Chapter 2641: Nothing in the World Is Difficult
Xu Huo then visited several more residents of the Capital City who had traced the whereabouts of the "National Heirloom Treasure" on the Message Collection Terminal. Apart from Professor Shi, none of these people had previous occupations related to historical heritage, nor were they connected to the government. They were all puzzle enthusiasts. One of them had spent considerable money in recent years pursuing the "National Heirloom Treasure," but now their materials had been gathering dust.
Two or three others had persisted, but with little to show for it. As information became increasingly difficult to obtain efficiently, much of their news was purchased from players, making it hard to verify authenticity.
Xu Huo spent some money to record these materials, planning to browse through everything regardless of whether it was true or false.
This park, reduced to half its original size, was not small. Many nearby residents came here for walks after dinner. Xu Huo sat alone on a bench checking his terminal, naturally drawing attention from quite a few people. However, seeing that his attire clearly marked him as an outsider, no one approached him.
Two patrol team members maintaining order nearby did come over to check on him, but when they saw he wasn't doing anything unusual, they only watched from a distance for a while before leaving.
The Painting Woman, who had long since gathered near the children fishing, returned after a good while carrying a plastic bag. Inside was a small gray fish given to her by a child she had helped. She held it up to Xu Huo. "I want to keep it."
Xu Huo had some commonly used tools in his Luggage Compartment. Seeing how enthusiastic she was, he gave her a bowl.
The Painting Woman had just poured the fish into the bowl when she suddenly turned to look at a corner of the park. Xu Huo followed her gaze and saw a masked man standing under a bare willow tree. Although the man wore sunglasses, there was no doubt he was staring at them.
There were no numbers representing emotions above his head.
After a few seconds, Xu Huo withdrew his gaze, turned off his terminal, and stood up. "Let's go."
The Painting Woman nodded and followed him out of the park.
The man did not give up following them just because they left the park. He tailed them openly, without even trying to hide.
Earlier, near the canyon, the Painting Woman had said that the puppet they encountered looked somewhat like the puppets from the castle. Although Xu Huo had checked and found no special markings, he couldn't guarantee it wasn't one of the Box Carrier's puppets. Moreover, the behavior of these puppets was quite abnormal—they weren't just targeting local zone players but seemed to be randomly selecting targets.
Players from the Eternal Tower Nation probably knew something about this, which was why they said the puppet had its eye on him.
"I'll go take it out," the Painting Woman said. "I know how to dismantle puppets."
"Not for now." The Instance wasn't finished yet, so there was no need to take that risk.
They soon arrived near a restaurant. Xu Huo looked up and saw two shadows moving by the window on the second floor. Inside, there were also three other players—this was an address posted on the Under Dimension by someone claiming to be from the "Defender Faction."
Besides these five, there were other players nearby watching the restaurant.
When Xu Huo walked in, these people more or less cast their gazes on him. Once he entered the second-floor private room, a friendly-faced female player stepped forward. "Friend, you've come from afar. Welcome, welcome. To avoid unnecessary trouble, we need to first confirm that you're really from the Defender Faction."
"How do you confirm?" Xu Huo glanced around. The two by the window hadn't moved—one tall, one short, leaning against the window smoking. The other two sat at the table. A bespectacled man who looked very refined was drinking soup. Across from him, another female player rested her hand on the table, fingers constantly twirling her red hair, her gaze full of scrutiny.
"Very simple," the female player said. "Write down the Instance background content by hand. It has to be word for word; general meaning won't do."
Xu Huo had no objection. "You need to prove yourselves too."
"No problem." The female player smiled. "We verify everyone who comes this way."
So then, each person had a detection device placed beside them, and a Defense Barrier was activated. To prevent anyone from specifically coming to fish for Instance background information, they only wrote one sentence or half a sentence per comparison. Everyone compared the same part before moving to the next.
"Why use such a cumbersome method?" the red-haired female player said with some boredom. "I've already written it several times. Do we have to do this every time someone new comes? Besides, it's not foolproof. What if someone is really that bored and goes to every place to piece together half a sentence here and there?"
This Instance had existed for so long that it was hard to guarantee no one would do that.
The earlier female player reassured her. "Nothing can be perfectly thorough, but this can efficiently weed out some people with ulterior motives. As for whether someone really goes to the trouble of sneaking in, we can only each be careful."
"The 'National Heirloom Treasure' Instance has probably existed for at least ten to twenty years. I wonder how many Ticket Players are stranded here by now." The bespectacled man took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on. "Maybe some of us here are among them. They should be the ones who least want later players to clear the Instance."
An Instance with no time limit meant that once the National Heirloom Treasure was found, batches upon batches of people would be forcibly teleported into high-risk Instances.
The friendly-faced female player twisted the ring on her thumb and smiled faintly. "An Instance that hasn't been cleared in ten to twenty years—maybe they think later players won't be able to clear it either."
"That's true," the red-haired woman said lazily. "If it were me, stuck in this damn place, forget ten years—after two or three years, I'd lose interest in keeping track of later players. Life is already boring enough without exhausting myself watching over every new Ticket Player. If someone really clears it, then I guess I'm just unlucky."
"Compared to fate, getting tired is nothing." The tall smoker shook his yellowed fingers and said to Xu Huo and the Painting Woman, "My name is He Liang. What's yours?"
"Xu Zhi. This is my sister, Xiao Chun." Xu Huo looked at the others. "And how should I address everyone?"
"Nothing in the world is difficult, as long as you're willing to give up." The red-haired woman first responded to He Liang's words, then winked playfully at everyone. "Call me Xiao Mei."
The short man was called Fu Kuai, the bespectacled man Wu Zishuang, and the friendly female player Fei Jingyi.
"Since we've confirmed identities and exchanged names, shouldn't we share the information we each have?" Xiao Mei was the first to pull out her collected materials. "My information is pretty scattered, but I have an inside scoop from a government employee. If you have leads, we can trade!"
"If we're teaming up, do we really need to hide information from each other?" He Liang disagreed. "If it's really useful intel, you could just go find it yourself. Why bother teaming up?"
"I'm just saying that to prevent people from freeloading." Xiao Mei spread her hands. "Do you want to give away what you've worked so hard to find for free?"
"Hard work is a bit of a stretch," the bespectacled man Wu Zishuang said, pressing a stack of newspapers under his palm. "I do have a particularly interesting piece of gossip here."