Chapter 276: Jin Chengwu's Public Statement Shocks Everyone

'On December 1st, Death Crow will launch its prison break, which gives me nearly two months to prepare. During this time, I still have to figure out a way to gather every faction in Siberia and put on a huge show for the Roundtable...'

Ke Mingqing opened his eyes by the windowsill as he pondered.

The young man propped his head up, his eyes slightly downcast.

Afternoon sunlight elongated the dancing tree shadows, casting them across the bedroom floor. He watched the dappled light sway, zoning out for a moment before shaking his head.

"Forget it. Rather than overthinking, I might as well just enjoy the fight," he said.

As soon as he spoke, he closed his eyes and deployed Theater Puppet No. 1 near the old Xia-Ke residential building. A pale puppet immediately appeared in the alley at the corner of the street.

White Jack opened his eyes and slowly curled his lips into a grin, while the tip of his cane ignited with a faint blue flame.

'I still have to do my weekly quests. Let's randomly select five lucky spectators. Besides, it's been a while since I took Mio out for a spin. She spends all day either staying in the Item Inventory Space or playing with Bai Ziling. I should take her out to find some fun.'

As Ke Mingqing reached this thought, a small cloth doll in a western dress fell from the sky and plopped down onto White Jack's shoulder.

"Why is it you?" Mio asked, turning her head.

"Why is it me?" White Jack tipped down the brim of his top hat and told a homophonic joke. "The truth is this: everyone is destined to face a certain tribulation—a jie. Just like every gay man will encounter his straight-man jie, and everyone starved for affection will crash into their romantic jie—"

He paused.

"And now, your Jack has arrived, Miss Mio."

Before the cloth doll on his shoulder could react, White Jack's top hat began to spin rapidly like a helicopter rotor, carrying him and the small doll up into the sky.

Ten minutes later, the interior of a bank in the Leijing City Center was thick with gunpowder smoke. The corpses of police officers and bank clerks littered the floor, and even passing pedestrians had not been spared.

Before long, six criminals in bizarre outfits slowly walked out of the vault. They wore masks bearing the letters "Z", "K", "Y", "A", "L", and "V" respectively.

The slender, snake-like V-mask criminal said casually, "Easy peasy. The UFO incident just ended and those superheroes are all on vacation. I don't know who could possibly stop us."

The stout, mountain-like A-mask criminal warned in a deep voice, "We should still be careful. I heard the city police recently brought in New Weapons Developed by the Super Hero Company. One wrong move and we're dead."

"What incredibly mob-like dialogue. If you had read even a tiny bit of superhero comics, you wouldn't be spouting such stereotypical small-fry lines. I can only attribute this to the influence of the universe's will."

Suddenly, a playful voice echoed through the air inside the bank, reaching the ears of the six masked men. They immediately froze, stopping in their tracks to look up and scan their surroundings.

They saw that the one speaking was a snow-white top hat, spinning in a corner of the bank.

The next instant, a pale figure flashed over and appeared directly beneath the top hat. A cloth doll in a western dress sat on his shoulder, its mismatched red and blue button eyes staring straight ahead, looking quite terrifying.

"Your Jack has arrived."

White Jack slowly raised his head as he spoke, looking at the V-mask criminal slinging a bag of cash at the very back.

"I hate people who wear V masks the most. It always reminds me of a useless thing called the Bird Judge."

"Isn't it the Owl Judge?" Mio tilted her head.

"The Owl Judge is about to lose his wood, so it's the Bird Judge." White Jack shook his head, holding up a finger.

"Why is he about to lose his wood?" Mio asked again.

White Jack said in all seriousness, "Because his wood is about to fly off to an alien planet, Miss Mio."

Mio nodded in sudden realization.

"Oh, oh, so that's how it is. No wonder he's the Bird Judge."

While the two puppets, one large and one small, told their dry puns, the six masked men looked at each other in dismay before someone finally spoke.

"You're White Jack, right? Aren't we all villains?" the A-mask criminal said. "Can't you cut us some slack?"

"Who's a villain like you?" White Jack put one hand on his hip and waved them off in disgust. "Shoo, shoo. I'm the man who took out the Clock Maker, and I even turned the Leijing Iron Tower into a new tourist attraction. Could we possibly be on the same side?"

"What tourist attraction?" the V-mask criminal asked jokingly.

White Jack said sternly, "The White Perky Butt of the Leijing Iron Tower. You guys haven't even heard of my legend, yet you still dare to hang around this city?"

