Players, Please Board the Train

”Should we meet up with the other players?” Tao Chengxin asked as they followed the White-Dressed Girl.

Besides them and the deceased Shen Tai, there were also Wang Qiao, Gao Baimei, and Tang Yuan.

”Of course not,” Sun Jirou said. ”Those three are all untrustworthy, especially that Tang Yuan.”

”Most likely, the two players who held him hostage the day before yesterday ended up dead by his hand.”

Tao Chengxin wasn’t genuinely concerned about bringing the others along out of kindness; her worry was: ”The dungeon’s third task is to find something. Isn’t our group of three a bit too small?”

”There were other players who didn’t show themselves following us yesterday,” she said, looking at Xu Huo. ”Was that player working with Tang Yuan?”

”Want to know?” Xu Huo asked ambiguously.

Tao Chengxin couldn’t quite grasp his meaning and hesitated before saying, ”Actually, I’m not that eager to know.”

The White-Dressed Girl walking ahead chuckled. ”If you want to know, it’s quite simple. Three groups of people came to see me yesterday. First was a man and woman, then a ruthlessly efficient man in the middle, and the third was relatively polite—they paid me.”

”Mr. Xu must know all three groups, right? You installed a monitor on the umbrella you gave me, so you probably heard our conversation.”Tao Chengxin and Sun Jirou simultaneously looked at Xu Huo. His demeanor was completely different from yesterday. Both had felt something was off but hadn’t realized what due to their heightened tension. Now, prompted by the White-Dressed Girl, they understood—this man had been playing the fool to catch the tiger!

Xu Huo didn’t deny it. His objective had already been achieved.

”If Wang Qiao and Gao Baimei didn’t go to the Building Block Buns shop, they definitely went to the Fresh Meat Sausage Shop. As for the person following me, if he was alone, there would have been no need for him to press for details about my conversation with the tour guide.”

He looked at the White-Dressed Girl. ”You told him about the Bear Claw Restaurant and the Fresh Meat Sausage Shop. If Tang Yuan went there, the two are most likely working together.”

”You deliberately tricked us yesterday! You led us into verifying the authenticity of those places!” Sun Jirou immediately connected this to his performance yesterday. He had intentionally acted confident in front of the other players, hinting he had clues without fully revealing them, sparking their curiosity and making them decide to follow him!

Tao Chengxin stared wide-eyed at Xu Huo. ”We all fell for it!”

”I didn’t expect someone to cooperate so enthusiastically beforehand,” Xu Huo said meaningfully, glancing at the White-Dressed Girl. At most, he had planned to extract some information from the locals. The age range he had targeted was thirty-five and above. Even if most elderly people in Building Block Fairytale City were already dead, verifying everything alone would have been impossible.

Having other players voluntarily search for people was more convenient than trying to persuade them with words.

Whether anyone found clues or not, it was progress.

He just hadn’t expected the White-Dressed Girl to show up on her own initiative.

The White-Dressed Girl merely smiled without speaking.

The group soon arrived at their destination in silence.

It was a small courtyard located at the edge of the fairytale city. The White-Dressed Girl pushed the door open and invited them inside.

The courtyard was filled with sunflowers. The moment the four of them stepped inside, the two sunflowers that had been facing the door suddenly turned their backs in unison.

Xu Huo and Sun Jirou weren’t bothered, but Tao Chengxin was startled. ”This isn’t some kind of item, is it?”

The White-Dressed Girl turned back and said, ”I heard this is a specialty of the E19 wormhole point. They’re called ’Not Very Bright Sunflowers’ and enjoy turning their backs on people.”

Tao Chengxin was half-convinced, half-doubting. ”Have the sunflowers become spirits?”

The White-Dressed Girl laughed. ”If humans can evolve, so can plants. These sunflowers have developed a special pollen projection range under unique environmental conditions. Their pollen forms a complete cycle around the sunflower. Once someone breaks this cycle, the sunflower changes direction to re-project the pollen.”

”So that’s how it is,” Tao Chengxin said. ”I’ve only seen evolved animals before; this is my first time seeing plants.”

”Plants aren’t like animals; their changes aren’t as obvious.”

The White-Dressed Girl invited them into the house and greeted an elderly man sitting in a rocking chair by the window. ”Grandpa Bai, I’m back, and I’ve brought some friends.”

The old man in the rocking chair seemed somewhat slow to react. It took several seconds for him to turn his head and say sluggishly, ”Tea.”

The White-Dressed Girl made tea, pushed the rocking chair next to the sofa, poured a cup for everyone, then picked up a cup to help the old man drink.

The old man’s hands trembled so severely he couldn’t hold the cup. Supporting himself with the White-Dressed Girl’s hand, he took a few sips of tea, then smiled at her. ”You drink.”

The White-Dressed Girl used a handkerchief to wipe the corner of his mouth.

Xu Huo and the other two didn’t touch their teacups. The White-Dressed Girl didn’t mind and held her own cup as she said to the old man, ”Grandpa Bai, they want to know what happened twenty years ago.”

The old man’s expression immediately changed. ”Are they players?” he asked urgently.

After the White-Dressed Girl nodded, he became visibly agitated. He tried to sit up from the rocking chair but slumped back before he could straighten his back, eventually just gripping the armrests and panting. ”Good, good. It’s good that you’re players. You must spread the truth about the fairytale city.”

Sun Jirou and Tao Chengxin exchanged a glance. ”Old sir, please tell us about the events of twenty years ago first.”

A glimmer shone in the old man’s cloudy eyes. ”There were originally players in the fairytale city too, but unfortunately, the Government Hall killed them all.”

”Twenty years ago, not long after the fairytale city entered the game, the Government Hall lured many players to LT Biopharmaceutical Company under the false pretense of training players. They used players for experiments. In less than two years, they developed a potion that could make ordinary people evolve rapidly.”

”When Evolvers first used this potion, their physical abilities and intelligence increased very quickly. But over time, symptoms of mutation would appear.”

”However, LT only told the players it was a side effect of the potion and that the symptoms could be alleviated by taking the antidote they developed.”

”Not all players were fools. After entering the dungeon, some discovered the truth and joined forces with other players to resist LT. But unexpectedly, LT framed them as Player-Eaters and injected them with large quantities of the evolution potion, causing them to become neither human nor ghost in a short time.”

”Some players were deceived and helped LT hunt down the mutated players. Just like that, the players who knew the truth either died or were captured. Those blinded by greed, in order to obtain more useful items and weapons from the dungeon for more players, actually introduced the potion into the fairytale city’s drinking water system.”

”In just three months, half of tens of millions of people gradually turned into Mutants,” tears streamed from the old man’s eyes. ”During that month, the fairytale city almost became a city of the dead. Besides the Mutants, not a single living person could be seen outside. Rotten corpses and blood were everywhere. Those who were once our compatriots roamed the streets in groups, eating the remaining corpses when they were hungry...”