Chapter 158 Safe House

"Maybe... maybe... maybe we can give you a 10%, 20%, 30% discount or even free of charge."

Liu Liuliu's strange voice was full of uncertainty.

Xu Zhiyan, who had been a little relieved because of Jiang Yufei's choice, suddenly widened his eyes and looked over when he heard the word "free".

What the hell? Free?

He used all his strength to restrain himself from speaking.

Qu Ji and others who were hiding behind the door of the safe house also slapped their foreheads with a look of pain on their faces.

Jiang Yufei was very honest after hearing this. He did not insist on the word "free". Instead, he discussed the matter in a friendly tone, completely changing his previous temper.

"How about 4,000 points?"

She was the first person to look at the list carefully. There was a very functional A-level prop on it, and the price was really a bargain.

Seeing Jiang Yufei's look, Xu Zhiyan keenly sensed something was wrong and hurried to look at the list of items carefully.

Before Liu Liu could answer, her teammates spoke up to stop her.

"Hey, although 4,000 points isn't a lot, it's just a waste of money. You should let Guo Kangshun pay!"

His teammates discovered that the items on the list were A-level, and the Tower of Light Sand was worth at least 10,000 points, but he was greedier than Jiang Yufei, and he hoped to get the items for free.

The other players who were watching also realized that there was something profitable to be gained and surrounded the place like hyenas smelling blood.

"Four thousand points? I can do that too!"

"Well, I have money..."

"Let me save someone. Sister Yu helped me yesterday..."

Xu Zhiyan has never lost money.

Although he wanted these players to rescue Yu Rou, saving people and losing money are two different things!

He snatched the list from Liuliu's hand, frowned as he looked at the contents, and made a compromise suggestion.

"These props are not disposable, so why not lend them to players for free? This way, you don't have to spend extra points and you can still save people."

"I……"

"OK!"

Jiang Yufei and Liu Liu spoke at the same time.

She wanted to say something, but the monster standing beside her quickly agreed to the proposal.

Xu Zhiyan breathed a sigh of relief.

He was not worried that the players would take the items and not return them. After all, this was a safe house, surrounded by monsters. The rules only applied to the players, and the monsters were not subject to the players' rules.

Liuliuzhe returned to the building and took out new props: a palm-sized triangular pyramid and a half-extended robotic arm.

The rescue begins.

Jiang Yufei put on the robotic arm, held the pyramid tightly, and stepped out of the safe house timidly.

Maybe it was due to Yu Rou's skill problem. There were no monsters around the white cocoon anymore, and the players who had been transformed into monsters could not see where the safe house was.

The interference around the safe house made the monsters only see the players running away and could not find their exact location.

Suddenly, a strong wind blew in the dark parking lot.

[Name: Sand Tower]

[Level: A]

【Type: Interference】

[Introduction: An item dropped in a desert dungeon. When activated, it can cause sandstorms and block vision. The maximum range is 1,000 square meters. Monsters weighing less than 50 kg will be blown away directly.]

[Notes: Each use consumes 50 points of mental power.]

[Spiritual Threshold Limit: 80]

Jiang Yufei activated the interference props, and the monsters left in the parking lot didn't know what happened and lost their vision instantly.

"call out--"

A sharp voice sounded.

In a flash, a black and gold mechanical arm passed through the wind and sand and grabbed the cocoon in the distance.

The monsters in the Night City had not yet reacted. When the wind and sand disappeared, they realized that the white cocoon had been snatched away by the player who had just hidden it!

They roared and raged, but the parking lot was left in a mess.

Inside the safe house, Xu Zhiyan stared at Jiang Yufei as he returned the props.

Seeing the woman's reluctant look, Baba watched the props being taken away. He frowned and threw a small bag of candy over.

"A special item from the safe house that can restore your mental strength."

You can give free gifts, but don’t even think about expensive props!

"Thanks, but it would have been better if you hadn't said anything just now." Jiang Yufei took the candy, pinched one out to replenish his mental strength, and put the remaining candy away.

Xu Zhiyan's mouth twitched after hearing this.

