Silver Hand laughed, but then his expression turned cold and his eyes filled with cruelty and murderous intent, "Oh...you make a good point, but I refuse."
Gao Xin felt his heartbeat skyrocket, overwhelmed with immense sorrow.
His life and death were firmly in the hands of Silver Hand, which was unbearably painful.
As he had said before, no matter how much effort he put in, a single thought or word from someone else could render all his efforts futile.
This feeling was terrible; Gao Xin was extremely unwilling but powerless.
Oh, a single 'Oh', a rejection without needing any reason—what utter disdain.
Seeing that Silver Hand was about to kill him for no reason, Gao Xin's fury surged; since he was going to die anyway, he raised his head and glared back coldly.
"Fuck you. Did you think you were the last one standing, unable to defeat me? Trash."
Gao Xin shouted hysterically, cursing outright! Damn it, he was going to die, he didn't care who it was.
Silver Hand was taken aback, seemingly thoughtful, then suddenly the killing intent disappeared, reverting to calm.
He grabbed Gao Xin and strode into the mansion's hall, casually picked up a corpse, and grabbed a rat collar.
With a click, Silver Hand decisively wore the collar around his neck.
He then quickly removed the cat collar and fastened it around Gao Xin's neck.
Everything was clean and efficient!
Gao Xin's pupils shook violently, filled with ecstasy in his heart, he had managed to convince him! Nice words didn't work, so swearing was necessary, huh?
At the same time, he felt a bit disappointed because he actually hoped, that the cat wouldn't become a rat, and then the other party would be killed when removing the cat collar.
Too bad, it seemed his strategy actually worked...
"You're right, I am the strongest here! I will take everything in this game!"
Silver Hand grinned arrogantly, suddenly acting like a lunatic, becoming inexplicably excited.
Then he pointed at Gao Xin and said, "After I deal with the three little wolves, you're the fourth, I'll mash you into a pulp."
"I'll wait for you," Gao Xin said word by word, "I'll definitely slaughter you."
Silver Hand ignored him completely, twisted his neck, and stepped out of the hall to meet the three approaching Radiations.
Gao Xin wiped his sweat, had survived, and only now realized that he was soaked through.
He had already cut off all his avenues of retreat, even if others could pay a protection fee to survive, he could not.
A battle between Gao Xin and Silver Hand was inevitable; Silver Hand would mash him into pulp.
The disparity was too great; he was just an ordinary person, and moreover, one who couldn't even defeat Su Lei.
However, could Silver Hand genuinely win one against three? That would be tough.
"Need to hide quickly..."
Gao Xin glanced outside the window; the big beard, Dongcan brother, and two others were attacking Silver Hand.
But he knew it was only temporary; Silver Hand was already talking, and soon Big Beard would abandon him to hunt for the rat.
Without further hesitation, Gao Xin dashed up the stairs two at a time.
As he passed a certain step, he paused, crouched down to search, and quickly lifted a marble slab.
He had previously noticed that someone had hidden there and guessed that the person might have suffocated.
Indeed, inside was a body lying twisted and pale all over.
Truly suffocated.
The staircase was too narrow; lying flat inside, one couldn't even bend their arms to exert force.
Plus it was extremely heavy, seamlessly sealed, and could only be pried open from the outside.
"What terrible taste." Gao Xin coldly glanced at the inside's Crystal Ball, two of them, facing the face and feet, probably meant to watch the person's agonizing struggle in death in the 'coffin'.
Gao Xin closed the stair slab but deliberately did not restore the carpet properly.
Immediately, he rushed up to the second floor without looking back, barged into a room, then opened a secret door to the adjacent room.
He had previously discovered with Su Lei that all the rooms on the second floor were interconnected by secret doors.
"Su Lei!"
As he ran, he called out softly, weaving through the rooms.
Finally, when he reached a room, a muffled voice came from the bathroom: "Brother Xin, I'm here."
Gao Xin walked in, still unable to see Su Lei's figure.
