As he had expected, his knife struck empty air; the person had already moved. The reaction speed was incredibly fast, but Jie Yucheng could still clearly feel that this individual was not on the same level as Zhang Qiling. He had fought with Zhang Qiling before, and the other party had never allowed him to predict their moves.

However, even so, this person at least had over twenty years of foundational skills. Their reaction speed allowed them to judge the way to strike based on the situation. The earlier move of inserting their hand through the gap of the knife was a very dangerous action. Clearly, the opponent believed that their speed gave them a complete opportunity to change tactics midway.

Moreover, there was not just one opponent.

He could not run; if he wanted to escape, he would have jumped out of the window earlier. He had to fight for more in the upcoming plan, and this struggle was cruel for him.

After Jie Yucheng’s strike missed, he retreated to the middle of the carriage, and the people on both sides did not dare to approach recklessly. The train was moving quickly, and both windows were closed. They clearly had confidence that Jie Yucheng had no way to escape.

The first thing he needed to do was to draw all attention to himself, giving Wu Xie enough time to set up the trap.

No one had considered that the mastermind behind the scenes was Wu Xie. Those familiar with them would think that in this era, the only one capable of secretly laying a trap was the young master of the Jie family.

Since this was how you understood it, he had to make you take it seriously, making you realize that without your utmost vigilance and all your strength to guard against him, even a force like yours would be completely insufficient.

Jie Yucheng reset his dislocated joint and looked at the approaching figures, suddenly smiling.

The smile was somewhat desperate; at least one of the people understood it that way—bitter or hopeless, there could be no other meaning.

At that moment, a loud rumble echoed as the train plunged into a tunnel, plunging everything into darkness.

Three seconds later, the train emerged from the other side, and Jie Yucheng in the middle of the carriage had vanished.

A few people showed slight surprise on their faces. They looked around, some bent down to check under the seats, while others checked if the windows had been opened.

Those who could escape had already done so, and the remaining ones who had no way to flee were pulled out from under the tables and checked.

Only then did a few of them truly show expressions of astonishment.

One of them picked up a phone and began dialing, and these individuals quickly dispersed to the two ends of the carriage, as if the earlier fight had never happened.

The people in the carriage looked at each other, having witnessed the scene, and they too began searching around the carriage.

Where did that person go? They did not realize that Jie Yucheng had vanished from this world in an incomprehensible manner.

Choosing to transfer everyone on that bridge was not because of the swift current or the width of the river, nor because the train would slow down on that bridge. Jie Yucheng himself had intervened, appearing so abruptly in the carriage, all alone to do these things. Everything had its reasons.

Because there was a tunnel just 700 meters after the bridge, and to execute the trick of disappearing in the carriage, only Jie Yucheng could accomplish it.

He deliberately did not escape, intentionally confronting these people on the train, and purposefully putting himself in a predicament of being caught in a pincer movement. All for those three seconds of darkness.

Provocation; he didn’t know if it would anger the other party, but at least the implication had been conveyed.

Li Cu, Su Wan, and Yang Hao, in the shadow beneath the sand dune, felt like lost dogs. Li Cu thought it shouldn’t be this hot. A few of them were stripped down to nothing, desperately fanning themselves with their hands, but the wind was scorching. The cool pudding they had just eaten now seemed to be undergoing some strange chemical reaction in their stomachs, and a nauseating feeling lingered in their throats.

“Are you saying that we are not in the Badain Jaran Desert at all? This white desert is another desert?” Yang Hao had just grasped Li Cu’s words. “Why? Is that Boss Wu just full of himself? Did he get tricked too?”

“Impossible. Look, we were brought here by them, which means they know the exact location of this place. Wu Xie and the man who dropped us off should both know the real situation, but they deceived everyone.” Li Cu kept drawing circles in the sand with his cigarette butt. “They must have another purpose for doing this. At least it should be shocking, right?”

It was understandable that Mr. X would be shocked, but the three of them were about to wet their pants first.

“Don’t say that, Ya Li. I think you make a good point,” Su Wan said. “You’re really quick-witted. If it were me, I’d need to think for several days to figure this out.”

Li Cu smiled bitterly. Since he was young, adults around him had said he was quick-witted, and he knew where that way of thinking came from. He had deceived others at any cost, hoping that things could develop peacefully on the surface. He had endured through the most turbulent years of his parents’ conflicts this way.

Although he had stopped doing that now, he had long understood—being an outstanding person couldn’t change anything, even if he tried his best to tell his parents that as long as they didn’t separate, he could be excellent. But they still divorced.

Now his deception had no meaning, but he understood that if a scam were to be completed at any cost, it could always be done.

However, no one expected these people to deceive during this stage; Yang Hao’s question was also his question.

Why?

The best way to see through a scam is to think about how those who are deceived would perceive it if they were to be fooled in such a way.

Li Cu felt that Wu Xie and the person who dropped them off did not intend to deceive the three of them. Perhaps they wanted to deceive them before, but not anymore; otherwise, they would have taken Su Wan’s watch off.

In the past, they deceived them mainly out of fear that they would spread the news. So, the real targets of their deception should be Mr. X.

Mr. X didn’t know about this; he thought they would reach their destination in three days. But they had already arrived.

Time—this scam had given them three days.

“Those supplies,” Li Cu suddenly remembered, “the last time I came here, all the equipment was thrown into the water by the edge of the lake.”

Sure, here is the translation of the provided text:

“If Wu Xie had tampered with the equipment beforehand, the best way to erase those traces would be to destroy the equipment before reaching the destination. This means that the person who destroyed the equipment was Wu Xie himself, and his true intention might have simply been to destroy the GPS of that team. To avoid arousing suspicion, he destroyed all the equipment. It was also at that moment that he told him that there were other malicious individuals in the team.

‘Everything is interconnected,’ Li Cu said, as he began to break out in a cold sweat in such a hot place. He realized he needed to think carefully about their previous entry into the desert, Wu Xie’s every action, and everything they encountered.

This man was not just playing around; everything had a purpose.

‘No, wait, this still doesn’t quite add up,’ Su Wan pondered and said, ‘We are still thinking about it the wrong way.'”