Chapter 113 Paper Town

As the top existence among his peers in Zhazhi Village, Xiao Baibei got a chance from heaven one day and got into the square box. He started a life of cheating since he was a child. He only needed to stay in the shrine and coax those who dared to touch the shrine, and then he could have a delicious meal.

But it never expected that one day, it would not only be pulled out of the shrine by the so-called sacrifice, but also become the lowest level fish feed.

Why is my life even more miserable than before?

"I'm not asking you to be feed, I'm asking you to be bait."

Qiao Song talked to himself, and then tied the shells directly with Lao Ren's fishing line.

The little white clam could only gurgle and make bubbles.

What difference does it make? If you're not careful it will really be eaten.

"Are you talking to this shell?"

Old Ren didn’t quite understand the mental state of young people, but his nephew often talked to the characters in the game, so Ren Nanping was quite receptive.

Ren Zhuo, who was glanced at, said: "Uncle, why are you looking at me?"

"It's nothing, I know, it's all normal."

Ren Zhuo: I always feel like I’m being implied.

Qiao Song looked at the shell and then at the two people next to him.

"So I'm the only one who can hear it?"

The little white shellfish spit out another string of foam, feeling like he had given up everything.

"Who made you the only one who touched the shrine? Where did you come from, freak? It's only the first day of the game. How could you touch it? You even pulled me out, wuwuwu." When it said this, it was about to cry again.

Qiao Song tied the fishing line tightly to ensure that the shells were hanging on it.

"Take this piece of cloth for now. If we can't catch anything else later, at least we have a backup plan."

Ren Nanping gave one third of his harvest to Qiao Song. The uncle and nephew were about to start drawing patterns, but Qiao Song said that he had not seen any trace of the paper beast yet, so there was no rush and they could explore the map further.

The world above the water is in full view. Apart from the large and small pools, there are only a few display cabinets.

I didn’t see any large paper beast walking outside like the three-headed dog before, so I don’t know where the threat comes from for the time being.

Qiao Song was still waiting to cut open the paper beast's belly to see what was inside, so of course he couldn't leave so early.

The uncle and nephew of the Ren family followed her along. They usually went through the dungeon by themselves, and they always put their lives first. They would slip away early if they could get props, so they didn’t have a high opinion of them. With a big guy leading the way, their enthusiasm increased instantly.

"You just said that there is no lake in your village?"

The few people exchanged information soon after they met. The uncle and nephew were from Gujian Village in the east. Although there was no lake in the village, they had also heard the legend of water ghosts that spread yesterday, otherwise they would not have been so frightened just now.

The fisherman sighed: "Since I awakened this skill, I can't help fishing no matter what environment I am in. When I first heard this legend, I was scared to death. Later, I found that the only lake in our village has been fenced off by others, and that piece of land is just a small puddle. The NPC also helped to make it tightly sealed to prevent us from getting close. I felt relieved."

If there was an open-air pond, he would definitely go there to fish, and who knows what kind of weird thing he might catch.

Who knew that the floor I entered tonight was full of pools of water, and I had to go into the water to complete the mission! Fortunately, the fishing rod came in handy, otherwise it would be too dangerous to fight those shells directly.

The number of game characters awakened by Ren Zhuo is not enough, and no water-related characters have been awakened yet.

Qiao Song: "How long have you been in this instance? Have you visited other villages or communicated with other people?"

The three of them walked around between the pools, looking for other possible clues on the map, and chatted about some details in the dungeon. Speaking of this, Ren Zhuo had a deep understanding:

"As for Gujian Village, it feels very similar to the immersive ancient style games I have played, or even the immersive ancient town script-killing games. Of course, it is not as dangerous as the script-killing games."

At night, the shopkeeper would take them to the restaurant and enter a weird wooden elevator. The rest of the time, it was just like a mission for a knight in the martial arts world. They had to subdue monsters in exchange for travel expenses, which was the accommodation fee for the next day.

