Chapter 1101: Such Good Acting
Zhou Yuanzhu didn’t understand why he was so fixated on this mushroom, so she asked, “Do you have to eat it?”
“Either you eat it, or I eat it,” Xu Huo said, looking at her, giving her the choice.
Zheng Da and Jiang Wenzhang exchanged a subtle glance, but Xu Huo suddenly turned back to look at them. “Mr. Zheng and the others must be used to eating this by now. Eating more won’t do much good.”
“But eating things here might not necessarily relieve the hunger,” Zhou Yuanzhu muttered, yet she still followed his instructions and ate it. Between the two options, she could only sacrifice herself.
Closing her eyes, she stuffed a mouthful of mushrooms into her mouth, chewed once, and couldn’t help saying, “The taste is pretty good.”
“That’s good,” Xu Huo said, not in a hurry to check the results. Instead, he discussed with Zheng Da and the others how to get back.
The car was gone. If they had to walk back, it would take at least two days, not counting the possible mutant attacks along the way.
“We’ll have to walk a stretch first, get within communication network range, and then contact the city to send a car,” Zheng Da said.
Xu Huo nodded. “Then let’s get going first. Mutants are everywhere here; they might come back any time.”
“No, we can’t leave just yet,” Zheng Da said. “The mutant cub issue hasn’t been dealt with. Without the cub, the mutant swarm might besiege the city.”
“Capture it alive?” Xu Huo looked at them. “If it’s a live capture, I might not be able to help. I got internal injuries from being hit by rocks earlier. You all know I was already injured before. Old wounds plus new ones—I probably won’t recover anytime soon.”
As he said, his face was indeed pale, and his voice was weak when he spoke. But anyone who believed him would be a fool!
“Capture is necessary,” Jiang Wenzhang said evasively. “But we don’t have to risk taking it away. Just feed it a slow-acting poison that will ensure it dies right around the time the mutant tide occurs.”
“I see.” Xu Huo looked at Wang Mo and the other two. “Has anyone succeeded?”
“In such a short time, we haven’t found the cub yet,” Zhao Xiaofang said.
Xu Huo took out the map they had given him. “None of these nests have one?”
“Aren’t they all buried?” Cao Zheng said. “Where are we supposed to look now? We’d have to go farther, but the commotion earlier might have made the adult mutants move the cubs.”
That made it even harder to find.
“What do you plan to do?” Xu Huo expressed understanding.
“How can we push forward with just a few of us?” Wang Mo said. “We’ve lost the advantage of sneaking in. The mutants are probably clustering together now.”
“If we linger any longer, we might end up losing our lives instead of catching the cub.”
“Maybe we should go back and let others handle it?” Zhao Xiaofang also suggested.
Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu clearly weren’t going to help. Jiang Wenzhang had probably miscalculated if he thought he could use the mutants to get rid of them. Seeing no other choice, he said, “Then we turn back.”
The group used items and climbed up the cliff by different means, then used flying devices to head back.
They were all equipped with small flying devices, which consumed energy sources that had to be bought on the spot. To save power, they had to fly for a while and then stop.
During a rest break, Xu Huo asked Zhou Yuanzhu about her condition.
“No special feeling,” Zhou Yuanzhu said. “No poisoning, but the hunger hasn’t eased either.”
“Why did you have to make me try that mushroom?”
Xu Huo’s purpose was simply to test whether food from the instance could relieve the hunger sensation, and now he had a definite answer.
Zhou Yuanzhu couldn’t help looking at Zheng Da and the others, who were eating. She saw they were just eating ordinary dry rations.
Xu Huo noticed too. Although he guessed that the hunger of Xiaohe City players might differ from contact with black rain, that small amount of food was clearly insufficient. Unless the filtered water could eliminate hunger, they would have to rely on nutrient supplements.
The nutrient supplements sold in the game could temporarily replace food, but long-term use wasn’t good for players’ bodies. However, for these people in Xiaohe City, whether their evolution rate increased or not didn’t matter much anymore.
Xu Huo checked the time, rested a bit, and then set off again.
Probably because the collapse of the stone belt earlier had caused a big commotion, there were quite a few mutants active nearby. During the journey, Jiang Wenzhang was bitten by a venomous snake, and Xu Huo gave him an antidote.
Until he drank the antidote, Jiang Wenzhang was suspicious of his intentions. But after drinking it, it was Zheng Da beside him who became suspicious—Zheng Da hadn’t settled the matter of Xu Huo taking the Subclass Stone, and now he clearly suspected that Jiang Wenzhang had teamed up with Xu Huo.
Jiang Wenzhang was certainly suspicious of Xu Huo too, but turning hostile now wouldn’t benefit him, so he could only say, “Mr. Xu, I truly admire you.”
“It’s just a bottle of antidote,” Xu Huo said with a smile, completely adopting an attitude of “doing good deeds without seeking fame.”
Cao Zheng, on the other hand, slapped Jiang Wenzhang on the shoulder. “You’re lucky. If Mr. Xu hadn’t been traveling with us, your life would have been lost!”
Jiang Wenzhang gave a forced smile and glanced at him.
It was obvious to anyone with eyes that the two didn’t get along.
In fact, apart from Zheng Da, the others weren’t very close to him either. Even when he was poisoned, the others only symbolically offered a bottle of antidote.
“This guy isn’t doing so well,” Zhou Yuanzhu whispered to Xu Huo, though everyone could hear.
As it was getting dark, they passed by a big river and found a place to rest there.
“A lot of mutants are active at night. It’s safer to set off again tomorrow morning,” Zhao Xiaofang said to Zhou Yuanzhu.
The area near the big river wasn’t a great place either, so they each had to pick a big tree, use insect repellent to clean it, and then just lean against the branches to sleep.
At midnight, Zheng Da sneaked down from his tree alone, planning to leave quietly. But before he could get out of the woods, Xu Huo appeared in front of him, smiling. “Mr. Zheng, getting up to relieve yourself?”
Zheng Da’s gaze involuntarily flicked toward the trees, and he used a silencing item before speaking. “Was that you in the mutant nest? You teamed up with Jiang Wenzhang, didn’t you? Can you two swallow such a big Subclass Stone?”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Jiang Wenzhang isn’t as harmless as he looks on the surface. He’s best at manipulating people and stirring up trouble, and he’s very loyal to Mr. Kang. If the Subclass Stone falls into his hands, he definitely won’t share it with you.”
In the illusion Xu Huo had fabricated, it was Jiang Wenzhang who first attacked and took the Subclass Stone, leaving Zheng Da, who arrived later, with nothing.
But Jiang Wenzhang wasn’t as easy to influence, so Xu Huo hadn’t bothered with him. What he saw was the truth—Zheng Da had suddenly attacked him for no reason, demanding he hand over the Subclass Stone.
“Subclass Stone?” Xu Huo seemed very surprised. “You found a Subclass Stone? There are Subclass Stones here?”
Zheng Da could only sneer coldly: With acting this good, why don’t you become an actor?