Playing the Foolish Beauty in a Deadly Game - Chapter 57

Nelson’s expression was dazed, as if he found it hard to believe the news he had just heard. He was smiling, yet tears streamed down his cheeks incessantly. This sight of him crying and laughing at the same time truly resembled a ridiculous madman.

Nelson looked at his own hands, the very hands that had once choked Lin Qiao, and they began to tremble. He muttered to himself, “The dark shadow that appeared during Lin Qiao’s live-stream—wasn’t it the evil spirit he summoned from this world using a Ouija board?”

The ghostly flames had already reached their vicinity. Yatagarasu, dissatisfied with the surrounding temperature, coiled his tail around the calico cat and the Czech wolf dog, and left a remark: “You fool, just ask your yellow-faced female ghost and you’ll know.”

Nelson didn’t retort even when insulted. After his live-streaming equipment was shattered, the enforcement team of the Woof Woof Church could finally approach, but their immediate priority was to put out the fire. Although this place was abandoned, there were many buildings around. The emptiness wasn’t due to a lack of inhabitants, but because the Church had evacuated people before the live-stream.

Mighty Woof Woof called headquarters through his earpiece, requesting additional firefighters. Before the human representative could respond, the Woof Woof Church representative snatched the microphone. The petite girl stood on a table, emotionally charged: “Forget everything else right now, bring Lin Qiao to the Church!”

The human representative was somewhat displeased: “Please prioritize the people.”

Being human himself, the human representative naturally thought of the human population first when such an incident occurred. The Woof Woof Church representative wasn’t being heartless; as a pet, she naturally prioritized the Church’s interests first. Even though humans and pet representatives gathered together and seemed to have a harmonious relationship, there were still conflicts of interest between them. Humans and pets, cats and dogs, could never truly be equal.

The Meow Meow Church representative had already left. The Woof Woof Church representative asserted forcefully: “Check immediately whether there are any cameras around Lin Qiao’s villa, or if there are any surveillance devices in his villa itself, and hand them over to me.”

The human representative frowned: “Don’t go too far. Lin Qiao is a lawful citizen. What we’re doing is essentially an invasion of his privacy, which is against the law, you know that, right?”

The Woof Woof Church representative retorted: “Then how do you explain that there’s something off about his background?”

The human representative’s expression softened: “There was a mistake in the inquiry just now. We’ve already found out now.”

“He is indeed a citizen of our world. Since he’s an orphan, that’s why we couldn’t find any information about his parents.”

“Look at these records. His resume from childhood to adulthood is quite ordinary. To prevent any falsification, I just sent someone to his former school to inquire.”

“There is indeed such a person. However, Lin Qiao is naturally timid and has a rather introverted personality, like an invisible person, with no real presence.”

The Woof Woof representative was skeptical of this claim, but she couldn’t argue against the evidence. Yet, considering Lin Qiao’s appearance, it was hard to imagine him as an “invisible person with no presence.”

The Woof Woof representative was pleased to hear that Lin Qiao was a citizen: “That’s even better.”

As long as Lin Qiao wasn’t a sacrifice who couldn’t leave here, it was good news for the Church.

The human representative felt a moment of dissatisfaction. The ability of pets to turn into humans had only started ten years ago. Before that, pets were enslaved by humans. Many humans, in order to gain enough emotional value, often kept a large number of pets at home for slaughter at any time. Back then, each pet was like living in hell, with an extremely low status.

After the Church was established and launched a brainwashing campaign, the status of pets had been elevated. Humans, in order to cooperate with pets to jointly resist evil spirits, naturally turned a blind eye to this matter. After all, the alliance of the two could lead to a longer-term development in this world. However, this did not mean that humans wanted to see pets dominate. The idea of animals like cats and dogs being above humans was intolerable to humans.

The human representative was not a fool. He had already guessed the truth from the few words of the cat and dog pet representatives: there was likely a civilian with the ability to turn pets into humans. If the Church got hold of this person, they would no longer be restricted by game rules, and wouldn’t have to participate in the “Best Streamer Competition” with humans. Instead, they could use this human named Lin Qiao to hatch a large number of human forms.

If that were the case, wouldn’t humans be relegated to second-class citizens?

Judging by the Woof Woof representative’s demeanor, it seemed she had already considered Lin Qiao as the Church’s possession. But let’s not forget, Lin Qiao is human and should be under their control.

The human representative suddenly realized something and couldn’t help but curse these animals that had become so cunning; their minds were just different. Now the Woof Woof representative stayed here to negotiate, while the Meow Meow representative had probably already started taking action.

The human representative also quietly sent out the message, but on his face, he continued to negotiate calmly: “By checking Lin Qiao’s consumption records, we found that he had purchased cameras to guard against a player named Izuru.”

