Chapter 869: Friendly Negotiation
Xu Huo followed behind them.
These few white monkeys had a specific path. After a few trips through the trees, they entered a patch of giant flowers. They covered their small buckets over their heads, crossed the ground, and hopped and skipped up a small slope.
Behind the slope was a deep river about ten meters wide. Several monkeys climbed the low trees by the riverbank, pulled down the vines wrapped around them, tied them to the buckets, and threw the buckets into the river. Soon, there were thumping sounds of collisions from underwater. The monkeys immediately pulled up the vines. Two of the buckets actually had several two-finger-wide, sharp-mouthed black fish stuck inside.
The little monkeys cheered. Those with fish tossed them to their companions. They crouched on the branches, happily waving the black fish, then bared two neat rows of sharp white teeth and ate the fish, flesh and bones together.
This meal was quite ceremonial.
They fished up ahead, and Xu Huo watched from behind. However, the fishing process wasn't entirely smooth. When one monkey's bucket was bitten through by a crocodile and spat back onto the shore, the few monkeys joined forces, jumping and screeching along the bank. Judging by their movements and expressions, they were probably cursing, but the crocodile in the water couldn't understand them.
After jumping around for a while, the monkeys huddled together and chattered. Then they gathered on the bank, with one monkey pretending to drink water while the others held coiled vines, waiting.
The crocodile that had been lurking nearby soon came for the prey. But its speed was no match for the white monkeys. As it lunged out of the water with its mouth open, it was caught by the vines and dragged onto the shore by the monkeys.
Once on land, the crocodile was no match for the monkeys' agility. The white monkeys coordinated, grabbing and smashing, and soon the crocodile was covered in wounds.
The crocodile couldn't hold out. It bit through the vines and retreated back into the water. The furious monkeys screeched curses from the bank for a while before taking their buckets and moving to another spot to fish.
Xu Huo waited until they were far enough away before approaching the water's edge. As the crocodile surfaced, he hit it with several doses of anesthetic, then used his kite string to drag it ashore. After securing its mouth shut, he started taking photos.
Once the three reptile species were documented, the small projection screen displaying his number reappeared with a prompt:
"Detected that Guest 313 has no entry or exit hatch nearby. Please find a hatch door as soon as possible."
The monkeys were drawn back by the noise. They imitated his posture, standing upright and surrounding him from the front.
Xu Huo wrote a number on the crocodile's back and tossed it back into the water. He waited until it woke up and struggled before retracting his kite string, then greeted the monkeys.
The monkeys stood still. One of them extended its claw, pointing at the kite string in his hand.
Xu Huo pointed at its bucket.
The monkey hid the bucket behind its back but kept pointing at his hand.
"This won't work. I'll show you something good." Xu Huo grabbed a handful of lollipops, unwrapped one and put it in his mouth, then tossed one to the monkey that had come to "negotiate."
The little monkey imitated him and ate it. Seeming to find the taste acceptable, it communicated with its companions before advancing toward him.
After a second failed negotiation, Xu Huo placed the snake cage in front of him, used his water blade gun to cut a branch, and drove the monkey in the tree back to the ground.
Monkeys that would even drag a crocodile out of the water to beat it up certainly wouldn't be scared off by him. They quickly changed positions to coordinate.
Half a minute later, they were all very successfully strung up by Xu Huo.
Xu Huo sat on a nearby rock, took out the battered "Severed Ties Door," demonstrated the action of opening it, patted the door, and then pointed at the candy in his hand.
The monkeys howled in fury, all their sharp teeth bared.
Xu Huo smiled. He administered two more doses of anesthetic to the loudest screecher, then, in front of the other monkeys, took a pair of pliers from his toolbox and pulled out two of that monkey's front teeth.
The monkeys fell silent.
Xu Huo patted the door and pointed at the candy again. Receiving no response, he pulled the teeth of the second monkey.
It was soon the leader's turn. Seeing its "ugly" companions, it shed hot tears.
One minute later, Xu Huo was leading a string of monkeys eating candy to find the hatch door.
This group of monkeys was familiar with the jungle and smoothly led him away from the riverbank. After walking east for about a few hundred meters, the projection screen indicated a hatch body to his left front.
The monkeys couldn't understand human language, but they were indeed heading in that direction. However, as Xu Huo got closer, he discovered that this patch of woods had just been through a fierce fight. The ground was covered in bloodstains and beast tracks. The vegetation was almost flattened. From a distance, he could see a large tree with a half-open hatch door in its trunk lying crooked on the ground. The soil at its roots had been dug up and damaged, revealing metal-reinforced pillars—clearly, this passage had been blocked and destroyed.
Two injured people were hiding not far away.
Players had entered the zoo before, so encountering living people wasn't surprising. But with the entry-exit hatch so badly damaged, Xu Huo wondered if they had completed their adventure tasks.
Xu Huo walked up to the big tree, flipped the hatch door in front of the monkeys, and patted it.
The monkey spat out its candy stick with a "pfft," raised its head, and refused to move.
Xu Huo held a handful of candy in his left hand and a pair of pliers in his right, extending them toward the monkeys.
The monkeys' arrogance lasted less than three seconds before they docilely took the candy again.
"Wait... wait a moment!" The person hiding behind the tree jumped out on her own. It was a woman. Her voice trembling, she said, "Can you take me with you?"
The fellow player also came out. Xu Huo remembered that they had also received a white ball task, which required capturing a colorful ant alive.
"Did you complete your task?" he asked. Both of them were injured, but the player had more combat wounds, while the woman who spoke only had a single scratch.
The female player took out a bottle. Inside was a palm-sized colorful ant.
Xu Huo noticed her lips were slightly purple and asked, "Poisoned?"
"I got nipped by the ant by accident," the female player said cautiously.
Her protective suit was intact—she must have changed it. Her condition didn't seem too bad, but taking an ordinary person to find the next entry-exit hatch carried considerable risk, especially after a tough battle.
Xu Huo scrutinized the two of them but didn't immediately agree to travel together.
"I have insect repellent!" the woman who spoke first quickly said. "Spray it on your body, and once the scent fades, most poisonous insects will stay away."
"I definitely won't hold you back!"
"Three people is too big a target," Xu Huo said with a hesitant expression.
The woman looked back at the female player, her expression conflicted and struggling. Finally, as if she had made a decision, she stepped forward.
Xu Huo knew what she was going to say, but he didn't give her the chance to speak. He interrupted her first. "Alright, let's go together. If we run into danger, we can look out for each other."
The woman's expression shifted. Happily, she lowered her voice and said to the female player, "Great, we can go together..."
Before she could finish, the female player cleanly snapped her neck. The female player said mockingly, "I saved her countless times on the road, and now she wants to ditch me. An ungrateful wretch!"
(Chapter End)