Chapter 71 Children’s Choir (End)
Xie Songlan replied quickly.
Mainly, she was quite surprised.
Because Xie Songlan and Duan Chouyu were not very familiar with each other. The two had only worked together in a dungeon before. At that time, Xie Songlan had the idea of recruiting new members, but in the end Duan Chouyu joined the third guild.
So, in addition to being strangers, the two people are also in a state of opposition.
Xie Songlan really didn't expect that Duan Chouyu would take the initiative to talk to her one day.
Duan Chouyu called Xie Songlan into the glass room. This was her own base, a place that even the president of the Third Guild didn't know about, so it was very suitable for their subsequent conversation.
"You plan to recover your memory?" Xie Songlan couldn't help but ask, "Is it for your brother who entered the game?"
Recently, Gu Qiufeng deliberately released this matter in the live broadcast room, so the forum was abuzz with discussions about the Duan siblings. Xie Songlan had heard about it.
Duan Chouyu shook his head, paused, and said, "Not entirely. I was thinking of doing this originally."
She has no memories, but she knows who she is. Duan Chouyu guessed that the reason she erased her memories was not only because she was afraid that the game would attack her mental power, so she had to be free of desires, but also because there must be something extremely important in her memory that made Duan Chouyu not even trust herself, and she had to erase it completely to keep the secret.
Before Duan Chouyu cleared her memory, she made an anchor point for herself. She didn't trust anyone, including the president of the third guild behind her. The choice of memory was always determined by Duan Chouyu.
The anchor she served as was her own brother.
Perhaps Duan Jiangli was ruthlessly drawn into the game because he knew something he shouldn't have known.
And these can only be known after her memory is unlocked.
"Then why did you look for me?" Seeing Duan Chouyu suddenly pursed her lips and fell into deep thought, Xie Songlan waved her hand in front of her eyes, "Although we have no grudge against each other, it is obvious that we have different positions, right? Aren't you afraid that I will take advantage of you?"
"Or do you not think your president can be trusted?"
＊
After Gu Qiufeng and his companions had breakfast, they went back to their rooms to rest for a while. In the afternoon, they gathered again at the stairs.
The priest was standing next to him, looking at Gu Qiufeng expressionlessly but with ardent eyes: "Boss, remember our agreement."
This dungeon BOSS, who made many people shudder at the mention of it, just bent over and watched them go up, like a loyal and polite butler.
[emmmm I feel complicated and tearful. When will NPC treat me like this?]
[By the way, have you seen what happened in the forum news section recently? I heard that there is a commotion within the Third Guild! ]
[That post was deleted very quickly, after all, it was the third guild that was controlling the forum orz]
[To be honest, I have always felt that there is something wrong with their guild philosophy. If the prophet was not the vice president, I might not have had a good impression of the Third Guild at all.]
They reached a floor they had not visited yesterday.
"The last floor should be where the medicine is stored." Duan Jiangli said, "It is mentioned in the diary that after the epidemic was at its worst, the walls of all the rooms here were broken through and transformed into medicine rooms."
There are no walls around, but transparent glass material, on which are placed various medicines and chemical medicinal materials, even raw materials of traditional Chinese medicine.
The relevant academic names and instructions for use are labeled on the glass.
"Is there really something here?" Dai Xiao looked at it and shrank his neck. "It feels like there is a spooky aura around here."
"Those herbs must have been kept in cold storage." Duan Jiangli said, "Don't scare yourself. Let's move forward."
Gu Qiufeng tried to take a step forward.
Then he paused and frowned.
Duan Jiangli behind him was caught off guard and failed to brake, so the two of them bumped into each other.
"What's wrong?" Duan Jiangli said, holding his chin that was hit. "Is there something wrong?"
Gu Qiufeng said in a calm voice: "When I took the first step, I heard a little girl humming a song."
"Ah...?" Dai Xiao began to panic.
Duan Jiangli said: "I didn't hear anything."
Gu Qiufeng turned around and looked at Duan Jiangli: "Go ahead and give it a try."
Gu Qiufeng and Dai Xiao stood behind Duan Jiangli, staring at Duan Jiangli as he was about to try.
Duan Jiangli touched the back of his head and slowly and deeply lifted his feet forward. Then his expression changed and he quickly retracted his feet.
Suddenly, something jumped down from the ceiling.
Gu Qiufeng hurriedly walked to Duan Jiangli and found that the young man was wiping the blood foam off his face with a gloomy look on his face.
