Chapter 25: Often, It Is Among the Humble That True Heroism Is Found!

A blue wheel! A blue wheel, even more precious than the green one!

When Jiang Yi saw that flash of blue, his eyelids twitched. Unfortunately, spinning the blue wheel required a sacrifice of one hundred years of lifespan. The longevity pill he had just obtained from the white wheel had only granted him twenty-three years of life. After two subsequent spins on the white wheel, his current remaining lifespan was twenty-one years. Even for the green wheel, he could only afford two spins. He was still eighty years short for the blue wheel!

But it did not matter. He would accumulate the necessary lifespan sooner or later, and he would eventually get to use this blue wheel.

Without hesitation, Jiang Yi snatched the wheel from Zhao Kuan. Zhao Kuan kept his eyes fixed on it, masking the unwillingness in his gaze as he pledged his loyalty: "Boss, I am willing to follow you. From this day forward, I live only to serve you."

"Follow me, huh..." Jiang Yi muttered nonchalantly, weighing the blue wheel in his hand. He scanned the options on the wheel, then slowly shifted his gaze back to Zhao Kuan.

Zhao Kuan’s eyes were filled with sincere devotion, as if he were truly willing to be Jiang Yi’s most loyal dog. But in the next second, with a dull thud, Jiang Yi swung the fire axe in his hand. Zhao Kuan’s head bloomed under the blade. He was dead as dead could be.

Admittedly, Jiang Yi liked dealing with smart people because it saved a lot of unnecessary nonsense. However, most of the time, he disliked them just as much because he had seen too much in his past life. He knew clearly that you could never truly know what schemes were hidden in the twists and turns of a smart person’s mind.

As the old saying goes: "True loyalty is often found among the humble, while betrayal is the hallmark of the learned."

The logic was simple. Simple, humble people see a dog as a dog and an injustice as an injustice. But the overly clever "learned" ones? They look at the dog and see the person behind it. They look at an injustice and only calculate the gains and losses hidden behind it. The clever Zhao Kuan was precisely the kind of "learned" person Jiang Yi could not trust.

Of course, Jiang Yi had been among the humble, and in the end, he had become one of the "learned" himself. From the moment he made no effort to hide the fact that he had pulled good items from all three spins, he had never intended for any of those three to survive. It did not matter if Zhao Kuan had been a big shot in his past life, or whether his name was Zhao Kuan, Zhao Gao, or Nicholas Zhao Si. If he deserved to die, he would die.

Once Jiang Yi had made a decision, he would not change it. After a quick search of the three corpses and finding nothing else useful, he tucked the fire axe, the homemade crossbow, and a long blade into his spatial watch. The spatial watch obtained from the white wheel had a tiny interior space of less than one cubic meter, but it was enough to hold a few simple items.

After tidying up the scene and the bodies, Jiang Yi left the shop and pursued the direction taken by Luo Shan. He had already made up his mind: why not head to the Domain Battlefield early? He would have to go eventually. If he could reach Level 1 as soon as possible and obtain his exclusive fate disk to become an official player, he could finally unlock the chat, forum, and trading functions of the exclusive fate disk. Only then would he truly unlock the way to play this doomsday game, and only then could he use the trading zone to grow faster, instead of sitting on a blue wheel he couldn't even use.

After tracking them for a dozen minutes, Jiang Yi caught up to Luo Shan and the others, guided by the burnt scent of the beast-luring incense. But upon approaching, he realized the four-man team was in the middle of a conflict.

"Even if you are the captain, you can't be this domineering and unreasonable, right?" Zhang Peng was saying. "In our suicide squad, the rule has always been that the gains created by teamwork belong to the team! You’re just a temporary captain; do you really want to break the rules?"

Luo Shan’s expression was grim, but he did not retort, only asking coldly, "Then what do you want? There is only one wheel here; how are we supposed to split it between the four of us?"

Zhang Peng tilted his chin, his tone righteous. "It's simple! The wheel has value. Either we turn it over to the club and split the points four ways, or we sell it for time coins and split the coins four ways. Regardless, you trying to use your status as captain to hoard the gains for yourself is absolutely impossible!"

Jiang Yi stepped forward, cutting in. "Why is it only four people? Shouldn't this team have five?"

Zhang Peng looked at Jiang Yi, speechless. "Give me a break! You weren't even here when we fought the beast! Why should you get a share of our spoils when you weren't even on the scene?"

Jiang Yi’s gaze fell on the Gold-Backed Rolling Rat, and he smiled. "The beast's corpse only bears the marks of Luo Shan’s compound bow arrows. That means Luo Shan killed this beast all by himself. You three didn't contribute an ounce of effort, yet you feel entitled to a share. And I, just because I wasn't present, am excluded?"

Zhang Peng’s face stiffened. Luo Shan, who had been nearly swayed by Zhang Peng’s rhetoric, suddenly realized the truth. Zhang Peng, seeing the change in Luo Shan’s expression, ground his teeth in frustration. Ultimately, he backed down—not to Luo Shan, but to Jiang Yi. "Fine, fine, let him have a share, okay?"

After this begrudging concession, Zhang Peng couldn't help but add, "You penny-pinching loser, you'll never amount to anything in your life!"

Jiang Yi was speechless, wondering if the guy was talking to himself. Gao Chang and Li Shoude said nothing, as they would still benefit from Zhang Peng’s proposed split. But Jiang Yi would not tolerate this. He sneered and said to Luo Shan in a low, sharp voice:

"As the saying goes, the kind are easily bullied. Some people can never change their habit of bullying the weak and fearing the strong. I know you're afraid of offending people because the +5 attribute effect is temporary. But you must understand: the more cautious you are, the more rampant they become. They will keep pressing your bottom line."

He didn't wait for Luo Shan to process this before turning his icy gaze to Zhang Peng. "And who do you think you are, showing off in front of someone stronger? Tired of living? Even if this beast had been a team effort, if he decided to keep the spoils, what could a loser like you do about it? Do you even have the right to speak?"