Chapter 697: A Tailored Gift
Xu Huo didn't laugh.
After a brief silence, Yi Pei asked again, "Are those people in the Four Directions Palace City still alive?"
"About half," Xu Huo said. The instance boss wouldn't be so insane as to kill everyone; otherwise, where would it find so much nourishment?
However, if it really wanted to do that, no one could stop it.
"I thought only one child was left," Yi Pei murmured. "But even if just one child survived, that's still good."
For a moment, the three of them all looked at the unconscious child.
Stepping onto the stone path in the center of the pool, they hadn't gone far before they encountered other players.
"You're still alive!" Wei Xian climbed out of the water, drenched, and walked towards them excitedly.
"Bang!" A water bullet from a water gun shattered the stone in front of his foot. Xu Huo raised his chin, signaling him to stay where he was. "You've been hiding underwater this whole time?"
"Didn't I tell you my profession is Fishing Master? As soon as I crossed the stone bridge, I hid in the water," Wei Xian said. "I'm not good at fighting, so hiding is my best option. What's the situation in the Four Directions Palace City? What about the others?"
"No immediate danger for now," Xu Huo put away his prop. "The only surviving players should be us."
"Are we heading to the county town now?" Wei Xian looked at the severely injured Yi Pei behind him and offered proactively, "Let me carry him. You're pretty banged up too..."
This time, Xu Huo didn't stop him. He just watched him.
Wei Xian had already walked up to them, his hand reaching out before he pulled it back. "Forget it. I'm all wet."
He then automatically stepped back.
Xu Huo withdrew his gaze, and the group walked in silence along the stone path towards the opposite bank.
Wei Xian followed behind the three, his eyes constantly moving over them, but until they reached the shore, he just obediently trailed behind.
Xu Huo didn't rush back to the county town. After setting Yi Pei down, he patted Wei Xian on the shoulder and said amiably, "I'd like to ask for your help."
The previously tense atmosphere vanished. Wei Xian quickly said, "Mutual benefit. It's only right."
"There should be a sluice gate under the pool. Please find it," Xu Huo said, handing him the single-use item that Fu Danhong had given him.
"Destroy the pool?" Wei Xian was puzzled. "Isn't the danger over?"
Xu Huo didn't explain. Bian Jin beside him said, "Just an extra layer of insurance to prevent future problems. The three of us are seriously injured, so you'll have to go."
Wei Xian hesitated for a moment but still took it. He dove into the water with a graceful motion. As he surfaced, he unexpectedly met Xu Huo's eyes. The man standing on the shore was watching him expressionlessly.
A flicker of fear passed through his eyes. He waved his hand and submerged himself again.
Once he was far away, Xu Huo sat down under a tree to rest. Yi Pei said, "That guy has bad intentions."
"He doesn't dare," Xu Huo said, cleaning his wounds. "If he dared, he would have acted just now."
He had deliberately turned his back to him, but the other party hadn't made a move. He was quite cautious.
"Regardless, we should still be careful," Bian Jin added. "I'm afraid he might try to take advantage of our situation."
"Having him help for now isn't a bad thing either." Xu Huo didn't dwell on the topic and instead checked the wound on his arm.
After discovering the small insects in the wound, he had specifically wrapped it with a medicinal pouch. Soaking it had worked quite well. Although the water pouch had been broken in the Four Directions Palace, the wound had noticeably improved.
He scraped off the remaining rotten flesh, applied some medicine, and then wrapped another pouch of medicine over it.
"What kind of injury is that?" Yi Pei had noticed it a couple of days earlier. "Is the self-healing agent ineffective?"
"It's a very small type of insect, invisible to the naked eye, but they can be drawn out with water," Xu Huo explained briefly.
"Are they bone-eating worms?" Bian Jin suddenly said. "I've seen them in other zones before. Someone raised them specifically to eat corpses. Although they're small, their vitality and reproductive ability are strong. Usually, you pour a bottle into a mountain of corpses, and they'll quickly devour everything, flesh and bone."
"These worms are non-toxic. You just burn them afterward, and it's done."
"Bone-eating worms... they eat everything?" Xu Huo thought of the water pouches scattered in the Four Directions Palace.
He took out the bottles from his luggage compartment. The wood chips and food he had thrown in earlier to test the worms were now just a few bubbles floating on the surface. The stones, however, were fine.
"What a waste."
With the cannon bombardment and the fire, the worms in the Four Directions Palace were probably all dead. But it was still a very interesting idea.
"Why use worms to eat corpses?" Yi Pei had a different focus. "There are many ways to dispose of bodies, but releasing these worms could easily lead to an infestation."
Bian Jin was silent for a few seconds before saying, "Bone-eating worms prefer human and animal corpses. They can eat other things, but their lifespan is greatly shortened. They don't reach disaster levels before they die out on their own."
"Some backward small districts use this method. It's cheaper."
Yi Pei understood and couldn't help but sigh. "I've heard other players say that some districts have been weak since their inception. After their resources are plundered by other districts, they might become 'garbage dumps.' Adults and children live in the garbage dumps and have very short lifespans."
"Things like this are countless in the game," Bian Jin nodded.
People are more insignificant than they realize.
Listening to their conversation, Xu Huo looked towards the opposite bank. People like Xiao Yun and her brother, and the residents of the Four Directions Palace City, were numerous in the game. In this evolution game, they were eliminated before they even got their ticket.
But not everything under the raging fire turns to ash.
He evenly distributed the liquid in the bottle into three bottles, then threw food into each. He asked Bian Jin, "How much can they multiply in two days?"
"At least five times the amount," Bian Jin said, slightly puzzled. "What are you raising these worms for?"
"To prepare a tailored gift for the instance boss." Xu Huo put the bottles away and stood up. Wei Xian had already swum to the shore. Before he could climb out, a dull thud came from underwater. A flash of dim light was followed by a huge splash in the pool, which then turned into a whirlpool—the water level in the pool was dropping!
"There's a drainage sluice down there," Wei Xian said. "The water sound we heard earlier must have come from there. The water was drained to reveal the stone bridge. When I went down just now, the sluice was closed again."
This wasn't hard to understand. The pool was originally used to separate the two Four Directions Palace Cities. With the sluice closed, by dawn, the water would almost be back up to the stone path.
"This way, the real Four Directions Palace City can't hide anymore," Yi Pei said. "Once we burn down the county town, I wonder if this instance can still exist."
"For a survival instance, it doesn't really matter if ordinary people participate or not," Xu Huo said, his gaze deep.
As long as the Four Directions Palace remained, the problem wasn't too big. It just meant the instance boss wouldn't find it so easy to eat people. But players would still enter voluntarily to get high scores.
Furthermore, the Four Directions Palace City wasn't completely isolated from the outside world. It was hard to guarantee that one batch wouldn't be followed by another.
(Chapter End)