Not caring about making a fool of herself, Princess Tea Flower, after regaining his strength, immediately went over the entire process again—truly, he could find no violations.
Everything had happened so suddenly before; now, thinking calmly, if the game had determined that he broke the rules, it should have immediately suspended his duties before punishing him. Yet up to this point, no notice of replacing the host had arrived.
Princess Tea Flower narrowed his eyes. Punishments generally fell into two categories: either a violation of rules, or failing to perform one’s duties properly, potentially creating serious hazards.
Punishment was also a warning from the game itself. A few months ago, a female player rumored to have prophetic talents had done something in an instance that the game judged would cause adverse effects. Because the host had not stopped it in time, he received severe penalties.
If he remembered correctly, that had been a dead-end instance.
Ji Heng was unconcerned: “He’s just been mentally affected; ignore it.”
Ignoring a gaze that could kill, Ji Heng continued analyzing matters related to Feng Peng.
Princess Tea Flower withdrew his gaze. Ever since entering the game, because of the dead-end instance, he had been paying extra attention to Ji Heng, whose private actions were few.
As if sensing something, Ji Heng suddenly turned back. Outside the door of the reading room on the next floor, only the corner of a hurriedly entering person’s clothing could be seen.
…Xu Yangyang.
From a small remaining shadow, Princess Tea Flower immediately deduced who was spying. Before he could even take a step downstairs, he suddenly looked in another direction. A camera peeked out from a corner, someone hiding behind a wall using a tablet to watch.
“What are you doing?”
The hand holding the tablet stiffened. Facing the host who had instantly appeared in front of her, Zhu Yu tried to calm her heartbeat: “I heard a scream just now, so I came to check.”
After speaking, she stood up, still holding onto the wall as her legs, numb from squatting, regained feeling.
Princess Tea Flower instinctively felt a hint of disdain; this was the fragility of the human body, unable to maintain even one posture for long.
“I… I’ll go take care of something first.”
Zhu Yu timidly hugged the tablet and ran off, a smirk appearing at the corner of her mouth the moment her back turned.
After she left, Princess Tea Flower’s gaze swept over every corner around him… On reflection, besides Jia Kanhua, all the other players were suspicious in their own ways.
At this moment, his eyes were colder than ever, constantly calculating who might be secretly doing something to harm the game.
Finding no answer, he cursed under his breath, even including the game… What a broken system. If a potential threat is discovered, why not just eliminate it outright? Instead, it’s handed down layer by layer to subordinates.
If something really happens, who is responsible?
After a long while, Princess Tea Flower bitterly realized that he would undoubtedly bear the responsibility.
Su Er had no idea of the torment the host was going through, and even if he did, he would probably just gloat.
The Smiling Merchant provided full service, leaving behind items before leaving. With everything prepared, it was time to find the old man for photos.
“I suspect he’s doing it on purpose,” Su Er said softly.
Hidden in a tricky location, there was no other angle for a shot.
Ji Heng smiled: “No risk, no reward.”
The old man continued pacing at the corner, muttering formulas that gradually shifted into advanced chemistry knowledge.
“Did you bring the smartest brain?”
Su Er shook his head.
The old man ignored them.
Su Er quietly asked: “Would a shot of the back work?”
Ji Heng: “It has to be the front. Some special bound spirits can only be captured from the front.”
Su Er made an “OK” gesture, signaling he was ready.
Ji Heng looked forward and called out: “Feng Peng?”
The old man did not move.
No matter what they said, he refused to turn around.
Ji Heng’s gaze darkened: “You recited the formula wrong.”
The old man suddenly spun around, roaring: “Impossible!”
Click!
Seizing the opportunity, Su Er quickly pressed the hotkey.
The old man didn’t even flinch, lunging straight at him.
Ghosts can teleport; humans cannot. Su Er ran while throwing items, experiencing the feeling of burning through resources for the first time, yet the distance between them continued to shrink.
A dark gaze immediately swept toward Ji Heng.
Across from him.
Su Er: “He seems to be looking at you.”
During the escape, Ji Heng tried to block twice, but unfortunately the old man was too powerful. Without a head-on life-or-death fight, such attempts were nothing more than a drizzle—ineffective.