Lin Xuan also mentioned this point. He felt very immersed in Gu Jian Village. The elements related to paper-making had become very faint. Even the paper beasts were described as monsters with strange appearances.

The characteristics of the paper-zha village are as rare as they can be.

"Speaking of this, I seem to remember that the NPCs in our restaurant seemed very confident about the bonfire party between several villages. They were openly and secretly saying that the other villages were not as good as theirs. However, they were more wary of the village covered with yellow sand in the west. They seemed to regard it as their number one enemy and said that they would never let those western villages win again this year."

From the looks of it, it seems like Nishimura has won several times in a row.

Qiao Song suddenly understood something. So, the wasteland village where Aunt Huo was located was most likely the winner of the previous round or even several rounds, so there would be no puddles and no shrines under the puddles?

Is the shrine some kind of dirty thing? Why do we avoid it so much?

Thinking of some of the scenes he saw in the shrine, Qiao Song realized that the competition between villages did not seem so simple. Since it was a competition, it was natural that the winner would gain an advantage and the loser would gain a disadvantage.

The shrine is actually a drag.

"The others will talk later. Shh, it seems like a big guy is coming."

Fishermen are very sensitive to water areas and can hear any sound underwater. Just now, he saw a dark shadow moving underneath, which might be a large floating piece of cloth. After observing for a while, he quickly took out his folding chair and put it on the shore.

Looking at the posture, the bait is ready.

Anyway, the scallops below are in clusters, so it’s a waste to make a nest. I just don’t know how effective the big white clam that Qiao Song brought will be.

Ren Nanping sat on a folding chair and confidently swung his fishing rod.

Qiao Song did not go into the water this time. Lao Ren's fishing rod was a special item. The bait tied to it would not fall off until something was hooked, so there was no need to worry about the big white clam getting off the hook this time.

But at the moment the bait entered the water, she still heard the shell opening its mouth to curse her for being immoral. Qiao Song picked her ears and pretended not to hear anything.

Ren Nanping was fishing, while Qiao Song and Ren Zhuo were standing guard behind him.

"Did you run into any old players from the previous round in the past two days since you entered the game?"

Qiao Song told him about the characteristics of old players. They were not ordinary big white skeletons. They should have grown muscle fascia, or internal organs, hair and the like on their bodies. Sometimes they would wear strange clothes.

Ren Zhuo held the game controller and recalled for a while: "There seems to be one person, wrapped in a long robe, probably a swordsman. He has a very strange black cast iron sword, and his hair is also very long and messy."

It’s a bit strange to think about it this way. In a copy full of skeletons, a guy with long hair should be quite eye-catching. But when they are in their own copy, every time they think of this guy, adjectives like knight-errant come to their mind.

This was asked by outsiders, and I found it strange when I think back on it.

This guy seems to have a very low sense of presence and keeps to himself. People will only remember him when they are asked about some special clues in the copy.

Wait, Qiao Song always felt like he had forgotten something.

There are four players in their village, not counting Xiao Ni. Apart from Qiao Song himself, the other two are together, namely the fish-killing brother from RT-Mart and his crispy college student follower. What about the remaining person?

Qiao Song felt as if he had never seen that guy before. The village was not that big, and he had never met him in the bamboo forest. Daily tasks required cutting bamboo, unless you spent soul coins to buy accommodation from NPCs throughout the whole process. You would neither come out to fight paper beasts nor explore dungeons.

In a dungeon like this where even the slightest mistake will lead to elimination, being so unambitious is undoubtedly a bad idea.

Qiao Song felt that if he sneaked out at night, he would have to find a way to find the remaining person in the village.

"It's bitten, it's bitten, come and help!"

The moment when a fisherman concentrates most is undoubtedly the moment when the fish is hooked. This is the highlight of life. If he messes up and lets the big fish go, he will still toss and turn in sleep even 30 years later.

