Chapter 163 Twelve Committees

The world is filled with gray fog and deathly silence. Only around this table can traces of biological activity be seen.

From time to time, a dim light flashed in the distance, which meant that doors were opening.

"The main system has issued a notice. It should be affected by the Zootopia Celebration. The blind box mall also needs to mobilize data. It just happened to call everyone over for a meeting."

A woman in a white coat came in from a door and answered the blond man's question casually, seeming to be very familiar with him: "Bobcat, changed to blond?"

"This time it's not a cat, it's a mushroom. My male body looks good, doesn't it?"

The mountain cat fiddled with the pendant on its ear, its emerald green pupils narrowed slightly, making it look like a real cat.

The woman in white didn't answer his question, but the blonde bobcat wasn't going to let her go.

"Fan Xi, I heard that you beat up those guys who played mahjong with you. Aren't they coming to the meeting this time?"

As he spoke, he glanced at the woman next to him who was wearing a veil and looked like a black embroidered ball gown.

As another participant in the mahjong game, it was obvious that Hua Gu Girl did not get what she wanted most at the end of the resurrection game.

After Fan Xi came out, the latter held a dark metal folding fan with some disgust, which together with the black gauze hat brim on his head blocked his facial expression.

Fan Xi found a seat and sat down. He calmly took out a set of tea set from his sleeve and poured himself a cup of hot tea.

"They should come, but except for Hua Gu, the other two may not be here in person."

It seems that Fan Xi gave him a severe beating last time, the mountain cat narrowed his eyes.

The Flower Poison Girl couldn't stand her nonchalant attitude, and the metal folding fan was snapped back: "You seem very proud, why didn't your brother Fan Heng come to the meeting this time, can't you get up?"

"Since you care about him so much, how about we play another game next time the dungeon starts? But you've fallen to the point of cooperating with players to gain territory, is the dungeon area enough? It shouldn't be, otherwise why would you come to Paper Town to bet with me?"

"Fan Xi, you..."

Noticing that the thorns on the Flower Gu Girl's body were gradually growing and about to bloom, the mountain cat pretended to stop the fight but was actually fanning the flames: "Hey, isn't it just a fight over territory? Why bother getting angry during a meeting? Can't we fight to the death when the dungeon is open? By the way, can I go and watch the fight? I don't have any other intentions, just to watch."

The two women simultaneously glanced at him who was watching the fun and making trouble, and stopped talking. Those who were drinking tea continued to drink tea, and those who were fanning themselves continued to fan themselves.

Bobcat fiddled with his earrings and muttered that it was boring that they didn't fight.

If I had known this earlier, I would have given up a seat and not sat in the middle blocking the way.

However, he cannot change the seats whenever he wants. The arrangement of these 12 chairs follows a certain pattern.

Except for the last few chairs, starting from the middle, the order of the chairs does not depend entirely on strength, but also reflects the generation time of the corresponding copy.

The most important thing is the chairs opposite.

The closer you get to a certain main seat, the thicker the fog becomes, and the figures sitting on either side are not always of human size.

Opposite the humanoid NPCs including Lynx, all the seats belong to alien creatures with other objects on their heads.

However, these masked guys never had any sense of time and were even slower than him.

Tsk, the blonde mountain cat gritted his teeth. Meetings are so boring. It would be better to go play in the dungeon.

He was the last one on his side, and soon a new member arrived.

It’s the little girl from Hearse Entertainment who almost got eliminated but somehow withstood the pressure of the invasion.

Yin Yin was holding a rabbit doll with red thread sewn on the joints, looking at everyone at the table with a sullen expression.

There was an empty seat next to her, which were the only two empty seats facing each other at the end of the oval table.

There is only a sign on each side with the name of the copy written on it, namely Blind Box Mall and Happy Cemetery.

Yin Yin quietly pinched the bunny doll with red thread in her hand and said, "Can, why are there no people at the two seats at the head and the end of the table?"

Furry rabbit with flashing red eyes.

[Due to the special nature of the copy, the manager of the blind box mall has been gone for a long time, and it is now jointly managed by the remaining members of the 12 committees. 】

[The Happy Cemetery is in a special location, and there is currently no manager who can manage it, so it is temporarily vacant. ]

Yin Yin looked at her position and suddenly realized that she seemed to be the weakest one in the audience.

The rabbit doll in the hand took the little girl's hand.

[At this table, strength is not the most important thing. What is important is the camp. Yinyin, do you still remember what I said? ]

The little girl nodded silently.

"No matter what frictions there are in normal times, no matter how much you dislike the people at this side of the table, you must not let the guy with the strange head take the absolute lead in key decisions."

The silkworm made her alert to the seat of the opposite sex group in the head, just opposite.

