Chapter 382

Chapter 382: Chapter 382

"It’s definitely an issue with your knife, just admit it," Paul said, barely holding back a laugh.

Noticing this, Bart whipped his head around and glared viciously at him. "Try laughing one more time, I dare you."

Paul instantly reined in his smile, assuming a serious expression. "Alright, let’s set that aside for now. Don’t you still need to sabotage the tires?"

"Right."

"Wait here, I’ll go grab something."

Paul dashed off right after speaking, leaving Bart standing there alone, grieving over his two broken knives.

His knife! His brand-new knife! It had been ruined before he even had a chance to use it properly...

This vehicle was truly bizarre—it looked like total junk, yet its tires were somehow ridiculously sturdy.

Looking closely, Bart noticed that the spot he had just stabbed didn’t even have a single scratch on it.

That was his second time stabbing it with a knife!

"Ghostly..." Bart muttered.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for Paul to return, holding a hammer and a few thick nails in his hands.

Seeing this, Bart’s eyes lit up. "Nice! You’ve got good tricks after all, kid."

Nailing it in—he refused to believe the tire could stay this indestructible against that.

"Hand ’em over."

Bart took the hammer and nails from Paul, his confidence fully restored.

He held the nail firmly in position, lined up his aim, and struck down hard!

One strike!

Two strikes!

Three strikes!

After three heavy hammer blows, the nail remained completely motionless, failing to penetrate even a fraction of an inch.

Bart began questioning his very existence.

Paul gave Bart a strange look. "Hey, are you getting old and weak or something? Can you put some muscle into it? What’s with those limp-noodle hits?"

"Who the hell is limp-noodle?!" Bart blew his top.

Paul mocked him, "You’re still claiming you’re not weak? Three strikes and you couldn’t even dent the tire. Can you do it or not? If you can’t, let me try!"

Bart laughed out of sheer frustration. "Fine! You do it. Show me what you’ve got!"

He handed the hammer and nails over to Paul.

Paul took them, saying, "Watch closely—this is what youth looks like."

With that, Paul gripped the hammer tightly and swung down with all his might!

An extraordinarily peculiar sensation transmitted through Paul’s fingertips.

He could clearly feel that he had actually driven a portion of the nail inside.

Before he could even celebrate, Suzy’s vehicle suddenly erupted with an earth-shattering screech!

"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP—!"

The alarm blasted through the surrounding air, leaving both of them completely stunned on the spot.

"Holy crap! How does this thing have an alarm?!"

"Run, run! Move, move!"

"No way, this junk car is way too cursed!"

Neither of them cared about anything else now. They snatched up their tools and scrambled to sprint into the distance.

No joke—with the vehicle making such a massive racket, Suzy and her companion were bound to rush over immediately. If they got caught red-handed, they would be completely finished.

In the blink of an eye, the two had vanished without a trace.

Not far off, Suzy also caught the blaring sound of the alarm and began quickening her pace toward the vehicle.

Initially, Suzy had no idea that the RV system came with a built-in alarm function.

Once the vehicle suffered external damage and the system detected it, it would automatically sound an alarm.

The RV system possessed far too many functions. Suzy hadn’t had the time to read through all of them back then, nor did she find the time later. It wasn’t until she heard the system’s prompt that she realized her vehicle was being vandalized.

[Host, please hurry over.]

The system’s urging rang in her mind. At this moment, Suzy couldn’t care less about chatting with Nate; she simply turned around and left.

Nate was right in the middle of introducing his base to them. Seeing Suzy suddenly walk off, he didn’t quite process it for a moment.

"Miss Suzy?"

It wasn’t until the sound of an alarm drifted over from the distance, rising and falling in volume, that Nate realized something was up. His expression shifted slightly, and he hurried to follow.

As for Mark, the moment Suzy turned around, he had immediately fallen into step beside her without asking a single question.

"What’s wrong?" Mark spoke up as they walked.

"Do you hear that alarm?" Suzy asked.

"Hmm?" Mark was slightly confused.

"Something’s happened to our car," Suzy said.

A flash of surprise passed through Mark’s eyes. "Who could have done it?"

"I don’t know. The car only sounds the alarm if someone tries to forcibly damage it," Suzy explained, parroting the system’s explanation on the fly.

Mark didn’t say anything more. He was just surprised—he hadn’t expected Suzy’s vehicle to actually possess an alarm system. It seemed a bit too high-tech.

But thinking about it, it made sense. Their RV was top-tier; it wasn’t entirely surprising that it had caught someone’s eye here.

But this was inside a base. For the perpetrator to act so brazenly, weren’t they worried about being exposed?

Nate was right here with them, after all.

Or perhaps... this was done under Nate’s orders?

Mark’s mind began to race. He turned his head and cast a glance backward at Nate.

With that single glance, he caught Nate staring fixedly at him from behind, a bizarre, indescribable look in his eyes.

Unprompted, Mark suddenly felt a violent chill run down his spine.

"What is it?" Seeing Mark look back, Nate didn’t avert his gaze. He even flashed a smile and quickened his pace.

"Nothing." Mark turned his head back around, picking up his pace to put some distance between them.

Unexpectedly, Nate closed the gap.

Mark felt an inexplicable cold sensation creeping up the back of his neck. He stopped in his tracks and immediately whipped his head around!

This sudden turn almost scared Mark half to death—Nate had somehow closed in on him completely unnoticed!

At this moment, Nate was less than twenty centimeters away from Mark, his fingers practically brushing against the back of Mark’s neck.

"What are you doing?" he frowned heavily.

Nate smiled innocently. "I didn’t mean anything by it. A bug just landed on your back, and I was just trying to brush it off for you. I apologize for being presumptuous."

Mark’s lips pulled tight. He reached back to touch his neck; that strange, lingering chill was still there.

Disgusting.

"The bug has already flown away," Nate added.

Mark retracted his hand and said expressionlessly, "I don’t like people getting too close to me."

No matter how you looked at it, the other man was the boss of this base, so Mark couldn’t completely spit in his face. If they wanted to leave this place smoothly, they naturally couldn’t afford to offend Nate.

"Hey now, I really didn’t mean anything by it." Nate still wore that same playful, smiling expression.

Mark remained silent, noticeably increasing his walking speed.

Behind him, Nate quickly caught up again, his faint voice drifting over once more: "You actually smell pretty nice..."

Mark stumbled, his fist almost flying backward into the man’s face.

"What perfume do you use? Or body wash?" Acting as if he hadn’t noticed a thing, Nate continued, "It has a familiar scent."