Chapter 518 [(*^▽^*)]
Guo Xia discovered that their first reaction to these words was to the evil god, not to Fu Qingqiu's death. In other words, they knew their son would die, but they didn't care at the time.
Why do you regret it?
Fu Qingqiu's father said without hesitation, "Fu Qingqiu has always been a very principled and opinionated child. He also has an exceptionally strong personality, which means..."
“If we hadn’t sent him to the evil god’s temple, but instead sent someone else, no evil spirits would have appeared, and the whole village wouldn’t have been in this mess… We’ve let the village down.”
Not only Guo Xia, but the other players were also shocked to see their matter-of-fact expressions. Their regret was not that they had sent their sons to be sacrificed, but that their sons had become ungrateful ghosts and returned to wreak havoc on the village after they had chosen them.
Good heavens, the whole village is clearly insane; there's no point in trying to save them.
Although the others felt uncomfortable, they didn't react much, just thinking that these villagers were weirdos. But Guo Xia, who was an official, couldn't help but wonder why he wasn't a policeman here.
If they were police officers, they could arrest everyone in the village directly, those who deserve the death penalty would be executed, and those who deserve to go to jail would be imprisoned. Everyone would have to pay the price they deserve.
Just then, Guo Xia heard a system notification.
"System prompt: Player Guo Xia is suspected of harboring strong resentment towards the villagers. Do you wish to accept the hidden quest? The details of the hidden quest will be revealed after you confirm."
Guo Xia sat there silently. Even when the system notification appeared, his expression did not change at all, as if nothing had happened.
After the other players calmed down, they continued to ask about Fu Qingqiu. Guo Xia also noticed that Fu Qingqiu's parents always referred to their son by his full name.
Of course, similar situations exist in many parts of the real world, but the feeling is different. At least you wouldn't keep your son, who has been admitted to a prestigious university, in the village and offer him up as a human sacrifice to an evil god.
Even after the other person became a vengeful ghost, he regretted it, regretting sending his son as a human sacrifice and turning him into a vengeful ghost, instead of regretting that his son should have protected him, instead...
Forget it, now is not the time to think about this. Guo Xia could roughly guess the content of this hidden quest. Once he accepted it, he would be going against all the players. But there was one advantage: his acceptance of the hidden quest would not be exposed. But there was another disadvantage: the vengeful ghost would not show mercy just because he accepted the hidden quest.
Guo Xia silently said, "Accept the hidden mission."
"System notification: Player Guo Xia has accepted a hidden quest. Main quest changed! Side quest abandoned! Help the vengeful ghost Fu Qingqiu kill all other villagers and successfully persuade Fu Qingqiu to let you leave Haitang Village alive. Quest success rewards 900,000 points, quest failure deducts 450,000 points!"
"System notification: Player Guo Xia is now in a hostile state with all villagers. Killing any one of them will reward you with 1000 points! Note: Please communicate with Fu Qingqiu immediately to ensure your safety!"
Guo Xia silently took a breath. The original main quest could earn 600,000 points, with a deduction of 300,000 for failure. The highest level of side quests could earn 500,000 points, but he didn't think these players could achieve that. Even if they completed the quest, they would most likely only get 100,000 points. Moreover, killing players' villagers shouldn't earn any points, or if they did, it would be very few, like 100 or 200. But he could get 1,000 points for killing one of them.
Although he is currently all alone, he can at least communicate with Fu Qingqiu. If possible, he can not only get help from the vengeful ghost, but also leave the instance safely in the end!
Just then, Lin Leyou, who was not far from the Fu family's residence, received a system notification.
"System notification: A traitor has appeared among the villagers. Please take them in immediately and avoid killing them by mistake."
Lin Leyou was somewhat surprised. Could it be Qin Xingyu, a traitor among the villagers? But... if it was him, why didn't he betray them from the beginning?
Since he didn't betray us at the beginning, Qin Xingyu probably won't betray us later either. If that's the case, then it's not him. So who is it?
Moreover, the system only indicated that there were traitors, but did not tell him how many there were, so it seems that he would have to find them himself.
Speaking of which, could this traitor have triggered a hidden quest? Just like he and Xue Rui triggered a hidden quest in the Xiushan Village instance, defecting to Xiushan Village and turning against the players and NPCs who coveted the treasure.
He looked at Xue Rui, wanting to talk to him about this, but he found that Xue Rui seemed completely unaware. "Xiao Rui, did you hear the system notification just now?"
Xue Rui was taken aback. "What system notification?"
Lin Leyou briefly explained the prompt he had just received, "So you didn't get a prompt on your end?"
