Chapter 3157: Could He Actually Be a Good Person
Xu Huo's face was unreadable, neither happy nor angry. He waved his hand. "Kid, come closer."
The nerves of everyone around were stretched to the breaking point, but neither the child's parents nor the other guests dared to step forward. When the child mustered the courage to move ahead, two players couldn't hold back and rushed over.
Xu Huo sat on the sofa and raised a hand slightly. The two were swept away, crashing heavily into the crowd. Those hit by them cried out in surprise, but in the next second, they too fell to the ground with blood streaming from their eyes and noses.
The hall was chaotic for a moment, then quickly fell silent. The child could no longer hold back her tears, but she still persisted in walking up to Xu Huo.
"Why do you say I'm a bad person?" Xu Huo leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, lowering his gaze to look at her.
"Because you hit people and cut their necks." The child seemed less afraid now and spoke smoothly.
"So that makes me a bad person?" Xu Huo continued.
"The teacher said that those with strength should help those without, not bully them." The child's voice grew louder and clearer. "You bully people, so you're a bad person!"
Xu Huo smiled and reached out to pat her on the head. "Then you'd better remember that."
Children don't overthink things like adults do. She said firmly, "I will definitely remember. In the future, I'm going to be a good person and protect good people from being bullied by bad people!"
"Take her back." Xu Huo gestured for her parents to come forward.
The couple scrambled over, one holding and one covering, working together to take the child away.
Just as the people in the hall breathed a sigh of relief, Xu Huo, who had leaned back on the sofa, raised his hand again. A player hidden among the crowd was forcibly dragged out, pulled directly to the open space in front of the sofa. His shoulders were pressed down, and he knelt heavily on the floor tiles.
The kneeling player's face was pale, not from pain—he was a B-rank player, his body not that fragile. He wanted to run, but found his body as if disconnected. Not only could he not command his limbs to move, he couldn't even feel them anymore!
Looking up again, he begged, "Don't kill me..."
"It seems you know what you've done." Xu Huo said. After announcing the rule of silence, he had placed a slight suggestion on the children in the hall, making it difficult for them to make noise easily. The little girl had been able to run out because this kneeling Mental Evolver had made a small move.
"I thought your little trick would make for a decent show." He hadn't expected the child to be used to test his limits.
The man was too clever for his own good.
"Considering how hard you've worked, I'll give you a chance." Xu Huo grabbed three grapes from the fruit plate and threw them on the ground. "Green means lose a hand, half-green means lose a foot, fully purple means lose your head. You choose."
The man laughed. "Can I pick the green grape?"
The person before him was a powerful Mental Evolver; his own meager skills were nothing in comparison. So even though the answer was clearly laid out before him, as long as Xu Huo didn't want him to live, he would never be able to pick the green grape.
He didn't argue. His probing method was shameful, but it had succeeded. Xu Huo wasn't a man without limits—that was enough!
"You can." Xu Huo agreed easily, then with a wave, severed his left hand. Without even lifting an eyelid, he gestured for him to step aside.
The pressure on the man released. He stood up, clutching his bleeding wrist, didn't bother to pick up his severed hand, and silently withdrew from the hall.
Outside the hall, the middle-aged man who had left earlier rushed over. Seeing his severed hand, a look of pain flashed across his face, then he told him that their plan had succeeded. When the sky brightened again, the entire district's structure would change.
The one-handed man nodded with relief and looked back into the hall. He wasn't stupid; he could see that Xu Huo's real purpose was probably to find someone. Now that they had tested that he wasn't a mad, bloodthirsty killer, they might not need to do anything at all. They just had to wait quietly for him to leave.
In District 009, few powerful Outer Zone Players were willing to settle down.
Time passed minute by minute. The lottery game in the hall lasted only a little over ten minutes. Xu Huo seemed tired and sat there with his eyes closed, resting.
No one was naive enough to think he was actually asleep. So the guests, along with the players who had received the news, obediently stayed where they were.
It wasn't until the light of dawn appeared on the horizon that Xu Huo's figure vanished from beneath the giant emblem of District 009. Along with him, the barrier sealing the city also disappeared.
The players in the hall were the first to spread the news. Since he had previously left to kill people, they waited until word came back that the blockade barrier was also gone before confirming that he might have really left.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and couldn't wait to leave the Government Building. As the internal and external players pieced together the information, they discovered that among those who had suffered mental attacks, some had actually survived. The players who had tried to attack Xu Huo had all died cleanly. In this situation, it was hard to say he had made a mistake or been careless; it could only be that he had made a selection among those he killed.
"Could he actually be a good person?" Some family members of players who had come out of the Government Building were well-informed. They were furious upon hearing this, but they didn't dare say much, let alone curse. The words "speak and die" were like a tight band around their heads, something they wouldn't forget anytime soon.
However, after dawn, when the established fact of military personnel changes across the district came out, no one cared anymore about that Outer Zone Player who had appeared and disappeared inexplicably. Some families were broken, some experienced earth-shattering changes, some were ecstatic... On the Message Collection Terminal, news surged like waves, with updates on war and casualties appearing constantly. Looking at it all, one could only see that the saying "only one's own people can strike hard at one's own people" held true.
District 009 was like water that had just boiled. Now it seemed to have calmed down, but internally it was still at a high temperature. Players and ordinary people everywhere were tense. It wasn't until evening, when the new District Government leadership took office and publicly abolished a series of management regulations, that the heat of this boiling pot began to spew outward.
The people in the Capital Mansion knew the situation had changed, but neither the beneficiaries nor those who had luckily escaped being purged opposed the abolition of these regulations. There were always people beyond people, and freaks beyond freaks. Who knew if someone else would see these rules and "make good use" of them?
Talking sense until your lips were worn out was useless. Teaching someone a lesson once was enough.
Xu Huo was now in a small town in the south of District 009. It was a coastal town, a tourist destination. Blue sea and green sky—any glance outward brought a good mood.
Sitting down at a small shop by the beach, he said to the busy woman inside, "Boss, give me an iced fruit juice."