However, ever since he entered the infinite dungeon, let alone fish, he would be satisfied as long as he could catch a normal thing.

The last time he entered a dungeon with Qiao Song, he even caught a dinosaur. That was the highlight of his life!

"No, it's something else."

Qiao Song grabbed Ren Zhuo and asked him to stand behind him holding the game controller, alert and ready to summon the game character at any time.

She jumped directly into the water with a chainsaw.

There is a simple suspension device made of ropes and balloons on Qiao Song’s waist, otherwise the skeleton would sink to the bottom.

Floating in the water again, she saw the white figure underwater. It turned out to be a skeleton wearing a chef's hat, paddling stealthily and taking a palm-sized piece of cloth from the fishing hook.

Next to the chef was a large piece of fish bone, which was swinging its tail and pulling the fishing line like a real fish. It was this thing that pulled Lao Ren's fishing rod, making him mistakenly believe that there was a big fish underneath.

The fish bone looked to be about one meter long. If it was really a living fish, Old Ren would be so happy that he would go crazy.

But how could he really catch a fish in the infinite flow world? Besides fish, there are all kinds of monsters and demons underwater.

The guy wearing the chef's hat panicked as soon as he saw Qiao Song, and immediately paddled to run away. Qiao Song didn't understand why the guy, who was also made of bones, could be so flexible in the water and even steal things from other people's fish hooks.

She swung the hammer out first, but the kinetic energy dissipated very quickly in the water. Unless it was at close range, the farther away, the lower the lethality.

The chef bone was startled and quickly patted the struggling fish bone next to him. The latter quickly scattered and turned into a bunch of tiny white bean sprouts, flying into a plate that appeared in his palm at some point.

After closing the lid of the dish and opening it again, there was a bright red pepper on top. The chef quickly threw the pepper downwards, directly into the shells gathered below.

The big pearl was eating the shell and ate the pepper as well.

not good.

Qiao Song went up with an electric saw in his hand. The buzzing sound in the water scared the cook again, and he tried to escape with the cloth in his arms.

Suddenly, the pool began to shake with a rumbling sound. The large pearl at the bottom changed its skin from silver-white to red. It suddenly rolled twice on the spot, and then began to cough desperately, vomiting things continuously.

It seemed as if it was choking, and a large red spray instantly spurted out of its mouth. Not only the spray, but a large number of blue-haired shells that had sunk to the bottom of the pool were overturned and flew upwards.

The blue-haired guys were moving at the bottom of the pool all day long, but that didn't mean they couldn't swim. Shellfish swam relatively slowly, relying on their two shells to open and flap for a short while. It just so happened that there was a lot of water flow at the bottom of the pool, and in the flying blue shells, Qiao Song immediately lost sight of the chef.

But she was very sensitive and smelled a special smell in the water, the smell of bean sprouts, the spiciness of chili peppers, and the spicy fragrance of ginger.

[New Oriental Chef’s Ingredients: Ginger]

[A master of disguise in the food industry, it can look like meat or vegetables, it can look like chicken legs or potatoes. Before you take a bite, it can disguise itself as any kind of food. Of course, it all depends on the chef’s cooking skills.]

Among the thousands of surging shells, there was one that looked very much like a blue shell but not quite. It blended into the crowd silently, and then ran out at an extremely fast speed along the bottom of the pool.

His transformation time is only 10 minutes, but it is really tiring to move to the shore like this. There is no other way. The guy with the chainsaw just now was too scary. The movie protagonist that I feared most when I was a child was a chainsaw killer. In addition, this copy is very special. Every player who comes in is in the image of a skeleton.

A tattered skeleton chasing you in the water with a chainsaw would scare anyone to death, let alone the fact that he is doing something bad.

Soon he came ashore again from where he had entered the water. The cook adjusted his chef's hat, revealing the hair hidden inside again. He quickly tied his hair into a bun, hid his hat, put on a gray rag robe over his snow-white chef's uniform, and then took out a furry iron stick of yam.

