Chapter 172

Chapter 172

Bai Xingshu reached the small gate in just a few strides, where the tourists assigned to guard it were already locked in a ‘fierce’ skirmish with the thugs outside.

Both sides were jabbing sticks back and forth through the gate opening, the clash ‘intense’—at least intense enough that all the tourists were cheering excitedly.

Bai Xingshu glanced over and noticed that most of the defenders' attacks were hitting their own teammates’ sticks instead.

But that didn’t matter.

Like they say, even a pro can get taken down by a mob. As long as there were enough people and enough effort, the thugs outside—who also lacked professional experience—could be held back.

How to put it…

Bai Xingshu observed the scene, which looked like a bunch of kids scrapping, and found it rather amusing.

The ‘kid brawler’ tourists, upon seeing Bai Xingshu approach, were quite friendly. They even squeezed together with tacit understanding to make space for him, eyeing him eagerly and gesturing for him to join them quickly.

Bai Xingshu chuckled, grabbing a couple of broken sticks from the ground before walking toward them.

Some of the others, seeing his choice of weapon, yelled in concern, “Hey, those won’t work! You’ll pinch your fingers!”

By now, the battle had been going on for over ten minutes, and from hard-won experience, they had a pretty good idea of what worked and what didn’t.

But Bai Xingshu wasn’t ‘everyone else.’

“It’s fine, these are just right,” he replied briefly. Then, with a couple of quick steps, he sprang up as he neared the gate. Under the astonished gazes of the crowd, one of his short sticks came down hard on the others’ sticks with a sharp *crack*.

With a slight twist of his wrist, Bai Xingshu pressed downward, forcing a gap open about half a person’s height.

In a flash, he darted through the opening and came face-to-face with the wide-eyed thugs outside who hadn’t reacted in time.

While they were still frozen, Bai Xingshu moved swiftly. Fair-minded as he was, he naturally wouldn’t let his own side suffer—his other hand lashed out with his remaining stick.

*Snap, snap!* The short stick effortlessly knocked the weapons out of the thugs’ hands.

Both the defenders and the thugs were stunned silent, completely unable to process what had just happened.

By the time they finally snapped out of it, Bai Xingshu had already used the momentum from disarming the thugs to leap onto the roof of the neighboring building.

In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

It took another dozen seconds before the people on both sides of the gate finally snapped out of it, staring in shock at the aftermath.

—What just happened?

—Wait, how did he do that?

The tourists burst into shouts of disbelief, while the thugs lunged for their dropped weapons and frantically grabbed their communicators, shouting, “Quick! Someone just rushed out from the warehouse toward the police station—intercept him!”

In truth, the thugs at the gate didn’t even need to sound the alarm. The entire scene had been under surveillance, and the surveillance team was already in a panic, scrambling to dispatch available thugs to intercept before the shouts even started.

But no one had anticipated such a sudden turn of events.

The number of NPCs in an experience zone was limited, and the total number of thug NPCs was even fewer than the tourists.

Originally, they had relied on eliminating large numbers of tourists and tight coordination to maintain the thugs’ numerical advantage.

But now the situation was pretty awkward.

The tourists who chose to leave the warehouse this time were all pretty confident in their abilities.

They were already difficult to catch, which inevitably pulled away some NPCs to ensure these tourists' experience.

Meanwhile, the NPCs had to focus on the warehouse, which was easy to defend, to maintain the experience there. With few tourists eliminated, a good number of thugs had to be stationed at the warehouse.

So... in the end, just a few scattered thugs could be mobilized to pursue Bai Xingshu.

These thugs were originally spread out as a precaution, and it would take them some time to reach the police station. Could they move faster than Bai Xingshu? Could they catch him?

Of course not—that was pure wishful thinking!

Even the most ruthless thugs didn’t stand a chance against Bai Xingshu, let alone these guys.

The staff in the monitoring room watched helplessly as Bai Xingshu sprinted and vaulted across the rooftops of the scenic area, leaving no opportunity for the dispatched thugs to intercept him. He moved without a hitch all the way to the police station.

The people inside the police station were completely dumbfounded as Bai Xingshu dropped in out of nowhere.

"Hello, I’d like to report a crime!" Bai Xingshu said without missing a beat. "About 700 meters west of the police station, at the warehouse, a group of thugs is currently attacking the people inside..."

Bai Xingshu rattled off the key details—time, location, individuals involved—to the officer on duty with quick precision.

Meanwhile, the officer listened with a dazed look, simultaneously hearing the orders from command through his earpiece.

—"Delay this tourist!"

The officer, who had never anticipated such a situation, went dead silent.

Yes, he was an actual cop—a genuine one.

This scenic area was government-run, with around 100 tourists per batch and a four-hour rotation. Combined with the employees in the experience zones, the crowds were pretty big. Given the adrenaline-fueled setup of the activities, the likelihood of incidents was extremely high.

