Chapter 1367: Strength Decides Everything
"Whether it's true or not, we'll know once we go see," the upright-looking man said. "No matter how the previous stages were arranged, at this step we have to have a clear picture. Everyone came here to make money—why give up such a good opportunity over a petty dispute?"
"From what you're saying, only following your arrangements wouldn't count as a petty dispute?" the burn-scarred man sneered, with a few others chiming in agreement.
On the other hand, several people proactively offered some plans, mostly involving feinting to the east while attacking to the west or luring the snake out of its hole without a map. Overall, they still had to split off a portion of people to divert the attention of the New District Government.
Herein lay the problem: no one was willing to draw enemy fire. Not only was the risk high, but in the end, they might end up with nothing. And compared to those who had formed teams, there were plenty of ungrouped players as well. It was impossible to split everyone in half, and even if they could, the temporarily assembled players didn't trust each other.
"So this is a dead end?" the long-haired man raised an eyebrow.
After a brief silence, three players left.
Seeing others leave, some of the remaining players were also tempted. But at that moment, the upright-looking man said, "That's just how things are. If anyone thinks they can hang back as the mantis stalks the cicada, waiting to swoop in and claim the spoils, they've miscalculated. The New District Government might be hard to rob, but with this many of us, dealing with a few players is still doable."
Indeed, some had been harboring that idea. After hearing his words, two more left, while the others stayed put for now.
It was then that Xu Huo stood up.
"Old Four, you're leaving too?" the scar-handed man looked at him in surprise. As the one who first proposed the plan, surely he wouldn't abandon it.
"I don't have any plan—I can follow Number Eight's lead," Xu Huo said. "I'm going to the restroom."
Number Eight was the upright-looking man, who smiled and nodded at him in acknowledgment.
Xu Huo left the small building and, from a distance of several hundred meters, followed Bai Jing and his group, who had come from outside the city, as they moved toward the Winter Wind Laboratory.
His position was originally not far from the lab, so he didn't need to move much. He simply found a spot by the roadside to sit down. When it came to understanding the New District Government, it was definitely the people from Zone 023 and the Ya Clan who knew best.
Because of the earlier incident, the residents of this nearby block were only now slowly returning. Seeing someone sitting in the shop, the middle-aged owner instinctively wanted to come forward and serve him, but upon noticing Xu Huo, he gave up. Entering the shop, he said with less confidence, "I'm about to close up. Go find somewhere else to sit..."
"Isn't there still something cooking in the pot?" Xu Huo said with a smile. "Give me a bowl. No one's likely to come eat today—it'd be a waste to throw it away."
He placed a White Note on the table.
The owner hesitated, glancing at the money on the table, but finally took it. He brought out several bowls of meat soup in one go. "I've fished out all the meat for you. You paid extra, but I don't have change."
Xu Huo waved his hand to indicate it wasn't necessary. He picked up a pair of chopsticks and was about to start eating when a man covered in dust walked in from outside and sat down across from him without ceremony. "Can you finish all that?"
Xu Huo casually pushed a bowl over to him. "I'm afraid you wouldn't dare eat it."
"Afraid?" Bai Jing extended a gloved hand, but just as he was about to pick up the chopsticks, Xu Huo added, "There's probably dust on the bowls and chopsticks that blew in from outside. Can you stomach that?"
Bai Jing's hand indeed froze for a moment, but then he said, "What's there not to be able to? I'm covered in mud anyway."
Xu Huo slowly stuffed a piece of meat into his mouth and said with a grin, "Dust on clothes can be washed off. Can dust you eat be washed away?"
"Snap!" Bai Jing couldn't help but break the chopsticks in his hand. He gave a stiff smile. "Don't pick a fight for no reason."
Xu Huo didn't care. "If you could beat me, you could try to disgust me too."
Bai Jing's intermittent loss of control subsided. He grabbed another pair of chopsticks, wiped them clean, quickly wolfed down two mouthfuls, and then said in a low voice, "Stop following me."
"With all due respect," Xu Huo raised his hand and pointed left and right, "you and your friends are no match for me."
Bai Jing, of course, hadn't come alone. After discovering Xu Huo nearby, he felt he was being tailed. Letting his mind wander, he even suspected it had started back on the train—otherwise, it wouldn't be such a coincidence that they kept running into each other.
"Who are you?" Bai Jing looked at him seriously. "A player from the New District Government, or a player from another city in Zone 023?"
"If I had ulterior motives, do you think you'd be able to get that out of me?" Xu Huo didn't answer the question directly.
A faint smile appeared on Bai Jing's effeminate face, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Whether I can get it out or not doesn't matter. There are plenty of ways to keep a player here. We don't have the energy to trace everything back to the source, so we just solve problems where they arise."
Xu Huo could somewhat agree with that statement, but he asked something completely unrelated to the current situation. "Are you really the original inhabitants of Zone 023?"
Bai Jing instinctively began to scan the surroundings, but Xu Huo said, "No one can hear our conversation."
"You and the Twin Cities players each have your own story, each claiming the other is the outsider. But I'm more inclined to believe that people like those from Twin Cities are the outsiders."
"Maybe it's because they weren't born and raised here. Apart from Twin Cities, people from other cities also show varying degrees of inability to adapt to environmental changes. One piece of evidence is the daily-use potions widely sold in Zone 023. I asked players from other cities, and it turns out most people in Zone 023 have fallen ill due to the high-temperature environment—some mildly, some severely. Twin Cities is one of the worst cases."
"Additionally, whether players or ordinary people in Zone 023, they are all extremely intolerant of high temperatures—just like us who suddenly arrived in this hot zone."
"You people are different. On the road, I've encountered some individuals. Although they live underground, whether women or children, their appearances differ from those of Zone 023."
"You don't sweat much."
"This shows you are largely adapted to the environment."
"Natural evolution might take one or two generations, decades to complete. If everyone struggled to adapt to the heat, that would be fine. But when a portion of people adapt first, it becomes very conspicuous."
"Of course, maybe it's related to your own special traits. But I think, just like the mutated species near the Stairway to Heaven, the ones that adapt best are always those that originally grew here."
Bai Jing remained unmoved. He was slightly different—what did it matter even if he proved the Ya Clan were the true natives of Zone 023? Strength decided everything. Right now, the outsiders held absolute power, so they could claim they were the original inhabitants of Zone 023.
What Xu Huo said wasn't his own conjecture either. The conclusion that native species adapt better than foreign ones to the region-wide evolutionary rhythm was a finding from a certain doctor in the game, and it had been recognized by the Stellar Corporation. It was just that, in the short term, the difference wasn't very obvious.
"You know what happened in the Winter Wind Laboratory, don't you?" he added.
(Chapter End)