Gamers Are Fierce
Chapter 69: Playing Soccer

Chapter 69: Chapter 69: Playing Soccer

「Time rewound to moments before.」

Li Ang stood before the Jiupin Crab Emperor Fort, a narrow, long strip of yellow paper in his hand. The paper was soft and thin; it felt as if it would tear with the slightest force.

The front of the yellow paper bore characters drawn in cinnabar, forming cryptic and profound ancient seal scripts. Flanking and beneath the characters were interlocking and interconnected, bizarre patterns. These patterns resembled both surging clouds and tumbling ocean waves. Staring at them for too long could easily induce dizziness, ear-ringing, and severe nausea.

This Talisman was one Li Ang had obtained from the Jiupin Crab Emperor Fort. It had been tucked inside a paper brochure on the reception desk, one corner conspicuously sticking out.

After Liu Wu Dai extinguished the cold lights, Li Ang, using the Cat’s Eye night vision, quickly found the Talisman. He then used the Cinnabar Brush to trace it directly below the Jiupin Crab Emperor Fort plaque.

Talismans, sometimes called symbol-scripts, ink-diagrams, or cinnabar-writings, are a combination of potent symbols and charted energies. They originated from the ancient sorcery of witches and shamans, with records beginning in the Eastern Han dynasty. They were said to have the power to summon gods, dispel ghosts, subdue demons, and cure diseases and disasters.

Looking at the Talisman in his hand, Li Ang mused, The types of Talismans created over millennia are innumerable, their forms strange and varied, mainly divided into four categories:

First, compound characters formed from two or more smaller characters.

Second, Cloud Talismans that mimic flowing air or ancient seal characters.

Third, spirit Talismans made up of complex tangles of dots and lines.

These words originate from the *Supreme Numinous Treasure Scripture for the Salvation of Countless Beings*, a Taoist canon from the Eastern Jin dynasty, revered as a foundational text of immense importance.

After learning of the Heterodox Academy’s existence, Li Ang had pored over numerous Taoist scriptures. Yet, he had failed to sense the so-called Qi—an ancient philosophical concept of the primordial substance constituting the universe. He was even further from reaching the mystical, tranquil state described in Taoist canons through Qi, or possessing any of its inconceivable powers.

This thing looks exactly like the fake charms street swindlers scribble. Can it really seal ghosts...

Li Ang put away the yellow paper, inwardly scoffing. Lacking more samples, he couldn’t deconstruct and analyze the Talisman; he could only understand its function, not the principles behind it.

The feeling was akin to a caveman fumbling with a smartphone, his curiosity an itch verging on explosive.

Li Ang called Chai Cuiqiao out and pointed to the traced Talisman on the ground. "Do you sense anything from this?"

Chai Cuiqiao popped out from his chest. She looked puzzled as she stared at the spot on the ground where he pointed and asked, "What is it? Is that a Talisman?"

Indeed, just as the System described, Ghosts couldn’t detect traced Talismans. This prevented a deadlock where a Ghost would destroy the Talisman right after the player left.

Li Ang’s eyes brightened. Without further explanation, and despite Chai Cuiqiao’s strong protests, he stuffed her back into his chest.

I think I’ve come up with a very interesting maneuver, he muttered to himself. He rummaged through the Jiupin Crab Emperor Fort restaurant, found several chopsticks, and imbued them with Ripple Energy. Returning to the corridor, he silently destroyed the surveillance cameras, using the chopsticks like Darts.

Li Ang, now unmonitored by cameras, drew an identical pattern about a dozen meters from the first traced Talisman.

Unable to restrain her curiosity, Chai Cuiqiao poked her head out. "Why draw another one?"

"Just a small experiment."

Li Ang finished copying the second pattern and went to other shops on the fifth floor, searching calmly and methodically.

Chai Cuiqiao blinked. "Didn’t you already find the Talisman on the fifth floor? Why keep searching?"

"Are you ’Little Miss 100,000 Whys’ or something?"

Li Ang explained with a slight grimace, "The System said, ’Find the six different paper Talismans scattered around,’ but it didn’t specify that all Talismans would be on different floors. Given the System’s usual tricks, we could search high and low only to find the last missing Talisman hidden under some player’s shoe."