After a few seconds, the yam turned into a sword.

Very good, this makes him look much cooler and it looks like he is not easy to talk to.

As a socially anxious person, he was quite happy working as a kitchen helper without having to deal with people, until he came to such an infinite world.

It is still an infinite flow world where professions are the basis of abilities. I don’t know why everyone thinks that chefs are easier to talk to, or that chefs’ skills are easier to guess. It must be related to cooking skills or ingredients. There are always players who like to team up with him, but he doesn’t want to. He just likes to be alone!

Luckily, he managed to stay in the second round in Gu Jian Village of Zhazhi Town. He immediately used his camouflage skills to change himself into his favorite knight style.

Although the hair bun on the knight's head is real chopsticks, and the cold iron sword on his waist is just a disguised yam, at least no one will come to him to form a team.

After pinning a special little iron sword badge on the inside of his clothes and lowering his presence once again, the cook took out a small piece of blue cloth that he had just gotten from someone's fishhook from his pocket. He began to mutter an apology in a low voice:

"I'm sorry. If we meet in the village, I will definitely find a way to ask the waiter to serve you some delicious food, but I really need to stay in the dungeon for a few more days. I'm sorry."

Then he found a safe corner and began to draw patterns.

When Qiao Song emerged from the water, Ren Nanping quickly pulled him up.

"Are you okay?"

Qiao Song shook his head: "There was a cook under the water, who took the small piece of cloth away."

After listening to her description of the underwater scene, Ren Nanfeng had a strange expression: "A one-meter-long fish bone..."

Ren Zhuo added silently, "Uncle, that's made of bean sprouts, not real fish, nor real fish bones, don't even think about it."

Lao Ren sighed and wondered when he could really catch a fish.

"You should think about how to return to the real world. When you get back, you can fish however you like."

Afterwards they changed several fishing spots, but the cloth they caught was never bigger than the first time. Qiao Song went into the water several times but did not encounter any paper beasts.

She increasingly felt that in this copy, the nemesis of the paper beast might not be fire, but water.

When the dungeon was halfway through, they finally found a place to keep watch on each other and finished drawing the pattern.

Qiao Song was very fast, and the patterns he drew were different from those of others. They looked much more complicated, and it was almost impossible to tell what they were.

It is worth mentioning that Ren Nanping’s pattern is a fish, and Ren Zhuo’s is a spherical toy, a bit like a small old-fashioned game console like the Luban Lock.

"Alas, after today I can finally get dressed."

At this point, Ren Nanping glanced at the coat made of banknotes on Qiao Song's body. It had become a little swollen after being put into water several times. He didn't know if it was because of the special material of the soul coin, but it didn't fall apart.

The blue cloth they got from underwater is also very special. Like self-adhesive stickers, it can be cut at will. After cutting, if you stick it back along the cut and press it for a while, it will quickly heal into a complete new piece of cloth.

Qiao Song made a blue robe for himself almost without any instruction.

The uncle and nephew were exhausted after finishing the patterns, and they didn't have as much energy as her.

"We're looking for the elevator back home now, so what about you...?"

Qiao Song thought about it and suddenly became curious about what the elevators in other copies looked like. Anyway, she remembered the way she came, so she could just walk back along the same route and find the elevator she came out of. So she decided to follow the uncle and nephew to take a look.

Ren Nanping is old and his ability to remember routes is not as good as his nephew's. Ren Zhuo has played a lot of 3D games, so it is easy for him to remember routes of this level.

The entire 5th floor space is like Thousand Islands Lake, with all kinds of densely packed pools. There are some display cabinets on the road in the middle. Some cabinets look empty, which means that the bones inside have been bought and used.

Qiao Song walked along the way for nearly half an hour. Judging from the frequency of use of the display cabinets, there should be at least ten to twenty human players on this floor, but he rarely encountered people.

