Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
“Among these people, I seem to have the lowest level…”
Li Ang thought to himself. “If players are unable to harm each other in Cooperative Quests, it would be a good thing to meet a highly-experienced player. At least, I could get a lot of information.”
When Xing Hechou saw everyone release their individual player information, he was relieved and he said with a smile, “Very good. All of you trust each other, which is a good start to completing the quest.
“Let’s introduce ourselves. I have carried out four Routine Quests and two Scripted Quests. I’m good at close-range melee and emergency medical treatment. You guys can call me Old Xing.”
Following his lead, Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles introduced himself as well. “I use the long sword. I know some martial arts and I am skilled in assassination. You guys can call me Brother Sword.”
Brother Sword… Li Ang scanned Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles’ greasy middle-aged face and frivolous beard but did not say anything.
Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles seemed to have sensed Li Ang’s strange gaze, as one corner of his mouth curled up. He then said with a stare, “What are you looking at? What’s wrong with calling me elder brother? I was born after the ’90s.”
What?
Xing Hechou couldn’t help but look at Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles, the monk’s eyes widening in disbelief. Even the cold-faced woman, who hadn’t said a word, also glanced at him.
“I was really born after the ’90s!” Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles was anxious and angry as he said, “I only look slightly older.”
Just slightly? Didn’t he look 20 years older at the very least? People would believe him if he said he was around 42 or 43 years old.
Without mentioning Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles, who looked panicked, the little monk put his palms together and said, “I am Hui Bing. I possess some strength.”
Chopped flatbread with stir-fried vegetables1?
I’m meat and bread soup then.
Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles mocked him deep down. As he looked at Hui Bing, who looked gentle and fine with his red lips and white teeth, his heart palpitated. He coughed and said, “Are you really a monk?”
“Yes, I am,” Hui Bing said with a faint smile. His perfect smile and the slightly-raised corners of his eyes made Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles only feel a cold wave pass behind him. He turned his face subconsciously to look elsewhere.
This monk was dangerous.
The cold-faced woman in her nightwear said, “Liu Wudai. I use a bow.”
Her voice was very pleasant, and her tone was very calm, concise, and cold.
It was time for Li Ang. He pushed the Face-Changing Mask on his face and said, “Hello, everyone. I’m personal mercenary Handsome Monkey King, who has trained for two and a half years. I love to sing, dance, and rap. Speaking of the Handsome Monkey King, the African warlord movie will premiere in the latter half of the year. I will continue playing the role of the Handsome Monkey King, Sun Wukong, and try to form a positive image by using the Monkey King’s artistic image. I’m proficient in both entertainment and physical activities and I promote the Chinese culture…”
Li Ang was eloquent. There was no end in sight when he spoke. Xing Hechou hurriedly stopped him and said awkwardly, “Um… Brother Li, you don’t have to say so much. You just need to introduce your specialty.”
Although people wouldn’t share all the information about them, he was the first one to talk big.
Who was Handsome Monkey King?
“I see.” Li Ang had made a lot of mental notes to introduce himself just now. When he heard that he couldn’t use them, he was very disappointed. He said with curled lips, “My little finger is extremely long.”
He stretched out his palm, clenched his four other fingers tightly, and revealed his little finger.
Xing Hechou lifted his eyebrow. “Not this one.”
“The fourth toe on my left leg is especially long.” Li Ang was prepared to take off his shoes to prove it.
Was this kid teasing him?
Xing Hechou took a deep breath and stopped Li Ang from taking off his shoe. He felt like the blood pressure index in his brain was rising. “Not this one either.”
“Oh, that one is very long.”
“Please don’t be a hooligan. Why are you creating a silent atmosphere for yourself?”
If the Special Affairs Bureau had not required field staff to attract as many players as possible, Xing Hechou might have used military force to subdue the ‘companion’ in front of him, who was suspected of being a mental patient.
Li Ang had not fooled around just for the sake of his own evil pleasure, but also because he suspected that Xing Hechou, who executed orders like a soldier and could provide investigation records of a professional level at any time, was a highly-experienced player with official background. Therefore, he deliberately used his clownish methods to seize this opportunity to conduct a behavior analysis on Xing Hechou and gather intelligence.
“Oh…” Li Ang frowned and pondered this. “I can activate my Spiritual Sense and differentiate between spirits. Are these considered specialties?”
“Oh?” Xing Hechou’s eye lit up. Activating the special ability to detect spiritual energy was extremely precious in the real world and in Scripted Quests.
“Yes, they are,” Xing Hechou said with a smile. “If you have such an ability, we will foresee supernatural elements in advance and evade danger to a very great extent.”
As a professional soldier and field staff member of the Special Affairs Bureau, Xing Hechou was responsible for recruiting civilian players encountered in Cooperative Quests. Originally, he had thought Li Ang was just a new Level-3 game novice who could not provide much assistance. It seemed like he needed to change the way he did things…
[Mainline Quest has been updated. Head to the Solitary Temple within 10 minutes.]