"What is that?" Dai Xiao didn't dare to look directly at it. He carefully covered his eyes with his hands, walked in front of his companion, looked out through the gap between his fingers, and then hesitated and said, "It looks like a child."
Duan Jiangli said to Gu Qiufeng: "The sound you just heard should be the sound she made on the ceiling."
No one knew when this little thing had sneaked up on them and was following them.
"How to solve it?" Duan Jiangli asked Gu Qiufeng.
Dai Xiao said in embarrassment: "It's just a child, forget it."
Duan Jiangli said helplessly: "Do you think this is a child?"
Dai Xiao pursed his lips and said, "She was also a child before she died. I don't know how much torture she suffered in her life."
When the hideous ghost child heard Dai Xiao's words, its body suddenly shook violently. Then it raised its head blankly, and large drops of sticky blood flowed out of its empty eye sockets.
It opened its mouth with great effort: "Don't go...it will hurt..."
Dai Xiao was frightened, but it was obvious that she needed to take the initiative to ask questions, so she half-knelt down in front of the ghost child to look it in the eye, rubbed her hand on its cold blue-gray cheek, and said sincerely: "We are going forward to understand your past and help you get rid of it."
The child stared at her with terrifying eyes. After an unknown amount of time, the child slowly lowered its head. The deadly bluish-white color around its body quickly faded away. Dai Xiao looked in surprise at the little girl in front of her who had suddenly become normal.
She was very beautiful, with deep eye sockets, a pair of blue eyes, golden hair that seemed to be dipped in sunlight, and a chubby mouth, just like the doll that Dai Xiao loved very much when he was a child.
The little girl stood up from the ground, lifted her skirt and saluted Gu Qiufeng and the other two, then walked forward with light steps and disappeared into the darkness.
"We can continue to move forward." Gu Qiufeng said.
Duan Jiangli was puzzled: "This brat clearly wanted to kill me just now, why is he so easily moved? Could it be that the hatred we attract is different?"
Gu Qiufeng looked at Dai Xiao who was kneeling on the ground in a daze and said softly, "She should have awakened her spiritual skills."
In some ways, psychic players are like the strongest assistant in this game, who can both kill and save people, and kill people invisibly; but the disadvantages are also obvious, psychic players are not suitable for entering dungeons.
Their health bars are so thin that even the slightest bit of mental pollution will cause them to disintegrate and collapse.
Dai Xiao's personality is inherently gentle and weak, and sometimes she even has a hint of compassion regardless of the situation. Judging from the performance of the ghost child, her skills should be biased towards non-aggressive friendliness. It is not known whether this is a blessing or a curse.
Duan Jiangli muttered, "She already has skills, why haven't I awakened yet?"
However, there is no point in worrying about this at this time. The most important thing is to quickly explore the dungeon and complete it.
Duan Jiangli walked beside Gu Qiufeng and said, "Perfect clearance and closing the instance are not the same thing, right?"
"I'm not sure about this, but a perfect clearance will not completely close the instance." Gu Qiufeng said, "But I'd like to hear your opinion."
He had not paid attention to this matter before. He learned about it from the forum. As for the perfect clearance, Duan Chouyu had already passed it perfectly once before him when he was at Yucheng University.
Duan Jiangli said thoughtfully: "If the invasion of the copy in reality is because you closed the copy, and eliminated the origin to eliminate the abnormality, so that a certain area from the origin pollution returned to a normal place, then what is the meaning of a perfect clearance?"
"What does it mean for the game to have this perfect clearance?"
[Ah, what Xiao Duan said is a bit scary when you think about it. I just thought that I could get more rewards by completing the game perfectly, but I never thought about it deeply.]
[But to be honest, before Xiao Duan entered the dungeon, most of us ordinary people didn’t know that games really have a lot of connections with reality, right? ]
[Did the above person enter the dungeon too early? Recently, the authorities have begun to gradually reveal certain things in reality to us. I remember that before I entered the dungeon, the contact information of the Abnormality Handling Center had been announced on TV and radio, so that we could seek help in time.]
[There was a big commotion in Province Y half a year ago, but we didn’t plan to reveal it at the time, so I remember covering it up with the forest fire rescue.]
[But the most important thing is, if Xiao Duan hadn’t entered the dungeon, we wouldn’t have known that Boss Gu could not only close the dungeon in the game, but also directly affect the dungeon monsters that escaped in reality.]
[Is Xiao Duan really just a rich boy? I don’t believe it…]
[I think we have overlooked a very important issue. Whether or not Boss Gu really wants to save the world is another matter...]
