Chapter 1 The Strange Girl

A new gameplay mode has been introduced in JX3!

Clearing any level may trigger a new adventure: [Heroic Martial World]

At 11:43 a.m. on Monday, the game maintenance update was detected as complete, and hardcore players showed off their amazing experiences and entered the game immediately.

"Although I don't know if this new way of playing will be fun or not, for the sake of new adventures, even if it's a pile of shit, I have to taste it with tears in my eyes."

As the progress bar advances, you'll encounter unexpected adventures and enter new game worlds.

"Have you heard? Jiang Chongwei, the chief steward of the Prince of Pingnan's mansion, has been blinded, the mansion has been robbed, and 800,000 taels of silver belonging to the Zhenyuan Escort Agency have also been stolen."

"More than that,"

"There are also seventy priceless scrolls of calligraphy and paintings from Huayuxuan's collection, a batch of red goods from Zhendongbao, and ninety thousand taels of gold leaves from Jinsha River!"

"It is said that this person committed sixty or seventy major cases in a month, all of which he did single-handedly."

As soon as she entered the game level, a bunch of NPC dialogues popped up in front of her. She skillfully ignored these dialogue bubbles, glanced to her left, and found that a new quest had indeed appeared.

"Arrive at Master Bitter Gourd's meditation room within the time limit to trigger the event."

A small yellow marker appeared on the screen. Adjust your orientation to face the marker. You discovered that the destination was a full 1356 feet away from where you were.

I skillfully opened the map, and sure enough, there were no points on the mission map where I could teleport.

With a sigh, he showed off his adventure, closed the map as expected, activated his advanced light-foot technique, and began flying towards his destination.

After constantly adjusting her direction in the air, she finally reached directly above the mission objective just as her stamina was about to run out. She clicked "rapid descent," unleashing a sudden, dramatic fall. Just when she thought she would land on the roof, her character unexpectedly crashed through it and landed directly inside the yellow circle of the building.

Lu Xiaofeng: "How come I've never heard of these things?"

Master Bitter Gourd: "You've been in the Northwest lately..."

The dialogue above the NPCs' heads in the room appears. As someone who doesn't follow the storyline, my principle when encountering unexpected events is to skip them if possible, and if I can't skip them, I'll do something else first.

She had just run out of energy and was about to meditate to recover it when she noticed that the NPC's dialogue bubble had changed.

She sat down and, after showing off her adventure, discovered several dishes on the table in front of her: a bowl of vegetarian ham and a bowl of potstickers with tofu. The interaction button was on her right.

Showing off the adventure, I clicked on it, and the game character automatically stood up, with a progress bar for eating appearing in front of him.

"Master Bitter Gourd's vegetarian feast is truly unparalleled in the world; even a Bodhisattva would be moved by its aroma!"

A bubble appeared above the character's head as they shared their adventure, and the game character spun around three times in place before jumping up, cupping their face in their hands.

"This interaction is quite interesting, no less so than the tempting boiled fish," Xiuchu secretly praised.

New dialogues also started popping up among the surrounding NPCs.

Master Bitter Gourd: "Girl, what's wrong with you?"

She showed off her unexpected encounter only to realize the story had ended. She waited quietly for three seconds, but no dialogue box popped up. All the NPCs around her were facing her, which confused her.

"What's going on? Is it because of a slow internet connection and the connection is stuck?"

I turned off Wi-Fi and switched to mobile data, but the dialog box still didn't pop up. There weren't many people on the server at this hour, and I figured I wouldn't get an answer in the world chat. I exited the game, showed my unexpected encounter, and started searching on Xiaohongshu (a Chinese social media platform) to see if anyone else had encountered this problem.

*********

Today, Master Bitter Gourd is hosting a vegetarian feast and inviting everyone to eat. Lu Xiaofeng and his companions are eating and chatting about the newly emerged Embroidered Thief.

Unexpectedly, after exchanging only a few words, a woman in a pink dress descended from the sky, crashing through the roof and landing precisely next to the table.