A system prompt echoed in everyone’s ears. Xing Hechou’s expression changed slightly. “10 minutes? Everyone, who is better at investigating?”
“Me.” Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles unhurriedly walked to a big tree by the roadside. He looked up at the treetop and took a light breath before his flip-flops stepped lightly on the yellow-earth pavement.
His whole body leaped into the air, and his ten fingers dug deeply into the tree trunk like a mountain-climbing ice pick with a sharp point.
Wood shavings splattered everywhere. Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles looked like a vigorous monkey as he used his hands and legs to climb to the treetop with a few moves. After surveying everything left and right from an elevated position, he quickly slid down the tree trunk and dusted off the mud on his hands before saying calmly, “Head west along this road for about 700 meters. There is a dilapidated temple at the foot of the mountain that should be the quest location. There is rising smoke behind the low mountain in the east. It might be an ancient village or something.”
“A village?”
Xing Hechou nodded his head and took a small black suitcase the size of a briefcase out of his backpack.
He put the suitcase down on the ground and turned the combination lock to open it. Inside it was a silver-gray drone and some accessories, such as a high-capacity battery, a spare propeller, and a tablet remote controller with a display screen.
After Xing Hechou took out the silver-gray drone and placed it on the ground to calibrate its equilibrium, he picked up a tablet-shaped remote control and made the drone take off until it escaped into the clouds and was invisible to the naked eye.
While the highest-ranking player was operating the drone, he did not avoid the eyes of the others, who were peeking at the remote control screen, and generously shared the screen with everyone.
An ancient village was located on a vast plain when seen from above. The low mud-tile roof building made of blue brick and tile had smoke spiraling up, and the whole village was connected by a ribbon-like river that divided it into two.
The village was the center, while the fields spread outward. The vast fertile land had a panoramic view and it reflected golden rays of light at sunset.
There was an old man in a straw raincoat, some cattle on the farming path, a child wearing old-fashioned sackcloth as his mucus was dripping, a common farmer wearing a sackcloth top and pants with a turban and straw sandals while carrying a hoe…
All these elements composed the picture of an ancient Chinese village.
A large ancient city could be seen on the north side.
The drone slowly flew back and headed west along the path to the foot of the mountain.
At the foot of the mountain was an open, flat space with a ruined temple in the middle. Both sides, as well as the area behind the temple, were overgrown with weeds, but traces of past cultivation could be seen.
The temple occupied a small area. The paint on the red wall tiles outside the temple had mottled and dropped off, and the green vines climbed up the roots of the wall and spread without restraint.
The blue tiles on the roof were broken and covered with dead leaves.
The pavement in front of the temple was covered with squarish blue slates, and two rows of stone lamp posts were on both sides of the slate pavement. However, since it had been left unattended for a long time, the lampposts were filled with dust inside.
On the red door, a wooden plaque spelled the words ‘Solitary Temple’.
The drone flew at a low altitude and hovered above Solitary Temple before looking down from high above.
A white brass pagoda was in the center of the courtyard of the Solitary Temple. The bell tower and drum tower were on the left and right side, the Hall of Four Heavenly Kings was at the front, the Hall of Great Strength and the sutra depository were in the back, while the monastic room and the dining room were on both sides of the road. The scripture-printing room, the storehouse, and the warehouse with the sign ‘Longevity Bank’ were in the innermost corner of the building.
Even if something was small, it could still contain the basics.
Limited by the scope of the investigation, Xing Hechou silently operated the drone and made it fly back before he put it back in the suitcase. Meanwhile, Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles hesitated before he said, “Well, Old Xing… Isn’t this a drone? Why did you just let me climb up the tree to observe the area all around?”
Xing Hechou trusted Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles. He had used the drone for the sake of confirming the surrounding terrain and determining its specific era.
The strong man with the square face said with a smile, “It’s not that I don’t want to use a drone. It’s fine if the Scripted Quest takes place in modern times. However, if the background was ancient times or an alternate world, monsters, ghosts, and cultivators from classic stories would probably appear.
“Rash use of a drone would very likely attract the attention of these supernatural forces in advance and even make the Scripted Quest develop in an unexpected direction.”
As a staff member of the Special Affairs Bureau, Xing Hechou had read many data files left behind by other players in the past.
When a brainless game novice had carried out a team Cooperative Quest in the Tang Dynasty, he had offered a laptop containing electronic books such as Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance, the Cambridge History of the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty, and the Five Dynasties of China, and the History of Industrial and Agricultural Technology as a tribute to Emperor Gaozong of Tang, Li Zhi.
As a result, the storyline had begun to run wild. The player had not only been treated as a demon, but he had also been killed. This had caused the extraordinary cultivators hidden in the Tang Empire to quickly chase after the player’s teammates.