Opposite her, the two seats at the end were also empty.

There are two dolls on it, one is a western cowboy and the other is an antique sword.

They just happened to be the two who had fought with Fan Xi silently in the paper-zha town, but didn't gain any advantage.

I don’t know if it was because he was too badly injured or because he was too embarrassed to show up, but he temporarily placed two markers and participated in the meeting remotely.

Further ahead, a dusty guy just happened to be coming over.

That guy used to be very active in attending meetings, but this time, for some reason, he wore a hat, which covered the display screen, which was quite exaggerated in the past.

Boss Cai pulled the chair hard, sat down with a click, crossed his legs, and hugged his shoulders, giving off the impression that he was in a bad mood.

When Shanmao saw him like that, he instantly became happy: "Oh, why is Boss Cai's face disfigured?"

Boss Cai, who had almost repaired the screen but still needed a long time to slowly recover the lost soul power, gave a middle finger.

"None of your business, poor bastard."

Shanmao raised his eyebrows: "Who are you calling poor? Our game hall's quarterly revenue is much higher than your convenience store."

Boss Cai: "Really? But I heard that the soul vending machine in your place just got stinky. Even if it's reopened now, no one will go there to redeem it."

Shanmao immediately smiled wryly: "That's because some players, who knows what kind of agreement they reached with some bastard, actually used the soul vending machine to trade players. Now the souls are probably broken into pieces and turned into banknotes to flow into the market. Boss Cai, do you have any idea about this?"

The mocked display screen immediately changed to an emoji with bulging veins on its forehead: "Don't put all the blame on me. Do you have any evidence? We are not the only convenience store on this table that needs soul coins."

"Speaking of which, why haven't the guys from Zootopia come yet? The main reason for this meeting is because of their crappy celebration."

As soon as the flower poison girl holding the metal folding fan opened her mouth, three portals opened at the same time.

What came out of the first door was a white robot. Its eyes with flickering blue circles looked around without saying hello to anyone. It walked to the second position just after the main Happy Cemetery.

At the same time, another man with a Chinese dragon-like figure on his head also came out and sat down next to the robot.

There was a flapping sound of wings, and a black bird finally landed opposite the robot, next to the flower poison girl.

A certain display screen was so angry when it saw the black bird.

"Li Yuan, look at yourself, are you sitting in the wrong direction? You don't look like a human NPC at all. You should change your seat and sit over here with us."

Boss Cai knew very well that the black crow hated being told that he was not human the most in his life, so he deliberately used these words to mock him. He also wanted to taunt the crow, who wanted to take the initiative to help the players but ended up making his own hell a mess.

The black crow said nothing, and its feathers expanded little by little into a giant bird. Until at some point a man with pale skin appeared, but his body was still mostly covered by the feathers, with only a sharp chin exposed on his head.

Li Yuan's voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time.

"As long as I want, I can still turn back into a human. I had a big meal in Hell last time, and I have to thank you for your sponsorship. But unfortunately, you probably won't be able to return in this lifetime..."

He hadn't finished his words when invisible sound waves caused everyone at the table to cover their ears unconsciously, except for the AI ​​robot and the guy with a dragon's head.

He didn't know if these words hit the pain point of the display screen. He couldn't help but cover the edge of the panel. The screen flickered and then turned white. Finally, it went completely black. No emoticons appeared. Only his hand in the white glove was left, and he almost tore the stone table top.

He seemed extremely angry, yet unable to refute.

The leader tried to stop the quarrel in a gentle manner: "Okay, okay, it's rare for us to meet each other, so don't start a quarrel as soon as you sit down."

He looked around, and then paid special attention to the humanoid AI sitting in the second seat next to him, and the crow opposite him.

Of these two, one can't speak human language and can only convey system commands, and when the other speaks, everyone has a headache.

There was no other way, and finally the leader took the initiative to speak and first stated the purpose of the gathering.

"The celebration of Zootopia has begun. This time, the city has automatically summoned most of the players who meet the requirements. I guess there will be rivers of blood again."

The dragon head has an old voice and a gentle tone. If you only listen to his voice, he sounds like a humble elder.

The NPC with the strange-shaped head didn't say anything, but Shanmao joined in the fun. He held his face with both hands and smiled: "That's great, maybe another player can be promoted to a dungeon NPC, and we can have new faces at the table again."

But the positions of the 12 committees are fixed. If new faces appear, old faces are bound to step down.

Unless the two empty seats opposite the first seat are occupied.

But the Blind Box Mall and the Happy Cemetery are two special places, and it is impossible for a single soul to dominate them. So when the Bobcat said this, there was a sense of impending storm on the whole table.

