Chapter 1528: Might as Well Lie Flat
"But isn't there a rumor that the more red players eat, the stronger their physical abilities and the faster their evolution?" Wen Dacui said.
"There is indeed that claim, but it can't compare to evolution rate," the female player said. "The fastest way to increase evolution rate is still injecting evolution agent."
Since there was no conflict of interest between the two sides, they could temporarily coexist peacefully. After releasing the trapped girl, the female player also prepared some food for them. There were quite a few ingredients in the apartment, and she even made a late-night snack for Xu Huo and the others, taking a portion for herself as well.
With Wen Dacui being such a talkative person, the three quickly exchanged basic information. The female player's name was Tang Tiantian, a red C-rank player. She had hitched a ride on someone else's prop to get to Zone 017, originally planning to take the opportunity to rob the local government. But as soon as she arrived, she got trapped in the space maze and hadn't been able to get out since. The precious metals and other valuable things in this city had already been looted clean—she hadn't even gotten a single hair's worth of profit and could only wander aimlessly through the city.
Before finding an exit, she first saw the two players forcing the girl. Out of both a desire to rescue the innocent and a hope of recouping her losses, she went upstairs.
"Brother Yu, Brother Wen, do you know how to get out?" Tang Tiantian asked.
"If we could get out, wouldn't we have left already?" Wen Dacui said with a grimace.
The three fell silent, looking at each other.
"I've figured out a little bit of a clue, though I'm not sure if it's right," Tang Tiantian said hesitantly. "Even though it's called a mirror space, there's actually only one Xiaoyue City. No matter which layer of mirror space you're in, what we see is the same. That means no matter which layer of mirror space Xiaoyue City changes in, it will ultimately affect the other layers."
"We walked a long distance and didn't see any suddenly destroyed buildings," Wen Dacui said.
If Tang Tiantian's guess was correct, then no matter which layer a player acted in, the destruction of buildings would be instantaneous. In that case, they couldn't have walked so far without finding any trace of players. Even if they didn't see anyone, they should have seen signs of destruction.
"The city's population numbers don't add up either," Xu Huo added.
Players in different layers of mirror space were isolated from each other. But from the moment he entered the city, every household he passed was functioning normally. The places that originally had people still had people; no one had suddenly disappeared.
If that was the case, it meant that the people of Xiaoyue City, like the buildings, had become part of the mirror space and could appear in any layer of it.
"Copy and paste?" Wen Dacui made an analogy. "But that's obviously unreasonable. How can people be copied and pasted?"
"Could everything we see be fake?" He turned his head to look at the girls sitting in the corner.
Xu Huo had previously experienced a mirror space within a spiritual realm in Fresh Flower City, but that was a case where people who entered the spiritual space became objects in another space, like air, able to intersect with people and things in the real world without affecting each other.
The situation in Xiaoyue City was clearly different.
"What Tang Tiantian and you said earlier can complement each other," he glanced at Wen Dacui. "Xiaoyue City as the main body does indeed run through every mirror space. But the reason we haven't detected the movements of players farther away could be because we're isolated in different layers, or it could be that the mirror space didn't directly cover the entire city from the start but instead spread outward from a certain area or a single player as the center."
Wen Dacui's eyes lit up. "If that's the case, then we should have come into contact with Tang Tiantian's mirror space, right?"
He paused for a moment and then said, "But there's still no way. We don't know how many layers the mirror space covers. And since the city and the people in it are real, this space maze is targeting players. We don't know the conditions for creating new mirror spaces either. Maybe any player could create a new mirror space. We've been covered layer after layer—who knows how many layers we're in now?"
"The mirror space might not be as numerous as we think," Xu Huo turned to Tang Tiantian. "Xiaoyue City exists in every layer of mirror space. Do you have any way to break through?"
"My idea is very simple," Tang Tiantian said. "Since we can leave traces in the city, those traces should be visible to players in any layer. A-rank props are very powerful, but that doesn't mean we can't find a breakthrough. We can use this method to contact players in other layers and have them use space interference instruments at a fixed point. Maybe with the stacking of power, we can find a way out."
"There are quite a few high-level players trapped in Xiaoyue City. It might work!" Wen Dacui nodded, but then said, "Still, it's a bit troublesome. The problem is we're not sure about the rules of mirror space coverage. What if it's scattered here and there and takes a long time to connect into a single layer? That would be a disaster. Don't end up failing to connect with other players and instead attract the holder of the space maze."
"I think my method is more reliable. Since we can't resist, we might as well lie flat. He can't possibly stay in Xiaoyue City forever. Maybe when we wake up tomorrow morning, he'll be gone?"
Xu Huo and Tang Tiantian both looked at him.
"Am I wrong?" Wen Dacui said. "Why do we have to offend an A-rank player? Their time is definitely more valuable than ours. Let's just take a gamble."
Whether Xiaoyue City could be projected into any layer of mirror space didn't matter much to Xu Huo. What he wanted to find was the barrier when the mirror space covered or the edge when it was generated. Only by figuring out the rules of mirror space generation could he move back and forth between different mirror spaces.
"Let's wait until daytime," Tang Tiantian also said. "It's pitch black at night, not as convenient as during the day."
She turned to the girls in the room. "Can we stay here tonight?"
The girls nodded eagerly, and one of them mustered the courage to say, "Every room is available."
"Thank you." Tang Tiantian smiled kindly and turned back to tell Xu Huo and the others which room she had chosen.
After she entered the bedroom, Wen Dacui stared at Xu Huo. "I think it's dangerous to be alone. How about we squeeze together for the night?"
"Get some rest early." Xu Huo stood up and walked into another room.
"Not a bit of humor," Wen Dacui muttered. Ignoring the huddled girls, he chose the bedroom next to Xu Huo's.
The girls who had survived the ordeal stayed in the living room, too afraid to go anywhere, let alone return to their own bedrooms. They forced themselves to stay awake until midnight before finally falling asleep from exhaustion.
When the entire city fell into the silence of deep slumber, someone quietly left the building and went to a small park several hundred meters away. Using a prop, they wrote an address on the open grass and even helpfully marked the direction.