ripping off ghost heads bare-handed, and General Ji wiping out ten thousand ghosts alone, Mu Anqi looked down at the giant lizard writhing in pain at her feet, its eyes full of hatred and killing intent, and felt not the slightest sense that what she was doing was excessive.
"Have you never thought about the chance of things backfiring on you?" Mu Anqi walked over to the recording equipment. There was a storage card there, clearly containing the giant lizard's past "works." The card could be slotted into the recorder to play the videos. Mu Anqi skimmed through briefly, and was immediately disgusted by the bloody, cruel methods.
They were all unintelligent little animals, just like the ordinary creatures in the world Mu Anqi had lived in. Mu Anqi had always liked those furry beings, so after only a few seconds of playback she couldn't bear it anymore and shut it off. What was even harder to understand was that in some video segments, Mu Anqi saw "people." Forcing herself to endure the revulsion, she dragged the progress bar and realized they weren't actually humans, but… demons born from plants? They seemed to be flower demons, because at the end the demon revealed its true form, only to be cruelly crushed to pieces by the lizard. Mu Anqi even heard a voice in the video saying, "Boring."
"Why so confident? Used to swinging your knife at animals that can't talk, at weak little demons, and then you delude yourself into thinking you're some especially powerful monster?"
Her tone was gentle, but the muzzle of her pistol never once strayed from aiming at the giant lizard's head—after all, she had no intention of being caught off guard while mocking someone.
"Shut up! This time I just didn't expect your ability to be so strange!" The giant lizard seemed provoked, its eyes bulging as it roared, "I'm pursuing art!"
"Then why don't you go dissect the Ghost Kings of the Taiyin?" Mu Anqi found it hard to believe she could still maintain a trace of calmness at this moment, yet she sincerely asked, "Doesn't your Underworld have great demons? Are there divine beasts like dragons? Why don't you go dissect them? Wouldn't they be more valuable? What, you don't like them?"
Author's note:
"'You don't like them?' comes from Yang Li's joke, 'Why didn't you go to Tsinghua University? Is it because you didn't like it?'"