Master of the Stars

Chapter 17: Killing Time (Part 2/2)

Right now the interface of the game had already begun load and Luo Nan had already determined in his heart to not get caught up with Zhang Yingying on this matter. He glanced at the wind speed and temperature data, issuing the gesture to advance forward.

Heiya and his pet, a mechanized dog named Nubi who carried two ammo supplies, began to climb towards the highest hill in the surrounding terrain as chosen by Luo Nan.

Zhang Yingying smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t manipulate her character at all. Her mutant type character, Feng Huang, cruised in the air. She carried the posture of control.

Luo Nan understood her intentions; she was abandoning the flexibility of tactics, directly facing off to determine victory. This was undoubtedly the situation where the character Heiya would be able to bring out the most combat strength.

As a newbie, Luo Nan recognized that she was giving him a handicap. He controlled Heiya to set up a weapons platform on the peak of the hill, completely sacrificing his ability to move as a result. His maximum possible firepower was now realized.

When all his preparations were complete, Luo Nan directly made a taunting gesture without saying a single word.

Zhang Yingying sneered, changing her hand gesture for the first time. She controlled the giant wasp-like Feng Huang to blaze across like a hurricane. The character had already passed the center divide of the battlefield in the blink of an eye.

Right now the two were marked to be a distance of 987 meters apart.

900. 800. 700…...

Heiya’s light railgun began to explode forth, drawing glistening trajectories under the sky.

Zhang Yingying’s grew excited all of sudden. She declared impatiently:

“I’ll smash you to pieces!”

“......”

No matter how silly Zhang Yingying was being, the control skill that she was demonstrating within the game was certainly far and beyond that of Luo Nan.

Feng Huang’s enormous body charged forward, dodging and fluttering between the ballistic shells that grew in concentration. The body broke through the 500 meter barrier between life and death. It broke through the consecutive variations of barrages, causing the arduous and elaborately knitted bullet shield to crumble to pieces.

Nubi got corroded by Feng Huang’s corrosion and his ammunition exploded to waste. Heiya had the light transparent wing of the wasp cross over his neck, directly KOing him.

“First blood!”

From across the table, Luo Nan saw Zhang Yingying wag her index finger at him.

“Do you want to change characters?”

Luo Nan spoke not a word, selecting the rematch option.

Zhang Yingying took up the challenge with smiles and giggles. When their characters were deployed to the battlefield, she felt a sensation. She raised her head and was met with Luo Nan’s gaze piercing through the hologram and falling on her face. That gaze had not moved for quite a while.

She lifted her chin slightly and barraged Luo Nan with blinking eyes: “What do you think? Beautiful right!”

Whether she was referring to her looks or to her control skills, well that's where opinions may differ.

Luo Nan didn’t reply. His gaze swayed slightly, but soon he withdrew his eyes back.

Miss Zhang Yingying was naturally beautiful; she wasn’t scared of people looking at her. Moreover, there was a game to play. She had to wait till she played her fill before talking more.

Light and shadow crisscrossed and blurred within the closed room. Time followed a different form to flow pass at lightning speeds.

The battle in the wilderness didn't stop since it had begun. The game continued until a phone call interrupted things to inform Zhang Yingying of the latest news.

“The investigations are done…… What time is it? Damn, we battled long through the night.”

The register below the hologram displayed the game round, game time, and real time all at once. One could see that it was already 4:50 AM on the 28th. Luo Nan and Zhang Yingying had already duked it out for 200 rounds to take up nearly 7 hours of time.

“It sure is a godly work of art to be able to kill this much time……”

Luo Nan took a few deep breaths. He wasn’t tired from playing the game for such a long time, on the contrary his brain was situated in an extremely excited state.

Right now he needed to do something.

Luo Nan picked up his notebook, flipped to a blank page, and directly put his pen to the page. Lines from the fluorescent pen had already formed an approximate outline withinn a short dozen of minutes. The style was the same “sketching” style as before. The details weren’t refined nor polished; they only portrayed the body movements of the character with a relatively typical background.

