CH 40

Xiao Lan was walking through the ballroom when her eyes accidentally caught sight of the vase in the centre. Mrs Bella said at the time that the vase was hundreds of years old and had been made by a famous craftsman of the time.

Simply put, it’s worth it, it’s very valuable, it’s very valuable.

Could it also have a little value in Mrs Bella’s heart?

Xiao Lan stopped in his tracks and rushed decisively to where the vase was, extending his sinister claws –

“Eh, Xiao Lan, wait for you to let go-” came Wang Taidi’s voice from afar, accompanied by the sound of the walls scraping together making it a little hard to hear.

“Pop-” a crisp shattering sound rang out, and the valuable vase was already lying in pieces on the floor, dead to the world.

Xiao Lan then looked back at the Wang family brothers who had jumped down from above, ” Taidi? What did you just say?”

“That …… flower …… bottle ……” The second half of Wang Taidi’s sentence came late.

As if he saw a huge sum of money with wings flying away in front of him, Wang Taidi leaned on his big brother and cried, “The vase is so lovely, why did you smash it! You cold, heartless demolition machine!!!”

Xiao Lan looked at the system prompts that popped up one after another with a satisfied face: “Because, fighting for poverty is the greatest joy in life.”

“Mrs Bella was angry about destroying the set, but she was already angry anyway.”

“Poverty value increased by 24.8 million, did you feel the joy of poverty”

“Poverty value exceeds 50 million, skill [Poverty Can’t Limit My Imagination] upgraded to LV.2”

The vase is worth more than Xiao Lan could have ever imagined, and the skill upgrade was a pleasant surprise. And the joy that poverty brings is more than enough to keep you going.

The current skills of Xiao Lan are as follows.

[Name: Poverty Can’t Limit My Imagination (Bound)]

[Abilities: 1. Imagine an ability and give it to yourself within five minutes, the poorer you are the more powerful it becomes (lv.2) 2. Enhance the player’s physical qualities depending on the level of poverty, and have a chance to obtain random items when attacking targets (passive)]

[Cooling time: 24h].

[Description: I may be poor, but I can dream! This is the last stubbornness of the poor]

Xiao Lan notices the phrase “Chance to get random items when attacking targets”, does this mean he has a chance to be a kryptonite player who spends props at will too!

He instantly felt a sense of hope for the future, although he didn’t know what the odds of that were.

Wang Ke patted his silly brother on the shoulder and reassured him, “It probably has something to do with Xiao Lan’s skills, he probably has the same money-related skills as you.”

Xiao Lan looks at Wang Ke and smiles without saying anything.

The senior player was really sharp and guessed his skill type straight away.

Wang Taidi silently thought about the battle between him and Xiao Lan, both poor why is there such a big gap between us?

Anyway, the vase was already broken and several people did not want to dwell on it, so after a few words they went straight in the direction of the basement.

—

The building’s position on the ground floor has not changed much, except for the ceiling and walls which have moved a bit, and the floor is basically still in place.

It is still some distance from the basement marked on the Edmund line map.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps gradually approaching towards where they were, accompanied by the sound of breaking masonry, as if they were demolishing homes as they advanced.

The sound of footsteps, which shook the ground slightly, could not have been heard here by anyone but Madame Bella.

Several people were instantly alert and looked towards where the sound was coming from.

The visitor was indeed Madame Bella, but looked a little different.

Xiao Lan noticed that her movements had changed. The previous Lady Bella, even though she was a huge and burly figure, still had a certain innate grace in her manner. But now this Lady Bella was much rougher, even a little less human.

What is different is her eyes, which were originally two-toned, one from Bella and one from Anne, but are now blood-red, with a fierce look that makes it hard to read the emotions contained within.

Xiao Lan had the feeling that this “person” in front of him might not be the same Mrs Bella they had seen in the past few days.

There is a name that comes to mind – Oti.

The consciousness that now controls this body is probably the one that compelled Bella, Oti.

The scarlet eyes of Madame Bella, controlled by Oti, locked on the men in front of her and she said in a deep voice, “Want to escape, my little snack?”

With that said and without waiting for the players to say anything, she lifted her foot and stomped hard on the ground.

A violent shockwave surged towards the players, shattering the ground instantly and shattering the walls under such force.

Xiao Lan instantly mobilised his whole body muscles and retreated towards the back with all his might, while [it was a dagger tainted with poison] appeared in his hand.

Luo’s ghostly figure followed Xiao Lan without a step behind.

On the other hand, Wang Ke picked up his brother and slung him over his shoulder, while retreating quickly to avoid the first wave of impact.

The entire corridor had been disfigured in an instant. The carpet, which had cost a fortune, had been torn to shreds and was mixed in with the wreckage, making it look desolate.

“Mrs Bella is not a soft touch when it comes to dismantling a home.” Wang Taidi expertly finds a safe corner to nestle in.

“Money can really do whatever it wants.” Xiao Lan sent out a tirade against the bourgeoisie.

Unfortunately, the debris on this ground does not translate into poverty values at all.

Wang Ke settled his brother, and in an instant the long bloody knife appeared in his hand, and his first action was – to give himself a vicious slash.

This action startled Xiao Lan: “!”

