Chapter 170 - 157: The Protagonist

Yin Zhen asked A to search the internet for information related to the term "incense master," but came up empty-handed.

Searching for information on the Abnormal Investigation Bureau yielded nothing but the fact that it was an official government agency. Not a single piece of personnel data could be found. This meant the Abnormal Investigation Bureau was still using paper files and hadn’t uploaded its members’ information to the internet.

The technological level of Autumn Tomb was roughly the same as Ancient Abyss, with an identical historical background. There had to be another reason for the Abnormal Investigation Bureau to forgo the efficiency of a paperless office.

Yin Zhen grabbed some hotel notepad paper and quickly sketched the bracelet man with a pencil. Her strokes were unpracticed, leaving the face blurry, but his attire and posture were relatively clear—especially the bracelet he constantly fiddled with in his hand. She had picked up this drawing Skill through a casual resonance with a sketching artist she encountered while climbing a mountain to find a master.

"A, search the surveillance records based on this drawing. Focus on the conglomerate behind Renxin Hospital; their chairman is named Yin Shicheng," she instructed.

"Understood!"

Yin Zhen sent a message to Bai Qiang to say she was safe, deciding to ignore the incense master for now. If this incense master was truly in a hurry, they would seek her out on their own.

"View Character Card."

[Character]: Qiao Yun

[Race]: Human - Sociopath

[Identity]: Student at Beiling City No. 3 Middle School / Secret Organization Member

[Life Value]: 100%

[Strength]: 10 (Has a good bit of muscle for hacking people)

[Constitution]: 8 (Average)

[Wisdom]: 15 (Too lazy to do test papers; a waste of brainpower)

[Agility]: 10 (Not bad)

[Luck]: 3 (Passable)

[Talent]

Innate Cold Blooded: Lacks empathy and mercy. Experiences no emotional fluctuations when witnessing life or death. Can strike without any psychological burden.

Slaughter Instinct: Innately locks onto fatal weaknesses. Maxed-out close-combat intuition. Instinctively prioritizes terminating the opponent.

Superb Acting Skills: Can flawlessly switch between the personas of an obedient student, a cold bystander, or a frail girl, leaving zero flaws in her disguise.

[Skills]

Intermediate Dagger Fighting Skill (Excels in sneak attacks and close-quarters combat)

Advanced Human Body Structure Disassembly (Proficiency in disassembling people rivals professional autopsies. Prefers live practical operations)

[System Evaluation]

Maxed-out killing techniques, possessing top-tier mentality and Insight. Constantly slacks off in academic classes; while others grind test papers, she grinds people.

After reviewing the Character Card, Yin Zhen had to admit that she finally had some proper villainous prestige in this round, but it also brought a fair share of trouble. In fact, there was one unwritten trait in this Character Card: before she became Qiao Yun, the girl possessed no emotions and was likely immune to ghosts and monsters. However, now that Yin Zhen inhabited Qiao Yun’s shell, she still retained her own emotions. This would be the main difficulty in playing the role of Qiao Yun.

But if Qiao Yun was so capable, how did she get caught by the police in the first place? She wondered if the girl had surrendered willingly.

Yin Zhen’s memories of Qiao Yun from seven days ago weren’t detailed down to the minute, but from her general understanding, she could spot at least three missed opportunities to escape. There was definitely something fishy going on here!

The hotel room was spacious. Yin Zhen stretched a bit, testing the absolute limits of her current attribute values. She ultimately discovered that despite the high stat buffs from her main body, Qiao Yun’s physical limitations restricted her agility. This was the exact opposite of her experience using the S717 body. Back then, S717’s innate attribute values were so high that she couldn’t even feel her main body’s influence on it in the Red Corpse World. Later, as her main body’s attribute values gradually increased, S717’s physical capabilities were further enhanced as the icing on the cake.

Now, however, Qiao Yun’s attributes were far too weak while her main body’s attributes were incredibly strong. It was like a toddler trying to wield a massive broadsword—the child simply couldn’t handle the weapon’s weight and lethal power. It was certainly right to maximize her main body’s attributes, but too vast a discrepancy between her own attributes and the Character Card’s attributes would cause problems.

Yin Zhen still had 46 unallocated attribute points saved up. She immediately spent 32 points, raising her Strength, Constitution, and Agility all up to 20 points. After testing her movements again, she felt much more comfortable. When it came to facing ordinary humans, absolutely no one would be her match.

Yin Zhen hung a glass cup on the hotel room’s door handle, slipped a dagger under her pillow, strapped on her electronic watch, and went to bed early. Her laptop’s webcam was pointed at the door, essentially monitoring the entire room. If anything unusual happened, A would sound the alarm.

In the past, keeping watch at night had always been Ying’s job; it would lean against her bed and play video games all night long. Poor Ying was now sealed with a talisman and could only be temporarily confined. She wouldn’t be able to let it out until she dealt with the bracelet man.

Midnight.

Yin Zhen’s electronic watch suddenly vibrated. Her physical instincts reacted faster than her conscious mind; without even opening her eyes, she rolled toward the edge of the bed. A tranquilizer dart grazed her neck, embedding itself straight into the pillow where her head had just been.

Yin Zhen sprang up like a cheetah, gripping her dagger tightly as she locked eyes with her attacker. A tall man stood by the bed, his silhouette hidden in the shadows, aiming a tranquilizer gun right at her.

"Quite vigilant, aren’t you? You’re indeed no ordinary schoolgirl," Ye Mingzhe said, his deep voice tinged with a hint of curiosity.