She didn't meet Lin Xuan, who was also in Gujian Village in the east.

Ren Nanping said he had an impression of the name: "It seems to be from the inn next door to us."

"The accommodation there is quite good, and the transportation is convenient. It is very convenient to complete tasks when going out of the village to fight monsters. However, the food and drinks are very average."

They stayed there on the first day, and then changed their accommodation after chatting with the NPC.

"The inn we are staying in now is very ordinary in other aspects, but the food is exceptionally delicious."

There are only two inns in Gujian Village. Unlike players in other villages, they are more like hotels, so there are quite a few players who spend money.

"Oh, here we are."

Ren Nanping pointed to a wooden door next to a pond in the distance, with a lantern hanging on it.

The NPC had reminded them not to take the wrong elevator home, but he saw that although Qiao Song was sometimes very brave, he was definitely not a reckless person, so he just let him walk towards the elevator door of his house without any care.

Qiao Song had no intention of going in. He observed outside the door for a while, touched the wood on it, and smelled it. Why did the wood smell wet? It was not dry at all.

Suddenly, she frowned, stood at the door and sniffed the remaining smell in the air.

“Do you smell a spicy smell?”

“Spicy?”

The uncle and nephew of the Ren family also came over and imitated Qiao Song, like police dogs, sniffing around with their noses raised.

"Strange, I do smell a, how should I put it? A fragrance."

Ren Zhuo nodded: "It smells like the incense burning in temples and Taoist temples."

Qiao Song also smelled this smell, but the whole Zhazhi Town was filled with this smell of incense, which became stronger and stronger as time went by. If one did not carefully distinguish it, a normal person would have been familiar with this smell long ago, just like smelling the fragrance of unknown flowers in spring, and getting used to it.

But Qiao Song was sure that he smelled a faint hint of spiciness lingering in the air.

She had also smelled it in the water. Although she didn't know where the skeleton got the sense of smell in the water, she was very sure that she was not mistaken. The chef in the water also entered this door.

Qiao Song told the uncle and nephew of the Ren family about his discovery and asked them to be careful. Then he returned to the elevator door of his home.

I didn't meet anyone else on the way back.

It can be said that as long as you don't go into the water, there is almost no danger at this level, but if you don't go into the water, you can't get the fabric and you can't complete the task.

According to Fan Xi, only players who performed well in painting bones on the first day can choose to skip a level on the second day and start preparing cloth for painting skin. There may not be many players who can meet this standard.

Qiao Song pressed the elevator button, and when the door opened, it was still Fan Xi, sitting inside and playing chess.

The black and white chess pieces seemed to be controlled by some invisible force. With every step she took, the chess piece of the other color would also take a step.

It looks like playing chess against a computer.

Fan Xi looked up at her and said, "You are really talented. You have made a simple robe by yourself."

Just cutting the clothes is not difficult. Qiao Song knows the general process of clothing pattern making, so it is very simple to make something wearable.

She asked, "Why are there no paper beasts on this floor today?"

Fan Xi continued to make moves, as if the chess game in front of her was quite interesting to her: "I thought you should know after what happened last night that paper beasts are afraid of water, so of course there are no paper beasts on this level."

Qiao Song frowned: "So you built this layer just to cultivate those big shells to make these fabrics?"

Fan Xi dropped another piece and smiled: "It doesn't necessarily mean they are farmed. They can just be used to process the excess food at home. You should have seen it before. They eat everything."

This is really an unexpected but reasonable answer.

Hiss, but considering the ability of those scallops, they can be used as food waste disposers, which is really good.

Qiao Song still has a big white clam in his pocket. This guy has been working diligently as a delicious bait for the whole night. He is so tired that he is foaming at the mouth. He doesn't know what he will experience in the future.

Qiao Song not only had it in his pocket, but he also took away a few blue-haired shells with him.

"Those blue shells won't survive long beyond the 5th floor, so be careful when you use them."