"You've come uninvited, young lady. Are you an unwelcome guest?" Master Bitter Gourd couldn't help but feel a little angry as he looked at the vegetarian meal he had painstakingly prepared, now covered in a layer of dust. He asked in a less than calm tone.

To everyone's surprise, the girl ignored them completely and sat down without paying any attention to anyone in the room.

Hua Manlou, being kind-hearted, asked gently, "Are you injured, young lady? Are you currently practicing internal energy to regulate your breathing?"

The woman still ignored him. Then, she suddenly stood up, picked up the vegetarian dish from the table, and began to eat.

"Young lady, you mustn't! This is dusty; eating it will upset your stomach." Lu Xiaofeng, always chivalrous, tried to stop her, but the woman ignored him. Not only that, she ate incredibly fast; in just five breaths, the two bowls of vegetarian dishes on the table were completely gone.

"Young lady, you..."

Before anyone could say anything more, the strange woman started moving again.

She spun around three times, then cupped her face in her hands and jumped up, shouting as she did so, "Master Bitter Gourd's vegetarian feast is truly unparalleled in the world; even a Bodhisattva would be moved by its aroma!"

Praised by this strange girl, Master Bitter Gourd's anger over the ruined vegetarian meal subsided somewhat, and even his tone became gentler.

"Young lady, what's going on?"

Everyone in the room looked at the woman, wanting to know what was going on.

The group waited for over ten breaths, but received no response from the woman. She stood motionless, as if she were a puppet. After several breaths, Lu Xiaofeng tried to ask again, but a flash of white light appeared before his eyes, and the woman vanished without a trace!

*********

After browsing around on Douyin, Douyin, and Douyin, I finally understood why the dialog box hadn't popped up.

"The restroom is great. They've even developed a new chat mode where players can type their own replies in the nearby chat channel. That sounds interesting."

I couldn't wait to open the game and show off my adventure to test the NPCs' tolerance for copycats.

I excitedly logged into the game, showed off my amazing adventure, and was surprised to find that the NPCs who were standing in the same spot had all disappeared.

"???"

"What's going on? Another bug?"

I logged out of the game and logged back in, but I still didn't see the NPC.

"Huh? What's going on? Where are my NPCs? Where is my storyline? Do I have to start the quest again?"

She opened the task list, attempting to cancel the task and accept it again. However, the task list had already been updated to the next stage: Please follow Lu Xiaofeng to investigate the whereabouts of the Embroidered Thief.

"So the mission was already completed, but..."

Show off your amazing adventure by rotating the screen to make sure you're the only player on the game screen.

Where is Lu Xiaofeng?

"Please follow the task description!"

The screen repeatedly displayed instructions to perform the task as described, but there were no other instructions for the task.

Enraged, he showed off his extraordinary encounter and then abruptly abandoned the mission.

However,

"This mission cannot be abandoned."

"Ugh, this damn bathroom!"

Enough is enough; there's no need to endure any longer.

After all this commotion, it was already past 1 p.m., and more people were appearing in the world chat. Showing off his amazing adventure, he decisively switched to the world channel and started speaking.

"Can anyone kindly tell me where Lu Xiaofeng is? I'm stuck on the second part of the quest!"

"She's with Madam Xue, the Divine Needle Master. You need to hurry, the NPC will act on his own, or he'll run away," a kind-hearted Qixiu replied.

"Okay, thank you, senior sister!"

Open the map, find the mission location, adjust your facing direction, and you can immediately take off using your light-footed skill.

After using up three energy bars, I finally managed to fly to my destination through a lucky encounter.

Before she could even go inside, she saw a speech bubble appear above the heads of several female NPCs at the entrance.

"Miss went to the capital with Lu Xiaofeng. I don't know what kind of spell Lu Xiaofeng cast on her, but she didn't want to stay at the manor and insisted on following him around."

Upon noticing this message, Xiuchu Qiyu quickly turned around, opened the map, and flew back to the capital.