Of course, that was an exaggeration. Since the System imposed a three-hour time limit, it wouldn’t hide the paper Talismans in places like floor cracks, wall crevices, ventilation ducts, or other godforsaken spots. They had to be somewhat conspicuous for players to find them all within three hours.

Li Ang diligently searched the fifth floor and eventually found another paper Talisman on a window-side table in a Japanese restaurant.

The second one isn’t much different from the first, but I still can’t understand it.

Li Ang casually admitted his inability to decipher Talismans. After greeting Liu Wu Dai and the others in the WeChat group, he descended to the fourth floor.

He was just about to find a secluded spot to draw the Talisman when he noticed all the surveillance cameras on the ceiling had stopped working. Simultaneously, the WeChat group lit up with messages from the Plague Doctor:

"I turned off the backup power supply! There was definitely a Ghost in the main control room! The moment I destroyed the gasoline generator, the Ghost, along with the Lost Airship—or rather, the body the old Ghost possessed—rushed out!"

"They’re chasing me now!"

"I’ve hidden in a cabinet in the power distribution room; there’s a Talisman hidden here!"

"But they’re in! They’re knocking on all the cabinet doors!"

"They’re about to find me!"

On the phone screen, the terse messages clearly conveyed the Plague Doctor’s panic and desperation. One could almost see him huddled in a narrow, dark cabinet, listening in terror to the pounding on the door.

Ao Yong replied, "Hang in there! I’m on my way!"

Just as Li Ang considered leaping down from the fourth floor to help, a deafening explosion erupted from the first basement level of Longheng Mall.

Flames shot high, thick smoke billowed, and dust filled the air. Li Ang leaned over the corridor railing. The floor below was completely obscured by smoke. Strangely, the smoke wasn’t acrid; instead, it carried an odd, pleasant fragrance...

Incense ash? A bomb?

Li Ang watched, surprised, as two figures dashed out from the hall of the first basement level.

A moment later, the Plague Doctor typed in the group, "Ao Yong and I lost them. We’ve escaped. We’re on B1 now, finished tracing the Talisman, and are about to split up and head upstairs."

As expected of veterans, even after a brush with death, they could steady their nerves and continue the mission.

B1, the fifth floor, and now the fourth floor... that’s three Talismans out of six completed.

Li Ang crouched on the fourth-floor landing, silently took out the Cinnabar Brush, and prepared to start tracing.

A small red-and-white rubber ball rolled along the beige limestone floor, coming to a stop by his feet.

Li Ang looked up. A little girl in a red dress stood before him. She had ponytails on both the front and back of her head, her hands clasped behind her, and she twisted her body coyly.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?" the little girl asked in a soft, childish voice, her face completely hidden by thick, dark ponytails from which fresh blood dripped continuously.

Uncle?

His expression changing beneath the Mask, Li Ang slowly stood up and gently tossed the ball back to her.

The little girl caught the ball and let out a tinkling laugh before tossing it back to him.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?"

Silent, Li Ang threw the ball back again. The little girl caught it and tossed it back once more.

"Uncle, can you pick up the ball for me?"

Man and Ghost played catch in the fourth-floor corridor. The little girl laughed with pure delight, as if she’d eaten a Happy Pill.

Ordinarily, Li Ang would have had the patience to show this bratty kid what true boredom felt like—after all, he was the kind of man who could meticulously sculpt Michelangelo’s David out of sand and urine in a kindergarten sandbox.

But if this keeps up, I’ll run out of time...

Anger flared, and a malicious idea sparked. Li Ang pretended to catch the ball. The moment it touched his hand, he convulsed and collapsed, as if struck by a heavy object, unable to rise.

He was a professional at feigning injury.

Seeing Li Ang collapse, the little girl panicked. "Uncle, what’s wrong?"

Your ball gave me internal injuries. You’d better let me go. Li Ang said nothing, but his eyes conveyed the message clearly.

"Uncle, the ground is cold."

The ground isn’t cold at all; it’s quite comfortable, actually.

"Uncle, if you don’t get up, I’m going to eat you, you know."

SNAP! Li Ang shot up from the ground. He glared at her, silent and fierce, his eyes screaming, "What do you want now?"

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.