Uproarious laughter erupted.

The six masked men clutched their stomachs as they laughed, letting out stereotypical, canned villain laughs. Cash leaked out from the opening of the bag, fluttering and dancing in mid-air.

"They're actually making fun of you! Go! White Perky Butt of Leijing, kick them all away!" Mio clenched her tiny fists and waved them vigorously in the air, shouting as if commanding a Pokémon.

White Jack suddenly raised his cane, pressing it straight against his lips in a hushing gesture.

"It's like this, Miss Mio. I have a game I want to play with you."

"What game, what game?" Mio asked.

"Erupt in Silence or Perish in Silence," White Jack chanted faintly.

[Erupt in Silence or Perish in Silence (D-Rank Skill): For the next hour, you will enter a silenced state and be unable to make any sound. Once a sound is made, it will cause a reasonably powerful self-Explosion (dealing damage equal to eighty percent of your own health).]

Mio was dumbfounded. "What's wrong? What happened? Why did White Jack suddenly start quoting aphorisms?"

White Jack flicked up his cane, using its tip to write a line of text in the air:

[Use every method at your disposal to make me speak, but I absolutely won't! The "Make White Jack Speak Challenge" begins now! Ohohohoho! If you can't complete this challenge, we're going to be torn to shreds by these villains in the bank right away!]

Mio was greatly shocked.

"Don't scare me, White Jack!" she cried, hugging his neck tightly and shaking him vigorously. But White Jack just covered his mouth, remaining unmoved, refusing to let out even a single word.

At this moment, the six men inside the bank were glaring intently at White Jack. Proceeding with extreme caution, they slowly closed in. Some gripped nunchucks, others held machetes, their expressions as vicious as wolves.

"What do I do, what do I do? Mio is going to be torn to shreds!"

Mio crossed her short little arms and frowned. Tilting her round head, she pinched her chin with her index and middle fingers formed into the shape of a gun. She pondered bitterly for a moment before shouting at the sky, "Rain Crow is a...!"

"Gay!"

White Jack couldn't hold back and blurted it out.

The next instant, his body abruptly split apart like a cracking wall dropping tiles, followed closely by a berserk and turbulent surge of fire spilling out from within him.

The first to be swallowed by the curtain of flames was Mio. Cupping her face with both hands, her figure twisted in the firelight, striking an expression exactly like Edvard Munch's painting The Scream. The next to be caught in the blast were the six armed thugs closing in for the kill; their cash and their little lives were completely annihilated in this cold-joke performance of White Jack's. Finally, half the bank was reduced to ash right along with them.

"White Jack, you big liar—" Someone's scream was drowned out in the roaring Explosion.

The world fell dead silent.

"Alright, alright, your Uncle Jack was just playing a joke on you. How could he really blow you up? No wonder he said he was your jie, look how scared you got."

In another corner of the world, Ke Mingqing opened his eyes with a curled lip. He lifted the small cloth doll Mio out from his Item Inventory Space and placed her on his shoulder.

[Detected that the player has killed four "D-Rank" super-human species and two "C-Rank" super-human species, earning a total of—1,800 experience points!]

[Current level progress: Lv. 28 (8,300/14,000 experience points)]

"Wuuu, Master is still the best," Mio whined, shedding tiny pearly tears as she sprawled across Ke Mingqing's shoulder and hugged his neck.

Ke Mingqing covered her face.

"That's enough. Don't rub your tears all over my neck, or I'll exile you over to Giovanni's side to play house with the little kid."

"Mio likes playing house, and Mio really likes little Ling too."

"After all, you've kept her company for two lifetimes."

Ke Mingqing spoke absentmindedly while silently opening his quest panel, claiming the rewards for today's two newly refreshed weekly quests.

[Congratulations, you have completed Weekly Quest 1: Kill at least five super-human species. You have obtained the quest reward of one freely distributable Attribute Point!]

[Congratulations, you have completed Weekly Quest 2: Run 5,000 meters. You have obtained the quest reward: Player level increased directly by 2, and one chance to use the reward wheel.]

[Current level progress: Lv. 30 (8,300/15,000 experience points)]

[Prompt: Gain one Attribute Point for every 5 player levels increased. You have obtained one randomly distributable Attribute Point.]

[Currently, there are a total of two Attribute Points waiting to be distributed. Distribute them immediately?]

Ke Mingqing raised his hand and pressed [Yes]. He opened his personal Attribute Panel and quickly allocated the two Attribute Points.

