“Of course he can’t be let off lightly.” You Zhengping remembered the miserable state of the park and the little boy Junjun’s crying and thought that Destroyer 192’s death wouldn’t be regretted. “He violated the rules I set down. He will die!” 

When he said the word “die,” You Zhengping threw out his hand, and the black cloak floated slightly, revealing his hand and the edge of his shirt. 

Yuan Luori was near-sighted and couldn’t see it clearly, but Yu Hua, hidden behind the door, saw perfectly. He had already been wondering whether this disguised Protector was his Xiao You and carefully watching the fake black-cloaked man’s every move. This throwing out gesture and the indistinct edge of shirt made Yu Hua certain that this was You Zhengping. 

“Yes, he must be gotten rid of, what can I do to help you?” Yuan Luori asked piously. 

You Zhengping looked at Yuan Luori’s squinting expression and simply couldn’t connect this person with the arrogant Destroyer at the amusement park. Destroyers who had the power of their System removed and lost their protective umbrella each had a stronger desire for survival than the next. Faced with the black-cloaked man who had beaten him up, he could still fawn and flatter. He truly was flexible. 

“Do you think that other levelers will take notice of you after coming to this world?” You Zhengping asked.

Yuan Luori said, “They definitely will. Zhen Li and I are the vanguard sent on by the Clearing League. No matter who comes here, they’re sure to want to get information from us. Especially since you used my System to speak to the Clearing League. The Clearing League must think that I know something of your abilities and habits, perhaps even your true identity, so they’ll have to come to me or Zhen Li. The new leveler has already taken action. He must be secretly monitoring me. Has he already found out that you came to see me?” 

“I deliberately let him find out.” Hearing Yuan Luori’s verdict, You Zhengping relaxed. 

“If he’s found out…then he’ll definitely be very cautious, because he can’t be certain that you’re the target of the mission. He won’t show himself lightly. He’ll probably use long-distance means to contact me,” Yuan Luori said, thinking about it. 

The Destroyer didn’t have a low IQ. His biggest shortcoming was that he underestimated this world’s people, feeling he was superior to them. Before, Yuan Luori had underestimated the Protectors, too, so he had been trounced by You Zhengping at the amusement park. After being trained, he had improved a great deal. 

Yuan Luori’s answers were about what the Protection Organization had anticipated. You Zhengping said, “You can reveal some suitable abilities to mislead him. Just tell him I’ve arranged to meet you at 10 AM tomorrow at the Xincheng Mall movie theater.” 

“What important business do you wish to meet with me about?” Yuan Luori asked. 

You Zhengping lowered his voice and laughed darkly. “Of course it’s about the ten years minimum to death sentence maximum.” 

Hearing that there was someone who might be more unfortunate than him, Yuan Luori was very expectant. He said, “Then I’ll tell him that one of this world’s power sources is under the Xincheng Mall, and you’re planning to take the power source and use this world power to defeat the whole Clearing League in one blow, and I’m being forced to help you.” 

You Zhengping said, “…That sort of reason works. No need to exaggerate so much.” 

“You can leave it to me!” Yuan Luori nodded forcefully. 

When You Zhengping had delivered his orders, he was worried that if he stayed in front of Yuan Luori too long he would reveal himself, so he left behind one of the Protection Organization’s communication earpieces and quickly jumped out the window. 

Yuan Luori squinted, “watching” the black figure leave. He was inwardly cheering himself on when he turned and nearly bumped into another black-cloaked man. 

Seeing You Zhengping leave, Yu Hua had come out from behind the door and quietly stood behind Yuan Luori. 

Yuan Luori: “!!!” 

He looked at Yu Hua, then turned to glance out the window. All at sea, he asked, “Have you returned? What other orders do you have?” 

Yu Hua: “…” 

He hadn’t even realized there were two people. Yuan Luori’s eyesight made one doubt whether he could complete tomorrow’s mission. 

“Your story before was full of holes. It won’t fool the new leveler,” Yu Hua said. “Though you should say so at first, and when he questions you and refuses to believe you, change to your second story.” 

“Your considerations are thorough,” Yuan Luori said, squinting. “What is the second story?” 

Yu Hua said, “Tell him that I’m meeting you because he was too arrogant today, and I want to set a trap to kill him.” 

“Isn’t that the truth?” Yuan Luori said in surprise. 

Yu Hua laughed coldly. “Only a combination of truth and falsehood will trick him. What you’re going to say is that I value your ability to release poison within a large radius. I arranged to meet you at the Xincheng Mall movie theater so you can release a poison from the sixth floor. This is a virus that I obtained in a previous world. It’s highly infectious, and I’ll be able to control every person infected with it, and by the time he notices it, he’ll already be surrounded by the crowd controlled by me. There will be no escape.” 