Judging from the handwriting on the plan, it should have been written by Xiaokui Gu. The 20,000 points given by this honest child are the dehydrated price of the robotic arm and the Sand Tower. The Sand Tower alone can be sold for 15,000 if it is put into the shell.

This group of ignorant players!

How dare he think of taking 20,000 yuan worth of props from him for 4,000 yuan? Jiang Yufei won't lose anything by taking these props for 20,000 yuan, okay?

The half-human-length round cocoons were piled up next to the pool in the yard of the safe house. After completing the rescue, the players pretended to care about Yu Rou, but when they found that she seemed to be completely trapped by the skills, they all sighed.

"Could it be a skill failure?"

"It's possible. Normally, she's been rescued now, so she should be able to remove the cocoon."

"Hey, can you hear me? No matter how I try to check, she doesn't show any vital signs..."

It turns out that when players awaken their skills, the first time they release them, they are not necessarily successful. The most that other people's skills fail to do is to lose a little strength, but Yu Rou's skills trapped herself instead.

The players discussed for a while.

Jiang Yufei just gave the white cocoon a quick inspection and didn't do anything else. She felt that she had done what she should do and she couldn't care less about the rest.

On the contrary, Guo Kangshun, as Yu Rou's biological son, made every effort to talk to Bai Jian when he first discovered that his mother had been rescued.

But after a few words, he found that Jianzi didn't respond, and then he thought about what others said, that the skill failed...

Within a few minutes, his patience was gone.

All the human players still alive in Night City gathered in the safe house.

Liu Liu closed the gate of the safe house, and the manic monsters were completely locked outside.

Making sure there wouldn't be any surprises, it cleared its throat and spoke slowly.

"According to the difficulty of the dungeon, the free stay time is eighty minutes. Players are requested to pay the stay fee as soon as possible."

"Points, props, souls... everything you have can be converted into exchange time."

All the monsters in the safe house have been trained on these two paragraphs, and even Liu Liu can speak them fluently.

It glanced at the time and tried to urge the players: "Twenty-three minutes of free stay have passed. Please pay the reward as soon as possible."

Everyone looked at each other and started taking out props to count points.

Now there are more and more copies of safe houses, and everyone has a rough understanding of the process and the time cost.

The first person took out the prop and won the golden stopwatch.

【Name: Safe House Timer】

【Level: ???】

[Type: Special Item]

[Introduction: A delicate pocket watch made of unknown material, which records the time you exchanged...]

In order to fit in, Xu Zhiyan pretended to take out the props and handed them over.

Soon, it was Guo Kangshun's turn.

Xu Zhiyan watched as the young man took out a large number of props in one breath, almost maxing out the exchange time.

After Guo Kangshun exchanged the stopwatch, he did not return to the white cocoon. Instead, he found a place to sit down and even called up the safe house panel to consider whether to buy something.

Xu Zhiyan looked at the other person quietly, hooking his fingers on the metal chain of the stopwatch and shaking it a few times.

As if he had just discovered something, he pointed at the white cocoon on the ground and said, "You haven't paid your mother for her time yet!"

Everyone looked over when they heard the sound.

Guo Kangshun froze and retorted: "She...it's still unclear whether my mother can wake up!"

"Oh? Then what should we do? You can't ask others to pay for you. I see you are quite rich." Xu Zhiyan dragged his small square stool, sat next to Bai Jian, and asked innocently.

After hearing this, Jiang Yufei waved his hands and said, "I don't care. I don't even have any money!"

"Aren't all the points and props your mother earned with you?" She pointed at Guo Kangshun with a look of disgust.

Being pointed at like this, Guo Kangshun could no longer avoid it and could only speak hesitantly.

"But, but how do I know whether she can wake up or not!"

He looked at the white cocoon, a hint of hesitation flashed across his face, but then he took out a stone-like prop and shook it on the white cocoon.

The stone did not change.

"She has no vital signs!"

After saying this, Guo Kangshun was also very upset.

"So annoying! She's so useless. You wasted my tool... I thought she could protect me for a while longer."

To him, Yu Rou's death was more like the loss of a free bodyguard. When Jiang Yufei rescued her just now, he was a little happy, thinking that this cheap mother could still recover.