The dragon head glanced at him inconspicuously and said, "Perhaps I will also participate in this Zootopia celebration. Don't you have any plans to attend the celebration?"

After these words were spoken, there was silence at the table for a moment.

The Flower Gu Girl took the lead and blocked her face with a folding fan, saying sarcastically, "Zootopia is your home ground. You asked us to go over there to participate in the celebration, not to send our necks to the side so that you can bite off a few bites of meat?"

The blonde mountain cat fanned the flames: "That's right, Old Dragon, you were just here to cause trouble before, but now you're suddenly suggesting this, is it because a large number of players are about to fill your soul pool, and you're acting recklessly?"

After being stabbed a few times, the dragon head man didn't seem angry at all, and continued slowly: "You all know the rules of Zootopia. After you come in, you can still master the game in various fields. It's just not as convenient as before, but at the same time, you can harvest more souls."

They agreed with the first half of this statement. Even though Zootopia was a city of rules and weird stories, NPCs of their level could generate a small-scale copy after entering it and use their own game field to fight against the rules of Zootopia.

But what does the following sentence mean?

Fan Xi, who had been drinking tea, also put down his cup: "There is no clearance rule in Zootopia. The souls of all dead players will return to a place we all know. Why do you say that we can harvest new souls after entering?"

The dragon head's beard fluttered slightly, and the old voice smiled: "Because the river appeared again after many years."

The old dragon stretched out his withered hand, knocked on the table, and said meaningfully: "Besides, it's right below Zootopia."

The table was quiet for a while, and soon, most of the human NPCs turned their attention to the cyber AI.

"Didn't your main system monitor the Styx in real time? Why did it suddenly appear in Zootopia?"

The white robot turned its head, a blue light flashed, and it began to answer questions systematically.

"The movement direction of the Styx is uncontrollable. Since all the escape gates are blocked, this river may appear at any map and any location on the Infinite Highway at any time."

The mountain cat pouted his little face and said, "Oh my, so it just happened to appear in Zootopia? I say, you Cyberworld people, please have some shame. I don't believe it if you didn't intervene and help calculate the probability."

"I was wondering why Zootopia only expanded its maps to strange places in the past few years. I'm afraid they were preparing for today."

The ripples on the white robot's head flashed, and the electronic voice was calm: "I only serve the infinite game map itself, and I will not favor any manager."

Yin Yin pursed her lips and pinched the rabbit's ears in her arms: "Even though I'm a child, I know that the local ghosts in everyone's copies were all salvaged from the Styx. So the Zootopia is not short of resources at all, but has too many resources. Do you want us managers to participate in your celebration?"

The little girl who suddenly spoke attracted the attention of the leader.

The old man narrowed his eyes silently, as if he finally noticed the little girl in red with a low presence at the end of the table, and the rabbit in her arms.

He continued, "Yes, I think everyone knows that since the escape door was closed, not only can players no longer pass the level, but the number of ghosts on the entire Infinite Survival Road is slowly decreasing. I believe that everyone wants to continue to operate this world. To do this, we need to salvage more souls from that river."

"The banknotes in the soul factory need to be produced continuously. We need new souls and we also need to fill the old souls. For this reason, Zootopia sincerely invites everyone to participate in the celebration. Isn't it good to solve the problem of the river together? It doesn't matter if the main body doesn't come. I have already brought the news that the river will appear..."

A mountain cat who was observing the old dragon intently suddenly interrupted him.

"So, if a player finds that river this time, as long as they dare to go down, they can actually come back..."

“You can’t go back.”

Boss Cai, who had been silent before, spoke. A smiling emoticon appeared on his face at the end, but his eyes were fixed on the crow diagonally opposite.

"All the guys sitting at this table, including the vast majority of the players, are not qualified to cross the river. I thought you all knew this very well."

Not only can the players not return to the real world, but the NPCs can't go back either.

"Okay, I've said what I need to say. As for that river, once it appears in Zootopia, it will disappear. I don't know when it will reappear next time. The invitation to the celebration is already here. I will open the door of the shrine when the time comes. Everyone is welcome to come."

The dragon head was the first to stand up. He said that the celebration was coming and he would be very busy. Then he casually opened a door of light from the empty gray fog and left the stone table.

Boss Cai was the second one to stand up, but this time, the smiley face on his face seemed more real. He looked in the direction of Crow and said, "I think I just figured out something. It's a little secret related to you. Li Yuan, you'd better hide this secret deeper and don't let me run into her again."

The display screen said the harsh words and left, but the expressionless crow suddenly thought of something, and the upper half of its face, which was covered by a lot of black feathers, had a strange expression for a moment.

"Then I wish you good luck."