Wang Ke also knew he was acting a bit creepy, and to avoid his little friend misunderstanding that he had any special hobby, he took the time to say, “This is my skill [Blood Frenzy], the more injured I am, the stronger I can play the battle.”

“I never minded people knowing my skills. Any damage that doesn’t kill me ends up making me stronger anyway.”

It’s a berserker skill that goes well with Wang Ke’s hard-hitting style of play.

And at the same time, Xiao Lan quietly lamented in his mind: why is your skill name so handsome?

Wang Taidi may have had the same idea as he did.

Wang Ke opened his skill and without further ado, leapt straight up and flew close to Lady Bella.

Lady Bella also spotted the player who had dared to provoke her, and she threw a furious punch, which once again blew the dust from the ground.

Wang Ke deftly dodged Mrs Bella’s fist, which landed on the ground and made a huge crater, so you can imagine what would have happened if it had landed on a human body.

As Lady Bella’s stance was too old to turn back, Wang Ke swept her blade across the room with a sharp flash, and a bloody streak appeared on Lady Bella’s neck.

The knife cut straight through Madame Bella’s neck, making a deep cut that would have decapitated her head.

Black blood gushes out and Madame Bella’s movements hesitate for a moment.

On the other side, Luo also leapt forward, dark claws extending from his fingertips.

He took advantage of the momentary pause in Lady Bella’s body to move in close, his claws ripping into her chest with a vengeance. The claws were so sharp that they cut right through the musculature, even to the point where the beating heart could be seen.

“Ah-” A pained cry escaped with difficulty from Lady Bella’s shattered throat.

The next moment, however, the cut on her neck surprisingly healed with a speed visible to the naked eye, and the hideous wound on her chest and abdomen squirmed and healed, bones, muscles and skin coming together again like water that had been cut briefly.

In a few short breaths, it was about to return to its original state.

Meanwhile, behind Madame Bella, Xiao Lan’s blade has arrived.

[This is a dagger tainted with poison] pierces deep into the side of Lady Bella’s neck, slashing the healing wound again and at the same time activating the effect of the prop.

“[This is a dagger tainted with poison] deals damage to Lady Bella with additional toxicity: coloured pesticide”

Xiao Lan was a bit confused, but the dagger was a bit too much of a title.

Insecticide is a fucking poison? Does it work wonders on moths? And Mrs Bella is clearly not a moth, she doesn’t seem to react to the poison at all.

Seeing that Madame Bella’s wounds were about to recover again, Xiao Lan put aside her unnecessary thoughts and added a second stab to the wound.

The cut was so vicious that it ripped her throat open so hard she couldn’t even make a sound.

“[This is a dagger tainted with poison] deals damage to Lady Bella, with the added poison of a sharp-nosed pit viper.”

This time it’s finally a proper drastic poison.

Instantly, Lady Bella’s movements became slower and her breathing heavier, and she seemed to begin to suffer from vertigo, while her wounds bled and healed less quickly.

Seeing this, Xiao Lan swung a third blade in an attempt to decapitate her.

The sharp blade was instead blocked by Madame Bella’s raised hand, and the dagger slashed hard across her arm, leaving a bruise and grey wound.

“[This is a dagger tainted with poison] inflicts damage on Lady Bella with additional toxicity: hydrofluoric acid.”

Hydrofluoric acid, an intensely corrosive liquid, is even more powerful than sulphuric acid.

The hydrofluoric acid seeped and corroded through Mrs Bella’s wound, penetrating deeper and deeper, destroying tissue and dissolving cells along the way, the greenish-grey marks expanding on Mrs Bella’s arm and heading straight for the bones.

Within moments, though, her arms were out of control.

When the players saw this, they prepared to attack again.

The pain was so intense that Madame Bella almost went mad, and a blood-red mist spilled out of her body.

Seeing this mist Xiao Lan intuited that something was wrong and quickly retreated towards the rear.

As the crowd annotated, a blood-coloured mist formed a shadow over Lady Bella’s body. A figure taller than Madame Bella appeared, enveloping Madame Bella like a shell.

Is this what Oti is all about.

“I can’t believe I was allowed to show up.” Oti’s scarlet eyes looked at the players, “What a troublesome bunch of lucky people.”

Under Oti’s power, the wounds on Madame Bella’s body are healing rapidly and she will soon be back to a completely unharmed state.

To ensure a smooth repair, the blood-coloured mist began to form a hovering rapier towards the players.

Wang Ke dodged while giving a “chortle”: “The immortality system is really too much trouble.”

Xiao Lan also found it problematic that an average person could be killed immediately by ingesting 1.5g of HFCS. The dagger contained significantly more than that, yet it only managed to destroy one of Mrs Bella’s arms.

What’s even more annoying is that she comes with a heal, or a full status resurrect-in-place kind of thing, which is just cheating.

Xiao Lan dodges a bloody sword and asks his buddies, “What do you use against such unscientific things?”

“Child’s urine?” It was Wang Taidi’s voice.

“You piss one on me now?!” He was answered by Wang Ke’s irascible growl.

Wang Taidi said weakly, “It doesn’t have to be me, brother, you can also-”

“You shut up!” Wang Ke interrupts his brother’s continued revelations and would have picked up Wang Taidi for a loving lecture if he hadn’t had Oti in front of him.