Who would have thought that the rescued Bai Jian not only could not create value for him, but now even required him to spend points and props?

Guo Kangshun, who was full of fear for the future, no longer pretended.

When he took off his disguise and looked at the white cocoon, his expression was filled with a bit of disgust and anger.

The other players watched, no one stepped forward to intervene, and those who had not yet redeemed their time went to redeem their stay time.

Anything could happen in the copy. They didn't even have enough points of their own, so why would they pay for Yu Rou who had a high probability of not surviving?

Xu Zhiyan sat on the stool and looked quietly at the furious Guo Kangshun.

"But she is your mother, don't you even struggle?"

He even casually proposed various plans, some of which were reliable and some were not, and he was talking nonsense.

"This is a safe house. Do you want to ask the gods? If you sell your soul, can you save your mother? Well... although your soul may not be very delicious, it doesn't matter. The gods may not be very picky about eating children."

"The monster in charge is still here. Why don't you go buy some items from it? There are some very rare items here!"

"Yes, first you pay enough points, put your mother here, and then customize something that can force her to break out of the cocoon or forcibly increase the probability of using skills..."

Thinking that the players would not remember him once they left, Xu Zhiyan completely let himself go.

The worst that could happen is that my identity gets discovered... Well, I'd better wear a mask for a while.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up!" Guo Kangshun was so annoyed that he stomped his feet and cursed at the young man sitting next to the cocoon.

"Why are you so nosy? She's already dead, what's the point in asking me to do this and that now? It's better for me to live a good life instead of using these points!" He had no feelings for this mother at all and just blindly accepted her kindness.

Xu Zhiyan was stunned by what he said, and simply squatted down and patted the hard cocoon shell.

"Did you hear that?"

"This is your good son."

He was not sure whether the woman inside could wake up, but judging from the content of the live broadcast just now, Yu Rou could hear the sounds outside in the cocoon and was not dead.

That's why he spoke to provoke the other party.

When Guo Kangshun saw him like this, he secretly cursed him as a lunatic and ignored him.

Xu Zhiyan was not angry either.

He could even imagine what would happen to this ungrateful little guy if he lost Yu Rou's protection.

Time passes by little by little.

The surviving players no longer worried about Yu Rou and started discussing their next plan.

Perhaps they had never considered that the safe house was actually in the hands of humans, so although some people noticed that Xu Zhiyan was out of place, they could not guess that he was the owner of the safe house. Instead, some people suspected that he was an NPC who maintained order.

Xu Zhiyan began to watch the players make their next plans.

It was similar to his previous guess.

This group of players were thrown into the dungeon together.

Because every time a human player turns into a monster, it will be confirmed that one less person cannot leave the dungeon due to lack of human quota.

On the first day, everyone reached a consensus to preserve their human identity together.

As a result, when they woke up the next day, they found that more than two-thirds of the players had turned into monsters.

People were killed, their bodies torn apart in the scramble, and the number of spots began to decrease.

"There are only a few of us known to be alive now, but there are monsters everywhere outside, and our chances of survival are not high." A tall and strong man sighed and shook his head.

"What should we do? The safe house has a time limit. Even if the time limit is full, we will have to be outside half of the time." Jiang Yufei's face darkened.

Her teammates also sighed: "The current situation is too unfavorable for us."

In the face of survival, scattered players are forced to gather together.

Xu Zhiyan listened to this group of people starting to list plans, reject plans, list plans, reject plans...in an endless cycle.

Absolutely not.

There is no possibility of survival.

After listening for ten minutes, he secretly turned his back and yawned.

Although the amplitude was small and it was intentionally hidden, it was still discovered by other players.

However, the players did not point it out directly, but just stared at him.

The atmosphere in the air became much more solemn.

The players' spirits also became tense.

Xu Zhiyan smacked his lips when he saw this, stood up, and snapped his fingers at Liu Liu: "Carry the cocoon into the house."

"Yes, Master!"

The monster with huge pressure couldn't wait to speak, and obediently carried the white cocoon and walked into the house.

Liuliu felt miserable.

It had already noticed that something was wrong with the discount, but it didn't dare to say it and could only hold it in.

