Chapter 2962: A Wonderful Journey
The other person wasn’t a player. They probably wanted to buy Da Mao because it looked fun, and once they reached the tourist destination, they would just abandon it.
That’s right, they simply didn’t want it anymore, finding it neither smart enough nor comfortable to hold.
Since they had already disembarked, Da Mao unceremoniously returned to the Painting Woman’s side.
The two of them spent two days in the zone where the ship had docked, got a bit bored, and decided to rob some players. They used the stolen items to exchange for money, then boarded another ship.
But ships that could cross wormholes and zones weren’t easy to find. Even if they found one, having money didn’t guarantee boarding. However, as luck would have it, the zone they were in was a sub-zone under a powerful main zone. Such zones had fixed trade routes, and with a little string-pulling, they could still get on board.
They played around in these zones for a while before remembering Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu, who were far away in another land. They felt they should come back and check on them.
Their luck was also quite good. While out looking for a return ticket, they stumbled upon a chase.
Their plan was simple: buy a return ticket to Zone 014, hand it over to any player, and then force that player to take them along.
Yes, their plan was that straightforward and crude. They weren’t worried about whether others might try to take advantage of them.
The person being chased was a ticket scalper claiming to have a return ticket to Zone 014—in the game, some people specifically targeted the timing of new zone fusions to make a quick fortune. Whether the tickets were real or not, plenty of people claimed to have them.
Obviously, this person didn’t actually have a return ticket to Zone 014. He had swindled others out of their deposits and tried to run, only to be chased across the land. When he couldn’t escape, he fell to his knees and begged for mercy. The Painting Woman, passing by, heard that the pursuers were heading to Zone 014 to make money. She immediately jumped in to act as a righteous avenger, beating up the players who had failed to buy tickets and had their deposits stolen by the unscrupulous merchant.
After driving them off, the scalper thanked them and shared some inside information. As it happened, he knew someone who had just purchased a large teleportation device—information was just information; how to use it was up to them.
So the Painting Woman and Da Mao went off to find the person who had bought the teleportation device. But anyone who could afford such a device had considerable wealth and many bodyguards. Figuring they probably couldn’t win in a fight, they were about to give up in disappointment when they discovered that this person was planning to form a group to send a batch of players to Zone 014.
What a perfect opportunity! So the Painting Woman turned back into a piece of paper and hid inside Da Mao’s mouth. Da Mao picked out one of the players and latched onto them, following them stubbornly wherever they went.
No one knew where it came from, but seeing it as an ownerless item with its own consciousness, they thought they could just wait for its original owner to die and then claim it as a freebie. So they didn’t refuse its company—items shaped like animals often made people unconsciously apply a filter, believing they could be easily tamed like real animals.
Da Mao followed that group of players through the teleportation channel back to Zone 014. Once it confirmed the familiar surroundings, it shook off the group and bolted away.
The Painting Woman emerged and quickly recognized Xu Huo on the TV screen. She initially planned to go to Ting City to find him, but halfway there, she realized he had gone somewhere else. So she changed direction again, but each time, either something else caught her attention, or by the time she got halfway, Xu Huo had already moved on—until Jing City.
On the way, they robbed a few more players. Thinking it had been a while since they last met and that they could now “stand on their own two feet,” they decided to buy a small gift to reconnect. That was when they discovered Xu Huo and Jin Feixue fighting.
Neither the Painting Woman nor Da Mao felt the urge to help. They hid far away to watch the show. Although the safe zone was torn to shreds, the Painting Woman occasionally sent out a bit of paper to keep tabs on the battle.
After that, things unfolded naturally. The Painting Woman saw Xu Huo get blown up and Jin Feixue trying to escape. She stepped in first to block her. Her original intention was to destroy the teleportation device, but it was too well-made, and ordinary paper couldn’t cut through it quickly.
“And then you came out spitting blood.” The Painting Woman raised the communicator, mimicking Xu Huo’s blood-spitting pose.
“You’ve had quite an eventful time,” Xu Huo said flatly.
The Painting Woman nodded in agreement, then added with a hint of frustration, “Just not enough money.”
“You can keep robbing players,” Xu Huo suggested.
She glanced at him. “They’re all poor. Not rich like you.”
Xu Huo couldn’t help but laugh. “So you’re saying you want to rob me?”
The Painting Woman waved her hand, saying that robbing was hard work and the items didn’t sell for much. She thought Zone 014 was better—lots of people here were willing to give her money.
“Can we go back to Ting City?” she asked. “In Ting City, we can buy things without paying.”
“We can’t leave the instance right now.” Xu Huo stretched slightly. “How many players came with you?”
“Over a dozen,” the Painting Woman said. “I heard them say they’re just the advance team. More people are coming later.”
That meant major forces from other zones were getting involved, trying to grab a piece of the pie during this zone fusion.
But accepting an item that appeared out of nowhere to travel with them showed a rather loose and careless team. They probably weren’t a force strong enough to carve up a zone.
Still, it was worth keeping an eye on. Who knew where these people might pop up from?
“Don’t covet the instance authorization letter anymore. Don’t even mention it,” Xu Huo said. “I’ll give you money to spend once we get out.”
Stolen goods were never as satisfying as freebies. The Painting Woman happily took out the gift she had prepared—a fresh flower.
“Everyone else had closed up shop, so I picked this from the park.” She smiled brightly and pressed, “Do you like it?”
Xu Huo tucked the flower into his chest. “Not bad.”
The Painting Woman immediately turned to Da Mao, who was lying nearby, and said, “See? I told you he’d like it. People are all the same—they love pretty flowers and plants.”
Da Mao looked puzzled but happy.
While Xu Huo rested, the situation in Jing City wasn’t looking good. The frequency of deaths by suffocation hadn’t increased, but it hadn’t slowed down either, despite the distribution of masks and medicine.
At first, players thought the fog contained some special toxin that caused suffocation over time. This theory was supported by the fact that, after wearing masks, the victims were mostly elderly or those with pre-existing conditions.
But soon, things took a turn. Initially, the deaths were concentrated among the elderly and the sick. After the Special Defense Department evacuated pregnant women and young children and began selectively screening other groups, the suffocation deaths were no longer limited to the elderly and sick—they started claiming young, strong individuals. Most of these were social elites on the Special Defense Department’s “priority” list.
It was around this time that the Special Defense Department realized the fog, while mildly toxic, wasn’t potent enough to kill people in such a short time. The vast majority of the young adults who died had their surrounding air instantly drained. The existing examples clearly showed that these suffocation victims couldn’t be saved at all—it was as if a vacuum had formed inside their bodies, completely inaccessible from the outside!