Chapter 19: Boredom Leads to Playing Chess.

A few hours later.

"Wow, what a brilliant move!"

"Yuanzhi, your move was like a bolt from the blue, simply exquisite, a stroke of genius."

"I won! I won, I won, I won. Wanrou, stop struggling, there's absolutely no way out of this situation."

"Why don't you let her have a knight, Yuanzhi? Letting go of a knight won't hurt, you'll still win, that's the spirit of a gentleman."

"Huh! What's going on? How could you make that move just now? You're not going to lose, are you? Pay attention!"

"Oh no, you are checkmated by her rook! Yuanzhi, seriously? You can lose to this???"

"Heh." Miss Wang rested her chin on her hand lazily, looking at him, "Didn't you say there was absolutely no hope?"

"I really didn't understand the situation just now," Cheng Jinyang sighed.

"It was definitely a sure win, but... sigh, I just didn't expect that chess could be a 120% game, with a 20% chance of losing. Anyway, enough said, the iron slide car to the north is about to stop, I need to go patch an algorithm."

He walked towards the northern street. Xing Yuanzhi pondered for a moment and conceded defeat.

"Your fiancé is quite interesting," Miss Wang played with a chess piece in her hand, casually remarking, "He has a lot of nonsense, unlike those boring aristocratic heirs who strictly adhere to etiquette."

"If your definition of 'interesting' is whether you can truly see through him," Xing Yuanzhi said lightly, "then indeed he is an interesting person."

"Dealing with intelligent people is extremely boring because they inevitably make decisions based on self-interest, so you can perfectly predict their thought patterns by shifting perspectives. Most aristocrats' descendants are like this, including you, Xing family's Qingfeng," Wang Wanrou chuckled.

"Oh, so I'm a boring person in your eyes," Xing Yuanzhi responded calmly.

"Most people are boring in my eyes," Wang Wanrou's expression carried deep meaning, "but he is different."

"He seems dull, yet contains astuteness; appears simple, yet harbors cunning; seems unworldly, yet hides ambition very well. Clearly, he has no emotional bond with you, but he defends you in front of me at every turn as if he were your fiancé, no matter how much I mock and taunt, he never gets angry."

"Simply put, it's about being opportunistic and adept at leveraging others. As long as someone is useful to him, regardless of their attitude, he can tolerate them indefinitely, yet he won't completely trust them... Such slippery character traits really remind me of Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang."

"Hmm." Xing Yuanzhi shook her head disapprovingly. "You're really giving him too much credit."

"Perhaps." Wang Wanrou shrugged. "I've said before, I haven't completely figured him out. He might be like Liu Bang now, but he could become like Liu Bei in the future."

"The difference between being heartless and righteous?" Xing Yuanzhi pondered.

"Yeah." Wang Wanrou neither agreed nor disagreed. "However, for a mature politician, sincerity or insincerity in emotions doesn't matter because they can seamlessly switch between the two based on their own interests."

"I actually don't want him to become a politician," Xing Yuanzhi suddenly said. "But if he does become like Liu Bang in the future, what role would you play? Xiao He, Zhang Liang, or Han Xin?"

As the three major generals under Liu Bang, Han Xin met with misfortune and eventually died at the hands of a woman; Zhang Liang saw through Liu Bang's intentions and decisively retired; only Xiao He carefully served the monarch and passed away peacefully.

Xing Yuanzhi's meaning is simply asking about Wang Wanrou's position.

Miss Wang shook her head lightly and said, "None of them. Regardless of what he becomes in the future, I will not change because of his views and demands. I will always be myself."

"Hopefully so," Xing Yuanzhi said.

The two of them packed up the chessboard, losing interest in continuing the game, and decided to go to the nearby convenience store to see what they could find to relieve their boredom.

Then they saw Cheng Jinyang rushing back.

"Something's wrong!" he said anxiously, "The puppets to the north are gathering more and more, and it feels like the iron slide car alone are struggling to push through!"

Everyone hurried towards the northern intersection and saw that the bodies of the puppets almost covered the ground like a carpet, with the thick smell of blood almost forming an undispellable mist. Just being in the midst of it, the concentration of blood seemed to skyrocket rapidly, as if one might burst and die at any moment.

However, what was even more terrifying was the street ahead, which was already jammed with a dense crowd of puppets, numbering over a thousand at a rough estimate. As the iron-slide car smashed into them, it was like throwing a stone into a pond, creating ripples that quickly smoothed out.

"How... how can there be so many?!"

Even Miss Wang, who was usually calm and composed, was startled by the terrifying number on the other side.

So Cheng Jinyang manipulated the nearby cars again, while Xing Yuanzhi increased the mass nearby.

Several super-quality shells were fired into the crowd, creating a few spacious passages amidst the sea of people.

Then they saw those few passages being rapidly filled by the puppets pressing in from behind, at a visibly astonishing speed.

The three of them: .....

After absorbing the scattered blood gas around, Cheng Jinyang took the two girls to the streets in three different directions, and indeed, the number of puppets increased to varying degrees.

After absorbing the blood gas, Wang Wanrou suggested, "It seems that the longer we stay in one place, the more puppets there will be, until we reach a quantity we can't handle."

"Next, I suggest we keep moving while also intensifying our exploration of this Songjiang ruin. Perhaps we can find something interesting... like the safe house in Wujiang Town."

Cheng Jinyang pondered briefly and then immediately adopted her suggestion: "That's the only way."

The recent encounter proved that staying in one place for a long time either makes you easier to be discovered or attracts more puppets.

So, choosing to fight while moving is a natural conclusion.

Miss Wang's suggestion doesn't have any flaws, but as for a safe house... Cheng Jinyang doesn't really care whether there is one or not, considering how much more efficient puppets are at harvesting blood than monsters, they are just too attractive.

Speaking of safe houses, he can't help but think of Su Lili.

Why did she disappear? Where did she go?

Is she really just a figment of my imagination?

As I gradually accept reality, is she also gradually unable to maintain her existence?

With these thoughts in mind, Cheng Jinyang suddenly felt the long-lost depression surging again in his body, like stomach acid crawling up his throat, making him feel the urge to vomit and cry.

"Jinyang!" Xing Yuanzhi reacted quickly, rushing to support him from the side.

Wang Wanrou was also startled, only then noticing his frighteningly pale complexion, tears rolling from his lifeless eyes as if he had completely lost the ability to think normally.

"Su Lili..." he murmured, suddenly lifting his head and gazing towards the towering iron tower in the distance.

In the spherical sky restaurant on the upper floors of the iron tower, a figure draped in coarse robes emerged from the elevator with a companion, a long sword made entirely of obsidian hanging from her waist, its surface pitted and rough.

Suddenly, she turned her head as if sensing something, looking out at the distant steel forest beyond the glass window. A red-hot streak flashed across the surface of her obsidian longsword.

"What's wrong, Xiaoqi?" Her companion beside her stopped walking and asked.

"Ah Si," she murmured softly, her voice barely audible, "in your past life... did you ever long for someone?"

"I don't remember," her companion replied after a long silence, "there was some longing in a past life, but what meaning does it have for us now?"

"Does it have no meaning?" she asked herself quietly, then shook her head.