Before his words even finished echoing, Yin Zhen pushed off the ground. Her body shot forward like an arrow released from a bowstring. There was no trash talk, no probing attacks—her dagger went straight for Ye Mingzhe’s throat! Her movements were flawlessly clean and decisive, entirely aimed at a one-hit kill.

The Mysterious World was far too unreasonable! The Fake Certificate was still on her person, yet this man had accurately tracked her down and silently slipped into her room?!

Ye Mingzhe’s pupils constricted as he violently dodged to the side while raising a backhand block. But Yin Zhen’s change in tactics was even faster. Her dagger dipped mid-strike, stabbing toward his vulnerable ribs. Ye Mingzhe stumbled backward, his arm narrowly parrying the lethal blow. His sleeve was instantly sliced open, and fresh blood welled from his arm.

"Holy shit!"

A storm of shock crashed through Ye Mingzhe’s mind. How was this the weak high school girl from the video footage who only knew how to cry and scream that she hadn’t killed anyone? She was more terrifying than the criminal underworld’s top-tier assassins!

Yin Zhen’s dagger blurred into a silver flash of death, completely engulfing Ye Mingzhe. The tranquilizer gun he tried to raise again was kicked away by her foot, and the dagger grazed his cheek, drawing a string of blood beads. Before he could curse out loud in shock, Yin Zhen’s blade nearly severed the tendons in his wrist. He could only parry desperately, retreating step by step as she continuously slashed open near-fatal wounds across his body. He felt like a fish on a chopping block, being sliced open piece by piece. Cold sweat instantly drenched Ye Mingzhe’s back.

He barely blocked yet another ferocious thrust. Yin Zhen simply loosened her grip, caught the dagger with her left hand, and slashed at Ye Mingzhe’s throat again from an incredibly tricky angle!

The fatal, chilling gleam reflected in Ye Mingzhe’s pupils as he scrambled backward in a panic. He thought, "I’m done for! I’m dead!"

Just as this thought arose, Ye Mingzhe stepped on an unknown object. His foot slipped, and he somehow evaded the throat-slitting strike in the most bizarre manner. Ye Mingzhe crashed to the floor. This should have been the moment his opponent pressed her advantage, but to his surprise, he found that she had actually backed away.

In the darkness, Ye Mingzhe couldn’t make out her face. He could only see those piercing, frosty eyes, radiating a killing intent so fierce it sent shivers down his spine. For a moment, he actually felt that this person couldn’t possibly be Qiao Mu. But his little Paperman had tracked her here using the blood sample kept in Qiao Mu’s file, so there was no way it had found the wrong person.

Little did he know, Yin Zhen was also incredibly shocked at this moment; the situation that had just unfolded felt exactly like "protagonist plot armor." Was this sudden intruder the protagonist of the Autumn Tomb World?

Yin Zhen’s momentary contemplation gave Ye Mingzhe a chance to catch his breath. He immediately pulled a crumpled lottery ticket from his pocket, letting out an uncontrollable laugh. A bizarre aura suddenly erupted. Yin Zhen watched as a figure in tattered overalls slowly manifested in front of Ye Mingzhe. Its lips were purplish-blue and its face was deathly pale, wearing a crazed, manic smile.

"I won! I won, hahaha!!"

Yin Zhen felt an invisible force coil around her, eroding her willpower. It caused an unprecedented surge of excitement and ecstasy to erupt from within her body, giving her an uncontrollable urge to laugh—to laugh madly.

Cannon Fodder’s Intuition once again foresaw a scene where Yin Zhen’s heart stopped due to laughing out loud. Faced with this completely unreasonable supernatural power, she decisively abandoned her attempt to kill him! Without sufficient preparation, her confrontation with the protagonist would only give her an initial upper hand. In the end, she would definitely be the one facing defeat.

Yin Zhen carefully memorized the protagonist’s face, grabbed the quilt from the bed, and hurled it forward. Her body retreated rapidly like a phantom as she yanked open the room door and fled.

"Don’t run!"

Ye Mingzhe scrambled to his feet. The Wild Ghost in front of him, which had died of a sudden heart attack from winning the lottery, chased after Yin Zhen, with Ye Mingzhe following closely behind.

The hotel corridor was completely empty. As the echoing thud of the stairwell door shutting rang out, Ye Mingzhe immediately rushed into the stairwell. At the same time, a figure that practically blended into the darkness slipped back into the hotel room. She swiftly packed up her laptop and essential belongings, threw open the eighteenth-floor window, and transformed into a blur as she used Shadow Instant Teleportation to escape.

By the time Ye Mingzhe realized he had been tricked and hurried back, Yin Zhen had long vanished into the unnoticed, gloomy alleyways of the city night.

Yin Zhen had barely left the previous block when a familiar voice sounded behind her once again.

"I LOVE YOU."

Yin Zhen blew a stray lock of hair from her forehead, turned right around, and kicked that rabbit plush toy flying once again. But this time, the rabbit plush toy didn’t smash into a wall. Instead, it was snatched out of mid-air by a woman who suddenly appeared.

"It’s quite rare to see you lose your temper."

She wondered if this was an acquaintance. Yin Zhen kept her face perfectly expressionless. She quickly stowed away the Fake Certificate, slipping seamlessly into her Qiao Yun persona, and coldly watched the woman step out from the shadows.

"How strange. Why do you emit a scent... that excites ghosts?"