All that running practice hadn’t been in vain; even so, Su Er still managed to glance at the tablet while gasping for breath. “You were right—it has no physical form.”
“Head for where the white fluff is thickest.”
Ji Heng could have run faster, but he always stayed just a step behind Su Er.
Most of Su Er’s basic attack items had already been thrown. He wanted to turn his head to check the old man’s exact position.
“Don’t look!” Ji Heng stopped him. “Just run.”
Several times, Su Er felt a chilling shiver crawl up his back, numbing his brain. Countless past experiences had honed his sixth sense—he knew the old man’s attacks were aimed at him. Even with Ji Heng behind, the old man stubbornly focused his assault on Su Er.
Holding his breath, he rushed into the reading room and pulled out the little clay figure. Almost instantly, the white fluff hidden in the books surged forth.
Not knowing if the old man would clash with the fluff, Su Er cupped the clay figure in his hands, inhaled deeply, and muttered: “May the Lord protect you.”
Then he tore off his coat, wrapped the clay figure with it along with another item, and hurled it forward.
The old man faltered briefly because of the item, and the clay figure narrowly avoided being smashed to pieces.
The fluff floated over, knowing how to make the most of the situation. Crawling out of the coat, it made sure to stay close to the old man. The fluff attacked indiscriminately, and in rage, the old man opened his mouth and inhaled, swallowing hundreds of eggs in one gulp.
Su Er tossed two healing items to the little clay figure, then quickly slipped out the back door. He didn’t forget to shout at Xu Yangyang, who was staring dumbfounded nearby: “Why aren’t you running yet?”
Xu Yangyang finally reacted and bolted faster than Su Er himself.
When immortals fight, mortals suffer—the old man and the swarm of eggs clashed, and the clay figure was unfortunately caught in the impact. When it crawled back out, only half its body remained.
Outside the door, Su Er pressed himself against the wall, scooped it up, and hesitated a moment about which way to flee.
Ji Heng: “Downstairs.”
They dashed straight into the lobby. Su Er bent down, gulping huge breaths, nearly forgetting the rhythm of a normal heartbeat. Once he steadied himself, he immediately set about remolding the clay figure’s missing half.
The little clay figure stared at him with a look full of grievance.
Opening his backpack, Su Er kneaded clay with a sigh. “I’ve already made several protective measures. If you can’t survive this time… it’s fate.”
“I… forgive you.” After fusing with the peach blossom, the clay figure’s intelligence had increased significantly. It rubbed its hands together, bits of clay crumbling down—seeming to hint that someone was just scum.
Su Er’s hands froze. He injected a bit of yin energy into it.
The method was effective—the clay figure once again looked at him with the gaze of a child at its father.
With its resentment soothed, Su Er turned his eyes to Ji Heng. In the spacious lobby, Ji Heng was carefully inspecting from the outer edges inward, touching everything visible to the eye.
Su Er joked: “Looking for a hidden mechanism?”
To his surprise, Ji Heng actually nodded.
Su Er was stunned.
Ji Heng was examining a display case, leaving no crack unchecked. “That old man wasn’t one of the three ghosts who entered—he may have been here in the library all along.”
Some powerful ghosts liked to linger around their place of death—this much Su Er knew.
Ji Heng: “If our guess is right, he’s looking for his own head.”
The host had specifically said they couldn’t leave the library before tomorrow. A ghost’s task would definitely be something players could accomplish. Thinking it through, Su Er said: “So the body must have been preserved somehow, and it’s inside the library?”
Ji Heng nodded. “The rest area on the fourth floor is too open. The pottery gallery is only ten square meters, not enough for storage.”
With people coming and going year-round, the second and third floors were the busiest—too risky to hide it there. The lobby was out of the question, no way to store anything.
After hearing this, Su Er lowered his gaze: “A basement chamber?”
Ji Heng gave a faint “mm,” then walked to the doorway, scanning the place again. His eyes paused at every spot, thinking of where something absolutely never disturbed could be hidden.
“A high place.” In the silence, Su Er suddenly spoke.
The main hall’s chandeliers could be serviced, so that didn’t fit. Ji Heng straightened up and walked toward the side door, his gaze finally settling on the emergency exit sign near the entrance.
