Players, Please Board the Train

”Is this a time item?” Xu Huo turned to ask Mr. Dong.

”It should be,” Mr. Dong said.

The sand had returned to the top of the hourglass and stopped, and the cup, unable to maintain its shape any longer, shattered on the table.

Without Bai Kou’s help, Xu Huo couldn’t detect the subtle shifts in space. He returned the hourglass to Mr. Dong. ”We’ll talk about this later.”

Mr. Dong had no choice but to take the hourglass away, saying, ”Master He Pu did not wish to hand Rose Castle over to Miss Coco.”

Xu Huo knew this, but asked anyway, ”Why?”

His inheritance of Rose Castle wasn’t exactly legitimate. He Pu had only mentioned finding an heir, and it was Mr. Dong who had served as the middleman to make him the de facto successor. Perhaps He Pu had given special instructions, but Xu Huo didn’t know much about the castle.

”Those were Master He Pu’s words,” Mr. Dong said, reverting to the stern, humorless butler who strictly carried out his master’s orders.

Anything that can be said so easily isn’t a secret. Seeing that Mr. Dong had no intention of elaborating, Xu Huo offered a few casual words of reassurance.

For the time being, Bai Kou definitely wouldn’t get her hands on Rose Castle.Still, whenever this topic came up, Mr. Dong looked especially worried.

Xu Huo simply smiled. Compared to Bai Kou, a D-level player like him was far easier to deal with.

He wasn’t stupid either.

”Did Miss Bai Kou say whether she’d be back for dinner?” Xu Huo asked.

Mr. Dong kept a straight face. ”She will 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 annex in the back to let Dr. Deng out.

After being left to cool off for two days, Dr. Deng was in worse shape than before, especially when he saw the non-player train ticket set down before him.

”District 011 is in such a mess that the Black Epaulets have no time to come after me,” he said, his expression dark.

”Since you know what’s happening outside, you should also know the base city is about to be rebuilt. The area is crawling with Black Epaulets and government players. If you stay, you’ll have nowhere to go. Better to leave early and find a new post in another district,” Xu Huo said.

Whatever part of that statement struck a nerve, Dr. Deng’s face twitched. ”I’m not leaving.”

”At your age, still throwing a tantrum?” Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. ”Right now I still have the patience to send you off. Tomorrow, who knows?”

Dr. Deng calmed down at that instead, studying him. ”You don’t actually want to drive me away. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come all the way here to say all this.”

”You’re a man of some value,” Xu Huo said. ”Killing you would be a waste, but you also don’t have the leverage to make a deal with me. I don’t do losing business. You already scammed me when you came to District 011. Walk out that door, and let’s pretend we never knew each other.”

Dr. Deng, just like when he had first come to persuade him to go to Zone 009, grew visibly irritated at the rejection. ”Let me ask one more time. Did you really not get the Perfect Potion?”

”That’s a question I’d like to ask you too,” Xu Huo said, lifting his eyelids to look at him. ”You’ve been tracking Dr. Wu for so long, and your information from Zone 009 is always so timely. Are you telling me you’ve never once gotten your hands on the potion?”

”You haven’t taken any potion during all these days you’ve been here,” he continued. ”Even if you’re not a player anymore, every Evolver needs evolution potion. You’re not already in perfect evolution, are you?”

”You sure have some imagination!” Dr. Deng let out a bitter laugh. ”Saying that about me is less believable than saying it about you.”

”Then if I told you I’m in perfect evolution, would you believe me?” Xu Huo said. ”Or how about this: for the sake of scientific research, you hand over all your intel and every potion you’ve obtained?”

Both of them laughed. After a moment, Dr. Deng spoke up. ”I don’t have the S-version Potion, but I do have a file of information on the Perfect Potion. Even if you got the Perfect Potion, you couldn’t use the game backend to verify its authenticity, and players themselves have no way to distinguish real from fake. So this information is very important.”

”But if I give you the information, I’ll have no leverage left.”

The argument about using a better potion or researching the Perfect Potion to alleviate player side effects clearly wasn’t working anymore, which was why he had revealed this trump card, intending to trade it for a condition of no small demand.

”I’m more interested in your information channels,” Xu Huo said. ”Unless there’s a way to directly confirm whether a potion is genuine, no amount of documents you give me will help. Potions don’t analyze their own ingredients.”

”That would be a separate transaction,” Dr. Deng shook his head. ”Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even bring out this document.”

”You have no idea how many people want the Perfect Potion. The more people who know the inside story, the worse it is for the actual researcher.”

Xu Huo chuckled. ”So you’re really in it for the research? If you don’t mind my asking, would your lack of skill end up ruining the experimental samples?”

Dr. Deng’s face immediately soured. ”My skill level is not that low!”

Xu Huo raised his hand in a ”whatever you say” gesture, irritating the man across from him until his face turned green, before finally asking, ”What do you want to trade the information for?”

”Your blood.” Dr. Deng said it readily enough.

”Do I look like an idiot to you?” Not to mention Xu Huo was already in the process of perfect evolution, even if he weren’t, there was no way he’d casually hand over his blood to a pharmacologist.

”Then find me an experimental subject,” Dr. Deng said. ”I’m not leaving. I’ll stay right here and decode the potion. If I can develop an evolution agent close to the S-version Potion, someone needs to be the test subject.”

The annex fell quiet for a moment. Xu Huo looked at him. ”Can’t you use animals?”

”Human subjects are naturally the best for experiments targeting Evolvers.” Dr. Deng couldn’t care less about his opinion. ”Or you could find me a player who’s about to degenerate. The experimental results would be even more obvious.”

”The documents.” Xu Huo tapped the table. ”There’s no experimental subject for now. If you’re in a hurry, you can make do with yourself.”

Dr. Deng’s mouth twitched. ”Then it’s settled. I’m staying.”

”You should have an item for changing your appearance, right?” Xu Huo said. ”Lay low for a few more days.”

Dr. Deng slowly pulled out a paper document, looking rather reluctant as he placed it on the table.

Xu Huo pressed his hand on the document, spun it around, and flipped it open right 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’d seen before, while P2 and P3 were both pale green.

At least the colors matched.

Beyond that, there were some records about the ingredients of the Perfect Potion, with the likelihood of each component being used marked afterward, but nothing was a hundred percent certain.

Even the basic ingredients had to be guessed at?

Xu Huo looked at Dr. Deng with suspicion, but Dr. Deng gestured for him not to rush. ”The most important information is at the end.”

A few thin sheets of paper. Xu Huo quickly skimmed to the last page and found a deliberately highlighted line at the end of the document: ”The Perfect Potion can produce a special reaction with the wormhole flower.”