Chapter 174: White Grandmother's Gift
Tao Chengxin had developed a shadow of fear toward puppets and instinctively moved farther away, saying, "You still dare to let it out? What if it starts swinging that knife around again?"
As if responding to her words, the puppet's body trembled, blades protruding from its limbs, and its head twisted one hundred and eighty degrees to face her.
Xu Huo saw that it was really about to indiscriminately attack everyone nearby, so he simply kicked it forward. The puppet clattered and rolled several meters before reassembling itself, then spotted the humanoid root not far away. It pulled two long blades from its body and charged after it, swinging wildly.
Tang Yuan, running ahead, casually smashed a bottle of potion onto the ground. Amidst thick smoke, both the humanoid root and the puppet that charged into the fumes were stuck to the ground!
However, the puppet's body could disassemble. When it realized it couldn't move, it abandoned its feet, leaped forward, and with a series of thuds, chopped off the roots the humanoid root was flinging at it!
The puppet wasn't human—it didn't need to react to where attacks came from. Everything in front of it just needed to be cut, cut, cut. And the humanoid root wasn't very bright either. Though it used its roots to knock off some parts of the puppet, once it found no blood vessels to burrow into on the puppet's body, it became passive and wasn't as excited as when dealing with Tang Yuan.
The humanoid root's movements gradually slowed, and the puppet also grew shorter. Finally, with only a head, half a shoulder, and half an arm left, the puppet picked up the round root, stuffed it under its head as a makeshift body, and hopped back toward Xu Huo along the scattered parts of its own body.
The humanoid root entered a dormant state once the puppet grabbed it. Xu Huo was about to retrieve the puppet's remaining body parts when Tang Yuan suddenly burst out of the thick smoke, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at Xu Huo. "Your puppet is mine now!"
Just as Xu Huo pulled out the Crimson Sword, his vision suddenly blurred. He found himself back in the flower room cottage from before.
He was now standing by the dining table, the puppet lying at his feet. Tao Chengxin and Sun Jirou were on the other side of the table, while Tang Yuan had been teleported several meters away and fell to the ground after abruptly losing his target.
A strong smell of blood drifted from behind. Xu Huo turned around and saw White Grandmother sitting at the dining spot from earlier, wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. Her clothes were completely soaked in blood—whether it was hers or someone else's was unclear.
For a moment, no one in the room dared to move or speak. White Grandmother placed her handkerchief on the table and looked up at Tang Yuan.
That single glance made Tang Yuan's scalp explode. He had no intention of fighting her and immediately turned to flee the cottage. But after only a few steps, just as he reached the doorway, his entire upper body suddenly vanished into the night.
"Creak..." As the wooden door swung back shut, his legs took one more step forward and collapsed onto the garden path.
"Bang!" The door closed.
Tao Chengxin and Sun Jirou had also witnessed this. They turned back, warily watching White Grandmother.
"You're injured?" Xu Huo asked. "Have you dealt with the people outside?"
White Grandmother's face was full of wrinkles, making it impossible to gauge her complexion. She squinted through her narrow eyes and sighed. "The Government Hall pulling these tricks isn't new. Out of a hundred times, there are always two or three where I fall for it."
She walked over to Xu Huo, slapped the puppet that was trying to attack him into pieces, then picked up the root and smacked it twice on the rear. "Wake up."
The humanoid root's limbs became active again, stretching like it was waking up, then opened its mouth wide at White Grandmother.
White Grandmother reached into its mouth, ignoring the roots that were sucking her blood. She felt around left and right and slowly pulled out a white block the size of half a palm.
After removing the block, she pulled out the roots embedded in her arm, rolled the humanoid root into a ball, and stuffed it into a nearby jar. Then she smiled at Xu Huo and said, "After all these years, you're the only one who brought back the real tooth."
"Though there was some cleverness involved, it still counts as completing the third task."
As she finished speaking, Xu Huo heard the game notification:
[Congratulations to player Passerby A for successfully clearing the "Storytelling Woman" instance. You have completed all three tasks of this instance in advance and gained the recognition of the Storytelling Woman. In addition to this instance's rewards, you will also receive an extra reward from the Storytelling Woman.]
[Below is the task completion rating for players in this instance:]
[Player Passerby A: A-Rank]
[Player Graceful Aging: C-Rank]
[Player Frog-Fishing Handsome Man: C-Rank]
Only three players survived this instance, and who was who was obvious.
Sun Jirou and Tao Chengxin looked at Xu Huo with disbelief and admiration. They hadn't expected that the thing Tang Yuan was looking for was the "tooth." The tooth had been caught by the puppet and returned to White Grandmother, not only earning an A-Rank evaluation but also an extra reward.
"Thank you." Xu Huo calmly expressed his gratitude to White Grandmother. If she hadn't acknowledged him, there was no way he could have gotten the A-Rank.
White Grandmother handed him the white block. "Consider this repayment for that golden-pink flower."
Sun Jirou and Tao Chengxin's expressions shifted slightly, but then White Grandmother waved them out of the flower room cottage.
"Isn't this item necessary for you to protect Fairy Tale City?" Xu Huo asked in surprise. "Are you sure you can just give it to me like this?"
White Grandmother gestured for him to sit down and brewed a fresh pot of tea. "I no longer have any feelings for Fairy Tale City. After I die, I don't care what happens to this place."
Xu Huo fell silent for a moment, then heard her continue. "Angel's Fangs actually has sixteen teeth. Sixteen teeth represent sixteen independent small spaces. These spaces are distributed under the same wormhole point. If you leave E27 and go to other wormhole points, new independent small spaces will be generated."
"However, the owner of the item doesn't know where these sixteen places are and can only move back and forth within these sixteen spaces."
Xu Huo paused. "Aren't these sixteen places all in Fairy Tale City now?"
"The use of an item is limited by the player. For low-level players, the range an item can affect is only a city or a small village. But high-level players can expand this range to a wormhole point."
"I only kept six teeth in Fairy Tale City. The other teeth are still in other places in E27."
Xu Huo gripped the block in his hand and asked, "How do I enter other wormhole points?"
White Grandmother smiled. "Those things are too far for you. Keep the teeth—you'll use them later."
"You said you're from Zone 014," she changed the subject, her tone meaningful. "Young man, you weren't careful enough. Someone has their eyes on you."
*
In a station not far from Xu Huo's departure point, a man with no eyebrows stared at a colorful lizard sniffing around the station. After confirming the direction, he revealed a mouthful of black teeth. "Looks like he went to the Block Fairy Tale City station."