“What puzzle pieces?” Du Lai stepped back cautiously. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The man walked toward him. “How could you not know? If my guess is right, you should have at least three on you… no, at least four puzzle pieces. Am I correct?”

He drew closer and closer. In the darkness of night, his complexion was pale as a corpse — like a vampire come calling in the dead of night. His hands were encased in white gloves that gleamed with unsettling brightness, stark and jarring, strange and eerie.

Du Lai suddenly recalled the news he’d heard earlier that day.

“You’re a survivor from Game #21, aren’t you?” Du Lai sneered. “Looks like you finished off all the others.”

“Oh… how very impolite of you to put it that way.” The man revealed a smile. “I merely… sent them off on their way, that’s all.”

Du Lai raised a taunting eyebrow. “And after you sent them off, you found it was all for nothing, so you’re too restless to sleep and came crawling out in the middle of the night?”

The man’s eyes went cold as ice, fixed on Du Lai. “That’s right… and I have *you* to thank for that.”

*Slash!*

A silver flash!

He struck without warning!

A metal pipe materialized between his hands — and he swung it savagely at Du Lai!

Du Lai dodged nimbly to the side; the metal pipe struck the concrete with a thunderous *clang*!

The man kept attacking! Du Lai rolled repeatedly across the ground, sprang to his feet, and bolted into the alley at the roadside — moving with extraordinary speed!

The man behind him gave chase without pause, matching Du Lai’s speed almost perfectly!

“Why are you running? You took quite a few items from the others, didn’t you? You’re not going to use some of them? Let me see what you’ve got… without your items, how long can you possibly hold out?”

His tone was gentle, his voice like a grieving spirit’s lament — yet the iron pipe in his hand was utterly merciless. Like the scythe of death, it swept and struck relentlessly, smashing glass and brick and earth along the way until debris littered the entire path.

Du Lai used the terrain to his advantage, fleeing at blinding speed!

One moment he shot across a street, the next he ducked into a side alley; then he used an air conditioning unit to vault himself onto an awning. From there he leaped high, scaled an iron security-window grill, and scrambled up to a sixth-floor rooftop in one continuous motion!

Below was pitch black.

Looking down from above, he was just beginning to think he’d shaken off his pursuer — when a crashing sound exploded beneath his feet!

A white-gloved hand smashed through a sixth-floor window and seized the edge of the rooftop!

Du Lai gritted his teeth.

He hadn’t imagined this man would be so tenacious.

He reached into Bai Youwei’s canvas bag, searching for any usable item — and pulled out a wooden box clock. The cuckoo inside burst out with a *pop*!

“Cuckoo — cuckoo —”

The chiming rang out absurdly loud in the silent night.

Du Lai was furious.

“Damn it, neither of those two is any good!”

He hurled the canvas bag down at the white-gloved hand with all his force, then spun and ran!

He sprinted to one side of the rooftop, backed up a few steps, drew a deep breath, charged forward at full speed — and flung himself into the air at the edge! Like a swift and powerful leopard, he landed cleanly on the neighboring rooftop.

A smug smile tugged at the corner of Du Lai’s mouth.

He rose easily, brushed the dust from his hands, and turned to leave.

*Crash!* —

An iron chain lashed his ankle!

Du Lai’s expression shifted dramatically. He crashed to the ground, instinctively catching himself with both hands — but the chain wound tight around his ankle and yanked hard!

He looked back. Somehow the white-gloved man had already climbed onto this rooftop. The iron pipe had vanished from his hand, replaced by this rigid iron chain.

The chain held his ankle in an iron grip. As the man reeled it in — slowly, steadily — the distance between them grew smaller and smaller.

—