Chapter 231: Empty City Strategy
Prosciutto was dying.
His lower body was turned into a pool of meat paste, and his upper body was twisted and stuck in the wheel. The blood was surging up his throat, and the intense pain made him unable to speak.
But even so, Prosciutto's spirit has not faded:
"Bessie, the glory of victory is entrusted to you."
"Kill him and get the box..."
"I will...always...be here to protect you."
With a determination to die, Proshout struggled to maintain the ability to die heroically.
For Li Qing, that box is the dream of his companions, and the same is true for Proshutter.
He will never give up and will never deactivate his Stand ability until the last moment of his life.
And Prosciutto's persistence soon paid off.
His expectations of Bessie were not in vain.
The agreed time of one minute had just passed, and Bessie, sensing something was wrong, quickly rushed over from the waiting room.
Prosciutto heard Bessie's hurried footsteps and his heavy breathing that became audible after he arrived at the platform.
“It worked…”
"Bessie didn't hesitate. He got here before the other side could rescue him."
"Li Qing is too old to move, and he is injured. There is no way he can break the situation."
Prosciutto thought with relief in his heart:
"Go ahead, Bessie."
"My legacy and everyone's dreams are all entrusted to you."
He placed all his hopes on Bessie, but Bessie's actions were not as decisive and sharp as he expected.
Because Bessie hesitated.
The train had not arrived at the station yet and the ticket gate had not opened yet when the heroic sacrifice happened, so there was no one on the platform at all.
There were still quite a few people on Platform 2 opposite, but now they were completely blocked to the other side by the arriving train.
There were passengers on the train, but they were so old and had difficulty moving due to their heroic sacrifices that they collapsed in the carriage as soon as the train arrived at the station.
And the most important thing is... Proshutter is now stuck in the wheels below, and his view is blocked by the towering platform.
If people didn't stand at the edge of the platform, they wouldn't be able to see the man who was struggling to hold on in "hell".
So, when Bessie hurried over, he couldn't see anyone else and could only see Li Qing.
Li Qing just stood there alone, with his skinny body that looked creepy like a mummy, blood flowing from his waist and intestines flowing out of his stomach.
Especially the pair of turbid eyes that emitted a cold light, embedded in the dark and deep eye sockets, growing on the skinny head, looking very scary.
The blood all over the ground had flowed from his body.
It's like a classic scene from a zombie horror movie.
Bessie was immediately startled, and then she turned to her parents out of habit:
"Where's my eldest brother?"
"Where is my brother Prosciut?!"
“Not good…”
When Prosciutto heard Bessie crying for her mother like a lost tadpole, he already had a bad feeling.
But he was too injured to speak, and couldn't make Bessie aware of his presence.
Then, Li Qing spoke.
This sentence almost made Prosciutto die of anger on the spot:
"You ask your eldest brother?"
"Haha, haven't you noticed yet? He has already abandoned you and escaped!"
Li Qing said jokingly.
"Escaped?"
Bessie's eyes suddenly widened.
Then, the next second, an uncontrollable anger suddenly surged in his dull eyes:
“Nonsense!”
"Brother Prosciutto will never, ever abandon me and run away!"
"How dare you insult my eldest brother like this..."
"Asshole, asshole! I'm going to stab you through the heart right now!"
Bessie held the fishing rod tightly, and the fishhook in Li Qing's body drilled further upwards.
Just a little bit more and the hook would penetrate the loose flesh and tear out the fatal heart.
"Of course you can kill me!"
Li Qing shouted with all his might.
Even though his body was old and frail, and his wounds were painful and embarrassing, he still managed to maintain his composure on the surface:
"That's right, you can take my life with just a flick of your finger."
"But, so what?"
"I have been in contact with my companions by phone and they will be here soon."
"And your elder brother Prosciut was seriously injured in the battle. He knew that if he stayed any longer, he would not be able to leave alive—"
"So, he left you and ran away!"
Li Qing lied with his eyes open without blinking.
"You're lying!"
Bessie still refused to believe that her eldest brother would run away out of fear of death.
But his movements still slowed down unconsciously, and even his words were filled with question marks:
"You are still an old man now, and your elder brother's heroic sacrifice is still taking effect. How could he possibly escape?"
"He must still be nearby, still fighting somewhere nearby... He must be."
"hehe."
Li Qing sneered with disdain.
The flawless sarcasm on his face made people forget for a moment that he was just a seriously injured and dying old man.
"Of course you have to drive a Stand when you run away, otherwise what if you get caught up?"
"That guy has been on the run for a while, if I'm not mistaken..."
