Mental Illness Evolution Manual - Chapter 7

Button Street was a famous melting pot, a place where you could find guns and ammunition, entertainment venues, bars, casinos, and everything in between. It was the most prosperous, chaotic, and rule-abiding place.

The two of them didn’t leave until noon, and when they got there, Gina’s shop was just opening. She was wearing a gray tank top and dark green work pants, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and she had a tattoo on her exposed waist, like a bird, only half a wing was exposed, the rest was hidden under the fabric.

“Business is coming in right away, tell me, what do you want?” Gina propped her hands on the counter, her eyes narrowed, like a cat.

Her right hand was a prosthetic, it looked like a household model, with smooth lines, and no hot weapons were loaded.

Yan Xianchuan looked at Tan Yiyuan, Tan Yiyuan looked back at her, meaning she should decide for herself.

Yan Xianchuan: …She didn’t know any of them.

“The best, the most expensive, as for the gun, it shouldn’t be too loud, but the killing power should be enough…” She paused, deciding to be straightforward, “We two are going to take on a gang, any recommendations?”

Gina looked them over for a while, whistled, “Wow!”

“Let me think, um… Givier pistol, the strongest penetration, Orange pistol, the fastest firing rate. And this, indispensable,” Gina bent down and took out a round pistol, tossing it in the palm of her hand, “Apple Pie, besides regular explosions, it can also release electric arcs, interfering with communication.”

The black pistol was like a child’s toy in her hand, “For quiet ones, a dagger is the best choice, backstabbing, one hit kill.”

She turned around and picked out a dagger from the knives on the wall behind her, it had barbs on the back, and a blood groove on the side, her fingers moved, and the small knife spun in her hand, “Reaper, my favorite.”

It was placed on the counter, the sharp blade was white and silver.

“I don’t know much about this, you pick.” Yan Xianchuan said.

“Okay.” Tan Yiyuan, taking the lack of outright refusal as a positive sign, haggled with the shopkeeper. He proved to be a surprisingly skilled negotiator, driving Gina nearly to apoplexy and almost to blows.

Each of them took a pistol, two pistols, and a dagger, and bought some bullets. Carrying too much stuff would affect their movements, taking the enemy’s weapons was the right way to go.

Yan Xianchuan paid, the goods would be delivered in the evening, but she took the dagger and tucked it into her waist.

A familiar feeling. In the lower levels, she would always carry a dagger, it could be used for everything, until she became one of the best, she changed this habit.

The foreign object feeling on her lower back seemed to take her back to the past, back to the time when she was struggling to survive. Yan Xianchuan narrowed her eyes, suddenly her interest was piqued.

At first, she chose to help Tan Yiyuan, just because she felt she should do something good in a general sense, to prove that she was a normal person with blood and flesh, not a perverted madman numbed by the escape game.

So she was always casual about it, it could be done or not, anyway, even if she failed, she could find another pitiful person to help, do another “good deed”.

But at this moment, an urge was swelling in Yan Xianchuan’s chest, it was the intense heartbeat before countless near-death experiences, it was the rapidly rising adrenaline, it was the blood splattering during a counter-kill, it was the laughter after surviving.

Her brows moved, just a subtle change, and she transformed from a cold, lifeless puppet into a real living person.

Yan Xianchuan curled her lips, savoring this hard-won emotional fluctuation.

She knew, she was a normal person, her numb exterior was just a disguise she used to adapt to the environment, otherwise, how could she be so excited about helping others?

“Let’s go, to Reincarnation.” Yan Xianchuan said, taking the initiative for once.

Outside a small building on Peace Street, two fully armed people squatted in the back alley, once again confirming their only goal for this trip – to take out Gasco.

Without this leader, the remaining Black Claw Gang members would inevitably scatter, they were all a bunch of desperadoes, they didn’t abide by any rules, and they wouldn’t have any concept of revenge.

With Gasco dead, Tan Yiyuan could have a truly peaceful life.

He was easy to recognize, a bald man with a mechanical prosthetic left leg, who liked to wear black jackets.

The Black Claw Gang was currently entrenched in this four-story mall.

In Yan Xianchuan’s plan, she could do it alone, but Tan Yiyuan firmly disagreed, he couldn’t accept someone risking their life for him.

Watching others save his life, while he just hid aside, Tan Yiyuan couldn’t do it.

Before setting off, Yan Xianchuan went to the shooting range to try out the guns, familiarizing herself with the weapons in her hands. Now, she nimbly climbed onto the roof of the building next door, took out her pistol, aimed at the fourth-floor window, silently counted three seconds, then threw a grenade.

The sound of the explosion mixed with electric sparks, the next moment, Yan Xianchuan pushed off with her legs, easily jumped up, smashed the glass and jumped onto the balcony.

The electromagnetic waves released by the grenade, as planned, interfered with the brain chips, causing communication damage.

Taking advantage of the enemy’s tinnitus from the close-range explosion, Yan Xianchuan rolled on the ground, using the sofa as cover, took out her pistol and aimed at the people inside, firing one shot at a time, each shot accurately hitting the head, blooming a blood flower.

