Chapter 2555: Arriving Early Is Better Than Arriving Just in Time
Arriving early is better than arriving just in time. The station had just experienced a battle, and now the entire station was submerged two meters high in mud. Xu Huo hadn't expected to encounter this situation upon exiting Zone 001. In his haste, he initially tried to use a Space Barrier to salvage the situation, but after leaving the Super Instance space, the two forces within his body that had been suppressing the Water Cube disappeared, and the Water Cube Barrier reappeared.
Of course, the Water Cube Barrier could also block the mud, but it was only pressed against his body, still unable to prevent him from sinking entirely. By the time he thought to switch to using Mental Power to materialize an object, it was already too late. With a momentary misjudgment, both his legs plunged into the mud.
This mud was extremely sticky. He originally tried to use a hovering item to break free, but ordinary hovering items couldn't pull him out at all. He could only use a materialized object to pull himself while yanking outward.
Several other players were also trapped in the mud with him. These people were even more unlucky. They probably hadn't participated in the earlier fight and had carelessly fallen victim to this dirty trick, getting buried directly inside. Just as they managed to get their heads out, they started cursing, vowing to drag out whoever created this mud and chop them into pieces.
"Everyone, need a hand?" A player hanging upside down from the station ceiling grinned as he revealed a potion in his hand. "Exclusive formula, one hundred percent dilution. Guaranteed to make you instantly forget that lingering sticky feeling and restore that satisfying, easy-pull-out comfort!"
"It's you, you bastard!" Another player threw an item upward, trying to bring him down, but the man moved like a gecko, crawling rapidly across the ceiling and easily dodging the attack.
Inside the station, the players were being very careful, not using any high-damage items. But with so many people, the man was soon overwhelmed by the pursuit. As he ran, he said, "I'm just trying to sell some potions. You don't have to kill me, do you? Do you want them or not? Are you planning to just pull yourselves out like this until you board the train? Don't you care about your dignity?"
The crowd grew even angrier. They used not only items but also their traits. After two rounds, the man hanging from the ceiling was trapped by a trait and fell headfirst into the mud. If not for his defense item, his feet might have been chopped off.
Xu Huo wasn't stuck too deep and managed to pull himself out. Standing on his materialized object, he crouched down to look at the man with both feet sticking up in the air and asked, "Need a hand?"
The two feet flailed vigorously, clearly indicating refusal.
But Xu Huo helped anyway, using his materialized object to grab the man's feet and pull him out. With a tug and a release, it looked quite like a tug-of-war.
The player had already poured out a potion to dissolve the surrounding mud. As he had claimed, the effect was excellent. At least the mud around him had lost its stickiness, doing nothing more than smearing his face with filth.
The man was pulled out, but the materialized object was still wrapped around him, especially around his neck—a vital spot.
Suspended upside down in midair, the man still raised his hands to show he wasn't resisting. "Friend, it's a misunderstanding, isn't it? Put me down first. If you're interested, I can give you all these potions!"
"I'm not interested in potions," Xu Huo said, looking at him. "It's just that I'm in a bad mood right now."
"I understand!" the man quickly said. "Everyone has times when they're in a bad mood. How about I offer you two high-level items? Would that improve your mood a little?"
Xu Huo laughed and set him down. "You're this cowardly, and you still dare to extort people in public?"
The man tossed an item onto the mud to stand on, wiping the mud off his face as he said, "How is that extortion? I was just trying to get everyone to pay for my service. And let me make it clear first—I didn't create this mud."
"If not you, then who?" Another player emerged, pressing a dagger against the back of the man's neck as he freed himself, saying darkly, "If you can point out someone else, I'll let you go."
"It really wasn't me!" the man shouted excitedly. "If it were me, would I dare come out and do business with you? You should ask the two who were fighting earlier..."
Halfway through his sentence, he took advantage of the other's distraction to dodge the item, springing back up to the ceiling. "The wrongs have a source, the debts have a debtor. If you kill the wrong person, it doesn't matter, but won't you be even angrier if you don't vent your frustration?"
The logic was sound, but this guy was just so infuriating that everyone wanted to beat him up on the spot!
Fortunately, a train arrived just then. Players boarded one after another, and several left, allowing the man to escape disaster.
Now only three players remained in the station: one on the ceiling and two pressed against the wall.
Seeing them staring at him, the man on the ceiling put on a fawning smile. "Meeting is fate. Since we have such a connection, why waste it?"
"What was your previous job?" Xu Huo asked. Why did this seemingly ordinary man always make people want to take their anger out on him?
"Well... community service worker..." the man said guiltily.
"Community service worker? I think you're a mediator. I could tell from your sleazy demeanor," the remaining female player said coldly. "My ex-husband was a gambler, a drinker, a womanizer, and a wife-beater. I endured three years of beatings and was hospitalized over a dozen times before I divorced him. I didn't even get custody of the child. Five years after the divorce, when I was about to remarry, he got into a car accident and became a paraplegic. He wanted me to come back and take care of him, so he called the TV station and hired a gold-medal mediator to persuade me to sacrifice myself for the child."
"They called and visited day and night, bringing gifts and putting on fake smiles, as if someone in their family had become a paraplegic. They drove my boyfriend away, leaving me alone again. And she even dared to bring that beast to my door to kowtow to me."
"Sis, I never do such despicable things in my line of work," the man quickly said.
But the woman seemed not to hear him and continued, "Later, when I became a player, the first thing I did was force that mediator to divorce her husband and marry my ex. I also cured my ex's legs. She said that beast was only heavy-handed when drunk and was still a good person. Since he was so good, I gave him to her."
"Every time I entered an instance or went back, I would beat that beast. When I left, he would beat her."
"I vented my anger without committing murder or breaking the law. The beast vented his resentment without endangering society. The mediator wanted every abusive man to have a devoted wife who would never leave him. We are all satisfied, good citizens."
"Hehehehe..."
After speaking, the woman actually started laughing.
"Actually, that mediator might not have really wanted you to remarry. The quotas from above are hard to meet..." Before the man could finish, he met the woman's icy gaze and immediately swallowed the rest of his words, changing his tune. "How can a person have no integrity? If it were me, I would have quit!"
"So what career did you choose?" Xu Huo asked, hitting the nail on the head.