Chapter 111

After signing his name, Bei Qiao took the money bag and stuffed it into his sleeve without counting it. He then casually asked Captain Li if there had been any results on the Cen family matter. Gossip was something that always got people thinking about it if it didn't come to a conclusion.

"How can a case involving a house raid and a conviction be resolved so quickly? You're claiming the reward through a wanted order. If you follow the same process as the Cen family case, you won't get paid for the next month." Captain Li put the paper away and turned to walk back inside. "The reward wouldn't have been paid so soon if it weren't for that sack of silver." If we followed the official process, we'd have to wait at least two weeks.

Seeing that Captain Li had no time for gossip, Bei Qiao shrugged and continued walking towards the inn. In a sparsely populated alley, she passed a woman with a grim expression. In a trance, she seemed to see a screen filled with garbled text flash before her eyes.

Bei Qiao stopped, frowned, and looked behind him, but saw no one. The alley was clearly very long, but the woman who had just passed by had vanished into thin air, as if she had never appeared.

Thinking of the interface that flashed by earlier, Bei Qiao frowned and quickened her pace, returning to her room in the inn to open the forum. In the pinned message bar, she found a message from the system.

"Abnormal data was discovered and recovered..." Bei Qiao understood something: he actually encountered a wild system.

The system in "Another World Martial Arts" is said to be the product of a collaboration between the heavenly ways of two different timescales. It exists uniquely within both timescales, lacking a so-called primary deity, though similar systems can be found in other timescales. The system normally operates autonomously, but due to its vast data volume, it occasionally destroys some junk data. If this data accidentally encounters willpower during its dissipation, it could potentially create a similar, but less functional, wild system.

Due to their limited functionality, wild systems can generally only bind to one soul at a time, and the source of these souls is random, their only commonality being that they are involuntary. A small number of wild systems demonstrate a strong sense of contract, issuing fair missions and returning souls directly upon completion. However, most systems harbor extreme desires. While these extreme emotions grant them immense power, they also weaken their sense of contract. They issue missions without regard for the wishes of the bound individuals and frequently threaten to eliminate them. Their actions are not unlike those of human traffickers, who exploit and abuse them.

Once discovered, feral systems that adhere to the spirit of the contract are typically returned to the customer service section or backend to help reduce the system's burden. As for feral systems that don't respect the spirit of the contract, the system will completely destroy their data and immediately send their souls back to another world, while also collecting some energy from the soul's own spacetime as a reward.

The wild system that Bei Qiao encountered this time was the latter. The girl who was forcibly bound by the system this time was a college student. She was forced by the system to be a bootlicker for an ordinary man for a month. Not only did she have to give him money and things every day, but she also had to help the ordinary man pursue other girls.

But the girl herself didn't sit idly by. While helping Pu Xinnan pursue other people, she'd privately explained the truth to them. Whether they believed her, or how they would react to her, wasn't something she considered. The daily grind of fussing over wording and conjuring up creative ways to muddle through tasks left her exhausted, leaving her with no energy for anything else.

"I can't beat you, but I will always despise your vision, forever!" The girl, sent back to her original time and space, woke up in her own body. She sat up with a jerk, pointing at the upper bunk and cursing. Only then did she realize she was back in her original world. The system kindly left a message in her mind telling her the matter had been resolved. For energy's sake, it even replayed the footage of the wild system being destroyed.

"What are you doing so crazy in the middle of the night? You have an exam tomorrow!" Her roommate, who was awakened by her, glared at her sleepily from a distance, turned over and continued to sleep soundly.

What kind of exam? The girl, having just learned she'd gotten her revenge, dazedly grabbed the phone beside her pillow and checked her memo: "There really is an exam! Oh my god, I've been tormented by this dog-licking mission for a month and I've forgotten all the knowledge!"

"I'm lucky to have discovered that the wild system can increase my merit points." Bei Qiao didn't know that the girl who was sent back by the system was struggling to sharpen her skills with a flashlight. Seeing that her merit points had increased a little, she decided to go out for a walk more often in the future and save more unlucky people caught by the wild system.

The sun was shining brightly in this otherworldly world today. Bei Qiao lay on her bed with the windows open, basking in the sun while browsing the forums. Remembering her previous encounter with someone from the Songling Sect, she searched for information about the sect.

The other world is not a world of martial arts, but the establishment and growth of a sect requires the assistance of force. The inner disciples of Songling Sect may not be talented, but the elders hired are definitely experts.

Players on the forums have mixed opinions about the Songling Sect, with some unlucky enough to encounter them nicknamed them "hyenas." Due to the remote location of the Novice Village, conflicts between players and the Songling Sect haven't been significant, and decades have passed without triggering the Fourth Scourge quest. It's unclear whether this is due to good luck for the players or the Songling Sect.

