My lord, spare his life!

Zhang Yang is not a human; he is an NPC disguised as a human.

Therefore, she couldn't tolerate it.

He deftly vaulted over and jumped onto a cliff platform that was only two feet wide.

Just as she reached her right hand into her game inventory, before she could even pull out the gold brick, a surge of icy, chilling energy erupted from the cave, whipping her hair wildly and making it difficult for her to open her eyes.

She couldn't help but feel a pang of regret.

Such a strong wind! It's a pity she hadn't washed her hair; if she had, she could have used the wind to dry it. In the chaos, a glint of cold light shot out from the darkness, aimed straight at her face. Zhang Yang calmly turned her head; the sharp, cold arrow almost grazed her hair.

She still noticed that she had lost a little health.

The moment this realization dawned on her, a subtle, stinging pain shot through her cheek. She raised her hand to wipe it, the warm blood spreading evenly, and the pain became more pronounced. Looking at her hand, she noticed not only blood but also strands of broken hair.

Zhang Yang: "You're putting me in a difficult position."

NPCs are different from players.

Players can achieve a "complete makeover" by changing their outfits with a single click. They wouldn't smell bad even if they didn't shower for ten or twenty years, let alone ten or fifteen days. However, as an NPC, she needs to shower regularly to maintain cleanliness, and she even has to secretly wash her own clothes. To ensure her disguise is foolproof, she will also secretly observe the player's appearance and hairstyle, and style herself accordingly.

It's quite a hassle to style your hair.

This weakened boss didn't just shave off a few stray hairs; it threw her a huge problem. The weakened boss inside the cave wouldn't communicate with her, and instead unleashed a barrage of arrows. Each arrow carried a chilling, goosebump-inducing aura.

The moment the arrows approached Zhang Yang, the arrowheads of each arrow suddenly burst open, spraying out countless round "iron beads" that were difficult to see with the naked eye, like a celestial maiden scattering flowers. In an instant, Zhang Yang's location was surrounded by a dense barrage of explosions, and the stone wall not far away was riddled with holes, from which wisps of corrosive white smoke occasionally rose.

When the thick fog dissipated, only a deep pit remained in the original location.

After a long while, a muffled cough came from the darkness inside the cave. A tall figure covered in blood staggered out, leaning against the wall. His cold eyes swept over the deep pit, and he spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.

Although it was only for a fleeting moment, she still recognized the person who had just appeared here as the boy who had almost become a vegetable yesterday.

In order to escape, Zeng Chong, a young man, shot an arrow.

"Still alive?"

"Was it that little bastard who saved you?"

Reflecting on the situation, the boy's survival depended either on the help of that little bastard or on his own skill, which allowed him to dodge the fatal blow. She hadn't considered the possibility of her making a mistake; her strength gave her confidence—she could take a life without looking or aiming, relying solely on intuition.

Between the two possibilities, she leans more towards the latter.

That's a beast capable of killing his father, mother, and siblings; he has no heart whatsoever. How could he possibly give up a perfect opportunity to kill her just to save a complete stranger? She sneered, "What a pity. You didn't even appreciate having your life saved, and you're just throwing it away."

Those tiny "iron beads" explode when they hit an obstacle, releasing countless corrosive toxic fumes. If an ordinary person were to inhale this toxic fumes even once, their internal organs would be pierced, and their skin would melt like wax.

Forget about a complete corpse; not even a bone fragment will remain.

"...We still need to arrange another puppet as soon as possible."

The woman's face twisted slightly as she thought of the young military general, her limbs aching. She had fallen into his hands several times before, and each time she died differently. Her neck was broken, her limbs were trampled, or his beast ripped her open and ripped out her internal organs, which were then hung on a tree.

She was afraid, but even more intense than her fear was her hatred.

Her overwhelming hatred made her wish she could devour his flesh and drink his blood!

"It's a pity we couldn't completely eliminate him that time..."

Some opportunities, once missed, may be missed forever.

If she had known this little bastard would be so difficult to deal with, she shouldn't have held back back then. She should have broken his limbs, skinned him, and leashed him to be a docile and obedient dog, instead of giving this dog the opportunity to turn into a wolf.

"Aren't you embarrassed talking to yourself?"

Inside the cave, Zhang Yang's voice came from all directions.

Alarm bells were ringing in her head.

A sense of crisis gripped her heart like a giant hand.

"Who?"

She immediately realized that the boy from before was not dead! But what horrified her was that no matter how she sensed him, she couldn't find any other living person besides herself, and she couldn't find any trace of him when she looked around.

"Baby, look up!"

The woman looked up in an instant, her right hand moving so fast it left afterimages, firing a dozen arrows in quick succession towards the sky. The star-like arrows thudded into the stone wall above, the explosions sending rocks tumbling down to the ground. The woman's face was grim; she hadn't seen anyone hiding above her at all.

"You actually believed that?"

The woman was furious at the boy's flat, monotone banter.

"Baby, look to the left!"

"Sigh, it's not your left side, it's mine."

"The one on the right, I'm definitely not lying to you this time."

After being tricked several times, the woman's murderous intent towards Zhang Yang was second only to her hatred for the young military general. Closing her eyes, undisturbed by Zhang Yang's voice, every detail of the entire cave space floated into her mind.

Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat.

A faint, transparent shadow could be seen in the corner.

In a flash, she drew her bow and fired a barrage of arrows at the illusory figure. A dense rain of star-like arrows roared forth, crashing down on the same target. With a deafening roar, the explosions linked together in a single line.

The woman said indifferently, "Then why don't you die!"

In an instant, a sharp intuition exploded from his scalp, and an intense sense of impending death spread throughout his body. There was no time to think; his body acted purely on instinct, but Zhang Yang's gold brick arrived even faster: "It is impolite not to reciprocate."

click-

A sharp, piercing pain shot through the bone beneath the skin, as if it were breaking.

She suddenly opened her eyes.

The first thing they saw wasn't the boy's face, but the gold bricks that almost filled their entire field of vision: "You think you can do this—"

The gold bricks before my eyes turned into a thin golden mist and dispersed.

Is it an illusion?

The thought flashed by in an instant, followed by a sharp, sharp pain in her lower abdomen, and then an unstoppable, immense force in the opposite direction. Only when her back slammed against the uneven stone wall did she realize that she had been pierced by a golden arrow half a meter long and pinned to the wall.

The dust in the cave dissipated, revealing a person.

Zhang Yang stared expressionlessly at the top of the woman's head, a hint of confusion in her eyes. It was this confusion that prevented her from firing another headshot arrow. The woman's health bar was practically nonexistent; normally, one or two "skills" would finish her off. Why wasn't the health bar above her head changing? Was it locked? Was this boss's storyline kill not happening here, so she couldn't kill him now?

Zhang Yang fell into thought and didn't move, but the woman wouldn't just wait to die.

She grabbed the arrow shaft and pulled it out forcefully.

As blood gushed out, a large portion of her intestines spilled out of the wound. She channeled her power, and just as her body transformed into flowing water, a golden light burst forth before her eyes, and a dull pain shot through her brow... As her consciousness faded, she heard the young man's quick voice.

"Tsk, the health bar is now empty."

Zhang Yang walked over to her body and looked her over from left to right.

"What about the treasure chest?"

??|??w?`)

I need to take a break. A distant relative passed away, and I was called over to help. I'll make up for today's update tomorrow (we've surpassed 1000 monthly votes, so I'll save the 10,000-word update for the 20th).