"What do you think?" Duan Jiangli said.
Gu Qiufeng smiled and said, "How should I answer this irrelevant question?"
Duan Jiangli: "Don't interrupt."
"Why are you asking this?" Gu Qiufeng said.
Duan Jiangli sighed, "Everyone has their own aspirations. I know you are warm on the outside but cold on the inside. Everyone has their own motives. I want to destroy this game and the existence behind it because of hatred and a sense of justice. And more humans want to fight against the game, firstly for survival, and also because of a certain kind of collective destiny that is almost fantasy."
"What about you? What's your motivation?"
Gu Qiufeng's pale eyes seemed to flash a glimmer in the darkness, and he chuckled.
There seemed to be something in that laughter, but it was so fast that Duan Jiangli couldn't catch it in an instant.
Gu Qiufeng didn't say anything else.
Duan Jiangli then said, "I want to respect your ideas. If these are a burden to you, then don't worry about it. Everyone has his own way of living. There are always countless people who will come forward to save the world, and you are not the only one. I don't want you to become the target of public criticism because of your ability. I am afraid that you will bear things that you should not bear because of this ability."
Duan Jiangli said a lot in one breath. To be honest, after discovering Gu Qiufeng's skills, his first reaction was naturally surprise.
But then, there was more fear.
I don’t know why, but humans always like to look for a hero, deify him, and then force him to bear some huge responsibilities.
The fate of a hero is either to work diligently in his duties until death, or to fall from the altar and be devoured by believers.
Duan Jiangli has seen many people who became heroes just because of their abilities.
His sister, Lu Jinghong, the captain ten years ago, was actually given countless responsibilities, and they gave up too many things for this. Although they volunteered to be martyrs, Duan Jiangli didn't want to see someone being forced to be worshipped on some altar, doing something that they might not even like, and calling it "responsibility and obligation".
"Here it is!" Dai Xiao ran back from a distance, holding a yellowed and worn piece of kraft paper, and said, "This should be the final clue."
Duan Jiangli cleared his throat and shifted his gaze: "Let me see."
*
"You have raised your brother very well." Xie Songlan said, holding her face behind the bright blue screen, "I like his point of view very much."
Duan Chouyu sighed: "He said this on purpose in front of the camera."
Xie Songlan blinked: "Ah?"
"I was wrong." Duan Chouyu said seriously, "He was telling me this. My brother is very smart, he should have guessed some of my thoughts."
At this point, a faint smile appeared between her eyebrows: "We should have lived in perfect harmony for many years."
Xie Songlan, who has a brother but does not have a tacit understanding, felt a chill when she heard it. She rubbed her arms silently and could not help but said, "I'm sorry, I put myself in my brother's shoes. I feel like vomiting."
Duan Chouyu agreed: "Mr. Xie has many secrets."
"Okay, they've gone to the patient's place, and they should be able to clear the dungeon soon." Xie Songlan said, "Let's turn off the live broadcast and start right away. The game update date is coming soon, and you have to get well before the update."
Duan Chouyu nodded quietly.
When Xie Songlan went out to check, she suddenly said, "Miss Xie, do you feel that there is something wrong before this update?"
Xie Songlan leaned against the door: "What do you mean?"
"I feel like there are two opposing forces within the game," Duan Chouyu said. "One force wants to kill humans, so it set up copies to help monsters invade reality. The other force is a little friendlier to humans..."
Xie Songlan continued, "So that's why there are phenomena like perfect clearance and copy closure?"
Duan Chouyu said: "It's useless to worry about this now. Thank you for your hard work."
Xie Songlan waved his hand: "It's just a small favor. Anyway, I'm happy to do anything that can make your president unhappy."
She went out and closed the door quietly. With a touch of her fingertips, a cluster of ice crystals climbed up the door from her fingertips and completely froze the entire door.
This is her skill. Xie Songlan can manipulate the five elements, and the ice attribute is both a defense and an attack. Unless Xie Songlan dies, no one can break this barrier.
Setting up an extra barrier is a precaution. In case Xie Songlan is delayed by something, no one can disturb Duan Chouyu who is recovering his memory in the house.
Just when Xie Songlan was squatting at the door doing nothing, her nose twitched slightly, her face became serious, and she stood up suddenly.
A man in a long windbreaker suddenly appeared in front of her.
To be able to find this place so quickly, Duan Chouyu must have been marked by him with some kind of tracking mark.
Xie Songlan curled the corners of his lips coldly, crossed his chest and said, "Kuihua, as the president of the Third Guild, you came to our Second Guild's base without permission. Don't you plan to tell me something?"
