Chapter 1245: Flower Card Holder
The arrivals were Jiang Zifeng and Ye Bingxin. They also spotted Xu Huo, and with a sudden stop, they leaped forward joyfully. "Didn't expect to run into you here, Old Xu!"
Xu Huo, along with the two of them and Liang Shuang, had agreed to clear the instance together before entering. He hadn't expected to reach the latter half of the maze and only run into Jiang Zifeng at the very beginning, and they hadn't traveled together long before he was randomly teleported elsewhere.
"When did you two meet up?" Xu Huo asked casually.
"Haha, I got lucky," Jiang Zifeng laughed. "After being randomly teleported, I got lost and stumbled around until I ran into her, who was also lost. We've been wandering aimlessly in the maze for a day or two without finding the right direction. Since there was nothing else to do, we started competing in the maze. I'm about to win."
Xu Huo chuckled. "I've found some directional clues for the maze. Want to head to the finish line together?"
"Go? Of course, we'll go!" Jiang Zifeng laughed heartily. "I told you my luck was good. Doesn't this mean we'll clear it smoothly?"
Ye Bingxin shot him a glare. "Shut that jinx mouth of yours."
Jiang Zifeng grinned happily but didn't say anything more.
The original group of three became five. Along the way, Xu Huo asked, "My linked item didn't indicate your positions."
Even face to face, the item hadn't reacted.
Ye Bingxin looked a bit embarrassed. "We lost the linked item."
The whole story was simple: Jiang Zifeng, who had poor luck and no self-awareness, dragged Ye Bingxin down with him. He would approach anyone he met on the road to "ask for directions." Sometimes it worked, but other times it didn't. After one particularly unfriendly encounter, they lost quite a few items, including the linked one.
It sounded like Jiang Zifeng was asking for trouble, but in instances, this was common. Losing items meant accepting the loss.
"I recognize that player. If we run into him, we'll just take the items back," Jiang Zifeng said with inexplicable confidence. "I have a feeling we'll definitely run into him again."
Whether they'd meet the thief again was uncertain, but the frequent dead ends that followed were truly irritating.
After repeatedly hitting dead ends, even Mu Yan and Li Cheng began to doubt themselves. "Could we have taken the wrong path? All our directional items have malfunctioned. It's hard to guarantee our judgment isn't flawed."
Over on the other side, Ye Bingxin touched the maze wall, and a new clue appeared:
"The person holding the most flower cards is now beside you."
Ye Bingxin instinctively looked at Xu Huo. Seeing no change in his expression, she understood. "The clues on the maze walls aren't necessarily true."
However, Xu Huo was inclined to believe this clue was real. Before this, Xue Lang should have been holding quite a few flower cards. Whether he was dead or had left the instance, those cards should have returned to the maze.
The total number of flower cards was twelve. He held three, Chen Chou held one. If Xue Lang had held three or more, the total would exceed seven. The remaining five were unlikely to be in one person's hands, so three flower cards was relatively many.
"I don't have a single flower card. Speaking of which, what's the use of flower cards?" Jiang Zifeng looked at them. "Does anyone know?"
"Before the maze instance was upgraded, if the first card drawn was a flower card, it seemed to allow a faction change before clearing," Li Cheng said. "Whether it was a black card or a white card, there was one free choice."
"I wonder what changed after the instance upgrade."
"Why change factions before clearing?" Ye Bingxin couldn't help asking. "Does clearing have something to do with factions?"
"I'm not sure about that. Only those whose first card was a flower card could change factions. Among clearing players, those who drew a flower card as their first card wouldn't number more than a handful. Those who kept it to the end would be even fewer," Li Cheng said. "Besides, this is already an obsolete rule."
Xu Huo was thinking about another issue. If Xue Lang's cards had really returned to the maze, they were likely heading back to the starting point. That meant the number of flower cards they'd encounter on the remaining path would sharply decrease.
They arrived at another petal-shaped fork. He said, "Same as before. Each person picks a path. If the communicator can't reach us, anyone who hasn't found a way returns to this fork in five minutes."
There were many branches in one direction, so the five of them had to split up. In five minutes, Xu Huo could explore farther than the others. Coincidentally, just as he was about to turn back, he spotted three players brutally beating someone.
That player was lying on the ground, begging for mercy. His legs were bent at angles impossible under normal circumstances, and his clothes were soaked in blood.
The three standing players seemed to enjoy this unequal abuse, laughing and kicking the person on the ground. One of them even stomped on his head, humiliating him. "Spineless coward! You can still smile like that!"
"Three big brothers, please be merciful. Beat me until you're satisfied and spare my worthless life... I have an elderly mother and a young brother at home who depend on me. If I die, it'll be three lives lost... I beg you!"
The person on the ground, beaten black and blue, was Chen Chou. Just like when he begged Xu Huo, even beaten beyond recognition, he only kept pleading, showing no anger or resistance—or rather, his previous resistance had failed, so now he simply lay there and took the beating.
The three players exchanged glances. One of them pulled out a dagger and threw it on the ground. "If you want us to spare your worthless life, it's no problem. Just admit you're a coward, a good-for-nothing..."
"I admit it! I admit it!" Chen Chou said hastily.
The speaker grinned. "Oh, you've learned to answer before the question's done... Just saying it with your mouth costs nothing. How about this: cut off that thing between your legs, and we'll treat you like a woman. We don't bother with women."
Amid their laughter, he kicked the dagger to Chen Chou's hand. "You've still got one good arm. Do it yourself."
As the three laughed, Chen Chou's trembling hand picked up the dagger. Not just his hand—his whole body and face were twitching, large beads of sweat forming, whether from fear or anger was unclear.
He kept his head down, so no one could see his expression. Or rather, no one cared about his thoughts. They just watched his slowly curling body, waiting to see if he would actually follow through.
"Coward! Can you do it or not!" The player in the jacket kicked him. "Hesitating like that, are you already a woman before even cutting?"
The three burst into laughter again. Chen Chou, who had been lying on the ground, suddenly hurled the dagger at one of them and tried to escape using an item. But the three were prepared. An invisible net caught him as he attempted to flee. The jacket-wearing player, enraged by the sneak attack, kicked him away. "You dog! You're asking for death!"
Chen Chou, tangled in the net, rolled and slid a long distance before being stopped by a foot that appeared out of nowhere.