Chapter 271: The Countdown

The human psyche can only withstand so much before it breaks, no matter how strong the mental defenses are.
Yan Chuan’s knee throbbed with pain.
He should clearly be in the prison now, witnessing the most thrilling part of the script to complete the side quest he had just received.
He needed to gather background for the script.
Instead, he was here, talking nonsense with an NPC.
Thinking about his task, Yan Chuan steadied his mind.
He patted Leo’s shoulder, his voice slightly muffled, “I need to go down.”
Leo seemed to ignore what he said, still gripping the back of Yan Chuan’s knees tightly.
They continued walking forward, with the supply ship docked near the shore.
Yan Chuan raised his voice a bit more and said, “I need to go down, back to the prison.”
Leo remained silent, and Yan Chuan shook his shoulder, muttering, “I want to go back to find Hesse, to see how he and Ariel are doing.”
He continued, “And Dr. Navey, his situation should also…” not good.
Yan Chuan still had to go back to see how the “monster” was doing, what its true form actually looked like.
That “thing” in the abandoned room.
Leo shook his head.
“No.” He rejected Yan Chuan’s request and tightened his embrace even more, lifting him slightly higher.
Yan Chuan was jostled by him, losing his train of thought.
“It’s dangerous there, don’t go.”
Leo redirected back to their previous topic.
“It’s not that I find you troublesome,” his tone was steady and low, resonating in Yan Chuan’s ear, “You’re very smart, never dragging anyone down.”
“You also have great courage…”
Leo complimented Yan Chuan in a plain tone.
Yan Chuan couldn’t help but feel a bit flushed.
Was Leo… praising him?
“Stop it,” Yan Chuan cut him off promptly, “Then what’s the reason?”
Was it because he was smart and brave… that Leo wanted to save him?
Yan Chuan didn’t understand the meaning of Leo’s sudden words.
Was he perhaps trying to flatter him to make him give up the idea of returning to the prison?
Yan Chuan looked suspiciously at Leo’s profile and shook his shoulder again.
The delicate and beautiful Eastern beauty rested on Leo’s back, expressing his demands with a hint of dissatisfaction.
“I want to go back,” he said a bit flustered, “I can’t just leave like this.”
He had to wait until the side quest was completed; otherwise, what would happen to his side quest?
Yan Chuan shook Leo’s shoulder harder.
He pointed towards the prison, stating his demand, “Do you see the prison over there? I must return first.”
However, Leo firmly shook his head.
“You can’t go back,” his tone was calm, but his words shocked Yan Chuan, “The research facility was built buried underground with hundreds of kilograms of explosives; they have already been ignited.”
Leo glanced at his wristwatch, pressed a few buttons, and uttered a few words.
“Countdown: five minutes.”
[In this script, the husbands of the wife all died together, blown to the sky (soybean smile)]
[Ah! So fast progress, no one has really won the wife’s heart yet]
[The wife is so brave and smart, how can she be a burden? Otherwise, how could she refuse the bad man’s request at the beginning, protect the boss (although she was deceived), and later take the missions seriously while acting as a sympathetic little thief… awarding points 100*10]
[Countdown: Four minutes and fifty seconds]
Yan Chuan’s expression turned dazed.
Explosives… a five-minute countdown?
He understood every word, but put together, he felt a bit confused.
Was the prison on Isolation Island about to be blown to smithereens?
And the people in the prison, along with his task?
In shock, Yan Chuan even forgot to struggle.
“Why…?”
He was being carried by Leo and could only utter this meaningless question.
Why was the prison being blown up now?
Yan Chuan couldn’t comprehend.
At this moment, Leo had already taken him to the supply ship docked at the shore.
He greeted the crew onboard and handed the still-dazed Yan Chuan to them.
Leo spoke to the crew in an obscure local dialect, murmuring a few words.
Yan Chuan couldn’t understand, only noticing the tanned crew member nodding at Leo and smiling at him.
“Let’s go,” Leo turned back to Yan Chuan, “We can set off now.”
“Your destination is here,” he mentioned the name of a small town, “which is where you came from, right?”
Yan Chuan hesitantly nodded.
The script simply stated where he had come from.
“But…”
Yan Chuan frowned, wanting to ask Leo.
Didn’t he know that everything here would be leveled? Didn’t he want to escape together?
Wasn’t he afraid of… dying?
As a participant, Yan Chuan knew the repeated warnings from the forums.
The scripts provided by the escape variety show were all false worlds, and the NPCs within them were not real people; participants shouldn’t treat themselves as the characters in the script just because they had to play corresponding roles.
They needed to complete tasks and return to reality.
But the NPCs had no idea that their world was a facade.
Did Leo want to survive?
Yan Chuan couldn’t understand; he turned back to glance at the empty cabin, confirming there wasn’t any cliché “choose one” or “save one” plot.
Leo had already come this far, yet he was still sending him off and didn’t want to come with him?
… He would still let the crew take him to the small town.
Yan Chuan couldn’t wrap his head around it.
But time was running out.