"Then I have to ask President Xie why he wanted to kidnap our vice president," Puppet said, "Does your brother know about this?"
"Why, you want to tell your parents? Please, if Xie Songjin sees you, he will do you no less harm than I do." Xie Songlan said, gently knocking on the ice on the door, "Duan Chouyu knows a lot of things, I'm very interested, wait until I can get some useful information from her, and then give it back to you."
"How about you try to see if you can fight me? Let's go to the arena and try it. If you lose, I'll give it back to you."
Xie Songlan thought this deliberately, she wanted to be the bad guy. Her intuition told her that if she revealed Duan Chouyu's intention to break up with her, Duan Chouyu would be in danger.
It would be better for her to help Duan Chouyu cover up directly, since the puppet can't beat her anyway.
"Arena." Kuihua pronounced these three words coldly.
Kuihua knew that the woman in front of him had never entered the dungeon. She was born in City A, but no one dared to question her strength.
Because Xie Songlan is always the first in the unique player arena mechanism of City B. In other words, she is not only a quasi-A-level player now. If Xie Songlan wants, she can completely pass the A-level copy and go to City A.
No one knows the reason for staying in City B.
So the puppet said, "Then let Miss Xie play for two days. Remember to return it to me after you're done. After all, she's still our vice president."
Xie Songlan felt sick. If it weren't for the fact that players couldn't be beaten in the city except in the arena, she would have beaten the bastard to death by now.
What does Puppet Hua regard Duanchouyu as? An item?
What was Duan Chouyu thinking in the first place, that he had to go and join such a thing? He might as well just accept her offer.
Xie Songlan sneered, "You'd better keep pretending. I hate people like you who wear human skin but smell like rotten monsters."
"Puppet, you'd better be on the human side, otherwise I will kill you!"
The puppet didn't respond. He used the prop again, his face expressionless before disappearing.
Xie Songlan was so angry that he took a torch and burned the place where the puppet had just stood.
＊
After completing the dungeon perfectly, Gu Qiufeng returned to the church where he first entered the dungeon. He spent a certain amount of points to bring the priest out.
Duan Jiangli put his hands in his pockets and patted Gu Qiufeng on the shoulder: "Then I'll go to City C. If there's anything, we can keep in touch."
Dai Xiao said at the side: "Mr. Gu, if you need help in the future, please let me know!"
Gu Qiufeng looked at the card in his hand and said goodbye to the two people.
The skill of the Priest card is defense.
In other words, Gu Qiufeng now has corresponding cards for attack, defense, treatment and mental support.
The reason why he hasn't left yet is because the settlement system is stuck again.
Gu Qiufeng didn't feel very well.
The last time the system had problems was when the Huajuan copy was suspected to be invaded by an unknown force, and the time before that was when he accidentally saw Xie Xin half a year ago.
[Ding——Congratulations to the player for reaching 100,000 points]
The reporting voice suddenly changed.
Before, there was a continuous rotation of genderless electronic mechanical voices and female voices.
This time it was an extremely clear male voice, neither hurried nor slow, with a deep and magnetic voice.
[Player qualification upgraded to B level]
I told you, we'll see each other soon.
The church in front of Gu Qiufeng suddenly turned into smoke and disappeared, and he vaguely saw an indistinct slender figure in the distance.
Then, the copy crashed again for the same reason as Hanajuan.
Gu Qiufeng: “.”
Who on earth is this guy?
As the copy collapsed, a hall appeared around him.
Before Gu Qiufeng could react, a hand grabbed him.
"Senior!"
It was Yu Chiang.
He returned to City B after the Huajuan copy collapsed, only to find that Gu Qiufeng had entered other copies for some unknown reason.
Yu Chiang calculated the time and then endured three days in the game hall of City A.
At this moment, his eyes were terribly red.
"It's okay. Someone must be helping me," Gu Qiufeng said, "Someone wants me to come to City B as soon as possible."
Yu Chi'ang said: "Fortunately, Senior arrived before the major game update."
"I watched your live broadcast, and I don't want you to get involved in anything dangerous again." Yu Chi'ang tightly grasped Gu Qiufeng's wrist, his eyes reddening more and more. "Senior, don't get involved in these things, okay? No matter who forces you, senior..."
Before he finished speaking, alarms suddenly sounded around the hall, one after another, and countless players who were waiting in the hall raised their heads.
Gu Qiufeng even saw Xie Songjin.
"What's going on?"