[Congratulations, you have consumed 2 Attribute Points. Your "Spirit" attribute has been upgraded from B+ Rank to A Rank.]

[Player "Ke Mingqing" currently has the following attributes: Strength: A; Agility: A+; Spirit: A]

'The system doesn't allow one attribute to lag two ranks behind the others. As long as all three attributes are A Rank, I can upgrade one attribute to S Rank or above,' Ke Mingqing thought.

"Not bad! Two months from now, Master will directly transform into a hexagonal big rig and run over Zeus with a 'beep beep beep'!" Mio muttered. Having spent these past few days lounging in the theater space watching Ke Mingqing play video games, she had picked up quite a few gaming terms. For example, in games, something like her master that had both high stats and strong mechanics was generally called a "hexagonal warrior."

"If only it were that easy. There's always a higher mountain," Ke Mingqing muttered as he closed his Personal Panel and opened the lottery interface instead.

He and Mio put their heads together, curiously eyeing the six sectors on the prize wheel.

The prizes were: "5000 Superman Coins", "10,000 experience points", "One-Time Skill Card: Local Earthquake", "One-Time Skill Card: Hedgehog's Body", "One-Time Dungeon Double Reward Card X3", "E-Grade Item: Super Hero Company Employee Pass", and "One-Time Magical Girl Transformation Card".

Ke Mingqing raised an eyebrow.

"Another One-Time Magical Girl Transformation Card. But since the future me has already vanished, if I use this card, will I just turn into a regular magical girl...?"

He grabbed Mio's little hand as he thought.

"Master... are you going to use Mio's lifespan again?" Mio looked at him pitifully.

"I'll use my own this time. I don't have much time left anyway," Ke Mingqing said casually.

The next moment, the doll's small hand was forced to press the "Consume One Usage Attempt" option. The blood-red pointer moved, spinning rapidly on the wheel until it formed a blur.

Before long, the pointer slowly ground to a halt, coming to rest on the prize in the sixth sector.

[Congratulations, you have successfully drawn the one-time item "One-Time Magical Girl Transformation Card".]

Ke Mingqing tilted his head.

'Now I can fulfill Kuroki Hitomi's wish and let her see my true magical girl form,' he thought.

"Master likes wearing women's clothes? Mio can give you her little skirt."

"Shut up."

"Understood." Mio lowered her head.

"I need to figure out how to gather all the factions in Siberia. I don't have much time left."

"Does Master want Mio to help you think?" Mio raised her head, looking at him eagerly.

"No need. Go back first, and don't interrupt my thinking."

"Understood," Mio said disheartenedly, shrinking straight back into the Item Inventory.

In the empty, quiet bedroom, Ke Mingqing toyed with his phone, his head lowered as he thought of a countermeasure. 'First, I have to use the identity of White Jack to tell Big Brother and Zorro, guiding them to Siberia; it's the same for Second Sister and Third Sister. After stopping Second Sister's plan, I can shift their target to the Roundtable, guiding them to Siberia and telling them the Superhero Roundtable Council will appear there...'

'Then, finally, there are the players.'

'This is the hardest part. How do I lure the players to Siberia on that same day? If they act before then, what do I do?'

As his thoughts reached this point, Ke Mingqing looked at the Hupu forum on his phone, and his eyes suddenly lit up. He looked up from the screen, his gaze shifting to the forum icon in the top right corner of his vision.

He muttered, "Oh, right—I can just use the Player Forum. I almost forgot I have a voice too, after being a mute player for the past few months."

"As long as I use the name of the Red Name Player 'Jin Chengwu' and publicly announce my prison break plan on the forum, it should attract the other players to some extent."

"Taking a step back, even if they don't trust me, they'll definitely still come to Siberia to check out the situation. Since the system shortened the mission time limit, the final deadline is no longer December 29th, but the early morning of December 14th."

"So, the prison break plan is only thirteen days away from the final deadline. By that time, the other players will have no room left to delay; they'll basically be forced to act."

"And they also understand that as long as they wipe out the Superhero Roundtable Council, which represents the world's strongest combat power, destroying the remaining super-human species will just be a matter of time."

Thinking of this, Ke Mingqing took a deep breath and raised his hand to tap the forum icon.

The complex forum interface instantly opened before his eyes. He checked his forum name, changed it to "Jin Chengwu", and then opened the [Post Thread] option.

At this moment, he suddenly thought, 'Oh, right, I wonder if Kuroki Hitomi will expose me after she sees my forum post.'