The Woof Woof representative was indeed distracted and immediately demanded to see the evidence. This time, the human representative did not stop her. He was also trying to stabilize the Woof Woof representative, hoping that the higher-ups would take action quickly.

Because they needed to monitor the players’ participation in the “Best Streamer Competition,” the management of citizen information was temporarily taken over by the human representative. He indeed projected the footage captured by the cameras inside Lin Qiao’s villa, and after processing, it was played back at an accelerated speed. The footage, which spanned just over ten days, was not extensive.

Lin Qiao’s life was quite simple. He would wake up, prepare breakfast for himself and his cats and dogs, take them for a walk, and then spend a considerable amount of time playing with them. Afterward, he would either read a book or surf the internet. He would prepare lunch, and in the afternoon, he would live-stream for an hour or two. Due to his timid nature, he never went out at night and needed his pets’ company to fall asleep.

Of course, the cameras also captured a lot of supernatural content, but the Doberman and the black cat protected Lin Qiao very well.

The Woof Woof Church representative adjusted her hat and asked, “Isn’t he an orphan? Why did he suddenly become so wealthy? Have you investigated this?”

The human representative nodded: “We have. It’s the inheritance from his biological parents. According to the information we’ve gathered, Lin Qiao was abandoned.”

“His biological parents were of foreign nationality. They only remembered him when they became wealthy and intended to acknowledge him as their son. However, they died in a plane crash on their way back to the country.”

This explanation was perfect, but the Woof Woof Church representative still felt it was too coincidental.

The camera footage showed that Lin Qiao’s life finally had some ups and downs, mainly due to Yatagarasu’s visit and Nelson’s move-in.

The human representative shrugged: “Lin Qiao didn’t purchase any audio recording equipment, so we can’t hear what he’s saying. But from the current footage, there’s nothing extraordinary. We haven’t found anything special about Lin Qiao.”

The Woof Woof Church representative suddenly said, “Wait, play back the footage from the night before last and slow down the speed.”

Although Lin Qiao had installed cameras throughout his villa, he wasn’t so paranoid as to put them in private areas, meaning that what happened in the bedroom was invisible to others.

The reason the Woof Woof Church representative specifically played back the footage from the night before was because that was the night Lin Qiao suddenly turned into a cat, forcing the black cat and the Doberman to revert to human form to take care of him.

The black cat never left the bedroom throughout the entire time, but the Doberman, in human form, went downstairs once, mainly to get some cat-specific pet milk for the now-kitten Lin Qiao.

It was this small detail that caught the attention of the Woof Woof Church representative. She stopped the footage and zoomed in on a particular frame.

“Look at what he’s holding. If I’m not mistaken, it’s pet milk specifically for cats. Isn’t that strange?”

“Number 08 would never drink such a thing. So who is he getting it for?”

The human representative didn’t think it was a big deal: “Isn’t there also a black cat? Is it possible that he’s getting it for the black cat? After all, they seem to have a good relationship.”

The Woof Woof Church representative seemed to have heard the biggest joke in the world: “It’s true that 08 might get food for the black cat, but do you really think the young master of the Meow Meow Church would accept it?”

If it were any other cute and pretty little kitten that would act coquettish and ingratiating, and was friendly to humans and dogs, then it might indeed accept the feeding.

However, the young master of the Meow Meow Church was notorious for being a troublemaker. His reputation stemmed from the fact that, despite his good potential and high intelligence, he had an extremely reclusive personality.

He was not close to his own kind, nor to humans.

It was a rare occurrence last year when he was placed by a player’s side in an attempt to let the black cat master the human form. But this guy didn’t provide a single point of emotional value.

Even when he was slashed on the stomach and nearly died, he didn’t provide a single point of emotional value, meaning he didn’t feel any fear.

The appearance of such an anomaly made it hard to say that he would accept 08’s kindness.

The human representative’s face instantly tensed up as he suddenly thought of a possibility.

That was the player sacrifices could be affected by emotional value, gradually turning into animals and being assimilated by the Church.

Lin Qiao, although a human civilian, had the ability to make animals take on human forms. Could he also be assimilated and turned into a cat?

If that were the case, then his earlier idea of controlling Lin Qiao would be a joke.

Lin Qiao was no longer a human but an animal, completely belonging to pets, to the Church’s gospel, and having nothing to do with humans.

The human representative’s face turned quite interesting. After the Woof Woof Church representative had her fill of watching, she said, “That’s why I said we must capture Lin Qiao and find out exactly what happened to him.”

At the school, Lin Qiao was coiled up and running away with Yatagarasu. Lin Qiao reminded, “Save Dao Zhang.”

Yatagarasu was reluctant: “Why save him?”

Lin Qiao had to reveal: “I suspect that after the final passing line is announced, there will be a battle royale. Dao Zhang is strong, and we will benefit from it.”