Chapter 1618: Black Bounty List
The waiting process was boring, especially in this white fog weather.
The special environment naturally made them feel a strong drowsiness. With nothing to do and many people gathered together, this sleepiness spread like a virus.
Chi Xian yawned beside him. "This won't do. I think most people will fall asleep before dinner time."
"It doesn't matter," Xu Huo said. "Anyone who wants to sleep can sleep. Whoever doesn't want to clear the instance can cause trouble as much as they like."
This was said for the others to hear. Liao Xiaorong and her group tactfully stopped coming near them. The other players were even more wary of Xu Huo, forming small groups and sticking together. Now, only Tong Qi and Chi Xian were still sitting with Xu Huo.
Tong Qi, who hadn't slept for a day and a night, was more energetic than most people. He enthusiastically installed monitors and recorders in various corners of the mall—he didn't have that many tools and had borrowed them from other players.
The beautiful female player who had first shown goodwill to Xu Huo and the dark-faced player brought a few people to help, and they also placed some small items with similar effects.
They openly installed their items, but the other players weren't idle either, secretly making small moves inside and outside the building.
Xu Huo pretended not to see it. He then called the few awake 013 District people over and asked them about the legend of "Midsummer Night Star River."
These people were in worse physical and mental condition than the six from yesterday. They were very afraid of Xu Huo while also hiding a bit of hostility. So their descriptions were halting, they didn't tell the whole truth, and they certainly wouldn't volunteer any other potentially relevant information.
Xu Huo gave them food and water and let them go.
The two dead B-rank players also carried quite a bit of reserve food. Xu Huo's luggage compartment was already full, so he quickly collected some and piled the rest in the mall.
B-rank players had much larger luggage compartments than his, and many things were inconvenient to take away. Besides food and water, other items like ores, gems, precious metals, and various messy potions had already been dealt with.
Additionally, the items worn by Yi Jun, who was crushed under the rocks, had been picked up by Tong Qi. But he didn't keep them for himself; he handed them all to Xu Huo without missing a single piece.
Xu Huo gave him a C-rank item and a few ores that looked quite valuable.
There were still many miscellaneous items left. After Xu Huo finished inventorying the two players' items and potions, he began processing them one by one.
The two had collected quite a few books and notes, mostly about how to undergo super evolution and improve the effectiveness of evolution potions. Among them were also some training and upgrade experiences for super evolution—these, like the Perfect Evolution Potion, were things players would want even if they couldn't use them, just to hold and feel.
Xu Huo had already stored the Subclass Stones, instruments, and three specially sealed boxes. Not all the books and notes were useful. After a quick browse, he kept a few, including one related to Temporal Super Evolution, and set the rest aside.
"This box is huge. What's inside?" Seeing him clear away the piled items, Tong Qi came over and patted a large rectangular box underneath.
"The material is pretty good, at least B-rank metal or above."
"But it looks like a coffin. What are those patterns on it?"
This box belonged to Yi Jun. It was too big for Xu Huo to fit into his luggage compartment.
Tong Qi opened his personal panel and recorded the box's patterns for a lookup. Two seconds later, he gasped. "Brother Xu, this is..."
He swallowed the words that slipped out and quickly moved closer to Xu Huo, using a silencing item. "This is stolen goods. There's a bounty on the game platform."
The moment Tong Qi gasped, Xu Huo used his spiritual power to cover the box. To be cautious, he didn't use his personal panel to access the information but searched for the bounty as Tong Qi described.
What appeared on the bounty platform was a black bounty list. A black bounty list meant the bounty issuer was anonymous. They had hidden all their identity information and only offered a bounty amount for the specific object. The holographic projection attached to the bounty clearly showed a similarly long box covered with patterns of some strange mutated thorny plant. The thorny buds looked like closed eyes.
Additionally, both ends of the metal box had full-moon-shaped buds. For some reason, unlike the other buds with thorns, these had become round spots, looking like toad bumps on a toad's back, making people uncomfortable.
"See, isn't it!" Tong Qi said, barely containing his excitement.
"Not exactly the same," Xu Huo said. "The metal box on the bounty list has silver edge patterns. This box doesn't."
Tong Qi compared them carefully, then waved his hand. "Not much difference. Maybe someone deliberately painted over the silver edges to disguise it?"
"The bounty is fifty million. Aren't you tempted at all?"
As he spoke, he reached out to touch the full-moon bud on the box's end. Xu Huo nudged his arm. "Be careful."
Tong Qi snapped back to reality and quickly said, "I'm not someone blinded by money. I just want to broaden my horizons a bit."
"Since you think it's the item on the bounty list, didn't you see the bounty note saying it shouldn't be opened casually?" Xu Huo reminded him.
Tong Qi was dismissive. "Maybe it's something good, and they said that on purpose to keep people from taking it for themselves."
Xu Huo stared at him for a second. "Don't you feel any pressure when you look at the box?"
"No, I don't," Tong Qi said without thinking.
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow slightly but didn't continue. Instead, he contacted Yan Jiayu through Under Dimension.
Since it couldn't be stored in the item slot, it wasn't an item or an instrument. The bounty list emphasized not opening it, perhaps not entirely for the protection of the object.
If it contained radioactive substances or highly contagious pathogens, opening the box without protective measures could lead to irreversible serious consequences.
He didn't know if Yi Jun had opened it.
After covering the box with an item to block the probing eyes of other players, Xu Huo continued looking at the other things.
Tong Qi was very disappointed not to see what was inside the box, but his attention quickly shifted to other items. He rummaged around and pulled out a photo album. After a glance, he let out a "whoa" and spread it open in front of Xu Huo. "Didn't expect there to be a pervert among them."
The photo album contained pictures. In three photos laid out in a row, girls wearing gorgeous clothes and heavy makeup were pierced through with thin metal needles and posed with their arms outstretched. Below the photos were three thumbnails, also taken from thumbs, their vibrant colors indicating they didn't belong to the same person.
(End of chapter)