“But didn’t you tell the Clearing League before that they can’t violate the law?” Yuan Luori asked uncertainly. “If I say that, will he believe it?” 

“He’ll believe it,” Yu Hua said, smiling. “On the contrary, if you were to tell him that I was a person who cherished life and wanted to protect the world, he wouldn’t believe that.” 

Yuan Luori smacked his head, pouring some legal common sense out of his brain and remembering his own previous thoughts. He deeply acknowledged Yu Hua’s words. After receiving the mission, the Clearing League had gathered together to analyze what kind of person the mission target was. Deep, frightening, cruel, powerful… None of their guesses had included the mission target caring about the lives of the natives. 

Levelers saw a world’s ordinary people as natives, unimportant NPCs. They saw any enemies with super powers, like the Protectors, as minor bosses. They saw the mission target as a formidable opponent who could threaten the existence of a life as mighty as a leveler’s. No leveler would think that the target of the ultimate clearing mission would protect ordinary people. 

It had been for the sake of threatening the Protectors that Destroyer 192 had planted bombs in the park, to make the Protectors help him find the mission target. It hadn’t been to threaten Yu Hua. 

“I understand what to say,” Yuan Luori said, nodding. 

“How are you going to explain that I came twice in a row?” Yu Hua asked. 

Yuan Luori considerately found an excuse for Yu Hua. “You thought that the new leveler would contact me when you left for the first time. After I had revealed the energy source plan, you would hurry back, and only tell me the real plan the second time. The new leveler would have contacted me unilaterally and would have used up his only opportunity to make contact. This way, I couldn’t tell him the true plan. But you didn’t expect that the new clearer would be very cautious and wait a long time after you left the second time to contact me and the new clearer would get all of the information.”

Yu Hua nodded faintly. He didn’t hate Yuan Luori for ruining his date all that much. He tapped Yuan Luori’s eyes with a finger, and Yuan Luori instantly saw a light in front of his eyes. The world became clearer. 

“I’ve placed a layer of optical energy in front of your eyes, making a pair of contact lenses that won’t fall out. The effect lasts twenty-four hours, so you can act tomorrow. Later, if you behave well, I’ll completely heal your eyes.” Yu Hua’s gaze swept over Criminal Law, which had fallen on the floor. 

The punishment the Protection Organization had set for Yuan Luori was three years of tests (using the tests to substitute for a prison sentence). Penal Law also provided that good behavior or rendering meritorious service could result in a reduced sentence. Yu Hua was a member of society who abided by the law. When Yuan Luori’s prison sentence was over, Yu Hua would naturally observe the law and give Yuan Luori an opportunity to mend his ways and start afresh. 

The feeling of being able to see the world clearly again was too good. Yuan Luori was overjoyed. He said thank you over and over again. In the process of lowering and raising his head, the black-cloaked man had vanished. 

Yuan Luori turned on the lights in the office, replaced the folding bed, picked up Criminal Law, sat in the cubicle that belonged to him, and began to read with relish. 

The Protection Organization had given him many books. Apart from Criminal Law, there was also Civil Law, Penal Law, and other legal texts closely linked to social rules and regulations and public life. But Yuan Luori only liked Criminal Law. 

For him, Criminal Law wasn’t a dry and dull legal text. It was a recollection of the past. 

Yuan Luori had experienced thirty-seven worlds and had seen every sort of leveler. These people’s ideas had long ago been turned around by the System’s training. All their conduct was recorded in Criminal Law. When Yuan Luori recited an article from Criminal Law, it was as though he saw the end of some leveler he had once met. 

He also turned on the office’s livestream, euphemistically calling it reading late into the night. In fact, Yuan Luori’s peaceful profile attracted quite a few fans to come and read along with him. 

After about half an hour, Yuan Luori’s phone rang. He saw that it was a hidden phone number and temporarily turned off the livestream. He picked up the phone. 

As expected, the person on the phone was Destroyer 192. Using all kinds of methods, implying and suggesting, lying and hoodwinking, he “tricked” Yuan Luori into telling him all the information everyone wanted him to know. 

This was an unopened world. The Clearing League hadn’t made inquiries about the scope of authority in this world. The levelers outside this world couldn’t exchange information with ones in the world. Destroyer 192 had observed for several days before guessing that there was such a thing as the Protection Organization in this world. But he didn’t know who the mission target was, and he didn’t know that the mission target could turn the energy of their Systems into an afternoon tea. 

When he learned that the mission target had threatened Yuan Luori, Destroyer 192 hung up the phone and considered what he should do. 

This was a trap, and it was also an opportunity. He had to get rid of the mission target before Yuan Luori released his poison, or else when all the people in the city had been infected, he would have nowhere to hide. 