As soon as he opened his mouth, the whole space began to echo with inexplicable sound waves. The flower girl who was holding a fan next to him couldn't stand it anymore, and stood up directly, holding up the hem of her black skirt.

While she was opening the door, I could hear her mumbling words like "bad luck" and "bad luck".

The mountain cat who was watching the show nearby suddenly had a brave expression on his face. The moment the crow turned his head to look at him, the mountain cat, who was usually a fun-loving person and not very serious, quickly opened the door and ran away.

In the end, the only people left in the space were Yin Yin, a little girl in a red dress, and Fan Xi, who was dressed in white.

The ancient sword and the cowboy doll on the table opposite were of low strength. After the leader left, they disappeared at some point without anyone noticing.

The crow didn't say anything this time. It stood up from the chair. The layers of black feathers on its body looked like a layer of flowing rivers hanging behind it.

He nodded to Fan Xi and Yin Yin, then quickly opened the door and left.

Fan Xi drank the tea in the empty cup and touched Yin Yin's head: "Let Tong Yao and the others come to play with you when they are free. I am sorry for causing you trouble when we went to the hearse entertainment last time."

Yin Yin shook her head. She was not so rude to the elders she knew.

"It doesn't matter. At that time, I didn't have a good grasp of the copy. I only had the right to speak later."

Not knowing who she was thinking of, Yin Yin showed a somewhat lonely expression again. She pinched the rabbit and soon saw Fan Xi in white clothes also opening the door and leaving.

Suddenly, she and the white robot that had been sitting in the secondary seat were the only ones left in the entire space.

Yin Yin held the rabbit and looked at the opposite side curiously. The rabbit in her arms and the robot tilted their heads slightly at the same time, one with red eyes and the other with blue eyes, as if they were looking at each other.

Yinyin was afraid that the silkworm would be discovered by the main system, so she quickly picked up the rabbit and went to open the door.

In the gray fog space, only the white robot was left.

[Main system reconnected, returned to the cyber copy]

After all the NPCs left, the white robot did not open the door, but turned into a bunch of numbers like data and disappeared on the spot.

Blind box mall, Scream game hall.

Qiao Song, who had passed the Mario copy, was waiting outside for Grandpa Chai and others to come out.

Others also gained a lot of points in this round, and they all exchanged them for a lot of mushroom props generously.

During the game, the delivery boy maintained a policy of steadily passing levels and following the steps of the big boss. Unexpectedly, he gained so many props in the end.

"I redeemed them all. Even if I don't use them this time, I can sell them to other players after I leave the blind box mall."

Lao Wu and the fitness coach are similar. They have even completed the three minimum game standards of the Scream Game Hall and can leave the game hall at any time.

If you want to leave the mall, you just need to go to a store upstairs and draw a few blind boxes. Once you collect a complete set, you can complete the game.

But Qiao Song waited for the old man specifically, obviously he had something to say.

Several people worked together to complete the Mario game. They knew each other well and had not done anything illegal or immoral. So Qiao Song simply agreed to their request to open a private room together.

In the lounge of the Scream Game Hall, Qiao Song got some desserts and tea, and in the private room, he asked Grandpa Chai to take out the chicken coop.

"If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have almost forgotten about this guy."

In the chicken coop that Mr. Chai brought up was a human being who had crumpled up like jelly.

The young security guard was almost half-hostage brought into the box. When he saw his former big brother become like this, he felt indescribably complicated.

I wanted to cry, but I couldn't with so many people watching me.

"Don't make that face. I asked you a question and you answered it."

Qiao Song did not let Grandpa Chai unlock the cage. Instead, he took a few tools and poked the human inside.

The scarred man seemed to have no reaction to the outside world. Half of his flesh had grown into mushroom-like mycelium, and his whole body began to emit a very special smell.

It's not a foul smell, but more like a mixture of grass and soil.

The young security guard was forced to put his face close to the chicken coop, and the only bit of sadness on his face turned into fear.

"You said earlier that your eldest brother has a skill to copy other people's address books. Then let me ask you, how did he become like this?"

The young security guard was also dumbfounded.

"I don't know. Big Brother can directly copy some information left in the player's address book to find out the player's weaknesses. Sometimes he can even make a phone call..."

Qiao Song frowned: "Dial the number directly?"

"Yes, and then use your own abilities to find a way to snatch the emotional energy left by the person on the other end of the phone, and then directly deal with the owner of the address book."

Qiao Song was silent for a moment: "So his last ability was used for..."

The young security guard quietly looked up at her, and everything was said without words.

The case is solved.

Qiao Song remembered that in addition to some living people, there seemed to be a small number of special beings in his address book.

Only the copy manager can do this.

So which guy is this that corrupted the players?