Chapter 254 Crimson Mirror
The lingering and melodramatic story on the panel seems to have only just begun.
Xu Zhiyan was in a dilemma.
He didn't receive any signal that Xu Xiaohua was injured, so he didn't dare to take the child back.
However, considering the above descriptions of the painter, he took a deep breath and felt that it was probably Xu Xiaohua who did it.
Although this naughty kid was afraid of the painter at first, when Xinan was fighting with Slice, he called him and said that his mother and uncle were doing something strange... Although the fight was indeed strange, this description obviously increased the strangeness of the fight!
He began to doubt whether Xu Xiaohua had received any training.
In the live broadcast room, some viewers had already started wailing.
Someone recognized Xu Xiaohua's photo.
[Ahhh that? That little girl? ? Damn!]
[@Xiaobaiwan, do you still need a son? One who has been to college and entered a dungeon.]
[Don't be so funny upstairs. 】
[A monster worth 10 million. Damn. When I saw the advertisement on Shell, I was wondering who was so stupid to spend money to buy a monster worth 10 million.]
[I didn't expect that the idiot who spent 10 million was actually a small millionaire! ]
[Wuwuwuwuwu, it would be great if I could give you 10 million. That B-rank monster will probably be crushed to pieces soon! ]
[Didn’t you notice? This B-level monster is also called Xu Xiaohua, and looks very similar to Xu Xiaohua from Nightmare Community…]
[Ah, didn't Xiao Baiwan spend money to choose memory implant? I didn't expect that he likes children so much! ]
[I don't see that he likes her particularly? But Xiao Baiwan was indeed quite gentle when it came to children in the dungeon, like Xiao He before, and the little sister who was obviously under mind control.]
Soon, under the design of Tianluo Butler, the audience's thoughts followed the clues given by the safe house and automatically completed Xu Xiaohua's identity.
[I understand! So Xiao Baiwan actually still misses his cheap daughter? So he spent a lot of money to buy this related monster! And he even paid extra to modify the memory! ? ]
[More than 10 million! That’s more than 10 million points! ]
[Damn rich man! Take this stick from me! ]
[I misjudged Xiao Baiwan. I used to think he was stingy, but now it seems that he is just selectively stingy.]
[It makes sense. He is a businessman. He should spend when he should and save when he should.]
[Indeed... I can open a guild backpack with 20 million at will, and I can buy a monster like my adopted daughter with 10 million at will. Woohoo, I want to be rich too! ]
[The little cotton jacket can also help to block monsters, isn’t that great! ]
At this point, Xu Xiaohua's identity was finally clear.
But if Xu Zhiyan read the comments now, he might be amused by the content.
There is no good thing that is cheap.
God damn, this little cotton jacket is clearly a black-hearted cotton!
But now that things have come to this, he is no longer able to change his own melodramatic character.
"boom--"
There was a sudden loud noise outside the hotel, and the ground in the entire hall shook slightly.
Xu Zhiyan subconsciously looked out the window.
There was smoke and dust under the light, and a faint flame was burning.
Oh no! Could it be that the later players were attacked by the dungeon because they were too slow?
But that shouldn't be the case. The bus is very slow. A two-hour journey can be completed in an hour and a half if you drive faster. The percentage of Task 1 is equivalent to the direction. Even if others don't say anything, Jiang Huaique's physical fitness should not be enough for him to run over, right?
He thought of his teammates and walked out quickly.
Unexpectedly, before he even went out, the red-dressed waiter who had just invited him to the statue stood in front of him.
"Sir, are you going out? It looks a little dangerous outside."
Xu Zhiyan didn't expect someone to stop him, but considering the concern in the other party's words, he didn't take it to heart. He nodded slightly, walked around the other party, and continued to walk towards the gate.
Shaking off the waiter's gaze, Xu Zhiyan walked to the door with a dazed expression.
Outside... it seems like there's a fight going on among the players?
In the center of the square, a white sculptural stone pillar stood in a sea of fire. A man wearing a clown mask stood on the sculpture, holding three throwing knives in each hand, as if looking for a target.
