Chapter 42: "Item Name": Cards of Fate.

"I'm back!"

Xu Kun pushed open his front door with a surge of excitement. His nose twitched slightly as he was instantly greeted by the aroma of food wafting through the air. He let out a chuckle and hurriedly slipped on his slippers, walking toward the kitchen.

He gazed at the woman busy plating dishes at the stove.

His eyes softened instantly.

Stepping forward, he wrapped his arms around the woman from behind and buried his face in her hair. The familiar scent of shampoo washed over him. With his hair graying at the temples, he looked like a child at that moment, mumbling, "What delicious thing are you making today? Is it braised chicken wings?"

As he spoke, he pressed a kiss to her cheek.

But the next moment—

A sharp pain struck him abruptly.

Xu Kun was slightly stunned. The surrounding scenery rapidly froze and shattered. When he snapped back to his senses, he was kneeling on the ground, staring blankly at the surrounding scenery of a cemetery in silence for a long time. Feeling the lingering pain on his forehead, he remained speechless.

A black-and-white photo of a woman was embedded in the headstone before him.

The photo on the headstone had faded somewhat, but her smile remained as vivid as ever, with her eyes curved into crescents—just like the smile she would greet him with whenever he came home from work, hearing the door lock turn, while a big yellow dog wagged its tail, panted, and drooled behind her.

This instance of the copy space had lasted for twenty-four hours. After coming out of it, he had wanted to sit by his deceased wife's grave for a while, but perhaps due to sheer exhaustion, he had simply fallen asleep right there until his head struck the tombstone.

"Did you remind me that sleeping here would give me a cold?"

Kneeling before the headstone, Xu Kun lit a cigarette and, with a dazed expression, planted it into the soil in front of the grave. They always said cemeteries were gloomy and spine-chilling, but ever since his wife passed away, this was the only place where he could find a long-lost sense of peace.

Over the past few years,

he had poured all his energy into his career, hoping to dull his grief through work.

Only...

If he had merely felt despair before,

now—

a tiny glimmer of hope had sprouted in his heart. He had learned of the existence of the "Gods' Paradise." Although his deceased wife had died of illness and thus could not enter the Gods' Paradise, since the realm could even resurrect people who had died in accidents like him and turn them into players,

surely, the Gods' Paradise must possess the power to resurrect the dead. It might require an astronomical number of Paradise Coins, but at least hope now existed.

He truly... truly longed to smell the scent of his wife's hair just once more.

Kneeling before the headstone, Xu Kun buried his face in the ground. With reddened eye sockets and a voice as raspy and faint as a mosquito's buzz, he choked out, "Back then, everyone called me good-for-nothing, and only you said I was a genius. Only you stood steadfastly behind me."

"This time!"

"As long as I see even a shred of hope, I will spare no cost, willing to pay any price... just to see you once more."

After a long while,

a gentle breeze swept fallen leaves across the cemetery. The weather was turning chilly, and Xu Kun's figure was no longer there, leaving behind only a cigarette butt that had burned down to the filter at some unknown point.

...

In Zhaoge City, within the courtyard of an old residence.

"..."

Chen Jiang sat alone at a round table, organizing his spoils from this run. The mute snake had already fallen asleep. Aside from the basic skill book for "Swimming" that had already been used, there were ten other rewards.

They were—

A deck of green-tier playing cards.

-

「Item Name」: Cards of Fate

「Item Tier」: Green

「Item Effect」: Forged from a special alloy, they are lightweight yet razor-sharp. The user can instantly teleport to the landing spot of any thrown card. Each numbered card can only use this effect once, while the two Joker cards possess additional effects.

The Black-and-White Jokers possess the ability to instantly recall the cards.

The Colored Joker can transform into any weapon, retaining only the basic effects of an ordinary weapon.

「Item Hint」: "Applause marks the curtain call of magic, while silence... is where magic truly begins."

-

Item tiers, from lowest to highest, progress as follows... White, Green, Yellow.

This was his first green-tier item, and it suited him exceptionally well.

It even felt somewhat tailor-made. He had ample reason to suspect that whatever primary weapon a player used to kill zombies within the copy space would dictate the corresponding items that Dave's Crazy Shop would restock.

If he had used firearms the entire time,

then perhaps this green-tier item would have taken the form of a firearm.

The next moment—

"Whoosh!"

Chen Jiang pinched an Ace of Spades between his fingertips. With a flick of his wrist, the moment the playing card left his hand, the air was sliced open, leaving a pale wake in its path.

The entire card embedded itself like a heavy crossbow bolt into a concrete brick wall several meters away, half of its body buried in the masonry. Spiderweb-like cracks spidered out around the impact point, and masonry dust drifted down, while the corner of the card still hummed at a high frequency, emitting a teeth-setting metallic whine.

"..."

Seeing this, his pupils shrank slightly. With a subtle twitch of his fingertips, the playing card embedded in the wall flew backward at high speed, returning to his fingers as if guided by an invisible spider silk.

Tremendous power.

Much greater than the alloy playing cards he had crafted in reality, and with a far better feel. In reality, alloy playing cards inevitably suffered in weight distribution, causing both accuracy and range to plummet.

But these "Cards of Fate" did not share that flaw.

Not only was their power greater, but their accuracy and range had also improved compared to before.

Combined with his sleight of hand, this deck of cards was practically destined to shine brilliantly in his hands. Moreover... this item could only unleash its maximum potential in his possession, as not everyone possessed his specific throwing technique.

He stood up, walked into the backyard, and drove several pieces of abandoned steel reinforcement bars into the ground of the courtyard.

Standing several meters away,

he flicked his wrist, and the Ace of Spades spun through the air once more. The next instant, the pinky-thick steel bar protruding from the courtyard ground was pierced by the high-frequency vibrating playing card!

It did not cut clean through.

But it did pierce it.

He recalled the card and inspected it carefully; there were no marks on it. The hardness of the card was even greater than he had anticipated.

His strength attribute point was a bit low; once he utilized those nine low-level free attribute points, he might actually be able to slice right through the steel bar.

Here is a piece of trivia:

In most cases, human bones are not as hard as steel reinforcement bars.

He experimented a few more times, and the more he tested them, the more reluctant he was to put them down. This item was simply tailor-made for him. If he had been given this deck of cards earlier, he wouldn't have needed to conceal so many ordinary decks of cards on his person before entering the copy space.

Finally—

he decided to test the teleportation effect.

At that moment,

he hesitated slightly, then put the Ace of Spades back and instead drew a Three of Clubs. He liked the Ace of Spades; since each card could only teleport once and it didn't strictly matter which one he used, he figured it was safer to experiment with the Three of Clubs first.

With a flick of his wrist,

the Three of Clubs vanished in a flash, and by the time it reappeared, it had embedded itself into a distant door frame.

"Hoo..."

Chen Jiang took a deep breath, clenched a "First Aid Syringe" between his teeth, and prepared to attempt the teleportation. He wanted to see what would happen if a card landed in a cramped or completely enclosed space and he teleported into it.

Would he get stuck inside the wall?

Or would he be safely displaced to the nearest stable terrain?