Chapter 846: A Deal Reached
"Is this a time item?" Xu Huo turned to ask Mr. Dong.
"It should be," Mr. Dong replied.
The sand stopped moving once it returned to the top, and the cup, unable to maintain its shape, shattered on the table.
Without Bai Kou's help, Xu Huo couldn't detect the subtle spatial changes. He handed the hourglass back to Mr. Dong. "We'll discuss this later."
Mr. Dong had no choice but to put the hourglass away and said, "Mr. He Pu doesn't want to hand over Rose Castle to Miss Kou Kou."
Xu Huo understood, but still asked, "Why?"
His inheritance of Rose Castle wasn't exactly legitimate. He Pu had only mentioned finding an heir, while Mr. Dong was the intermediary who made him the actual successor. Perhaps He Pu had given special instructions, but Xu Huo didn't know much about the castle.
"That's what Mr. He Pu said." Mr. Dong reverted to his usual stern, unsmiling butler persona, strictly following his master's orders.
Things easily spoken weren't secrets. Seeing that Mr. Dong wasn't going to elaborate, Xu Huo casually offered a few words of reassurance.
For the time being, Bai Kou definitely wouldn't get her hands on Rose Castle.
But the mention of this topic made Mr. Dong particularly anxious.
Xu Huo just smiled. Compared to Bai Kou, he, a mere D-rank player, was easier to deal with.
He wasn't stupid either.
"Did Miss Bai Kou say she'd be back for dinner?" Xu Huo asked.
Mr. Dong's face was stern. "She'll return before dinner."
Xu Huo nodded. "The market has fresh ingredients delivered from other districts. Prepare something she likes."
Mr. Dong acknowledged the order and silently left the room.
Xu Huo then went to the rear annex to release Dr. Deng.
After being left alone for two days, Dr. Deng's condition was worse than before, especially when he saw Xu Huo place a Non-Player Ticket in front of him.
"With District 011 in this mess, the Black Epaulets don't have time to come after me," he said, his expression dark.
"Since you know what's happening outside, you should know that Base City is practically going to be rebuilt. Black Epaulets and government players are everywhere. If you stay here, you'll have nowhere to go. Better to leave early and find a new post in another district." Xu Huo said.
Something in that statement must have struck a nerve, because Dr. Deng's face twitched. "I'm not leaving."
"Throwing a tantrum at your age?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "I have the leisure to send you off now, but tomorrow might be a different story."
Hearing this, Dr. Deng calmed down instead. He studied Xu Huo. "Actually, you don't really want to kick me out. Otherwise, you wouldn't have come to talk to me for so long."
"You're a valuable person," Xu Huo said. "Killing you would be a bit of a waste. But you don't have the corresponding bargaining chips to trade with me. I don't do losing deals. You tricked me when you came to District 011. Once you walk out that door, let's pretend we never met."
Dr. Deng, just like when he had tried to persuade Xu Huo to go to District 009, looked annoyed at the rejection. He asked, "Let me ask you one more time. Did you really not get the Perfect Potion?"
"I'd like to ask you the same thing." Xu Huo looked at him from under his eyelids. "You've been tracking Dr. Wu for so long, and your information from District 009 is so timely. Have you really never gotten your hands on the potion even once?"
"You haven't seemed to take any potion these past few days," he continued. "Although you're no longer a player, every Evolver needs evolution agents. You're not already starting Perfect Evolution, are you?"
"You really dare to think that!" Dr. Deng laughed derisively. "It's more believable to say it about you than me."
"Then if I told you I'm undergoing Perfect Evolution, would you believe me?" Xu Huo said. "Or, for the sake of scientific research, would you hand over all the information you have and any potions you've obtained to me?"
Both of them laughed. After a moment, Dr. Deng spoke. "I don't have the S-version potion, but I do have a file on the Perfect Potion. Even if you got the Perfect Potion, you couldn't use the game backend to verify its authenticity. Players themselves don't have the means to distinguish the real from the fake. So this file is very important."
"But if I give you the file, I'll have no bargaining chips left."
The old excuses about using better agents or researching the Perfect Potion to alleviate player aftereffects were clearly useless now. So he had revealed one of his trump cards, intending to use this file to exchange for a condition that wouldn't be cheap.
"I'm more interested in your information channels," Xu Huo said. "Unless you have a method to directly confirm the potion's authenticity, any amount of data you give me is useless. The potion isn't going to analyze its own ingredients."
"That's a separate transaction." Dr. Deng shook his head and added, "Normally, I wouldn't even take this file out."
"You don't know how many people want the Perfect Potion. The more people who know the inside story, the worse it is for the actual researchers."
Xu Huo chuckled. "So you're really in it for the research? May I ask, if your skills aren't up to par, would you end up wasting the experimental samples?"
Dr. Deng's face immediately soured. "My skill level isn't that low!"
Xu Huo raised his hands in a placating gesture, his expression clearly saying "if you say so," which made the other man's face turn green with anger before he spoke. "What do you want in exchange for the file?"
"Your blood." Dr. Deng was quite straightforward.
"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Even if Xu Huo weren't already in the process of Perfect Evolution, he wouldn't just casually give his blood to a pharmacologist.
"Then find me an experimental subject," Dr. Deng said. "I'm not leaving. I'll stay here and decipher the potion. If I can develop an evolution agent close to the S-version, I'll need someone to test it on."
The annex fell silent for a moment. Xu Huo looked at the other man. "Can't you use animals?"
"Humans are naturally best for experiments targeting Evolvers." Dr. Deng was completely unconcerned with his opinion. "Or find me a player on the verge of Degeneration. The experimental results would be more obvious."
"The file." Xu Huo tapped the table. "No experimental subjects for now. If you're in a hurry, you can use yourself."
Dr. Deng's mouth twitched. "Alright then, it's settled. I'm staying."
"You should have a disguise item, right?" Xu Huo said. "Lay low for a few more days."
Dr. Deng slowly pulled out a paper file and placed it on the table with considerable reluctance.
Xu Huo pressed his hand on the file, spun it around, and opened it in front of him.
The first things that caught his eye were several photos. P0 and P1 were the same blue as the potions he had seen before, while P2 and P3 were a light green.
At least the colors matched.
Besides that, there were some records about the ingredients of the Perfect Potion, with the likelihood of each ingredient's use marked at the end—none of it was one hundred percent certain.
They even had to guess the basic ingredients?
Xu Huo looked at Dr. Deng suspiciously, but Dr. Deng gestured for him not to rush. "The most important information is at the end."
The few thin pages were quickly scanned by Xu Huo until the last page, where he found a specially marked line at the end of the file: "The Perfect Potion can produce a special reaction with Wormhole Flowers."
(End of Chapter)