"Prosciutto will probably escape outside the train station within ten seconds. By then, I will be out of the influence of his stand, and the aging effect on my body will be eliminated!"
Just telling lies is not enough to gain people's trust. The key is that Li Qing confidently told the time when Proshute "escaped from the station" while telling the lie.
Ten seconds is not a long time.
By then, it will be very obvious whether Li Qing’s aging has been eliminated.
Bessie fell into Li Qing's trap without realizing it:
He began to wonder unconsciously, did Brother Prosciutto really escape?
Should we wait for these short ten seconds to see if the aging condition on Li Qing can be eliminated?
If the aging was really removed in ten seconds as Li Qing said, and the eldest brother really abandoned him and ran away, then...
"Do you still need to hold on?"
Li Qing tried his best to maintain his calm on the surface.
With a wavering look on his face, he began to speak while the iron was hot:
"Killing me is easy, but what happens after you kill me?"
"You will be captured on the spot by my companions who are about to arrive, and then die painfully under their anger!"
"Oh, I forgot to say..."
"Although my friends are good people, it doesn't mean that the way they kill people is not cruel."
Li Qing endured the pain and used a bone-chilling voice to carry out strategic intimidation:
"For example, Bucciarati likes to cut people into pieces when he gets angry. By then, your body will probably be so broken that even the top puzzle player can't put it back together."
"For example, Fugo. If his Purple Smoke attacks, your body will quickly , and finally melt into a sticky, wet mass."
"And Giorno, don't think it will be easy to be killed by the Golden Experience—"
"He'll cut your body in half and turn it into rats, and then let them eat the rest of you alive."
“…”
Bessie couldn't help shuddering as she heard these tragic scenes.
His elder brother was gone, and without his spiritual support, he gradually became fragile.
Li Qing was well versed in negotiation skills. He first told the other party what losses would be incurred if they did not cooperate, and then began to throw sugar-coated bullets at Bessie:
"Bessie, your name is Bessie, isn't it? I heard the name from your conversation."
"I can see that you are still very immature. You should be different from those hopeless villains."
Even though his waist and abdomen were bleeding and his face was as pale as paper, Li Qing was still able to issue a statement of persuasion to surrender without changing his expression:
"You have great potential and a kind nature, just like a piece of untainted white paper. Why do you insist on being trapped in darkness?"
"There is an old saying in my hometown: those who obey God's will will prosper, and those who resist the guidance of light will perish."
"Right now, my companions, a group of eight, are not far from here. They are all experienced in battles and very powerful."
"You are now as dim as a firefly wandering in a rotten meadow. How dare you compete with the goddess Luna who has infinite energy in the sky?"
"I advise you to put down your fishing rod, reel in your fishing line, and stand on the side of justice in time. You can still get the opportunity to be appointed as an organizational cadre."
" Giving up rebellion and maintaining peace, isn't this a wonderful outcome?"
Li Qing's "patient and persuasive" voice kept echoing on the platform.
And Bessie actually stopped for a while and waited in silence.
In fact, neither the threats nor the deception really moved him. Now he was still waiting for the ten seconds to end, waiting for the answer to a key question:
Did Brother Prosciutto abandon him and run away?
"I see…"
"Li Qing, it turns out you haven't given up either."
Where Bessie couldn't see, Prosciutto, who was stuck in the wheel, felt a wave of anxiety in his heart:
"I can't speak or move my body now, so it's almost impossible for Bessie to detect my presence."
"And with Bessie's coquettish and weak nature, if I'm 'absent', he will lose the courage to fight."
"But that alone is not enough."
"So, Li Qing, you are betting..."
"You are betting your life, betting that I, who am seriously injured like this, will die in these ten seconds!"
"As soon as I die, my heroic sacrifice will be over, and your lies will be proven."
"By then, Bessie will believe that I abandoned him and ran away. With his psychological support collapsed, he will definitely give up like a coward."
Proshout understood Li Qing's empty city plan.
This was a complete gamble, one side was gambling on Bessie's psychology, and the other side was gambling on his life.
"In that case, I'll bet with you!"
"Your aging will never be eliminated—"
"I will live, live beyond these ten seconds, and live until the moment when Bessie fulfills my last wish!"
Proshute's broken body was still tenaciously alive.
Li Qing was chattering away on the platform, while he was struggling to hold on to his last life.
Soon, ten seconds passed.
Prosciutto is still alive.
The heroic spirit is still running silently.
He was the winner. He survived those ten seconds and prevented Li Qing's plan of getting something for nothing from succeeding.
Prosciutto was thinking this, and then...
All that was heard on the platform was Bessie's exclamation:
“Aging… has been lifted?!”
