Chapter 62: Losing Eli

After being told to “get out,” Yan Xingwen was utterly desolate. He didn’t protest, simply obeyed and left. He didn’t even shower.

Watching him like this, Tang Mu’s heart was hard as stone. Except for Yan Xingwen himself, nothing could stir even a flicker of compassion in her.

After driving him away, Tang Mu locked the door, showered, and went to sleep.

When she awoke again, the lighting in the virtual space hadn’t changed much, but she guessed a long time had passed.

The silence of the room was broken only by the faint sound of someone chewing food, compelling her attention.

She frowned, rose, and followed the sound to its source.

Eli, bearing Yan Xingwen’s identity?

Tang Mu immediately flared with anger. “How did you get in?”

Yan Xingwen looked aggrieved. “I was hungry.”

After speaking, he fell silent. He seemed to sense Tang Mu’s dislike and kept his presence to a minimum, striving to reduce his activity to the barest limit.

Tang Mu was speechless.

After a long silence, Yan Xingwen felt compelled to explain further. He hesitated, struggled, then finally spoke.

“There’s no refrigerator or food downstairs. As for the door... it wasn’t locked. So I thought... maybe you didn’t hate me enough to cross the red line and really throw me out...”

Tang Mu took a deep breath, her face full of skepticism.

“I didn’t lock the door?” She remembered locking it before sleep.

Was it due to age, or a bug in the virtual space, causing the lock to malfunction?

She climbed out of bed, walked to the door, and checked for signs of forced entry.

After a thorough inspection, she found nothing amiss.

Was it really just her oversight?

Forget it. There was no need to dwell on such trivial matters.

But Eli...

Tang Mu decided to be blunt. “I mistook you for someone else.”

She said, “I thought you were the person I was looking for, but you’re not. The second potion I gave you was meant to restore your memory. The third was to reshape it. But I realized the potions had no effect on you.”

“I found the wrong person, but at least I spared your life. I thought you could serve as his substitute, worth the hundreds of points I spent on you.”

“But now, you don’t even have that value.”

“So,” Tang Mu drew out the red thread from the Red Bell (A), looping it around Eli’s neck, “I don’t want to keep you anymore. Please, go and die. I’ll thank you on Yan Xingwen’s behalf.”

Her grip on the red thread suddenly tightened.

Yan Xingwen’s face turned red and purple from suffocation, his breathing labored.

His limbs convulsed, stiffening.

But he struggled to suppress his desperate urge to survive, forcing himself not to resist.

“Tang Mu, I know you love him... But, what’s past is past. I still hope you can walk out of it by your own strength...”

Tang Mu stared at him expressionlessly.

Her heart was as calm as a still lake.

Her hands pulled the red thread with full force, showing no sign of slackening.

She always knew she was ruthless, but she was ruthlessly honest. Even if she killed, she would explain her reasons, letting her victims die knowing, without confusion.

Especially someone like Eli, who had already died once.

Dying again shouldn’t matter, right?

Until—

Yan Xingwen spoke, “Actually, I’m glad you are as you are now... At least it shows that you... have no weaknesses, no soft spots. Only like this... can you be invincible, unbreakable... Perfectly fearless of any foe or enemy, you are... cough cough...”

Tang Mu frowned.

Her grip weakened.

For the first time, panic flickered in her eyes.

She tried to ask the man before her, “What is it? What were you about to say?!”

He didn’t answer.

He had begun to convulse, his eyes rolling back.

His limbs went limp.

Tang Mu’s eyes grew wild, almost crazed. She knelt from the edge of the bed to the floor, frantically propping up Eli’s body.

She untied the red bell from his neck...

Looking at the dying man, Tang Mu was at a loss, frantic and regretful.

“E... Xingwen, is it you? Is it really you? Wake up, I was wrong, I truly know I was wrong... Don’t scare me, please? I... I haven’t completely killed you, you still have a breath left, you’re still alive, right?”

She held him, her eyes reddening, tears beginning to fall.

“I know you’re joking with me... But why did the potion have no effect? Why! Clearly, drinking the memory-restoring potion should bring back memories…”

As if struck by a thought.

“Spade Q!” She ground the name out from her throat, her eyes full of hatred and fury, “It must be him, he deceived us! The memory-restoring potion never worked!”

Yan Xingwen didn’t respond to the topic of Spade Q.

He merely raised his weak right hand, trying to touch Tang Mu’s face.

Tang Mu quickly gathered his hand, pressing it gently to her right cheek.

But Yan Xingwen’s hand—and his body—had begun to crumble like fragile paper, layer after layer falling away.

The body of a replica NPC was never real flesh! It was... a false body, constructed from stacked sheets of paper?

Though the warmth and texture of skin could be simulated perfectly, it was just a fake body!

Damn Spade Q!

She’d tear him apart if she ever discovered his true identity!

“Xingwen, Xingwen, don’t leave me, please? I... I shouldn’t have treated you that way, it’s all my fault, you... can you forgive me?”

Yan Xingwen weakly shook his head.

“Actually, there were times when NPCs were taken out by players. But in the end, they all return to the copy. Maybe, whether killed or not... they have to go back...”

As he spoke, the paper fragments on his face peeled away, layer by layer like onion skin.

“Tang Mu, I don’t know the person you’re talking about. But I... wish it were me... you…”

He never finished the word “you.”

Because his body started to collapse in large sheets, becoming dozens of pounds of paper scraps, instantly covering the entire floor, erasing all trace of “Eli’s” form.