Xue Rui said, "I guess it's because I followed you in, so the system doesn't like me just because I'm only a ghost boss..."
Lin Leyou said, "Forget it, this is not a difficult task. Now we need to guess who our partners are. I didn't expect there to be a traitor."
Xue Rui said, "They are definitely not NPC villagers, they must be players."
The first person that came to his mind was Guo Xia. Although Guo Xia was a firm believer and law-abiding in the real world, and even adhered to the rules, this was a dungeon!
No matter how righteous he is, sometimes he can be furious at the actions of certain criminals, but because of his position, he cannot take action himself.
If it were him, after learning what the Fu family and the village had done to Fu Qingqiu, he would never have protected the villagers or killed Fu Qingqiu's ghost.
But there is indeed another problem: there may be more than one traitor, and even if he thinks that Guo Xia might be one of them, he cannot take the initiative to contact him.
It's alright. Knowing Guo Xia's personality, the other party will definitely come to Fu Qingqiu on their own. That way, they won't need to go through any trouble.
"These traitors will definitely offer to find the evil god's temple to get closer to us in order to avoid being mistakenly killed by the vengeful ghost. We just need to wait."
Lin Leyou nodded, "That's what I think too, and the traitor is definitely among these ten people."
After all, only these ten players had previously visited the village chief's house and now they had come to the Fu family, so they knew the most, including Guo Xia.
Both of them guessed it was Guo Xia, but they still had to wait and see what Guo Xia did next. At this moment, voices came from inside the house again.
It was Fu Qingqiu's father's voice again, "This matter... was indeed our fault. If we had known it would turn out this way, we wouldn't have said anything. So what if we made a mistake? He's my own son, would he really lay a hand on us?"
Zhou Nanyue spoke up, which was rare for her, "That's not necessarily true. After all, your son is dead. The one who has come back for revenge is a vengeful ghost. It's hard to say whether it has any independent consciousness. Maybe it's just being controlled by a heart full of hatred, and it just wants to kill everyone."
Fu Qingqiu's family was terrified. They had naturally considered this possibility, but they kept deceiving themselves, believing that Fu Qingqiu would never harm them.
But now that beautiful bubble has been burst by them, they suddenly feel that the future is bleak. Can they really survive?
The reason they've survived until now, without being killed at the beginning, is it really because Fu Qingqiu wanted to leave them until the end to torture them slowly?
"What should we do?" they cried, burying their faces in their hands. "What are we going to do? Are we really going to die?"
Players may dislike them, but they still need to protect them. They need to protect at least a hundred people to get the minimum points reward for the side quest.
The main quest costs 600,000, and the lowest tier of side quests costs 100,000, so that's a total of 700,000, which is really a considerable amount!
Everyone was excited, after all, the difficulty of the A-level dungeon was considerable, and the large number of points rewards was reasonable. Although the villagers were annoying, the tasks that needed to be done could not be neglected.
"Alright, let's not talk about that. You haven't told us what Fu Qingqiu is usually concerned about or afraid of. We're here to find the weaknesses of the evil spirits, maybe we can kill them."
Upon hearing this, Fu Qingqiu's family members stopped crying and began frantically recalling things related to Fu Qingqiu, such as what he liked, disliked, and was afraid of.
However... the more they recalled, the more guilty they felt. Under the player's aggressive gaze, they all lowered their heads and remained silent, seemingly unaware of anything at all.
Zhou Nanyue's expression was rather unpleasant. "Don't you even know what he cares about?"
Fu Qingqiu's father suddenly said, "He cares a lot about his admission letter. He has kept it hidden carefully since he got it, and we still haven't found it."
"How is that possible? Even if he hid it and couldn't be found normally, weren't you going to drive him to town to catch the bus? In that case, he would definitely have the admission notice on his person..."
The player stopped there, thought for a moment, and then asked the other players, "Do you think he might have carried the acceptance letter with him, and after he was drugged and taken back to the village, it was nailed to the stone coffin along with the letter?"
Players agreed, saying, "If we can't find it in his luggage, it must be on his person. Great, the notice is now in the vengeful spirit's lair."
The player continued to look at the three of them, "Anything else? Nothing else besides this?"
They continued to recall cautiously, desperately trying to think of anything related to Fu Qingqiu, but they couldn't come up with anything, since they didn't care about Fu Qingqiu at all.
"Here's what we'll do: we've packed up all his things and put them in the storage room. You can look for them yourselves; maybe you'll find something useful. As for the rest... we really don't know."
A burly man, nearly two meters tall, stood up, exuding an imposing aura. "Lead the way!"
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