Thinking of his tattered clothes, Xu Zhiyan walked towards the old house and waved his hand with his back to the players: "Actually, I am a special NPC of the safe house. I am here to help you. Let me go back and change my clothes before coming back."

“…”

The players looked at each other in surprise. They didn't expect the other party to admit it so generously.

In the lobby of the safe house.

After closing the door, Xu Zhiyan immediately looked at the cocoon in Liuliu's hand.

He knocked on the cocoon shell, but there was no movement inside. He shook it, but it still didn't move. He frowned and said, "Hiss, it's quite heavy."

“Bang!”

"Yu Rou? Can you hear the sound?"

[Host! This cocoon seems to be a failure in using the skill!]

"Ah... will she die?" Xu Zhiyan frowned and sighed. He rarely saves people for free, so he wouldn't fail the first time, right?

The system detected more.

[She can hear it, she's crying.]

"…It's better to cry."

Xu Zhiyan paused and scratched his hair awkwardly.

[Ding——Yu Rou’s skills are detected! The reason she was trapped is that she couldn’t break out of her cocoon. This question is so complicated. Clearly looking at the energy trajectory, she had a chance to break out of her cocoon when she was rescued and brought back to the safe house, but she stopped.]

The system's simple CPU couldn't understand why someone would refuse to complete the last step of a skill when they had enough strength.

Considering the timing, Xu Zhiyan fell silent after hearing this.

Let Liu Liu carry the white cocoon to the warehouse. Before going upstairs to change clothes, he said to Yu Rou's cocoon bag.

"Maybe you can live for yourself."

"Of course, this is a safe house. You can stay here as long as you want, but once the copy is completely closed, I don't know what you will do."

If Yu Rou could break out of the cocoon and leave before the copy was closed, she would be able to continue to live as a player.

Otherwise, she might turn into a monster or die.

But this is no longer something Xu Zhiyan can control.

"Bang--"

The door of the warehouse was closed and the white cocoon bags were quietly piled on top of the sundries.

A few minutes later, a young man wearing a black cloak with dark patterns and a bird-beak mask appeared on the stairs of the safe house, leading the monsters.

"Hello everyone, let me introduce myself briefly. I am the special NPC conscientious merchant of the safe house."

As he spoke, he waved his cane, walked down the stairs in his shiny leather shoes, and came to the players with quite elegant steps.

Unlike the embarrassed players, after Qu Ji trained a monster to take care of daily life, in just a short while, Xu Zhiyan became exquisite from the tips of his hair to the tips of his shoes, forming a sharp contrast with the others.

The new way of appearance really shocked the players.

Seeing that everyone was frightened, Xu Zhiyan squeezed his cane and said calmly: "I know what everyone is sad about. I have heard everyone's discussion... It's too tragic, it's really too tragic. There is no way out!"

Hearing the other party's gloating voice, the players opened their mouths but said nothing.

There's nothing we can do. This is their territory and they can't defeat us.

"Although we are all at a dead end, it doesn't matter!" Xu Zhiyan patted Liu Liu and asked the other party to take out a new receipt.

"You are very lucky. Now the safe house has launched a special money-based clearance method, which is especially suitable for everyone."

He pointed to the items on the receipt and explained the arrangement plan.

"Everyone is generally injured now, but they can still recover quickly after consumption. I believe it shouldn't be difficult to hunt a monster."

As long as all players turn into monsters, it means that the entire dungeon mission has failed.

"Since you can't beat them, then join them!"

Although monster players cannot enter the safe house, as long as everyone is judged as a monster, the monsters in the safe house can rush in to rescue people in the last half hour.

"Everyone, remember to make some marks on your body in case we can't find them. We'll discuss the specific marks after payment is made. The fee is 100,000 points per person, which can be paid in installments, but there will be an assessment. For example, like this player..."

He pointed at Guo Kangshun and said, "He doesn't look like he can live long, so he won't accept the installment payment."

After saying that, Xu Zhiyan pointed at Jiang Yufei again and laughed softly.

"As for you, lucky user Xiao Jiang."

"I'll give you a 40% discount this time."

He felt that he was really conscientious. With twelve players, he only made 1.1 million and 4,000.