Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo put down the invitation letter. The other few were visiting cards, from some young noble scions who wanted to stay at Rose Castle for a while.

Among the many ancient castles in the ancient city district, Rose Castle wasn’t particularly remarkable. Those second-generation heirs definitely weren’t coming just to see the flowers. They were here for Madame Butterfly.

”Has Madame Butterfly mentioned when she plans to leave?” Xu Huo asked casually, as if it were an offhand question. Mr. Dong’s current attitude toward Madame Butterfly somewhat resembled his previous stance toward the fake He Pu. They hadn’t openly fallen out, but he would find fault in daily trivialities.

”She will live here permanently.” The butler clearly wasn’t happy about this matter either.

Xu Huo smiled slightly. ”She won’t stay for too long.”

He paused, then asked, ”As for those items in the rooms on the third floor, could I rent one or two? For self-defense.”

Mr. Dong responded with silence.

That meant he disagreed. Xu Huo didn’t press the issue. Instead, he said, ”I’m resting today. I saw someone deliver flowers earlier. I’ll help you plant them.”

Mr. Dong nodded and proactively inquired, ”Do the injuries on your body require special treatment?”

”Just superficial wounds. I’ve already applied medicine,” Xu Huo replied.Afterward, the two went to the garden to plant the rose stalks. Xu Huo picked it up quickly, and their pace wasn’t slow either. Soon, they had filled about a third of the garden.

During this time, Madame Butterfly came out. She sat in the small pavilion, had the kitchen send over some snacks, and while gently fanning herself, she watched them work.

While wiping his sweat, Xu Huo said to her, ”How about you come help too?”

Madame Butterfly lifted her beautiful chin slightly. ”Not interested.”

Xu Huo continued working. Madame Butterfly rested her chin on her hand and watched him for a while. ”Was this dungeon not smooth? You seem quite irritable.”

”Ran into a super player,” Xu Huo said without stopping his movements, his tone casual. ”Laurence Li.”

”Oh, him.” Madame Butterfly’s tone drew out. ”You were lucky. Laurence Li is one of the more normal ones among super players. His only hobby is probably conducting some human experiments.”

”But he’s also quite pitiful. He started showing side effects even before becoming an A-grade player.”

Xu Huo turned to look at her. ”Do you have any signs of side effects?”

Madame Butterfly’s expression faltered slightly as she stared at him. ”Trying to pry information from me?”

”If I asked, would you tell me?”

”No.”

Then there was nothing more to say. Xu Huo poured all his enthusiasm into planting the flowers.

At that moment, Madame Butterfly stood up. ”I can accompany you to the gathering five days from now.”

Xu Huo looked up, but she had already turned and walked away. The hem of her red long dress swayed, and her bare feet lightly stepped on the grass—she wasn’t wearing shoes.

He only glanced briefly before turning his attention back. After he and Mr. Dong finished replanting both the front garden and the rear botanical garden of the castle, he changed into clean clothes and went to report to the base.

Before entering the dungeon, he had informed Shi Youzhi. Seeing he had returned, Shi Youzhi, who was just about to head back to his office, called him along.

Shi Youzhi had recently been investigating the station destruction incidents. Besides the main partition where the base was located, several other partitions in District 011 had also experienced station destruction. The base acted quickly and soon uncovered some clues. This was also related to recent events in District 011. Some rumors were circulating that a batch of firearms and weapons from the Rongxin Group had encountered problems during handover. The cause of the station destruction likely stemmed from this.

”The base doesn’t plan to intervene in this matter anymore,” Shi Youzhi said as he filed the documents away. He added, ”After all, District 011 isn’t completely under base control.”

This was normal. The Game Government couldn’t interfere in every affair of the game partitions. During the investigation, the base had presumably reached an agreement with the District 011 government regarding the station destruction.

”Your evolution rate has increased quite a bit,” Shi Youzhi said, shifting the topic to him after finishing. ”Are you here today to purchase items?”

Xu Huo nodded. ”I want to find a couple of items with strong defensive capabilities.”

”That’s simple too.” Shi Youzhi opened the internal system. ”Here’s the catalog and descriptions of items available for purchase. You can look through it yourself. Once you’ve chosen, you can apply with Sanyang. I heard you have a Gentleman of Light medal, right? That thing makes the application process a bit easier.”

Shi Youzhi had other matters to attend to. After leaving him in the office to make his selections, Shi Youzhi left first.

Xu Huo first looked at the B-grade items. The prices offered by the base were cheaper than those at external exchanges, but even after applying the employee and medal discounts, they were still expensive.

Among the B-grade items, he took a liking to two. One was ”Emergency Shelter No. 101,” an explosion-proof shelter item. It looked like a prefabricated house, but the description claimed it could withstand attacks on the level of a nuclear bomb. Furthermore, the structure of this item was special: the area outside the room was actually the inside of the item.

In other words, the internal and external structures of this item were reversed. The enclosed space within the room was considered ”outside,” while everywhere else was considered ”inside.”

This was an interesting way of putting it. It was like drawing a circle on the ground. One could also say everything outside that line was contained within the circle.

However, this was just a matter of perspective or way of thinking. The distinction between inside and outside for ”Emergency Shelter No. 101” was also related to its usage. The outer wall of the room designated as ”inside” had extremely strong defensive capabilities. If no one opened the door from the enclosed space designated as ”outside,” it would be very difficult for those ”inside” to damage this room. However, those within the enclosed ”outside” space could relatively easily destroy this item.

Additionally, this inside-out item had another feature: if someone wanted to enter the enclosed ”outside” space to take shelter, they had to pay supplies to the holder. In other words, this item could provide shelter for multiple people, players and non-players alike.

However, the interior of this item wasn’t very large, just over twenty square meters.

Compared to others, this was currently the item with the strongest defensive capabilities that Xu Huo could obtain. Although not easily movable, it was impervious to water, fire, and radiation, and possessed super defensive strength. Its minor shortcomings were negligible.

The other item was ”Inverted Space,” a spatial item. It could invert everything within a small area—sky becomes ground, ground becomes sky. More intuitively, the direction of gravity was inverted, but people would experience disorientation and discomfort from the head-to-foot reversal. Used in specific scenarios, such as within a Mental World, it could be very advantageous.

Each of these two B-grade items, even after the discount, cost over a million White Bills. Xu Huo could only choose one.

Afterward, he looked at the C-grade items and selected an offensive item from among them called ”Hurt Others, Not Yourself.” It was a thin rope made of specially crafted metal pieces that could switch, under the holder’s control, between being an ordinary rope and a super-cutting wire. Its thickness was only about three millimeters.

He also took a liking to a C-grade water jet gun and a pair of C-grade diamond gloves. The former was a standalone attack weapon, while the latter could be used in conjunction with the cutting rope.

Between the two B-grade items, Xu Huo chose ”Emergency Shelter No. 101.” Adding ”Hurt Others, Not Yourself,” the water jet gun, and the diamond gloves, the four items cost him a total of 2.4 million White Bills.