The hem of his clothes had been singed black by the flames, and his hair seemed to have been burned in the previous attack as well.
But this did not prevent him from emitting a terrifying sense of oppression from the inside out.
The four star servants had their throats slit and their bodies scattered around the sculpture. Two of them were crushed by broken boulders and turned into a pool of water after twitching.
At the edge, many players were avoiding the attacks, but because small meteorites fell from the sky from time to time, the hotel's defense mechanism was triggered, and a faint red light covered the hotel.
The streetlights around the square became spotlights.
It's as if the clown is the only actor on the stage.
Jiang Huaique, along with Yu Xiu and Jin Sheng, were moving slowly along the edge of the square.
He didn't get too close to the battlefield.
Not too close to the hotel either.
After arriving, everyone received a reminder for Task 2. A player was standing close to the hotel and ran into the hotel as soon as the attack occurred.
At that time, no one realized why the hotel was flashing red lights.
As a result, the first player who touched the red light instantly fell to his knees. His palm that was in contact with the red light began to crack, and blood was constantly being plundered by the life-eating light. The player himself also began to age rapidly.
vitality……
Once the hotel lights up red, you will be sucked of vitality when you touch it!
Fortunately, this player was not so unlucky.
His teammates reacted immediately and pulled him back by the collar.
In just a few seconds, the player in his early twenties instantly turned into someone in his forties, but fortunately he managed to survive.
"Hiss...what's going on! Why is it so exciting right at the start?" Jin Sheng had a large backpack hanging on his back, a suitcase in his left hand, a cat cage in his right hand, and Xiaoyi lying on his head, carrying the weight with great difficulty.
Yu Xiu was holding the supreme scepter and staring at the sky, fearing that a meteorite would fall and he would not be able to defend against it in time.
Jiang Huai Que was alert to the dangers around him and explained lightly.
"The astrologer has a tool that can detect murderous intent. I remember Smiling Tiger also had that thing."
When Gan Mi was in the sanatorium, he detected Xu Zhiyan's murderous intentions towards him.
"I remember that."
Jinsheng held on to the cat cage tightly and didn't dare to let it go.
"But what does this have to do with the astrologer? I don't understand why the astrologer would suddenly attack!"
“…Of course it does!”
Jiang Huai gave Jin Sheng a cold look.
Alvis has never shown that she can detect the murderous intentions of others, but she and Gan Mi belong to the same guild, so it is not impossible that they have similar items.
"The killing intent is incremental, which means that the clown had the killing intent when he saw the astrologer."
Jiang Huai Que sighed.
However, the Joker was more cautious at the beginning and did not launch a violent attack to kill people right away. Instead, he waited for the Astrologer's teammates to arrive.
He suspected that the Joker's initial plan was to give up on killing the opponent if the opponent had other strong teammates, but as the Astrologer's teammates arrived one after another, the Joker discovered that the Astrologer's teammates this time were actually relatively mediocre star servants.
The murderous intent reached its peak.
"call out--"
A small meteorite appeared and fell straight down.
Yu Xiu tightly grasped the Supreme Scepter in both hands and dropped it heavily to the ground. In an instant, a layer of golden light shield appeared above the heads of the three people.
As if worried that the light shield was not enough, he repeated it three times in a row.
"boom--"
The meteorite slammed down, shattering the outermost layer of light shield.
The smoke caused by the collision left only flying dust all around. Jin Sheng had a horrified expression on his face. Without time to think about anything else, he first leaned over to take a look at the cat in the cage.
No stress, it's ok...
He looked at Jiang Huai Que with a confused look on his face.
"No, Brother Jiang, then according to what you said, the clown should have attacked first, right? Why was the astrologer so anxious to attack?!"
Can't these two guys start fighting after they're all inside the hotel?
Jiang Huaiqie smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“This is the astrologer’s chance.”
In everyone's live broadcast room, the topic of discussion turned to astrologers and clowns, and some people expressed the same doubts as Jin Sheng.
