Chapter 358 Safe House

After separating from Gan Mi, Xu Zhiyan left Corridor No. 16. After just a few steps, he received news about Dou Hongshan.

After turning several turns and passing through the noisy crowd, he arrived at the gathering point in the dark alley, where the woman had been waiting for a long time.

The entire dark alley was not too big in the shell's territory. When Xu Zhiyan entered the door, he saw the messy ground. The floor was full of broken glass and he didn't know how many cups had been knocked over.

"The summoner is gone."

Dou Hongshan's face turned pale and his voice no longer had the calmness it usually had.

Seeing Xu Zhiyan turning around to look for the clown, she calmed down a little and answered, "The clown went to the human world to look for the summoner."

"In the present world?"

Xu Zhiyan was a little surprised.

Things were somewhat different from what he expected.

Although Dou Hongshan did not explain the summoner in detail to him, the other party cooperated with the main system and was willing to push his subordinates out as targets, and even ignored the clown's life and death for the inheritance of props. The above three behaviors made Xu Zhiyan define the summoner in his mind.

But after seeing the performance of Dou Hongshan and the Clown... he became a little uncertain.

"Need my help?"

Xu Zhiyan asked even though he knew the answer.

It was not difficult to tell from Dou Hongshan's nervous expression that she was very nervous about the disappearance of the summoner. In addition, due to the insufficient time for the previous conversation, Xu Zhiyan did not get much information about the summoner.

"But asking me for help will cost you a little, such as more information." As he spoke, he casually dragged two stools from the corner of the messy room, motioning Dou Hongshan not to be anxious and to speak slowly.

Perhaps realizing that Xu Zhiyan would not take action without receiving the news, Dou Hongshan hesitated for a long time, then sat down stiffly and told the truth.

"Even though the Summoner wants the Joker's life, the Joker is the last person to betray the Summoner." She whispered about the past of the Dark Alley, her voice filled with mixed emotions.

As she spoke, Xu Zhiyan's previous doubts were explained.

"Ran Que is not the summoner himself."

"It is a summoned beast. Its original form is a tit."

If Xu Zhiyan asked Gan Mi for more information about the previous round of the game, he might be able to get the summoner's identity information in advance.

"Master Summoner... I have forgotten his name."

Dou Hongshan spoke slowly, her hoarse voice full of uncertainty, but then her voice became firm again.

"I died very early in the last round of the game, but luckily I survived because of my characteristics."

Her unique plant characteristics and extraordinary talent allowed her to unlock incredible skills. After her death, she turned into a seed, buried under thick rotten leaves, away from the sun, quietly waiting for the moment to sprout and revive.

"If Ran Que hadn't found me, I might still be stuck in a corner of some unknown copy."

As if she recalled something warm, Dou Hongshan's eyes softened a lot, just like when she looked at Ran Que before.

"The summoner only gave me a rough account of the previous round of games. Humanity did not win... Of course, neither did the mimics. There was no winner in the last round of games, and the ideal country suffered civil unrest on the eve of victory."

Perhaps because she had no personal experience, her tone was uncertain when she spoke later.

However, these news were just some small episodes for Dou Hongshan. When she wanted to continue talking about the summoner, Xu Zhiyan raised his hand to interrupt the conversation and asked more questions.

"Do you remember that in the last round of the game, did anyone enter the safe house?"

Dou Hongshan didn't understand and shook his head in denial.

"No, there was no safe house in the last round of the game. Safe houses only appeared in this round of the game."

Xu Zhiyan stood up suddenly, his heart pounding.

"Who is the culprit for the civil unrest in the ideal country?"

Damn it, why didn't anyone reveal such important information to him before!

He subconsciously clenched his fists with his hands hanging on both sides of his body, and his brain was thinking rapidly. According to the timeline he had obtained, what he was experiencing now should be the third round of the infinite game.

The first round of the game takes place in a ruined world.

There are only ghosts, gods, and mimics, and the strong ones unilaterally slaughter non-human creatures.

The second round of the game involved humans.

The humans suffered heavy losses, but the mimics also failed to gain victory.

Now it's round three.

The ghost slices trapped in Xu's house, the relationship between the mimic and the main system in the previous round of the game, his lost memories, the civil strife before the victory of the ideal country, and the safe house that appeared in this round of the game...

Every time he thought that ghosts and gods existed outside the main system and copies, in the end all arrows pointed to Him.

Xu Zhiyan was almost impatient to know who was the one who caused the Utopia to fall apart before victory in the last round of the game. Was it the heart of the ghost? Was it himself who had lost his memory? Or was it a mimic who had evolved emotions like Gan Mi?

There were too many possibilities and he needed a definite answer.

However, Dou Hongshan didn't know much.

Not understanding why the smiling and cheerful Boss Xu suddenly became serious, she could only answer honestly: "I don't know either...well, even the summoner probably doesn't know."

She died too early. It was said that in the middle and late stages of the last round of the game, a large number of humans chose to become mimics, and there were not many humans left.

"These are the messages that the plants tell me."

She has the special ability to communicate with plants, but these simple-minded plants cannot leave much information, and this is the limit.

Xu Zhiyan's active thoughts were extinguished by a bucket of cold water.

He stood up and waved his hands, and said with disdain, "Let's go. Aren't we going to find the summoner? Just keep her brief and have a simple chat. She's going to the real world, right? Why does she want to go to the real world?"

Dou Hongshan was stunned.

She wanted to retort that the summoner was different from other humans, but considering the summoner's safety, she tried to compress the content as much as possible.