Fan Xi mentioned this casually before she opened the elevator.

Qiao Song's expression remained unchanged. He walked away without hesitation, as if he was not the one who secretly brought the blue shell out of the copy.

But she and Fan Xi seemed to have reached some kind of tacit understanding that anything that could be said in the elevator would not be mentioned once they got out of the elevator.

The metal door behind him closed. In the elevator, Fan Xi did not get up and continued to sit there facing the chessboard.

Until the last move was made, a rare look of joy appeared on her face.

With a ding, an electronic sound rang out in the elevator.

"Isn't it much more fun to play chess with me than with that bad chess player Fan Heng?" The voice sounded childish, like an AI synthesized by a child.

Although Fan Xi enjoyed himself, he also understood that the other party did not use too much calculation power: "Playing chess should be a happy thing. You don't have to please me in this regard. Tell me, what do you want to change this time?"

"I tried my best. I didn't try to please you. This makes me look stupid."

The electronic voice hesitated for a moment: "The main system asked me to send an invitation letter to Zootopia to a player in your dungeon, but I promised someone that I would not let her enter Zootopia too early. However, the main system asked me to give her the invitation letter within 'one dungeon'."

Fan Xi understood the subtext.

"I'll have her prepare it, but no matter how special the shrine's properties are, the most it can do is delay one more instance."

The electronic voice replied crisply: "I know, it's okay, wait until the soul is filled, and then give her a copy to prepare, so she won't be afraid even if she enters Zootopia."

Fan Xi hummed and lowered his head as if thinking about something. Soon, at the invitation of the AI, the second game started quickly.

At night, Xiao Ni drank a full can of tonic soup and went to sleep in the next room. This time, Qiao Song came to his own room on the first floor with ease and fastened the door lock in minutes, so that he could go home to sleep after doing anything at night.

In the small town at night, the smell of incense became stronger and stronger. Upstairs, under the supervision of second uncle Yan's family, boys and girls were lighting incense silently, looking out the window from time to time.

Qiao Song went out again. Well, Qiao Song started beating the paper beast. Hiss, so fierce.

The girl had been getting angry whenever she saw this guy for the past two days, and now her mood was gradually becoming complicated.

Especially the boy next to him sighed: "Since this guy came, our night defense system seems to have consumed less energy. He is really a killer."

This also indirectly led to the improvement of the family's food. They drank a lot of nourishing soup in the past two days. Although they were not like the little kid on the first floor who would feel drowsy after just a little nourishment, it was visible to the naked eye that the two little guys had made great progress in their studies and grew very fast in the past few days.

My uncles were very satisfied with this.

But the virgin girl, who was bent on revenge on Qiao Song, was not satisfied, especially when she found that Qiao Song went to the water again and jumped into the lake as if he was returning to his own home.

Damn it, such a good opportunity, but I didn’t take advantage of it and actively chase him down.

But the other guy was even more depressed than her.

This time, when the little shell was taken out, it was in the water again. It had almost completely accepted its miserable fate of being used as bait again, but it found that the devil had stuffed it into the door of the familiar wooden box.

"Hey, cheer up. I'm sending you back to your happy hometown today. Are you happy?"

The little scallop seemed to be frightened and burped, spitting out a string of bubbles.

Why is it so scary coming out of your mouth?

The shell opened and closed, stuttering, "You're not really going to eat me like a scallop, so that I can heal myself mentally in advance and make the sashimi more tender and delicious, are you?"

Boss, just say what you want to say. Don’t look at me with such a smile. I’m scared.

The author has something to say:

Qiao Song: You, a scallop, know a lot.

Modified some of the village setting bugs. The western village where Aunt Huo is located is the only one without a lake. The Gujian Village in the east has a small puddle. The ethnic village in the south, which is where Tang Xiaoxiao is, has a lake. The lake in the east village where Qiao Song is located is the largest.