Chapter 2658: Everyone Has Something to Do
"Damn her ancestors eighteen generations back, I knew that dog couple wasn't good—ten out of ten they hooked up long ago!" Xiao Mei hid inside an abandoned building, sending out her tracking items while shouting at the Painting Woman over ten meters away, "If you have any more good items, use them! Dragging this out isn't going to help!"
The Painting Woman ignored her. She manipulated several paper airplanes to intercept the shuttle items Wu Zishuang had released mid-flight, but this exposed her position. The other party clenched both hands in the air, and the stone pillar she was hiding behind instantly exploded. Then Fei Jingyi's flying silk items combined into a cloth-like shape, sealing off her escape route, wrapping her up tightly in just a few moves!
"What help are you being? I still have to save you!" Xiao Mei, not far away, complained irritably. She pressed the bracelet on her wrist, and the flying silk immediately returned to its original form and fell to the ground. Seizing the opportunity, she used an instrument to scoop up the Painting Woman and fled using a flying item. As she passed Fei Jingyi and Wu Zishuang, she even tossed a small-area poison gas bomb at them.
Fei Jingyi and Wu Zishuang emerged from the smoke unscathed. Instead of chasing immediately, they simply watched. Sure enough, the next second, Xiao Mei and the Painting Woman crashed head-on into a barrier that had suddenly appeared in mid-air. With a dull thud, the two fell from the sky.
"Where do you think you're going?" Fei Jingyi crossed her index and middle fingers on both hands like scissors. Two scissor-like, intertwining invisible forces instantly sliced through several buildings and clamped down on Xiao Mei's defensive barrier.
Xiao Mei continuously deployed defensive items, but Fei Jingyi's trait was too strong. Her defensive barrier couldn't hold out at all. As she watched layer after layer of the barrier shatter, she finally couldn't help but yell at the person beside her, "What are you waiting for! Use your items!"
The Painting Woman pulled out a communicator and typed to show her: "I can tough it out."
After reading it, Xiao Mei said coldly, "I must have a brain disease to communicate with someone who has a brain disease."
Before the defensive barrier was completely destroyed, Fei and Wu's expressions suddenly changed. Wu Zishuang instantly distanced herself from Fei Jingyi like lightning. After just one glance, she didn't hesitate to use all her strength to flee.
Fei Jingyi, who stayed behind, froze in place, unable to move. The skin on her face and the back of her hands aged at a visible rate. In the blink of an eye, her entire body had withered down to skin and bones. When the wind on the building blew, her body snapped into several pieces and fell to the ground.
"Holy crap!" Xiao Mei stared in shock at the person who had died before even hitting the ground. Then she looked up at the man and woman who had appeared ahead and immediately said, "I give up on clearing the instance! You can have that cleaner!"
Xu Huo glanced at her before asking the Painting Woman, "Are you okay?"
The Painting Woman only had a bit of dust on her. She patted her dirty clothes and pointed at herself.
"We'll buy new ones later," Xu Huo said. "Let's leave here first. Quite a few people are watching and spying."
Xiao Mei didn't dare to run. She obediently followed them to a nearby hotel.
Once the door was closed, Xiao Mei released the cleaner she had found.
As she had said, the woman was somewhat delirious. She stood there woodenly, accepting food and drink when offered, neither running nor causing trouble.
Xiao Mei took out that piece of paper. "Do you still remember this?"
Fear and avoidance appeared on the woman's face. She mumbled "don't kill me" incoherently and shrank into the corner of the room.
"See, I wasn't lying. Everything I know took a lot of effort to pry out," Xiao Mei shrugged. "But that token isn't useful anymore."
Xu Huo helped the woman up, sat her down, and injected her with a syringe before asking, "What's your name?"
The woman's emotions stabilized considerably. After a moment of confusion, she answered, "Nini..."
"Do you remember what year you were born?" Xu Huo asked again.
The woman struggled for a long time before slowly saying, "New Calendar Year 57... heavy snow... Mom picked me up from the mud..."
"What was your mother's name?"
"Yuhua..."
Xu Huo was very patient. The questions he asked were all about the woman's childhood. Only after she had adapted did he begin to touch on the Tribunal, starting from where she settled near the capital, how she came to work at the Tribunal, what kind of believers she had seen there, even down to their clothing, eating habits, and preferences. But his questioning stopped before the woman's severed hand, as if deliberately avoiding it.
Xiao Mei's fear gradually faded as her patience ran out. She couldn't help but ask, "What's the use of these questions?"
The Tribunal believers were all dead. What was the point of learning about their hobbies, preferences, and life experiences? Their friends and neighbors had already been divided up by player factions.
"Why wouldn't it be useful? Most of the Tribunal believers were players. That information is very valuable," Xu Huo said.
Xiao Mei hadn't gathered from the woman's rambling narrative that the Tribunal believers were players, but she was very interested in this conclusion. "The Isle Country government said all the Tribunal believers died. Could it be that the ones who died were all substitutes?"
"Now that's interesting. Could the Supreme God Cult's followers be the national heirloom treasure? They didn't help Gao Hui, nor did they help the Isle Country. Would they help Lian Qingkong after twenty years?"
"That's a crucial point," Xu Huo said, then suddenly paused, his gaze shifting slightly outward.
Besides the new puppet, there were also the players who had been following him ever since he left the newspaper office. Now their number had grown from two to five.
And of course, there were the local players. Quite a few people had seen Fei Jingyi's death. Whether out of curiosity or other motives, some had tracked their way nearby.
"It's getting a bit annoying." Xu Huo thought for a moment, then turned to Xiao Mei. "Do you still want to clear the instance?"
"Of course I do!" Xiao Mei studied his expression. "But if I can't clear it, there's no helping it. Being stranded is better than dying."
"Do something for me, and I'll team up with you to clear the instance. How about that?" Xu Huo asked.
"I think I can hold out a little longer," Xiao Mei immediately changed her tune, but then added, "But don't give me anything too difficult."
"It's simple. Just spread a piece of false information," Xu Huo said, looking out the window. "Everyone will have something to do. A win-win for all."
Xiao Mei left the hotel before dawn. She first went around tracking Wu Zishuang's whereabouts, vaguely hinting that Wu Zishuang had grasped important instance clues.
Wu Zishuang's counterattack was swift. She immediately exposed both Xiao Mei and Xu Huo, spreading on the Message Collection Terminal that they knew the whereabouts of the national heirloom treasure—this was a standard mutual-biting tactic between offensive and defensive factions. But for some reason, it seemed many people believed Xu Huo really had clues. More and more eyes turned toward him, and the number of people monitoring the hotel kept growing.
Xu Huo left the capital and made a trip to a nearby resort city. It was an abandoned city, with basically no one living inside, only buildings on the verge of collapse. But here, there was a resort built in the name of Gao Hui's family.