Su Er lifted his head to look as well. “We’ll need a safety ladder.”
Not knowing where the ladder was stored, Ji Heng dragged over several tables. Su Er helped keep them steady.
Once up there, Ji Heng carefully searched by hand. In the glow of the luminous figurine, he found a coin-sized depression. He pressed it—no reaction. He tried again with more force.
Su Er had been watching the wall when suddenly the ground trembled, and he quickly steadied the tables. When everything calmed, a passage appeared near the side door.
Dusting off his hands, Ji Heng jumped down, stopped the hot-blooded boy about to charge in, and took the first step down the stone stairs himself. “You light the way from behind.”
The air smelled faintly of disinfectant. With no railings on either side, the spiral stairs coiled downward, making one’s head spin just to look.
Su Er: “This place feels like a secret base. Could there be an alarm system?”
“The dust on the steps is thick,” Ji Heng glanced down at the footprints they left, “proves it’s been abandoned for a long time.”
Su Er took it easy: “Even if there’s an alarm, so what? At worst, I just get hauled into the station again.”
“......”a
Although Ji Heng was confident such a thing wouldn’t happen, hearing it phrased that way suddenly made him less certain.
Fortunately, Su Er was just unlucky—he hadn’t perfected the full-on jinxing skill yet. After descending the last step, no alarm sounded.
In an underground chamber that had been abandoned for years, one would expect layers of cobwebs, but here there was only dust. Not even a single bug was visible in the cracks of the walls. At the far end stood an oval-shaped cryogenic pod, inside which half of a human face could just barely be seen.
Deathly pale, with bluish-purple seeping beneath the skin. Frost clung to the frozen man’s eyelashes, which trembled faintly now and then from the internal airflow, as if about to open at any moment.
Su Er’s throat moved involuntarily. “I thought you only saw things like this in TV dramas.”
“A scientist’s imagination is never weaker than a director’s,” Ji Heng stepped forward to examine it in greater detail. “What you see on screen are things they were experimenting with decades ago.”
The frozen man was none other than the old man, Feng Peng, who had earlier attacked them with madness.
Staring at the corpse’s shut eyes, Ji Heng was suddenly seized by a violent headache, and Su Er hurriedly supported him.
“What’s wrong?”
Ji Heng: “Just now, in that instant, a scene of me arguing with him suddenly surged into my mind.”
Su Er wasn’t surprised—he himself had had a similar experience in the Book of Answers instance. The game wasn’t all-powerful; the longer they stayed inside, the more sealed memories gradually broke through their cages.
He handed over a tissue. “Wipe your sweat.”
Ji Heng held it but didn’t use it, instead looking back at the cryo chamber. “He chose freezing not to be revived.”
Too old—reviving would only give him a few more years at most.
Su Er asked cautiously: “Do you remember exactly what the argument was about?”
Ji Heng gave a faint laugh. “I’m not that fragile.”
It was just the tip of the iceberg—at most, it caused a bit of physical discomfort. “The old man kept saying only he was fit to be the Core, and wanted me to give way.”
“The Core?”
Ji Heng nodded. He himself wasn’t as concerned as Su Er. “Open the pod.”
Su Er located the power switch, pressed it, then quickly stepped back several paces as a wave of cold mist spread out. The body inside remained motionless, no signs of reanimation. Waving his arm to scatter the chill, he approached, touched the corpse’s skin, and felt an indescribably cold, slimy sensation that made his scalp prickle.
“I’ll do it.” At some point Ji Heng was already holding a dagger.
Su Er: “You’re really going to dissect him?”
“To get the brain, there’s no other way.” Ji Heng glanced at him. “I can handle it alone, you…”
“I’ll go look up information and contact Li Shuo about the Core.”
By the time he finished speaking, Su Er was already halfway up the stairs.
“......”a
“Life-and-death matters we share together, but disgusting stuff doesn’t need to be buy-one-get-one,” Su Er said over his shoulder with a shy smile. “I’m still young—not suited for bloody scenes.”
Ji Heng: “…Go, then.”
Su Er nodded brightly with an “aye” and left without a shred of reluctance.
Standing alone for a while, Ji Heng had already chosen the incision point. But recalling that image of Su Er’s shameless retreat, he couldn’t help but laugh, his hand trembling for a moment.
