Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo stood once again outside the Sunflower Courtyard, pondering when exactly he had fallen victim to another player’s scheme.

Retracing everything that happened in Fairy Tale City, none of the players he encountered after arriving here had sufficient motive, including the Player-Eater from the Fresh Meat Sausage Shop. The only possibility was that before entering the game, during that confrontation in Harbor City, a high-level player had done something to him.

Granny Bai had only given him a hint without explaining clearly, but it was certain that something had been done to him.

Even with enough train tickets to continuously move between different dungeons, the time spent staying in dungeons was long. Remaining fixed in one place also carried the risk of being found.

He tilted his head to look at Sun Jirou waiting not far away.

”If my skills are inferior, I have nothing to say,” Sun Jirou approached him and said, ”I want to discuss a deal with you.”

Xu Huo gestured for her to continue.

Sun Jirou took a deep breath and said, ”You’ve gotten into trouble. I can help you remove this trouble, but on the condition that you transfer the ’teeth’ Granny Bai gave you to me.”

”Impossible, suggest something else,” Xu Huo said decisively.

Sun Jirou wasn’t angry either. Meeting his gaze, she said, ”This concerns your life safety. The person targeting you is definitely a C-grade player or higher. Do you have the ability to deal with high-level players right now?””With an absolute gap in strength, wisdom simply cannot compensate.”

Xu Huo nodded in agreement, ”So I plan to go directly to the next dungeon.”

Sun Jirou choked for a moment, but then heard him continue, ”State your real conditions. This trick won’t work on me.”

She smiled, ”I didn’t expect you to see through it. I just want you to owe me a favor.”

Only then did Xu Huo seriously examine her. From the beginning on the train, Sun Jirou had presented herself as a pampered young lady from a wealthy family—not high-level, but rich and bringing bodyguards. She had been angry about her companion and bodyguard’s death and wanted revenge, but quickly adjusted her attitude when it proved impossible, even wanting to make a deal with him, who had indirectly screwed her over once.

Her image was quite well-rounded.

”You come from an extraordinary background; you probably don’t need a favor from me,” he said.

”Who can say for sure?” Sun Jirou said, ”In the game world, it’s not about who has money or whose fists are harder. Grassroots rising up in dungeons is much easier than in reality.”

And those with only assets but no player support are just fat meat in others’ eyes.

”Don’t worry, I won’t make excessive demands,” Sun Jirou said. ”I just want to ask you one thing: if you ever encounter a player named Wang Cheng or with the nickname ’Slap My Dad’s Face’ in the game, no matter what, please help him.”

”Is he your brother?”

”Younger brother,” Sun Jirou said. ”After our parents divorced, he went with our mother. Now he’s also entered the game world.”

”Although the game world is vast, there might still be a slight chance we meet again,” she continued. ”If we do have the opportunity to meet, and before that you haven’t encountered him, then help me with another matter.”

”You are indeed a smart person, but you don’t want to wander aimlessly in the game world either, do you?”

”Most dungeons that E-grade players go to are either closed or semi-closed like Fairy Tale City. If you clear a dungeon without using a return ticket, you can only remain stranded in that dungeon. Dungeon locations are only so big; eventually, someone will catch up to you one day.”

”You don’t want to bring danger to your relatives and friends either, do you?”

”The condition I’m proposing isn’t excessive.”

”But if you’re willing to exchange it for Angel’s Teeth, that works too.”

Xu Huo agreed. The two found a tea house and went inside. Sun Jirou took off the necklace from her neck and first explained the item’s use: ”This is a detection item. It can analyze the composition of most things like soil, water sources, air, etc., and can also detect some special scents.”

”I noticed it right when you boarded the train. At first, I thought you were deeply concealing your abilities, but you quickly fooled me.”

”At the Building Block Buns shop, you also confirmed I was outside through this?” Xu Huo asked.

Sun Jirou showed slight surprise, then sighed, ”There’s no sense of mystery at all in front of smart people.”

”Correct.”

She held the necklace pendant and scanned it through the air from top to bottom, finally stopping at his ankle. ”Right here.”

Xu Huo didn’t feel anything. He looked down, but the exposed skin showed no abnormalities.

Sun Jirou took out a bottle of insecticide and, after he nodded, sprayed it. Soon, a fingernail-sized thin flake fell off his skin, similar in color to his skin and as thin as a cicada’s wing.

She picked up the flake. ”This is an embryo of a tracking lizard nicknamed ’See You in Three Years.’ During the egg-laying stage, the mother lizard continuously produces and sheds such embryos. If the embryo attaches to a person or object, even across stations, as long as conditions are suitable, the mother lizard will find it.”

”This lizard’s sense of smell can cross spatial boundaries?” Xu Huo frowned.

”Whether it’s smell or not hasn’t been determined yet, but animal evolution is more complex and strange than humans’,” Sun Jirou paused and rephrased. ”Dolphins have built-in sonar systems in their brains that can locate objects less than five centimeters across from over a hundred meters away. Rusty-spotted catfish can construct a 3D jungle map in their brains. After initial evolution, some animals have displayed extraordinary abilities that humans cannot achieve.”

In other words, humans don’t know how they do it either; they’ve merely observed the phenomenon.

”And this embryo can remain active for up to three years. During these three years, as long as the mother lizard isn’t dead, it will continue tracking it.”

Xu Huo looked at the ”flake” in her palm. ”Can it still be used now?”

”Of course. It seems there aren’t very effective blocking methods yet,” Sun Jirou handed it to him. ”What do you plan to use this for? You can just discard it somewhere.”

”To deliver a big gift,” Xu Huo smiled slightly.

Sun Jirou hesitated for a moment, then said, ”I have another question.”

”Go ahead.”

”How did you see through Granny Bai’s identity? I also interacted with her on the train, but I completely didn’t realize they were the same person.”

”I didn’t see through their identities, I just judged they were related,” Xu Huo said.

”Both of them mentioned the Bear Claw Restaurant, and Granny Bai, disguised as the tour guide, entered the Bear Claw Restaurant herself to lure me in.”

”Weren’t you also curious why no babies were born in Fairy Tale City for twenty years?”

”If this is a powerful person who has lost hope in their own kind, achieving that isn’t difficult. However, this person would need to be at least thirty-five years old. Although the female tour guide didn’t fit that description, the game has all sorts of strange items, and changing appearance isn’t unusual.”

”So whether they were two people or one person, both possibilities were within reasonable range.”

”But why wouldn’t she allow the people of Fairy Tale City to reproduce?”