Chapter 2300: Painting Woman's Suggestion
Xu Huo closed his personal panel and reopened his spiritual realm to observe the situation in the city center.
After listening to Old Cai's words, looking at this place now felt like a deliberately prepared cage, and the cage door was even left open, specifically waiting for prey to walk right in.
Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why, as a blockade barrier, it barely prevented outsiders from entering or exiting.
"They replied over there." Old Cai walked over and opened his communicator to show him the hand-drawn picture sent by that programmer.
"The Rubik's Cube was originally a whole; this is its decomposed state."
Xu Huo took a look. The drawing was quite abstract, with text explanations added beside it, indicating that those scattered blocks were part of the Rubik's Cube—after the time-powered Rubik's Cube disintegrated, it didn't split into time currents but instead maintained the state of metal blocks.
According to the programmer's description, these metal blocks had always remained in this state. Sometimes the positions of the blocks would swap, but the timing of the swaps was irregular, and almost every day, new Water Cubes would generate from above. However, those Water Cubes would leap toward areas outside the city center, sometimes big, sometimes small, looking like rubber balls. During their bouncing, they rarely interfered with the ground or buildings, behaving like real balls.
How exactly these blocks worked was unclear. Occasionally, tiny blue arcs of light would be released from above, but this happened very rarely and could only be observed by chance.
As for what the blue arcs of light actually were, that remained unknown.
"What is the Water Cube's method of dormancy?" Xu Huo asked again.
"He didn't tell us the specific method." Old Cai said helplessly, "Probably worried we might abandon him, so he only revealed a little."
"Haven't you doubted its authenticity?" Xu Huo said.
"Of course we have," Old Cai explained. "Someone might be impersonating him, or he might not have a dormancy method at all, just tricking us into going in to pick him up. But true or false, we have to go in to find out."
"You've seen the route map. Is it real or fake?"
"It's hard to say without actually walking it." Xu Huo said, "It might look one way when no one's around, but completely different when someone is there."
With that, he opened his communicator. Inside was a notification about his promotion, along with the corresponding permissions being activated. From here, he could see all the wanted criminal review materials currently submitted by Buliucheng. Some had already been approved, but more were still pending review.
"We can hold back on these review notifications to avoid cases being closed when people die." Old Cai said, "Now you can see the actual numbers. As long as the count accumulates to the number you need, you can try using the death penalty approval method to clear the instance. That should be feasible."
Xu Huo was still a long way from the number he needed, and the review process wasn't that simple anyway.
"Once I successfully clear the instance, I'll consider taking you all in." He said.
He wouldn't budge on this point. Old Cai and the others had no way around it. They had already told him everything they knew, and even if he ultimately turned against them, they could only accept it.
For someone who could suggest poisoning the entire city, the city government couldn't fully rely on his conscience. This was a compromise born of sheer desperation.
"How about we just blow this place up?" The Painting Woman came up and offered her opinion, completely ignoring Old Cai and the others who had changed color. "If it's blown up, it's gone."
"No!" Old Cai shouted. "Who knows if blowing it up would unleash thousands of Water Cubes?!"
The Painting Woman didn't even acknowledge him, focusing entirely on Xu Huo, patting her bag to indicate she had explosives.
"Do you have a grudge against the people here?" Xu Huo glanced at her.
"No," the Painting Woman answered honestly. "I just want to see what it looks like when it's blown up."
Old Cai's expression turned horrified. He hadn't expected that this seemingly gentle and obedient female player was the real ruthless one. Ordinary people always needed some "justifiable reason" to kill someone—even Xu Huo's threat of poisoning was motivated by forcing the city government to compromise—but she just wanted to have fun!
There was no hierarchy between the two, but the former was about saving one's own life. Players could be as crazy as they wanted to save themselves. But when the Painting Woman said those words, she could no longer be called a normal person.
"If you blow it up, we'll both die. Calm down." Xu Huo said.
The Painting Woman looked quite regretful and added, "I feel like I wouldn't die, but I don't want you to die either. How about we blow it up and leave after you clear the instance?"
Xu Huo's mouth twitched. "You're quite clever."
The Painting Woman wasn't joking; she was genuinely asking about the feasibility of this plan.
This was also what Old Cai and the others were worried about. If Xu Huo could clear the instance and leave, he might have no qualms about destroying the city center to learn the truth about the Water Cube!
"Don't think about it," Xu Huo pushed the Painting Woman's communicator a little further away. "If I can clear the instance, there's no need to go to such trouble."
These words were also meant to reassure Old Cai and the others.
Old Cai's expression relaxed a bit, and he said with a hint of flattery, "Someone who can think of establishing order in Buliucheng at the first opportunity, rather than killing indiscriminately, absolutely cannot be completely without limits."
Xu Huo didn't say much more, only urging him to gather the numbers quickly. As locals, the city government players should know better than others where the easy-to-catch criminals were.
"I've already sent others." Old Cai said.
The bacteria in the building had already been dealt with. Xu Huo didn't need to lift a finger; the tattooed woman and her companion finished it in no time.
When the tattooed woman told Old Cai about this, her expression was quite frustrated.
"What's done is done, no point dwelling on it." Old Cai said. "Besides, we wouldn't have had a better opportunity than this."
Ever since the Super Evolvers in the player organization went missing, players who came to do the instance rarely possessed both space and time evolution. Such people were geniuses in any district, and they were geniuses who had come out of the one-third game alive and dared to take risks.
"All our hopes rest on him." He looked at the person sitting in the distance talking to the Painting Woman. "How we live and how long we live doesn't matter, but our children can't be like this."
On the other side, Xu Huo was also talking to the Painting Woman. "What have you been watching on TV lately?"
Mentioning this got the Painting Woman talking. She enthusiastically recommended her latest favorite crime and war films and shows.
Generally, crime and war movies and TV shows are made to promote peace, but the game doesn't lack madmen. These types of films keep emerging, some even well-made, blurring the trampling of life and the pain it brings, instead vigorously showcasing the strong side's joy and satisfaction in manipulating life and death.
Those who have been hurt and bled can empathize with similar experiences, but the Painting Woman couldn't, so she was more receptive to this type of film.
"Do you want to be hung back on the wall?" Xu Huo asked her.