Chapter 381

Chapter 381: Chapter 381

"I said stop looking at me like that!" Bart raised his voice again.

Paul kept staring.

Unable to stand Paul’s uncanny gaze any longer, Bart gritted his teeth and blurted out, "The boss ordered me to do it!"

"The boss?" Paul was utterly dumbfounded. "Since when has the boss fallen this low too?? Ordering you to steal stuff??"

Bart’s cheek twitched. Glaring viciously at Paul, he explained, "I told you I’m not stealing! The boss ordered me to sabotage their car tires!"

"Why?" Paul blurted out.

"How the hell should I know? The boss only gave that single command. I want to know why too!" Bart roared in frustration.

Paul fell silent for a moment. "Could it be that the boss doesn’t want them to leave?"

"Likely. Otherwise, there’d be no reason to sabotage their vehicle." Bart thought it over carefully and felt that made sense.

As long as they ruined the tires on Suzy’s car, they wouldn’t be able to set off and would naturally be forced to stay behind.

But why?

Why go to such lengths just to keep people here?

No matter how you look at it, it’s bizarre.

"...The boss has really been acting strange lately," Paul muttered under his breath.

Bart said nothing, silently agreeing with Paul’s assessment.

"First, the boss randomly said he wanted to leave without explaining why, and now he’s having you do something like this... Don’t you feel like the boss has changed recently?" Paul grumbled moodily.

"Changed how? The boss is still the boss," Bart said, scratching his head.

To him, Nate didn’t seem all that different from before.

The person was still the same person.

However, Nate had indeed grown much more withdrawn lately, shutting himself inside his tent all day and rarely coming out.

Everyone had assumed Nate was just in a bad mood recently and hadn’t thought much of it.

"Anyway, I just feel like the boss has changed," Paul insisted stubbornly.

"Alright, can you cut the chatter? I’ve got work to do," Bart shoved him aside, dropping the subject.

He pulled out his pocket knife once more, twirling it between his fingers.

Seeing that Paul was still standing there frozen, Bart cast a glance at him. "If you’re not going to help, step aside."

Paul, who knows what thought crossed his mind, suddenly beamed. "I’ll help."

Bart tossed a spare pocket knife over to him.

"Slashing all four tires?" Paul asked.

"Just to be safe, let’s do two—one front, one back. I’ll take the front, you take the rear," Bart instructed after a brief pause.

"Got it, heading over now." Paul took the knife and walked toward the rear tire.

Instead of acting immediately, he kept his eyes on Bart ahead, wanting to see how he handled it. From his angle, he had a perfectly clear view.

Bart opened the knife once more, lined up the sharp tip against the tire, and stabbed down hard.

"Huh??"

The expected scenario didn’t happen.

Suzy’s vehicle tire was not pierced at all. Instead, the blade of Bart’s pocket knife snapped clean off!

The broken blade hit the ground with a sharp metallic clink. Bart stood there with a look of total bewilderment.

"Hey, what happened?" Paul’s voice sounded from behind. He had, in fact, witnessed the entire scene unfold.

"Tsk... these tires are ridiculously tough." Bart wiped the sweat off his cheek.

To be honest, this was his first time doing something like this, so he wasn’t familiar with tire hardness either.

But for his knife to break just like that... was way too absurd.

His pocket knife was sturdy; where on earth did things go wrong?

"Let me take a look," Paul zipped over, leaning down to inspect the tire Bart had just tried to stab.

After looking for a long time, he couldn’t spot a single mark.

Paul couldn’t help asking, "Where exactly did you stab just now? How come I can’t find any trace of it?"

"Um... wait, let me look." Hearing Paul’s question, Bart pushed all other thoughts aside and closely inspected the tire in front of him.

The tire before him didn’t look brand-new, but it was sturdy enough, bearing zero signs of past repairs.

In fact... it didn’t even show a single puncture mark from a sharp object.

Bart was thoroughly baffled.

"I could’ve sworn I stabbed right about here," pointing at a spot based on his memory.

Yet, that exact spot was completely smooth.

"Are you sure?" Paul sounded skeptical.

"Pretty sure. It only happened a moment ago; there’s no way I misremembered. But... why isn’t there even a scratch left? Could this be some kind of self-healing tire?"

"What on earth is a self-healing tire?"

"I’m just talking nonsense, ignore me."

"Oh. But these tires really are tough—even your knife snapped."

"I’ve used that knife for a long time, maybe it was just worn out. Try using yours."

The two went back and forth.

Paul pulled out the pocket knife Bart had handed him earlier.

Bart cautioned, "Take it easy with that. That knife is brand new—cost me a lot of supplies."

Paul promptly shoved the pocket knife back toward Bart’s hand. "Then do it yourself."

Bart’s cheek twitched. Hesitating for two seconds, he ultimately didn’t take it. "You do it."

Paul tossed the knife directly onto the ground. "Nope. You do it—so if the blade snaps again, you won’t pin the blame on me."

"...You little brat!"

To think he actually saw right through my sneaky thought—who knew this kid was actually pretty sharp?

Paul grinned smugly. "Nailed it, didn’t I?"

"Nailed my ass," Bart said, brandishing the pocket knife in his hand. "This knife of mine is brand new—it’s not brittle like the last one. There is absolutely zero chance it snaps this time!"

"What if it snaps anyway?" Paul challenged.

"Impossible! It is absolutely, positively impossible to break! You just watch, kid!"

Bart took a deep breath, tightening his grip on the new pocket knife.

The blade glinted with a cold white sheen under the sunlight; its edge was razor-sharp and the spine thick—completely unlike his old, well-worn knife.

He lined up the tip against the spot he had stabbed earlier, adjusted his angle, and exerted full force through his wrist, plunging it down hard.

Snap!

A crisp sound of metal snapping echoed through the air.

Bart’s hand froze in midair, his whole body stiffening as if nailed to the spot.

He stared down at the half-stub of a knife remaining in his grip, his brain going completely numb.

It snapped... it actually snapped...

IT SNAPPED AGAIN!!

The blade had sheared right down the middle with a clean, sharp break, as though severed by something far harder.

The broken tip clung briefly to the surface of the tire before sliding off and hitting the ground, producing a faint metallic clink.

Paul didn’t say a word, simply reaching out to give Bart’s shoulder a gentle pat.

Bart’s lips were trembling violently. "Are you kidding me?! How are these tires so hard? Are they made of concrete?!"

Paul reached out and pressed hard against the tire. The rubber felt no different from a regular tire under his fingers, which left him equally bewildered.

"The tire seems fine—it’s just a regular car tire," Paul noted.

"How could it be fine?! There’s definitely something wrong with it!" Bart punched the tire in front of him hard, feeling that the situation was getting weirder the more he thought about it.

"Could it be that there’s a quality issue with the knife you bought?"

Bart instinctively denied it, "No! Absolutely impossible! There is definitely nothing wrong with my knife!"

That knife had cost him a heavy chunk of his hard-earned supplies. If there really was a defect with it... Bart would literally spit blood from rage.