"The summoner survived using Ran Que's transformed body and became the survivor of the previous round of the game, but the summoner's soul and Ran Que's body are still incompatible after all, so he will enter a resting state when he is not in the dungeon."

The two walked deeper into the dark alley.

Dou Hongshan didn't waste any words and just focused on the key points.

"He's not... as bad as you think." She finally expressed her wish: "The Joker and I both understand that something went wrong with the Summoner after he cooperated with the main system, so we also hope that after finding out the cause, we can use your power to make him recover."

"It's a good idea."

Xu Zhiyan could not deny this.

He, the Joker, and Dou Hongshan didn't have a very close relationship to begin with. Although he hoped that the two would turn against him and go to the safe house, it was essentially just a transaction.

The two gave him the funds and more information of the dark alley, and he gave them shelter and fulfilled their wishes.

Seeing that Xu Zhiyan was not angry, Dou Hongshan breathed a sigh of relief.

"I hope Ran Que can live a stable life."

"What about the clown? Does he have any other wishes besides revenge?" Xu Zhiyan asked with a raised eyebrow.

Dou Hongshan sighed and replied: "He probably hopes that the summoner can survive."

While talking, the two came to the exit under the dark alley.

After passing through a door, Xu Zhiyan followed Dou Hongshan to the present world. He looked at the place in front of him with a dazed expression.

This is an old, dilapidated building with a sign on the side that reads "Relief Home". It is obviously a living area rented by some relief agency.

It was sunset in the evening.

The golden sunlight casts a golden glow on the old walls, making them extremely dazzling.

"As you can see."

Dou Hongshan's voice is full of nostalgia.

In the cold wind, Xu Zhiyan pulled his clothes together and laughed meaninglessly.

When he saw the relief center, he already understood most of it.

Why would the Joker listen to the summoner? Even if the summoner told him to die, he would have no complaints and no selfish thoughts. He even hoped that the successor of the Strange Face would be stronger and be able to avenge him...

"Is it what I thought?"

Xu Zhiyan glanced at Dou Hongshan.

"The summoner set up a relief center, bringing back those who were harmed by the Mimics to raise them, picking out those with good talents to train, and bringing them into the game to fight back against the Mimics." He expressed his guess.

Xu Zhiyan couldn't judge this matter.

If there were no relief centers established by the summoners, some people might forget their hatred and live a happy life as ordinary people; others might go astray due to lack of survival resources, end up on the streets and in jail... There are too many examples like this, and no one can say whether the summoners' approach is right or wrong.

"No wonder you said the Joker wouldn't want the Summoner to die." He did not comment on the Summoner's behavior.

Dou Hongshan lowered his head and said hesitantly.

"I thought you would think the Summoner's actions were wrong."

Xu Zhiyan shook his head and walked into the relief center. "I rarely judge other people's right or wrong."

Everyone has their own choice.

The summoner's behavior may be inappropriate, but he really spent real money to save those affected and gave a home to those who were desperate. Even if someone wants to hate the summoner, it should not be his fault.

Walking into the relief center building, Xu Zhiyan looked at the sleeping dormitory manager and the full roster in surprise: "There are quite a few people here."

"Well, this is just one of the funding points. We are not sure where the summoner has gone..."

This is also what Dou Hongshan is struggling with.

She took Xu Zhiyan to the archive room and pulled out a booklet with the addresses of several rescue centers. "This is the largest rescue center, but we are not sure where he went."

It is impossible to determine who is controlling the body now, whether it is the summoner or Ran Que.

“Buzz——”

Dou Hongshan's cell phone rang.

The sender is a clown.

The message included a photo of a titmouse lying in the clown's palm.

Dou Hongshan did not hide it. Xu Zhiyan glanced at the other party's screen and quickly recognized that this tit was the white-haired bird that once stood on Ran Que's shoulder.

But now the pure white fur was dyed red, and there was no sign of life at all.

[The time of death was early this morning, only the bird.] In other words, in the early morning, someone found the summoner somewhere in the real world and killed the titmouse on his shoulder.

An expression of fear flashed across Dou Hongshan's face, and he turned his head and pleaded in a hoarse voice.

"There are many relief points, and seven of them lost contact this morning... I hope you can help us find the summoner." Before seeing the body of the tit, she was able to divide the work with the clown and talk rationally with Xu Zhiyan, but after seeing the body of the tit, she was shrouded in great fear.

In fact, the summoner did not bring too many people into the game, otherwise the Dark Alley would not always be short-handed.

Unlike Shell, they did not expand their power into the real world.

Now the possible places for the summoner to go are scattered across several cities, and she is unable to be in all of them, so she doesn't know where to go for a moment.

Xu Zhiyan didn't expect that he had just joined in and something big happened to the summoner. Fortunately, although he was short of manpower, he had the help of the system.

I called back and three minutes later, Asa's message came.

[Good evening, Mr. Xu. I have checked the surveillance cameras at these locations for you. There are four locations where suspicious people have entered and exited.]

Minus the one the Joker just found, there are three left.

After looking at the coordinates sent by Asa, Xu Zhiyan found that one of the coordinate points was not far from the Yunshan old house.

"Separate our teams and contact us if you have any questions."

He quickly divided the three coordinates, and the three of them went to check one place at a time.

Although the probability of finding a summoner is one in three.

But Xu Zhiyan's 'luck' is always good.

When the sun had completely set, he followed the coordinates and arrived at an old children's welfare home.

Before I got close, I could smell a strong smell of blood, which was nauseating.