Chapter 2370: Fish That Chase People
"Is this one of the benefits of the Fish Feast?" the little girl said.
Everyone naturally thought about good things, but the loom in front of them was clearly not a prop dropped by the roadside waiting for them to pick up. Instead, it seemed more like a prop active within the instance—it could kill people, and in places where the white silk threads were piled up, players could hardly move forward.
"How about using a robot to try?" the little girl suggested, taking out a half-human-tall robot. "Throw it in and let it open the door."
Compared to other methods, this was relatively low-cost. The internal space where the loom was located was very large, too far away from them, and ordinary props couldn't accurately target that door.
"Let's try it first." Zuo Lei retracted the defense barrier a bit, clearing the window hole.
The little girl quickly dismantled the robot, then threw the parts in one by one, after which the robot reassembled itself on the ground.
Fortunately, the white silk threads really didn't react to the robot. Although the robot was small, it was very agile and not a shoddy piece of work. It had wheels underneath, moving forward while nimbly avoiding the surrounding threads, and soon reached the door.
The door had no handle, so the little girl controlled the robot to try other methods, including violent destruction, but none succeeded. Not only that, this attracted a large number of white silk threads over, as if they had discovered a fish that had slipped through the net, and the only remaining window hole was blocked.
Xu Huo and his group were once again trapped in a narrow space.
"At least the personal panel can still be opened," Shi Shuai said, already looking for an escape route. He held a ticket in his hand. "How about we leave first and come back later?"
The others clearly didn't want to give up. The door to the Fish Feast wasn't easy to find, and once it appeared, it wouldn't stay in the same place forever. Having finally gotten in, they would have to waste another invitation to enter again, and invitations to the Fish Feast weren't easy to buy, were they?
Shi Shuai thought about it and temporarily dismissed the idea. He paced back and forth along the wall and the blockade barrier, gradually growing impatient. Wiping the oil off his face, he shouted loudly in the direction of the silk threads: "Is anyone there? Help! Help!"
The others looked at him in disbelief, whether surprised by his naivety or his desperate, low-grade method of seeking help, they were all momentarily speechless.
However, before anyone could stop him, the little girl also started shouting in another direction. Not only did she shout, but she also used a prop to amplify her voice.
The sound echoed repeatedly in the confined space, drilling into their ears like demonic noise. Tang Xian couldn't take it anymore and roared: "What the hell are you doing? Are you out of your minds? Everyone here is a player—who would save anyone?"
But as luck would have it, just as he finished speaking, a muffled "thump" came from inside the window hole, and the surrounding white silk threads suddenly loosened, retreating like a tide along the corridor.
"Hey! Calling for help actually works!" Shi Shuai smugly raised his chin at him, then leaned into the window hole to look inside. "There's someone in there!"
The others also noticed that someone had indeed entered the space where the loom was. The sound earlier had come from that person. They seemed to be trying to destroy the loom—whether they succeeded or not was unclear—but part of the threads on the loom had broken. Because of this break, the threads extending into the room and the corridor all lost their vitality, most of them falling to the ground.
This also gave Xu Huo and the others a good view.
It was a player wearing a giant-eye fish mask. They were already standing in front of the door—the same door the robot had tried countless times to open without success—but it sprang open at their touch.
A recorder on the ground captured what was inside from a diagonal angle.
It wasn't a passage, but a small cabinet containing two items that looked like lucky bags, each only palm-sized. One was marked "This is an Easter Egg," and the other was marked "This is also an Easter Egg."
"Easter eggs can be played like this?" the little girl said, as if her eyes had been opened. She shouted to the person inside: "Open them and let us see what the Easter eggs are! Don't worry, we won't snatch them!"
The other party didn't pay them any attention at all. Upon hearing this, they let out a sneer, then carefully picked up the first one.
As soon as the small cloth bag was in hand, it opened automatically. A small object shot out at high speed, hit the wall, then quickly rebounded, attacking the player standing in front of the door!
The player, startled, used a prop to block it. To their surprise, after deflecting the object, they found it was a fish only half a palm in size.
To be precise, it was a prop shaped like a fish. It swam through the air, aimed precisely at the player, opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, and slammed into them again and again.
"This probably isn't an Easter egg—it's a trap," Zuo Lei said. "Is the other bag an Easter egg?"
No one knew for sure, but the player, after dodging repeatedly while still being targeted by the prop fish, had a sudden inspiration when they got near Xu Huo's group. They threw the cloth bag in their hand through the window hole!
"Easter egg for you!"
Shi Shuai, who was closest to the window hole, caught it reflexively, only to see the fish inside immediately change direction and charge straight at him!
"Don't come, don't come! Here, take it!" He immediately tossed the bag toward Xu Huo.
Xu Huo sidestepped, and the bag fell to the ground, but the prop fish's pursuit didn't stop. It still locked onto Shi Shuai, even though the bag was no longer in his hands.
"It seems the last person to touch the bag, whether they hold it or drop it, becomes the target." Ai Jiangping took two steps back and said.
Hearing this, Shi Shuai immediately lunged for the bag on the ground. The others didn't interfere, but the Painting Woman, who was closest, stepped forward, swung her backpack, and hit a home run, sending the bag flying into the distance.
Shi Shuai cursed and chased after it, with the prop fish hot on his heels. Meanwhile, the player in the room squeezed out of a nearby window hole in an eerie manner. When they landed, they were holding another cloth bag, with another prop fish following behind them.
Clearly, they had taken the other bag as well, but neither was an Easter egg.
"Catch!" they repeated their trick, trying to throw the bag to Xu Huo's group.
Unfortunately, no one caught it this time. Not only that, but Ai Jiangping had already opened a hole in the outer window, planning to toss the bag directly outside.
But it didn't succeed. The player was clearly a Super Evolver. With a raise of their hand, they pulled the flying bag back.
Shi Shuai had already found his bag and was turning back. Xu Huo and the others, caught in the middle, looked at the people and fish on both sides, then silently scattered and fled.
The player was knocked aside by Tang Xian's defense prop, while on Xu Huo's side, Shi Shuai had it worse. He took a kick from the Painting Woman and was sent rolling more than ten meters down the corridor with the defense barrier.
A chase between fish and humans had begun.