[What's going on? So why did the astrologer attack? ]
[Of course it’s because of the skills! 】
[The Astrologer's powerful output skills are mostly range attacks, which are easy to trigger by mistake in a narrow space. There are so many strange rules in the dungeon, who knows what will happen if you accidentally damage him. ]
[Yes, it is very useful when clearing a large number of monsters, but it is useless in a narrow space like in a hotel. ]
[She really did. I was so sad. She even avoided the sculpture in the center of the square.]
[But why did she attack first? ]
【? ? Wake up, the person above. Have you never seen the Joker's next chapter, or studied his skills? 】
[If we use occupations as an alternative, the Ugly Emperor is an assassin. ]
[Elusive, good at close combat and single-target damage. 】
[The astrologer knew that her astrological servant would definitely not be able to stay in the hotel, although he still can’t stay now.]
"The field of vision here is wide, which is suitable for the Astrologer's group attack skills. Once we get to the hotel, her attacks will be greatly reduced, while the Joker's attacks will be enhanced."
Jiang Huai Que fully understood the astrologer's choice.
"If these two old bastards hadn't interrupted our progress in the game, I might have praised the astrologer's decisiveness."
He said this through gritted teeth.
Now that Xu Zhiyan has not been found, he is extremely anxious and does not want to get involved in the dispute between the two guilds at all.
Jin Sheng sighed deeply.
"Astrologers belong to the Ideal Country. If nothing unexpected happens, the Ideal Country should be the most powerful guild at the moment... Which guild is the Joker's?"
"Endless Cards."
Yu Xiu, who was still concentrating on the side, interrupted and said, "At the beginning, Brother Xu said that only the first and third place in the top ten had established new guilds. It's strange that there was one more in the end."
Jinsheng nodded, looking depressed.
"No matter what, let's stay away, otherwise the astrologer's group attack will trigger the hotel's defenses, and everyone will be in trouble."
When everyone was upset, Xiaoyi suddenly called out twice.
“Woof woof!”
"Huh? Have you seen Brother Xu?" Jin Sheng was stunned and quickly looked in the direction Xiaoyi called.
Through the misty dust, one can see Xu Zhiyan confronting an NPC behind the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the hotel.
In the hotel lobby.
Xu Zhiyan was unable to leave smoothly. When he walked towards the revolving door, the waiter he had just walked past stopped him again.
Unlike the previous verbal resistance, this waiter actually grabbed his wrist directly.
"Sir, it's very dangerous outside now. We don't recommend leaving."
Xu Zhiyan frowned and tried to pull his wrist out, but when he pulled hard, the other party didn't move at all.
He had to stop and look at the NPC in front of him.
She does look good, and her height and temperament are different from ordinary people...
Could it be some hidden NPC?
"My friends are still outside. I think I have to go out and get them back." With a distant smile on his face, Xu Zhiyan did not fall out with this NPC.
He saw the red light outside the hotel.
Judging from the fact that the players scattered around looking for places to hide and did not enter the hotel, this red light should be harmful to the players.
But he wasn't close yet, and he wasn't sure if he could help others from inside.
The waiter seemed a little embarrassed.
He released the hand that was holding Xu Zhiyan, his expression full of apology, and the system panel and his words appeared at the same time.
"I'm sorry, but you can't leave now."
[It was detected that a player triggered the hotel protection mechanism. 】
[This layer of protective cover must be opened from the inside, otherwise it cannot be opened. ]
Xu Zhiyan understood.
The NPC stopped him in order to protect the hotel's defense mechanism.
He thought about it and simply stopped in front of the glass window and began to look at the square that had turned into a battlefield.
From time to time, the Astrologer would flash out from the cracks in the stars and launch an attack. The damage of the meteorite group attack was high enough, but the weakness was the attack delay, which was especially difficult to hit against a highly sensitive player like the Joker.
But she didn't dare to attack at close range.
The astrological rifts would show air fluctuations, and several times she had just appeared and was almost hit by a flying knife.
The Joker isn't having an easy time either.
The astrologer's actions disrupted his plans.
The open space of the square is very suitable for the astrologer to move around, especially since the entire area is now surrounded by dust brought by the impact. He has to concentrate all his energy to accurately capture the astrological cracks.
