Chapter 116: Everyone Is Acting

Lakutu snatched the wooden staff, the symbol of tribal leadership, and held it high. "From this moment on, I am the new elder!"

Many hesitated, but as the first guard—likely a plant—bowed in submission, others followed suit, lowering their heads to acknowledge his authority. A dozen guards charged toward Yan Luo and the three women.

"Fire!"

Jerry had brought plenty of weapons to the island; he and the three women were all armed.

Yan Luo now understood why he had been buried in a grave and why the two black men had killed each other. But who had taken the voodoo doll? Who had stood by his bedside last night? Moreover, the tribe’s three great secrets—the zombies, the voodoo dolls, and the evil spirits—had yet to truly reveal their power.

Therefore, Yan Luo continued his act. To the world, he was Jerry.

*Bang!*

A bullet struck down a guard. The three women, appearing terrified to the extreme, also opened fire. His younger sister, Jessica, cradled a Thompson submachine gun, unleashing a stream of bullets that sent several more guards collapsing to the ground.

"Shields up! Advance!" Lakutu commanded.

The warriors rushing forward now gripped Zairean short swords in their left hands and ox-hide shields with wooden spines in their right. Crouched low behind their shields, they advanced as if charging through a hail of arrows. Yan Luo and his companions retreated while firing, but the more than three hundred tribal members soon surrounded the plaza, sealing off all avenues of escape.

Ammunition is finite.

"We're out of bullets! Brother, are we... are we going to die here? Waaah..."

Jessica, the blonde sister, began to sob in despair.

"No, we won't. I will get you out of here; we will leave this place alive!"

For the past day or so, Yan Luo had been absorbing various emotions. In particular, the twenty or so points of emotion he had accumulated while wandering the village as a "heartless doll" were a chaotic mix. To maintain his performance, he tapped into a sense of terror, letting his voice tremble and his fingers shake as he gripped his firearm.

The ammunition finally ran dry.

"Surround them!" Lakutu shouted.

The tribesmen closed in with their swords and shields, trapping Yan Luo and the three women in the center. These brutal, primitive people grinned, revealing jagged teeth; some wore bloodthirsty expressions. For them, killing and cannibalism were mere routine.

Yan Luo shivered in terror. Among the three women, Jessica closed her eyes, curled into a ball, and huddled on the ground. Katherine and Brenda, casting aside their former rivalry as fiancée and ex-girlfriend, clung to one another.

Seeing Lakutu approach, Yan Luo—playing the roles of brother, fiancé, and ex-boyfriend—unleashed another point of fear. Under the weight of deep dread, he took a step back. Glancing at his trembling sister and his despairing fiancée and ex-girlfriend, he gritted his teeth and spread his arms to shield them.

"I will protect you."

"Protect? You can't protect anyone," Lakutu sneered. "Go to your death in peace. I’ll take care of them for you!"

"The Hoffman family will have their revenge!"

"Revenge? Hahahaha... I am not afraid."

The man spat on the ground with disdain. Without further explanation, he raised the weapon that had decapitated the old elder—still stained with blood—as if to strike down Yan Luo, the heir to the Hoffman family.

"I... I'll fight you to the end!"

Yan Luo postured to resist. If the hidden power did not reveal itself at this critical moment, he would have no choice but to unleash his true strength and execute this black executioner with lightning speed.

"Brother, no! It's dangerous!"

"Jerry!"

Behind him, Jessica, Katherine, and Brenda all screamed in unison and lunged at his back.

Yan Luo’s pupils constricted sharply. His movements froze; blood seeped from the corners of his mouth. Lakutu’s jaw dropped in disbelief, his long blade suspended in mid-air.

Embedded in Yan Luo’s back were three weapons: a short sword, a dagger, and a table knife.

The three weapons were held by a soft, fair hand, a healthy-toned hand, and a slender-fingered hand, respectively—belonging to the blonde Jessica, the flaxen-haired Katherine, and the redhead Brenda.

Sister, fiancée, ex-girlfriend.

The three women seemed surprised to find that the others had also ambushed "Jerry" at the same moment. They looked at each other in awkward silence.

The scene turned incredibly awkward.

"Oh? Were you all planning to kill him and throw yourselves into my arms?" Lakutu concluded, a smug smile spreading across his face.

"Get lost!"

Brenda threw a punch at the man. It was a simple strike, yet a series of bone-snapping cracks erupted from the large, strong man’s body. His chest caved in, and he was sent flying over ten meters before crashing to the ground.

"You, you..."

Blood sprayed from Lakutu’s mouth, mixed with fragments of his internal organs. It was clear he was dying. His eyes were filled with shock, fury, and despair—so much so that Yan Luo absorbed over ten points of intense emotion in a single instant.

"No... impossible..."

He had endured for thirty-two years to avenge his true father, personally killing the elder and seizing the chieftainship, all while mastering mysterious witchcraft. A man of true ambition had been killed in a single blow at the height of his triumph.

With a lingering look of resentment toward Brenda, his head slumped, and he went still.

"Brenda, Jessica, Katherine..."

"Why?"

Yan Luo had three weapons stuck in him. In truth, these would be fatal wounds to an ordinary person, but his physical constitution far exceeded that of a normal human. Protected by his natural physical resilience, the weapons had not penetrated deeply before being gripped by his muscle tissue.

With his immense vitality and self-healing genes, the wounds would heal within five minutes once the blades were removed.

However, still playing the role of Jerry, Yan Luo asked with difficulty, even unleashing a point of sorrow to match the mood. Tears streamed from his eyes as he looked at the three women, his expression of grief and heartbreak deeply infectious.

"Why? You’re actually asking me why? Hahaha..."

Brenda, who had struck down Lakutu, let out a manic laugh. "Right, you’ve lost your memory, haven't you? All those past tendernesses and oaths... forgotten. Perhaps that is for the best; it makes it easier for me to kill you..."

"As for why... for over a year, ever since you dumped me, I’ve been acting. I played the part of the devoted ex-girlfriend hoping to win you back. Now, at last, I don't have to act anymore. Though, I never expected Katherine and Jessica to strike as well."

"It seems your fiancée and sister were also acting, weren't they? Katherine, you truly are an actress. You played the role of the fiancée so well for over a year that even I didn't see through your act. And Jessica... it’s strange. I could feel your love for your brother. Was that love also just a performance? I can understand Katherine, but why would you act, too? You hid your intentions very well."

"The feeling is mutual."

A sweet smile bloomed on Jessica’s face. "It seems we were all acting, except for poor brother... I suppose I shouldn't have struck just because I saw a good opportunity, which is why I exposed myself. If I hadn't used that blade, you or Katherine would have been enough. That way, I could have continued the act a little longer, watching you all perform from the sidelines. Wouldn't that have been interesting?"