Until the mirror above the washbasin was pushed aside, there was Su Lei, shrunk behind the wall in a tiny compartment not even one square meter big.
In the entire mansion, there were many such places where a person could hide; this was just one of them.
Even so, the Silver Hand had still found nine people within a matter of minutes.
"Su Lei, you're alright! Thank God!" Su Lei was overjoyed, embracing Gao Xin as soon as he crawled out.
He cried with happiness, his eyes red: "I thought you were a goner."
Gao Xin said, "It was just luck."
Su Lei wiped his tears and suddenly widened his eyes, pointing at Gao Xin's neck: "Su Lei, you you you you..."
Goodness, Gao Xin had both a cat's and a mouse's collar on his neck, which completely shocked Su Lei.
"How did you turn into a cat?"
Just moments before, he was worried that Gao Xin would be killed by a cat, and now not only had Gao Xin survived, he was even wearing a cat's identity. Could it be that he had counter-killed that old cat?
"No time to explain, let's head upstairs."
Gao Xin said that and both he and Su Lei, crouching, prepared to open the door and escape to the third floor.
But as soon as they opened the door, they heard a clang from the hall.
It was the sound of a flagstone breaking!
"Someone's come in, they've found that the steps can hide people," Gao Xin whispered.
Su Lei was instantly annoyed: "Such a hidden spot, yet it still got discovered..."
"I did it on purpose."
Gao Xin said this and together with Su Lei, they retreated, moving from room to room. The floor was carpeted, and they were extra careful to be silent.
He had deliberately exposed the steps before; anyways, the person inside had suffocated, and Radiation, who was searching, wouldn't care about that, they'd definitely lift it to check, hence causing a noise.
This way, they could also know the enemy's location; now that the big bearded Caucasian should be standing on the staircase, so they needed to stay as far away from the staircase as possible.
"Look, our rope."
When they ran into a room, Su Lei pointed outside the window.
They had laid three ropes from the attic in three different directions; this was probably the one belonging to Meimei.
"Climb!"
Gao Xin didn't say a word, opened the window first, and climbed up the rope, with Su Lei following.
But he was too slow, so Su Lei straightforwardly said: "Brother, step on me and climb..."
Gao Xin didn't hesitate, stepping on Su Lei to climb up, certainly much faster with a foothold.
Before long, he had passed the third floor and arrived inside the fourth floor's attic window.
Aside from having dirty clothes, Su Lei had no issues and followed right behind.
The two quickly pulled up the ropes from all three directions, but suddenly a head popped out of a box, and it was Meimei.
"Thank goodness, you're both alright." Meimei was also extremely relieved.
Earlier, she had descended very slowly, and around the second floor, she saw Su Lei coming up saying that the collar matter was settled, but Gao Xin had fallen into Old Cat's hands.
Meimei was distressed but knew that Old Cat was downstairs, so naturally, she didn't go down either but climbed back up, signaling Su Lei to come with her.
However, Su Lei recalled, before he hid, Gao Xin had secretly agreed on a meeting spot, so he didn't follow her but went to the second floor.
Sure enough, Gao Xin came to find him there.
"The really big bearded guy has come in searching for the mouse. It's good you didn't pull up the rope, otherwise we might have been trapped on the second floor by him."
Gao Xin stealthily looked out the window, spotting Dong Can and the masked short man attacking Silver Hand, thus confirming that the person who came in searching for the mouse was the big bearded guy, the only player playing a dog.
It's really the dog chasing mice.
"Of course I wouldn't pull up the rope, Silver Hand knows we climbed down from the attic. If the rope was gone, he'd definitely know someone had climbed back up," Meimei explained.
Gao Xin nodded: "Now that Silver Hand is not the Old Cat anymore, he won't come for us until he's killed the other three."
"What?" Meimei was taken aback, just then noticing the two collars on Gao Xin's neck.
Her eyes widened; the mouse had been caught by the cat, usually a situation with no escape, but not only had he not died, the mouse had become the cat instead.
She didn't know how Gao Xin had managed it.
...