Her blood seemed to flow through her body for the first time, transmitting heat to her limbs and bones.

Flames erupted, and the Black Claw Gang finally reacted, shouting loudly, “Damn it! Someone’s attacking!”

“Fourth floor! Fourth floor!”

Dozens of members rushed up from the stairwell, firing machine guns. Yan Xianchuan wasn’t nervous, she gently rolled the smoke grenade she was holding in her right hand.

It was worth the tens of thousands of credit points she spent on it, it was indeed very useful. The billowing smoke obscured vision more than the harshest blizzard.

The Black Claw Gang members immediately stopped firing, afraid of hitting their comrades, they could only use the most clumsy method, manually searching.

This environment, however, was the best assassination ground for Yan Xianchuan. She didn’t need to distinguish between friend and foe, everyone she encountered was a target for her to harvest.

Yan Xianchuan gripped the dagger, carefully listening to every footstep, then circled behind them, covering her mouth and nose, silently slitting their throats.

She moved quickly and calmly, only the gradually spreading smell of blood announced that the slaughter had begun.

Yan Xianchuan thought she was a precise calculator, in an environment where her vision was obstructed, she accurately planned the best course of action.

If there was a mirror in front of her, clearly reflecting her face, she would have found that the excitement of a hunter, the inhuman gaze in her eyes, only the lust for killing was gradually rising.

At this moment, she attributed her rapid heartbeat to the joy of imminent success, and the joy of helping others.

Tan Yiyuan didn’t make a big fuss like she did, he was wearing a mask, pretending to be a passerby shopping, waiting for the guards to be attracted by the commotion upstairs, and in the chaos as the passersby scattered, he took the opportunity to go to the monitoring room, kill the people inside, and search for Gasco’s whereabouts through the monitoring system.

This was the closest he had ever been to a new life.

Tan Yiyuan took a deep breath, staring intently at the big screen, searching for the target figure.

Finally, as soon as Gasco’s figure appeared, he instantly caught it.

Second floor, he was on the second floor, in the stairwell, with dozens of people behind him, he was going to the third floor, it seemed he was going to deal with Yan Xianchuan.

Yan Xianchuan, of course, wouldn’t stay in this small room on the fourth floor, if the other party threw a few grenades in, wouldn’t she be asking for it?

She took the enemy by surprise, harvested a wave, and then slipped away. The mall’s layout wasn’t simple, there were many shops, and many blind spots, with the monitoring and communication being interfered with, the Black Claw Gang could only use their numerical advantage to carry out a carpet search.

This was her chance to pick them off one by one.

The dagger in her hand was still silver and bright, not stained with blood, but Yan Xianchuan wasn’t so clean, her clothes had large patches of red, but it was other people’s blood.

Using the visual difference created by the high terrain, Yan Xianchuan easily dealt with the person who walked over, twisted his neck, then dragged the body back and hid it in a dumpling shop.

She didn’t need to be too careful, just to make sure that others couldn’t immediately notice that someone was missing.

She moved among the crowd, the quietest hunter.

With communication disrupted, Yan Xianchuan and Tan Yiyuan couldn’t contact each other either, if anything unexpected happened, they could only improvise.

Fortunately, so far, things were going smoothly.

Gasco, however, was getting a little nervous, his men were being killed one after another, but he still didn’t know who the attacker was, male or female, what they looked like.

Sitting and waiting for death wasn’t his style, Gasco ordered his men to bring in a few speakers, and said loudly, “Friend, you suddenly came to my Black Claw Gang’s territory and started killing, you have to have a reason, right?”

“What can’t be discussed properly, let’s turn our swords into jade, otherwise, my Black Claw Gang has over a hundred people, we’re not pushovers.”

As he spoke, he winked at his men, more people walked into the fourth floor with guns, two by two, almost filling the entire floor.

Gasco stood at the back of the crowd, near the stairwell, he could quickly leave with a single turn.

Yan Xianchuan ignored his words, but with so many people crowded together, the threat was indeed greater, she couldn’t keep killing them one by one, she only had one choice left, to go head-to-head.

And killing, just happened to be her best skill.

The bright white lines were the traces left by bullets flying through the air, the pungent smell of gunpowder spread, a series of gunshots roared like thunder.

In an instant, a row of people fell. Broken limbs flew up, amidst countless panicked and angry curses, Yan Xianchuan suddenly lunged behind another counter, changing her cover, then poked out the muzzle of her gun and fired another burst.

The scene suddenly became chaotic, the Black Claw Gang members rushed forward one after another, trying to kill her, the attacker, the dense bullets were like rain and hail, quickly smashing the counter to pieces.

As she shifted positions again, with a “poof”, a blood flower bloomed on her left leg, Yan Xianchuan didn’t even frown, she retaliated with a grenade.

“Stop!”

Amidst the explosion, a loud shout spread through the speakers, everyone stopped firing, turned to look, Gasco’s bald head was being pointed at by a gun, cold sweat dripped down his forehead.

“Tan Yiyuan.” He gritted his teeth.