"Is this the major update the prophet mentioned?"
"What will happen after the major update... Last time there was a world boss, how will he torture us this time?"
A deep male voice sounded in the hall of City B.
At the same time, in City C and City D, both dungeon players and life players raised their heads in surprise at the sound.
They had never heard this sound in the game before.
[A major update is ready, and players are forced to exit the dungeon]
[This update will take five days. The copy function and live broadcast system will be shut down within five days, and the mall system will operate normally.]
[Players are requested not to go out during this update, as the foggy and deep land will experience uncontrollable fluctuations]
[Welcome to "Fatal Fall", I wish players a happy five days]
Gu Qiufeng looked at his terminal and saw a new hot-selling item in the mall.
"Mermaid Tears? Number one on the best-selling list, what is this thing?" Gu Qiufeng asked curiously.
Yu Chi'ang had just finished listening to the game update notification and was instructing the guild's backbone members to stabilize people's hearts and deal with things when he heard Gu Qiufeng's voice. He took the time to say, "It's a prop for the world boss of City B. If it weren't for the update, the world copy of City B would be opened, so many people bought it."
The BOSS in City B must be much stronger than those in the other two copies. There is no fool who would not be tempted by the possibility of purchasing items to cooperate with others.
But Gu Qiufeng didn't know why his heart suddenly skipped a beat and a strange feeling arose.
Why do we need to release items specifically targeting this dungeon boss? Shouldn't the game company and these dungeon bosses have the same stance?
Why does it seem like Origin wants to kill it more than the players do?
"What's wrong?" Yu Chi'ang asked.
Gu Qiufeng shook his head: "It's okay, just keep busy, I was just overthinking it."
As soon as the two men finished talking, Xie Songjin in the crowd saw them from afar and hurried over.
"I'm here." Xie Songjin waved at Gu Qiufeng, "There will be changes in the city in the latest update. Come and live with me?"
When Gu Qiufeng heard this, he knew something was wrong.
"Does Vice President Xie mean that Changyu Tavern cannot keep anyone?" Yu Chi'ang even hung up the phone and looked at Xie Songjin with an unhappy face.
The president of Changyu Tavern never shows up, so Xie Songjin didn’t care who Yu Chiang was at all.
At this moment, he realized what was going on, so he smiled and said, "Ah, it's President Yu, long time no see. I just got along well with Mr. Gu, so I wanted to help him during this special period."
"Help?" Yu Chi'ang said, "Vice President Xie has far-reaching plans. I'm afraid that if I go, I won't be able to come back."
"You make it sound like our guild is a den of wolves that eat people without leaving any bones." Xie Songjin said with a smile.
Gu Qiufeng said, "I'll live with Xiaoyu. I won't bother President Xie anymore."
"Xie Songjin," Yu Chiang said, "I know you want to avenge your parents. But this has nothing to do with me. I admire what you want to do, and I will help you if I can, but the premise is that you can't drag other irrelevant people into it because of your own selfishness."
After he finished speaking, he seemed to be upset and used the teleportation item to teleport himself and Gu Qiufeng back to the room in the chain hotel.
Yu Chi'ang said, "If you live here, no one will bother you, senior."
"What turmoil will occur during the copy update?" asked Gu Qiufeng.
Yu Chi'ang thought for a moment and said, "I haven't seen it, but according to the information, some monsters in the foggy area will take the opportunity to escape. If the players run into them, it will be difficult for them to escape."
"The fog is thick and the water is deep..." Gu Qiufeng thought of Gu Jiu again.
"Senior, I'll take you around City B after the update." Yu Chi'ang said seriously, "With me here, no one can force you to do something you don't like."
Gu Qiufeng said, "Xiaoyu, actually, I entered this game for a purpose."
"What?" Yu Chi'ang asked in surprise.
Gu Qiufeng said: "One is that I thought Xie Xin would be in danger, so I secretly took away his seldom used mobile phone to investigate the "Fatal Fall" company."
"Xie Xin is a monster." Yu Chiang frowned.
Gu Qiufeng made a conclusion in his heart.
Yu Chi'ang's true feelings towards him were enough to prove that they were very, very good friends. Gu Qiufeng could now be sure that Xie Xin had tampered with his memory.
Yu Chiang and Xie Xin might have had a feud because of this... or maybe Xiaoyu's entry into the game was also...
Gu Qiufeng's eyes flashed with darkness and he didn't want to think about it anymore.
"There is another reason." Gu Qiufeng continued, "I am looking for someone in the game."
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