Chapter 24: Found You
The risk far outweighed the reward, so Su Xiao decided against using the cursed gold coin.
Walking within the black mist, the oversized white tallow candle in Su Xiao's hand proved highly effective. Not only did it clear the black mist quickly, but the passage it formed was over five meters tall and nearly three meters wide, illuminating up to six meters ahead. The corridor was now quite spacious.
Even if a sudden situation arose now, Su Xiao could still fight within the black mist.
Su Xiao quickened his pace. After about ten minutes of walking, a wooden cabin appeared ahead. This wasn't due to luck, but rather because the white tallow candle's increased illumination range improved the chances of finding such cabins.
Just as Su Xiao was about to push open the cabin door, he heard voices from inside.
"How's it going?"
"Mm, everything's ready. Just waiting for this batch to arrive."
"Is your chain long enough? Kill them one by one. We have nothing to trade, and we can't get shadow stones through deals anyway."
"If we obtain a shadow stone..."
"Of course, you go first. We're brothers, after all."
Hearing this exchange, Su Xiao was basically certain that the two undead inside had ill intentions and were also quite poor.
Su Xiao wasn't afraid of the undead having malicious intent; he was afraid of them being poor. If that were the case, even fighting would be a waste of white tallow candle.
Su Xiao pushed the wooden door open a crack. Inside was pitch black—the two undead didn't even have a white tallow candle.
Seeing this, Su Xiao turned and left. He had only walked a few meters when the wooden door was yanked open behind him.
"Wait, we have bone dice! Just give us—damn it, wait, don't go!"
Amid a desperate roar, the black mist near the cabin converged again. Within two or three seconds at most, a rumbling sound came from inside—probably an internal conflict. The brotherly bond between these two undead was truly "profound."
As it turned out, sometimes luck couldn't match the advantage brought by resources, as Su Xiao was now experiencing.
After leaving the cabin of the fair-weather brothers, Su Xiao had been walking through the black mist for an hour. During that time, he had found five cabins in total. It was through these five cabins that he gained a certain understanding of the undead—most of them were quite poor.
Earlier, Su Xiao thought High Priest Nue was poor enough, but after encountering other undead, he realized that Nue, who had a white tallow candle, was clearly part of the undead's middle class.
As for Saint Tracy, she was a little rich woman, and the Hunchbacked Old Woman was a super-wealthy tycoon.
Among the undead, only a small fraction still held onto their principles, advocating for the exchange of knowledge.
After Saint Tracy, among all the undead Su Xiao had encountered, only one had no iron shackles binding them. Although he was very poor, he had reached a knowledge-based trade agreement with Su Xiao.
Su Xiao exchanged some alchemy knowledge for the method to craft a type of talisman. This item was a one-time-use piece of equipment that could be worn, but each talisman could only be used once. It wasn't a lethal ability, but it was still practical.
Without the materials on hand, Su Xiao planned to try crafting this talisman after returning to Reincarnation Paradise.
Trading knowledge with undead who could be negotiated with was a decent gain. Unfortunately, such undead were too rare.
Moreover, Su Xiao suspected that once these undead reached a certain number of trades, they might be able to leave their cabins. According to that undead, as he continued trading knowledge with visitors, his cabin gradually grew larger, though it was hard to notice.
The white tallow candle had burned down by a quarter. Time was still relatively ample. Su Xiao sketched a rough map on the ground. Although it was hard to judge direction in the black mist, he could barely determine which general direction to head.
Just as Su Xiao was about to continue forward, a white dot appeared about a dozen meters away. After careful observation, Su Xiao realized it was a candle flame.
Aside from Su Xiao, only five others were known to be able to move within the black mist: the Hunchbacked Old Woman, Monde, Dilin, Shangyue, and the Yinyu clan's Nita.
Su Xiao quickened his pace. At the same time, the white dot ahead began moving away, clearly having spotted Su Xiao as well.
Unfortunately, the speed at which that white dot cleared the black mist was much slower than Su Xiao's. Within a few minutes, he caught up.
The surrounding black mist dispersed, revealing Shangyue holding a small piece of white tallow candle.
As the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy. The white tallow candle in Shangyue's hand was only as thick as a thumb and about ten centimeters long. In contrast, Su Xiao was holding one nearly a meter long and as thick as an arm.
"You..."
Shangyue's mouth opened and closed as she stared at the somewhat exaggerated white tallow candle in Su Xiao's hand.
Seeing that Shangyue wasn't traveling with Nita, Su Xiao frowned.
"Feather clan, where is that Yinyu clan member?"
"I don't know."
Shangyue's tone was flat, but inwardly, she was tense.
"Is that so? If you see her, tell her to come to me for the remaining payment. In the black mist, I might consider giving her some white tallow candle."
"Payment?"
Shangyue murmured to herself. Suddenly, she recalled an incident on Twilight Island. When she was half-unconscious from an explosion, she seemed to hear someone shouting, 'Why did you betray us?' If she remembered correctly, the one shouting was a Dream Spirit clan girl.
Shangyue had always been puzzled about one thing: on Twilight Island, how did Su Xiao know they would go to the lake and set up a sniper point in advance, waiting for them to arrive?
Nearly everyone had died. She had survived by playing dead. But how had Nita survived?
Not only that, while she was playing dead, she vaguely heard shouts of 'payment, revenge, slave,' etc. But at that time, she had lowered her vital signs to the minimum, her vision was blurry, and her hearing was reduced to the limit.
Shangyue wasn't stupid. She had sensed something was off before. Back then, it was Nita who had discovered Su Xiao's trail, and it was also Nita who led them to the lake.
In the maze of the Death House, Shangyue had already felt some aversion to Nita. But under the circumstances, they could only cooperate temporarily, though they were both wary of each other. Later, they were hunted by Monde of the Demon clan.
With no other choice, the two could only keep fleeing. The problem lay here: Nita could change her form, and this ability had saved Shangyue more than three times.
Not only that, when they were about to reach the banquet hall, a dying Nita had tried to lure away the 'axe monster' for her. In that situation, even if it wasn't certain death, it required the resolve to face death head-on.
Thinking of all this, Shangyue, holding the small piece of white tallow candle, felt extremely conflicted. After confirming that Su Xiao had gone far, she turned back into the black mist. Before long, she saw a wooden cabin and pushed the door open.
"How's the exploration? Are there any other cabins nearby?"
Nita sat up from the ground, stretching as she yawned.
"Nita, on Twilight Island... was it you who betrayed me?"
Shangyue spoke in a low voice.
"Yeah."
"Huh?!"
Shangyue was stunned. She hadn't expected Nita to admit it so easily.
"What? Are you going to kill me? It's not just you—I've betrayed many, many people."
"..."
Shangyue fell silent. Just then, the cabin door was pushed open.
With a creak, the wooden door swung fully open, and Su Xiao stood outside, a smile on his face as he looked at Shangyue and Nita.