Chapter 902: The Stolen Guide
The survivors still alive in W18 gave off a bad impression, like a pool of stagnant water—everyone seemed to be living numbly, merely not dead yet.
"Completely hopeless, huh. Pretty pathetic." Shangguan Xi muttered under his breath.
This remark earned him an unfriendly glare from the young man, who, with a stern face, led them to the seventh floor of the dormitory building and knocked on one of the doors. "Teacher Ai, I've brought two guests back."
After several knocks, no one answered from inside. The young man's expression shifted. He quickly moved the potted plant away from the window beside him, reached in to unlatch the window lock, then climbed inside.
A few seconds later, he opened the door and ran out. "Teacher Ai has been kidnapped!"
Xu Huo tilted his head to glance into the room. It was a very ordinary living scene, except for the chair placed in front of the desk, which was a bit unusual.
"What happened?" Shangguan Xi peered in. "There's no sign of a struggle."
The young man had no time to say more. He dropped a quick "Teacher Ai can't walk well; he never leaves his wheelchair without reason" and ran downstairs, informing the other locals to search for Teacher Ai.
Teacher Ai was a crucial figure here. All the locals joined forces to search every corner of the residential area, even the underground passages, but found no trace.
"If he was taken by a player, you won't find him no matter how hard you search," Shangguan Xi said. "Has any stranger come by here before?"
The young man had been outside for the past two days, so he quickly asked around. Finally, he got a clue from a ten-year-old child. It turned out that yesterday evening, a player had come nearby asking if anyone from the W19 base was here. The child had been cautious and said nothing. Later, the player seemed to chat casually with him, took pity on him for not having eaten anything good, and gave him some food.
A child could be told not to reveal information about the protective net to outsiders, but players had many tricks up their sleeves. The child might not even realize what he had let slip.
"Is Teacher Ai a resident of W19?" Xu Huo prompted.
"Teacher Ai fled from another base city to W19. Later, when W19 fell, he came to W18," the young man said angrily. "Those people must know he's familiar with the terrain, so they grabbed him to be their guide."
"I don't quite get it," Shangguan Xi said to Xu Huo. "Can't they just buy a map? Why do they need a person to guide them?"
For ordinary people, maybe, but for players, even if the wilderness environment is harsh, it's not that dangerous. Following a map should be fine.
"Our main goal is to save time on the road," Xu Huo said. "There are only three samples. Think about how many players there are."
The handbands the instance gave them probably wouldn't locate the living samples until they entered W19. Even if they wanted to form a team, they'd need to get the samples first. Otherwise, how could they clear this round?
"Then we're screwed!" Shangguan Xi slapped his thigh. "What if someone gets off the train and goes straight to the W19 base? We'd be at a huge disadvantage!"
"Then we take it by force," Xu Huo said flatly, then asked the young man, "Does Teacher Ai know the underground passage out of the city?"
On the large walls of the safe base, there were many nests of flying mutants. The best way to leave without disturbing them was to go overground or underground.
The surface wasn't safe either, especially with someone who couldn't walk well. So under normal circumstances, everyone would prioritize using an existing underground passage.
The young man's expression confirmed that there was indeed a passage out of the city, but he was reluctant to reveal it to outsiders.
"You can guide us," Xu Huo said. "The terms we agreed on earlier remain unchanged."
He didn't say more, leaving the young man some time to think.
But the young man didn't hesitate long. "I can give up the food, but you have to save Teacher Ai!"
"I need him to guide us, so of course I want him alive," Xu Huo said. "I can only promise that I won't harm him."
That was enough.
The young man nodded readily, exchanged a few words with his family, and prepared to take them to the entrance of the underground passage.
Before leaving, Xu Huo gave the young man's mother a bag of rice and a bag of frozen vegetables—real rice and vegetables.
"Why are you carrying these?" Shangguan Xi looked shocked. "Even compressed biscuits would be better than this."
"Compressed biscuits have no nutritional value," Xu Huo explained seriously, though it sounded a bit like a joke.
Shangguan Xi stared at him for a long moment before finally blurting out, "Do players even need to worry about nutrition?"
Their eyes met, and both felt there was no need to delve deeper into the topic.
A few minutes later, the three of them entered the underground passage through a sewage inlet two hundred meters from the protective net.
W18's underground passage had been specially modified, looking more like a maze. A single fork could connect to more than four branches, not just leading forward, backward, left, and right, but also downward.
"This is ridiculous. The exit passage can go underground too..." Before Shangguan Xi could finish, the young man jumped down without hesitation. Once he landed, he looked back and explained, "The horizontal passages might not lead out. You could end up at a dead end."
Xu Huo gestured for him to stop talking and follow.
The two followed the young man through a series of twists and turns until he suddenly stopped and whispered excitedly, "Sure enough, Teacher Ai also chose this route!"
There were traces of someone having passed through the fork ahead. Though other paths also had marks, the young man seemed able to recognize the signs left by Teacher Ai.
Eager to find Teacher Ai, the young man quickened his pace. But after going a bit further, traps appeared in the passage—hidden darts attached to the walls, which Shangguan Xi deftly blocked, only to trigger a poison gas ahead!
"Such a dirty move!" Shangguan Xi said. "The underground passage is a network; the gas will spread everywhere. This dosage can't even kill a player, but they're leaving no way out for the locals."
The young man, holding the gas mask Xu Huo had given him, plunged headfirst into the toxic fog.
Though the traps left by those ahead were child's play, they were more than enough to deal with an ordinary person. Finally, Shangguan Xi stopped the young man and took the lead, letting him just point the way.
"Kid, let me give you some advice as someone who's been through it. Where there's life, there's hope. I know you're eager to save him, but charging in with hot blood won't give you a golden aura. If you rush in and get killed, no one will even collect your body. What's the point?"
"Besides, your Teacher Ai left those marks not for you to save him. With your small frame, you're no match for players. He just wanted to tell you where he was going. Rushing in would only get you killed. It's better to just guide us properly."
The young man stared at him with dead fish eyes. "Other people are players, and you're a player too. Why do you talk so much?"