A lady with blurred features rested her chin on one hand and was signing hand gestures with the other hand within the scene. She appeared to be somewhat lazy at first glance, but the tension in her body spoke to all:

She was fully focused and was overflowing with the flavor of excitement.

She was immersed in a game. It didn’t matter whether it was Ten Days in the Wilderness or the drinking Finger Guessing Game, she would always carry this air.

She was still assessing her opponent. Perhaps this air stemmed from her intense desire to win, or perhaps it was from a different objective.

Luo Nan paused his pen slightly, determining that this was the result he wanted.

Luo Nan had already observed Zhang Yingying for a total of 7 hours starting from last night at 10 PM. The speed that he drew the picture was in opposition with the amount of time he spent observing his subject. This was undoubtedly an atypical way of doing things.

Anyway, Luo Nan believed that drawing Zhang Ying Ying was worth it. Zhang Yingying was absolutely a worthy drawing subject in his opinion.

But there was one more thing that still needed to be displayed.

Luo Nan’s pen hovered in the air without falling. It wasn’t that he couldn’t grasp what to draw, but rather if the pen were to fall, then a certain bearing would be clearly displayed…… He could still wait, still observe some more.

He faced the sketch, having sunk into contemplation.

Zhang Yingying had already finished her call. She closed the game with some regrets and spoke to Luo Nan: “You can go home now. The only thing is that flying car Phantom needs to be left behind for evidence…… Oh that’s right. You wanted to go straight to school? You don’t want to go home and sleep for a bit?”

Luo Nan grunted and he continued to ponder with his head down. The tip of the pen was about to drop.

How could anyone lock Zhang Yingying down when she becomes curious? She immediately moved closer to take a look and became stunned in place when she saw the drawing. She instinctively reached out her hand to touch Luo Nan’s forehead:

“Hey, are you trying to pick me up?”

Luo Nan didn’t avoid her nor did he raise his head. He let Zhang Yingying’s warm palm stick lightly to his forehead. The pen in his hand began to sketch out more intricate lines.

Kids these days are this precocious!?

Zhang Yingying simply wanted to take her hand and cover Luo Nan’s eyes when she was faced with Luo Nan’s playing-it-cool appearance. But the subtle variations atop the notebook sucked all her attention away half a second later.

The characteristics of fluorescent pens made it so that it was difficult to embody shadowy shades of lines in accumulation. But through the use of empty space, Luo Nan was able to present a vague billowing of intricate details. It was as if flowing clouds were curling around the lady’s body.

And thus it was like so.

Even Zhang Yingying didn’t realize it herself, but when was playing the game to its climax, the air of her body suddenly stirred. Something suddenly became unconcealed to appear in the external world.

Even ordinary people wouldn’t necessarily be able to discover this mystery even when using scanning devices like when they first entered this zone. The problem stemmed from when Luo Nan had been drawn out by the burning wraith into an out-of-body experience. The senses of his eyes, ear, nose, and tongue were carved into the special spiritual plane. He was now able to see some inconceivable things.

The room’s atmosphere was extremely tranquil, seemingly to the point of congealing. Luo Nan continued to maintain his previous tempo. He paused his pen, he collected his pen, then he put on the inductive tip. He placed the pen back to his pen case, pressed on the somewhat-unresponsive binder boosters to open the metal binding rings, and took out the sketch.

Once he did all of that, Luo Nan took a slightly hidden breath of air. He raised his head and presented the sketch with both hands: “Lawyer Zhang. This sketch is for you. It’s my thanks for today’s, no yesterday’s exchanges.”

“......”

Zhang Yingying didn’t respond immediately. She was staring at the sketch with its unclear features as if she was staring at a mirror. She subconsciously raised her hand and moved her hand to match the body position corresponding to the mirror.

Her fingertips streaked across, catching nothing but empty air. Only one who was spiritually tempered a hundred times through a thousand hammers could receive the information corresponding to the origins of one's body.

“My Bai Hong...is like this?”

Zhang Yingying was stunned for a full ten seconds before she abruptly awoke. Her gaze fell deadlocked onto Luo Nan’s face:

“You’re…… a psychic!?”