After several past incidents, actual cops were stationed in the police rooms of each experience zone.

This allowed for quick resolution of any disputes right from the start.

Generally, they weren’t deeply involved in the gameplay, so for most tourists, reaching the police station was an extremely difficult task.

—Bai Xingshu was the exception.

However, the scenic area wasn’t entirely unprepared for such contingencies. They had clued in the cops in advance to provide some level of cooperation.

So, after hearing the message in his earpiece, the officer paused for a few seconds before pretending to be totally lost and useless.

Bai Xingshu sized things up in a glance and immediately understood what was going on.

But the current Bai Xingshu was no longer the clueless newcomer he had been when he first arrived in this world!

Seeing the officer’s slow reaction, Bai Xingshu stepped in himself.

With ample experience as temporary staff, he blew through the crime report registration in just a few moves.

Watching the operation unfold at lightning speed, the officer just stood there, stunned.

Wait—how was this even possible? This was faster than his normal work efficiency!

Was this tourist even human?!

The police officer was dumbstruck, feeling like he now understood why the voice in his earpiece had sounded so distraught earlier.

After failing to stall as instructed, the officer finally came up with a brilliant way to buy more time.

"I need to use the restroom!" With that tactical bathroom break, the officer slipped out of Bai Xingshu's sight and quickly contacted dispatch.

"What should we do now?!"

He was the only officer at the entire police outpost—was he really expected to single-handedly confront a couple dozen thugs outside the warehouse?

Was that even logical? Or remotely doable?

At this point, dispatch fell silent for a long moment, clearly brainstorming. After what felt like ages, they finally responded, "Hang tight, backup’s coming!"

The officer: "..."

His request had been to have this tourist removed, not to get reinforcements.

But clearly, his silent protest was futile.

Thus, a few minutes later, Bai Xingshu saw the officer who had supposedly gone to the restroom alone emerge from the door—now accompanied by seven others.

The additional "officers," dressed in police uniforms but looking visibly uncomfortable, also seemed oddly familiar.

Weren’t those the same thugs he had spotted from the rooftops earlier, chasing after him?

Had they just turned into instant cops?

But Bai Xingshu understood that, as a tourist, he should sometimes play dumb about certain staffing arrangements in the park.

He said nothing, silently accepting the scene before him, and quickly led the eight "officers" toward the warehouse. He also pretended not to hear the newly converted thugs whispering frantically into their radios, asking what they were supposed to do next—nor the half-assed reply telling them to wing it.

Amidst the group's internal screaming, Bai Xingshu led them all to the vicinity of the warehouse, where the supposed "fierce battle" was taking place.

Upon witnessing the playground scuffle before them—a sight none of them had seen before—everyone: "..."

At this point, the lead officer had no choice but to uphold his professional duty.

"Freeze! Police!!" With a sharp shout, the eight officers rushed forward and made quick work of the thugs.

Don’t ask how eight officers managed to take down over twenty thugs without a scratch.

The park staff still remembered that this was an officially sanctioned venue—thugs beating the cops was absolutely not an option.

In any case, after barely holding out for an hour, the wide-eyed tourist bunnies suddenly found themselves victorious.

From every warehouse entrance, tourists poked their heads out warily, marveling at the scene before them before looking at each other in confusion.

"Did we... win this time?" someone asked.

Another tourist replied, "I think... we won?"

"So... what do we do now?"

That was an excellent question—one that stumped all the other tourists.

This park was all about a free-for-all of looting and burning. These master hiders had spent their time hiding like pros, with no real plan for what to do next.

Shen Geng, watching the crowd's confusion, decided to offer a friendly reminder as an unofficial park rep: "We still have friends still on the run out there. They need rescuing."

Upon finding a new mission, the tourists immediately perked up with excitement.

Yes, they could still rescue people!

Soon, they split into small teams, each accompanied by police officers, hunting down the remaining thugs.

A game of cat and mouse—how much more thrilling it was to be the cat than the mouse!

Many of the tourists let out gleeful cackles as they arrogantly wiped out the last of the thugs.

Some of them even acted tougher than the thugs themselves.

Bai Xingshu and Shen Geng stayed mostly out of it.

Recalling the knowledge they had acquired in military school, they put their training to use.

The two went door-to-door notifying residents of the current situation.

Earlier, when the tourists had discussed the game strategy, they mentioned that a certain nurse’s station had nurses who could offer protection—similarly, there were also NPC civilians in the residential houses.

These NPCs were there to enhance the realism of the experience zone, ensuring tourists had an immersive escape experience.

None of them had expected things to turn out this way. In a daze, they listened as Bai Xingshu and Shen Geng declared, *"The thugs have been eliminated, we’re safe now, you can come out without worry."*

Confused, the NPCs emerged from their houses one after another.

Exchanging glances, they ultimately went with the flow.

What should they do now that the thugs were gone?

Well, of course… Celebrate!