The battle situation reached a stalemate.
But unlike the clown astrologer who was beginning to feel uncomfortable, Jiang Huaique looked at the words Xu Zhiyan wrote on the glass and couldn't help but begin to doubt his own eyes.
[Go collect the money. Except for the two who are fighting, the remaining person will receive 10,000 (crossed out) 15,000. I will come and break the door when the money is enough.]
“…”
What? Collect money? Break the door?
Jiang Huaique gave him the middle finger in hatred.
"Damn it! It's such a critical moment, and you're still charging me?"
Unexpectedly, Yu Xiu and Jin Sheng on the side quickly accepted the job, and they nodded in unison.
"Okay! Let's go now!"
"Hey, hey, hey! What are you thinking about?" Jiang Huaique was surprised to find that Xu Zhiyan's greed was contagious!
On the other hand, as if knowing that Jiang Huaique would definitely complain, Xu Zhiyan continued to write down his reasons with a marker.
[The group attack is not against you. The attack falls so slowly that you won’t die even if you spend a night in the meteor shower. Don’t worry!]
Yes, the best way to use a group attack that can be predicted in advance is to kill a large number of monsters.
The astrologer's purpose is to stir up dust and cover up the fluctuations of the image cracks, and he does not bother to locate anyone.
The players who entered the dungeon this time had all entered relatively high-ranking guilds, and should have adapted to five-star dungeons and would not be unable to dodge even this skill.
Behind the glass, Xu Zhiyan looked at his companions who started to curse and go to act as human POS machines, and wondered in his mind how they would divide the money after collecting it.
"Sir, I'm going to be embarrassed if you do this."
The waiter smiled apologetically, but the look in his eyes was a little different from at the beginning.
"Eh? Are you talking about the words on the glass?"
Xu Zhiyan began to act dumb.
"I will remove this word, don't worry. I attended a high-tech exhibition some time ago and found a very useful housekeeping robot there."
In front of the waiter, he summoned Little Bone from the small box.
This pitiful-looking little skeleton is holding a rag in his hand and wearing rubber gloves on both hands, which looks a bit funny.
"It's very easy to use and can wipe very clean."
Xu Zhiyan introduced it seriously.
Unlike Xu Xiaohua, Xiao Cugu has won the Safe House Model Worker Monster Gold Award for many weeks.
When it heard the new identity arranged by Xu Zhiyan, it turned around with stiff bones and nodded like a robot. Then it walked to the glass with mechanical steps, raised its right hand and wiped the words on the glass.
Xu Zhiyan gave him an affirmative look.
Xiaokegu is still reliable! It is much better than the leaky black cotton!
The waiter's expression was odd for a moment.
He felt something was wrong, but he couldn't tell what it was, so he could only let the mechanical little skeleton start wiping the glass.
As if coming to his senses, the waiter looked at Xu Zhiyan again.
"Sir, you don't think I'll let you push the door, do you? The guests outside have done something wrong and they have to accept punishment."
Xu Zhiyan did not answer the question, but started asking for this and that.
"How much do you charge for drinks here?"
“… Drinks are free for guests staying here.”
Hearing that it was free, Xu Zhiyan's eyes lit up: "I'm dying of thirst, can you bring me something to drink?"
Before the waiter could respond, the audience in the live broadcast room began to get anxious.
[Does Xiao Baiwan want to send this waiter away? ]
[Ah, is it really okay to use such a low-level method? ]
[I think it's difficult. The other party has been very strong from the beginning and doesn't seem like they will let Xiao Baiwan go.]
[Do you think this hotel is weird? There is only one waiter like this now. ]
[…Infinite copies, weird is normal! ]
[It's so funny. I really like this kind of free weird hotel. At least I don't have to spend so much time looking for clues.]
[Hey! What will we do with Xiao Million when we collect the money? ]
[A dishonest businessman would not destroy his own brand! ]
[That waiter didn't go get the stuff! New NPCs are here! Wow, there are so many of them... What should Xiao Baiwan do? ]
Unlike Xu Zhiyan's prediction, the waiter did not leave.