As he pondered with a grave face, someone walked by and slapped his ass, ambiguously saying, “You’re in luck. There’s a rather rich merchant who’s taken a fancy to you. He’s requested you to come drink with him.” 

Destroyer 192 had deathly-looking mascara around his eyes and a piercing in his lip. His shaggy hair fell over his ears. He swept an indifferent gaze over the person who had slapped him just now. 

When a leveler entered a world controlled by the System, he could directly take over the identity of one of the world’s natives, occupying that person’s soul; he would also have ability to inspect that person’s memories and a portion of what would happen to them in the future. But as for an unopened world, the System couldn’t control it entirely, and levelers who were thrown in had only two choices. 

One type was when the System constructed a fake identity, made up a person with no friends or family or spouse, forcing a person with simple social connections into the world. Zhen Li and Yuan Luori both belonged to this type. The other type was to throw the leveler at random into the body of a person who had just died. Because this person’s soul had already vanished, the leveler couldn’t access their memories. Destroyer 192 was of this type. 

He had just been thrown into the body of an employee of a place of ill-repute, recently dead of illness, more commonly known as a rent boy. 

This body’s physique was very poor, riddled with disease. Destroyer 192 had been forced to use large numbers of points to get medicine to improve his physical condition from the System. Only in this way had he healed the body’s illnesses and improved its stamina. 

Then he had discovered that this crappy body was unregistered. It had no ID card. He couldn’t access its memories. He didn’t even know this person’s name. 

He lived in the crappy dormitory of a certain house of ill-repute. He only knew that others called him Xiao Mu. He was a poor unregistered individual. 

At the start, he hadn’t known how dangerous this world was. He had had to pretend to be sick and observe from the shadows. After a few days, he had seen that this world was very safe, and he had seen Zhen Li and Yuan Luori’s videos on a coworker’s phone. He had guessed that the two of them may have been captured. 

His ability was explosive games. He could designate a certain area as his game space and turn everything he touched in that space into bombs. He could also interact with all the energy sources in the space. 

Destroyer 192 had stealthily used his ability to investigate, shifting from one area to another. Finally, in a certain police station, he had found about a dozen unusual energy sources! 

This world had special ability users. They were hidden throughout the world. These people were certainly very powerful, and that was why the System had been unable to open this world, and all the people who had taken opening assignments had died. 

He had released his ability on a small scale in the Xuyang District Central Park first in order to search for the mission target, and second to test the Protection Organization’s bottom line and abilities. 

If the Protection Organization and the mission target thought that this was the only ability he had, then they were completely mistaken. Destroyer 192 smiled in satisfaction. 

Seeing his arrogant smile, the person who had nabbed a customer for him slapped the back of his head. “The hell are you smiling about? Hurry up!” 

Destroyer 192 looked at this person with the look of one seeing a dead man. He thought, Patience, I must have patience. I have to conceal my identity for now. No one can know that I’m living here. This club is full of mixed company, but it’s the best place to hide. When I’ve killed the mission target, I’ll blow this place up.

He unwillingly got up and went over to the bulky rich merchant, knocking back a bottle of 100 proof baijiu. 

During the day he had caused a sensation with his bombs, but at night he still had to accompany customers in drinking. In order to accomplish his mission, Destroyer 192 endured this. 

His alcohol tolerance was excellent. He got the rich merchant thoroughly plastered, carried him to a hotel, and knocked him out. He went through the night to Xincheng Mall to investigate the surroundings and prepare ahead of time. 

His ability required him to touch the objects inside this space ahead of time so he could turn the area into his explosive space. The Xincheng Mall was closed now. Sneaking in in the middle of the night would definitely attract suspicion. Destroyer 192 didn’t want to alert the enemy in advance. 

He looked at the Xincheng Mall from afar. After pondering for a moment, he smiled. 

Apart from his ability, he also had an initial item. No one knew how powerful his initial item was. 

Destroyer 192 took out a neckband and turned it around in his hand. When he had turned it for a while,  the single neckband turned into three. This was the largest number of neckbands he could produce. When he had passed two-hundred levels, he should be able to produce four. 

He put one neckband around his own neck. Where would he put the other two? 

When Destroyer 192 returned to the hotel, there was one neckband remaining in his hand. The other one had been hidden somewhere. He put the sole leftover neckband on the rich merchant’s neck and smiled grimly. 

—

The next morning, Yu Hua got a call from Zhen Li. “Director Yu, a mall has invited me to dance at their three year anniversary. The appearance fee is very high! Can I go?” 

“Go ahead. Make some more money and pay my salary,” Yu Hua ordered. 

He put down the phone and saw that the other side of the double bed was empty. Xiao You hadn’t come home last night. 

He had to take care of this new leveler as soon as possible, or else how many nights would he have to spend alone? 

---

Author's Note

Yu Hua: Nights spent alone are cold and lonely.