For now, people who had the extraordinary power of the Republic in the real world still could not interact with the ‘scripted world’ that acted as the backdrop of the Scripted Quest. Even this interaction was considered potentially dangerous by the think tank.
After all, no one wanted to see the Tang Empire join the industrial era and send tens of millions of steampunk-style mechanical immortal cultivators to come into contact with the real-world’s Republic…
Therefore, the field staff of the Special Affairs Bureau still had to protect itself, as the primary quest and secondary quest probed and interacted.
In the plot quest with the ancient background, ghosts and monsters might appear at any time, so they should use modern technology with caution and even reduce the usage frequency as much as possible.
No one dared to test the 10-minute time limit given by the system. Xing Hechou quickly put away the drone and took the lead at the forefront. They moved west along the path and quickly arrived at Solitary Temple, which was at the foot of the mountain.
Although the drone had already investigated it once, when everyone approached, they could feel that the temple was broken and dilapidated even more clearly. It was both cold and quiet.
“This damn place could be used as a filming location for A Chinese Ghost Story.”
Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles stood on the slate pavement, his palm lightly brushing off the accumulated dust in the stone lamppost before he said with a sneer, “Who’s going first?”
Xing Hechou glanced at the few remaining people. The iceberg beauty named Liu Wudai had not said a word ever since she had gotten there, and little monk Hui Bing looked timid. The young player wearing the Monkey King’s mask had very low level and didn’t seem reliable in any way.
Ha…
Xing Hechou glanced at Li Ang. “Can you see what the problem is inside?”
Li Ang activated the Cat’s Eye, scanned it twice with his Spiritual Sense, and shook his head. “There is no problem, but I’m not sure if there is any danger.”
Xing Hechou nodded his head.
Everyone watched Old Xing set foot on the blue slate and walk up to the steps of the hall step by step. However, he heard Li Ang say, “Hold on!”
Li Ang spoke quickly and urgently in a deep, solemn voice. Shocked, Hanging Sword for Ten Thousand Miles pulled out his long sword, Liu Wudai pulled out her compound longbow, and Xing Hechou quickly jumped back beside his teammates while holding tightly onto the halberd and blocking Hui Bing.
A group of people raised their weapons and stood back-to-back while observing the surrounding movements, fearing that their enemy would leap out of somewhere.
They still remembered that Li Ang had Spiritual Sense. He was the first line of defense for the team when it came to dealing with a psionic phenomenon.
“Guys, don’t be nervous.” Li Ang, who had been surrounded, scratched his head. “I only saw that Old Xing’s shoelaces had been undone. I just wanted to warn him about that.”
Couldn’t you do that in a softer voice?
The crowd, which had been falsely alarmed, silently put away its weapons. They no longer thought of investigating slowly so they followed Old Xing directly to the temple door.
In fact, Li Ang clearly saw that as Xing Hechou approached, a thin pale arm without any blood slowly reached out of Solitary Temple’s plaque, hanging naturally. It seemed as if it wanted to grab Xing Hechou’s hair and lift him. On the other hand, the other players did not react at all.
After Li Ang let out a loud reminder, that arm was retracted into the plaque and then vanished. Even if Li Ang used his eye to activate his Spiritual Sense, he still could not see any traces of the spirit.
A group of people walked under the plaque. Just as Xing Hechou was about to push open the red door and enter the temple, the weeping sound of an extremely mournful woman in grief was heard from the temple.
The woman’s weeping was sharp and clear, as if she was next to their ear. Just like the injustice of snowing in June and the resentment of the entire world, this miserable grief caused one’s scalp to go numb and made one shiver all over.
The trees, branches, and leaves in the forest moved, and the evil wind blew away all the fallen leaves on the blue slate outside the temple. The rusty door shaft made a painful creaking friction sound and the red door that nobody had touched opened slowly.
The door opened, but the five people under the plaque of Solitary Temple did not budge.
This was only because the building in the temple had not been repaired for a long time. That’s why it was shabby and dilapidated, a thick deathly silence covered it, and everything could be heard. The temple was not popular at all, let alone now that it was the source of the weeping.
In the Asian psionic system, a formless ghost was always more terrifying than a zombie.
No matter what the zombie held in its mouth, it was only a matter of shooting it.
However, the mournful ghost was like Kayako Saeki in Ju-On, Sadako Yamamura in The Ring, and Chu Renmei.
These zombies easily created illusions, teleported through walls, twisted and tampered with the dimensions, and had a variety of attack methods. They were extremely difficult to guard oneself against, let alone eliminate.
“Should we use the drone to find it again?” Monk Hui Bing whispered.
“The 10-minute time limit is almost up. The system said we have to head inside Solitary Temple.”
Li Ang shook his head and smiled weirdly. He then pushed open the door to enter. The other people did not put away their weapons as they followed him blindly.
[The mainline quest has been updated. Survive seven days inside Solitary Temple. During this period, you cannot get 500 meters away from Solitary Temple.]