Chapter 1262: A Whim to Do a Good Deed
Outside the window, the night grew deeper, yet the lights of Card City shone even brighter, the entire city immersed in a bustle distinct from its daytime atmosphere.
In just twenty minutes, the high ponytail woman answered three phone calls, each time more impatient than the last. After the final call, she turned back to urge her companion.
During this time, there were people peering in through the window, though none entered. It was unclear when their patience would run out.
Xu Huo kept his distance from the two, sitting by the window, savoring his wine while admiring the city lights. He neither interfered with them nor pressed for further answers.
Before long, the manager who had received Xu Huo that afternoon came upstairs, personally delivering the hotel's special cuisine and reminding him, "In three minutes, a team of local zone players will enter the hotel with credentials. According to District 001 law, the hotel must cooperate for ten minutes. During that time, they have the right to access the top floor and conduct simple monitoring outside the guest rooms without disturbing the guests."
Xu Huo gave him a generous tip, then turned to remind the high ponytail woman and her companion, "You heard what the manager said. The people after you must have contacted their allies in the district government, preparing to hunt you down under legitimate pretenses. Soon, many will gather near the hotel. By then, you won't be able to leave."
Leaving now was the only option.
The high ponytail woman immediately stood up, thanked Xu Huo, and called her companion to leave.
Shortly after they left, two of the people monitoring outside disappeared, but they quickly returned.
Xu Huo's brow twitched slightly. He opened his door and walked a short distance, soon discovering something discarded behind the door of the entertainment room: a very thin metal shard.
It resembled the carrier of the encrypted file the high ponytail woman and her companion had obtained earlier, but it wasn't the same one.
He picked it up and examined it, then, without much hesitation, handed it over to the hotel staff, asking them to forward it to the district government, claiming it was an item left behind by the two.
"Would you like the hotel to arrange a car to take you elsewhere for entertainment?" the manager asked.
"Not for now," Xu Huo replied. He was still waiting for the space device at the hotel.
Soon, the district government players arrived. Instead of conducting any inspections, they directly approached Xu Huo and invited him to undergo an on-site check.
This was clearly forced cooperation. His encounter with the high ponytail woman and her companion had made him a suspect in the handover. Even if he handed over a fake carrier, or even a real one, he would still be under suspicion.
"Do I need to go to the district government for questioning?" Xu Huo asked.
Perhaps they hadn't encountered such an obedient and cooperative outer zone player before. Normally, active resistance was the standard procedure.
"No need," the team leader said. "District 001's technology allows us to conduct temporary work outside. Don't worry, it's just a simple lie detection process to confirm you have no connection to those two. The process will only record your heartbeat and breathing, without collecting any biometric features like your appearance."
As he said, they didn't even approach Xu Huo. Instead, they deployed two miniature flying detection devices, scanning him from a distance before beginning.
The team leader asked Xu Huo to provide a complete account of the events.
Xu Huo recounted his encounter with the high ponytail woman and her companion from start to finish. However, he moved the part about the high ponytail woman mentioning the theft of the encrypted file from the room to the elevator, omitting the segment about possible collusion within the district government. He explained that he had decided to help them after hearing their reasons... in short, it was a whim to do a good deed.
"It sounded like they weren't doing anything bad. If this could help crack down on the black market for human experiments, that would be a good thing."
After speaking, he waited quietly. A few seconds later, the detection device beeped. The team leader glanced at the report in front of him, frowned, and then said, "You were deceived by them. What they stole wasn't any underground market transaction file, but a batch of medical papers. Among them are important documents that affect the future of evolvers. They stole the files for profit, and before leaving, they tried to shift our attention onto you."
Xu Huo smiled. "When I found the carrier, I realized that. It seems being a good person doesn't pay off."
The team leader glanced again at the encrypted screen in front of him, then said, "Thank you for your cooperation."
With that, he turned and left, his team members following closely behind. None of them spared Xu Huo a second glance.
It seemed his suspicion had been cleared. However, compared to this team, the words of the high ponytail woman and her companion, who had just dragged him into trouble, seemed more credible.
If those medical papers truly were so important to the future of evolvers, why would the District 001 government send only this few people to pursue them? And why conduct a lie detection test without entering the district government facility?
Moreover, it was highly illogical for such important medical papers to be stolen by two players of mediocre strength.
Of course, Xu Huo was just a passerby. His opinion didn't matter.
The next morning, the exchange delivered the jamming device.
It wasn't a crude carving. The wormhole flower was embedded inside a coin-thin, translucent circular disc, three-dimensional and lifelike, like a real flower, only uncolored.
Xu Huo wore the device, which looked like an ornament strung on a cord, and activated it. He could feel the power it released. He tested it by manipulating the rays within the cube space. As expected, forming barriers or blades became much more difficult, and maintaining them required more energy.
After his secondary evolution in the maze space, he had become more adept at using the cube space. The barriers and attack weapons he could create by controlling the rays had multiplied in both strength and quantity. After being jammed, it felt like he had been reverted to his original state. It wasn't that he couldn't control the rays, but the space rays, under the impact of the jamming force, seemed to become sluggish and heavy, like something slipping through his fingers but not quite.
This was purchased to deal with characters like Xue Lang. The better the effect, the better.
Jiang Zifeng and Ye Bingxin hadn't returned to the hotel that night. Xu Huo left a message at the front desk and took a flight to Fresh Flower City.
Fresh Flower City was also a large city, not too far away. Taking a public flight was a convenient and affordable option.
Among the passengers were locals and players from other areas on business. Since it was a short trip, there were no assigned seats. Xu Huo casually found a spot where people were gathered and listened to their conversations.
Fresh Flower City was most famous for its city full of flowers. It was said that everyone living there would be imbued with the scent of blossoms, a romance that seemed irresistible to both men and women. Many people specifically went to Fresh Flower City just to verify this claim. It was surprising yet piqued curiosity—things that seemed trivial but harmless often attracted more attention.
"I'm going to stay a few days and try it out. I hope the accommodation in Fresh Flower City isn't too expensive!" someone immediately said.
"If you're a mutant flower cultivator, you can stay for free until you die!" another chimed in. "But being a mutant plant cultivator is a high-risk profession. You might end up feeding the flowers and plants at any moment. Who knows, maybe the petals floating through the air were nourished by your nutrients!"
A dark joke not meant to be pondered too deeply.