Players voted that the best way to deal with the Songling Sect was to find a backer. If one relied on force... a player who had stormed into the mountain gate in anger and escaped unscathed suggested that anyone with superior strength and a tougher edge could still kill a wave of monsters before the elders arrived. Of course, they had to be careful to conceal their appearance and avoid using overtly distinctive moves.

Bei Qiao casually clicked on the other party's personal information and looked at the other party's quasi-grandmaster martial arts level. For a moment, he didn't know whether he was being Versailles or telling a joke.

After closing the post about the Songling Sect, Bei Qiao searched for gangs near Luodan City. There were both indigenous gangs and player-organized gangs, such as the Four Heavens Sect, which was doing business with the Qiuhua Sect.

To prevent ambushes while offline, players who create gangs typically don't recruit locals, instead looking for players to take turns working the night shift. Driven by supply and demand, a profession has emerged among players specifically dedicated to night patrols. The fees are set by the system and are fairly reasonable. Some have even become famous for their effectiveness, earning them the nickname "Gatekeepers."

Bei Qiao: With the current size of the escort agency, we don't need to consider night shifts. The Qiao Family Escort Agency might need a cashier more than night shifts. Currently, the agency's only two regular employees report their expenses verbally, then deposit their money directly into the agency's account at the bank after work. But this isn't a long-term solution.

"It's a first for an escort agency to have no official accounts and rely on drivers to keep and pay taxes on their own initiative..." Bei Qiao shook his head, not giving it much thought. It's not like Qiao Lin didn't have the time to help Bei Qiao sort out the accounts, but Bei Qiao felt his mother was already exhausted from work during the day and didn't need to burden her any more.

Bei Qiao: Do ​​you want to purchase the accounting function in the system? We'll check it out when we get back.

"We can set off and go home tomorrow." Bei Qiao opened the Chamber of Commerce task interface again: "Before leaving, do a few more small tasks." Making money is secondary, the main thing is that he can't sit still.

After skipping a few tasks that looked time-consuming and laborious just by looking at the titles, Bei Qiao discovered that there were really few tasks released in Luodan City in recent days. He wondered if it was because the Cen family made such a big fuss the other day.

"There's a new mission... I'm being followed and need help." Bei Qiao slowly got up from the bed: "The mission location is not far from here, let's go over and see what's going on." But before that, she had to log off and go to the bathroom.

After dealing with his personal issues, Bei Qiao logged into the game and picked up his backpack from the table. He hung a few small items on the edge of the backpack, changed into the shorts given by the system, and put on a New Year's doll mask. Bei Qiao walked out of the inn confidently, selling these cheap trinkets along the way to the mission location.

Not many people paid to buy things, and most of the children who came over to watch the fun just wanted to play for free. There was even one child who, as if he had been taught the wrong way by his family, actually wanted to take things for free.

Bei Qiao, who had absolutely no intention of pampering the naughty child, immediately took him back. He then collected all the toys he had distributed and said to all the children in a serious tone, "I was planning on letting you play for a while longer, alas."

After saying that, Bei Qiao threw his backpack over his shoulder and trotted off the street: Let’s taste the public outrage, hey!

"What are you doing? He's just a child!" A sturdy middle-aged man on the side of the road stretched out his hand and tried to stop Bei Qiao.

"You didn't say anything when he stole things. Is it because he gave you the stolen things?" Bei Qiao replied in a pinched voice, then twisted his right foot, jumped into the air like an onion pulled out of dry land, and jumped over the middle-aged man's head.

"What did you say! Stop right there! Have you ever thought that such a young child must have his reasons for stealing things?" The middle-aged man yelled at Bei Qiao's back.

"What's the hardship? For those of us who run small businesses, do the little money we save for buying goods fall from the sky?" Bei Qiao fiddled with the mechanism on the mask, turned around and performed a New Year picture doll rolling its eyes for the middle-aged man.

A middle-aged man who noticed that the street vendors were all glaring at him: "..."

Using his qinggong skills, Bei Qiao slipped into a deserted alley nearby, pulled out another set of clothes from his backpack, and put them on. He took off his mask and stuffed it into his backpack. Holding the whip at his waist, Bei Qiao turned around and continued walking slowly towards the mission location. When he arrived at his destination, he just happened to see the stalker being apprehended by a group of people.

Wait, a group of Bei Qiao stopped hesitantly: "Am I in the wrong place? It's just to catch a stalker, why are there so many people accepting the task? I remember the task reward was very ordinary!"

The stalker, pinned down by a group of people, was now questioning his life: Who am I? Where am I? What's going on? Why did all these people suddenly show up to arrest me and create such a big scene...? I'm not worthy of this!