The lobby had poor signal, so Su Er went to the front entrance. While messaging Li Shuo, he thought about how to use a dagger to crack open a skull.
Princess Tea Flower drifted like a ghost through the library, keeping watch on the players.
Su Er, Ji Heng, Xu Yangyang, and Zhu Yu—these four were the main targets of surveillance.
He started with Zhu Yu, the least suspicious. At first he thought she was just venting by self-harming. But when he saw her messing with some mysterious liquid and trying to implant insect eggs into her body, his expression instantly changed.
She failed again.
Zhu Yu was disappointed. No matter how careful she was, the eggs always melted.
“You want to cultivate yourself into an insect-human?”
The sudden voice made Zhu Yu flinch, then lower her head timidly.
Princess Tea Flower fixed her with a cold stare.
In the silence, Zhu Yu slowly raised her head. The game didn’t allow instance items to be taken out, but if the bugs could be hosted inside her body, there was a chance to carry the eggs out—and thereby spread them in the real world.
She spoke in an almost casual tone: “I just wanted to run an experiment.”
If the real world was destroyed, then players wouldn’t exist. When that happened, what choice would the game make?
With just a few words, Princess Tea Flower almost fully grasped her true purpose. His eyelid twitched uncontrollably. No wonder the game used punishment as a warning—if she succeeded in taking those out, it would be catastrophic!
Zhu Yu smiled faintly, adding: “I haven’t broken any rules.”
“Whether you even make it out of this instance alive is another question.” Princess Tea Flower gave her a deep look, then vanished from the spot.
The chances of any living being being taken away were almost nil, yet Princess Tea Flower still came up with several contingency plans, just in case, while not giving up paying attention to the others.
Xu Yangyang was in the restroom, so he first pinpointed Ji Heng’s location.
In the underground chamber, Ji Heng’s hands were covered in blood, the corpse’s skull had been hollowed out. His reaction was several times sharper than Zhu Yu’s—almost the instant the host appeared, he lifted his head.
When dealing with someone who seemed like a gentleman but was actually devious at heart, the most practical way was to speak bluntly.
Ignoring the gory scene, Princess Tea Flower got straight to the point: “Have you ever done anything detrimental to the game?”
Ji Heng pulled the entire brain out of the corpse and spat out two repulsive words: “Take a guess.”
“......”a
“This world’s roots have already rotted through. Weren’t you just thinking of destroying it to cheat the insurance payout earlier?”
That single sentence from Ji Heng changed Princess Tea Flower’s expression. His fingers slowly curled… He knew—he actually knew it all.
“Let’s make a bet.”
Princess Tea Flower: “What?”
“If the critical moment really comes, I have a way to get Su Er out. But you will absolutely be left behind, to perish with the world.”
……a
It was the most stifling conversation of his entire life.
Leaving the chamber, Princess Tea Flower pondered what trump card Ji Heng might be hiding. Taking a deep breath, he still couldn’t help but curse: “Idiot!”
A whole group of lunatics wanting to destroy the world—why did he have to run into all of them?
Entering the main hall, not far away Su Er was leaning by the door, reading a message from Li Shuo on his tablet. Just that morning, a resident had died mysteriously at home, their body covered with large numbers of flowers.
After reading it, his mood grew heavy. The worst had indeed happened—the insect eggs had begun to spread.
Sensing another presence, Su Er looked up and saw Princess Tea Flower standing not far away, his gaze fixed on the tablet in his hand.
“If you’re here to gloat, you don’t need to say it,” Su Er rose to his feet and said flatly. “No matter what the truth was three hundred years ago, I will never truly despair of human civilization. As long as there’s a chance, I’ll spare no cost to save it.”
In the two minutes that followed, the expected mockery never came, leaving Su Er somewhat puzzled.
Princess Tea Flower closed his eyes. Among all the players bent on destroying the world, the one before him was like a breath of pure spring water.
If everyone were this good, this kind, this beautiful—how could the rules have judged him guilty of poor supervision?
Opening his eyes again, Princess Tea Flower stepped forward, and in his gaze flickered a rare trace of tenderness. “Tell me—are you some little angel sent to mankind?”
“......”
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