He clapped his hands, and an NPC wearing a similar uniform appeared from nowhere, holding a tray with several drinks on it.
"Sir, our service is very considerate."
The first waiter smiled, revealing two small canine teeth.
Xu Zhiyan was stunned when he saw the pair of canine teeth, feeling that something was wrong. However, this extra NPC had already walked forward and respectfully handed the tray to the waiter who had been waiting here.
Soon, there were only two people left in front of the glass.
"Mr. Xu, what would you like to drink?"
“…”
Xu Zhiyan took a glance and saw that there was even boiled water prepared on the tray. With a helpless look on his face, he chose the cup closest to him.
The cup is filled with red liquid that smells of alcohol.
He didn't drink, but just frowned and asked.
"So your next task is to stop me from opening the door, right?"
“You can understand it that way.”
"You won't leave no matter what happens?"
"Yes."
Xu Zhiyan couldn't tell whether he was happy or hesitant.
The other party's determination means that the hotel's external protection mechanism is only external, not internal. In other words, as long as the door of the hotel can be gently pushed open, the barrier will be broken.
But the NPC in front of him could order other NPCs around at will, proving that his status was not low.
At present, he didn't know whether there would be any punishment for attacking NPC. He didn't dare to act rashly and could only frown and continue to think of a solution.
Perhaps she was pleased by the young man's conflicted look.
The waiter casually placed the tray in his hand on the table, moved closer, and kept trying to dissuade them.
"Perhaps you are hungry now? I can take you to the restaurant to eat first."
"What about the tourists outside?"
Xu Zhiyan pointed outside the window.
The fighting had begun to subside, but the hotel's defense mechanisms were becoming increasingly brighter.
"The sun will let it go."
The man's answer was a little poetic.
After hearing this, Xu Zhiyan's expression became even colder.
Does that mean everyone outside has to spend the night in the square?
As if to confirm what the waiter said.
A new pop-up window appeared.
[The hotel's defense mechanism will be lifted after daybreak. ]
[Players are requested to complete Mission 2 before midnight, find their hotel room, and meet up with their companions. ]
The dungeon at night is always more dangerous.
Plus the mission...
Just when Xu Zhiyan was struggling, Jiang Huaique and others came back after collecting the money.
Since they hadn't met and couldn't contact each other, he could only tear off a piece of paper and quickly write the contact information on it in large, flamboyant characters.
[Except for the clown and the astrologer, all the other living people have paid. Please break the door! The temperature outside is a bit abnormal.]
Without waiting for Xu Zhiyan to react.
The waiter at the side laughed first: "What are you going to do?"
He looked at the wine glass in Xu Zhiyan's hand and even gave some advice.
"Would you like to try to spill the wine on me? Then you can book a room for me and give me some tips, and I can change my clothes and go in to wait for you..." His words were ambiguous and low.
Xu Zhiyan was stunned and shook his head firmly.
“No money.”
"You can buy on credit. The hotel owner will like that."
Xu Zhiyan ignored the person in front of him.
Instead, he took out a marker and wrote another line on the glass.
[I asked for less. If I had known that this defense mechanism would lock you up for the whole night, I should have asked for more.]
The waiter smiled and looked at the words above.
Just when he wanted to say something more, suddenly, a gust of wind filled with the smell of smoke and dust rushed in.
The revolving door that had just been standing still was spinning rapidly.
The outer layer of the defense mechanism changed shape, and the red light that was only attached to the outside of the hotel dissipated instantly - the defense mechanism disappeared.
Seeing this, the players who were stopped outside the hotel and unable to enter rushed towards the hotel without caring about their dirty faces, fearing that they would be locked out again.
"You...how come you..."
The waiter looked incredulous.
He turned around and looked at the revolving door. There was nothing there except a rag. No, that's not right! A rag? Why was there a rag there?
Xu Zhiyan shook his wine glass with an innocent look on his face, as if he had done nothing.
"I'm fine, thanks for the wine."
Next to the revolving door in the distance, a skeletal hand was quietly hiding in the gap. No one noticed that there was a missing bony hand under Xiao Ke Gu's rubber glove.
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