Chapter 1207: Obtaining One Clue
Xu Huo smiled as he looked at her. "No problem."
He Xiaoxiao was quite happy as she stepped forward and voluntarily shared the food she had brought. "How long have you been in here?"
"Two or three hours," Xu Huo accepted her kindness.
He Xiaoxiao shook her head and sighed. "I've been in here for half a day. I thought I was way ahead of everyone. I finally waited for the game to start, walked for hours, and didn't run into a single person... Seriously, not one person. I was bored out of my mind. I wanted to find a place to use the restroom, but there was no one to keep watch. Let me tell you, the developer of this maze is a total freak. They actually use mutant plants as toilets! You know, those specialized carrion-eating mutant plants? They cling to you all slippery and disgusting!"
"As far as I know, there are restrooms in the maze," Xu Huo said, not being particularly tactful. "Also, relieving yourself wherever you please might provoke an attack from the mutant plants."
He pointed to a particularly large leaf sticking out at the corner of the passage ahead. "That's the doorbell for the restroom."
He Xiaoxiao looked unconvinced. "I've been to the Playing Card Maze before, and I've never heard of any restrooms!"
She hurried over in three quick steps, grabbed the leaf, and pulled it. Sure enough, the plants on that section of the maze wall quickly retreated, revealing a door with a restroom sign on it, along with a usage time limit—a maximum of one hour.
He Xiaoxia pushed the door open and looked inside, exclaiming in surprise, "It really is a restroom! How did you figure that out?"
"But you can only use it for an hour? That's way too short!"
"If your physical condition isn't good, I suggest taking some medicine beforehand," Xu Huo said.
He Xiaoxiao wasn't embarrassed at all. She held onto the door and said, "Then wait for me right here!"
With that, she closed the door, and the indicator light on the panel switched to "Occupied."
Xu Huo rounded the corner and looked ahead. If he still didn't run into anyone, then he might really be going the wrong way.
Before long, He Xiaoxiao came out, wiping her hands as she said, "I shouldn't have bought that portable toilet. Those merchants outside have no conscience. They knew there were restrooms in the maze but didn't say a word."
Seeing Xu Huo choose the left passage at the fork, she asked doubtfully, "Shouldn't we go right? That's the direction we've been going, isn't it?"
"I suspect we've been going the wrong way. Let's try a different direction," Xu Huo said.
The content in the instance background introduction was very sparse. Hints about clearing the instance should be included in the "little surprise" the Artificer mentioned. After several hours without encountering any hints at all, it was highly likely they had taken the wrong path.
"Changing direction doesn't guarantee it's right either," He Xiaoxiao said. "What if we were just going diagonally before, and now we're going in the opposite direction? And even if we reverse course, we might not make it back to the starting point."
Xu Huo gave her a meaningful look. "If this instance is meant to be cleared, and our starting points are indeed on the outer edge of the maze, then by changing our direction twice at an angle from our previous path, we should be able to get close to the correct direction."
At the very least, they might stumble upon some clues.
Because the exit of this instance was at the center of the maze, no matter which point on the edge they started from—unless the maze was so huge that walking along the edge for two or three hours wouldn't hit a wall—they were all moving toward the interior.
But even if they were walking along the edge, if the direction wasn't correct, they still had the choice of two major directions: left or right.
If they chose the right direction, the maze walls they triggered along the way wouldn't all be mutant plants. If the direction was wrong, or if they happened to overlap with the correct direction but were going the opposite way, then as they moved away from the maze center, their chances of obtaining clearance information would gradually decrease. In other words, triggering the maze walls would not only fail to produce clues but would also lead to more frequent encounters with mutant plants.
Based on their current speed and the number of players they had encountered, the distance they had traveled so far was definitely less than half the maze's total area. Therefore, changing the major direction was useful.
As long as the general direction was correct, there was a certain chance of obtaining clues.
"Is that so?" He Xiaoxiao said. "I hate mazes the most. But I have a way to check if there are people nearby. The direction with more people is definitely the right one!"
With that, she took out a rubber cat, blew into its mouth, and the soft, deflated cat quickly inflated, turning into a lifelike blue cat when it hit the ground.
He Xiaoxiao patted the cat's chubby cheeks, pointed in the direction they were about to go, and said, "Go, find the humans you hate!"
The blue cat opened its mouth and suddenly charged into the passage. But in the next second, a vine swinging out from the maze wall whipped it back to He Xiaoxiao's feet. It rolled several times on the ground before shaking its head and getting up.
"Oops, my bad." He Xiaoxiao pinched its tail, and the blue cat instantly perked up, shooting like lightning to the middle of the passage. Dodging the vines that came flying one after another, it nimbly used the maze walls to jump and roll, passing through in an extremely short time.
After the blue cat left, the vines on the maze walls retracted. He Xiaoxiao smiled at Xu Huo and said, "Let's go too."
"Before we go, I want to remind you," Xu Huo said. "I drew a very bad card. It might increase the frequency of mutant plant attacks."
He Xiaoxiao had already stepped inside. She turned her head, about to say something, when the nearby maze wall split open like a vertical mouth, and countless green, head-sized fleshy balls sprayed out from inside!
Those things were elastic and covered in spikes. They bounced skillfully between the two maze walls, quickly forming an impenetrable attack web in the middle of the passage.
"You're really unlucky," He Xiaoxiao remarked on Xu Huo's luck. Then, swinging both arms, she threw two large barrels ahead. When the green fleshy balls smashed into the barrels, the sticky liquid that splashed out began to rapidly harvest the balls, sticking them all to the maze walls. Meanwhile, she took the opportunity to touch the maze wall herself, successfully opening up a clue.
A scroll, about the size of a playing card, was projected in the air, but its contents were not yet revealed.
"I got a clue! Let's go!" He Xiaoxiao even turned back to call Xu Huo.
As for Xu Huo, he had triggered another batch of mutant plants from another wall.
When the colorful things flew out, he couldn't help but raise an eyebrow: The Mutant Plant Friendliness effect was outstanding.
The two of them turned into the next passage and, unsurprisingly, were attacked again. While fending off the mutant plants and touching the maze walls, they went through seven passages in a row before the wave of plant attacks finally subsided.
Finding a corner to stop, He Xiaoxiao eagerly checked the clue. "The end of the maze is directly east of your current passage."
She looked around. "Directly east... which way is east?"
(End of chapter)