Chapter 2112: Are You Trying to Act Like a Hooligan?
Xu Huo smiled faintly. "Can you even believe your own words?"
The stall-owner player saw him about to leave and immediately blocked his way. "Fine, fine, fine, I'll sell it to you. Seriously, I haven't met a single person all day who knows what's good, and the one who does is so tight-fisted... Why can't I have the luck to run into some scatter-brained fairy with deep pockets..."
Xu Huo paid up and transferred the glass cabinet into his luggage compartment, casually asking, "Is it a woman wearing a flower hat?"
"You know her? You're acquainted?" The player counted the money and quickly said, "If you know her, that's great! She's been walking around with a small bag of money putting down deposits everywhere. A bunch of people took the chance to sell her their unsellable D-grade and E-grade junk. I reckon her money's all been swindled by now. I wonder if she'll still have any of those jewelry pieces on her when she leaves the market..."
Xu Huo continued walking forward, and before long, he spotted the Painting Woman surrounded by a crowd. Her backpack was indeed empty, but many people were still pushing local specialties or oddly shaped crafts at her, trying to make a sale.
"I have no money, I have no money, I have no money..." The communicator played the same phrase on repeat, but instead of being discouraged, the people around pointed at the gemstone ring on her hand and said, "You can trade that for this! We'll take a loss!"
The Painting Woman rolled her eyes. "Do you think I'm stupid? Your stuff isn't a prop or an instrument. I saw the same things at the gift shop when I came in—they don't even cost fifty White Notes. My gemstone ring cost eight thousand White Notes!"
The boss who suggested the ring trade tossed his item behind him and pulled out another little trinket. "If you didn't like that one, take a look at this. This one is absolutely one of a kind!"
The Painting Woman glanced down briefly, then lifted her gaze to the salesman's face, raising her communicator. "This isn't worth a gemstone ring either. But if it comes with your life, I think that would be just about fair."
The faces of those present shifted slightly. Most players couldn't lower themselves to keep chasing her for sales, so the ones following her were mostly local small-time vendors—not particularly strong individuals. At her words, they all fell silent. Then someone said, "You... don't do anything rash. There are plenty of players here keeping the peace!"
"So what?" The Painting Woman's expression didn't change. "I can kill them all."
The crowd quickly backed away, but someone still spoke up. "Kill them all? Do you know how many players are in Harmony City?"
"So what?" The Painting Woman repeated the same line. "I can kill them all."
The two repeated sentences carried entirely different meanings. If she wasn't mentally unstable, then she genuinely had the strength to oppose the entire city's players. But from her utterly unchanged expression, it was impossible to tell whether she was just talking big or truly meant it...
The small-time vendors scattered without exception, and some particularly cautious players nearby quietly slipped away to avoid running into a real lunatic. Meanwhile, the Harmony City players who had been keeping an eye on the commotion increased their patrols around the free market, watching the Painting Woman without blinking.
Ignoring the players who had appeared in the open or in the shadows, Xu Huo waved at the Painting Woman.
She immediately hurried over and said she had spotted quite a few props she liked and wanted him to come pay for them.
The Painting Woman couldn't use props the way players could, so the ones she had taken a liking to were mostly flashy but useless little items, whose main appeal was being "fun" or "pretty." But even then, there were some props she still couldn't use.
So when Xu Huo went back to check, he did some filtering. He rejected most of them and only picked a few wearable decorative props to pay for.
Soon enough, the Painting Woman lost interest in the "shopping" activity. When she heard someone mention going to watch an underground boxing match, she grabbed Xu Huo and dragged him along.
She wasn't like a child who had received social education from a young age, so she didn't quite understand the shifts in human emotions, nor why people got so excited watching bloody, violent boxing matches.
"Why are they so happy seeing blood?" the Painting Woman asked, munching on snacks sold at the venue, glancing between the fighters on the stage, who were covered in sweat and blood, and the audience below, who were spitting saliva everywhere as they shouted.
"Maybe they have different hobbies," Xu Huo said.
The Painting Woman nodded. After a while, she found it boring too. Spotting some kids playing with stones in a corner, she went over and spent fifty White Notes to join in.
Just as she was having fun, a player tapped her on the shoulder from behind, inviting her to the second floor, and pointed at a man sitting up there.
The Painting Woman didn't even lift her head. She waved her hand at the player to indicate she wasn't interested.
The man upstairs had an unreadable expression. The player who had called her over looked displeased and immediately tried to forcibly pull her toward the stairs.
The Painting Woman was very unhappy. She turned and manipulated the flyers scattered all over the ground, sending them shooting toward that player. The papers surged up like a small tornado, carving chaotic scratches into the floor, the nearby walls, and the ceiling. But the player who had called her managed to dodge using a defense barrier.
They stood a few meters apart. The Painting Woman typed a single word on her communicator: "Scram!"
But she still couldn't continue playing, because the kids had already been scared off. The Painting Woman looked a bit regretful and was about to leave when a few more players approached, insisting that she come upstairs to sit for a while.
The Painting Woman hesitated for a moment, then typed on her communicator, "Are you trying to act like hooligans?"
One of the later players smiled. "My young master just wanted to invite the young lady up for a drink. No other intentions."
The Painting Woman nodded. "So you're not acting like hooligans. I don't feel like drinking right now. Good thing you're not, because if you were, I'd have to kill you all before I could leave."
Under the gaze of the several players, she walked around them toward Xu Huo's position. But she stopped after just two steps, because a syringe had been jabbed into the back of her hand.
The brightly colored potion, faintly glowing even in the dim light of the boxing venue, was clearly nothing good. But it worked fast—perfect for ambushing players.
Probably used to this kind of tactic, the players were all waiting for the potion to take effect.
But right in front of them, the Painting Woman pulled the syringe out of her hand, looked up at them, and said, "Now I'm sure. You are acting like hooligans."
The moment the words left her mouth, all the flyers in the venue floated into the air. They didn't fly around wildly, but it was obvious that a portion of them had gathered around the players in front of her, while another portion was concentrated around the second floor.
At the same time, Xu Huo dropped the syringe that had been flying toward him. The next second, he was standing on the second floor. Under the stunned and tense gazes of the surrounding players, he pressed down on the "young master's" shoulder. "You're so hospitable. What business do you have with us?"