Chapter 2447: Things Players Don't Know
It was almost dusk when the other players began to trickle back one by one.
First came Bubble Bean and his two companions, then the green-haired female player and the earless man, followed by the middle-aged man.
Compared to the others, the middle-aged man looked particularly disheveled, with multiple wounds on his body, as if he had been in a fight. When he returned to the village and saw Xu Huo and the others, his expression was still wary, as if he suspected that the people he saw weren't real.
"What did you run into?" the earless man asked kindly.
Only then did the middle-aged man relax, his face grim as he said, "Nothing."
With that, he took out his location prop and walked inside.
His location prop had simulation capabilities, and when placed next to the wooden houses, it didn't look out of place with the village's architecture. However, since what happened inside the prop couldn't be seen from outside, there was no movement once he entered.
"Guilty conscience," Bubble Bean sneered coldly. "It's getting dark, and Yang Tian hasn't come back."
Chi Cai hesitated for a moment before asking, "Did you see the secret signal left on that tree?"
"What secret signal?" the green-haired female player asked.
Chi Cai lowered his voice and said, "Someone said that among us, someone is playing the role of the Hidden Friend."
The people present looked at each other. Bubble Bean and his group knew exactly what was going on but still pretended to be ignorant, asking, "Who is it?"
Chi Cai looked troubled, hesitated for a moment, then glanced in the direction of the middle-aged man. "I told Yang Tian about this, and he hasn't come back yet... I don't know if the words on the tree were left by him."
The green-haired female player walked over. "Let me see the signal."
Chi Cai immediately played the recording from his recorder. To avoid an immediate direct confrontation with the middle-aged man, he adjusted the angle and shielded it, ensuring the middle-aged man couldn't see it.
"This is a fairly common cipher signal in games," the green-haired female player said. "It's not hard for players who pay a bit of attention to this kind of knowledge to learn. It's hard to say who left it."
She looked at Bubble Bean and his group. "Didn't you see it?"
"If I had seen it, I wouldn't be asking," Bubble Bean said flatly. "The forest is huge, and we didn't go in the same direction. But your suspicion makes sense. Maybe Yang Tian is the one causing trouble. He deliberately stays outside and doesn't come back, making us think something happened to him, using us to eliminate his opponents."
"After all, only one player can clear the instance."
He looked meaningfully at the green-haired female player, essentially warning her that her words were suspicious enough to muddy the waters. What good would it do to make all the players suspicious of each other?
The green-haired female player curled her lips. "Since no one trusts anyone, then take care of yourselves."
Just as she was about to take out her location prop and go inside, her personal panel suddenly popped up with a new message:
[Current remaining players in instance: 34.]
All the players present paused at this message. Someone had suddenly died in the instance. Was it another player, or was it Yang Tian, who hadn't returned yet?
Had they encountered the Hidden Friend, or had they run into another player?
"I sent Yang Tian a message earlier, but he never replied," Chi Cai said, feeling that he was in grave danger.
"That's not necessarily true," the Yin-Yang Master said. "Maybe the other person found you annoying and didn't want to bother with you."
Chi Cai glanced at him, somewhat speechless. "This is a B-rank instance."
Who would delay their instance progress over something as trivial as personal chemistry in a B-rank instance?
"So what?" the Yin-Yang Master retorted. "Between people, there's not just chemistry, but also magnetic fields. Some people, you just know at a glance that they're bad luck for you."
The others couldn't stand it anymore and simply found their own places to rest.
Of course, what the Yin-Yang Master said wasn't entirely unreasonable. After all, some props and traits in the game could detect how much others were paying attention to you or their friend-or-foe judgment. There were also prediction-type props. Avoiding a particular player, or some players avoiding you, could indeed be for these reasons.
"I wonder if tonight will be like last night," Chi Cai said worriedly as they returned to the wooden house.
Xu Huo didn't respond. He had the Painting Woman go next door to find the young man and invite him over for dinner.
The young man had helped them fetch water earlier and had given them some chopped firewood, so inviting him for a meal was only reasonable.
The young man brought some dried meat, wild vegetables, and mushrooms, and offered to help them cook.
During the meal, Xu Huo brought up the villagers' attitude toward them. "When Granny Yi's granddaughter went missing, I heard someone say that an outsider had taken her... Has something like this happened before?"
The young man was a bit surprised. "Who told you that? That's never happened. Most outsiders are very polite to us. Even though we sometimes can't communicate well, there's absolutely no kidnapping of children. There's never been a case of a missing child in our village."
"Sometimes, a few naughty kids run into the woods to play, and the adults have to go find them to bring them back."
"Then I must have misheard," Xu Huo said with a sigh. "Compared to other districts, you're very friendly to outsiders."
The young man smiled, a natural simplicity in his expression. "People treat each other the way they're treated."
The meal was relatively relaxed. After dinner, the young man helped clean up the dishes and then returned to his own home.
Then the village began to grow quiet.
Xu Huo had noticed last night that the villagers slept very deeply. When several players had come out to wander around last night, only a few elderly people near Grandpa He's place had stayed awake, quietly watching from inside their houses. The others had basically slept through it, as if they hadn't heard a thing.
Perhaps that overwhelming drowsiness had affected them too.
"There are still many days left. We can't just not sleep," Chi Cai said, offering to take the first watch tonight and have Xu Huo sleep after a while. "That's fair."
However, as midnight approached, that familiar feeling of drowsiness returned. Chi Cai, who had promised to keep watch, struggled for two hours and then fell asleep again. As his snoring began, the Painting Woman went over and slapped him across the face. Even that didn't fully wake him up. He opened his eyes slightly and mumbled, "We'll talk about it tomorrow..."
Seeing her hand raise again, he suddenly sat up, a cold light flashing in his eyes. At the same time, his defense barrier slammed outward, sending the Painting Woman flying from beside the chair!
Meeting her accusing gaze, Chi Cai finally came to his senses and quickly apologized, "I was half-asleep. I'm so sorry. You were trying to wake me up, right..."
The Painting Woman glared at him fiercely, then tattled to Xu Huo, "He hit me."
Xu Huo wasn't paying attention to them at the moment. Instead, he made a "shush" gesture and pointed toward the window.
The others were all staying inside their houses and hadn't come out. Even if they weren't asleep, they weren't very alert and hadn't come out to move around. But outside the middle-aged man's prop wooden house, a figure had appeared.