She had only flown halfway when she saw her target NPC, Lu Xiaofeng, emerge from an inn with a girl named Xue Bing. She quickly ran over, selected Lu Xiaofeng, and clicked "follow."

Lu Xiaofeng: "Miss, it's you!"

Xue Bing: "Who are you? Why are you patting Lu Xiaofeng on the shoulder?"

She habitually ignored the NPC dialogue for a second, then suddenly remembered that she needed to interact with the NPCs herself in this instance. She quickly opened the nearby chat channel and started copying dialogues.

"Who are you? Why are you patting Lu Xiaofeng on the shoulder?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean?"

Why are you copying me?

Why are you copying me?

"you!"

Just as he was showing off his amazing encounter and preparing to continue teasing the NPCs, he suddenly noticed that Xue Bing, whose name was originally displayed in yellow, had turned red.

Lu Xiaofeng: "No!"

A knife was pulled from the chest of the character who had just experienced the adventure, and a string of red numbers appeared on the character's body.

The next second,

"Enter battle."

Without turning off the martial arts assistant, Xue Bing's character automatically countered with a surprise attack, unleashing a powerful "Rapid Melody of the Tortoise Strings - Enlightenment," dealing three hits that decimated Xue Bing's health bar, leaving only a small portion remaining.

Lu Xiaofeng: "Stop!"

Showing off his extraordinary encounter, Xue Bing swiftly closed the martial arts assistant. Fortunately, he didn't unleash his next skill, Sword Qi Yangtze River - Enlightenment, and managed to survive.

Lu Xiaofeng: "Why did you resort to such extreme measures?"

"She started it."

Lu Xiaofeng: "..."

Seemingly realizing that Xue Bing was indeed in the wrong, Lu Xiaofeng had no intention of continuing the argument. He picked up Xue Bing, turned around, and returned to the inn, shouting as he ran, "Sikong Zhaixing, come out and save her!"

An NPC dressed as a waiter ran out and led Lu Xiaofeng and his companions into a room, placing Xue Bing on the bed. Lu Xiaofeng turned to look at the strange encounter.

"Since you have already injured Xue Bing, why are you still following me?"

Knowing that copying too many NPCs would turn their names red, Xiuchu didn't continue copying and honestly replied, "I'll go with you to find the Embroidered Bandit."

Lu Xiaofeng: "The Embroidered Bandit? Could it be that you also have relatives or friends who were harmed by the Embroidered Bandit? And how did you know I was going to see him?"

A note from the author:

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Pre-order now for "[JX3] Why Pets Aren't Considered Summoned Beasts"

Jiang Zhengliu only spent time in prison at Taiji Palace before he was transported to another world.

I traveled into my own body in a parallel universe.

At this moment, she is facing the first major hurdle in her life: the college entrance examination.

"New number, don't mess with it! I graduated from university several years ago."

"So it's a game-based college entrance exam where you obtain summoned beasts through dungeons?"

"That's all."

"But why is the initial instance Daoxiang Village?"

Looking at the familiar village chief,

Jiang Zhengliu, a veteran player of JX3 (Swordman Online 3) with many years of experience and a skilled player of Daoxiang Village, revealed a confident smile.

"Isn't this a piece of cake?"

Later, the other summoners who fought against Jiang Zhengliu,

You're saying this elephant that runs into the crowd and uses its crazy stomp attack is a Ghost-type?

Jiang Zhengliu: "It comes from the void and returns to the void, so how can it not be considered a ghost type?"

You're saying this little sheep that can use Heal is a Rock-type?

Jiang Zhengliu: "Actually, my summoned creature is the stone under its butt, and the lamb is just its friend."

The turtle carrying the stone table is not a water-type, the lantern floating in mid-air is not a ghost-type, and the round little pig is not a animal-type.

Other Summoners: "Jiang Zhengliu, what other surprises (crossed out, shocks) do you have that we don't know about?"