Volume 2, Chapter 26 – Never Hesitating to Pull the Trigger

Anran watched as the streetlamps by the roadside lit up one after another, linking together in sequence.

She wore a baseball cap, her hair bundled up beneath it. The hem of her light jacket fluttered in the night wind. Below her shorts were fair, strong calves, and her boots made soft rustling sounds against the ground as she stepped across the oval patches of light cast by the streetlamps.

Under normal circumstances, it took about ten minutes to walk from Anran’s home to Colin’s Repair Shop.

Worried that Morningstar’s people might be lying in ambush by the roadside, Anran deliberately took a longer route and spent fifteen minutes getting near the repair shop.

She checked the time. It was now 7:46 p.m.

On No. 1886, summer nights also fell fairly early.

The distant sound of artillery was gradually fading, but the gunfire was only growing fiercer. The moment Anran looked up, she could see firelight everywhere across Twinmoon City.

The old city district occupied only a small and remote area, so it had largely escaped artillery bombardment, but by the same token, no one dared show themselves at a time like this.

Anran gripped her gun in her right hand and wore her backpack on her chest, with the pistol hidden inside the bag.

Then she stepped out from her hiding place.

Although Anran was not exactly a good person, she still did not want people who had helped her to die because of her, even if they were only “NPCs.” But she herself was an NPC now, and everything she saw and felt was real.

With Aila there, nothing too serious should have happened, right?

The wind grew stronger.

…

[Hello everyone, this is player “Leading the Escape” from Twinmoon City, bringing you a live text-and-video report from the battlefield!]

A live post like that suddenly appeared in the [Night of the Stars Chit-Chat] section of the official Night of the Stars forum.

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The speaker was a player with the ID “Leading the Escape.”

At first, everyone thought it was just someone fishing for clicks. With a name like “Leading the Escape,” charging straight into Twinmoon City, the center of the war, had to be a joke, right?

Quite a few people even thought that maybe this “Leading the Escape” wasn’t in Twinmoon City at all. At this stage, there were simply too few people who could make it to a main city.

Hadn’t there even been a post that very morning saying the Resistance had blasted someone straight back home on the road to Twinmoon City?

Yet although many people ignored the thread, even more clicked in out of curiosity, which kept it on the forum’s front page the whole time.

Most of the time, Zhou Jieyu wasn’t very quick-witted. She couldn’t read the room, and she handled things in a direct, brain-off sort of way. But when it came to this kind of pure, primal online communication, Zhou Jieyu could display a completely different kind of flair.

An eye-catching title drew players in, and excellent content made them stay.

A short video of Twinmoon City’s Security Department fighting the Morningstar Resistance in alley-to-alley combat immediately sparked heated discussion among the players.

[This is war correspondent “Leading the Escape” bringing you an exclusive report from the front lines!]

[No way. You pulled this video off the internet, didn’t you?]

[I’m gonna go verify whether it’s real.]

[So who’s got the upper hand right now?]

[Hey, hey, hey, players on No. 1886, don’t just sit there doing nothing! This battle could very well affect the entire balance of power on No. 1886 and has everything to do with our future development path!]

[Can any other players in Twinmoon City confirm this?]

[You’ve got to be kidding. A planet-shaking major event with only one player involved? Did the game planners lose their minds?]

[Ask me? How should I know!]

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[What’re ya doin’? Hurry on back home already!]

Zhou Jieyu put away the game interface and quietly withdrew from the corner.

The Scout skill [Stealth] was so useful. It minimized the noise she made while moving, lowered her presence, and made traveling through the night absolutely amazing.

The Security Department and the Morningstar Resistance were fighting fiercely, but Zhou Jieyu did not dare go into the center of the battle, so she could only sneak a few peeks from the outer edges.

As she walked, somehow she ended up back in the old city district again.

After thinking it over, Zhou Jieyu decided she had already filmed enough of the war’s large-scale scenes. She might as well record the reactions of Twinmoon City’s residents under wartime conditions.

That was called illustrating the cruelty of war from multiple angles.

As Zhou Jieyu kept walking, somehow she ended up near Colin’s Repair Shop again.

She stood on an overpass, her gaze sweeping across Colin’s Repair Shop.

At that moment, Zhou Jieyu suddenly leaned against the railing in surprise, trying to see clearly what was happening inside.

But she was still a little too far away to make it out.

After a moment’s thought, Zhou Jieyu quickly brought up the recording system, aimed it at the repair shop, and ran down from the overpass.

…

Something was wrong.

As Anran walked straight ahead, the entire street seemed steeped in a stifling atmosphere.

She could not help quickening her pace.

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The moment she reached the repair shop entrance, Anran stopped in her tracks. Her eyes fell to the ground.

The lock on the roll-up shutter had been split in two. There were marks on the ground left by violent scraping, and the shutter itself had been pulled halfway up.

Damn.

Anran immediately realized something was wrong. Someone had broken into the repair shop.

Colin and Aila did not live here, but if they had not gone back at the time, then wouldn’t that mean…

The lights inside the shop were on. There was no one in the front room, but the workshop door stood half-open. At Anran’s height, she could get in just by ducking a little.

But she did not go in rashly.

How many people had foolishly walked into a hole, only for the entrance to be blocked after taking two steps?

Anran picked up the signboard beside her and wedged it beneath the shutter, just enough to keep the door from coming down.

Then she went inside.

Keeping close to the wall, she drew her gun, her gaze constantly shifting between the main entrance and the workshop door.

The sounds of artillery, footsteps, breathing, even heartbeats.

Never before had Anran’s attention been so focused.

When she thought about it, she really was a poor Mechanic. Even now, she was still using guns and knives. It all came down to being broke.

After this war ended, it ought to be time for a period of rapid growth, right?

Clang!

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Just then, a sound suddenly came from the workshop.

Anran’s eyes sharpened at once.

Immediately after that, a low voice sounded from inside. “No! Let go of Aila!”

“That’s not up to you!” someone snorted coldly. “Who would’ve thought you’d hidden yourselves this well? We almost let you get away, hehe.”

“What exactly do you want?” Colin asked through gritted teeth.

“Oh, nothing major. We just…”

Bang!

A person suddenly stuck his head out from the workshop doorway. The moment Anran saw it was someone she did not recognize, she pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.

“Ahhh!!!”

The bullet hit true. That figure dropped straight to the floor, and blood immediately dyed the boards red.

“You successfully killed a Morningstar Resistance soldier and gained 450 experience points.” The game prompt sounded.

So she had guessed right.

Anran moved at once. She did not rush forward blindly, but instead retreated outside at top speed.

“Rabion!”

Hurried footsteps rang out, followed by several bullets spraying out and blasting the front counter to pieces.